The Offering Of The Passion Enacted By Christ In The Supper

We propose to prove in sections I to IV that Christ as Priest, consecrating in the Supper the image of His Passion, offered to God the reality of His Passion. This will be shown as follows: we shall study the Supper in the light of

(1) The Passion, I;
(2) The ancient covenant and the ancient pasch, II;
(3) The "Epistle to the Hebrews, " III;
(4) The promise of the Eucharist, IV.

Further, our argument will be confirmed in V from certain circumstances of the Supper.[56]

St. Matthew, XXVI, 26-29. St. Mark, XIV, 22-25. St. Luke, XXII, 15-20 2 Cor., XI, 23-26.

15. And He said to them, with desire have I desired to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer. 16. For I say to you, that from this time I will not eat it, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. 17. And having taken the chalice, He gave thanks, and said: Take and divide it among you: for 18. I say to you that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom of God come.

26. And while they were at supper, Jesus took bread and blessed and brake, and said: take ye and eat. This is My Body. 22. And whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessing, broke and gave to them, and said, take ye, this is My Body. 19. (a) And taking bread, He gave thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying: this is My Body, (b) which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me. 23. For I have received from the Lord, that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. 27. And taking the chalice He gave thanks, and gave to them saying: drink ye all of this. 23. And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 20. In like manner the chalice also, after He had supped, saying: this is the chalice the new testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you. 24. And giving thanks, broke and said: take ye and eat; this is My Body which shall be delivered for you: do this for a commemoration of Me. 28. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins

24. And He said to them: this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many.

25. In like manner the chalice also, after He had supped, saying: this chalice is the new testament in My Blood: this do ye, for the commemoration of Me. 29. And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until the day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father. 25. Amen I say to you that I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until the day when I shall drink it new in the kingdom of God.

26. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord until He come.

If these Supper narratives are examined, we see immediately that some kind of bloody death is placed before us in the words and things which designate the Body and Blood separately. For the separate mention and representation of the Body and Blood, and in particular the indication of the Blood as shed, of the Body as given, obviously imply a slaying.

Secondly, a propitiatory intent is added in the words "for many" (Matth., V. 27) and still more in the words "which shall be shed for many"

(Mark, V. 24); "for you" (2 Cor., V. 24); more especially with the addition of the clause "unto the remission of sins" (Matth., V. 27).

From all this it follows that some sacrificial action is accomplished, in such manner that, though no blood-shedding is enacted, some blood-shedding is implied. That is, the Passion of Christ is placed before us, implied in the bloodless rite, with some kind of propitiatory benefit.

We are now to prove more distinctly that a bloodless offering of an immolation in blood is contained in these expressions.

I say then in the first place: that there is merely a representative slaying of Christ in the Supper.

I say secondly: that in this representation of the slaying to come, there is an offering of Christ.

I say thirdly: that this offering is not representative only, or apparent only, but that It is real and present.

I say fourthly: that the offering of the victim is made with a view to the real immolation, which is represented as future.

In a word: Christ is here and now offered to an immolation, in the image of that immolation.

The words pronounced over the bread and wine express death, and they express death in blood. But it is evident that in the actual time in which Christ is speaking, though there is the presence of the Body and Blood, still no slaying is enacted. The slaying of Christ is represented, therefore, though it is not effected. In the Supper, then, was no immolation of Christ; it was merely by similitude, or a representative immolation, consisting in the symbolic virtue, which is given to the visible species by the words designating the Body as delivered to death, and the Blood as flowing from the Body.

To constitute an offering it is sufficient, as we have already said, that the will, directive of the gift to God, should be expressed in a sensible rite.

Now the rite in the Supper appears wholly voluntary. Christ not only approaches it of His own free will, but He even accomplishes it gladly,[57] and commands His apostles to repeat it.

Specifically, He indicates His freedom by renewing the covenant, or testament (for a contract must as a matter of course be voluntary); and giving in particular is a proof both of liberty and of liberality.

The direction of the gift to God is shown in the previous thanksgiving and blessing on the gifts and presents (that is, on the bread and wine) as eucharisteria, gifts, that is, of God to be surrendered to God; it is shown particularly in the surrender of His Body, made not indeed to the apostles, but for the apostles, and made undoubtedly as a Victim to God; it is shown in the shedding of His Blood, for the apostles, for many even, unto the remission of sins, for which in the justice of God we were condemned to punishment, which the expiatory Victim removes from us, paying the price to God for us. Hence there was most decidedly a direction of the gift and the price to God, to gratify and appease Him.

