Eucharist

EUCHARIST. - It is the prolongation of the Incarnation (Leo XIII, encyclical Mirae caritatis, 18 May 1902). Just as the Word of God made himself present under human guise to procure salvation, rendering to God the homage due by offering satisfaction for sin and meriting all spiritual goods (objective redemption), so Jesus Christ makes himself present under the eucharistic species to apply the work of salvation, in its ascending phase, renewing the sacrifice of the Cross, and in its descending motion, infusing Grace through the sacramental rite of Communion (subjective redemption). The E. therefore implies the truth of the real presence of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine, the sacrifice of the Mass (v.) and the sacrament of Communion (v.). Because of the multiplicity of mysteries that it contains, the E. is the compendium of the faith, the center of gravity of Christian piety, the pole star that orients the whole activity of the Catholic Church. Its numerous names reflect the variety of its aspects: Body of Christ, Body of the Lord, the Venerable, Sacrifice of the altar, Mass, Synaxis, Viaticum, Communion, Divine Table, Most Holy Sacrament.

The classical name εὐχαριστία derives from the account of the institution, where it is related that Jesus gave thanks (Mt. 26:26; Mk. 14:22; εὐλογήσας; Lk. 22:19; I Cor. 11:23: εὐχαριστήσας), and it is already found used by the Didaché (9, 1-5; 10, 1-6), by St. Ignatius of Antioch (Smirn., 7, 1; Phil., 4), by St. Justin (Apol., I, 66: PG 6, 427) and by St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haeres., 2, 18: PG 7, 1027-29), and it suits the mystery, which is a perfect thanksgiving (cf. F. Cabrol, Eucharistie, in DACL, V, coll. 686-92).

THE EUCHARIST IN DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.

I. ORIGINS OF THE EUCHARIST.

I. THE POSITIONS OF INDEPENDENT CRITICISM

At the end of the 19th century, once the denial of the Divinity of Jesus Christ had matured through the rationalist systems, it was logical that the problem of the origins of the E. should arise and be resolved in harmony with the general orientation of criticism. Indeed A. Harnack (Brod und Wasser: die eucharistischen Elemente bei Justin, Leipzig 1891), after attempting to demonstrate that the eucharistic elements in the nascent Church were bread and water, built upon this presumed ritual variation (in antiquity: bread and water, later: bread and wine) a theory about the original meaning of the Last Supper: Jesus did not concern himself with the elements, which can vary, but with the meal itself, which he blessed, teaching his disciples to sanctify the most important act of bodily life and promising to be with them, in his power to forgive sins, at every banquet they would celebrate in his memory (dynamic theory).

The following year A. Jülicher (Zur Geschichte der Abendmahlsfeier in der ältesten Kirche, in Theologische Abhandlungen Carl von Weizsäcker zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag 11 Dec. 1892, Freiburg im Breisgau 1892, pp. 215-250), rejecting Harnack's hypothesis, proposed a new interpretation of the Last Supper: Jesus performed parabolic gestures with precise reference to his imminent end, offering the disciples the broken bread and the cup filled with wine, as in a transparent symbol (not enigmatic, as Weizsäcker had held since 1886) he would have indicated to them the fate awaiting him: my Body will be broken like this bread, my Blood will be poured out like this wine (symbolic theory). The system immediately gathered wide consensus. Some critics, such as O. Holtzmann, C. Clemen, K. Volker, H. Weisel, accepted it without substantial variations; others, however, such as E. Haupt, R. A. Hoffmann, H. Wendt, M. Goguel, saw in the gestures of the Last Supper the symbol of Jesus' loving self-giving. R. Eisler discerns in them the symbolized revelation of the messianic dignity of the Nazarene Rabbi.

For F. Spitta (Die urchristlichen Traditionen über Ursprung und Sinn des Abendmahls, in Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristentums, I, Göttingen 1893, pp. 282-287) the Last Supper is not connected with the Lord's death, but with his messianic expectation. Jesus, dominated by a lucid prophetic prospect of the imminent establishment of the Kingdom of God, almost anticipates the messianic banquet and, departing from the common laws of banquets, distributes the bread and passes the cup among the guests with the emphatic words "this is my Body," "this is the Blood of my covenant," as if inviting his disciples to take possession of the gifts that he alone can give, to appropriate his whole being. The words of the Last Supper mark the culminating point of Christ's messianic consciousness and the certainty of his final triumph (eschatological theory).

With Spitta's conception are akin those of J. Hoffmann (fraternal banquet in expectation of the Kingdom), of A. Schweitzer (banquet as prototype of the messianic one), of A. Andersen and A. Loisy (farewell supper in the perspective of the imminent realization of the Kingdom of God).

Once the Last Supper had been explained in this way, naturally or rationally, the critics were forced to confront another problem. Almost all, in fact, admit that 20 years after Jesus' death, St. Paul in 1 Cor. (ca. 57) speaks of the E. as of a mystery, which implies the real presence of the Lord's Body and Blood, offered in sacrifice and the cause of a spiritual union among the faithful. In so short a span of years a purely symbolic rite would have undergone such a transformation as to be enriched with a transcendent content.

The many attempts to explain the singular phenomenon reduce to three. The transformation is considered to have occurred either through a contribution of the Christian consciousness, or through a pagan infiltration, or through a Jewish influence; in any case St. Paul must be recognized as the principal factor of the evolution.

In the fraternal agape meals that, on the morrow of Jesus' death, the faithful celebrated (Acts 2:42 and 46) the memory of the Master was alive, who had sat at table with his disciples on the eve of the Passion; they willingly repeated his words and his gestures. Thus, imperceptibly, almost by the ways of the heart, the persuasion penetrated that the Lord had instituted the fraternal banquet, that indeed he was present in the individual celebrations: some came to believe they had seen Jesus at one of the agape meals (cf. Lk. 24:13-43; Jn. 21:1-23). This psychological explanation of Jülicher is supported by an approach of Spitta: the catastrophe of Golgotha, which occurred on the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Jewish Passover, suggested to the first followers of the Nazarene the idea that Jesus, the true Lamb, had to be immolated and eaten in the feast of the new covenant, of the new Christian Passover. Thus the fraternal agape was enriched with a precious contribution: the concept of sacrifice. Such and similar motives were widely utilized by W. Heitmüller, J. Réville, M. Goguel, A. Loisy.

The explanation seemed superficial to its own authors and, if proposed in an exclusive manner, radically incapable of providing an adequate explanation of the problem. An effort was therefore made, with great patience, to find in the pagan religions the prototype of the E., which St. Paul would have introduced into Christianity. The first to advance the comparatist hypothesis was P. Gardner (The origin of the Lord's Supper, London 1893), who affirmed with confidence that St. Paul, while at Athens, became acquainted with the Eleusinian mysteries and that in a vision he felt invited by the Lord to introduce into the Christian communities the sacred banquet, in which the guest enters into immediate contact (σαρκοφαγία) with his god. Thus was born the Pauline account of the Last Supper, which influenced the Synoptics and all the Churches. The author, however, realizing how far-fetched the hypothesis was, honestly rejected it (Explanatio evangelica, London 1899, p. 454 ff.). W. Heitmüller (Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus, Darstellung und religiöse Beleuchtung, Göttingen 1903, pp. 37-52) sought to demonstrate, by a kind of psychological method, that humanity has always desired to be united with God, especially through a sacred banquet. In support of his thesis he adduced the example of the cannibalism of certain Mexican tribes, who ate prisoners of war believing them identified with the god Tezcatlipoca, of the theophagic supper in use among those same peoples on the occasion of the winter solstice, of Dionysian omophagy, of the eating of the camel among the ancient Bedouins of the Sinai peninsula, etc. To the question which rites historically influenced St. Paul, Heitmüller replied with great circumspection, alluding to the Essene banquets and the supper of Mithras. But, he added, the air breathed by the nascent Church was pregnant with mystery bacilli; one may therefore think of a kind of bacillary inoculation, through which the mystery conception of the E. penetrated imperceptibly into St. Paul and his disciples.

M. Goguel (L'Eucharistie des origines à Justin Martyr, Paris 1910, pp. 187-88) insisted on the same concept of a spontaneous influence of the pagan mysteries, occurring at a certain moment in the religious evolution of Paul of Tarsus, the circumstances of which, however, elude the most careful historical investigation. A. Loisy (Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien, ibid. 1919), on the other hand, believed he could point to the Eleusinian mysteries, to Dionysian omophagy, to the banquet of Attis and Cybele, and to the supper of Mithra as the deepest analogies with the Christian banquet. These similarities, according to the author, did not remain purely abstract, because Paul and the primitive communities drew inspiration from them to inaugurate the Eucharistic Supper; Christianity, however, did not copy slavishly, but rather conformed in substance to the mysteries, surpassing them.

Another essay is offered by P. Smith (A short history of Christian theology, Chicago and London 1922), who, after having extensively studied the cases of absorption of a sacred drink and of a religious meal, concluded in favor of the idea, very widespread in antiquity, of a true and proper theophagy. This concept was not extinguished among the initiates of Eleusis: St. Paul drew from there the Eucharistic inspiration. It is a return to the position of Heitmüller, without his moderation. According to M. Dibelius (Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1933), one of the most distinguished supporters of the "Formgeschichtliche Methode," the Eucharist arose from a cultic need of the primitive faithful; in order to legitimize the new institution, the Christian community created the narrative of the Last Supper, whose "protoform" is given by the logion "τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου," which Jesus would have pronounced to indicate the whole of his disciples in intimate communion with him: the formula of the bread was therefore an expressive figure of the spiritual union of the faithful (Mystical Body). Subsequently, under the influence of the Hellenic mysteries, it assumed the sacramental meaning that tradition attributes to it. To this current of ideas is connected the latest position of A. Loisy (Les origines de la Cène eucharistique, in Congrès d'histoire du christianisme, I, Paris 1928, pp. 82-86, and above all in La naissance du christianisme, ibid. 1933, pp. 188-214).

Some critics, impressed by the failure of the many "mystery" attempts, became convinced that the "eucharistic phenomenon" is better explained when placed within the more natural framework of Jewish rites and beliefs. The Jew R. Eisler (Das letzte Abendmahl, in Zeitschrift für die weitestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, 24 [1925], pp. 161-92; 25 [1926], pp. 5-37) is a warm supporter of this method, which was partly applied by H. Lietzmann (Messe und Herrenmahl, Bonn 1926) and fully by J. Pain (Jésus, Dieu de la Pâque [Christianisme, 37], Paris 1930), who sees in the Jewish Passover the model banquet on which the eucharistic agape was patterned.

Around these well-known and distinguished theories, others develop, linked to the general tendency of unbelieving criticism. In the Anglican milieu, where, down to the well-known bishop G. Gore, the historical fact of the institution of the E. by Jesus was accepted, with C. Quick (The Christian Sacraments, cited by A. E. Morris, Jesus and Eucharist, in Theology, 26 [1933], p. 242) doubt has crept in. For R. Harris (Eucharistic origins, London 1927) the words of Jesus "this is my Body" referred to the soma or the haoma of the Indo-Iranian peoples, whereas Christians, not very intelligently, understood them of the σόμα (body) of Christ. There is no need to mention the explanations disseminated by the "Christianisme" collection published in Paris under the auspices of Couchoud. One finds there assertions such as these: "It is around the year 250 (sic!), that Hippolytus of Rome institutes the memorial, by virtue of which the bread and the body must be offered in remembrance of the death of Christ." A Swedish theologian, more fair-minded, finds in the genesis of eucharistic faith three fundamental strata: the synoptic mystery of the personal presence of Jesus at the table as priest; the Pauline mystery of the presence of Christ in the Mystical Body; the Johannine mystery of the presence of Jesus in the sacramental elements of the divine banquet (Y. Brilloth - A. G. Hebert, Eucharistic Faith and Practice Evangelical and Catholic, London 1930).

O. Culmann (La signification de la Ste-Cène dans le christianisme primitif, in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuse, 10 [1936], pp. 1-22; Le culte dans l'Eglise primitive, Paris-Neuchâtel 1944; Italian trans., Rome

1948), following Lietzmann, distinguishes two sources of the present E.: the Last Supper, of which St. Paul has preserved the echo for us, and the banquet celebrated by the risen Jesus with his disciples. The primitive E. is linked to this second supper, dominated by the faith in the return of Jesus in the midst of his own, on the anniversary of the Resurrection, in expectation of his return at the end of time. The volume by G. Deluz, J.-Ph. Ramseyer, E. Gaugler, La Ste-Cène (Cahiers théologiques de l'actualité protestante, 1, extra series), Paris-Neuchâtel 1945) is inspired by this conception. Recently A. G. Hebert, Le trône de David, French trans. by P. Fruchon, Paris 1950, pp. 173-96, has given of the Last Supper an exclusively sacrificial interpretation.

THE HISTORICAL TRUTH ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE EUCHARIST

It is inferred from the testimonies of the Gospels and of St. Paul, which, even considered in their purely human and natural value, irrefutably document the fact of the institution of the eucharistic rite by Jesus, on the eve of his death. The four narratives of the New Testament are reported:

Mt. 26:26-28

Mk. 14:22-24

26 While they were eating, Jesus, taking bread and blessing it, broke it and, giving it to his disciples, said: take and eat, this is my Body.

27 And taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them saying: drink of it, all of you

28 for this is my Blood, of the covenant shed for many for the remission of sins.

Lk. 22:19-20

19 Taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying: this is my Body given for you. Do this in memory of me.

20 Likewise he took the cup, after the supper, saying: this cup is the new covenant in my Blood, which is shed for you.

22 While they were eating, taking bread and blessing it, he broke it and gave it to them saying: take, this is my Body.

23 And taking the cup, giving thanks, he gave it to them and all drank of it.

24 and he said to them: this is my Blood of the covenant shed for many.

I Cor. 11:23-25

23 For I indeed received from the Lord, what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on that night in which he was betrayed, took bread

24 and giving thanks, he broke it and said: this is my Body, for you. Do this in memory of me.

25 Likewise he took the cup, after the supper, saying: this cup is the new covenant in my Blood. Do this in memory of me.

From a simple reading one immediately notices the substantial concord of the venerable documents, which is not impaired by accidental divergences. This concordia discors allows one to glimpse a special affinity between Matthew and Mark on the one hand and between Luke and Paul on the other. One is therefore accustomed to distinguish two sources, the Petrine (Mark was a disciple of Peter), and the Pauline (Luke was a disciple of Paul), which differ in the following points: a) as to the moment of institution: the Petrine source says it took place during the supper, the Pauline at the end of the banquet; b) as to the words over the bread, the Petrine source reports only "this is my Body," the Pauline adds "given for you" or simply "for you"; c) as to the words over the wine, the Petrine source states first the blood then the covenant "this is my Blood of the covenant," the Pauline inverts, recalling first the covenant and then the blood "this cup is the new covenant in my Blood"; d) as to the command to renew the eucharistic rite, the first source does not report it, the second instead reports it: once in Luke, twice in Paul.

The testimony of the Gospel of John (6:1-72) concerns the promise of the E.; the other texts scattered throughout the New Testament touch on other points of eucharistic doctrine and practice (cf. J. Coppens, Eucharistie, in DBs, II, coll. 1168-72).

Independent critics believe they demolish the value of the testimonies just reported, starting from the concept of institution, which implies the duration in time of what one institutes. For a rite to be said to be regularly instituted, it is required that the institutor give the order and set the conditions for its duration through the centuries. The E. lacks precisely the base essential to its permanent institution, the command of Jesus. In fact the testimony of Paul is not reliable, because by invoking a special revelation of the glorified Christ (I Cor. 11:23), he clearly shows that he wishes to legitimize in the eyes of the faithful, by a divine intervention, the novelty he introduced, attributing it to an express command come from heaven. Matthew, who had been present at the Last Supper, and Mark, a disciple of Peter, an earwitness of the Master's last words, are silent on the order to repeat the eucharistic banquet. Luke then in vv. 19-20 is not authentic, therefore his testimony falls, which would moreover be devoid of value, because it depends on Paul. John finally, the disciple who reclined his head on the Master's breast in the paschal cenacle, has nothing to say about the presumed institution, which took place on that occasion.

