RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lord's Supper
until later than his time. It is rather an independent tradition which meets us in Eustathius — the same that becomes evident concerning the Lord's Supper in a single passage in Theodore of Mopsuestia (on I Cor. xi. 34; MPG, lxvi. 889). Its essence consists in the subordination of the sacramental side to the sacrificial; as symbols of the body and blood of Christ, offered in sacrifice, the elements received communicate what was gained by the sacrifice of Christ, remission of sins and eternal life. Since Eustathius is in more than one aspect a precursor, if not a member of the school of Antioch, his words may be taken as a proof that he already entertained this Antiochian conception of the Lord's Supper. The record of the fragments of Irenaeus edited by C. M. Pfaff (Irenwi fragmenta, The Hague, 1715), which seem to show a similar view, must be left out of the question as these fragments have by Harnack (TU, xx. 3, pp. 1-69, 1900) been shown to be falsifications. Not the second Pfaff fragment, but the passage cited from Eustathius, is the oldest Oriental testimony for this view of the Lord's Supper, influential also in the West. It may be called the " symbolic-sacrificial " view. The peaceful assimilation of the three conceptions described above resulted in the later eucharistic doctrine; and the one last set forth was distinctly influential. It had this advantage over the other two — that it brought the Lord's Supper into a clear relation to the real body and blood of Christ, while the Origenists only made use of the Logos in him, Irenaeus only of the incorruptibility of his body. The acceptance of the term " symbols " or " antitypes " in a sacrificial context by Eusebius, Gregory Nazianzen, and Macarius is an instance of the influence exerted by the Antiochian eucharistic doctrine in the fourth and early part of the fifth century.
The Christological conflicts of the fifth century mark an epoch in the further development. Up to this point the views of the Fathers show a mixture, in varying proportions, of the three conceptions just analyzed. Since the idea has been widely prevalent that three of the Fathers of this period — Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom — went beyond all three theories (which agree in the impossibility of conceiving a real presence of the actual body and blood of Christ), some reference must be made to the language used by them. One must begin by remembering that the liturgical tradition, becoming fixed and written by the fourth century, had still adhered closely, for all its increasing variety of expression, to the universal form of language in the Church. By its retention of the common designation of the elements, it could not fail to repress the spiritualism of theologians; and by its development of a " memorial of the great sacrifice," its emphasis on the " offering of the body of Christ," it brought the Eucharist into increasingly close connection with the real body and blood of Christ. The first of these three authors, Cyril, was teaching his newly baptized hearers about the Lord's Supper with especial reference to the words and usages of liturgical tradition. Bearing this in mind, and remembering how closely church teaching in Justin's time held to the " this is," it is not
10. Cyril.
surprising to find the catechist coming down to the level of the simplices. As the object of the " holy and most awful sacrifice " (" Catechetical Lectures," v [xxiii.], 9) the " bloodless service " (ib. v [xxiii.], 8), he sets forth the " slain Christ " himself: " We offer up Christ sacrificed for our sins " (ib. v [xxiii.], 10) ; and the question as to the meaning of the eucharistic gifts is settled for him by the words of the Savior: " Since then he himself declared and said of the bread, ' this is my body,' who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since he has himself affirmed and said ' this is my blood,' who shall ever hesitate, saying that it is not his blood? He once in Cana of Galilee turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that he should have turned wine into blood?" (ib. iv [xxii.], 1-2; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 151). As the cause of this " change " appears the invocation of the Holy Spirit; we pray God, he says " 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 whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched is surely sanctified and changed " (" Catechetical Lectures," v [xxiii.], 7; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 154). The neophyte is to believe firmly that " the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ" ("Catechetical Lectures," iv [xxii.], 9; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 152). Stronger or more positive language could scarcely be found; if his words were taken literally, they would necessitate the acceptance of a transubstantiation. But Cyril is speaking as a catechist. Even to him, as a matter of fact, the bread and wine are only so far transubstantiated as they are made more than common bread and wine; r rr him, too, the real sense of the eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ is the nourishment of the soul by the incarnate Word. What Cyril does show is how the transubstantiation theory grew up, by a sort of fusion of the realistic-dynamic and the symbolic-sacrificial views. But before it could proceed in a definite form from this fusion, it was necessary for the idea of a change to be carried further than the mere " sanctification," and for the symbolic part of the symbolicsacrificial to be discredited. The latter result followed on the defeat of the Antiochian theology in the fifth century; the fulfilment of the former condition is usually attributed to Gregory of Nyssa.
In his large catechetical work (chap, xxxvii.; NPNF, 2 ser., pp. 504-506) Gregory undertakes to show how the body, not only the soul, of the believer can attain " participation and mingling " with Christ. But a close study of his whole treatment shows that while Gregory has 11. Gregory been often called the originator of
of Nyssa fae theory of transformation (rather
and than transubstantiation), he himself
rys" knew nothing of it, and carried the
meaning of the Greek metapoieisthai,
" to transform," no further than what was already
understood by hagiazesthai , "to sanctify." His
theory is the assumption-theory of Justin, which
Alexandrians had spiritualized, and which now allied
Lord's Supper