[250] Mystag. iii. § 1.
[251] A. J. Mason, D.D., The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism, p. 389. Though I find myself compelled to differ widely from my friend Canon Mason in the interpretation of Cyril's teaching on this subject, I cannot refrain from expressing my sincere admiration of the tone and purpose of his treatise, and of the learning and research which it exhibits.
[252] Suicer, Thesaurus, Chrisma.
[253] Procat. § 2.
[254] Mason, ubi supr., p. 337.
[255] Dissert. iii. c. 8.
[256] Hooker, E.P.V. lxvi. § 6.
[257] Cat. i. 2.
[258] Ib. xvii. § 36.
[259] Ib. iv. 37.
[260] Ib. iii. § 12.
[261] Upon the supposed allusion to Chrism in Cat. xvi. § 26, see below, p. xxxiv.
[262] Note on Mystag. iii. § 1.
[263] Cat. xviii. § 33.
[264] Mystag. v. § 1.
[265] Mystag. i. § 7.
[266] Cat. iii. § 3.
[267] Ibidem.
[268] Mystag. iii. 3.
[269] Ib. iii. § 1.
[270] Cat. xvi. §§ 25, 26.
[271] Deut. xxxiv. 9.
[272] Acts viii. 17.
[273] Touttée.
[274] Mason, p. 341, with note.
[275] Mystag. iii. 6.
[276] Mason, p. 341.
[277] Basil, apud Bingham, X. 5, § 4.
[278] De Spiritu S. c. xxvii.
[279] Ant. X. v. § 4.
[280] Bingh. XII. iii. § 3. Cf. Apost. Const. III. c. 17. "This Baptism therefore is into the death of Jesus: the water is instead of the burial, and the oil instead of the Holy Ghost; the seal instead of the Cross; the ointment is the confirmation of the Confession." VII. 22: "that the anointing with oil may be the participation of the Holy Spirit, and the water the symbol of the death, and the ointment the seal of the covenants."
Chapter VII.--Eucharistic Doctrine.
We have seen that Cyril makes the consecration of sacramental elements in every case consist in the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, after which the water of Baptism is no longer mere simple water [281] , the ointment no longer plain ointment [282] , the bread and the wine no longer plain bread and wine, but the Body and Blood of Christ [283] .
Upon these statements an argument against Transubstantiation has been founded by Bishop Cosin [284] , and adopted both by Dr. Pusey [285] and Dean Goode [286] . It being universally admitted that the substance of the water and of the ointment remains unchanged, it is argued from the identity of the language employed in each case that, according to Cyril, no substantial change takes place in the Bread and Wine. Bishop Cosin quotes the following passage, of which the original is given below: "Take heed thou dost not think that this is a mere ointment only. For as the bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer ordinary bread, but is the body of Christ; so this holy ointment is no longer a bare common ointment after it is consecrated, but is the gift or grace of Christ, which, by His Divine Nature, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, is made efficacious; so that the body is anointed with the ointment, but the soul is sanctified by the holy and vivifying Spirit [287] ."
Bishop Cosin proceeds to argue thus: "Can anything more clear be said? Either the ointment is transubstantiated by consecration into the spirit and grace of Christ, or the bread and wine are not transubstantiated by consecration into the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore as the ointment retains still its substance, and yet is not called a mere or common ointment, but the Chrism or grace of Christ: so the bread and wine remaining so, as to their substance, yet are not said to be only bread and wine common and ordinary, but also the Body and Blood of Christ."
Notwithstanding the great authority of Bishop Cosin, and the assent of Theologians of such opposite schools as Dr. Pusey and Dean Goode, it must be admitted that the argument, even as against Transubstantiation, is pressed beyond its just limits. The identity of language extends only to two points, (1) the mode of consecration by Invocation, (2) the effect negatively stated, that the material element in each case is no longer simply a material element. A change, therefore, of some kind has taken place, and we have still to inquire how the change in each case is described by Cyril. "The water acquires a power of sanctity," otherwise described as "the spiritual grace given with the water [288] ."
"The ointment is Christ's gift of grace (Charisma), and becomes effectual to impart by the presence of the Holy Ghost His Divine Nature [289] ." "The Bread becomes the Body and the Wine the Blood of Christ [290] ."