It is not difficult to break the individual links of this chain of denials. Precisely the Pauline phrase: "Ego enim accepi a Domino, quod et tradidi vobis: Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν" (I Cor. 11:23), which has lent itself to the most unexpected and implausible subjectivist interpretations, transports us to the objective plane of reality. In fact the expression παραλαμβάνειν ἀπό does not indicate, in this case, receiving from Jesus by way of immediate revelation, but by way of tradition, of mediated revelation, that is, through the other Apostles, who were direct witnesses of Jesus' teaching. Various are the arguments in favor of such an exegesis:

1. in chaps. 11-14 of I Cor., St. Paul proposes to reestablish, in their integrity, the customs common to all the Churches. This intention shines through in various passages: at chap. 11:16, where the veil of women is treated, the Apostle writes: "We have no such custom, nor do the Churches (plural, according to the Greek text) of God"; here St. Paul distinguishes the communities founded by him (nos) from those established by the other Apostles (Ecclesiam Dei) and yet all agree in the same tradition. At chap. 14:33 he admonishes: "As in all the Churches of the saints, the women keep silence in the assembly" (Greek text) and immediately at v. 36 he asks "was it from you that the word of God came, or has it come to you only?" a clear allusion to the same teaching in force in all the Christian communities, according to which women must keep silence in the sacred assemblies. Precisely in this context falls the passage concerning the E.; therefore also for this rite St. Paul recalls the Corinthians to the common tradition of all the Churches derived from the Apostles; which is moreover suggested with sufficient clarity when in ch. 11 he writes: "Sicut tradidi vobis, traditiones tenetis."

2. The term παραλαμβάνεων occurs many times in the Pauline epistles (I Cor. 11:23; 15:1-3; Gal. 1:2, 9, 12; Philip. 4:9; Col. 2:6; 4:17; I Thess. 2:13; 4:1; II Thess. 3:6) and, except for Col. 4:17, it is always used to signify a religious knowledge that is received. Now the subject, with the exception of Gal. 1:12, never receives such knowledge directly from Christ, but through human teaching. It is by a requirement of Pauline style that the text of I Cor. 11:23 is interpreted as a mediated revelation.

3. The parenthetical clause of I Cor. 11:23 has an evident similarity to the phrase of ch. 15:3: "παρέλωσα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις. ὁ γὰρ παρέλαβον: tradidi enim vobis in primis, quod et accepi, quoniam Christus mortuus est etc." Now in ch. 15 St. Paul certainly does not speak of a revelation, but of a tradition received from the Apostles. The same standard must be applied to ch. 11:23. Nor can it be objected that in ch. 15:3 the ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου is missing, because since it concerned the death of Jesus one could not say that one had learned the news from the dying man himself, whereas one could well assert that one had received a teaching from Christ through the account of the direct witnesses (cf. E. B. Allo, La synthèse du dogme eucharistique chez st Paul, in Revue biblique, 30 [1921], pp. 321-343, where the author resolves the further difficulties that have been raised: in favor of this exegesis have aligned themselves Batiffol, Ruch, Goossens, Allevi, Coppens, in the works cited in the bibliography).

The priority of the Eucharist to St. Paul is also inferred from St. Mark. The independence of this Evangelist from I Cor. 11:23-25 appears increasingly well founded, because if Mark depended on Paul he would not have omitted the command to repeat the rite; moreover only Mark preserves the eschatological coloring (14:25) of the eucharistic banquet and the entirely distinctive tenor of the formula of the chalice. These particularities have appeared to critics themselves as individuating notes, which confer an unmistakable physiognomy on the Marcan narrative. If Mark does not depend on Paul, both go back to an older and common source: one thus arrives at the beginning of the preaching of Peter and of Matthew and the other Apostles. Precisely at the origins, Matthew repeated the phrase of the Lord: "This is my Blood of the covenant," later collected by St. Mark. This parenthetical clause has a particular value because it alludes to the covenant, which Jesus substituted for the Mosaic one at the very moment he celebrated the Eucharist, which as a constitutive element of the new pact acquires the same characteristics of stability and perpetuity inherent in the concept of covenant. Implicitly Matthew and Mark enunciate the fact of the divine institution of the Eucharist.

The account of St. Luke (22:15-20) begins with the narration of the legal supper: "15: And he said to them: I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16: for I say to you that I will not eat of it again, until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. 17: And taking the chalice and giving thanks, he said: take and distribute it among yourselves. 18: for I say to you that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes," and continues with the narration of the Eucharistic Supper (vv. 19-20) referred to above. Independent criticism rejects vv. 19-20 as not authentic because they are missing in the Codex Bezae and in the Latin codices Vercellensis, Corbionis, Vindobonensis etc., which give the so-called Western text. Such an attitude is critically untenable because the two verses are found in all the Greek minuscule codices (except D of Beza), in all the versions (except the Curetonian Syriac) and in many Fathers (cf. G. Sacco, La Koinè del Nuovo Testamento e la trasmissione del sacro testo, Rome 1928, p. 197). On the other hand, once the longer redaction, called Oriental, is admitted, it is well explained how the shorter, Western text arose. The copyist indeed, reading at v. 17 "giving thanks," persuaded himself that it dealt with the eucharistic chalice, all the more so since the following verse reports the eschatological phrase, which Matthew and Mark relate immediately after the chalice of the Eucharist. Having formed this conviction, he proceeded without scruple to the suppression of v. 20, as it seemed to him superfluous. The Lucan account, in its Oriental redaction, to be regarded as authentic, is independent of that of Paul, because it has an entirely distinctive gait in describing the two suppers, legal and eucharistic, in placing the eschatological discourse before the institution of the Eucharist, in omitting in the same discourse the adjective "nauvòc"; one is therefore in the presence of a new testimony in favor of the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus, who, according to Luke, after the consecration of the bread, said: Do this in memory of me (v. 19, cf. J. Coppens, Les origines de l'Eucharistie, d'après les livres du Nouveau Testament, in M. Brillant, Eucharistia, Paris 1934, pp. 31-32).

St. John does not recount, it is true, the institution but the discourse of Jesus on the absolute necessity of the Eucharist, as the bread of life, for all men (ch. 6:51-55), which would not have been reported if in the Evangelist's thought there had not been present the fact, by then known to all, of the Last Supper (cf. P. Doncoeur, Des silences de l'Evangile de st-Jean, in Recherches de science religieuse, 21 [1934], p. 600).

With reason the Council of Trent in sess. XIII, ch. 1, defined that "our Redeemer instituted this so admirable Sacrament at the Last Supper, when, having blessed the bread and the wine, he declared with manifest and perspicuous words (disertis et perspicuis) that he was giving them his Body and his Blood, and that those words are reported by the Evangelists and repeated by St. Paul" (Denz-U, 874, cf. 844 and 875). Pius X condemned the following modernist proposition: "Not everything that St. Paul narrates about the institution of the Eucharist is to be taken in a historical sense" (Denz-U, 2045, cf. 2039).

III. BRIEF RESPONSE TO INDEPENDENT CRITICS

The verdict of history is by now unfavorable to them. Through the very rapid succession and mutual contradiction of their theories, which have a precedent only in the interminable combinations imagined by Gnosticism, they have fallen into general disrepute. The bankruptcy of the system could not have been more clamorous. Starting from a deliberately agnostic presupposition, formulated thus by J. Réville (Les origines de l'Eucharistie, Paris 1908, p. 641): "What Jesus said to his Apostles in that solemn hour we shall never know," the critics, immediately afterward, explain point by point what Jesus said and did on that occasion. Such a method shows with how little objectivity they attribute to Jesus their own ideas, more or less religious, as men without faith. Catholics, on the other hand, by accepting with scientific honesty the New Testament documents, historically and critically sifted, place themselves in the position of grasping the objective meaning of the Last Supper. The words and gestures of Jesus, in their natural and obvious import (as will be seen better further on), indicate the sovereign gift of the Master, who offers his Body and his Blood, mysteriously immolated, as food and drink to his disciples.

This doctrine, which spontaneously results from the brief Gospel account, could not have been introduced by St. Paul, as though channeling the abundant waters of pagan religiosity into the narrow bed of Christianity. In fact, a diligent and detailed study of all the historical fragments concerning the ancient religions, especially the mystery religions, has led to the conclusion that "this slice of paganism" (ein Stück Heidentum), to use the expression of O. Holztmann, St. Paul could not have cut from any part of the cults then in force. It has never been proved that the savior gods of Greek-Roman syncretism were gods literally dead and risen, and it is debatable that the mysteries truly intended to commemorate their passion, that the initiates attributed to this passion and to this commemoration a salvific efficacy, that the efficacy derives from the union of the faithful with the passion of the gods, that this union was effected by means of a sacrificial meal, whose essential rite consisted in the distribution to the initiates of blessed bread and a cup of consecrated wine, and finally that the salvation thus obtained was a personal and spiritual salvation, assured for all eternity (cf. J. Coppens, Eucharistie, in DBS, II, col. 1206). Despite these substantial differences, there are distant analogies between the Eucharist and the pagan mysteries; on these there has been too much fantasizing, and "when the crux of the question was reached, people even mistook fireflies for lanterns, or asserted that a mosquito is equal in everything to an eagle, since both have wings and fly and feed on blood" (G. Ricciotti, Vita di Gesù Cristo, 4th ed., Milan 1940, p. 670). On the other hand, even if pagan religiosity had offered some prototype of the Eucharist, the psychology of the convert of Tarsus would have prevented its adaptation to Christianity. An indomitable adversary, by his Jewish origin and his Christian education, of paganism, he bursts out with that cry: "Quae autem conventio Christi et Belial" (II Cor. 6:15) and with that warning: "Nolo vos socios fieri daemoniorum" (I Cor. 10:20), which fully reveal his spirit. Moreover, his position as the last to arrive, as a former persecutor, did not permit him to alter in any way the tradition in the face of those who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus' work, without a chorus of protests rising from every side (cf. E. Pinard de la Boullaye, Gesù Cristo e la storia, Italian trans. by G. Actis, Turin 1931, pp. 117-47).

Recent investigations into Jewish analogies have shown that the Eucharist is a unique rite, which defies any comparison with the data of the Old Testament and with the institutions of Palestinian and Hellenic Judaism (cf. Coppens, Eucharistie, loc. cit., col. 1193).

In particular: F. Campino, Evoluzione di sistemi sulle origine dell'E., in La scuola cattolica, 63 (1935), pp. 296-312; E. Floris, Il metodo della «Storia delle forme», Rome 1933, pp. 141-59; J. de Montschoul, L'Eucharistie dans le Nouveau Testament, in Mélanges théologiques, Paris 1946, pp. 23-48 (critique of O. Colmann). On the supposed relations of the Eucharist with the pagan mysteries: M. Jaquier, Mystères païens et le Paul, in DFC, II, coll. 684-1014; M. J. Lagrange, Mélanges d'histoire religieuse, Paris 1914, pp. 69-130; id., Les mystères d'Etats et le Christianisme: Attit et le Christianisme, in Revue biblique, 28 (1919), pp. 157-217; 419-80; id., Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien, ibid., 29 (1920), pp. 420-46 (critique of Loisy); A. D'Alès, Lumen citæ, 2nd ed., Paris 1916, pp. 38-77; L. Venard, Le Christianisme et les religions des mystères, in Revue du clergé français, 103 (1920), pp. 182-200, 283-88; U. Fracassini, Il misticismo greco e il cristianesimo, Città di Castello 1922; N. Turchi, Fontes historico mysteriorum, Rome 1923; id., Le religioni misteriosofiche del mondo antico, ibid. 1923; M. J. Lagrange, M. Loisy et le modernisme, Juvis 1932, pp. 200-17; A. J. Festugière, L'idéal religieux des Grecs et l'Évangile, Paris 1932; id., Le monde gréco-romain au temps de Notre-Seigneur, 2 vols., ibid. 1935; C. Ruch, Les rites eucharistiques et l'histoire comparée des religions, in M. Brillant, Eucharistie, ibid. 1934, pp. 719-34; L. Allevi, Ellenismo e cristianesimo, Milan 1934, pp. 128-41; G. M. Polestra, I misteri pagani e il cristianesimo, Florence 1944 (with abundant bibliography on pp. 391-401); H. Rabner, Griechische Mythen in christlicher Dämonen, Zurich 1945; N. Turchi, Le religioni misteriche del mondo antico, Milan 1948 (on pp. 125-28 comparison with Christianity). On the relations with Judaism: J. Compens, Les soiélium analogies juives de l'Eucharistie, in Ephemerides théologiques Lavaniennes, 8 (1931), pp. 131-148; id., Eucharistie, in DBe, II, coll. 1102-93.

II. TRUTH OF THE EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE.

I. ERRORS

Gnostic-Manichaean dualism, by attributing material creatures to the principle of evil, had to reject the E. This error, single in its essence, protean in its manifestations, fed, for a millennium, the denial of the real presence. The Docetists, the first in the series, by attributing to Christ an apparent body (ἔσσεω) did not believe that his flesh was in the E. (Ignatius M., Smyrn., 7, 1). The Archontics, widespread in the 4th and 5th centuries in Palestine and Armenia, admitted seven heavens ruled by seven princes, the last of whom, called Saboach, was considered the cause of evil, father of the Jews and institutor of the E. (Epiphanius, Haer., 40: PG 41, 680-84). The Euchites, also called Messalians or Enthusiasts, originating from Mesopotamia and later spread into Pamphylia and Lycaonia, placed the essence of religion in prayer (ἐνγῆ) regarding the E. as an ordinary food (Theodoret, Hist. eccl., 4, 10: PG 82, 1144). The Paulicians, whose origin and name remain obscure, moved from Syria toward Asia Minor and in the 11th century, through the Byzantine Empire, settled in Bulgaria, where, through the work of a certain Bogomil (whence the new name of Bogomils) they gained wide footing (cf. V. N. Scharenkoff, A study of Manicheism in Bulgaria, New York 1927). Subsequently, spreading through all the Balkan countries, through Dalmatia (Traù) they penetrated into Italy (Patarines), into France (Bulgars, Albigensians), into England (Populicians), into Germany (Winckeler). These are the famous Cathars, declared enemies of the E. (cf. S. Runciman, Le manichéisme médiéval, French trans. by S. Pétrement and L. Marty, Paris 1949, passim).

The Eastern error has a cosmological basis, the Western one rather a gnoseological one. In the West, in fact, Berengar of Tours (d. 1088) begins his struggle against the E. taking his starting point from dialectical motives. In that century all of Christendom, guided by Gregory VII, was in ferment. Intellectually three tendencies take shape: anti-dialectical (St. Peter Damian), moderate (St. Anselm), ultra-dialectical. The greatest exponent of the latter is Berengar (v.), who, disregarding arguments from authority, strives to demonstrate, by reason alone, the impossibility of the eucharistic conversion: if wherever the accidents are, there is the substance, noting that after the Consecration the same accidents as before remain, he concluded that nothing has been transformed. Moreover, he adds, nothing can be changed into a pre-existing thing. From these premises he slid into the denial of the real presence: if in the E. there were the Body of Christ, it would have to be present as many times as there are consecrated Hosts; there would be a multiplication of the same Body: this is absurd (cf. Berengarii T. de Sacra Coena adv. Lanfrancum, ed. W. H. Beckenkamp, The Hague 1941, passim). With such reasonings Berengar, if he showed scant theological sense, nevertheless revealed an intellect sharpened to a spirit not afraid to touch the real difficulties inherent in the mystery. The Catholic world was disturbed by it; an avalanche of protests, treatises, condemnations poured upon the audacious scholastic of Tours, who at the Lateran Synod of 1079 abjured his error in the hands of Gregory VII.

In the 12th century Hugh Speroni, echoing the thought of Berengar, held that the bread blessed by Jesus was not his Body, but the sign of his Body (cf. Barino da Milano, L'eresia di Ugo Speroni nella confutazione del Maestro Vacario, Vatican City 1945, pp. 268-289). These ideas circulated among all the medieval sects (Petrobrusians, Waldensians, Flagellants, Tanchelmites, Wycliffites) until they flowed into Protestantism.

