Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/650

 EUCHARIST

578

EUCHARIST

their terminology; (2) because of the strictness with which the Discipline of the Secret, expressly concerned with the Holy Eucharist, was maintained in the East until the end of the fifth, in the West down to the middle of the sixth, century; (3) because of the prefer- ence of many Fathers for the allegorical interpretation of Scriptiu-e, which was especially in vogue in the Alexandrian School (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril), but which found a salutary counterpoise in the emphasis laid on the literal interpretation by the School of Antioch (Theodore of Jlopsuestia, Theo- doret). Since, however, the allegorical sense of the Alexandrians did not exclude the literal, but rather supposed it as a working basis, the realistic phrase- ologj' of Clement (Pa>d., I, vi), of Origen (Contra Celsum, Vni, xiii, 32; Hom. ix, in Levit., x), and of CjT-il (In Matt., xxvi, xxvii; Contra Nestor., IV, 5) concerning the Real Presence is readily accounted for. (For the solution of patristic difficulties, see Pohle, "Dogmatik", 3rd ed., Paderborn, 190S, III, 209 sqq.) The argument from tradition is supplemented and completed by the argument from prescription, which traces the constant belief in the dogma of the Real Presence through the Middle Ages back to the early Apostolic Church, and thus proves the anti-Eucharistic heresies to have been capricious novelties and violent ruptures of the true faith as handed down from the beginning. Passing over the interval that has elapsed since the Reformation, as this period receives its entire character from the Council of Trent, we have for the time of the Reformation the important testimony of Luther (Wider etliche Rottengeister, 1532) for the fact that the whole of Christendom then believed in the Real Presence. And this firm, universal belief can be traced back uninterruptedly to Berengarius of Tours (d. lOSS). in fact — omitting the sole exception of Scotus Eriugena — to Paschasius Radbertus (S31). On these grounds, therefore, we may proudly main- tain that the Church has been in legitimate possession of this dogma for fully eleven centuries. When Photius started the Greek Schism in S69, he took over to his Church the inalienable treasure of the Catholic Eu- charist, a treasure which the Greeks, in the negotia- tions for reunion at Lyons in 1274 and at Florence in 1439, could show to be still intact, and which they vigorously defended in the schismatical SjTiod of Jeru- salem (1672) against the sordid machinations of the Calvinistic-minded CjtI! Lucar, Patriarch of Constan- tinople (1629). From this it follows conclusively that the Catliolic dogma must be much older than the Eastern Schism under Photius. In fact, even the Nes- torians and Jlonophysites, who broke away from Rome in the fifth century, have, as is evident from their literature and liturgical books, preserved their faith in the Eucharist as unwaveringly as the Greeks, and this in spite of the dogmatic ditticulties which, on account of their denial of the hj-postatic union, stood in the way of a clear and correct notion of the Real Presence. Therefore the Catholic dogma is at least as old as Nestorianism (431 a. d.). But is it not of even greater antiquity? To decide this question one has only to examine the oldest Liturgies of the Mass, whose essential elements date back to the time of the Apostles (see articles on the various liturgies), to visit the Roman Catacombs (see C.\T.vroMBS, Rom.\n), where Christ is shown as present in the Eucharistic food under the symbol of a fish (see Euch.vhist, E.^rly Symbols of the), to decipher the famous Inscription of .\bercius (see .\BERcirs, Inscription of) of the second century, which, though composed under the influence of the Discipline of the Secret, plainly attests the faith of that age. And thus tlie argument from prescription carries us back to the dim and distant past an<l thence to the time of the .\postles, who in turn could have received their faith in the Real Pres- ence from no one but Christ Himself.

