EUCARISTIA

EUCCHARIST. — It is the prolongation of the Incarnation (Leo XIII, Encycl. Mirae caritatis, 18 May 1902). Just as the Word of God became present under human guise to procure salvation, rendering to God the homage due by His condign 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 by renewing the sacrifice of the Cross and in its descending phase by 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 (q.v.) and the sacrament of Communion (q.v.). On account of the multiplicity of mysteries it contains, the E. is the compendium of the faith, the centre of gravity of Christian piety, the polar star that guides all the activity of the Catholic Church. Its numerous names reflect the variety of its aspects: Body of Christ, Body of the Lord, the Venerable [Sacrament], 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 narrated that Jesus gave thanks (Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22; εὐχαριστία; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:23: εὐχαριστία) and is already found in use in the Didachē (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. Haer. 2, 18: PG 7, 1027–29), and it befits the mystery which is a perfect rendering of thanks (cf. F. Cabrol, Eucharistie, in DACL, V, cols. 686–92).

A. The E. in dogmatic theology.

Summary:

I. Origins of the E

II. Truth of the real presence

III. Transubstantiation

IV. Mode of Eucharistic presence

V. Conclusion: the E. in the divine plan.

I. ORIGINS OF THE E.

1. Positions of independent criticism

At the end of the 19th century, as rationalist systems matured and the Divinity of Jesus Christ was denied, the problem of the origins of the E. naturally arose and was resolved in line with the general trend of criticism. Indeed, A. Harnack (Brot und Wasser: die eucharistischen Elemente bei Justin, Leipzig 1891), after attempting to show that the Eucharistic elements in the early Church were bread and water, built upon this supposed ritual variation (in antiquity: bread and water, later: bread and wine) a theory about the original meaning of the Last Supper: Jesus was not concerned with the elements, which could 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 remit sins, at every banquet they would celebrate in His memory (dynamic theory).

The following year, A. Jülicher (Zur Geschichte der Abendmahlslehre in der ältesten Kirche, in Theologische Abhandlungen Carl von Weizsäcker zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstage dargebracht, Freiburg im Br. 1892, pp. 213–230), rejecting Harnack’s hypothesis, proposed a new interpretation of the Last Supper: Jesus performed symbolic acts with precise reference to His imminent end; by 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 that awaited Him: “This is my body, which is broken for you; this is my blood, which is poured out for you” (symbolic theory). The system quickly gathered wide assent. Some critics, such as O. Holtzmann, C. Clemen, K. Völker, H. Weinel, accepted it without substantial variation, while others, 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 discerned in them a symbol of the revelation of the messianic dignity of the Nazarene Rabbi.

For F. Spitta (Die eucharistischen 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 related to the Lord’s death but to His messianic expectation. Jesus, dominated by a lucid prophetic vision of the imminent establishment of the Kingdom of God, almost anticipates the messianic feast and, departing from common banquet laws, distributes the bread and passes the cup among the diners with the emphatic words, “This is my body,” and “This is the blood of the new covenant,” as if inviting His disciples to take possession of the gifts that only He can give, to appropriate His entire 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).

Closely allied to Spitta’s conception are those of J. Hoffmann (fraternal banquet in expectation of the Kingdom), A. Schweitzer (prototype feast of the messianic banquet), and A. Anderson – A. Loisy (farewell meal in the perspective of the imminent realization of the Kingdom of God).

Once the Last Supper had been explained in this natural or rational manner, critics were compelled to address another problem. Almost all admit that twenty years after Jesus’ death, St Paul in 1 Cor (c. 57) speaks of the E. as a mystery implying the real presence of the Lord’s Body and Blood, offered in sacrifice and causing 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 content
Eucharist — Eucharistic Fish. In the original, one can see in Rome, the cemetery of St. Callisto.

(II. Enc. Catt.)

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

In the agapai of the brethren which, following the death of Jesus, 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; his words and gestures were gladly repeated. Thus, in an imperceptible way, almost through the paths of the heart, the conviction penetrated that the Lord had instituted the fraternal banquet, indeed that He was present in each celebration: some even came to believe they had seen Jesus in one of the agapai (cf. Lk. 2:13-43; Jn. 21:1-23). This psychological explanation by Jülicher is supported by an approach to the Spirit: 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, should be immolated and eaten in the feast of the new covenant, the new Christian Passover. Thus the agape was enriched with a precious contribution: the concept of sacrifice. Such and similar motifs have been widely used by W. Heitmüller, J. Réville, M. Goguel, A. Loisy.

The explanation seemed superficial even to its own authors and, if proposed exclusively, radically incapable of providing an adequate explanation of the problem. Therefore, with great patience, the search was made among pagan religions for the prototype of the Eucharist, which St. Paul would have introduced into Christianity. The first to advance the comparative hypothesis was P. Fardner (*The Origin of the Lord’s Supper*, London 1893), who confidently affirmed that St. Paul, while in Athens, became acquainted with the exclusive mysteries and, in a vision, was invited by the Lord to introduce into Christian communities the sacred banquet in which the communicant enters into immediate contact (συνοδεῖν) with his god. Thus arose the Pauline account of the Last Supper, which influenced the Synoptics and all the Churches. The author, however, realizing how risky his hypothesis was, honestly rejected it (*Επιστροφή ενοχείλια*, London 1899, pp. 454 ff.). W. Heitmüller (*Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus. Darstellung und religiöse Beleuchtung*, Göttingen 1903, pp. 37-52) sought to demonstrate, through a kind of psychological method, that humanity has always desired to unite with God, especially through a sacred meal. To support his thesis, he cited the example of cannibalism among some Mexican tribes, who ate war prisoners believing them to be identified with the god Tetzcatlipoca, the theophagic supper practiced by the same peoples at the winter solstice, the Dionysian omophagy, the manducation of the cannubello among the ancient Bedouins of the Sinai peninsula, etc. When asked which rites had historically influenced St. Paul, Heitmüller replied with great caution, mentioning the Essene banquets and the Mithraic supper. But, he added, the atmosphere breathed by the nascent Church was full of mysterious germs; one can therefore think of a kind of bacillary inoculation, through which the mysterious conception of the Eucharist insensibly penetrated 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 pagan mysteries, which occurred at a certain moment in the religious evolution of Paul of Tarsus, though the circumstances elude the most careful historical investigation. A. Loisy (*Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien*, 1919) instead believed he could point to the exclusive mysteries, the Dionysian omophagy, the feast of Attis and Cybele, and the Mithraic supper as the deepest analogies with the Christian banquet. According to the author, these similarities were not merely abstract, for Paul and the primitive communities drew inspiration from them to inaugurate the Eucharistic Supper; however, Christianity did not slavishly imitate them but rather conformed to their essence while surpassing them.

Another contribution is offered by P. Smith (*A Short History of Christian Theology*, Chicago and London 1922), who, after extensively studying cases of the absorption of a sacred drink or a religious meal, concluded that the widespread ancient idea of true theophagy was at work. This concept was not extinct among the initiates of Eleusis: St. Paul drew his Eucharistic inspiration from there. It is a return to Heitmüller’s position, without his moderation. According to M. Dibelius (*Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums*, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1933), one of the most prominent supporters of the *Formgeschichtliche Methode*, the Eucharist arose from a cultic need of the primitive faithful; to legitimize the new institution, the Christian community created the narrative of the Last Supper, whose "pro-forma" is given by the logion "συνοδεῖν" (Lk. 2:13-43), which Jesus would have pronounced to indicate the whole of his disciples in intimate communion with him: thus the bread formula was an expression of the spiritual union of the faithful (Mystical Body). Later, under the influence of Hellenic mysteries, it assumed the sacramental meaning attributed to it by tradition. To this current of thought is linked the later stance of A. Loisy (*Les origines de la Cène eucharistique*, in *Confréries d’histoire du christianisme*, I, Paris 1928, pp. 82-86, and especially in *La naissance du christianisme*, 1933).