Luther did not dare to deny the real presence, above all because (as he himself confessed to the "reformers" of Strasbourg) the Gospel text is too clear, and then because in his soul there always remained that substratum of mysticism, which demanded nearness to and union with Christ. He erred nevertheless, and gravely, on other points of eucharistic doctrine. Carlstadt, the crude and fanatical archdeacon of Wittenberg, was the first who, rebelling against Luther, dared in 1524 to interpret the words "this is my Body" in the sense that with the pronoun "this" the Lord, since it could not signify the bread, which is of masculine gender (dignoc), would have indicated, pointing his finger at himself, his own body in its natural state. Luther inveighed against Carlstadt, who, having found refuge in Strasbourg, spread the error there. Precisely at that time there arrived in Germany the messengers of Cornelius Hoen, a lawyer of The Hague, who carried a eucharistic letter, in which the words "Hoc est Corpus meum" were explained: "Hoc significat Corpus meum". Luther drove them out with scorn; then they directed themselves to Basel, where they were well received by Oecolampadius, who communicated the letter to Ulrich Zwingli, a priest without vocation, who had long been meditating on ridding himself of the E. This was the occasion for him to reveal himself, and the painful and long sacramental controversy was born, which divided the "reformation" at its birth. Carlstadt, Zwingli and Oecolampadius were branded by Luther with the nickname of "flagellators of the Sacrament" or "Sacramentarians", which justly remained with them, because in the E. they admitted only a sacred sign (sacramentum) representing the Body of Jesus. Seeing how much damage this struggle had brought to Luther, Calvin thought to find a kind of compromise, which might succeed if not in erasing at least in covering the profound divisions of the "reformation". Insinuating himself with ambiguous phrases and tortuous periods, the shrewd theologian of Geneva taught that in the E. the Body of Christ is present (which is only in heaven) in the sense that the bread, receiving from on high an irradiation of the virtue of the Lord's Body, acquires a particular sanctifying force, which is transmitted to the communicants (dynamic or virtual presence). The Anglicans slid, despite an apparently orthodox phrasing, toward Calvinistic idolology, until in the 19th century, with the Oxford movement, they attempted to return to the Catholic conception, which Newman reached in 1845, while Pusey remained halfway, who was, after 1845, the venerated head of the Tractarians and Puseyites. In Germany and the other Protestant countries eucharistic faith increasingly weakened, so much so that it is difficult to find an "evangelical", even an orthodox one, who admits the real presence. The liberals, moreover, having rejected the supernatural wholesale, descended to the radical denials, which were treated at the beginning.

The modernists, the last epigones of dogmatic liberalism, while denying the real presence, judge it opportune to behave, before the Catholic tabernacle, as if Christ were present, because this helps to nourish religious sentiment (eucharistic pragmatism: cf. E. Le Roy, Dogme et critique, Paris 1907, pp. 18-20; 258-59). J. Turmel (Histoire des dogmes, V, IV 1936, pp. 205-25) maintains that the dogma of the real presence arose only in the 9th century. References to the E. (permanent symbol of the realization of the mystical Christ) in E. Buonaiuti, Storia del Cristianesimo (I, 2nd ed., Milan 1944, pp. 59, 63).

II. TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

The Church rejected eucharistic errors as they manifested themselves one by one. Her most solemn interventions were prompted by Berengar and by the Protestants.

Against Berengar 13 synods were convened (from 1050 to 1095), of which the most important were: the Lateran Council of 1059 (under Nicholas II), where the heretic was made to read a formula, not entirely felicitous, drawn up by Card. Humbert of Silva Candida (cf. L. Ramirez, La controversia eucaristica del siglo XI: Berengario di Tours a la luz de sus contemporanías, Bogotá 1940, pp. 60-78) and the Lateran Council of 1079, where, before St. Gregory VII, Berengar pronounced this clear formula: «I believe that the bread and the wine... by virtue of the words of the Redeemer are substantially converted (substantialiter converti) into the true and proper... Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ and that after the consecration there is the true Body, which was born of the Virgin, which suffered on the Cross, which sits at the right hand of the Father, and the true Blood, which flowed from his side, not only in sign and figure, but in property of nature and truth of substance (in proprietate naturae et veritate substantiae)» (Denz-U, 355).

The Council of Trent (sess. XIII, chap. 1 to can. 1) struck at the Protestant errors in their various shades: «First of all the Holy Council teaches that in this august sacrament of the Most Holy E., after the Consecration of the bread and wine, under the species of these sensible things, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is contained truly and substantially... If anyone denies that in the Most Holy Sacrament of the E. there are contained vere, realiter, substantialiter, the Body and Blood together with the soul and the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore all of Jesus Christ, but says that in this Sacrament He is present only in sign, or in figure or in power, let him be anathema» (Denz-U, 874, 883). Other documents of the Church in A. D'Alès, De Eucharistia (Paris 1929, pp. 72-73).

III. POSITIVE PROOFS OF THE CATHOLIC TRUTH

Since the real presence is a mystery that surpasses the powers of the intellect and escapes the experience of the senses, it can be known only through revelation.

1. Scripture narrates three facts (the promise, the institution, the celebration of the E. in the early Church) from which the Catholic truth emerges. The promise is recounted by St. John in chapter 6 of his Gospel. Taking as his starting point the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus raises his hearers' thoughts to the idea of a spiritual bread, which is identified with his flesh withdrawn from the natural laws. To these ideas Jesus rises with progressive clarity until he arrives at those limpid expressions, which elude all the subterfuges of a convoluted exegesis: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth

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my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me" (vv. 53-57).

The realism of these expressions stands out all the more from Jesus' attitude toward his hearers. The audience was composed of three classes of persons: the Jews, the disciples, the Apostles.

The Jews, that is, the adversaries who waged unrelenting war against the Lord, understood Jesus' words in the literal sense and cried out that it was absurd: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus' line of conduct, as is evident from the whole Gospel, is the following: when his hearers have misunderstood his words, he takes every care to dispel the misunderstanding (cf. Jo. 3, 3-8; Mt. 16, 6-12), but when they have interpreted them correctly, yet refuse to adhere to them because of the intrinsic difficulty of their content, he does not modify his discourse; on the contrary, he reaffirms the same idea in many ways. In the present case Jesus did not soften the slightest shade of his affirmations; indeed, three times he insisted on the same concept, that his Flesh and his Blood are truly food and drink. The realistic interpretation of the adversaries corresponded exactly to the Master's thought, which with divine firmness withstood the shock of unbelief.

The disciples, less hostile than the Jews, did not deny in absolute terms the possibility of the affirmation, but pointed out its difficulty: "durus est hic sermo." Even before the intellectual unease of the disciples, Jesus did not revoke the least particle of his discourse, but with the kindness he showed to men of good will, he dispelled the crude interpretation with which they understood the words of the promise: they thought, in fact, that Christ's Flesh was to be eaten as one eats butchered meat (the Capernaitic interpretation). Jesus, with a phrase of exquisitely Socratic flavor, said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (v. 64); that is, life always proceeds from the Spirit; therefore my Flesh too, separated from the Spirit, that is, from the Divinity, cannot give life, but united to it, it can quicken in a manner suited to human nature and possible to divine omnipotence. If with this new expression he offered the disciples the key to a higher exegesis, he did not retreat from the position he had taken, as is proved by the fact that from that moment many of the disciples, despite the clarifications they had received, departed from him.

Then Jesus turned to the chosen portion of his hearers and challenged the apostolic college to take a position: "Will ye also go away?" St. Peter, in the name of the Twelve and as though bearing in germ the faith of the whole Church, cried out: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

Engraved in the souls of the Apostles, the words of the promise constitute the natural background against which the scene of the Last Supper is set. When Jesus, barely a year after the discourse at Capernaum, took the bread and said: "this is my Body," and holding in his hands the cup of wine added: "this is my Blood" (Mt. 26, 26-28; Mk. 14, 22-23; Lk. 22, 19-20; I Cor. 11, 24-25), the Apostles in the Master's gesture immediately saw the fulfillment of the promise made on the shores of the lake. And it could not have been otherwise, because the terms are of a particular clarity. The phrase "this is my Body" constitutes a demonstrative proposition in which the subject (this) states confusedly what will be clarified by the predicate; in the predicate Jesus declares his Body, therefore at the end of the proposition the Lord held in his hands, under the appearances of bread, his Body. The words have no other meaning, all the more so since Christ, with a certain emphasis, says: this (τοῦτο) is my Body, this (τοῦτο) very thing which is given and immolated (διδόμενον) for you. Such insistence indicates in an evident manner the identity of his natural Body with the eucharistic one. In the phrase "this is the Blood of the covenant" (τῆς διαθήκης) there echoes the Mosaic expression: "hic est Sanguis foederis" (Ex. 28, 8): the two covenants are set face to face, both established in Blood. True was the Blood of which Moses made use; true is the Blood of which the new lawgiver makes use.

Moreover, in the supreme hours of life no man uses enigmatic expressions; Jesus, true man, did not depart from this psychological law: the disciples noted it, when, during the priestly discourse, they exclaimed: "nunc palam loqueris et nullum proverbium dicis" (Jo. 16, 29). He could not, at that moment in which he was founding the new economy and instituting the greatest Sacrament, use enigmatic expressions, a cause of interminable disputes among his disciples. Jesus moreover had before him, in the mirror of the beatific vision, all Christian generations: he foresaw what the interpretation of his words would be. On the Protestant hypothesis Jesus, despite this, would have used ambiguous terms, so as to deceive the faithful of all centuries. With Christian realism Erasmus wrote to Bero (in 1529), in the midst of the sacramental struggle among the "reformers": "I have never been able to persuade myself that Jesus, the Truth and Goodness itself, permitted that for so many centuries his spouse, the Church, should adore a piece of bread (frustulum farinae) in his stead." A simple and profound argument, which should have deterred the innovators from anxiously searching the Scriptures for footholds for their error. They have accumulated many texts, which would be parallel to the eucharistic phrase "Hoc est Corpus meum," in which the word est would be equivalent to significat. Philology for four centuries has shown the illegitimacy of such a procedure (cf.

H. Hurter, Theologiae dogmaticae compendium, III, 10th ed., Innsbruck 1900, pp. 300-303; J. Lebreton, Eucharistie, in DFC, I, coll. 1357-58; L. Lercher - F. Dander, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, IV, 1, 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1948, pp. 218-19).

Obedient to Jesus' command, "do this in memory of me," immediately after Pentecost the Apostles began the celebration of the eucharistic mystery in all the cities of their evangelical conquests, and thus the "fractio panis" was celebrated in Jerusalem (Acts 2:42), at Troas (Acts 20:7-11), and at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:17-34). And it was precisely in this last city that those disorders arose around the κυριακὸν δεῖπνον which provoked the letter of St. Paul, in which the faith of the nascent Church is caught in the act of its normal exercise. The Apostle indeed, rejecting in ch. 10 as unlawful the eating of idolothytes (meats sacrificed to the gods), uses expressions from which the idea of the real presence shines forth clearly: "The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion (κοινωνία) of the Blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking (κοινωνία) of the Body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). According to the force of the Greek term κοινωνία, St. Paul means to say that eucharistic Communion is the real, physical participation in the Body of Jesus, whole and undivided.

In the following verse 10 he speaks of the social effects of the E. in such a way as to leave the true presence of the Lord's Body to be supposed as undoubted: "We, though many, form one single (mystical) Body, because we partake of one (eucharistic) bread, verse 17": if the E. were any piece of bread whatever, it could not unify the faithful.

In ch. 11, wishing to correct the abuse that had crept in of not waiting for one another at the fraternal agape, which preceded the sacramental supper, St. Paul recalls the account of the institution. The Apostle loves to point out the contrast between the love of Jesus carried to the extreme and the ingratitude of men who at that very moment were plotting the betrayal. The clause "on the night he was betrayed" is certainly chosen for the purpose of turning the faithful of Corinth away from those abuses, which would have placed them in the same line as those who opposed the love of Jesus with the ingratitude of betrayal, and he adds that warning, destined to shake the Christian consciences of all times: "Every time you eat this bread and drink this chalice, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until his second coming. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the chalice of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let each one examine himself, and so eat of this bread and drink of this chalice, for whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks his own condemnation, since he does not discern the Body of the Lord. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a good many have died" (vv. 25-29). If the Body of Jesus were not present under the eucharistic appearances, St. Paul could not say that he eats his own condemnation who does not distinguish the Lord's Body in it from common food.

2. Tradition shows the continuity and homogeneous development of the concepts and of the practice already fixed in the biblical documents. St. Justin Martyr, addressing, toward the middle of the 2nd century, his Apology to the emperor, the Senate and the Roman people, says verbatim: "We have learned (ἐδιδάχθημεν) that the eucharistized food... is the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate Jesus" (Apology, I, 66: PG 6, 427). The first Christians learned from teachers (διδάσκαλοι), whose teaching had a public character, that the consecrated bread and wine were the Body and Blood of Jesus. What is truly striking is this social and collective character of the ancient testimonies concerning the E.: liturgical documents (Didaché, 9 and 10; Traditio Apostolica of St. Hippolytus, ed. Quasten, pp. 29-30; Anaphora of Serapion, 4, 15; Apostolic Constitutions, 8, 11-15); letters to entire communities (Ignatius M., Smirn., 7, 1;

Eph. 20; Phil. 4); catecheses addressed to all candidates for Baptism (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses mystagogicae, III, IV, V: PG 33, 1098-1115; St. Ambrose, De mysteriis, 9, n. 54: PL 16, 407; De Sacramentis, 4, 23: PL 16, 441; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Catecheses, ed. Rücker, Münster 1933, pp. 19-42); homilies delivered in the presence of all the faithful (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. 24 in 1 Cor. 1-4: PG 61, 199-204; St. Augustine, Serm., 207: PL 38, 1099); funerary inscriptions (the epitaph of Abercius and of Pectorius of Autun) and paintings of the catacombs (cf. R. S. Bour, Eucharistie d'après les monuments de l'antiquité chrétienne, in DThC, V, coll. 1183-1209), books of public controversy (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haerat., 4, 18: PG 7, 1027-29; Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, 8: PL 2, 806).

This imposing body of public documents makes known to us not the thought of this or that doctor, but the lived faith of the whole Church. This fides simplex (ἁπλῆ πίστις) universally holds that after the Consecration the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of the Lord. By virtue of this fides, the E. is commonly called the holy thing par excellence: τὸ ἅγιον (Didaché, 9, 15; Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 7, 9), "Sanctum" (Tertullian, De spectaculis, 25: PL 1, 732), and is therefore treated with religious care: "Calicis aut panis etiam nostri aliquid decuti in terram anxie patimur" (Tertullian, De corona, 3: PL 2, 99); "Nestis qui divinis mysteriis interesse consuestis, quomodo, cum suscipitis Corpus Domini, cum omni cautela et veneratione servatis, ne ex eo parum quid decidat, ne consecrati muneris aliquid dilabatur. Reos enim vos creditis, et recto creditis, si quid inde per negligentiam decidat" (Origen, In Ex. hom., 13, 3: PG 13, 391); a cult of adoration is paid to it: "Nemo illam Carnem manducat nisi prius adoraverit" (St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps., 98, 9: PL 37, 1264; cf. St. Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, 3, 79: PL 16, 795; St. John Chrysostom, In Mt. hom., 6: PG 67, 78).

St. Augustine, alluding to the liturgical use of responding Amen at the moment when the priest presented the E. with the formula: Corpus Christi, Sanguis Christi, provides a splendid testimony of the universal faith in the real presence: "Habet magnam vocem Christi Sanguis, cum eo accepto ab omnibus gentibus respondetur: Amen" (Contra Faustum, 12, 10: PL 42, 259).

Christian faith has always sought a rational illustration: fides quaerens intellectum. Alongside the simplex fides of the masses, even in the first centuries an intellectus fidei of the few developed, a science of the faith (γνῶσις), also with regard to the E.: thus theologia eucharistica was born. And it was born spontaneously, out of a didactic necessity (catechetical teaching), out of a polemical need (refutation of errors), out of an exigency of life (Christian spirituality).

The classic catecheses of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, of St. Ambrose and of Theodore of Mopsuestia set forth eucharistic doctrine under a threefold aspect: biblical, theological, liturgical. Beginning from the texts of the New Testament, where the real presence is clearly affirmed, they go back to the Old to identify its figures (τύπος; manna, Melchizedek, paschal lamb) and its allusions (Ps. 5, 22; 33, 49; 52, 103 and Cant., various passages). They then descend to illustrate the intimate meaning (δύναμις) of the E.: the bread and the wine, while preserving their appearances, are truly the Body and Blood of the Lord, who renews his immolation in order to apply its fruits to the faithful. Thus they are introduced into the illustrations of the various rites, which have a symbolic value (sacrament) in relation to the great realities announced by Scripture and made present in the celebration (cf. J. Danielou, La catéchèse eucharistique chez les Pères de l'Église, in La Messe et sa catéchèse, Paris 1947, pp. 33-72).

Error makes one wary. St. Augustine, accustomed to fighting against various heresies, pointed this out: « Many things belonging to the Catholic faith, when they are stirred up by the cunning restlessness of heretics, are scrutinized with greater diligence (et considerantur diligentius), are understood with greater clarity (et intelliguntur clarius), are taught with greater insistence (et instantibus praedicantur) »: De Civitate Dei, 16, 2: PL 41, 477.