There really are here both an apparent offering and a real offering. There is the apparent offering of the bread and wine, there is the real offering of the Body and Blood. I mean by this that Christ outwardly appears to be offering to God the eucharisteria of bread and wine, after the manner of Melchisedech. "For when He showed to God and the Father the bread and wine which He held in His hands, He appeared to be offering and dedicating them as gifts to Him" (Nicholas Cabasilas, Expositio Liturgiae, c. 2. P.G. 150, 377), as was said above. But He did not offer those things which in the moment of the sacramental Supper were not actually there, since Christ did not say: This is bread, He said This is my body; He did not say: this is wine, He said This is my blood. He did not offer bread, therefore, because it was not there; nor did He offer wine, because it was not there; if He did offer anything, He offered what He said was there: His own Body and His own Blood. The offering of bread and wine, then, was apparent only; in it the offering of the Body and Blood was hidden from the senses, but it was open to the eyes of faith. This latter offering, therefore, was not like the former, a mere effigy of some more secret giving; it was itself substantially a true and real giving.

Again, this offering of the Body and Blood was so really true that it was not merely foretold or promised, it was there and then effected. That is, Christ actually in that very moment was given into the ownership and keeping of God: a present offering was enacted.

In the first place: the Body is not said to be about to be given, it is given now.[58] Therefore the giving or the surrender of the reality to God takes place now, and in this the offering consists.

It is proved in the second place from the fact that (1) under the concept of offering there is accomplished some propitiatory action de praesenti, which itself (2) shows that this offering is made in the present.

(1) That a propitiatory action is here and now accomplished is gathered in three ways.

First, in general, from the present participles applied everywhere (in the original Greek)

"which is given for you" to uper umwn didomenon (Luke, XXII, 19),
"which is shed for many" to ekxunnomenon uper pollwn (Mark, XIV, 24),
"which is shed for many unto the remission of sins" to peri pollwn ekxhunomenon eis afesin amartiwn (Matth., XXVI, 28)

These verses show amply that something is now done for us, that something has now taken place that is beneficial for us, that some salutary result is now effected, that propitiation is now made.

Secondly, and in a special way, from the fact that not the Blood only, but the chalice itself is said to be shed for us; "this is the chalice .... which shall be shed (in original Greek, rather 'is shed') for you" (Luke, XXII, 20), the propitiatory role of the chalice, as such, can only be referred to the present time, since from now on there is no future occasion in the course of the Passion for the shedding of the chalice.[59]

Thirdly, indirectly, by reason of the New Testament, which is here and now sealed, as will be shown below, whence it follows that our propitiation is here and now made.

(2) That propitiation, as immolative and present, denotes that the offering is made in the present must be maintained as certain, because the propitiatory virtue of itself is inherent in the sacrifice, not in a mere foretelling or preliminary figure or promise, but in the very sacrificial action, wherein the Victim is actually offered to be immolated or offered as immolated.[60]

Fourth Statement: The offering is directed to that real immolation which is represented as future

Indirectly, because had not Christ been offered to that real immolation which is represented as future, He must be regarded as offered to a mere figment of an immolation, which is not the reality of immolation. But there is no true sacrifice unless there is an offering of a victim as already really immolated or to be immolated, and, if there is no sacrifice, no propitiatory influence can result. But we have already shown that propitiatory influence has here and now resulted; therefore, an offering is made of Christ as to be really immolated at the Passion.

For (1) it is clear by the very fact that the Blood is shed by Christ in figure before God,[61] and the Body is slain in figure with a view to the remission of sins, that the Body is deputed to a real slaying and the Blood is deputed to a real shedding for us. For in the symbolic shedding of the Blood, in the symbolic slaying of the Body, in the symbolic death of the Flesh of our Lord, and that actually propitiatory, there is not merely promised a true slaying of the Body, a real shedding of the Blood; not alone is the Victim vowed[62] to God, but it is now actually made sacred to God, in view of that future true shedding and true slaying.

Therefore, just as Christ is here and now given over into the ownership of God, so, too, here and now He is dedicated to the Passion. In that representative immolation, therefore (call it symbolic, sacramental, mystical),[63] the offering of Christ to the immolation in blood is actually made.

Later on this will become clearer (p. 215), as it will be shown that the Body of Christ was His altar. When Christ, therefore, sacramentally sheds His own Blood on His own altar, He is thereby (Chap. 1) acting as the High Priest offering to God in the mystery the life of His Victim.

(2) It is clear from the fact that Christ said that His Body is given for us. This could have only one meaning, that His Body is given over to death.

