RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Transubstantiation
in sudden danger of death, received the consecrated bread as a viaticum, thus rendering probable the practise of reservation in the churches, and consequently the assignment of some place for preservation. In the sixth century the vessel for retaining the host was called turris. With the rise of the doctrine of transubstantiation, however, the consecrated host was reserved for the adoration of the worshipers, and to this end was placed in the monstrance (see Vessels, Sacbed). The Roman ritual requires that some consecrated particles must always be reserved for the communion of the sick and other believers prevented from attending mass, in a well-covered receptacle in the tabernacle, either on the high altar or some other altar suitable for the veneration and worship of so high a sacrament. Veneration at the elevation of the host in the mass, as well as when the host was borne through the streets to the sick, was first required at Cologne in 1203 by the papal legate Cardinal Guido; and in 1217 the elevation of the monstrance was required by canon law. Shortly afterward the feast of Corpus Christi (q.v.) was established, and the Council of Trent directed that latria, the worship due only to God and to Christ as God and man, be paid the blessed sacrament (Sessio xiii., De eucharistia, v.). A further consequence of the dogma of transubstantiation is the increased care taken of what remains over from the communion. Tertullian already states that the Christians took extreme pains to prevent any of the consecrated bread from falling >n the ground. In Constantinople, on the other nand, the remaining particles of consecrated bread vere given the small school-children, and in Gaul in 585 it is known by the Synod of Macon that the remnants were used in a children's communion (see uord's Supper, V.). Elsewhere it was the custom to burn what was left, fire being regarded as a pure element. The Roman Missal, in the chapter De defectibus in celebratione missarum occurrentibus, x., gives an entire series of rules in case a drop of consecrated wine falls from the chalice.
That the sacrament of the altar is the office of the priest, and of him alone, is a maxim of the Church, unalterable from the days of Cyprian. Even in the ancient Church " to consecrate " and " to produce the body of the Lord " were synonymous, though the latter phrase then implied merely that through consecration the elements received an 2. Priestly importance and dignity for faith which Function; they had not previously possessed. Commu- With the rise of transubstantiation, nion in one however, the expression came to mean Kind. the specific change wrought by the priest by means of the consecrating words and their divine efficacy, so that he, in a real sense, creates the body of Christ and produces his presence. This power, combined with the Power of the Keys (q.v.), forms the material significance of the priestly office, and at ordination is solemnly conferred on the candidate as inseparable from his person. The dogma of transubstantiation has thus led to an increased distinction between the clergy and the laity, so as to exalt the priest as a mediator between God and man. The doctrine of real concomitance served to promote the practise on the
part of the laity of frequently refraining from the cup. This usage led finally to the canonical withdrawal of the cup from the laity (see Mass, II., § 5). The fear of spilling some of the contents of the chalice early led many communicants to refrain from the cup, though not only teachers of the Church but popes, such as Gelasius I. (cf. MPL, lix. 141), opposed the practise of refraining. When, however, Anselm of Canterbury declared that the eucharistic body was not without the blood, the practise was sustained by a new dogmatic basis. Nearly all the great church teachers of the twelfth century, as Bernard, Hugo, Peter Lombard, and Peter of Blois, speak of communion in both kinds as the right form, though their views were preceded by many exceptions; and Alexander of Hales demanded that the laity be free to receive only the bread, though he held that communion under both kinds is more perfect and efficacious than under one. The general chapter of the Cistercians of 1261 restricted the chalice to the priests, and the Lambeth Synod of 1281 allowed the laity only the chalice of ablution. Albert the Great declared communion in one kind imperfect, since the blood is not in the body in virtue of the sacrament but through " natural union." Thomas Aquinas, developing this " natural union " into the theory of concomitance, did not regard the cup as superfluous, because it represents the shedding of blood and its redeeming power; but as absolutely necessary only for the priest. Deeming that the laity should not receive the cup for reasons of expediency, he answered the charge that communion in one kind is imperfect by declaring that the perfection of the sacrament depends on the consecration by the priest, not on reception by the faithful. Bonaventura decided that communion in one kind was as efficacious as in both, only that the symbolism is less complete, a defect compensated by the communion of the priest representing the Church. After him Dominicans and Franciscans alike advocated the withdrawal of the cup from the laity, a practise finally sanctioned by the Council of Constance (1415) and the Council of Trent.
IV. Doctrine in the Greek Church: The Greek term corresponding to the Latin transsubstantio is metousiosis, older (and less orthodox) appellations being metabole, metapoiesis, and occasionally metarythmisis (equaling the Latin transformatio, mutatio, conversio, and transfiguratio) . The transit from a dynamistic to an essentially realistic interpretation of the effect of consecration on the relation between the elements and the body of Christ was accomplished, largely through the concept of metabole, especially after Gregory of Nyssa. John of Damascus taught a real change of the elements of bread and wine, and through him this doctrine became the common property of the Greek Church. The teaching of earlier Greek theologians presupposes that the " substance " of the bread remains, and that only its " form " is changed; whereas in transubstantiation it is essential that the bread be replaced. The doctrine of metousiosis (the idea is also expressed by metastoicheiosis), as well as that of consubstantiation, never became an intense problem among the Greeks, because the idea of
Tran substantiation Trappists