For the first defenders of the dogma, the rapid allusions and the subtle connections of the Eucharist with the other mysteries became bulwarks of the truth under attack. Thus St. Irenaeus from the Eucharist demonstrates the possibility and the fittingness of the resurrection of the flesh against the Gnostics (Adv. haeres., 4, 18, 33; 5, 2: PG 7, 1027-29, 1124-27). Tertullian, the reality of the Body of Jesus against the Marcionites (Adv. Marcionem, 1, 14, 5, 50; 5, 8: PL 2, 562, 460, 480), St. Hilary of Poitiers the unity of nature between the Father and the Son, against the Arians (De Trinitate, 8, 13-17: PL 10, 245-49), St. Optatus of Milevis the unity of the mystical body against the Donatists (De schismate Donat., 6, 1: PL 11, 1063), St. Cyril of Alexandria the hypostatic union against Nestorius (Adv. Nestor., 4: PG 76, 192-93), St. Leo the Great the integrity of the human nature of Christ, against the Monophysites (Serm., 9, 3: PL 54, 452). The real presence was a doctrine so deeply rooted in the minds of Catholics as well as of heretics, as to constitute the point commonly admitted in the bitter controversies of those times (cf. J. B. Franzelin, De Eucharistia, 5th ed., Rome 1932, pp. 137-43).

If error makes one attentive, love makes one intelligent, because « amor ipse notitia est ». The first Christians concentrated their investigations on this fundamental cell of the dogma: amor multiplicat inquisitionem. From this they rose to the other mysteries, whose truest and most profound connection they brought to light. Starting from Io. 6, 52-57, considered as the summit of Christian revelation, the Fathers of the Church consider in their mutual relationship the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation and of the Eucharist. The latter is presented by them as a prolongation of the second and as a connecting link with the first, because the divine life, circulating in the bosom of the One and Triune God, communicating itself to us in the Incarnate Word, made our food, makes us ascend to the first source. St. Ignatius martyr, a disciple of St. John, inaugurates the precious series of these testimonies: « The Eucharist is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, that same flesh which was immolated on the Cross for us and which the Father has raised again (Smirn., 7, 1); St. Justin develops this parallelism between the Incarnation and the Eucharist: « As by the power of the Word of God, Christ our Savior took flesh and blood for our redemption, so the food eucharistized by a word (verbusa) of prayer derived from Him, having become Eucharist (of which our flesh and our blood are nourished with a view to a spiritual transformation) is the flesh and Blood of the Incarnate Jesus. Thus we have learned (Apologia, 1, 66: PG 6, 428). In the 4th cent. the idea obtains its fullest development in St. Hilary of Poitiers: « If Christ has truly taken the flesh of our body and, being born of the Virgin, is true man, and we in the Eucharist truly receive the flesh of His Body, and therefore are one thing (unum) because the Father is in Him and He is in us, how can one affirm only the unity of will, if He communicates to us His very nature in the Sacrament of perfect unity? He (Christ) lives for the Father, because in His eternal generation He has not received a nature foreign and different... Therefore with the Son and through the Son we are united with the Father, not only by will and religious homage, but really and inseparably by the dignity of (adoptive) sonship that has been communicated to us and by the same Son, who dwells in us with His flesh. This is the mystery of the true and real unity, which we defend against the heretics » (De Trinitate, 8, 13: PL 10, 246). St. Cyril reaches a greater degree of clarity: « The only-begotten Son, who is generated from the essence of God the Father and has in His nature the Father who generated Him, became flesh, was united with an ineffable union to our nature and with this body of clay willed to reunite what was by nature infinitely separated, God and man, and to make men partakers of the divinity... In order, therefore, that we might attain unity with God, the only-begotten Son found in His wisdom and in the counsels of the Father an admirable way. He sanctifies the faithful with the communion of His Body and makes of all one and the same Body with His (ποσούμοος). We therefore are all one (unum) in the Father, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, by the unity of relation and by the conformity of piety and above all by the communication of the sacred Body of Jesus Christ and of the same Spirit » (In Io. 11, 11: PG 74, 559). This doctrinal synthesis, the fruit of the most mature theology of the Fathers, brings to light two capital points of the Eucharistic dogma: the reality of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament and its identity with the Body born of the Virgin. The reality of the body is evident, because the parallelism between the Incarnation and the Eucharist rests upon it, and it is the same reality that makes one understand that the work of union, begun in the Incarnation, is prolonged and perfected in the Eucharist. The identity of the Eucharistic Body with the historical one is no less clear: the principle, in fact, from which the Fathers start, is that only the body united hypostatically to the Word can be a source of life (panis vitae) and all their efforts are concentrated on explaining how this unique Body « τὸ ἓν ἐκείνο σῶμα » (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio catechetica, 37, 4: PG 45, 94) can reach all the faithful and unify them.

This Eucharistic theology developed in profoundly different spiritual climates. The schools of Antioch and of Alexandria, while adhering with sincere faith to the dogma of the real presence, in illustrating its content they proceeded along their own paths. The Alexandrians (Clement, Origen, Serapion, Cyril) and the Neo-Alexandrians (Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa), led by their Platonism to consider the sensible world (κόσμος αἰσθητός) as an image of the intelligible world (κόσμος νόητός), preferred to consider in the E. the symbolic aspect and not rarely affirm that the consecrated bread (εὐλόγις) is ἀμύθομαι, ἀνδρόναι, ἀγίαν, τύπου, of the Body of Christ. This terminology worried many Catholics until recent times; now, however, a thorough study of the theological conceptions of the Alexandrian didacodeian has dispelled every shadow, because figura, imago, symbolism, representatio imply the presence of the thing signified (cf. H. von Balthasar, Le mysterion d'Origène, in Recherches de science religieuse, 26 [1936], pp. 513-64; 27 [1937], pp. 38-64; I. Danielou, Origène, Paris 1948, pp. 74-79; L. Villette, Recherches sur la théologie sacramentaire d'Origène, Paris 1950). The Antiochenes (John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret), inspired by Aristotelian concreteness and the literal sense of Scripture, considered in the E. rather the reality of the Body and Blood, sometimes making abstraction from the veil by which it is surrounded. Chrysostom, the greatest Eucharistic doctor of the East, uses phrases that a Lutheran symbolist like Loofs qualifies, with little respect indeed, as coarse: "How many today say: I would like to see the face of Jesus, to know his features, to touch his garments and sandals. Behold, in the E., you see him, you touch him, you eat him" (Hom. 82 in Mt. 5: PG 38, 743).

The two tendencies met and fused in St. Augustine, whom Protestants and Modernists acclaimed in vain as the patron of an empty symbolism. The holy Doctor, in fact, to the realism of the purest Roman and African tradition (Hippolytus, Tertullian, Cyprian) joins a symbolism of Alexandrian flavor, developed however in an ecclesiological function, against the Donatist schism. With a limpid process St. Augustine in the E. distinguished: a) id quod scidetur, the sensible species; b) id quod creditur, the Body and Blood of the Lord; c) id quod intelligitur, the complex of the mystery as symbol of the Mystical Body; "What you see is the bread and the chalice; things that fall under your eyes. What your faith demands, here it is: the bread is the Body of Christ, the chalice is the Blood of Christ. All this has been set forth briefly, because it suffices for faith. Faith, however, desires an illustration (fides instructionem desiderat); for the Prophet says: Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis (Is. 7, 9). It seems to me to say: you have commanded us to believe, now explain so that we may understand (intelligere). If you wish to understand (intelligere) what the Body of Christ is, listen to the Apostle: Vas autem estis Corpus Christi et Membra (Rom. 12, 4-5)" (Sermo 272: PL 38, 1346). The two streams of the Antiochene and Alexandrian tradition, which flowed so well into the limpid channel of Augustinian theology, became muddied in the bitter polemic of the 9th century. Paschasius Radbertus pressed, perhaps too much, on realism, while Ratramnus insisted on symbolism, in such a way as to arouse suspicions about his faith. In favor of Ratramnus ranged themselves Rabanus Maurus, Gottschalk of Orbais, Druthmar of Stavelot, Aelfric, Remigius of Auxerre. More numerous and more authoritative were the followers of Paschasius: Haimo of Halberstadt, Adrevald of Fleury, Hincmar of Reims, Gezo of Tortona, Ratherius of Verona, Odo of Cluny. Through the Cluniac monasteries the Paschasian tendency prevailed. At the end of the 10th century, Heriger of Lobbes attempted a conciliation of the two currents, inclining however toward Paschasius, in whose name the truly erroneous symbolism of Berengar of Tours was vanquished. Many were the anti-Berengarian polemicists: Durand of Troarn, Guimund of Aversa, Lanfranc of Canterbury, Alger of Liège, Gregory of Bergamo, who prepared the admirable flowering of the 12th century. The Eucharistic works of Odo of Cambrai, Guibert of Nogent, Geoffrey of Vendôme, Honorius of Autun, Hugh of St. Victor, William of St-Thierry, Peter Lombard, Robert of Melun, Baldwin of Canterbury, Innocent III, are the natural foundation on which St. Thomas

Aquinas, "Eucharistiae praece et vates maximus" (Pius XII, encycl. Studiorum duceum, 29 June 1927) built his compact edifice. Close to the Aquinate worked with intelligence Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, St. Albert the Great, Peter of Tarentaise, Richard of Mediavilla. Scholasticism, in its maturity, elaborated a formula in which realism and symbolism are harmonized in a complete system: Sacramentum tantum: the Eucharistic accidents, symbol and cause of the latent reality; Res et Sacramentum: the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, which are the effect (res) of the Sacramentum tantum constituted of matter (bread and wine) and of form (the words of the Consecration) and the efficacious sign (Sacramentum) of Grace, which unites all communicants (v. computatore) with Christ and among themselves in a mystical organism destined to ascend, with the Head, to the vision of God (res tantum).

This solid system resisted the attacks of Protestantism, which stirred up in the Church new asserters of the dogma, who, availing themselves of the humanistic method, enriched with precious data the positive proof. From St. John Fisher to Card. Mendoza, from John Gropper to St. Robert Bellarmine and Card. Du Perron, until interminable [series] of patristic, liturgical, theological testimonies spread throughout Europe. After centuries of struggles, of congestions and of surprises, the new theology, in which positive culture and philosophical speculation are fused, with Scheeben, Billot and De la Taille has begun to construct syntheses worthy of the great mystery.

On the proofs from Sacred Scripture: in general: N. Wiseman, Horse Syriaca, Rome 1828, pp. 18-53; id., Lectures on the real presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist, London 1836; Lebreton, Ruch, Goossen, Coppere, Arnold, in the works already indicated; L. Perrot, La S. Eucharistie dans son pays d'origine, Paris 1938.

Su s. Giovanni: F. Cavallera, L'interprétation de chapitre VII de Saint Jean, Une contrecerce exégétique au Concile de Trente, in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 10 (1909), pp. 687-700; A. Durand, L'Évangile de St Jean, 13e ed., Parigi 1928, pp. 244-47 (storia dell'esegese); J. Vosté, Studia Johannes, 2e ed., Roma 1930, pp. 195-99; F. S. Müller, Premiatio Eucharistique, in Gregorianum, 11 (1930), pp. 161-70; M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Jean, 3e ed., Parigi 1936, pp. 160-96; D. Holzmellner, Steigerndes Wiederholungen in den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, in Theol. prob. Quetzalschrift, 90 (1937), pp. 86-87; F. Prat, La promesse de l'Eucharistie dans St Jean, in J. Calca, Le p. F. Prat, Parigi 1942, pp. 192-207; L. Tondelli, Cesò accendo a Giovanni, Torino 1943, pp. 110-30; I. Tapia Garrido, El sentido eucarístico del capítulo sexto en las teologías postorientales, Granada 1943; E. B. Allo, L'Évangile spirituel de St Jean, Parigi 1944, pp. 70-71; I. Gillet, Vita in Evangelio I. Ioannis, in Collectanea Mechistonia, 34 (1940), pp. 292-98.

Sui Sinottici: J. Lebreton, La vie et l'enseignement de Jésus-Christ, II, 3e ed., Parigi 1931, pp. 219-31; L. de Grandmision, Jésus-Christ, II, 3e ed., ivi 1931, pp. 69-73; F. Prat, Jésus-Christ,

II, 6ª ed., iv. 1933, pp. 289-88, 507-26; L. C. Fillion, Vita di Gesù Cristo, III, trad. m. di G. Fieri, Torino 1940, pp. 215-46; L. M. Lagarano, L'Evangelo di Gesù Cristo, trad. it. di L. Gramsci, Brescia 1941, pp. 285-321; C. Ricciotti, La vita di Gesù Cristo, 4ª ed., Milano-Roma 1942, pp. 350-78; J. Bonsirven, Les enseignements de Jésus-Christ, Parigi 1946, pp. 370-76.

Su s. Paolo; E. Manganet, L'Eucharistie dans le Paul, in Revue poétique d'apologisations, 13 (1911), pp. 33-48, 303-16, 342-70; P. Van Imschout, L'Eucharistie d'après le Paul, in Coll. Le Gendouen, 9 (1922), pp. 113-20; L. Tondelli, Il pensiero di s. Paolo, Milano 1926, pp. 183-208; E. B. Allo, Première Épître aux Corinthiens, Parigi 1934, pp. 236-45, 269-316; P. Prat, La teologie de s. Paolo, II, trad. it. di G. Albers, Torino 1937, pp. 137-60; H. Henge, L'Eucharistie chez le Paul, in Revue ecclésiastique de Liège, 29 (1938), pp. 161-74; T. Amiot, L'encarpement de la Paul, II, Parigi 1938, pp. 39-40.

Sul document della tradizione, I testi dei Padri concernenti l'E. sono raccolti da F. Beguinot, La très Sainte Eucharistie. Exposition de la foi des douze premiers siècles de l'Église, 3 voll., Parigi 1922 (sonza critica); J. Quanten, Monumente eucaristico et liturgico etristianum, 7 fascicoli del Christogium Patristicum, Roma 1935-37 (ottima); M. J. Roach de Journal, Eucharistique Patriotique, Friburgo in Br. 1947 (v. Index theol., pp. 779-80). In generale: G. Barville, Eucharistie d'après les Pères, in DThC, V, coll. 1141-83; V. Ermani, L'E. nella Chiesa nascente, Roma 1906; G. Rauschen, L'E. e la Pentecza nel primo secolo della Chiesa, Firenze 1909 (da leggere con cautela); P. Barille, Etudes d'histoire poétique, L'Eucharistie, 6ª ed., Parigi 1930 (opera preziosa). In particolare: sull'archéologie cf. R. Bout, Eucharistie d'après les monuments de l'entremité chrétienne, in DThC, V, coll. 1183-1209 (con ampio bibliografia); F. J. Dolger, Die Eucharistie nach Leuchtthe trichristlicher Zeit, Münster 1922; G. Wilpert, La fede della Chiesa nascente, Città del Vaticano 1938, pp. 288-94 (v. DOMATICHE, SCRATIERI), S. Giustina; M. J. Lagarano, Si Postia, Parigi 1914, passim; O. Perle, Lages et LECTURE, 1940, 66, in Divin Thomas, 18 (Friburgo in Br. 1940), pp. 296-316; M. Irenou; A. D'Alex, La doctrine eucharistique de la Lande, in Recherche de science religieuse, 13 (1923), pp. 24-36; A. D. Simonin, A propos d'un texte eucharistique de la Lande, in Revue de science philosophique et théologique, 23 (1934), pp. 281-93; D. Van den Eynde, Eucharistie et duodes rebus cantans, in Antoninum, 15 (1940), pp. 13-28; Tondelli, 1940, pp. 33-70; M. D'Alex, La théologie de Terénilien, Parigi 1902, pp. 335-70; M. D'Alex, La théologie de Cyprien, iv. 1922, pp. 149-71; S. Ambrose et S. Girolamo; S. Lisicki, Quid et Athenium de S. San Eucharisticie, 1940, pp. 335-70; M. S. Agelvic, Doctrine et Héroeux de S. San Eucharistie, Roma 1931; S. Carlile et Gerusalemme et Cappadoci; J. Marquardt, S. Cyrillic et H. Baptism, Christiania, Eucharistie mysticorum interpres, Lippia 1882; J. Maier, Die Eucharistielehre der drei grossen Kappadexter, Friburgo in Svizzera 1915; S. Giovanni Griscomi; A. Nage, Die Eucharistielehre des hl. Johannes Chrysostomus, Friburgo in Br. 1900; A. D'Alex, Un texte eucharistique de la Jean Chrysostome, in Recherche de science religieuse, 23 (1933), pp. 441-63; S. Cirillo Alessandrino; I. Mahé, L'Eucharistie d'après le Cyrillic d'A., in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 8 (1907), pp. 677-96; A. Struckmann, Die Eucharistielehre des hl. Cyrilli von A., Paderborn 1910; H. du Manoir de Juaye, Dugue et spiritualité chez le Cyrillic d'A., Parigi 1944, pp. 188-203; Padri et Scrittori siriosi; T. Lamy, De Syracuse fide et dioridion in Re eucaristica, Lovanio 1899; S. Agostino; C. Adam, Die Eucharistielehre des hl. Augustinus, Paderborn 1908; G. Lecolet, La doctrine de l'Eucharistie chez le Augustin, Parigi 1930 (contro Turmel); G. Bracci, Victima Sancta, Torino 1936 (contro Rauschen); P. Bertocchi, Il simbolismo ecclesiastico dell'E. in v. Agostino, Bergamo 1937; B. Busch, De initiatio Christum secundum doctrinam, Augustini, Roma 1939; G. Alaspina, Le proscenitiae reali et transubstantiatione eucharistica in tradition Africana post Augustinum, Quito dell'Equatore 1943; Th. Camelot, Réalisme et symbolisme dans la doctrine eucharistique de la Augustin, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 31 (1947), pp. 394-410. Per tutto il medioevo: J. R. Gelsemans, Die Eucharistielehre der Vorscholistik, Paderborn 1926; M. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J.