Thus from every aspect we are impelled to the conclusion that the Body and Blood of Christ in the bloodless imitation of the Passion was pledged before God to the endurance of the Passion in blood; in other words, that in that rite of mystic immolation, the actual Victim of the Passion, as Victim, was offered to God by Christ as Priest.[64]

In the Supper, Christ appeared as though giving bread and wine to God; and He showed thereby that He was giving something to God: not what was apparent, but what was hidden; not bread, but what He said He was holding in His hands in the place of bread, namely His own Body; not wine, but what He said He mingled in the chalice in the place of wine, His own Blood. He gave His Body; He gave His Blood; He gave each separately, as far as was indicated, by way of signifying, in the appearances and in the words. He gave Himself in the effigy of death; He gave Himself to death for us, and by death He gave Himself as Victim to God.

When Christ is said to have given Himself as Victim to God, the meaning is not only that such surrender of Himself was made known by Christ in words. Indeed in the sacrifice of the Redemption, just as in every true sacrifice generally, the ritual offering, significative of the internal oblative will, did not consist just in the mere oral expression of that will, as, for instance, in the words "I offer" or the like; it consisted in A LITURGICAL RITE applied by the liturgus himself, wherein, in respect of the Victim to be immolated, the actual intention would be pragmatically expressed of handing over and consecrating the gift to God.[65] The Eucharistic rite was indeed a certain complexus of things and words, but it was such that the words alone of themselves would not perfect the offering made to God, but would only indicate (and effect) the presence of the Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine to propitiate for sins. This presence implied by the words constituted the oblative rite in the Supper, wherein Christ was actually given over to God as Victim, deputed to an expiatory death for us.

Before entering on a discussion of the teaching of the Fathers we must make one remark by way of preface. Apart from controversies with heretics, the Fathers as a rule did not put forward their teaching in so didactic and peremptory a manner as to leave the intellect no choice, nor did they express their meaning so clearly as to allow no way of escape. Hence outside a few passages which of themselves might attest the opinion of an author, a theologian is bound to set down what is more obviously the trend of the teaching, or what the actual words present to us and naturally suggest. Now if all the testimonies, with no clear exception, converge on the same point, a powerful argument is available as to the mind of the Fathers, based on that "cumulative probability, " which Cardinal Newman shows can transcend all mere opinion, and beget certainty; in other words, the only explanation of this universal and consistent unanimity is that the Fathers were convinced of this particular teaching. The certainty becomes all the greater if we find a like unanimity (as in matters Eucharistic we do) in the Liturgies. It will be well to keep this in mind in this chapter and in the others to follow until we arrive at the examination of the Mass; the Fathers have dwelt at greater length on the Mass, so that that chapter will reflect a clearer light back on to the discussion on the Supper.

I. The Fathers imply indirectly that the very sacrifice of the Passion was offered in the Supper, when, making the distinction between the act of sacrifice (or the offering) and the slaying (or mactation), they assign the latter to the deicide Jews, reserving the act of sacrifice to Christ consecrating the bread and wine in the Supper. Thus St. Ephraem (Hymni Azymorum, Hymn 2, ed. Lamy, t. I, p. 576-578) :

"The Lamb of truth knowing that rejected priests and polluted sacrificers did not suffice for Him, became for His own body Priest and Prince of Sacrificers.

"The sacrificers of the people slew the prince of sacrificers. "Our Sacrificer, become Victim, abolished the victims by His sacrifice, and spread His graces throughout the whole world."

"No lamb is greater than the Lamb of heaven. "Since the priests were of the earth, and the Lamb was of heaven, He became both Victim and Priest for Himself."

"Polluted priests were indeed unworthy to offer the immaculate Lamb, the pacific Victim, which brought peace to heaven and earth, reconciling all things in His Blood."

He broke the bread in His hands for the sacrament of the sacrifice of His Body; He filled the chalice in the sacrament of the offering of His Blood. Priest of our propitiation, He offered the sacrifice for Himself."

"He clothed Himself with the Priesthood of Melchisedech, the figure of Himself. He did not bring forth victims, but He offered bread and wine, the ancient priesthood is gone, libations are past."

II. Possibly the same doctrine is suggested when the suffering of martyrdom on our part is taken to be the perfection of the Eucharistic banquet: here there is apparently a confirmation, to a certain extent, that on the part of Christ the perfection of the Supper was the immolation of the Passion.

St. Augustine: "Let us see, He says, let us hear the Lord further: 'I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear Him.' What are His vows? The sacrifice which He offered to God.[66] You know what sacrifice? The faithful know the vows which He paid before them that fear Him: for there follows: 'The poor eat and shall be filled. ' Blessed are the poor, because they eat that they may be filled: for the poor eat; those who are rich are not filled, because they are not hungry. The poor eat: hence there was the fisherman Peter, John another fisherman, James His brother and the publican Matthew. They were of the poor, who ate and were filled, suffering such things as those they fed on ('talia passi, qualia manducaverunt'). He gave His Supper, He Gave His Passion: He is filled, who imitates. The poor have imitated: for they have suffered so, that they followed in the footsteps of Christ" (in Ps., 21, 27. P.L. 36, 178).