Some critics, impressed by the failure of the various "mystery" attempts, perceived that the "Eucharistic phenomenon" is better explained if placed within the more natural framework of Jewish rites and beliefs. The Jewish scholar R. Eisler (*Das letzte Abendmahl*, in *Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche*, 24 (1925), pp. 161-92; 25 (1926), pp. 5-37) is a strong advocate of this method, which was partly applied by H. Lietzmann (*Adresse und Herrenmahl*, Bonn 1926) and fully by J. Pâin (*Festin, Dieu de la Pâque* [Christianisme, 37], Paris 1930), who sees in the Jewish Passover the archetypal banquet on which the Eucharistic agape was modeled.

Amidst these well-known and qualified theories, others have developed, linked to the general trend of skeptical criticism. In the Anglican environment, where until the well-known bishop G. Gore the historical fact of the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus was accepted, doubt has crept in with C. Quick (*The Christian Sacraments*, cited by A. E. Morris, *Jesus and Eucharist*, in *Theology*, 26 (1933), pp. 2-12). For R. Harris (*Eucharistic Origins*, London 1927), Jesus’ words — "This is my body" — referred to the *haoma* of the Indo-Iranian peoples, while Christians, not very intelligently, understood them as referring to the body of Christ. No need to mention the explanations spread by the "Christianisme" collection published in Paris under the auspices of Couchoud. There one finds assertions such as: "It was around the year 250 (sic!) that the people of Rome instituted the memorial, by virtue of which bread and body must be offered in memory of Christ’s death." A more balanced Swedish theologian finds in the genesis of Eucharistic faith three fundamental layers: 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. Brilioth – 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 Eucharist: the Last Supper, of which St Paul has preserved the echo, and the banquet celebrated by the risen Jesus with His disciples. The primitive Eucharist is connected with this second feast, dominated by the faith in Jesus’ return in the midst of His own, on the anniversary of the Resurrection, in expectation of His final coming at the end of time. This conception is reflected in the volume by G. Deluz, J. Ph. Ramseyer, E. Gaugler, *La Ste-Cène* ([*Cahiers théologiques de l'acclimaté protestante*, extra series], Paris-Neuchâtel 1945). Recently, A. G. Hebert, *Le livre de David*, French trans. by P. Fruchon, Paris 1950, pp. 173-96, has given an exclusively sacrificial interpretation of the Last Supper.

II. The historical truth regarding the origins of the Eucharist

From the testimonies of the Gospels and of St Paul, even when considered in their purely human and natural value, it is irrefutably documented that the institution of the Eucharistic rite by Jesus took place on the eve of His death. The four accounts from the New Testament are cited:

### Mt. 26, 26-28

### Mt. 26, 26-28

### Mt. 26, 26-28

### Mt. 26, 28-28

### Mt. 26, 28-28

### Mt. 28, 28-28

### Mt. 28, 28-28

### Mr. 26, 26-28

### Mr. 26, 28-28

### Mr. 26, 28-28

### Mr. 28, 28-28

### Mr. 28, 28-28

### Mt. 28, 28-28

### Mt. 28, 28-29

### Mt. 28, 28-29

### Mt. 28, 28-29

### Mt. 28, 28-

c) As for the words over the wine, the Petrine source states first the blood and then the covenant: “This is my Blood of the covenant,” while the Pauline account reverses the order, mentioning first the covenant and then the blood: “This cup is the new covenant in my Blood”;

d) As for the command to renew the Eucharistic rite, the first source does not report it, whereas the second does: once in Luke, twice in Paul.

The testimony of the Gospel of John (6:1-72) concerns the promise of the Eucharist; other scattered texts in the New Testament touch on other points of Eucharistic doctrine and practice (cf. J. Coppens, *Eucharistie*, in *DBS*, II, cols. 1168-72).

Independent critics claim to demolish the value of the testimonies just cited, basing their argument on the concept of institution, which implies the enduring nature of what is instituted. For a rite to be said to be regularly instituted, it is required that the institutor give the order and establish the conditions for its duration through the centuries. The Eucharist lacks precisely the essential basis for its permanent institution, namely, the command of Jesus. Indeed, the testimony of Paul is not reliable, since by invoking a special revelation from the glorified Christ (1 Cor 11:23), he clearly seeks to legitimize, in the eyes of the faithful, the novelty he has introduced by attributing it to an express command from heaven. Matthew, who had been present at the Last Supper, and Mark, the disciple of Peter and ear-witness to the Master’s last words, remain silent about the order to repeat the Eucharistic feast. Luke, moreover, in verses 19-20 is not authentic; hence his testimony, which would in any case be devoid of value because dependent on Paul, falls away. Finally, John, the disciple who reclined on the Master’s breast at the Paschal Supper, has nothing to say about the alleged institution that took place on that occasion.

The account of St Luke (22:13-20) begins with the narration of the legal supper: “15: And he said to them, ‘With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16: for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’ 17: And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this, and divide it among yourselves; 18: for I tell you that I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes’” (19-20), and continues with the narration of the Eucharistic Supper (vv. 19-20) cited above. Independent criticism rejects verses 19-20 as inauthentic because they are missing in Codex Bezae and in the Latin codices Vercellensis, Corbeiensis, Vindobonensis, etc., which present the so-called Western text. This stance is critically unsustainable because the two verses are found in all Greek majuscule codices (except D, the Bezan), in all versions (except the Syriac Curetonian), and in many Fathers (cf. G. Sacco, *La Koine del Nuovo Testamento e la trasmissione del sacro testo*, Rome 1928, p. 197). On the other hand, if the longer, so-called Eastern, recension is accepted, it is easily explained how the shorter, Western, text arose. The scribe, reading at V. 17 “gave thanks,” was persuaded that it referred to the Eucharistic cup, especially since the following verse contains the eschatological saying, which Matthew and Mark report immediately after the cup of the Eucharist. Once this convention was accepted, the scribe passed without scruple to the suppression of V. 20, deeming it superfluous. The Lucan account, in its Eastern recension, which must be regarded as authentic, is independent of that of Paul, because it has its own distinctive style in describing the two suppers, linked and Eucharistic, in placing the eschatological discourse before the institution of the Eucharist, and in omitting the adjective “καινούς” in the same discourse; thus we have 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 remembrance of me” (v. 19, cf. J. Coppens, *Les origines de l'Eucharistie, d'après les livres du Nouveau Testament*, in M. Brilliant, *Eucharistia*, Fribourg 1934, pp. 31-32).

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

With good reason the Council of Trent, in Session XIII, chap. 1, defined that “our Redeemer instituted this most wonderful Sacrament at the Last Supper, when, after blessing the bread and wine, He declared in clear and distinct words that He gave them His Body and Blood, and that these 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 ANSWER TO INDEPENDENT CRITICS

The verdict of history is now unfavorable to them. Because of the rapid succession and contradiction of their theories—preceded only by the endless combinations imagined by Gnosticism—they have fallen into general disdain. The bankruptcy of their system could not have been more resounding. Starting from a deliberately agnostic premise, formulated by J. Réville in these terms: *"What Jesus said to His Apostles in that solemn hour we will never know"* (Les origines de l'Eucharistie, Paris 1908, p. 641), the critics immediately proceed to explain in detail what Jesus said and did on that occasion. Such a method reveals how objectively they attribute to Jesus their own ideas—more or less religious—of men without faith. Catholics, instead, by honestly accepting the New Testament documents—historically and critically examined—are in a position to grasp the objective meaning of the Last Supper. The words and gestures of Jesus, in their natural and obvious significance (as will be seen more clearly below), indicate the sovereign gift of the Master, who offers His Body and Blood, mysteriously immolated, as food and drink to His disciples.