and the Holy Eucharist, Vienna 1903; St. Simonis, Doctrine eucharistica Amalarii Metemis, in Antoninum, 8 (1933), pp. 3-48 (v. ERGENO di LORENI); H. Peltier, Pascale Radbert, abbé de Corbie, Amesn 1938; E. Amann, L'epoca carolingia, in Fliehe-Martin-Frutes, VI, pp. 325-31. On the 11th century: R. Hurtz, Dorand de Troarn et les origines de l'héritie bénangarienne, Paris 1913; P. Shaushnessy, The eucharistic doctrine of Guilmour of Aorou, Rome 1939 (v. BERENGIAO DI TOURO), On the 12th century: J. de Ghellinck, Eucharistie au XVIe siècle en Occident, in DThC, V, coll. 1233-1302 (magistral); L. Briqué, Aléire de Liège, Un théologie de l'Eucharistie au début du douzième siècle, Paris 1936; M. Weisweiler, Die vollständige Kampagne des Blondes von St. Blasiens gegen Berenger: De caritate Corporis et Sanguinis Domini, in Scholastik, 8 (1937), pp. 38-93. On the 13th-15th century: G. Barbero, La dottrina eucaristica negli scritti di papa Innocenzo III, Rome 1948 (tesi dell'Arenzo Anselmiano); E. Manganet, Eucharistie du XVIIe au XVe siècle, in DThC, V, coll. 1202-1326; J. A. Chollet, La doctrine eucharistique chez les scolastiques, Paris 1905; P. X. Kattum, Die Eucharistielehre des hl. Bonaventura, Munich-Frisings 1920; K. Bocci, Die Eucharistielehre der deutschen Mystiker des Mittelalters, Freiburg im Br. 1924; P. Anstriello, La dottrina di Gabriele Biel sull'E., Milan 1937; M. Koezmark, Thomas Woldens doctrine de reall' proscenitiae Christi eucharistica, Poznan 1938; A. Piolanti, Il Corpo mistico e le sue relazioni con l'E. in s. Alberto Magno, Rome 1939; E. Dumontes, La théologie de l'Euchar. à la fin du XVIe siècle, Le témoignage de Pierre le Chantre d'après la « Summa de Sacramenti », in Arch. d'hist. doctr. et litter. du moyen âge, 14 (1945), pp. 181-202. On the 15th-15th century: L. Godfroy, Eucharistie d'après le Concise de Trente, in DThC, V, coll. 1326-35; E. Manganet, Eucharistie du XVe au XXe siècle, in DThC, V, coll. 1336-68; P. Polman, L'élément historique dans la contreverté religieuse du XVIe siècle, Gembloux 1932, pp. 114-35, 441-461; A. Kerkvoorde, Le mystère de l'Eucharistie d'après Schreben, in Nouvelle revue théologique, 76 (1946), pp. 357-64; F. card. Mandeza (d. 1966), De naturali cum Christo unitate libri exilient, quas primum edidit, prolegomena criticiae animacrionibus locupletum A. Piolanti, Rome 1948 (solid confutation of Ecclespedio by a 15th-century author, who knows how to evoke the eucharistic thought of the ancients and of his contemporaries).

III. TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

It is the way by which the Body of Jesus Christ becomes present under the eucharistic species. This term, which appeared in eucharistic literature during the Berengarian controversy and was soon received into the official documents of the Church, became the badge of orthodoxy. Its real content is specified by the Council of Trent, which defines it as « the singular and marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, only the external appearances remaining unchanged » (Denz-U, 884).

Conversion is the passage of one thing into another and implies in its formal concept: a) two positive terms, a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem; b) the ceasing of the one to make room for the other; c) an intrinsic, ontological connection between the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem; d) the permanence of a common element, which serves as a real bond between the two terms that succeed one another.

Transubstantiation is a singular conversion, that is, unique in the whole order of nature; in fact all the conversions that occur in the sensible world either come to change the quantity and quality of things, or at most change the substantial form, as happens, for example, in the passage of wine into vinegar; yet in nature there is no conversion that comes to change matter, the common substratum of all corporeal beings, upon which the infinite variety of sensible things is embroidered. Precisely what naturally cannot happen occurs, by divine omnipotence, in the Eucharist: the total passage of the matter and form of the bread into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

In the total passage of one substance into another is found the characteristic note of transubstantiation and the primary source from which flow all the differences that exist between natural conversions and the eucharistic one. In fact: 1) while in natural conversions prime matter remains unchanged, as a fixed bridge upon which the different substantial forms succeed one another, in the eucharistic conversion matter too is changed, passing entirely, together with its form, into the substance of the Body of Christ; 2) consequently, while in natural conversions there occurs rather a succession of forms that immerse themselves in and emerge from the potentiality of matter, in the eucharistic conversion there is not a succession, but a true mutation of one form into another form, of one matter into another matter; 3) from all this it follows that while in natural conversions, through the succession of forms, both the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem undergo alterations (corruption-generation), in the eucharistic conversion, since matter does not remain, no succession of forms is possible, and therefore, while the conversive action touches the whole substance of the bread, which in an instant is transmuted into the substance of the Body of Christ, it does not reach in any way the Body of the Lord, which remains intact and impassible. For these reasons transubstantiation is a singular conversion, that is, outside the realm of experience.

For the same reason it is marvelous, that is, mysterious, since, being removed from experience (from which the intellect naturally rises to the idea), man cannot form an adequate concept of it, but must content himself with pale analogies.

According to the Council of Trent, transubstantiation implies three articles of faith: 1) the real presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species of bread and wine; 2) the absence of the substance of the bread and wine under the sacramental species; 3) the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ and the absence of the bread and wine is explained by the total conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Jesus. This last article can in no way be neglected, because in it the ultimate reason for the real presence is declared. Thus declared Pius VI in the dogmatic bull Auctorem Fidei issued in 1794 against the Synod of Pistoia (Denz-U, 1529).

These three articles of faith are derived logically from the analysis of the words of institution: «This is my Body», «this is my Blood». In fact these words constitute a demonstrative proposition, in which the pronoun «this» indicates confusedly a substance lying under the external appearances, whose nature is determined by the predicate. In the present case Jesus in the predicate enunciates his Body; it is to be held therefore that under the species of the bread the Body of the Lord is present (art. 1).

Furthermore, in every demonstrative proposition, in order for it to be true, the substance indicated confusedly by the pronoun must be identical to that specified in the predicate. Now, since in the predicate the Body of Christ is enunciated, it follows that under the appearances of the bread there is no longer the substance of the bread, but that of the Body of the Lord (art. 2).

Finally, every demonstrative proposition either enunciates the identity already pre-existing between the substance hidden under the external species and that indicated in the predicate, as when one says: this is a book (speculative demonstrative proposition), or it produces the identity that did not exist, as happens in the present case, because at the beginning of the proposition, when Jesus was pronouncing the pronoun «this», really under the external appearances there lay the substance of the bread, while at the end, instead, the substance of his Body. Therefore this non-existent identity had to be produced by an act of his omnipotence; otherwise his affirmation would have been false (practical demonstrative proposition). Such an identity could be effected only by the total conversion of the substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Jesus, with only the external species remaining unchanged (art. 3).

Tradition moves decisively along the trajectory of these ideas; in fact all the Fathers repeat that in the E. a) the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are present; b) the bread is absent, despite the fact that the senses perceive its external appearances; c) and that this happens through the mysterious passage of the bread into the Body of Jesus. Regarding this last point, a process of clarification is noticeable. The earliest Fathers content themselves with stating, with St. Irenaeus (Adv. haeres., 5, 2, 3: PG 7, 1126), that the bread becomes (γίνεται) the Body of Christ.

The great Doctors of the Christian East, aware of the particular difficulty of expressing this, almost storm the idea, which surpasses every analogy, multiplying terms. It is therefore called by them conversion (μεταβολή: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Myst., 5, 7: PG 33, 1116), transdetermination (μεταστοιχείωσις: Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. Catech., 37: PG 45, 96-97), translation (μεταβήθωσις: John Chrysostom, Hom. i in prodizione Iudae, n. 6: PG 49, 380), transposition (μεθίωτορις: Cyril of Alexandria, In Lc. 22, 19: PG 72, 911), transformation (μεταπόλεσις: John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, 4, 13: PG 94, 1146).

Toward the end of the 4th century St. Ambrose gave the traditional doctrine this limpid formulation: «How can the bread become the Body of Christ? By means of the Consecration. By what words is the Consecration effected? By the words of the Lord Jesus... When the moment comes to accomplish the holy mystery, the priest ceases to speak in his own name, he speaks in the name of Christ. What is the word of Christ? That very word which created all things. The Lord spoke and the heaven was made; the Lord spoke and the earth was made; the Lord spoke and the seas appeared; the Lord spoke and all creatures leaped forth from nothing. If therefore such is the power of the words of Jesus Christ that things which did not exist began to be, how much more efficacious will they be in causing things which already existed to be converted into others (in aliud commutantur)» (De Sacramentis, l. 4, cap. 4, nn. 14-15: PL 16, 439-41).

On this track walked the first Scholastics, and the name «transubstantiatio», which began to be used toward the middle of the 12th century, did nothing but channel into the same current the rivulets of the more ancient Greek and Latin tradition; welcomed by the great masters of the 13th century, it soon entered the documents of the ecclesiastical magisterium (Denz-U, 355, 430, 465, 581, 698) until it was declared by the Council of Trent the «most apt» expression of the Catholic dogma (Denz-U, 884).

In accordance with these principles, the Church condemns as heretical or rejects as erroneous all those opinions that explain the fact of the real presence by any other way than by the total conversion of the substance of the bread into that of the Body of Christ. Such are the ubiquism of Flacius Illyricus (d. 1577), who made the created and finite Body of Jesus a participant in the divine immensity; the companation of Luther, which established the coexistence of the bread with the Body of the Lord; the impanation of Rupert of Deutz, of John of Paris and of Joseph Bayma (v.), who admitted a kind of hypostatic union of the bread with the Body of Jesus; the assimilation of Durandus and of Descartes, which does not go beyond the physiological phenomenon.

On the other hand, those theological opinions are admitted by the Church which, faithful to the concept of total conversion, have for many centuries disputed the primacy of the correct understanding of the dogma. The difference that divides the Scholastics of the 13th century from those of the 16th-17th centuries lies in interpreting the total conversion in the proper and formal sense or in the improper and equivalent sense.

St. Thomas, with Alger of Liège, Alexander of Hales, St. Albert the Great and St. Bonaventure, understands the conversion in the proper and formal sense. The itinerary along which, with tight logic, the Angelic Doctor proceeds, starts from the revealed fact of the real presence: «A thing cannot be where it previously was not except by local motion or by the conversion of another thing into it, as fire begins to be in a house either because it is brought there or because it is produced there by the conversion of the wood that is found there.

It is clear that the Body of Christ does not begin to exist in the E. by local motion, first because it would have to leave heaven, second because it would have to traverse all the intermediate spaces, third because it would have to reach simultaneously by a single movement as many places as there are consecrated particles, which is impossible. There remains nothing else than that the Body of Christ begins to be present in the E. by the conversion of the substance of the bread into it» (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 75, n. 2). Therefore the terminus a quo, the substance of the bread, ceases, because it is proper to conversion that the starting term no longer remain; in ceasing it does not fall into nothingness, because it is a requirement of conversion that the terminus a quo be changed into another positive term and not fall into nothingness, which is a negative term. On the other hand, if the substance of the bread were destroyed, the way to the real presence would remain blocked; it therefore passes into the terminus ad quem, that is, into the Body of Jesus, and passes into it totally, because the formula used by Christ, as was seen above, excludes the compresence of the substance of the bread. And precisely because it is total, this conversion is absolutely supernatural and mysterious, that is, exceeding the capacity of the created intellect but not repugnant to it, since if the human intelligence cannot discern its intimate nature, it can nevertheless demonstrate its non-impossibility on the part of God; in fact the divine omnipotence, extending to all being, matter and form, can touch it in its roots and transmute it totally into another. Nor is it impossible on the part of the two extremes: since it is proper to conversion that the two terms be linked to each other by an ontological nexus, at first sight this real link seems to be lacking in the present conversion, because by the fact of its totality it leaves nothing of the starting term subsisting; but, St. Thomas acutely replies, «the reason of being remains common to the two extremes» (loc. cit., q. 75, n. 4, ad 3).

From the totality of the conversion of the substance of the bread it follows, as a natural corollary, that the terminus ad quem, that is, the Body of Christ, undergoes no alteration. In fact, in total conversion the corruption of the terminus a quo is not possible, to which would correspond the generation or mutation of the incipient term.

The opinion of St. Thomas comprises three affirmations: 1) the substance of the bread is not destroyed, but transmuted into the substance of the Body of Christ; 2) the Body of Jesus remains impassible, that is, it is in no way touched by the conversive action, which operates solely on the substance of the bread; 3) between the two extremes there holds an intrinsic, ontological nexus.

To these three cornerstones of the doctrine of the Aquinate the conceptions of the theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries stand diametrically opposed, according to whom 1) the bread is annihilated, in order to give place to the Body of the Lord; 2) the Body of Christ is made present by an adductive action (Bellarmine, De Eucharistia, l. III, ch. 18; Lugo, De Eucharistia, disp. 7, sect. 6), or a reproductive one (Suárez, De Eucharistia, disp. 50, sect. 4; Lessius, De perfectionibus moribusque divinis, l. XII, ch. 16) that touches it directly; 3) between the annihilation of the substance of the bread and the adduction or reproduction there holds a logical, extrinsic connection, inasmuch as God destroys the bread for the purpose of adducing or reproducing under its species the Body of Jesus.
EUCHARIST. - Last Supper, 14th-century sculpture, detail of the cathedral portal - Altamura.

They then hold that this conception verifies, if not in a proper sense, at least in equivalent terms, the total conversion required by Catholic dogma.

These opinions certainly remain within the bounds of orthodoxy, but when compared with the principles established by the ecclesiastical magisterium, they seem not to exhaust them perfectly. The Church speaks a) of a conversion of the substance of the bread; b) of an impossibility of the glorious Body of Jesus; c) of an intrinsic connection existing between the two extremes.

While the Thomistic explanation is in perfect harmony with these data, the theories of the 16th and 17th centuries seem in some way to clash with each of them and to remain entangled in a tangle of difficulties that spontaneously present themselves to thought. In fact, given the annihilation of the bread and the adduction, or the reproduction, of the Body of Jesus, it is not possible to speak of a true conversion, which imports in its formal concept the passage of one thing into another and not the total destruction of one so that it may give place to another adduced or reproduced. Moreover, the bond between the destruction of the bread and the adduction or reproduction of the Body of the Lord can only be logical, that is, extrinsic and not arising from the real connection of the ontological succession of two substances. Nor is it understood how the glorious and impassible Body of Jesus can be adduced under the eucharistic species without leaving its original seat and without traversing the intermediate spaces. Nor is it seen how the same Body of Jesus can be reproduced as many times as there are consecrations and remain the same, one, identical Body that was born of the Virgin.