III. The taking away of sin, which is the work of the Redemption, is at times attributed to the Supper itself. We have an example of this in St. Gregory Nazianzen, when among other incidents of the Jewish rite, He shows the typical significance of the circumstance that the lamb was to be eaten towards evening.

"The lamb will be eaten by us. And it will be eaten towards evening, because in the end of ages is the Passion of Christ: seeing that He too towards evening is partaker of the Sacrament with His disciples, dispelling the darkness of sin" (Or. 45 in sanctum Pascha, n. 16. P.G. 36, 644).

He explains the late time of the Passion by the evening hour of the Supper, and He also says that the Supper itself accomplished the remission of sins.[67]

The same conclusion is arrived at, I believe, if death is said to be destroyed by the Supper (because Christ, as St. Paul says, overcame death and destroyed sin in the same sacrifice). Cyril of Alexandria (De adoratione in spiritu et veritate, 3. P.G. 68, 285-293) [68] expresses this clearly, in the example of David staying the hand of the Exterminating Angel by the victim, which, bought at a great price, He offered on the altar, on the threshing floor.

David built the altar small, it was enlarged later by Solomon (II Kings, XXIV, II foll.). Cyril develops the allegory, showing that not only was death destroyed at the moment when our Lord partook of the Supper, but, also, that on the very Eucharistic altar a sacrifice was offered by our Lord whereby death was overcome: for, He says, it was offered on an altar, which later as it were grew, until gradually the Eucharistic celebration was spread throughout the nations.

The victory over death in the Supper is found in writers of the Middle Ages. The following is a chant in a prayer Oratio ad communionem (A. H. 51, 297), in an English manuscript prayer book of the eighth or ninth century:

"For thy all-powerful Flesh is food indeed;
And thy Blood, O Jesus, the true drink of the faithful
By this sacred mystery thou didst redeem us from death
That we may live in thee, O Lord, in faith and sobriety.
Deign therefore we beg of thee, that we may be
Partakers of this holy mystery, to the glory of thy name."

But at a much earlier date, we find in the most ancient of our anaphorae, what I believe to be the expression of the same idea; I refer to the passage which introduces the Supper narrative:

"And who when He was given over to His voluntary Passion, in order to overcome death, to break the ties of the devil, to trample hell underfoot, to illuminate the just, to come to the end, and to manifest His Resurrection, taking bread and giving thanks to thee, said: 'Take ye and eat, this is my body which shall be broken for you,'" etc. (Latin Verona Fragments, ed. Hauler, 1900, p. 106-107).

That is to say, the ends enumerated, though all reflect the Redemption, seem nevertheless to be referred to the actual consecration of the Eucharist, as the cause of it all. Christ, as it were, willed to celebrate the rite, in order to redeem us from death, from the power of the devil, from the pains of hell, and to restore us to light and life.

IV. We find ample confirmation of this in the Fathers. At times they computed the three days of the death of our Lord from the Supper hour. As He was given in food as one already dead, His death was to be regarded apparently as having already taken place. Possibly this is not a satisfactory explanation of the three days of death, but, as regarding the significance of the Supper, it is an absolutely true tradition. For the Sacrifice of the Passion commenced in the Supper. Our Lord offers Himself to undergo death, and gives Himself as Victim of the anticipated death.

"He who took His own Body in food, and His own Blood in drink, is reputed with the dead. Before He was crucified, the Lord with His own hands gave His own Body to be eaten and His own Blood to be drunk .... . From the time when He gave His Body in food and His Blood in drink, three days and three nights elapse" (Demonstratio, XII, De Paschate, n. 6 and 7. P.S., part 1, tom. I, col. 517 and 520).

St. Ephraem, the friend of Aphraates, in the Evangelii concordantis expositio (ed. Moesinger, p. 221 and 277), gives this reckoning not once only but twice, though He also speaks in this same work, just as He does in His other works, of the other reckoning which commences with the death of Christ:

"From that moment wherein He broke His Body for His Disciples, and gave His Body to the Apostles, three days are computed, wherein He was accounted with the dead" (p. 221).