This doctrine, which naturally arises from the brief Gospel account, could not have been introduced by St. Paul, as if he were channeling the abundant waters of pagan religiosity into the narrow stream of Christianity. Indeed, a diligent and thorough study of all historical fragments concerning ancient religions—especially the mystery cults—has led to the conclusion that *"this slice of paganism"* (ein Stück Heidentum), to use O. Holtzmann’s expression, is something St. Paul could not have extracted from any of the cults then in vogue. It has never been proven that the savior gods of Greco-Roman syncretism were literally dead gods resurrected, nor is it certain that the mysteries truly intended to commemorate their passion, that the initiates attributed salvific efficacy to this passion and its commemoration, that this efficacy derived from the union of the faithful with the passion of the gods, that this union was effected through a sacrificial meal whose essential rite consisted in distributing to the initiates blessed bread and a cup of consecrated wine, and finally that the salvation thus obtained was personal and spiritual, secured for all eternity (cf. J. Coppens, *Eucharistie*, in DBs, II, col. 1206). Despite these substantial differences, there are distant analogies between the Eucharist and pagan mysteries; these have been exaggerated, and *"when the crux of the matter was reached, people mistook fireflies for lanterns and claimed that a mosquito is entirely equal to an eagle, since both have wings, can fly, and feed on blood"* (G. Ricciotti, *Vita di Gesù Cristo*, 4th ed., Milan 1940, p. 670). Moreover, even if pagan religiosity had offered some prototype of the Eucharist, the psychology of the convert from Tarsus would have prevented its adaptation to Christianity. As an indomitable adversary—both by his Jewish origins and his Christian upbringing—of paganism, he exclaims: *"What concord hath Christ with Belial?"* (II Cor. 6, 15) and warns: *"I would not have you partakers with demons"* (I Cor. 10, 20), revealing his full mindset. Furthermore, his position as a latecomer, a former persecutor, did not allow him to alter in any way the tradition before those who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus’ work, without provoking a chorus of protests from all sides (cf. E. Pinard de la Boullaye, *Gesù Cristo e la storia*, Italian trans. by G. Actis, Turin 1931, pp. 117-47).

Recent investigations into judicial analogies have demonstrated that the Eucharist is a unique rite, defying any comparison with the data of the Old Testament or the institutions of Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism (cf. Coppens, *Eucharistie*, loc. cit., col. 1193).

**

---

### EUCHARISTIA — LAST SUPPER

Fresco by a school of Cassinese monks (11th century) — S. Angelo in Formis. Duomo.

---

### II. TRUTH OF EUCHARISTIC PRESENCE

#### I. ERRORS

The Gnostic-Manichaean dualism, attributing material creatures to the principle of evil, necessarily rejected the Eucharist. This error, unique in its essence but protean in its manifestations, nourished for a millennium the denial of the real presence. The Docetae, the first in the series, attributing to Christ an apparent body (σχῆμα), did not believe that His flesh was present in the Eucharist (Ignatius M., *Smyrn.*, 7, 1). The Archontics, widespread in the 4th and 5th centuries in Palestine and Armenia, admitted seven heavens dominated by seven principles, the last of which, called Sabach, was considered the cause of evil, the father of the Jews, and the instructor of the Eucharist (Epiphanius, *Haer.*, 40: PG 41, 68-84). The Euchites, also called Messalians or Enthusiasts, originating in Mesopotamia and later spreading to Pamphylia in Leodamia, placed the essence of religion in ecstatic prayer (σχῆσις), considering the Eucharist as ordinary food (Theodoret, *Haer. fab.*, 4, 10: PG 82, 114). The Paulicians, whose name’s origin remains obscure, moved from Syria to Asia Minor, and in the 11th century, through the Byzantine Empire, settled in Bulgaria, where, through a certain Bogomil (hence the new name Bogomili), they gained wide influence (cf. V. N. Scharenkoff, *Study of Macedonian in Bulgaria*, New York 1927). Subsequently, spreading throughout the Balkan countries, they crossed Dalmatia (Traù), penetrated Italy (the Patarenes), France (the Bulgarians, Albigensians), England (the Poplicanians), and Germany (the Winckeler). They are the famous Cathars, declared enemies of the Eucharist (cf. S. Runciman, *Le manichéisme médiéval*, French trans. by S. Pétrement and I. Marty, Paris 1949, passim).

The Eastern error has a cosmological basis, while the Western error is rather gnostic. In the West, in fact, Berengar of Tours (d. 1088) initiated his struggle against the Eucharist on dialectical grounds. In that century, the entire Christendom, guided by Gregory VII, was in ferment. Intellectually, three tendencies emerged: anti-dialectical (St. Peter Damian), moderate (St. Anselm), and ultra-dialectical. The greatest exponent of the latter was Berengar (v.), who, disregarding arguments from authority, strove to demonstrate through reason alone the impossibility of the Eucharistic conversion: *"Wherever accidents are, substance is there; noting that after the consecration the same accidents remain as before, he concluded that nothing has been transformed."* Moreover, he added, nothing can be changed into a pre-existing thing. From these premises, he slid into the denial of the real presence: if the Body of Christ were present in the Eucharist, it would have to be present as many times as there are consecrated Hosts; this would imply a multiplication of the same Body, which is absurd (cf. *Berengarii Tractatus de Sacra Communione adversus Lanfrancum*, ed. W. H. Beckenkamp, The Hague 1941, passim). With such reasoning, Berengar, while showing little theological sense, revealed a keen intellect and a spirit unafraid to confront the real difficulties inherent in the mystery. The Catholic world was disturbed; a avalanche of protests, treatises, and condemnations rained down upon the bold scholar of Tours, who at the Lateran Synod of 1079 abjured his error in the hands of Gregory VII.
From the 12th century, Ugo Speroni, echoing the thought of Berengario, held that the blessed bread of Jesus was not His Body, but the sign of His Body (cf. Durino da Milano, *L'eresia di Ugo Speroni nella confutazione del Maestro Vacario*, Città del Vaticano 1945, pp. 468-489). These ideas circulated among all medieval sects (Petrobrusians, Waldensians, Flagellants, Lanchomitites, Wycliffites) until they culminated in Protestantism.

Luther did not dare to deny the real presence, especially because (as he himself confessed to the "reformers" of Strasbourg) the evangelical text is too clear, and moreover because in his soul there always remained that mystical foundation which demanded closeness and union with Christ. He erred, however, and gravely, on other points of Eucharistic doctrine. Carlostadius, the rough and fanatical archdeacon of Wittenberg, was the first to rebel against Luther and, in 1524, dared to interpret the words "this is my Body" as meaning that, with the pronoun "this," the Lord, unable to signify the bread which is of masculine gender (*hoc*), would have pointed to Himself, indicating His own body in its natural state. Luther raged against Carlostadius, who, having taken refuge in Strasbourg, spread the error there. It was at this very time that the envoys of Cornelius Hoen, a lawyer from The Hague, arrived in Germany bearing an Eucharistic letter in which the words *Hoc est Corpus meum* were explained as: *"Hoc significat Corpus meum."* Luther drove them away with ignominy; they then went to Basel, where they were well received by Œcolampadius, who communicated the letter to Ulrich Zwingli, a priest without vocation, who had long been meditating on ridding himself of the Eucharist. This was the occasion for the manifestation of their views, and thus began the painful and long Eucharistic controversy that divided the "Reformation" at its very birth. Carlostadius, Zwingli, and Œcolampadius were branded by Luther with the nickname of "flagellators of the Sacrament" or "Sacramentarians," a name that rightly stuck to them, for in the Eucharist they admitted nothing but a sacred sign (*sacramentum*) representing the Body of Jesus. Seeing the damage this struggle had caused to Luther, Calvin sought to find a kind of compromise that would, if not erase, at least cover the deep divisions of the "Reformation." With ambiguous phrases and tortuous periods, the cunning theologian of Geneva taught that in the Eucharist the Body of Christ (which is only in heaven) is present in the sense that the bread, receiving from above an irradiation of the power of the Lord’s Body, acquires a particular sanctifying force, which is transmitted to the communicants (dynamic or virtual presence). The Anglicans slipped, despite an apparently orthodox phrasing, toward Calvinist ideology, until in the 19th century, with the Oxford Movement, they attempted to return to the Catholic conception, which Newman attained in 1845, while Pusey remained halfway, becoming, after 1843, the venerated leader of the Puseyites. In Germany and other Protestant countries, Eucharistic faith grew ever fainter, so much so that it is difficult to find an "evangelical," even an orthodox one, who admits to the real presence. The liberals, having rejected the supernatural en bloc, have descended to radical negations, of which mention was made at the beginning.

