RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lord's Supper
tically never find a purely symbolic view in the modern sense. It will not, perhaps, do to say as positively that Tertullian held the same view, in a less developed form and occasionally combined with other thoughts; but there is much to show that this was the case. Bread and wine are, for him as for Cyprian; symbolic forms under which the body and blood of Christ are represented. The commentators have, however, usually forgotten to ask whether these symbols were primarily intended to be offered or to be received. That, as with Cyprian, the answer is the former, one may conclude from the facts that with Tertullian, too, the body is the crucified body and the blood that which was shed, and that to him the Eucharist is the Passover of the new covenant, as well as from certain passages the discussion of which would occupy too much space.
These symbolic-sacrificial ideas, which are inseparably connected with the actual body and blood of Christ, form the point of departure for the further development of Western doctrine. Thus they determine Ambrosiaster's con- 2. Transi- ception of the sacrament: " It [the tion to Eucharist] is a memorial of our re-
starntiatto"n.demPtion' that' mindful of the redeemer, we may be worthy to attain
greater things by him the testament is made
in blood, because blood is a testimony of the divine beneficence." Thus Ambrose says on John vi. 56: " You hear 'flesh,' and you hear ' blood,' and you recognize the sacred pledges of the Lord's death." (De fide, iv. 10). Thus for Augustine the Eucharist is the "memorial sacrament " by which since the ascension the real sacrifice of Christ is commemorated. When, accordingly, from the fourth century, Greek ideas had a stronger influence in the West than before, these symbolic-sacrificial conceptions prevented the dissociation of the real and the sacramental body which was often noticeable in the East; and the ideas of the realistic-dynamic type took on, under their influence, an appearance more " realistic " in the modern sense. This is most clearly the case with Ambrose, though no passage in his authentic works shows him a believer in the real presence of the actual body and blood. When, however, he says (De fide, iv. 10) "As often as we receive the sacramental elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed (transfigurantur) into the Flesh and the Blood we do show the Lord's death," he comes close to connecting with the symbolic offering a change of the elements into the body and blood of Christ. It would thus not be inconceivable that Ambrose should have addressed his catechumens in the language found in the treatises De mysteriis and De sacramerdis which pass under his name. Cyril of Jerusalem speaks strongly in the same way under the same circumstances (ut sup., § 9); and the writers of these two works do not accept the real presence. These treatises are of no small importance in the history of this question, even if they are not Ambrose's, since long before the ninth century they were thought to be his, and to the men of the Middle Ages it was " Ambrose " who led the way to the doctrine of transubstantiation.
In fact, they are really more interesting if not his. If they had been, they must have been interpreted by his other expressions; but as products of a later period, they show that (just as in the East with Cyril of Jerusalem and Chrysostom) the realisticdynamic conception, when it came under the influence of sacrificial ideas, approached ever nearer to the doctrine of a positive change — nearer than was the case with Ambrose himself.
The Western development would probably have reached the same conclusion as the Eastern at an even earlier period, if it had not been for Augustine. His position on the subject is the
3. Augrus- same as his general attitude in regard tine's Check to the sacraments (see kSACEAMENT):
upon De- " the sacrament is one thing, the virvelopment. tue of the sacrament, another "; (" On John's Gospel "xxvi. 11); "grace is the virtue of the sacrament " (Enarratio in Psalmos, Ixxvii. 2). The res sacramenti, the benefit to which the signum points, is here also the " sanctification of invisible grace " (Qucestiones in Heptateuchum, iii. 84), with all that this includes. The sanctification by invisible grace is defined by him in three ways: either he thinks, in accordance with the traditional symbolic-sacrificial view, of the appropriation by faith of the redeeming- work of Christ (De doctrina Christiana, iii. 16, 24); or, turning in a spiritualist direction, he considers the mystical union with Christ given with the sanctification (De civitate Dei, xxi. 25, 4); or, with a reference to I Cor. x. 17, he deals with the thought that grace incorporates us into the Church — the body of Christ ("On John's Gospel," xxvi. 15; Sermo, cclxxii.). Of an actual presence of the body and blood there is no mention; Christ is, indeed, " everywhere entirely present like God," but " in some place in heaven after the manner of a real body " (Epist., clxxxvii. 13, 41). The fact that he uses expressions which sound '' realistic " must not mislead in the light of his own explanation (Epist., xcviii. 9) : " For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ's body is Christ's body," etc. (NPNF, 1 ser., i. 410). There is scarcely a passage in the early literature so illuminating for our purpose — unless it be De catechizandis rudibus, xxvi. 50, where he warns the catechumen " that, if he hears anything even in the Scriptures which may carry a carnal sound, he should, even although he fails to understand it, nevertheless believe that something spiritual is signified thereby, which bears upon holiness of character and the future life " (NPNF, 1 ser., iii. 312). Here the " something spiritual " throws a light on the " heavenly reality " already discussed. But although Augustine's " realistic " expressions have no significance as regards his own position, they have much for the later history. He provided the later Roman Catholic development, which departed from his own symbolicspiritualistic view, with a quantity of formulas, and made it possible for people to close their eyes
Lord's Supper