"From the day in which He gave them His Body and Blood, this triduum is consummated" (p. 267).[69]

St. Gregory of Nyssa, discussing the question who commenced the sacrifice of the Redemption, was it Christ, or Judas, or the Jews or Pilate, makes use of this reckoning more remarkably than all the other Fathers, to claim the Great Action for Christ:

"He who disposeth all things by His power does not await for the impending betrayal, nor for the onslaught of the Jews, nor the iniquitous sentence of Pilate, allowing as it were their malice to be the origin and the cause of man's redemption, but in His wisdom He opens the way by a sacrifice ineffable and invisible to men, and He offered himself for us an oblation and a victim, priest and at the same time that lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. When did He do this? At the very moment when He openly showed that His own Body was to be received as food, because the sacrifice of the lamb was now perfected. For if the Body of the Victim were in life, it would not have been suitable for food. And therefore when He granted to His disciples that they should eat His Body and drink His Blood, at that very moment, By His own will, in celebrating the mystery by His power, His Body was ineffably and invisibly offered in sacrifice. The Soul, too, residing in His breast, was in the disciples (in whom the authority of the Dispenser placed It, together with the divine power united to It). If a person computes the time therefore from that hour wherein the sacrifice was offered to God by the High Priest, who invisibly and ineffably immolated His own lamb for the sin of all mankind, He will not be departing from the truth" (Or. I in resurrectionem, P.G. 46, 612).

It is abundantly evident that this separation of the Soul from the Body must not be interpreted in St. Gregory of Nyssa in a realistic sense, as if the visible Body of Christ were really from this moment without the soul.[70] In Aphraates and Ephraem, Christ was only reputed as dead; here too Christ is looked upon as dead in a moral sense, from the fact that by the Eucharistic communion His Soul was in the disciples, yet in such a way that His Body was visibly elsewhere, or vice versa. The death itself, which was the future term of the sacrifice now commenced by Christ, was sufficiently denoted and made present thereby. For that Christ was partaken of in food, was an effect of the death, as offered; and again the partaking supplied an indication of the death to which Christ was given over. The Supper was partaken of, therefore, for the reason that Christ had already offered the sacrifice of His death: whence it followed that, so far as His will was concerned, the sacrifice, His actual death, was now irrevocably effected. This is a most appropriate and convincing illustration of our explanation of the Supper.[71]

After the time of St. Gregory of Nyssa we come across a very remarkable specimen of this teaching in the "Commentaries" of Procopius, both on Genesis and on Exodus.

He is asking the question, why it was that the paschal lamb in the Law was to be slain towards evening, not at noon; His answer is: that this was so because Christ would begin that paschal sacrifice of our Redemption in the Supper, and it was to be completed on the Cross:

"Why then is the paschal lamb not slain in the sixth hour but rather towards evening? Let us turn to the writings of the New Testament and we shall find a fitting answer. Those who crucified Christ did so at the sixth hour. But Jesus our High Priest immolated the lamb which He took towards the evening, when He celebrated the paschal banquet with His disciples and imparted to them the sacred mysteries. (When the Law was brought to an end, the beginnings of the Gospel were established.) And He who within was Priest, and outwardly Lamb, offered himself. If we place the beginning of the sacrifice of Christ in the supper, we shall keep to the number of three days and nights, during which in the type of Jonas He lay in the tomb. But in this reckoning, the day of the Resurrection will also be included .... . Christ as sinless Victim offered Himself to God and the Father in the odour of sweetness; and as Lamb He was immolated for our sins on the altar of the Cross" (in Ex., XII, 5. P.G., 87, 566-567).[72]

In reference to the Creation, discussing whether the day came before the night or vice versa, He says:

"Those who say that the day came before the night are apparently in opposition to the order of the feasts and in the first place to the triduum of our Lord's burial and Resurrection. For the Law places the night before the day always and everywhere, as is evident in the feast of the azymes .... . For a like reason three days and three nights must begin and end in the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord. The day wherein our Saviour suffered may be added to the previous evening of the Parasceve. The Sunday may be added to the third night when He arose from the dead" (in Genes., I, 5. P.G. 87, 56).[73]

V. So intimately are the Supper and the Passion interwoven that by the Eucharistic rite the Blood of Christ is said to be deputed to the real shedding: from it, as it were, the Lord was given over to death. Thus St. Hilary asks whether His Passion was involuntary because He said, "Let this chalice pass from me."

"Was He unwilling to suffer? On the contrary earlier He had consecrated the Blood of His Body to be shed unto the remission of sins" (in Matth., c. 31, n. 7. P.L. 9, 1068).

This passage is quoted by the Eucharistic Doctor, St. Paschasius Radbertus, cited later in this chapter.

VI. The sacrifice of the Supper and the Passion is so indivisibly one that early writers said that the sacrament of the Eucharist was offered by Christ on the Cross. Thus Albert the Great:

"[This sacrament] is productive of special grace before God: for offered on the Cross it finds special grace for all men" (Liber de sacram. euchar., Dist. 1, c. 4).