On the arKument from tradition, cf. Ernst. Die Lehre des Paschaaiui Hadbertu^ von der Eucharistie (Freiburg, 1896);

N.Kgle, Ratramnua xind die hi. Eucharistie (Vienna, 1903); ScHSlTZER, Berengar von Tours, sein Leben und seine Lehre (Stuttgart, 1892); Ad. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte (Freiburg, 1894), III, pp. 278 sqq.; Mohler, St/mbolik (Mainz, 1884), §§35, 56, 68; Bohm, Konfessioneile Lehrgegensatze (Hildesheim, 1888), IV, pp. 73 sqq.; Dollinger. Die Lehre von der Euchar- istie in den drei erslen Jahrhunderlen (Mainz, 1826); La Per- petuiie de la foi de VEglise touchant VEucharistie, Vols. I and II by Nicole and Arnauld (Paris, 1669-1674). Vols. IV and V by Renaudot (Paris, 1711-1713); Cow.bi£.t, Histoiredu sacrement de r Eucharistie (2 vols.. Paris, 1885); Struckmann. Die Gegen- wart Christi in der hi. Eucharistie nach den schriftliehen Quetlen der vomicanischen Zeit (Vienna, 1905); Beguinot, La trcs- sainte Eucharistie des 12 premiers siicles (2 vols.. Paris, 1903); Nagle, Die Eucharistielehre des hi. Chn/sostonius (Freiburg, 18S5) ; B.\TlFFOL, Etudes d'Histoire ei de theologie positive. Vol. II: UEucharistie, la Presence reelle et la Transsubstantiation (Paris, 1905); Blank, Die Lehre Augustins vom Sakrament der Eucharistie (Paderborn, 1907); .Adam, Die Eucharistielehre des hi. Augustin (Paderborn, 1908); Weber, Die rumischen Kata- komben (2nd ed.. Ratisbon. 1900); Kraus. Roma sotterranea (3rd ed., Freiburg, 1901); \\'ilpert. Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms (2 vols., Freiburg, 1903); Kaufmann, Handbuch der christlichen Archaologie (Paderborn, 1905).

(2) The Totnlity of the Real Presence. — In order to forestall at the very outset the unworthy notion, that in the Eucharist we receive merely the Body and merely the Blood of Christ but not Christ in His en- tirety, the Council of Trent defined the Real Presence to be such as to include with Christ's Body and Blood His Soul and Divinity as well. A strictly logical con- clusion from the words of promise: "he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me", this Totality of Presence was also the constant property of tradition, which characterized the partaking of separated parts of the Saviour as a sarcophagy (flesh-eating) alto- gether derogatory to God. Although the separation of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Logos, is, absolutely speaking, within the almighty power of God, yet their actual inseparability is firmly established by the dog- ma of the indissolubility of the hypostatic union of Christ's Divinity and Humanity. In case the Apos- tles had celebrated the Lord's Supper during the tri- duum mortis (the time during which Christ's Body was in the tomb), when a real separation took place be- tween the constitutive elements of Christ, there would have been really present in the Sacred Host only the bloodless, inanimate Body of Christ as it lay in the tomb, and in the Chalice only the Blood separated from His Bod}' and absorbed by the earth as it was shed, both the Body and the Blood, however, remaining hjTJostatically united to His Divinity, while His Soul, which sojourned in Limbo, would have remained en- tirely excluded from the Eucharistic presence. This unreal, though not impossible, hypothesis, is well cal- culated to throw light upon the essential difference designated by the Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, c. iii), between the meanings of the words ex vi verboriim and per eoticomitantiayrt. By virtue of the words of Con- secration, ore.r rt i-erborum, that only is made present which is expressed by the words of Institution, namely the Body and the Blood of Christ. But by reason of a natural concomitance (per concomitantiom), there be- comes simultaneously present all that which is phys- ically inseparable from the parts just named, and which must, from a natural connexion with them, always te their accompaniment. Now, the glorified Christ, Who "dieth now no more" (Rom., vi, 9), has an animate Body through whose veins courses His life's Blood under the vivifying influence of the soul. Con.sequently, together with His Body and Blood and Soul, His whole Humanity also, and, by virtue of the hypostatic union. His Divinity, i. e. Christ whole and entire, must be present. Hence Christ is present in the sacrament with His Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity.

This general and fundamental principle, which en- tirely abstracts from the duality of the sjiecies, must, nevertheless, be extended to each of the species of bread and wine. For we do not receive in the Sacred Host one part of Christ and in the Chalice the other, as though our reception of the totality depended upon our partaking of both forms; on the contrarj', under