Christ did not say, this bread is my body, or here is my body, but this thing is my body. Hence, say they, when Luther rejects the figurative meaning, that it is only the signification of the body of Christ, as they hold, and wishes to explain the words "this is my body" after his own fashion, that is, this bread is really my body, and not the frame of my body, this doctrine falls to the ground of itself, for if our Saviour intended to teach us that the bread was his body, and that the bread was there still, it would be a contradiction in itself. The true sense of the words "This is my body," however, is that the word this is to be thus understood: this, which I hold in my hands, is my body. Hence the Zuinglians concluded that the conversion of the substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ should be taken either totally figuratively or totally in substance, and this was Beza's opinion in the Conference of Monbeliard, held with the Lutherans. Here, then, is, according to the true dogma, the conclusion we should come to in opposition to Luther. When our Lord says, " This is my body," he intended that of that bread should be formed either the substance, or the figure of his body; if the substance of the bread, therefore, be not the mere simple figure of Christ's body, as Luther says, then it must become the whole substance of the body of Jesus Christ.

30. They object, secondly, that in the Scripture the Eucharist is called bread, even after the consecration: "One body.... who all partake of one bread" (1 Cor. x. 17); "Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily," &c., (1 Cor. xi. 27); the bread, therefore, remains. Such, however, is not the case; it is called bread, not because it retains the substance of bread, but because the body of Christ is made from the bread. In the Scriptures we find that those things which are miraculously changed into other things are still called by the name of the thing from which they were changed, as the water which was changed into wine, by St. John, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, was still called water, even after the change: "When the chief stewart had tasted the water made wine" (John, ii. 9); and in Exodus also we read that the rod of Moses changed into a serpent was still called a rod: "Aaron's rod devoured their rods" (Exod. vii. 12). In like manner, then, the Eucharist is called bread after the consecration, because it was bread before, and still retains the appearance of bread. Besides, as the Eucharist is the food of the soul, it may be justly called bread, as the Manna made by the angels is called bread, that is, spiritual bread: "Man eat the bread of angels" (Psalms, lxxvii. 25). The sectarians, however, say, the body of Christ cannot be broken, it is the bread alone that is broken, and still St. Paul says: "And the bread which we break is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" (1 Cor. x. 16.) We answer, that the breaking is understood to refer to the species of the bread which remain, but not to the body of the Lord, which, being

present in a sacramental manner, cannot be either broken or injured.

31. They object, thirdly, that Christ says, in St. John: "I am the bread of life" (John, vi. 48); still he was not changed into bread. The very text, however, answers the objection itself. Our Lord says: "I am the bread of life:" now the word "life" shows that the expression must be taken not in a natural but a metaphorical sense. The words "This is my body "must, however, be taken in quite another way; in order that this proposition should be true, it was necessary that the bread should be changed into the body of Christ, and this is Transubstantiation, which is an article of our Faith, and which consists in the conversion of the substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, so that in the very instant in which the words of consecration are concluded, the bread has no longer the substance of bread, but under its species exists the body of the Lord. The conversion, then, has two terms, in one of which it ceases to be, and in the other commences to be, for otherwise, if the bread was first annihilated, and the body then produced, it would not be a true conversion or Transubstantiation. It is of no consequence to say that the word Transubstantiation is new, and not found in the Scriptures, when the thing signified, that is, the Eucharist, really exists. The Church has always adopted new expressions, to explain more clearly the truths of the Faith when attacked by heretics, as she adopted the word Consubstantial to combat the heresy of Arius.

SEC. III. OF THE MANNER IN WHICH JESUS CHRIST IS IN THE EUCHARIST. THE PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS OF THE SACRAMENTARIANS ANSWERED.