IV. MODE OF THE EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE.

The mode of the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ considered in itself (absolute) and in its relation to the sensible species (relative) is linked to the eucharistic conversion, because, since this takes place between two substances, with absolute exclusion of the accidents, it necessarily has as its term the substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord.

Therefore directly and per se, that is, by the words of the Consecration (vi verborum), under the species of the bread only the substance of the Body is present, and under the appearances of the wine only the Blood of the Lord is present. But since after the Resurrection in Christ the Body, the Blood, the Soul and the Divinity are really and inseparably united, by natural consequence and almost indirectly (vi naturalis concomitantiae) under the species of the bread the Blood, the Soul and the Divinity are also present, and under the species of the wine the Body, the Soul and the Divinity are also present, that is, under both species together «totus et integer Christus» is present, as the Council of Trent defines, following the data of Revelation (Denz-U, 885); by this expression it is meant that the Body of Jesus is there with all its organized quantity, as that of a perfect body, which enjoys the fullness of sensitive life.

Since, however, the substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord is present directly and per se, the quantity, which is there by consequence and by accident, is brought to exist in the manner of substance, per modum substantiae, that is, acquiring the mode of being proper to substance. In fact, if the quantity were present in the connatural mode, it would have to weigh, extend beyond the limits of the Host, fill the place occupied by another quantity (that of the accidents of the bread and wine), which is impossible, indeed contradicted by experience and by the data of Revelation, which assures us of the glorious and impassible state of the Body of Jesus.

Although this mode of presence is mysterious (a corollary of transubstantiation), nevertheless the human intellect cannot demonstrate its repugnance, because it is ignorant of the intimate nature of the two extremes on which it depends: the divine omnipotence, which is inexhaustible, and the nature of corporeal substance, which escapes both the acumen of the philosopher and the eye of the scientist, as results from the many conjectures formulated concerning bodies both in the field of philosophy and in that of experience (v. the up-to-date study by F. Selvaggi, Il concetto di sostanza nel dogma eucaristico in relazione alla fisica moderna, in Gregorianum, 30 [1949], pp. 7-45). «Ignorance on the side of material substance, ignorance on the side of God's omnipotence, this is how we are armed to judge the eucharistic miracles» (G. M. Monsabré, Esposizione del dogma, Italian trans. by G. Bononelli, Turin 1949, conf. 68).

Revelation presents analogies that help the human mind to glimpse the possibility of this mystery. The Gospel recounts that the glorious Body of Jesus appeared free from gravity and from impenetrability when he walked on the waves and entered the upper room through closed doors. Based on these facts, illustrious theologians, such as Franzelin, thought of a «supernatural mechanics» with higher laws that escape any experience.

Since the Body of Jesus is present with its quantity in the manner of a substance, which, like the soul, is whole in the whole body and whole in the individual parts, it follows that the same Body of Christ is present whole in the whole Host and whole in the individual fragments, both after (as the Council of Trent defines [Denz-U, 885]) and before the fraction of the Host. From this, however, it does not follow that before the fraction the Body of Jesus is present an infinite number of times in the Host, because, as St. Thomas observes, "number follows division. Therefore, as long as the quantity remains undivided, the substance of a thing is present only once under its dimensions" (Summ. Theol., 37, q. 76, a. 3 ad 1).

The substance of the Body of Christ, in turn, is present in a singular manner, because it excludes all the modes of presence that are found in nature. Indeed, it is not present by quantitative contact, because, although it has all its dimensions, it does not thereby bear a relation to the species of the bread; nor by informative and virtual contact, as the soul and the angel are present in a body, because the Body of Jesus does not influence the species either as a formal cause or as an efficient cause; nor by ubiquity, which belongs to God, because the intrinsic power of the Body of Christ is limited and therefore cannot embrace all beings, containing them within its power so as not to be contained by them; but it is present by the simple and mysterious relation of containment which, through transubstantiation, the species acquire with regard to the Body of the Lord, so that as these relations are multiplied, the presence of the same body is multiplied (v. ACCIDENTI EUCARISTICI).

This mode of presence, mysterious and glorious at once, reserved to the Body of Jesus, is called by the technical term, sanctioned by Trent (Denz-U, 874), "sacramental."

Brac.: F. X. Wild, Explanatio mirabilium quae divina potentia in angustissimo Eucharistiae sacramento operatur, Bonn 1868; A. Lépicier, Le meraviglie eucaristiche alla luce della filosofia cristiana, Rome 1913; J. Vásquez de Mella, Filosofia de la Eucharistia, 2nd ed., Barcelona 1928; F. de Lanverain, La priaure eucharistique, in Recherche de science religieuse, 23 (1935), pp. 196-198; A. Verhamme, De modo praesentiae Christi in Sacramento, in Colletiones Brugenses, 20 (1935), pp. 384-50; id., De doctior praesentiae Christi in Eucharistia, ibid., pp. 435-50; L. Baudinot, Notre Seigneur n'est-il présent qu'une fois dont l'Hostie?, in Revue apologetique, 63 (1937), pp. 546-61; B. Ayala, De oclusi ecrezione Christi in Eucharistia in sententia Doctoris Ecclesiam, Rome 1930 (tesi dell'Univ. Gregoriana); J. Vas der Meersch, De praesentiae Christi in Eucharistia, in Colletiones Brugenses, 24 (1939), pp. 465-66; R. Masi, La teoria suarecena della teoria eucaristica, Rome 1942; A. Vonier, La clef de la doctrine eucharistique, Lyon 1942 (sui modo estremamente della presenza); F. Orozco, La explicacion de santo Tomas sobre la presencia del cuerpo de Cristo en la Eucharistia «per modum substantiae», Rome 1943 (tesi dell'Univ. Gregoriana); V. de Montcheuil, La raison de la permanence du Christ sous les espèces eucharistiques d'après si Bonaventure et si Thomas, in Méloures théologiques, Paris 1945, pp. 71-82; G. Loreti, La dottrina della presenza eucaristica in Durando di S. Porziano, Rome 1949; E. C. Nuñez Goerjaga, El valor y funciones de la presencia real integral de Temacristo en el Sacramento, según la doctrina eucaristológica de S. Tymos, Toulouse 1949.

V. CONCLUSION: THE E. IN THE DIVINE PLAN.

At the moment of transubstantiation a series of portents is accomplished: the conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, the attraction of the quantity to exist per modum substantiae, the sacramental multi-presence of the same Body of Jesus, the permanence of the accidents without a subject of inhesion: the life of the universe hangs upon that instant. For four centuries Protestantism seems to say: "ad quid perditio haec?" Why trouble the Divinity and demand so many marvels when faith alone unites us to Christ? The E. is useless.

Let us return to the Gospel: Jesus in the discourse of Capernaum indicated the close bond that unites the E. to the Incarnation. Whoever considers the E. superfluous must reject any mediation of the Incarnate Word. It is down this fatal slope that liberal Protestantism has slid.

The divinity of Jesus, humbly accepted, illumines the shadows of the mystery, dispels the difficulties. Faith in the real presence, a prolongation of the Incarnation, unites us to Christ, as the Incarnation brings us near to God. If the Incarnation is God becoming man, the E. is God becoming every man: "Per hoc sacramentum omnes nos sibi univit Deus, cum in Incarnatione non univerit sibi nisi unius solius naturam" (Albert the Great, In Mt. 26, 27; ed. Borgnet, XXI, col. 165). Thus God enters not only into the limits of our nature, but also into those of our person. The transubstantiation of the bread into the Body of Jesus is the emblem of the supernatural transformation of our being, which the Greek Fathers call divinization (Quincoloc). In the eucharistic banquet the most intimate union between God and man is brought about: all humanity is the "sodalizio eletto alla gran cena." As at Cana the Mother of Jesus intervened in the accomplishment of the prodigy, a figure of the E., which consoled the hearts of the spouses and provoked the faith of the disciples, so in this perennial feast where all the faithful "sicut novellae olivarum" surround the table of the Church, Mary is present, a generous dispenser of favors to the guests, mediatrix between Christ and the Church, Mother of the Head and of the members: Mater unitatis. Jesus, who entered the world the first time through the Mother, returns there with Mary and through the E., inscribes himself in the fabric of individual life, permeating it with his divine outpourings, grafts himself into the course of social life, cementing its structure in the cohesive force of love, raises himself as the summit of creation in a cosmic repercussion touching the mysterious roots of substance and binding heaven and earth in an eternal embrace.

BIBLI: L. Thomassio, Dogmata theologica de Incarnatione Verbi Dei. Venice 1730, pp. 608-727; V. Contenson, Theologia mentis et cardis. IV. Turin 1770, pp. 136-44; F. Hettinger, Apologia del cristianesimo, trad. it., II. Pistoia 1896, pp. 61-69; Ph. Gerbert, Considérations sur le dogma de l'Eucharistie, 19th ed., Paris 1801; L. Lessio, De perfectionibus marihuncus divinis, 3rd ed., Paris 1912, pp. 268-79; F. G. Faber, Il Santo Sacramento, trad. it., Turin 1931, pp. 357-469; H. Benson, L'amicizia di Cristo, trad. it., Brescia 1936, pp. 67-78; A. Schütz, Christus mit uns. Munich 1939; A. Piolanti, L'E. e la Vergine, in Tabor, 2 (1948, t), pp. 317-21; M. I. Scheeben, I misteri del cristianesimo, edited by I. Gorlami, Brescia 1949, pp. 344-94; J. Knox, De necessitudine Deiporum inter et Eucharistiam, Rome 1949; Ch. De Keyser, La Vierge Marie et l'Eucharistie. Essai théologique et excétique, Montreal 1949; A. Piolanti, L'E. e il Papa, in Tabor, 3 (1949, t), pp. 528-35. Above all the encyclical of Leo XIII, Mirae caritatis, of 18 May 1902.

In general: St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 3a, qq. 73-85 with the classic commentaries of Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, Gonet, Billaert, Gotti; J. B. Franzelin, De SS. Eucharistia, Rome 1868 (3rd ed. edited by G. Filogrossi, ibid. 1932); I. C. Hedley, The holy Eucharist, London 1907; L. Labauche, Lettres d'un étudiant sur la Sainte Eucharistie, Paris 1912; D. Coghlan, De Eucharistia, Dublin 1913; C. Gutherler, Das M. Sakrament des Altars, Regensburg 1919; G. Ballerini, Gesù eucaristico e i suoi oppositori, Pavia 1923; G. Mattiussi, De SS. Eucharistia, Rome 1925; A. D'Alès, De SS. Eucharistia, Paris 1929; Id., Eucharistie, ibid. 1929; A. Janssens, Die heilige Eucharistie, Louvain 1929; M. De la Tulla, Mysterium fidei. De angustissimo Corporis et Sanguinis Christi sacrificio atque sacramento, 3rd ed., Paris 1931 (monumental work); L. Billot, De Sacramentis, I, 7th ed., Rome 1931, pp. 313-661 (vigorous speculative synthesis); A. E. Lépicier, De SS. Eucharistia, 2nd ed., 2 vols., ibid. 1931; M. Brillant, Eucharistie, Encyclopédie populaire sur l'Eucharistie, Paris 1935 (with the collaboration of numerous authors); L. Percot, La foi en la Ste Eucharistie, ibid. 1939; A. Van Hove, De SS. Eucharistia, 2nd ed., Malines 1941; R. Garrigou-

Lagrange. De SS. Eucharistia. Turin 1943: F. Carpino. De SS. Eucharistia. Rome 1943 (for private use): E. Hugon. La S. Eucaristia. Italian trans., Turin 1947: I. Filgerassi. De SS. Eucharistia. 4th ed., Rome 1947: A. Pielanti. De Sacramentis, 2nd ed., ibid. 1947, pp. 161-303; E. Doronzo. De Eucharistia, 2 vols., Milwaukee 1947-48; L. Lerober-F. Dandar. Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae. IV, part 1, 2, Innsbruck 1948, pp. 305-383; J. Pohle, s. v. in Cæli. Euc., V, coll. 572-90; Th. Späbl, s. v. in LThK, III, coll. 820-30. The reflections of the E. on art were brilliantly illustrated in 1900 by A. D. Sertillanges. L'Eucharistie. Paris 1931: M. Vleberg. L'Eucharistie dans l'art, 2 vols., ibid. 1941; C. Costantini. Dio nascosto. Splendori di fede e di arte nella S. E., Rome 1944.

Antonio Pielanti

THE EUCHARIST IN MORALS AND IN LAW.

1. MATTER OF THE EUCHARIST

The Sacrifice of the Mass must be celebrated with wheat bread and natural wine of the vine, into which a very small quantity of water is poured (can. 814): Latins must use unleavened bread; almost all Orientals use leavened bread (can. 816). Some qualities of the bread and wine are required for the validity of the Consecration; others, on the other hand, only for liceity.

1. Valid matter

For the validity of the Consecration it is necessary: a) that the bread: α) be made with wheat flour (can. 815 § 1). Any variety of wheat that in common estimation is held to bear that name is valid matter. Bread of emmer and of spelt is commonly held to be valid matter, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3rd, q. 74, a. 3, ad 2). Invalid matter is bread of beans, peas, chestnuts, barley, oats, rice, maize, millet, etc.; doubtful matter is bread of rye, of starch, of gluten, as also colored hosts.

For the validity of the Consecration it does not matter that the wheat be ground and even merely crushed (Holy Office, 23 June 1853). It does not harm the validity of the Consecration if so small a quantity of another substance is mixed with the wheat flour that it must still be held to be true wheat flour. β) It be kneaded with natural water. Bread kneaded with any natural water is certainly valid matter, even if it be mixed with a minimal quantity of another substance (milk, oil, etc.). Bread kneaded with another liquid (wine, milk, oil) or with another substance (eggs, butter) is certainly invalid matter. Bread kneaded with artificial water (rose water or water distilled from plants, herbs, or fruits) and kneaded with natural water to which a notable quantity of oil, or butter, or eggs, or milk has been added is at least doubtful matter. γ) It be baked by fire (of natural or electric heat). Raw dough, boiled and fried and dried in the sun, is invalid matter. δ) It be not corrupted (can. 815 § 1 and De defectibus in celebrationis Missarum occurrentibus, tit. III, n. 4, 5). If the corruption is incipient, the Consecration is valid, but illicit (cf. De defect., etc., tit. III, n. 3; cf. Rituale Rom., tit. IV, cap. 1, n. 7; S. Congr. of Rites, 16 Dec. 1826; n. 2850).

b) That the wine: α) Be of the vine (can. 815 § 2). Therefore invalid matter is fruit wine, artificial wine, even if obtained with all the elements of true wine, and the thin wine (piquette) obtained from grape pomace and an infusion of water. Wine from wild grapes is doubtful matter (cf. S. Congregation of Prog. Fide, 1819). β) Be from grapes more or less ripe. Therefore verjuice is invalid matter, even if corrected with a notable quantity of sugar. γ) It have fermented or at least begun to ferment: otherwise it lacks alcohol, without which there is no wine. δ) It be drinkable. Therefore invalid matter are grape berries, the wine with which the bread is soaked, and mustard. Frozen wine, on the other hand, is valid matter. ε) Uncorrupted. Such is not the wine to which so notable a quantity of water or sugar has been added that it can no longer be called wine; likewise wine that has turned to vinegar and putrid wine. If, however, it begins to sour or to rot, it is valid matter, but illicit (cf. De Defect., etc., tit. IV, n. 1, 2). Wine made from raisins is valid matter, provided that from its color and taste it is known to be wine (Holy Office, 22 July 1906;