And if as a fact the death was offered in the Eucharistic Supper, it was in the death that the Eucharistic celebration was brought to perfection; hence the Supper would ultimately derive its nature as a sacrifice from the immolation in blood to which it looked forward.[74] Hence it could be said that the Eucharist was celebrated ("litata") on the Cross.

Thus in the fifteenth century John Mauburnus, in His Carmen in septem nomina [75] sacrament1 Corporis et sanguinis Domini Jesu (A. H. 48, 523; compare 15, 22), says on the sixth name, sacrifice:[76]

Bede [77] (in Luc, XXII, 15. P.L. 92, 595) and Amalarius [78] (De eccles. offic., 1, 15. P.L. 105, 1032) say in the same sense that the Eucharist was consecrated on the Cross. Thomas Walden,[79] that it was consecrated with the Passion. St. Quodeusvult,[80] that the Eucharistic Flesh of Christ was provided ("confectam") in the Passion.

St. Thomas never really discussed the sacrificial character of the Supper expressly; still it would seem that He has not left us without some guidance.

For in the Commentary on the Fourth Book of the Sentences, explaining the letter of the twelfth distinction, which is: "Is Christ daily immolated, or was He immolated once only?" the holy Doctor distinguishes two things in the sacrifice whereby Christ once made propitiation for us:

First, what was done by the Jews to Christ, with the corresponding torture of Christ;

Secondly, what was done by Christ towards God, namely, to offer and to sacrifice.

He states that the first is not repeated [81] daily by us in the sacrifice of Christ; but that the second is repeated: namely, that the offering and the act of sacrifice can be made daily by us, as truly as it was done by Christ once. The holy Doctor assigns two reasons, which include one another, why this can be done by us: one pertains to the victim, the other to the method of offering. As pertaining to the victim, the reason assigned is that the victim of that sacrifice which Christ offered is perpetual (this reason will be examined later in this work); as pertaining to the manner of offering, the reason assigned is that the manner of offering once made by Christ was such that we can also offer daily under Christ our Head. This is the passage:

"It must be known that all those words which import a relation of the Jews to Christ, and the punishment of Christ, are not said to be done daily. For we do not say that Christ is daily crucified and slain: because the action of the Jews and the punishment of Christ are transient. But those which imply a relation of Christ to God the Father are said to be done daily, as to offer, to sacrifice, and the like, because that victim is perpetual, and it was once offered by Christ in the way that it can also be daily offered by His members."

Now if we daily do, when we offer, what Christ did, when He once offered the sacrifice of His death, if the manner of our offering follows the manner of the offering of our Lord, will not Christ be considered as having offered His own death in the Eucharistic rite?

I. Hesychius, a priest of Jerusalem,[82] expressly states this teaching, between the years 430 and 450, in His commentary in Leviticum 8, book 2 (P.G. 93), declaring (1) that not only did Christ offer His sacrifice in the Supper (Lev., VIII, 22), Moses offered the second ram:

"Why is the second ram now spoken of here? Because the Lord first partaking in the Supper of the figurative lamb [83] with His apostles, afterwards offered His sacrifice, and in the second place slew Himself like the lamb" [84] col. 882). But (2) there especially He celebrated It ("Christ celebrated the usual Supper of the paschal festivity with His disciples. Then in a most special way Christ celebrated His own sacrifice, col. 882). (3) When having partaken of and distributed the chalice, He pours out His own blood on His own body, as it were on an altar (For drinking Himself and giving His apostles to drink, He then sheds the intelligible [85] Blood on the altar, namely His own Body, col. 885); (4) By the sacramental sprinkling of which He offered His passion for us (For Christ Himself by the sprinkling of His own Blood for our salvation offered His Passion for us, " col. 885); (5) Bringing in propitiation now at the supper (For on that day on which He gave the mystery of the Supper, on that same day He obtained pardon or propitiation, that is the remission of sins, saying: 'This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins, '" col. 888).

Hesychius, too, making the distinction between the offering and the immolation, remarks (1) that Christ was offered by no one but Himself; (2) that He could not even have been immolated by others had He not surrendered Himself to the Passion; (3) that He surrendered Himself by the sacramental immolation which He made in the Supper:

"For no one offered Him; nor could He be immolated, had He not surrendered Himself to the Passion. For this reason not only did He say: 'I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again,' but anticipating even, He immolated Himself at the Supper of the apostles: a fact which is known to those who understand the virtue of the mysteries" (in Lev., 4, 1. I, col. 821).