The modernists, the last epigones of dogmatic liberalism, though denying the real presence, deem it expedient to behave before the Catholic tabernacle as if Christ were present, for this serves to nourish the religious sentiment (Eucharistic pragmatism: cf. E. Le Roy, *Dogme et critique*, Paris 1907, pp. 18-20; 258-59). J. Turmel (*Histoire des dogmes*, V, ibid. 1936, pp. 205-25) maintains that the dogma of the real presence was formed only in the 12th century. See also E. Buonaiuti, *Storia del Cristianesimo* (I, 2nd ed., Milan 1944, pp. 59, 67).

II. Teaching of the Church

The Church has rejected Eucharistic errors as they arose. Its most solemn interventions were directed against Berengarius and the Protestants.

Against Berengarius, 13 synods were held (from 1050 to 1095), the most important of which were: the Lateran Synod of 1059 (under Nicholas II), where the heretic was made to read a formula, not entirely felicitous, drawn up by Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida (cf. L. Ramirez, *La controversia eucaristica del siglo XI: Berengario de Tours a la luz de un contemporáneo*, Bogotá 1940, pp. 69-78), and the Lateran Synod of 1079, where, before St. Gregory VII, Berengarius pronounced this clear formula: "I believe that the bread and 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 as a sign and figure, but in the property of nature and truth of substance (*in proprietate naturae et veritate substantiae*)" (Denz.-U., 355).

The Council of Trent (sess. XIII, ch. 1 and canon 1) struck at Protestant errors in their various nuances: "First of all, the Holy Council teaches that in this venerable sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, under the species of these sensible things, there is truly and substantially contained Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man... If anyone shall deny that in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there is contained truly, really, substantially, the Body and Blood together with the soul and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ, but shall say that in this Sacrament there is only a sign, or figure, or power, let him be anathema" (Denz.-U., 874, 883). Other Church documents in A. D'Alès, *De Eucharistia* (Paris 1929, pp. 72-73).

III. Positive proofs of Catholic truth. Since the real presence is a mystery that surpasses the powers of the intellect and eludes the experience of the senses, it can be known only through revelation.

1. Scripture recounts three facts (the promise, the institution, and the celebration of the Eucharist in the nascent Church) from which the Catholic truth emerges. The promise is narrated by St. John in chapter 6 of his Gospel. Taking as his starting point the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus elevates the thought of His hearers to the idea of a spiritual bread, which is identified with His flesh, freed from natural laws. Jesus ascends to these ideas with ever greater clarity until He arrives at those clear expressions that escape all the subterfuges of a twisted exegesis: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My Flesh is true food, and My Blood is true drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me" (vv. 53-57).

The realism of these expressions is heightened by Jesus’ attitude toward His hearers. The audience was composed of three orders of persons: the Jews, the disciples, and the Apostles.

The Jews, that is, the adversaries who waged relentless war against the Lord, understood Jesus’ words in a literal sense and cried out in protest: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus’ conduct, as is evident throughout the Gospel, is as follows: when His hearers misunderstood His words, He took pains to dispel the misunderstanding (cf. Jn 3:3–8; Mt 16:6–12), but when they interpreted them correctly yet refused to accept them because of the intrinsic difficulty of their content, He did not soften His discourse; rather, He reiterated the same idea in many ways. In the present instance, Jesus did not attenuate the slightest nuance of His statements; indeed, He insisted on the same truth three times over, that His flesh and His blood are truly food and drink. The realistic interpretation of His adversaries corresponded exactly to the Master’s thought, for with divine firmness He withstood the shock of their unbelief.

The disciples, less hostile than the Jews, did not absolutely deny the possibility of the statement but acknowledged its difficulty: “This teaching is hard” (Jn 6:60). Even in the face of the disciples’ intellectual discomfort, Jesus did not retract the smallest particle of His discourse; instead, with the kindness He showed to well-disposed souls, He dispelled the crass interpretation they gave to His promise. They imagined that they were to eat Christ’s flesh as one eats butchered meat (a “carnal” interpretation). Jesus, with a phrase of distinctly Semitic coloring, said: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (v. 63); that is, life always proceeds from the Spirit, and thus even My flesh, apart from the Spirit—that is, apart from the Godhead—cannot give life. United to the Godhead, however, it can vivify in a manner befitting human nature and possible to divine omnipotence. While this new expression offered the disciples the key to a higher exegesis, He did not retreat from His position, as is shown by the fact that from that moment many of the disciples, despite the clarifications they had received, withdrew from Him.

Then Jesus turned to the select portion of His hearers and challenged the apostolic college: “Will you also go away?” (Jn 6:67). St. Peter, speaking for the Twelve, as though bearing in embryo the faith of the whole Church, cried out: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed, and we know that You are the Holy One of God.”

Imprinted on the minds of the Apostles, the words of the promise form the natural backdrop against which the scene of the Last Supper unfolds. When, barely a year later, Jesus took bread and said, “This is My Body,” and holding the cup of wine in His hands added, “This is My Blood” (Mt 26:26–28; Mk 14:22–24; Lk 22:19–20; 1 Cor 11:24–25), the Apostles immediately recognized in the Master’s gesture the fulfillment of the promise made on the shore of the lake. Nor could it have been otherwise, for the terms are of particular clarity. The phrase “This is My Body” constitutes a demonstrative proposition in which the subject (this) vaguely indicates what will be clarified by the predicate; in the predicate, Jesus declares it to be His Body. Thus, at the end of the proposition, the Lord was holding in His hands, under the appearances of bread, His own Body. The words have no other meaning, especially since Christ, with a certain emphasis, says, “This (touto) is My Body,” and “This (touto) same” clearly indicates the identity of His natural Body with the Eucharistic Body. In the phrase “This is the Blood of the covenant” (τῆς διαθήκης), there is an echo of the Mosaic expression: “This is the blood of the covenant” (Ex 24:8); the two covenants are set before us, both ratified in blood. True was the blood Moses used, true is the Blood the new Legislator employs.

Moreover, in the supreme hours of His life, no man employs enigmatic expressions; Jesus, true man, does not depart from this psychological law, as the disciples themselves noted during the discourse of the Last Supper when they exclaimed: “Now you are speaking plainly, and not in any figure of speech” (Jn 16:29). He could not, at the moment when He was founding the new economy and instituting its greatest Sacrament, have used ambiguous expressions that would have given rise to endless disputes among His disciples. Furthermore, Jesus looked ahead, in the mirror of provident foresight, to all Christian generations; He foresaw how His words would be interpreted. Even on the Protestant hypothesis, He would have used ambiguous terms so as to deceive the faithful of all ages. With Christian realism, Erasmus wrote to Berow (in 1529), in the midst of the sacramental controversy among the “Reformers”: “I have never been able to persuade myself that Jesus, who is Truth and Goodness itself, would have allowed His spouse, the Church, to worship a morsel of bread (frustulum farinae) in His place for so many centuries.” A simple and profound argument that should have deterred innovators from desperately seeking in Scripture pretexts for their error. They have amassed many texts that they claim are parallel to the Eucharistic phrase “Hoc est Corpus meum,” in which the word *est* would signify something other than “is.” For four centuries, philology has shown the illegitimacy of such a procedure (cf.

H. Hurter, *Theologia dogmaticae compendium*, III, 10th ed., Innsbruck 1900, pp. 300–303; J. Lebreton, *Eucharistie*, in DTC, I, cols. 1557–58; L. Lercher – F. Dander, *Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae*, IV, 1, 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1948, pp. 218–19).

Obedient to Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” the Apostles immediately began to celebrate the Eucharistic mystery in all the cities of their evangelical conquests, and thus the “breaking of bread” was celebrated in Jerusalem (Acts 2:42), at Troas (Acts 20:7–11), and at Corinth (1 Cor 11:17–34). It was precisely in this last city that disturbances arose over the *χρυσόκον δένδρον*, which provoked St. Paul’s letter, in which the faith of the nascent Church is seen in the act of its normal exercise. The Apostle, rejecting in chapter 10 the eating of *eidōlothuta* (meat sacrificed to idols) as illicit, uses expressions from which the idea of real presence clearly emerges: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation (κοινωνία) in the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation (κοινωνία) in the Body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16). According to the force of the Greek *κοινωνία*, St. Paul is saying that Eucharistic Communion is the real, physical participation in the whole and undivided Body of Jesus.