7 May 1879; 10 Apr. 1889; cf. A. Lehmkuhl, Theologia moralis, 12th ed., II, Freiburg im Br. 1914, n. 162, note 1).

2. Licit matter

For the liceity of the Consecration it is necessary: a) that the bread: α) be unleavened for Latins, leavened for Greeks and other Oriental rites (can. 816). If, however, after the Consecration of the most precious Blood it is noticed that the bread is corrupted, the Latin priest may consecrate leavened bread, if he cannot have unleavened; because the obligation to complete the Sacrifice is of divine precept, whereas to use unleavened bread is only of ecclesiastical precept. For the same reason it is probably licit for the Latin priest to consecrate leavened bread in order to administer Viaticum when he cannot have unleavened. β) Be recent (cf. can. 815 § 1; col. 1272). Bread made no more than twenty days ago is called recent. In practice one must adhere to diocesan prescriptions or to sound local customs (cf. S. Congregation of Rites, 16 Dec. 1826, n. 2650; S. Congregation of the Sacraments, 7 Dec. 1918; AAS, 11 [1919], p. 8). γ) Be pure; that is, of wheat flour without the least mixture of another substance. δ) Be clean and whole. That it is a grave sin to use an enormously broken host is affirmed by St. Alphonsus (Theologia moralis, I, VI, n. 204, ed. L. Gaudé, III, Rome 1909, pp. 181-82), when no necessity excuses it or the defect is noticed before the oblation. Others (A. Ballerini-D. Palmieri, Opus theologicum morale, 3rd ed., IV, Prato 1898-1901, tract. X, sect. IV, n. 20) see no grave fault in it if scandal is excluded. ε) Be altogether uncorrupted. To use moldy bread is a grave sin (cf. De defect., tit. III, n. 3). ζ) Be (among Latins) in the form of a large and round host: which is not prescribed under pain of grave sin. In the absence of a large host it is licit to consecrate a small one.

b) That the wine: α) Be perfect, that is, of complete fermentation. To use must not yet fully fermented is illicit, if perfect wine is available. It is licit to use wine obtained from must condensed before vinous fermentation by means of evaporation over fire, when no other wine is available, provided that the boiling does not exclude alcoholic fermentation and that the natural fermentation itself is in fact possible (Holy Office, 5 Aug. 1906). β) Be pure; that is, without even the least mixture of another substance. However, it is licit to add to wine that is too strong or too sweet water in a quantity not exceeding 4% before fermentation begins or while fermentation is not yet finished; or to add alcohol or sugar to weak or sour wine in a quantity not exceeding 3% (Holy Office, 7 Aug. 1896); or to use wine obtained from sulfured must (Holy Office, 2 Aug. 1922). γ) Be altogether uncorrupted. Therefore it is a grave sin to use, without grave necessity, wine that has soured, although it has not yet become invalid matter (cf. De defect., etc., tit. IV, n. 2). As has been said, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be offered with bread and wine, into which a very small quantity of water has been mixed (can. 814; Sum. Theol., 3, q. 74, a. 6-8). This is obligatory under pain of mortal sin (cf. De defect., etc., tit. IV, n. 2). Natural water must be mixed, and it is to be poured into the chalice immediately after the pouring of the wine, by the celebrant himself in a private Mass, by the subdeacon in a solemn Mass. It is sufficient to pour even a single little drop; but it does not harm the validity of the Sacrifice if the mixture consists of 2/3 wine and 1/3 water.

II. FORM OF THE EUCHARIST

1. The form of the Consecration is: for the bread: Hoc est enim Corpus meum; for the wine: Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti: mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. The words: Hoc est Corpus meum: Hic est Calix Sanguinis mei, are of the essence. All the others are not required for the validity of the Consecration. But since there exists a opinion that holds the contrary and this is not altogether improbable, they must be pronounced, and under pain of grave sin. The words: Haec quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis, are not of the essence; but they cannot be omitted without sin.

The words: Qui pridie, etc.; Simili modo, etc. which precede respectively the Consecration of the bread and of the wine, must be pronounced sub gravi; but they do not belong to the form, still less to the essence of the Consecration: this doctrine is almost certain. No fully voluntary variation (omission, addition, transposition, substitution of words) of the form is exempt from grave sin. Some of them, moreover, render the Consecration null and at least doubtful.

2. For the validity of the Consecration it is necessary that the form be pronounced over matter that is present and determined. Present (physical presence), that is, placed before and near the celebrant. Therefore the Consecration is null of matter placed behind the celebrant's back or behind the altar: at least doubtful is the Consecration of matter distant from the celebrant by more than fifty paces or enclosed in the tabernacle or placed under the corporal or among the pages of the missal. Determined (moral presence): that is, it is necessary that the celebrant intend to consecrate determined matter. Therefore he consecrates invalidly who, wishing to consecrate only one of the two hosts that he holds in his hands, does not determine which; who, having the intention of consecrating only what he is aware of as present or having never made the purpose of consecrating unknown matter, is not aware of the presence of the matter (De defect., tit. VII, n. 1). On the other hand, he validly consecrates two hosts who, believing he has only one, has the intention of consecrating what he holds in his hand; who has placed, or has ordered to be placed, or was aware or was informed that the pyx was being placed on the corporal, and then, distracted, neither at the Offertory nor at the Consecration uncovered the pyx itself. Matter involuntarily placed outside the corporal is not consecrated, if the priest intended to consecrate only what was on the corporal; it is consecrated if he intended to consecrate also what was involuntarily outside the corporal; it is probably consecrated, even though it is uncertain what intention he had: because it must be presumed that he also willed to consecrate this matter. In practice it is better to reconsecrate it under condition at another Mass.

III. MINISTER OF CONSECRATION

The minister of the Consecration is only the priest who in the person of Christ consecrates and sacrifices (cf. Trid., sess. XXII, De Sacrificio Missae, c. 2, 3; Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 82, a. 1, 7, ad 3; can. 802). 1. To consecrate validly, besides what was already said about the matter, there is required in the minister at least the intention of doing what the Church does. A virtual implicit intention (v.) suffices; but, as was already said, it must be determined with regard to the matter to be consecrated. 2. To consecrate licitly: a) The matter: a) must have the qualities already mentioned above; b) must be placed on the corporal; therefore he sins gravely who consecrates matter placed or left voluntarily outside it; c) at least at the time of the Consecration, it must be placed on the altar stone, if the altar is not totally consecrated; this, however, does not seem to be obligatory even sub leci.

b) The priest must: a) be in a state of grace, which, as a rule, must be acquired through sacramental Confession by one who knows he is in mortal sin (can. 807); the obligation of preceding it with Confession is probably only of ecclesiastical precept (cf. Trid., sess. XIII, De Euch., c. 7). When, however, there is urgent necessity of celebrating (by obligation of office or of pact, or so that the people may fulfill the precept, or to give Viaticum to a dying person, or to avoid grave danger of scandal, of infamy or of grave harm, etc.), and at the same time there is lacking the physical or moral possibility of confessing (either because there is no confessor who can hear the Confession, or if it is not possible to confess without harm to the confessor, or to the penitent, or to third parties, or without grave inconvenience caused by lack of time, or by too great a distance or by prudent fear of grave inconvenience, or

(from M. Vleberg, L'Eucharistie dans l'art, Paris 1926, p. 10)
EUCHARIST - The mystical winepress. 16th-century relief.
Haguenau, church of St. Nicholas.

from wholly extrinsic modesty to extraordinary, etc.), the priest may nonetheless celebrate, provided he first makes an act of perfect contrition and, after the celebration, confesses as soon as possible; that is, within three days; indeed sooner, if he wishes to celebrate again. 3) To be free from irregularity or censure or other penalty forbidding the celebration of Mass. 4) To first recite the Latin [text] with the lauds and the preparatory prayers (cf. can. 810). Such a prescription, probably, does not bind even sub leci. 5) To be fasting from midnight (can. 808); reckoned according to local time (true or mean), or legal time (regional or extraordinary). This is an ecclesiastical precept binding under pain of grave sin, which does not admit of parvity of matter (v. EUCHARISTIC COMMUNION). From the observance of this law are excused: a) the necessity of completing (after the Consecration has already taken place) the Sacrifice (cf. De defect., tit. III, n. 5; tit. IV, n. 4, 5; tit. X, n. 3), and, probably, also the necessity of administering Viaticum; b) the exceptional grave harm or inconvenience arising from the omitted celebration; c) the dispensation of the Holy Office (can. 247 § 5) or of the local Ordinary, who, having obtained the faculty from the Holy See, can dispense priests from the eucharistic fast, provided that this is required by the spiritual good of the faithful, that only liquid non-intoxicating foods be taken (milk, coffee, broth even with pastina, etc. (Holy Office, 4 June 1893; 7 Sept. 1897), and that the danger of scandal be avoided (Holy Office, 22 March 1923; AAS, 15 [1923], p. 151). Recently the Holy Father, on 28 January 1947, acceding to a petition of the Belgian bishops, granted certain faculties relating to the eucharistic fast and to the celebration of Holy Mass in the afternoon hours. These concessions were even more benignly extended in the letter of the Holy Office of 28 Oct. 1947 to Card. E. C. Suhard, archbishop of Paris. The concessions are substantially reduced to this: permission, in determined circumstances, to begin the eucharistic fast not from midnight, but from three hours before Holy Mass or Communion, for foods and alcoholic drinks, and from one hour before, for non-alcoholic drinks, even if nourishing. The concessions are local, granted year by year; but one may see in them an indication of a new direction regarding the discipline of the eucharistic fast (cf. Monitore ecclesiastico, 72 [1947], p. 111; 73 [1948], pp. 76-80). 6) To be free from irregularity. Sometimes a bodily defect does not prevent celebrating privately. He must also be dressed decorously in a cassock and be shod.

IV. MINISTER OF COMMUNION : v. EUCHARISTIC COMMUNION.

V. OBLIGATION TO RECEIVE THE EUCHARIST

1. Although the sacramental reception in re of Communion is not necessary by necessity of means, to use a typical expression, for anyone (and this, with regard to children who have not yet reached the use of reason, is a matter of faith — (Trid., sess. XXI, De communione, can. 4), the desire at least to receive it is indispensable (reception "in voto"). - 2. It is a matter of faith that Communion under both species is not prescribed for each and every one of the faithful (Trid., sess. XXI, De communione, can. 1). It is prescribed only for priests when they celebrate Holy Mass. 3. Communion is prescribed by divine and ecclesiastical law for all those who have reached the use of reason, that is, when they can distinguish the heavenly bread from earthly bread. 4. The divine law obliges: a) frequently in life; b) in danger of death (v. viatico). The ecclesiastical law obliges once a year at Easter (can. 859). Indirectly there is an obligation to receive Communion when it is necessary to overcome a temptation.

BIBLI: P. Laymann, Theologia moralis, I. V, tract. IV, De SS. Eucharistia, cap. 7, Venesia 1714, pp. 226-43; Conv. Trid., sess. XIII; XXII, De Sacrificia Missae; Sum. Theol., 36, p. 73-83; F. Suárez, De Sacrificio Missae, in Opera omnia, Parigi 1856-66, disp. XLII-XLV; LVIII-LX; LXVI-LXXII; J. Lugo, De Sacramente Eucharistiae, disp. III-XI; XII-XVIII, ed. di J. B. Fourniols, Parigi 1858; P. Gasparri, De SS. Eucharistia, Parigi 1897, nn. 788-839, 1966-1174; A. Ballerini-D. Palmieri, Opus theologicum morale, IV, Proto 1898-1901, nn. 818-96; S. Many, De SS. Eucharistiae Sacramenta, ivi 1904, I. D'Annibale, Summaite theologiae moralis, III, 5ª ed., Roma 1908, nn. 382-413, pp. 235-47; S. Alfonso, Theologia moralis, I, VI, n. 180-224; 255-303, ed. L. Gaudé, ivi 1909, pp. 173-98, 222-83; O. Deccant, Jejunium eucharisticum, in Pastor bonus, 31 (1918-19) pp. 416-57; A. Villieu, La dispense du jeûne eucharistique pour les prêtres, in Le canoniste, 46 (1924), pp. 1-17; V. Coucke, De teintio eucharistico, in Collationes Brugenses, 27 (1927), pp. 15-75; A. Piscuta-A. Gennaro, Theologiae moralis elementa, V, v. Torino 1928, nn. 257-357, 318-66; E. ab Hoszofalo, De obligatione confitendi et comunicandi apud theologia et canonistas inde a Gratiano et Petro Lombardo usque ad Conc. Later. IV, in Estudios franciscanos, 29 (1935), pp. 394-456; A. Van Hove, De Eucharistia, Roma 1940; M. Iuete, De forma Eucharistiae-De epiclesibus eucharisticis, ivi 1943; E. Vittoria, El pan y el vino eucarístico, Bilbao 1944; A. Verhamme, De materia remota SS. Eucharistiae, in Collat. Brugenses, 41 (1945), pp. 415-48; id., De pana ad consecrationem requisito, ibid., pp. 418-22; id., De vino ad consecrationem requisito, ibid., 42 (1946), pp. 18-22; F. M. Cappello, Traciutus canonico-moralis de Sacramentis, Torino-Roma 1947, nn. 263-337, 459-523.

Andrea Gennaro

C. THE EUCHARIST IN THE LITURGY.

LITURGICAL HISTORY OF THE CUSTODY

The historical evolution of the custody is under the influence of external and internal events of the Church. Externally, the persecutions and then the Constantinian peace, with the conversion of the barbarians. Internally, the attention of Christians to the great Trinitarian and Christological heresies caused the Eucharist to be considered more as the "thing" than as the "person" of Christ. The heresy of Berengar of Tours in the 11th century caused a more precise orientation of Christian piety toward Christ enclosed in the host. The struggles unleashed by the Protestants and the Jansenists accentuated this orientation, which, in a marvelous progress, made the Eucharist the absolute center of Christian piety. The fundamental reason for the custody is the necessity of giving viaticum to the dying; then Communion to the faithful, understood as participation in the sacrifice, although can. 1272 of the CIC, without excluding the other purposes, mentions only Communion and exposition.

1. First period: from the 1st century to the 10th century

The first rule for viaticum, and indirectly for the custody, is in the Council of Nicaea (325): "Let the ancient rule be observed for those who are in danger of death: that is, they shall not be deprived of the necessary viaticum" (Denz-L. 57). We have in fact earlier testimonies from St. Justin (Apol. I, n. 63; PG 6, 428) and St. Ignatius (Epist. ad Rom., chap. 7; PG, 5, 693) of the 2nd century, and the case of the hermit Serapion of the 3rd century (Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl., I, VI, chap. 44). The first law, however, we find in the middle of the 4th century in the Statuta Sancti Bonifatii (work of an unknown author, Manu, XII, 383). Some ceremonies attest the custody for particular rites. Characteristic is the one called that of the Fermentum of the 4th century; the Pope, in a sign of unity, sent to the bishops part of the consecrated hosts, which these kept and consumed during their sacrifice. A similar rite is that of the Mass of the Presanctified of the 5th century, and of the ordination of bishops and priests of the 6th century. The use of placing the Host, with or without relics, in the consecration of altars appears in the 9th century and disappears entirely with the Reformation. The desire of Christians to die immediately after receiving the Most Holy Eucharist gave occasion to some abuse, such as the one condemned by the Council of Hippo in 319, namely of placing the Host on the chest and in the mouth of the dead, and of which there is some record still in the 10th century.

From the 4th century onward we find the Eucharist in the sacrarium, or pantophorium, which more or less corresponds to our sacristy. The Eucharist was kept in vessels of various shapes and materials, or wrapped in simple cloth or parchment. The prescriptions on the solidity and security of the sacred vessels date from the middle of the 9th century. In France in the 6th century the Eucharist was brought "in all" to the altar at the Offertory; that is, it was a kind of tabernacle in the form of a tower. Only in the 8th century is there mention of a custody "in" or "supra altare". It usually indicates the tabernacle suspended above the altar.

Many are the norms given for a diligent custody of the Eucharist, to avoid damage or irreverence on the part of the profane or corruption. The Hosts had to be renewed often: however, even for this a common custom is lacking. The first Christians used the norms of the Old Testament (Lev. 7, 15; 22, 30; Ex. 12, 20...). The Hosts not destined for viaticum were consumed during or after Mass; those for viaticum were renewed first every day, then every three days or more. In the East the leftover Hosts were customarily burned, at least until the 10th century. The Copts buried them. In France they were given to children, while elsewhere they were consumed by the priest alone or also by the clerics in the sacristy.

This period therefore, without fixed laws, is studded with the greatest variety of uses appearing and disappearing under the weight of events, which orient Eucharistic piety in various ways.

2. Second period: from the 11th century to the Council of Trent

The affirmation of the "real presence" against Berengar of Tours begins a new phase for Eucharistic piety. Synodal laws multiply, with special regard to greater security in the custody, and a more worthy honor to be rendered to the Eucharist. The principal reason remains always Communion to the sick (Decretum Gratiani c. 93 d. 2, de cons.). The frequency of the faithful at Communion, on the other hand, must not have been excessive, if the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) prescribes annual Communion. The custody is made simpler by the fact that, precisely in this century, the use of Communion under the species of bread alone begins. The first official devotion to the Eucharist, outside of Holy Mass, is the procession of Corpus Domini, extended by Urban IV to the whole Church in 1264.