Finally, speaking directly and explicitly of the sacrifice of our Saviour, whereby salvation was purchased for Jews and Gentiles, He says definitely:

"For He immolated His own Flesh, He was made High Priest of His own sacrifice in Sion: when He gave the chalice of the new testament in His Blood" (in Lev., XVI, 11-13, l. 5. P.G. 93, 993).

Similarly explaining in another passage how "The Lord will send forth the sceptre of His power, " that is the Cross, "out of Sion, " that is in the Cenacle:

"For there, He says, the Only-Begotten immolated Himself, there He commenced His passion (in Ps., 109, 2. P.G. 93, 1324).

The teaching of Hesychius, then, cannot be questioned; He dwelt at greater length on the explanation of our Lord's Supper than the other Fathers.[86]

When other writers say that Christ offered His Blood in the Supper, what do they mean but that the offering of His life was made by Him, or, what is the same thing, the offering of His death and of His life-giving Passion? Among ourselves when we say that a man offered His blood for His country or for His friends, do we not mean that He gave up His life and handed himself over to death? This, then, must be the meaning of the words of St. Ambrose: "We saw the Prince of priests coming to us; we saw Him and we heard Him [87] offering His Blood for us, (in Ps., 38, n. P.L. 14, 1051).[88]

The trend in the ancient Eastern Liturgies is something very similar. Christ is indeed said to be given up, but more truly to have given Himself up for the life and the salvation of the world: conveying as it were that in the Supper He surrendered Himself to God for us. We have in the very ancient Liturgy of St. James within the anaphora:

"Coming down from heaven, and Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, He dwelt with the apostles, and having accomplished the whole economy of the salvation of our race, desiring, sinless though He was, to submit to a voluntary and life-giving death on the Cross for us sinners, 'on the night on which He was given up, ' nay on the night on which He gave Himself up for the life and the salvation of the world, taking bread into His holy and immaculate and sinless and immortal hands, and lifting up His eyes to heaven, and showing Himself to Thee God and the Father, giving thanks, consecrating, breaking, He gave to His holy disciples and apostles, saying: 'Take ye', " etc.

"Jesus Christ on the night on which He gave Himself over for our sins, and submitted to death for all, reclining in the Flesh with His holy disciples and apostles, taking bread, " etc.

Later on in the ninth century there is a still shorter form in the Liturgy of the Greeks, both in St. Basil [89] and St. Chrysostom.[90]

In our own times the Syrians of Antioch use a shorter form, found in the anaphora called that of St. John the Evangelist [91]; so do the Greeks both Catholic and Schismatic in the liturgy of St. Basil [92]; in the liturgy of St. Chrysostom,[93] the same Greeks have a longer form.

Among our own ancestors in the West, the drink which Christ offered in the Supper was sung of as proffered from the wood of the Cross, for instance in the Prosa de corpore Christi, for Tuesday within the octave of Corpus Christi (A. H. 10, 40, from the Missale Suessionense, Paris, 1516) :

"May glory be on high from the memory of Christ,
Who gives the mysteries of the bread of life.
A virgin bore this bread; her Son
Offered the drink
Which He gave on the Sacred
Wood of the cross.

In the ancient Ambrosian rite, Christ is represented on Holy Thursday as having given Himself to His Passion, because He offered Himself as Victim in the sacrament:

"Can we despair of thy mercy, we who have been considered worthy to receive the high office of offering this great Victim to thee, that is the Body and the Blood of our Lord Jesus, who for the salvation of the world gave Himself to that holy and venerable passion? Who instituting the form of the sacrifice of salvation, first offered Himself as victim, and first taught that He should be offered"? (Canon antiquus missae ambrosianae in coena Domini, in Muratori, De rebus liturgicis dissertatio, c. 10, P.L. 74, 914).[94]

II. Moreover the Fathers and writers of the Church have left us these three points of doctrine:

Christ offered Himself once;
He offered Himself at the Supper;
He offered Himself to be immolated.

Clearly then Christ at the Supper offered Himself to the future immolation of the Passion. Cassiodorus leads the way for all the writers of a later age; He is speaking of the sacrifice offered after the manner of Melchisedech in bread and wine by our High Priest:—"'Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.' The Prophet also says that the Father made this promise to the Son. For to whom could it be truly and evidently applied but to our Lord and Saviour, who consecrated for our salvation His own Body And Blood in the giving of the bread and wine? As He says in the Gospel: 'Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood, you shall not have eternal life.' But let not the human mind see anything of blood-letting, anything corruptible in that Flesh and Blood .... but a life-giving and saving substance, the very Word made Flesh, whereby are given the remission of sins and the gifts of eternal life. The most just king instituted this order by a mystical similitude, when He offered the fruits of bread and wine to the Lord. For it is clear that the victims of cattle, which were of the order of Aaron, came to an end; and that instead of them the institution of Melchisedech remains, which is celebrated in the distribution of the sacraments throughout the whole world .... . Priest Christ is said to be pre-eminently, He who once offered Himself to be immolated for us." (Expositio in Psalterium Ps. 109, verse 5. P.L. 70, 796-797).