In the following verse, he speaks of the social effects of the Eucharist in a way that leaves no doubt as to the true presence of the Lord’s Body: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). If the Eucharist were merely a piece of ordinary bread, it could not unite the faithful.

In chapter 11, wishing to correct the abuse introduced of not awaiting the turn in the agape meal, which preferred the sacramental supper, St Paul recalls the episode of its institution. The Apostle loves to point out the contrast between the love of Jesus carried to the extreme and the arrogance of men who at that very moment were plotting betrayal. The parenthesis “in qua nocte tradebatur” is certainly chosen with the aim 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 Christian consciences of all times: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment upon himself, because he does not discern the body of the Lord. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (vv. 25-29). If the body of Jesus were not present under the eucharistic species, St Paul could not say that he who does not distinguish it from ordinary food eats his own condemnation.

The tradition shows the continuity and homogeneous development of the concepts and practices already established in biblical documents. St Justin Martyr, addressing, around the middle of the 2nd century, his *Apologia* to the emperor, the Senate «and the Roman people», says explicitly: «We have learned (εἰδότες) that it is not lawful for us either to worship them [the gods of the pagans] or to sacrifice to them».ει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-δει-δεί-δει-δε-

If error makes men attentive, love makes them intelligent, for “amor ipse notitia est.” The first Christians concentrated their inquiries on this fundamental cell of doctrine: amor multiplicat inquisitionem. From this they ascended to the other mysteries, bringing to light their truest and deepest connections. Starting from John 6:52–57, regarded as the summit of Christian revelation, the Fathers of the Church considered the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist in their mutual relationship. The latter is presented by them as an extension of the second and as a link with the first, because the divine life, circulating within the bosom of the one and triune God, communicating itself to us in the incarnate Word, made our food, enables us to ascend to the first source.

S. Ignatius, disciple of S. 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 raised up” (S. M. 7, 1). S. Justin develops this parallel between the Incarnation and the Eucharist: “As by the power of the Word of God, Christ our Saviour became flesh and blood for our redemption, so the food that is blessed by a word of prayer derived from Him, having become the Eucharist (of which our flesh and blood are nourished for a spiritual transformation), is the flesh and blood of Jesus Incarnate. Thus we have learned” (Apologia, 1, 66; PG 6, 428).

The bishop develops this idea most fully in S. Hilary of Poitiers: “If Christ truly took the flesh of our body and, being born of the Virgin, is true man, and if in the Eucharist we truly receive the flesh of His Body, so that we are one (unum) because the Father is in Him and He is in us, how can one affirm only a unity of will, if He communicates His very nature in the Sacrament of perfect unity? He (Christ) lives for the Father, because in His eternal generation He did not receive a nature foreign and different... Therefore, with the Son and through the Son we are united with the Father, not merely by will and religious obedience, but truly and inseparably by the dignity of sonship (adoptive) communicated to us and by the Son Himself, who dwells in us with His flesh. This is the mystery of true and real unity, which we defend against heretics” (De Trinitate, 8, 13; PL 10, 246).

S. Cyril reaches a higher degree of clarity: “The only Son, who is begotten of the essence of God the Father and has in His nature the Father who begot Him, became flesh, united Himself by an ineffable union with our nature, and with this earthly body He willed to unite what was by nature infinitely separated—God and man—and to make men partakers of the Godhead... Therefore, so that we might attain unity with God, the only Son found in His wisdom and in the counsels of the Father a wonderful way. He sanctifies the faithful by the communion of His Body and makes all one single Body with Him (homo) man. We are therefore all one (unum) in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, by the unity of relationship 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, 359).

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 Christ’s Body in the Sacrament and its identity with the Body born of the Virgin. The reality of the Body is evident, because it underpins the parallel between the Incarnation and the Eucharist, and it is the same reality that makes us 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 Body is no less clear: the principle from which the Fathers start is that only the Body united hypostatically to the Word can be a source of life (pans vitae), and all their efforts are concentrated on explaining how this single Body “τὸ ἓν σῶμα” (S. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio catechetica, 37, 4; PG 45, 94) can reach all the faithful and be united to them.

This Eucharistic theology developed in profoundly different spiritual climates. The schools of Antioch and Alexandria, while sincerely adhering to the dogma of real presence, in illustrating its content followed their own paths. The Alexandrians (Clement, Origen, Serapion, Cyril) and the neo-Alexandrians (Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa), influenced by their Platonism to regard the sensible world (κόσμος αἰσθητός) as an image of the intelligible world (κόσμος νοητός), preferred to consider in the Eucharist the symbolic aspect, not rarely affirming that the consecrated bread (εὐλογημένον) is ὁμοίωμα, σύμβολον, σχέδιον, τύπος of the Body of Christ. This terminology troubled many Catholics until recent times; yet a thorough study of the theological conceptions of the Alexandrian didascalion has dispelled every shadow, because figure, image, symbolum, represented imply the presence of the thing signified (cf. H. von Balthasar, Le mystère d’Origène, in Recherches de science religieuse, 26 [1936], pp. 513–62; 27 [1937], pp. 38–64; I. Daniélou, Origène, Paris 1948, pp. 74–79; L. Villette, Recherches sur la théologie sacramentaire d’Origène, Paris 1950).

The Antiochenes (John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodore), inspired by Aristotelian concreteness and the literal sense of Scripture, in the Eucharist considered rather the reality of the Body and Blood, sometimes abstracting from the veil with which it is surrounded. Chrysostom, the greatest Eucharistic doctor of the East, uses phrases that a symbolist Lutheran like Loofs rather disrespectfully calls crude: “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 Eucharist you see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him” (Hom. 82 in Mt. 5; PG 58, 743).

Le due tendenze s'incontrarono e si fusero in S. Agno- stino, che invano protestanti e modernisti acclamarono patrono di un simbolismo vuoto. Il santo Dottore, infatti, al realismo della più pura tradizione romana e africane (Ippolito, Terrulliano, Cipriano) unisce un simbolismo di sapore alessandrino, sviluppato però in funzione ec- clesiologica, contro lo scisma donatista. Con limpido processo s. Agostino nell'E. distingue: a) id quod videtur, il Corpo e il Sangue, le specie sensibili; b) id quod creditur, il Corpo e il Sangue del Signore; c) id quod intelligitur, il complesso del mistero come simbolo del Corpo mistico: "Ciò che vedete, è il pane e il calice; cose che cadono sotto i vostri occhi. Ciò che la vostra fede esige eccolo: il pane è il Corpo di Cristo, il calice è il Sangue di Cristo. Tutto questo è stato esposto brevemente, perché basta alla fede. La fede però desidera una illustrazione (fides instructionem desiderat); dice infatti il Profeta: Nisi credituritis, non intelligetis (Is. 7, 9). Mi potrete dire: hai comandato credere, ora spiega affinché possiamo capire (intelligere). Se vuoi capire (intelligere) che cosa sia il Corpo di Cristo, ascolta l'Apostolo: Vos autem estis Corpus Christi membra (Rom. 12, 4-5)" (Sermo 272: PL 38, 1246). I due rivoli della tradizione antichiera ed alessandrino, che così bene confluirono nel limpido alveo della teo- logia agostiniana, si intorridirono nell'asprà polemica del sec. IX. Pascasio Radberto premeva, forse troppo, sul realismo, mentre Ratramno insisteva sul simbolismo in modo da far nascere dei sospetti sulla sua fede. A favore di Ratramno si schierarono Rabano Mauro, Gotto, scalco di Orbaie, Drutmero di Stavelot, Aelfrico, Remigio di Auxerre. Più numerosi e più autorevoli i seguaci di Pascasio: Aimone di Halberstadt, Adevredo di Fleury, Incmarao di Reims, Gezone di Tortona, Raterio di Verona, Odone di Cluny. Attraverso i monasteri culinacei la tendenza paesissima prevalse. Alla fine del sec. X, Erigero di Lobbes tentò una conciliazione delle due correnti, inclinando però verso Pascasio, nel nome del quale fu debellato il simbolismo veramente erroneo di Berengario di Tours. Molti i polemisti anticeramiani: Durando di Troarn, Guitmonde di Aversa, Lanfranco di Canterbury, Algero di Liegi, Gregorio di Bergamo, che prepararono la mirabile fioritura del sec. XII. Le opere eucaristiche di Odone di Cambrai, Guiberto di Nogent, Goffredo di Vendôme, Onorio di Autun, Ugo di S. Vittero, Guglielmo di St-Thierry, Pietro Lombardo, Roberto di Melun, Baldovino di Canterbury, Innocen- zo III, sono il naturale fondamento su cui s. Tommaso d'Aquino, "Eucharistiae praeco et vates maximus" (Pio XII. encicl. Studiorum actum, 29 giugno 1923) costruì il suo compatto edificio. Vicino all'Aquinare lavorarono con intelligenza Alessandro di Hales, s. Bonaventura, "Alberto Magno, Pietro di Tarantasia, Riccardo di Me- diavilla. La Scolastica, nella sua maturità, ha elaborato una formola ove realismo e simbolismo si armonizzano in un compito sistema: Sacramentum tantum: gli acci- denti eucaristici, simbolo e causa della realtà latente; Res et Sacramentum: il Corpo e il Sangue di Gesù Cristo, che sono l'effetto (res) del Sacramentum tantum costituito di materia (pane e vino) e di forma (le parole della Con- sacrazione) e il segno efficace (Sacramentum) della Grazia, che unisce tutti i comunicanti (v. Communio) con Cristo e tra di loro in un mistico organismo destinato a salire, con il Capo, alla visione di Dio (res tantum).

