Page:Faithcatholics.pdf/321

 have only to pass through the water of baptism to enter a kingdom. They ate manna; we Christ. They the flesh of birds; we the body of a God. They the dew of heaven ; we the God of heaven." Adv. Avaritiam, L. ii. p. 246. Edit. Paris. 1684.

St. NILUS, G. C.—“ Before the prayer of the Priest, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the things laid on the table are common bread and wine; but, after the solemn invocations, and the descent of the adorable Spirit, it is no longer bread, and no longer wine, but is the body, and pure and precious blood, of Christ, the God of all." Ep. xliv. L. 1. T. 11. p. 21.-“ Let us not approach to the mystic bread as to mere bread; for it is the flesh of God, the venerable, adorable, and life-giving flesh.” Ep. xxxix. L. iii. p. 322.

GELASIUS, L. C.-Having quoted Theodoret, I shall give a similar passage from Gelasius, who is also writing against the same Eutychians : “ Certain Sacraments of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which we receive, are something divine, and render us partakers of the divine nature; but the substance or nature of the bread and wine ceases not to be. In the holy mysteries are celebrated the image and resemblance of the body and blood. Hence we are sufficiently informed, that what we believe, and celebrate, and receive, under that image, we must believe to be in Christ himself. And as, by the operation of the divine Spirit, the things pass into the divine substance, though their nature retains its properties; so are we thus taught, that the mystery of the Incarnation consists in this, that the two natures remaining,