The unknown author of the Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, erroneously attributed to Primasius, gives at greater length the same teaching as Cassiodorus, whom He follows almost word for word. After quoting from the Enarratio in Ps. 109 (n. 17, P.L. 37, 1460) of St. Augustine, He says: —"It must be remembered that Christ is not a Priest, because He is the Only-Begotten of God the Father from eternity, coeternal and consubstantial with Him, remaining true God with the Father, but because He was born of a Virgin, made Man in this latter age to offer the Victim which He offered for us, namely His own Flesh and Blood received by us. But there are various reasons why He is said to be a Priest according to the order of Melchisedech, and not according to the order of Aaron; and the first is because Melchisedech was not a priest according to the mandates of the Law, but according to the dignity of a unique priesthood, offering bread to God not the blood of brute animals: Christ was made Priest, not temporal but eternal, in the order of His Priesthood not offering legal victims, but, like Him, bread and wine, namely His own Flesh and Blood, so that He said: 'My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.' He also committed these two gifts, that is bread and wine, to His Church to be offered in memory of Him: clearly then the sacrifice of cattle came to an end; it was of the order of Aaron, and the other which was of the order of Melchisedech remains instead, because Christ confirmed and taught the Church to hold it .... . There is also a third reason why Christ is said to be a Priest according to the order of Melchisedech, and not according to Aaron: namely because as there is but one reference in Sacred Scripture to Melchisedech and His priesthood, so too Christ once offered Himself to be immolated for us. (Ps. Primasius, in Epist. ad Hebraeos, V. 6, P.L. 68, 716-717).

Similarly Alcuin (in Epist. ad Hebr. V. 6, P.L. 100, 1033-1034) and Rabanus Maurus (in Epist. ad Hebr. V. 6, P.L. 112, 743).[95] And very beautifully St. Bruno of Grenoble:—" 'Thou art a priest. ' Truly this is applicable to Christ, who consecrated for us unto our salvation His Body and Blood in the giving of the bread and wine. Christ is properly called a Priest who once offered Himself to be immolated for us." (In Psalm 109, 4, P.L. 142, 408).

In fact, not only the Fathers, but the Liturgies also declare that our Lord offered Himself to be immolated, when He instituted the form of our sacrifice in the consecration of His Body and Blood:—" .... Standing round thy altars, O Lord of hosts, and glorying in the knowledge of thy immaculate Lamb, who offered Himself to be immolated for us, may we be nourished unto eternal life, by the celestial sacrifices in His Body And Blood, whereby we are redeemed from our sins." (Preface of the Mass for Wednesday [96] after Easter in the Gelasian Sacramentary, bk. 1, c. 48, P.L. 74, 1115).[97]

He offered Himself to be immolated, in order that we may offer Him immolated, and that we may be nourished with the Flesh and Blood of the Immolated.

Finally in a Chaldean anaphora, wrongly called by the schismatics that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and by Catholics the Second (cf. Max Saxoniae, Missa Chaldaica, p. XVII.), there are extant the following words (their antiquity is apparent from the reading by the eternal Spirit), linking up the Supper and the Passion as one: "By the eternal Spirit He offered Himself immaculate to God, and sanctified us by the offering of His Body once made, and reconciled heaven and earth by the blood of His cross. Who was given up for our sins, and arose to justify us. Who with His apostles on the night on which He was betrayed, celebrated this great, tremendous, holy and divine mystery: taking bread, He blessed, etc .... . Behold O Lord, now too, this oblation is offered in Thy great and tremendous name." (Le Brun Explication de la Messe, vol. 3, 1778, p. 539-541).

He made the offering of His Body once; we are sanctified by that offering once made. Doing what He did in the Supper we make the same offering that He made. Conclude then: the undivided Action of our Redemption is in the Supper and in the Passion, because in the Supper Christ offered His own Body to the death in blood which He was to undergo on the Cross.

'Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.' The Prophet also says that the Father made this promise to the Son. For to whom could it be truly and evidently applied but to our Lord and Saviour, who consecrated for our salvation His own Body And Blood in the giving of the bread and wine? As He says in the Gospel: 'Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood, you shall not have eternal life.' But let not the human mind see anything of blood-letting, anything corruptible in that Flesh and Blood .... but a life-giving and saving substance, the very Word made Flesh, whereby are given the remission of sins and the gifts of eternal life.

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