Questo saldo sistema resistette agli attacchi del pro- testantismo, che suscitò nella Chiesa nuovi assertori del dogma, i quali, valendosi del metodo umanistico, arric- chirono di preziosi dati la prova positiva. Da s. Giovanni Fisher al card. Mendoza, da Giovanni Gropper a R. Ro- berto Bellarmino e al card. Du Perron, finché intermi- nabili di testimonianze patristiche, liturgiche, teologiche si diffusero per l'Europa. Dopo secoli di lotte, d'ingorghi e di sorprese, la nuova teologia, in cui cultura positiva e speculazione filosofica si fondono, con lo Scheeben, il Billot e il De la Taille ha cominciato a costruire sintesi degne del grande mistero.

Sulle prove della S. Scrittura: in generale: N. Wiseman, Horace Syriacus, Roma 1828, pp. 18-53; id., Lectures on the real presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist, Londra 1836; Lebreton, Ruch, Goossen-Cop- pens, Arnold, nelle opere già indicate; L. Parrot, La S. Eucha- ristic dans son pays d'origine, Parigi 1938.

Su s. Giovanni: F. Cavallera, L'interpretation du chapitre VI de Saint Jean, Une controverse exégétique au Concile de Trent, in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique, 10 (1909), pp. 687-709; A. Durand, L'Evangile de St Jean, 13e ed., Parigi 1928, pp. 544-47 (storia dell'esegesi); J. Vosté, Studia Johannes, 2a ed., Roma 1930, pp. 193-199; F. S. Müller, Promissio Eucharistiae, in Gregorium, 1 (1930), pp. 161-170; M.-J. Lagrange, Evan- gile selon Jean, 5a ed., Parigi 1936, pp. 160-96; U. Holzmüller, Steigernde Wiederholungen in den Schriften des Neuen Testament, in Theol. prakt. Quaralischrift, 90 (1937), pp. 86-87; F. Prat, La promesse de l'Eucharistie dans St Jean, in J. Calès, Le P. Prat, Parigi 1942, pp. 102-207; L. Tondelli, Geni secondo s. Gio- vanni, Torino 1943, pp. 110-119; I. Tapia Garrido, El sentido eucaristico del capitulo sexto en los teologos postridentinos, Gra- nada 1943; E. D. Allo, L'Evangile spirituel de St Jean, Parigi 1944, pp. 70-77; I. Gillet, Vita in Evangelio s. Ioannis, in Col- lectanea Mechtinensis, 34 (1940), pp. 292-98.

Sui Sinotici: J. Lebreton, La vie et l'enseignement de Jésus- Christ, II, 3a ed., Parigi 1931, pp. 220-231; L. de Grandmaison, Jésus-Christ, II, 3a ed., ivi 1931, pp. 69-73; F. Prat, Jésus-Christ,

II. 6th ed. in 1933, pp. 269-288, 507-26; L. C. Fillion, *Vita di Gesù Cristo*, III, trans. by G. Fiori, Torino 1940, pp. 315-46; L.-M. Lavergne, *L'Evangelio di Gesù Cristo*, trans. by L. Grammatica, Brescia 1941, pp. 485-521; G. Ricciotti, *La vita di Gesù Cristo*, 4th ed., Milano-Roma 1942, pp. 550-78; J. Donisirven, *Les enseignements de Jésus-Christ*, Paris 1946, pp. 270-76.

On St. Paul: E. Mangunot, *L'Enchirastie dans St Paul*, in *Revue pratique d'apologétique*, 13 (1911), pp. 33-48, 203-16, 253-70; P. Van Imschoot, *L'Enchirastie d'après St Paul*, in *Collations Gandavens*, 9 (1922), pp. 113-20; L. Tondelli, *Il pensiero di S. Paolo*, Milano 1926, pp. 183-208; E. B. Allo, *Première Épître aux Corinthiens*, Paris 1934, pp. 236-45, 269-316; F. Prat, *La teologia di S. Paolo*, II, trans. II. by G. Albera, Torino 1937, pp. 257-60; H. Rongy, *L'Enchirastie chez St Paul*, in *Revue ecclésiastique de Liège*, 29 (1938), pp. 161-74; T. Amiot, *L'Enseignement de St Paul*, II, Paris 1938, pp. 30-40.

and the Eucharistic one. Indeed: 1) whereas in natural conversions the prime matter remains unchanged as a fixed bridge upon which the various substantial forms succeed one another, in the Eucharistic conversion even the matter is changed, passing entirely, together with its form, into the substance of the Body of Christ; 2) consequently, whereas in natural conversions there occurs rather a succession of forms that immerse 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 whereas in natural conversions, due to the succession of forms, both the *terminus a quo* and the *terminus ad quem* undergo alterations (corruption-generation), in the Eucharistic conversion, since the matter does not remain, no succession of forms is possible, and therefore, while the converting action touches the entire substance of the bread which in an instant is transmitted into the substance of the Body of Christ, it does not in any way reach the Body of the Lord, which remains intact and impassible. For these reasons transubstantiation is a singular conversion, i.e., outside the realm of experience.

For the same reason it is wonderful, that is, mysterious, since removed from experience (from which the intellect naturally rises to the idea), man cannot form an adequate concept of it but must be content 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 bread and wine under the sacramental species; 3) the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ and the absence of bread and wine is explained by the total conversion of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Jesus. This last article cannot in any way be neglected, because it declares the ultimate reason for the real presence. Thus Pius VI declared in the dogmatic bull *Auctorem Fidei* issued in 1794 against the Synod of Pistoia (Denz-U, 1529).

These three articles of faith logically follow from an analysis of the words of institution: “This is my Body,” “This is my Blood.” Indeed, these words constitute a demonstrative proposition, in which the pronoun “this” vaguely indicates a substance lying beneath the external appearances, whose nature is determined by the predicate. In the present case, Jesus in the predicate enunciates his Body; it must therefore be held that under the species of bread the Body of the Lord is present (art. 1).