32. BEFORE we reply in detail to the philosophical objections of the Sacramentarians relative to the manner in which the body of Jesus Christ is in the Sacrament, we should reflect that the Holy Fathers in matters of faith do not depend on philosophical principles, but on the authority of the Scriptures and the Church, knowing well that God can do many things which our weak reason cannot comprehend. We never will be able to understand the secrets of nature in created things; how, then, can we comprehend how far the power of the Almighty, the Creator of nature, itself, extends? We now come to their objections. First, they say that, although God is omnipotent, he cannot do anything which is repugnant in itself, but it is repugnant, they say, that Christ should be in heaven and on earth, at the same time, really and truly, as he is according to our belief, and not alone in one, but in many places, at the same time. Hear what the Council of Trent says on this subject (Sess. xiii. c. 1): "Nec enim hæc inter se pugnant, ut ipse Salvator noster semper ad dexteram Patris in coelis assideat juxta modum existendi naturalem; et ut multis nihilominus aliis in

locis sacramentaliter præsens sua substantia nobis adsit, ex existendi ratione; quam etsi verbis exprimere vix possumus, possibilem tamen esse Deo, cogitatione per fidem illustrata, assequi possumus, et constantissime credere debemus." The Council, therefore, teaches that the body of Jesus Christ is in heaven in a natural manner, but that it is on earth in a sacramental or supernatural manner, which our limited understanding cannot comprehend, no more than we can understand how the three Divine Persons in the Trinity are the same essence, or how, in the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus Christ, there is but one Divine Person and two natures, the Divine and human.

33. It is impossible, they say also, for a human body to be in several places at once. We believe, however, that the body of Christ is not multiplied in the Eucharist, for our Lord is not there present definitively, or circumscribed to that place and to no other, but sacramentally, under the appearance of bread and wine, so that wherever the species of the consecrated bread and wine are, there Jesus Christ is present. The multiplicity of the presence of Christ, therefore, does not proceed from the multiplication of his body in many places, but from the multiplicity of the consecrations of the bread and wine, performed by the priests in different places. But how is it possible, say they, that the body of Christ can be in several places at once, unless it is multiplied? We answer, that before our adversaries can prove this to be impossible, they should have a perfect knowledge of place and of glorified bodies; they should know distinctly what place is, and what existence glorified bodies have. When such knowledge, however, surpasses our weak understandings, who shall have the hardihood to deny, that the body of our Lord can be in several places at once, since God has revealed in the Holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ really exists in every consecrated Host? But, they reply, we cannot understand this. We answer again, that the Eucharist is a mystery of Faith, since our understanding cannot comprehend it, and as we never can do so, it is rashness to say that it cannot be, when God has revealed it, and when we know we cannot decide by reason what is beyond the power of reason.

34. They assert, besides, that it is repugnant to reason to say that the body of Jesus Christ exists under the species, without extension or quantity, for both extension and quantity are essential qualities of bodies, and God himself cannot deprive things of their essences, therefore, say they, the body of Christ cannot exist without filling a space corresponding to its quantity, and, therefore, it cannot be in a small Host, and in every particle of the Host, as Catholics believe. We reply to this, that although God cannot deprive things of their essence, still he can deprive them of the property of their essence; he cannot take away from fire the essence of fire, but he can deprive fire of the essential quality of burning,

as he did in the case of Daniel and his companions, who were unharmed in the furnace. Thus, in like manner, though God cannot make a body to exist without extension and quantity, still he can make it, so that it will not occupy space, and that it will be entire in every part of the sensible species which contain it as a substance; the body of Christ, therefore, into which the substance of the bread is changed, does not occupy place, and is whole and entire in every part of the species. Here is how St. Thomas explains it (1): "Tota substantia corporis Christi continetur in hoc Sacramento post consecrationem, sicut ante consecrationem continebatur ibi tota substantia panis. Propria autem totalitas substantiæ continetur indifferenter in pauca vel magna quantitate, unde et tota substantia corporis et sanguinis Christi continetur in hoc sacramento."

35. That being the case, it is not the fact that the body of Christ in the Eucharist exists without quantity; the whole quantity is there, but in a supernatural not a natural manner. It does not exist, then, circumscriptive, that is, according to the measure of the proper quantity corresponding to the quantity of space; but it exists sacramentaliter-sacramentally, after the manner of a subHence it is that Jesus Christ, in the Sacrament, does not exercise any action dependent on the senses; and although he exercises the acts of the intellect and of the will, he does not exercise the corporal acts of the sensitive life, which require a certain sensible and external extension in the organs of the body.

stance.