The only example of the custody in private hands is that of St. Louis IX king of France. On journeys it is only the Popes who carry the Eucharist with them to make their procession more solemn. The permanent custody is obligatory in all churches that have care of souls: therefore especially cathedrals and parish churches (Fourth Lateran Council). It was a persuasion too common for this obligation to need a law. In the churches of the regulars, at the beginning of this period, the custody can be said to be almost common, and this not by special concession of the Holy See, but as a custom, given the great liberty granted to monasteries.

From the 11th century the seat of the Eucharist is transferred to the same place of devotion: therefore "sacrarium" means both the sacristy, and the wall cupboard, and the tabernacle itself.

Here are the principal systems of custody after the year 1000. a) The sacristy. Much in use especially in Milan. A Synod of Ravenna of 1311 leaves free the choice between the sacristy and the church. b) The Eucharistic dove. Of modest proportions, it carried the pyx in the cavity of its back; it was fixed to a plate and suspended from the ceiling of the ciborium. Very widespread in France and in England, especially when outside the industry of the glass of Limoges. c) The wall cupboard. It was the most widespread system in Italy and Germany, because it was the most practical and most secure. Usually it is hollowed out in the wall near the high altar, on the Gospel side, or in the choir, fitted with a small door and lock: inside it the pyx with the Eucharist was placed. Worthy of note are the propitiatorium and the aedicules of the Sacrament. The first is a movable receptacle of tiny proportions, inside which the pyx stands. Its diffusion is restricted to some cities of Italy and France. The aedicules of the Sacrament were an almost exclusive specialty of the churches of Northern Europe, from the end of the 12th century to the middle of the 18th. They are in the form of a tower and often very large. d) Tabernacle (v.). In this period there are the first attempts to associate the tabernacle with the altar, but without any following, also because the altar has preserved until now the apostolic form of a table. A first example in Italy we have in the 14th century in Venice, in the dossal of St. Tarasius in S.

Zaccaria. The last historical phase of the tabernacle begins in the middle of the 16th century, when, through the work above all of Giovan Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona (1524-43), it began to be placed on the table of the altar.

The pyx was obligatory; however, the use of a silk bag is also found, for example, at Salzburg in 1220. The renewal of the hosts was done every seven days, or every fifteen; among the Greeks every year. The leftover hosts are consumed by the priests; in France they continue to be given to children, in England to adults. For convenience, together with the Eucharist, the Holy Oils, the relics, the incense and everything that served for the sick were kept. The custody was entrusted to the priest. In the 11th century lamps and candles are used between Holy Thursday and Good Friday. In the following century there is some more explicit mention of the lamp; in the 13th century the examples increase. Note that the first idea of the lamp is found in the Nestorian Synod of Seleucia of 904, but we do not know what influence was exercised in the Roman Church.

In the first centuries of the Middle Ages there is no mention of the lamp, just as there is no mention of visits to the Blessed Sacrament or other Eucharistic devotions, because everything is centralized in the Mass as a sacrifice, of which Christ is the Priest. Only in the 12th century, as this objective sense of the sacrifice weakened, the subjective sense of devotion to the Eucharistic and crucified Christ came to the fore, independently of the Mass.

3. Third period: from the Council of Trent to the CIC

Under the impulse of the Protestants' denials, Eucharistic piety took on new manifestations. The definitions and the laws of the Council of Trent and the later edition of the liturgical books codify and fix several Eucharistic customs. Viaticum always remains the fundamental reason for reservation, while Communion of the faithful is held by canonists to be a subordinate reason. The first clear testimony of Communion for the faithful, even extra Missam, is found in the Milanese Council of 1579. It is fixed in the Roman Ritual of 1614. The long work of the centuries concerning the E. regarded first as a "thing," and treated as such, culminates in the Tridentine Council which, by defining the "cult of latria," centers attention on the "person" of Christ. Not that this idea did not exist before, but it is greatly reinforced. The use of expositions, processions, visits, the Forty Hours, perpetual adoration spreads.

A novelty of this period is that parish churches must always reserve the E. (Synod of Trier, 1678). Reservation in private houses is frequent among the Greeks, especially monks. In the West, however, this use meets with strong opposition. Parish churches always have the obligation of reservation, but cathedrals, which are not always parishes, depend on the bishop. In their churches religious follow the norm of parishes, with regard to internal religious. To nuns, however, the Council of Trent (sess. XXV, cap. 10) forbids reservation within the cloister. For male convents there was no such express prohibition. Modern religious congregations have various faculties from the Holy See in this regard, so much so that at the end of the last century reservation among them could be called a general custom.

To find a law ordering reservation on the altar one must, as has been said, go back to Giovan Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona (1524-43); however, still in 1573 Gregory XIII declares (Bull. Rom., VIII) that it is difficult to fix a single place. The first prescription of reservation on altars is from the Roman Ritual of the Sacraments, published in 1584. The altar preferred for reservation, until the 16th century, is the one called the high altar. Then, thinking of some irreverence during the holy functions, people began to move the E. elsewhere. Indeed in cathedrals the tabernacle was placed on another altar (Caerimoniae Episcoporum, l. II, cap. 29). Some synods allow a double reservation in the same church, especially in the case that the main tabernacle is inconvenient. The tabernacle is by now general. And it is St. Charles Borromeo who initiates the use of the conopeum. The Roman Ritual of 1614 abolished the use of placing relics in the tabernacle. Holy oils, and everything else. The greatest diligence is required in the reservation of the E., which is almost exclusively entrusted to priests. Renewal is frequent. The obligation of the lamp extends more and more: from the middle of the 16th century it becomes of common use, at least by day.

4. Fourth period: Current law - CIC 1265-75

It is the first systematic legislation, even if not complete, of the Church, as far as the reservation of the E. is concerned. It no longer exists only for viaticum, but for the Communion of the faithful and for exposition. This especially after the decree of Pius X on frequent Communion. Recently the whole matter has been reorganized in the Instrutio of the S. Congr. of the Sacraments of 26 May 1938 (AAS, 30 [1938] pp. 198-207) completed by the other of 15 Sept. 1943 (AAS, 35 [1943] pp. 282-85).

Any reservation outside the church remains forbidden, whether in the house of laypeople or of religious. Only the Ordinary, for grave reasons, can permit that at night the E. be transported to another place, which must be decent and safer than usual. This applies especially to mission lands among heretics and infidels. No one may carry the E. with him during a journey. All churches that have care of souls are obliged to reserve the E. Cathedrals too have this obligation, as do churches attached to religious houses, whether male or female. If they are not exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction, his permission is necessary.

The E. must be kept in church, and habitually on one altar only, placed "in loco praecellentissimo ac nobilissimo" (can. 1268, 2). Usually, therefore, it will be the high altar, with the exception of cathedral, collegiate and conventual churches. This altar must be beautiful and adorned in such a way as to awaken the piety of the faithful. The prescriptions for the tabernacle are thus fixed: "The Most Holy E. must be kept in the tabernacle, immovable, placed in the middle of the altar. It must be well built, solid, well closed, adorned according to the liturgical laws, and free from any other thing" (can. 1269). Great diligence is required in reservation, to avoid profanations. The key of the tabernacle must be kept by whoever has responsibility for the church. The consecrated hosts must always be kept inside a pyx, of solid and suitable material, clean, well closed, covered with a silk veil, possibly adorned. The hosts must be recent and renewed frequently, avoiding any danger of corruption. "Near the tabernacle, in which the Most Holy is kept, let at least one lamp burn day and night, fed with olive oil or beeswax" (can. 1271). The lamp is a sign of faith in the presence of Jesus Christ; it burns in his honor, and tells the faithful that He alone is the light that enlightens.

Sergio Contran

D. - THE E. IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART

I. IN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS

On the use of the E. as a subject of figurative representations in paleochristian art, disagreements still persist among interpreters, due above all to an incomplete understanding of the intimate nature of the figurative language itself employed in them. Can it be said that the E. was really "represented," both as Sacrament and as sacrifice, in the catacomb paintings, in the sculpture of sarcophagi or in the minor arts; or is the eucharistic meaning attributed to certain representations to be resolutely excluded as due to overly subjective interpretations? The answer seems to be that primitive art, rather than representing it in its reality or "portraying" it, instead continually calls the E. to mind, as οὐχακας τῆς ἀθανασίας, proceeding by simple allusions of a typological or merely symbolic nature that for Christians were immediately intelligible and full of mystical meaning. That is, in order to express the eucharistic concept, Christian art makes a selection of real elements drawn from the Gospel or from the rites of the Church, but in composing its figurative phrases it combines them into a whole that is no longer realistic, but merely evocative. Precisely the variety of such combinations, together with the precise meaning of certain elements of composition, makes it possible to recover beneath the apparently descriptive or narrative form the web of eucharistic speculations.

The starting point for these creations of ancient Christian art were: the historical word of Jesus: "I am the bread of life" (Jn. 6:18); the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves in the desert; the two eucharistic species. Moreover, with the rite of Baptism "in aqua et in Spiritu Sancto" the E. was part of Christian initiation, and because of the extraordinary importance of the latter in the life of every Christian the two Sacraments were thus often evoked, even on tombs.

As a general rule, art resorted to three types of eucharistic representations. The first group consists of abbreviated scenes, among which stand out the so-called eucharistic fish of the region called that of Lucina, in the cemetery of St. Callistus, gathered together with baskets containing bread and wine; to these are added: the tripod with bread and fish among seven baskets; the baskets of the multiplication of the loaves and the amphorae of the miracle of Cana gathered in two groups; loaves and fish brought together, etc. The second type portrays Christ while working the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and of the changing of water into wine at the wedding of Cana; often the two miracles are set in correspondence with each other on either side of an orant, as if to underscore the effects of the E. in the next life. Finally, the banquet (v.) of the seven reclining around the stibadium, which in the so-called fractio panis of the cemetery of Priscilla finds its finest representative, because of the continual presence of the baskets of bread drawn from the miracle in the desert and because of the figurative contexts in which it appeared, taken as an evocation of the eucharistic agape. A special place is occupied by two compositions: that of St. Callistus in which a figure in the dress of a philosopher blesses the bread placed on a tripod, with the addition of an orant, and that of the cemetery of Domitilla (now in the Museum of Catania) in which Christ, who speaks of the living water with the Samaritan woman, holds five loaves in the fold of his pallium.

The Last Supper, recalling the institution of the E., appears for the first time in the mosaic of St. Apollinaris in Ravenna and in the miniature of the purple codex of Rossano, which also adds the Communion of the Apostles. This new historical form would replace the preceding one in the future of Christian art.

Luciano De Bruyne

II. IN ART

Also in medieval and modern art it is necessary to distinguish the figures of the E. as they are deduced from the Old Testament from those referring to the promise of the E. (John 6:26-52) and to its institution.

As regards the figures of the Old Testament, it should be observed that the themes developed by early Christian art continue to appear in the 5th and 6th centuries in the splendor of the mosaics of the churches. The manna, the sacrifice of Abel, the offering of Melchizedek, the paschal lamb, etc., are frequently represented. Thus in St. Mary Major in Rome, where there is a clear parallelism between the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the institution of the E., and likewise in those of St. Vitalis and St. Apollinaris the New in Ravenna. Subsequent Christian art did not greatly modify or enrich those iconographic themes, whether in the miniatures of the Carolingian era, as, for example, in the Sacramentary of Drogo (Bibl. Nat. of Paris, ms. lat. 9428), where, for instance, the large initial T of the Canon of the Mass (Te igitur) is adorned at the extremities and at the center of the upper bar with three small scenes with Abel, Melchizedek and Abraham. Analogous schemes also appear in works of goldsmithing, in the enamels that adorn antependia and liturgical caskets similar to those of the 13th century preserved in the Louvre.

Also in the churches of the East in the 11th and 12th centuries the representations of the two great sacrificers of the Old Testament are frequent, in painting or mosaics arranged on the walls near the altar. Similar representations are also found in the West in the mosaics of Monreale (12th century), in the friezes and plastic decorations of Romanesque and Gothic churches, as, for example, in the cathedral of Reims, or in painting such as those of the vault of the abbey church of St-Savin (12th century).

For the numerous representations, both plastic and pictorial, of the two Gospel miracles that are considered as prefigurations of the E., namely the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and the miracle of the wedding at Cana, it should be observed how the primitive iconographic tradition is transmitted throughout the Middle Ages especially in Byzantine artistic culture and that it flourishes again in the West during the Romanesque age, to acquire new importance when, toward the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, painters, sculptors and goldsmiths developed those themes in an infinite series of works.

If this can be affirmed for the figurations that contain in both the Old and the New Testament a clear allusion to the E., it is now necessary to speak of those events narrated in the New Testament that have a direct relation to the institution of the E. They are the promise of the E., its institution and the Communion of the Apostles.

As for the promise, that is the illustration of the passage of the Gospel of St. John (John 6:26-32) when Jesus said to the crowd in the synagogue of Capernaum "Ego sum panis vitae etc. etc.," it cannot be said that a precise iconographic type was ever defined. It is a discourse addressed to a crowd of people without particular gestures or attitudes characterizing it. Quite different is what can be noted regarding the scene of the institution of the E., in that Christ is seated at table with the Apostles with bread and wine before him. The oldest and most frequent representations of that event are encountered in documents of Eastern origin and go back to the 6th century, such as a silver paten today in the Fogg Art Museum of Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as in miniatures of the Evangelary of the monk Rabula and in the purple codex of Rossano. At St. Apollinaris the New in Ravenna the first of the mosaics with which the representation of the Passion of Our Lord begins represents Christ and eleven persons seated near a table on which are some pieces of bread and on a platter two fish. Christ is in the act of blessing. The theme is repeated with few variations, especially that of the number of the Apostles, up to the threshold of Romanesque art, when it will assume great development. Thus in the 11th century at St. Angelo in Formis near Capua and at St. Urban at the Caffarella near Rome, and then in the 12th and 13th centuries in the mosaics of Monreale, in those of the Baptistery of Florence, in the bronze valves of the door of the cathedral of Benevento, in a panel of the ivory antependium of Salerno, etc.

The composition from the 14th century onward remains clearly defined, then almost everywhere the custom prevails of depicting Christ with St. John reclining on his breast. Thus in a notable group of 14th-century compositions such as that of Giotto in the Arena chapel at Padua, that of Taddeo Gaddi in the refectory of St. Croce in Florence and then, in the 15th century, that of Andrea del Castagno in the refectory of St. Apollonia also in Florence (1437) and the others of Ghirlandaio in the refectory of Ognissanti and in the small one of St. Mark, and the series culminates with the famous composition of Leonardo in the refectory of the convent of St. Mary of the Graces in Milan.

As for the other Gospel narrative in direct connection with the E., namely the Communion of the Apostles, here too it should be noted how the first iconographic definition of the theme must probably be assigned to the East, where it already appears clearly in a silver paten of the Museum of Istanbul discovered at Stuma near Aleppo, in the Evangelary of Rabula, in the codex of Rossano where the Apostles approach Christ with an air of deference in a single row, five in one scene, six in another. The theme had wide development from the 9th to the 14th century in Byzantine art, and in the mosaics of St. Sophia in Kiev, which go back to the 11th century, Christ is standing near the table: beside him are two angels while the Apostles, six on each side, approach with a measured step, almost of dance; thus in a painting, also of the 11th century, in the cathedral of Serres in Macedonia, in miniatures and enamels and finally in the dalmatic known as that of Charlemagne in the Treasury of St. Peter in Rome (13th century).

Meanwhile in the West, in the compositions of Carolingian art, the image of Christ seated in a throne holding the Host in his right hand is also encountered. This figuration in the Sacramentaries is sometimes accompanied by that of the Crucifixion to recall how the Mass renews the Sacrifice of Calvary.

Returning now to the Communion of the Apostles, it will be recalled how in the 15th century the theme had in Italian art one of its highest manifestations in a fresco of Angelico in the Convent of St. Mark in Florence, where Christ, standing, approaches the Apostles near the table and gives them communion one by one. The theme, taken up again by Luca Signorelli in 1512 in a painting of the cathedral of Cortona, had wide development at the end of the 16th century. In this regard one may cite the composition of Baroccio in the church of the Minerva in Rome, that of Ribera in the charterhouse of St. Martin in Naples, and that of Rubens in the Pinacoteca of Brera in Milan in which the table of the Last Supper is transported into a church. - See plates XLIX-L.

Emilio Lavagnino