The variations of Popery By Samuel Edgar 1838
These statements from Gelasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Facundus have sadly puzzled and perplexed the partisans of transubstantiation. The Testimony of Gelasius silenced Cardinal Cantaren in a disputation at Ratisbon. Cardinal Alan admits Gelasius's and Theodoret's rejection of a substantial change in the sacramental elements; but maintains that these two alone in their age embraced this heresy. Du Pin, having quoted Facundus, refers the reader to others for a resolution of the difficulty. Harduin, Alexander and Arnold, however, have attempted the arduaos task. 1 The nature or substance, according to the authors, signifies, in this case the species or accidents, which remain unchanged in the sacramental elements. But Theodoret, in the above quotation, distinguishing the substance from the accidents, represents the sacramental elements, as retaining their former substance and species. The substance is here discriminated from the species or accidents; and all these, which he enumerates, remain in the mass without any transmutation.-->The answer of these authors shews their their skill at transformations. The substance of the sacramental bread, in their hands, becomes, at pleasure, either accidents or the body of our Lord. These theologians could not only, as priests, transubstantiate the substance of the elements into flesh and blood, but also, as authors, when it served their purpose, into accidents or species. A few words from their mouths could convert the substance of the wine into blood, and a few strokes from their pens could metamorphose the same into accidents. These jugglers should have displayed their extraordinary powers, in transforming accidents into substance as well as substance into accidents; and they would then have the perfection of their art.<--
The ancients represent the bread and wine as conveying nourishment to the human body. Such are the statements of Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian. The sacramental bread and wine, says Justin, "nourish our flesh and blood by digestion" . According to Irenaeus, "the consecrated elements increase our body." Tertullian represents "our flesh as feeding on his body and blood". Ludovicus lived entirely on the host for forty days; and Catharina subsisted on the same from Ash Wednesday till Ascension. The consecrated elements therefore are food for the body as well as for the soul; and in consequence preserve their substance. None surely will maintain the impiety, if not
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blasphemy, that the flesh is, by digestion and nutrition formed of the flesh of Emmanuel.Innocent the third resolved this difficulty by granting that something of the bread and wine remain in the sacrament, to allay hunger and thirst.1 His infallibility, for once, was right, for which he was afterwards anathematized by the holy council of Trent. This infallibly assembly, in its thirteenth session, heartily cursed all who should say that the bread and wine remain with the Lord's body and blood, or should deny the transformation of the whole bread and wine. This denunciation was a retrospective dash at the vicar-general of God. Whether the imprecation sent his holiness to purgatory or to a worse place, the friends of transubstantiation and the papacy may determine.
-->Aquinas, Godeau, Du Pin, and Challenor endeavor to evade the difficulty by an extraordinary distinction and supposition. 2 These distinguish the substance from the species; and with the former, which is not subject to corruption, would feed the soul; and with the latter, which some might think light provision, would sustain the body. The accidents, Aquinas and Godeau make no doubt, may, by an operation of the Almighty, produce the same effects as the substance and nourish the human frame. The angelic doctor confers on the host,"the efficacy of substance without the reality." Du Pin and Challoner entertain a similar idea. The learned divines, it seems, have discovered a method of fattening men on accidents, such as form, quality, taste, smell, colour, sign, and appearances. Signs without signification, shadow without substance, shew without any thing being shewn, colour without any thing coloured, smell without any thing smelled, present, it appears, an exquisite luxury, and form, according to these theological cooks, an excellent sustenance for the human constitution.<--
Challoner, however, doubtful of this theory, and suspicious of unsubstantial food, has, by a happy invention, provided a kind of supernatural meat, if his material diet should happen to be condemned for inefficiency. Some miraculous nourishment of a solid kind, he thinks, may be substituted by Omnipotence, when, by deglutition and digestion, "the sacramental species are changed" and the sacramental substance is removed. Aquinas, Du Pin, and Challoner, in this manner, rather
[end page 400]than renounce a nonsensical system, condescend to talk balderdash. The credulity and blind zeal of Aquinas, Godeau, and Challoner indeed prepared these superstionists for the reception of any absurdity; the greater the absurdity the more acceptable to their taste, and better calculated for the meridian of their intellect. But more sense might have been expected from Du Pin, who, on other occasions, shews judgement and discrimination.
Many of the fathers, indeed, have been quoted in favour of transubstantiation. Some of these express themselves in strong language. A person unacquainted with the hyperbolical diction of ecclesiastical antiquity, and forms of speech used in these days, might be led to suppose that some of the fathers held a doctrine similar to modern transubstantiation. An opinion of this kind, however, must arise from indiscrimination in the reader, and from exaggeration of the author. The ancients, through want of precision, often confounded the sign with the signification. This confusion led them to exaggeration, and to ascribe to the sign what was true only of the signification; and this communion and exaggeration of antiquity have been augmented by the misrepresentation of the moderns, in their garbled and unfair citations.
Ignatius and Cyril supply a specimen of such confusion and misstatement. Ignatius, who so nobly faced the horrors of marrydom, has been characterized as the friend of transubstantiation. The matyr desired"the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus, and the drink, which is his blood"; and he mentioned some persons, who, in his day, denied the sacrament to be the flesh of the Saviour.
The apparent force of this quotation arises from its want of precision, and its separation from a parallel part of the author's work. Ignatius elsewhere calls "the gospel, and the faith that comes by the gospel, the flesh of Jesus, and love, his blood." 1 A comparison of these two citations removes every difficulty. Cyril affords another specimen. According to this saint, "the Lord's own body is given under the emblem of the bread and his blood under the emblem of the wine. Consider them, therefore, not as mere bread and wine; for they are the body and blood of Emmanuel."
But the same author ascribes a similar change to the oil, used at that time in baptism. He represents "the oil of baptism after consecration, not as mere oil, but as the grace of Jesus, as the bread is not mere bread, but the body of our Lord." The argument, from these two words, is as conclusive for transubstantiation of the baptismal oil as for the eucharistical bread.
Cyril also represents the manuduction of the Son of Man, mentioned in John, in a spiritual sense which does not imply the eating of human flesh. This communion, he adds, "consists in receiving the emblems of our Lord's body."
Antiquity furnishes no stronger proofs of transubstantiation, than those of Ignatius and Cyril. But these two saints, when allowed to interpret themselves, disclaim the absurdity. The monster had not appeared in their day, All the monuments of Christian antiquity, in like manner, when rightly understood, concur in the rejection of this modern innovation.
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But these are not arguments. (Mind you. I have asked people if they’d like to tell me what the substance of bread is.)
Those whose Eucharistic sustenance was not flat miraculous were nourished, the answer would be, by the accidents. The long chain polysaccharides are not what bread IS, but what it is made of.
So to me, this passage is about the rise of materialism in general thought.
Also there’s a popular notion that the Holy Spirit does not guide the Church, that it has been declining since the Apostolic Age. The development of dogma is observably a process of refinement. And, of course, we think the process to be guided by the Spirit, who is well able to contend with time.