36. Neither is it true that Jesus Christ exists in the Sacrament without extension. His body is there, and it has extension; but this extension is not external, or sensible and local, but internal, in ordine ad se, so that although all the parts are in the same place, still one part is not confused with the other. Thus Jesus Christ exists in the Sacrament with internal extension; but as to external and local extension, he is inextended, and indivisible, and whole, and entire, in each particle of the Host, as a substance, as has been already said, without occupying space. Hence it is, that as the body of our Lord does not occupy space, it cannot be moved from one place to another, but is moved only per accidens, when the species are moved under which it is contained, just as happens to ourselves, that when our bodies are moved from one place to another, our souls are also moved, per accidens, though the soul is incapable of occupying any space. In fine, the Eucharist is a Sacrament of Faith, mysterium Fidei, and as we cannot comprehend all the matters of Faith, so we should not pretend to understand all that Faith, through the Church, teaches us concerning this Sacrament.

37. But how, say they, can the accidents of bread and wine. exist without their substance, or subject, as it is called? We answer the question whether accidents are distinct from matter

(1) St. Thom. p. 3, q. 76, a. 1.

has been already mooted; the most general opinion is in the affirmative; the Councils of Lateran, Florence, and Trent, however, keeping clear of the controversy altogether, call the accidents species. In the ordinary course of things these accidents, or species, cannot exist without the subject, but they can in a supernatural and extraordinary manner. In the ordinary course of things, humanity cannot exist without its proper subsistence (subsistentia); but notwithstanding, Faith teaches us that the humanity of Christ had not human, but Divine subsistence, that is, the Person of the Word. As the humanity of Christ, therefore, united to the Word hypostatically, subsists without the human person, so, in the Eucharist, the species can exist without the subject, that is, without the substance of bread, because their substance is changed into the body of Christ. These species, therefore, have nothing of reality, but by Divine power they represent their former subject, and appear still to retain the substance of bread and wine, and may even become corrupted, and worms may be generated in them, but, then, it is from a new matter, created by the Almighty, that these worms spring, and Jesus Christ is no longer present, as St. Thomas teaches (2). As far as the sensations of our organs go, the body of Christ in the Eucharist is neither seen nor touched by us immediately in itself, but only through the medium of those species under which it is contained, and it is thus we should understand the words of St. John Chrysostom (3): "Ecce eum vides, Ipsum tangis, Ipsum manducas."

38. It is, then, an article of faith, that Jesus Christ is permanently in the Eucharist, and not alone in the use of the communion, as the Lutherans say, and this is the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which also assigns the reason: "In Eucharistia ipse auctor ante usum est, nondum enim Eucharistiam de manu Domini Apostoli susceperant, cum vere tamen ipse affirmavit corpus suum esse, quod præbebat" (Sess. xiii. Cap. 3). And as Jesus Christ is present before the use of the Sacrament, so he is also present after it, as the Fourth Canon expresses it: "Si quis dixerit......in Hostiis, seu particulus consecratis, quæ post communionem reservantur, vel supersunt, non remanere verum corpus Domini; anathema sit."

39. This is proved, not alone by reason and authority, but by the ancient practice of the Church, likewise; for in the early ages, on account of the persecution, the Holy Communion was given in private houses and in caverns, as Tertullian testifies (4): "Non sciet Maritus, quid secreto ante omnem cibum gustes: et si sciverit panem, non illum esse credat, qui dicitur." St. Cyprian (5) tells us, that in his time the faithful used to bring home the Eucharist to their houses, to communicate at the proper time. St. Basil (6),

(2) St. Thom. 3, p. qu. 76, a. 5, ad. 3. (3) St. Chrysost. Hom. 60, ad Pap. (4) Tertul. . 2, ad Uxor. c. 5. (5) St. Cypri. Tract. de Lapsis. (6) St. Basil, Ep.

289 ad Cesar. Patriciam.