There is here no such identity of language as would justify the assertion that the change described is of the same nature in each case, that because it leaves the substance of the water and the ointment untouched, therefore the substance of the Bread also must, according to Cyril, remain unchanged: this must be proved by other arguments. We must also remember that if this argument based upon the identity of the language used on the two sides of a comparison is trustworthy, there is another passage in Cyril to which it may be applied: "He once, in Cana of Galilee, changed the water into wine akin to blood (oikeion haimati) [291] , and is it incredible that He changed wine into blood?" The change of the water into wine was a change of substance: are we then prepared to agree with the Roman Church that the change of the bread also is a change of substance? Nay further, would the Roman Church itself accept the principle of the argument? For observe that in fact Bishop Cosin himself, when he comes to deal with this passage, gives up his former argument, and distinctly rejects it. "Protestants," he says, "do freely grant and firmly believe that the wine, in the sense already often mentioned, is changed into the Blood of Christ; but every change is not a transubstantiation; neither doth Cyril say that this change (i.e. of the wine) is like that of the water, for then it would appear to our senses; but that He who changed the water sensibly can also change the wine sacramentally, will not be doubted by any [292] ." Again, in describing the act of consecration, Cyril says: "We beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him, that He may make the bread the Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ, for certainly whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is sanctified and changed (hegiastai kai metabebletai ) [293] ." Here again, as in the passage quoted from Myst. iii. § 3, a sacramental change of some sort is asserted, but its specific character is not defined.
There is, however, a passage which throws some light on Cyril's conception of the change in Myst. iv. § 3: "In the figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood, that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ mightest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, His Body and His Blood being distributed to our members (eis ta hemetera anadidomenou mele)." Several good MSS read anadedegmenoi, which would give the meaning, "having received of His Body and of His blood into our members." This does not alter the general sense of the passage; but the reading anadidomenou is supported by another passage, Myst. v. § 15: "Our common bread is not substantial (epiousios): but this Holy Bread is substantial, that is, appointed for the substance of the soul. This Bread goeth not into the belly and is not cast out into the draught, but is distributed (anadidotai) into thy whole system for the benefit of body and soul."
In order to accommodate these passages to the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation the Benedictine Editor here introduces the idea of species, the outward forms or accidents of the bread. "We must not suppose," he says, "that Cyril thought the Body of Christ to be divided and digested (digeri) into our body; but by a customary way of speaking he attributes to the Holy Body what is suitable only to the species which conceal it. And he does not deny that the species pass into the draught, but only that the Body of Christ does so."
But Cyril draws no such distinction between the species and the Body of Christ: to him the Bread and Wine after consecration are the Body and the Blood of Christ. For how could it be said that the species, which in Transubstantiation are the mere outward accidents of bread and wine, are distributed into the whole system for the benefit of body and soul?
In whatever sense the bread and wine become by consecration the Body and Blood of Christ, in that same sense the Body and Blood of Christ are, according to Cyril, distributed to our whole system.
This was no new doctrine: Ignatius, Ephes. xxi., speaks of Christians as "breaking one Bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ." This is perhaps the earliest expression of the belief that the resurrection of the body is secured by the communion of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. The manner in which this communion is effected is described by Justin Martyr (Apolog. I. § 66) in language which shews clearly what Cyril meant: "We do not receive these things as common bread and common drink: but in the same way as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh by the Word of God, and took both flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught that the food over which thanksgiving has been made by prayer in the word received from Him (ten di' euches logou tou par' autou eucharistetheisan trophen), from which (food) our blood and flesh are by transmutation (kata metabolen) nourished, is both the Flesh and Blood of Him the Incarnate Jesus."
Here it is plainly taught that by consecration the Bread and Wine have become the Flesh and Blood of Christ, and that as such they nourish our "blood and flesh" (observe the inverted order) by undergoing a change: in other words, the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ are changed into nourishment of our blood and flesh, by being distributed (as Cyril says) to all our members, that is by being subjected to the natural processes of digestion and assimilation. The unusual order of the words "our blood and flesh" is not accidental, but answers to the process of assimilation, in which the digested food first nourishes the blood and then the blood nourishes the flesh.
The meaning is, as Otto says in his note, "that the divine food passes away into our bodies entire, so that nothing remains:" and Dr. Pusey seems to take the same view, in his note on the words, "from which (food) through transmutation our blood and flesh are nourished: "i.e. the material parts are changed into the substance of the human body [294] ."
Thus then, according to Cyril, the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ are distributed to all our members; His Flesh and Blood pass by a change into our blood and flesh, and we thereby become "of the same body and the same blood with Him [295] :" and "this Bread does not pass into the belly, and is not cast out into the draught [296] ," but wastes away as the body itself wastes [297] .
However much this view of the Sacramental mystery may differ from later theories, it was certainly held by many of the Greek Fathers. Irenæus, for example, in addition to those already mentioned, thus writes: "When therefore both the mingled cup and the created bread receive the Word of God, and the Eucharist becomes the Body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh increaseth and consisteth, how say they that the flesh is incapable of the gift of God which is eternal life, that flesh which is nourished from the Body and Blood of the Lord, and is already (huparchousa) a member of Him?--even as the blessed Paul saith, that we are members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones [298] ."
That this was also the teaching of Cyril's contemporaries is clear from the famous passage of Gregory of Nyssa, in which this doctrine is fully developed. It will be sufficient to quote here the latter part of the passage, in which Gregory is speaking of the Wine. "Since then that God-containing flesh partook for its substance and support of this particular nourishment also, and since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man too may be a sharer in incorruption. He gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He transelements the natural quality of these visible things to that immortal thing [299] ."