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

Finally, every demonstrative proposition either enunciates the identity already preexisting 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 non-existing identity, as occurs in the present case, because at the beginning of the proposition, when Jesus pronounced the pronoun “this,” the substance of bread actually lay beneath the external appearances, whereas at the end, the substance of his Body. Therefore this identity did not exist and had to be produced by an act of his omnipotence; otherwise his affirmation would have been false (practical demonstrative proposition). This identity can only be effected 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 this trajectory of ideas; indeed, all the Fathers repeat that in the Eucharist a) the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are present; b) the bread is absent, despite the senses perceiving its external appearances; c) and that this occurs through the mysterious passage of the bread into the Body of Jesus. Regarding this last point, a process of clarification is noted. The pre-Nicene Fathers content themselves with stating, with St. Irenaeus (*Adversus haereses*, 5, 2, 3; PG 7, 1126), that the bread becomes (vivified) the Body of Christ.

The great Doctors of the Christian East, aware of the particular difficulty of expressing the idea, almost assault it, multiplying terms. Thus it is called by them conversion (μεταβολή; Cyril of Jerusalem, *Catech. Myst.*, 5, 7; PG 33, 1116), trans-elementation (μεταστοιχείω; Gregory of Nyssa, *Orat. Catech.*, 37; PG 45, 96-97), transplacement (μεταβάθωσις; John Chrysostom, *Hom. I in proditione Iudae*, n. 6; PG 49, 380), transposition (μεθόησις; Cyril of Alexandria, *In Lc. 22, 19*; PG 72, 911), transformation (μεταποίησις; John Damascene, *De fide orthodoxa*, 4, 13; PG 94, 1146).

Toward the end of the 4th century, St. Ambrose gave this clear formulation to the traditional doctrine: “How can 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 time comes to perform 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? It is the same word that created all things. The Lord spoke and the heavens were made; the Lord spoke and the earth was made; the Lord spoke and the seas appeared; the Lord spoke and all creatures sprang from nothing. If therefore the power of the words of Jesus Christ is so great that things which did not exist began to be, how much more efficacious will they be to bring about that things which already existed be converted into others (be changed into another)” (*De Sacramentis*, 4, 4, cap. 4, nn. 14-15; PL 16, 439-41).

The early Scholastics followed this path, and the name “transubstantiatio,” which began to be used around the mid-12th century, merely reinforced the same current, blending the insights of the most ancient Greek and Latin tradition; accepted 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 to be the “aptissima” 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 means than the total conversion of the substance of the bread into that of the Body of Christ. Such are the ubiquitarianism of Flacius Illyricus (d. 1577), who made the created body of Jesus share in the divine immensity;

Luther, who posited the coexistence of bread with the Lord’s Body; the immanence theory of Rupert of Deutz, John of Paris, Bayma (v.), who admitted a kind of hypostatic union of the bread with the Body of Jesus; and the assimilation by Durand and Descartes, which does not go beyond the physiological phenomenon.

Instead, the Church accepts those theological opinions that, remaining faithful to the concept of total conversion, have contended for centuries for primacy in the correct understanding of the dogma. The difference dividing the Scholastics of the 13th century from those of the 17th–18th centuries lies in whether they interpret total conversion in the proper and formal sense or in an improper and equivalent sense.

5. Thomas Aquinas, along with Alger of Liège, Alexander of Hales, St Albert the Great, and St Bonaventure, understands conversion in the proper and formal sense. The path that the Angelic Doctor follows with rigorous logic begins from the fact clothed in regal presence: “A thing cannot come to be where it was not before except through local motion or through the conversion of another thing into it, as a house begins to exist when fire is brought there or is produced there through the conversion of the wood that is found in it.”

It is clear that the Body of Christ cannot begin to exist in the Eucharist through local motion, first because it would have to leave heaven, second because it would have to traverse all the intervening spaces, and third because it would have to arrive simultaneously in as many places as there are particular consecrated hosts, which is impossible. There remains only that the Body of Christ begins to be present in the Eucharist through the conversion of the substance of the bread into it (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 75, art. 2). Therefore the term a quo, the substance of the bread, ceases to exist, because it is proper to conversion that the starting term no longer remains; yet it does not fall into nothingness, because it is a requirement of conversion that the term 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 real presence would be blocked; it passes entirely into the term ad quem, namely the Body of Jesus, and it passes totally, because the formula used by Christ, as was seen above, excludes any comprehension of the substance of the bread. And precisely because this conversion is total, it is absolutely supernatural and mysterious—exceeding the capacity of the created intellect yet not repugnant to it, since while human intelligence cannot grasp its inner nature, it can nonetheless demonstrate its non-impossibility on God’s part. Indeed, since divine omnipotence extends to all being, both matter and form, it can touch being at its roots and transmute it entirely into another. It is not impossible for either extreme: since it is proper to conversion that the two terms be bound by an ontological nexus, at first glance this real bond seems lacking in the present conversion because, by reason of its totality, it leaves nothing of the starting term subsisting; but Aquinas shrewdly replies that “the reason of being is common to both extremes” (loc. cit., q. 75, art. 4, ad 3).

From the totality of the conversion of the bread’s substance there follows, as a natural corollary, that the term ad quem, namely the Body of Christ, undergoes no change. For in total conversion it is impossible that the corruption of the term a quo correspond to the generation or alteration of the term that begins to be.

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

Directly opposed to these three pillars of the Aquinate’s doctrine are the conceptions of the theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries, according to whom 1) the bread is annihilated to make room for the Lord’s Body; 2) the Body of Christ is rendered present by an adductive action (Bellarmine, De Eucharistia, bk. III, ch. 18; Lugo, De Eucharistia, disp. 7, sect. 6), or by a reproductive action (Suárez, De Eucharistia, disp. 50, sect. 4; Lessius, De perfectionibus moribusque divinis, bk. XII, ch. 16) that touches it directly; 3) between the annihilation of the bread’s substance and the adduction or reproduction there obtains a logical, extrinsic nexus, inasmuch as God destroys the bread in order to adduce or reproduce the Body under its species.

They hold, moreover, that this conception satisfies, if not in the proper sense, at least equivalently, the total conversion required by the Catholic dogma.

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

Whereas the Thomistic explanation is in perfect harmony with these data, the theories of the 16th and 17th centuries appear in some ways to run counter to each of them and to be entangled in a tangle of difficulties that spontaneously arise in the mind. For if the annihilation of the bread is posited, neither the adduction nor the reproduction of the Body of Jesus can properly be called a true conversion, which in its formal concept involves the passage of one thing into another and not the total destruction of one in order to make room for another that is adduced or reproduced. Moreover, the bond between the destruction of the bread and the adduction or reproduction of the Lord’s Body can only be logical—that is, extrinsic—and not arising from the real nexus of the ontological succession of two substances. Nor is it understood how the glorified, impassible Body of Jesus could be adduced under the Eucharistic species without leaving its original abode and without traversing the intervening spaces. Nor is it seen how the same Body of Jesus could be reproduced as many times as there are consecrations and yet remain one and the same, identical Body that was born of the Virgin.

