Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/311

 6. It is contrary to the opinion of the holy fathers to maintain that there may be an accident without a substance in the host.

7. The sacrament of the eucharist is in its nature bread or wine, containing, by virtue of the sacramental words, the true body and blood of Christ, down to the minutest particular.

8. The sacrament of the eucharist is in figure the body and blood of Christ, existing by conversion of the bread or wine, whereof something definite remains after consecration, although, so far as concerns the faithful, it has been exhausted ("sopitum").

9. There is no foundation for saying that an accident exists without a substance, for in that case God is reduced to nothing, and a distinct article of the Christian faith disappears.

10. Every person or sect is infected with heresy who obstinately maintains that the sacrament of the altar is mere bread (per se existens), decidedly lower in nature and less perfect than "panis equinus."

11. Everyone who obstinately maintains that the said sacrament is an accident, a quality, quantity, or the aggregate of these, falls into the like heresy.

12. Wheaten bread, with which alone it is lawful to celebrate, is decidedly more perfect in nature than bread made of beans or rats' flesh, either of which is more perfect in the scale of nature than a simple accident.

In addition to these contentions, Wyclif was charged before the Chancellor with maintaining that the body of Christ could not be multiplied in regard to its dimensions or its limits, though he