rigi 1915, pp. 204-205; A. von Spalva-Noyman, Das Problem der wesentlichen Gestalten im htl. Altarsakrament nach der Lehre des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Breslavia 1910; J. Bittermueck, Die transubstantiatione und seinerart. 8. Bonaventura, in Collectanea Fratresiana, 3 (1923), pp. 26-39; A. Zychlinski, Sincera doctrina de conceptu transubstantiationis iuxta principia 1. Thomas, in La ciencia tomista, 16 (1924), pp. 28-68, 222-44; J. Puig de la Bellacasa, De transubstantiatione secundum 1. Thomas, Barcelona 1926; V. M. Cechia, De natura transubstantiationis iuxta 1. Thomas, in Scientia, Roma 1929; A. M. Vellico, De transubstantiatione iuxta Duns Scotum, in Antoniacum, 6 (1930), pp. 301-32, cui ritponde V. M. Cechia, Annuladversiones in transubstantiationis doctrinam, in Angelicum, 9 (1931), pp. 246-62; H. Weissler, Die Immanationslehre des Johannes Quidor, in Scholastik, 3 (1921), pp. 161-95; M. T. L. Penido, Le rôle de l'analogie et de la dogmatique, Paris 1931, pp. 427-41; J. Baur, Non potest alter Corpus Christi interperse de novo in hoc Sacramento nisi per consentivum substantiae pateris in ipsum, in Divus Thomas, 38 (Piacenza 1934), pp. 120-28; A. Verhamme, Exponitur ratio transubstantiationis, in Collectiones Burgenses, 20 (1933), pp. 92-99; id., Genesis canons transubstantiationis in Concilio Tridentino, ibid., pp. 140-49; id., Refutatur sententiae reprobationis et adductionis, ibid., pp. 180-89; H. I. Stöff, De natura transubstantiationis iuxta I. Duns Scotum, Quaracchi 1936; P. Glorieux, Fieri et factum esse, in Divus Thomas, 42 (Piacenza 1938), pp. 24-27; T. Horan, Doctrina transubstantiationis secundum F. Stacler, Roma 1938 (tesi dell'Univ. Gregoriana); A. Michel, La doctrine du Concile de Trento, Parigi 1938, pp. 230-87; H.-I. Al-Maltha, Cosmologia circa transubstantiationum, in Angelicum, 16 (1939), pp. 303-34; F. Simons, Indagatio critica in opinionem R. Maglione, Il concetto di conversione eucaristica in Egitto 1939; R. Maglione, Il concetto di conversione eucaristica in Egitto 1940, Benevento 1941; L. Deambrogio, La S.ma E. in A. Romain, Roma 1941 (tesi dell'Univ. Gregoriana); C. Glorieux, La doctrina della conversione eucaristica in Passorio Radberto e R. tramo, Palermo 1945; A. Michel, Transubstantiation, in D'Haec XV. coll. 1395-1406, Parigi 1946.

IV. MODO DELLA PRESENZA EUCARISTICA.

Il modo della presenza reale del Corpo di Sangue di Cristo considerato in se stesso (assoluto) nel suo rapporto con le specie sensibili (relativo) è legato alla conversione eucaristica, perché effettuandosi questa tra due sostanze, con assoluta esclusione degli accidenti, ha necessariamente per intermezzo la sostanza del Corpo e del Sangue del Signore.

Perciò direttamente e per sé, ossia per le parole della Consacrazione (vi verborum), sotto le specie del pane è presente soltanto la sostanza del Corpo e sotto le apparenze del vino è presente soltanto il Sangue del Signore. Ma siccome dopo la Risurrezione in Cristo sono realmente e inseparabilmente uniti il Corpo, il Sangue, l'Anima e la Divinità, per naturale conseguenza e quasi indirettamente (vi naturalis concomitante) sotto le specie del pane è presente anche il Sangue, l'Anima e la Divinità e sotto le specie del vino è presente anche il Corpo, l'Anima e la Divinità, ossia sotto tutte e due le specie è presente «totus et integer Christus» come definisce il Concilio di Trento, seguendo i dati della Rivelazione (Denz-U, 85); con tale espressione s'intende che il Corpo di Gesù vi è con tutta la sua quantità organizzata, come quella di un corpo perfetto, che gode la pienezza della vita sensitiva.

Essendo però direttamente e per sé presente la sostanza del Corpo e del Sangue del Signore, la quantità, che vi è per conseguenza e per accidente viene tratta ad esistere al modo della sostanza per modum substantiae, acquistando cioè il modo di essere proprio della sostanza. Infatti se la quantità fosse presente nel modo connaturale dovrebbe essere, estendersi oltre i limiti dell'Ostia, riempire il luogo occupato da un'altra quantità (quella degli accidenti del pane e del vino), ciò che è impossibile, anzi contraddetto dalla esperienza e dai dati della Rivelazione, che ci assicura dello stato glorioso e impassibile del Corpo di Gesù.

Sebbene questo modo di presenza sia misterioso (corollario della transubstanziazione) tuttavia l'intel

ligenza umana non ne può dimostrare la ripugnanza, perché ignora l'intima natura dei due estremi da cui dipende: l'omnipotenza divina, che è inessurabile, e la natura della sostanza corporea che sfugge tanto all'acume del filosofo quanto all'occhio dello scienziato, come risulta dalle molteplici congetture formulate intorno ai corpi sia nel campo della filosofia sia in quello dell'esperienza (v. l'aggiornato studio di F. Selvaggi, Il concetto di sostanza nel dogma eucaristico in relazione alla fisica moderna, in Gregorio, 30 [1949], pp. 7-45). «Ignoranza dal lato della sostanza materiale, ignoranza dal lato dell'omnipotenza di Dio, ecco come siamo armati per giudicare i miracoli eucaristici» (G. M. Monsabré, Esposizione del dogma, vers. II. di G. Bononcili, Torino 1940, conf. 68).

La Rivelazione presenta delle analogie che aiutano la mente umana a introvarcere la possibilità di questo mistero. Il Vangelo racconta che il Corpo glorioso di Gesù apparve avvalsa dalla gravità e dalla impenetrabilità quando camminò sulle onde ed entrò nel cenciolo a porte chiuse. Basti su questi fatti, illustri teologi, come il Franzelin, pensarono ad una «meccanica soprannaturale» con leggi superiori che sfuggono a qualunque esperienza.

Essendo presente il Corpo di Gesù con la sua quantità alla maniera della sostanza, la quale, come l'anima, è tutta in tutto il corpo e tutta nelle singole parti, ne segue che lo stesso Corpo di Cristo sia presente tutto in tutta l'Ostia. Tutto nei singoli frammenti tanto dopo (come definisce il Concilio di Trento [Denz-U, 88]) quanto prima della frazione dell'Ostia. Da questo non segue però che prima della frazione il Corpo di Gesù sia presente infinite volte nell'Ostia, perché, come osserva s. Tommaso, «il numero segue la divisione. Perciò fin tanto che la quantità rimane indivisa, la sostanza di una cosa è presente una volta sola sotto le sue dimensioni» (Sgm. Theol., 3ª, q. 76, a. 3 ad 1).

La sostanza del Corpo di Cristo, a sua volta, è presente in maniera singolare, perché esclude tutti i modi di presenza, che si riscontrano nella natura. Infatti non è presente per contatto quantitativo, perché, sebbene abbia tutte le sue dimensioni, non per esse dice ordine alle specie del pane, non per contatto informativo o virtuale, come sono presenti in un corpo l'anima e l'angelo, perché il Corpo di Gesù non influisce sulle specie né come causa formale né come causa efficiente; non per ubiquità, che compete a Dio, perché la virtù intrinseca del Corpo di Cristo è limitata e quindi non può abbracciare tutti gli esseri contenendoli nella sua potenza. Non essere contenuto, ma è presente per il semplice e misterioso rapporto di contenenza che, per la transubstanziazione, le specie acquistano riguardo al Corpo del Signore, onde moltiplicandosi questi rapporti si moltiplica la presenza dello stesso corpo (v. Accidenti Eucaristici).

Questo modo di presenza misterioso e glorioso insieme, riservato al Corpo di Gesù, è detto con termine tecnico, sancito dal Tridentino (Denz-U, 874), «sacramentale».

S. Porziato, Roma 1949; C. Nuñez Goenaga, El valor y funciones de la presencia real universal de la Escritura, según la doctrina eucarística de S. Tomas, Tolosa 1949.

V. CONCLUSIONE: L'É. NEL PIANO DIVINO.

Al momento della transustanziazione una serie di portanti si compie: la conversione della sostanza del pane e del vino nel Corpo e nel Sangue di Cristo, l'attrazione della quantità ad esistere per modum substantiae, la multipresenza sacramentale dello stesso Corpo di Gesù, la permanenza degli accidenti senza soggetto d'ingiunzione: la vita dell'universo è sospesa a quell'istante. Da quest'uomo sociali il protestante si sembra dire: «ad quid perditio haec?» Perché incomodare la Divinità e pretendere tante meraviglie quando la sola fede ci unisce a Cristo? L'É. è inutile.

Ritorniamo al Vangelo: Gesù nel discorso di Cafarnano ha indicato lo stretto legame che unisce l'É. all'Incarnazione. Chi ritiene superflua l'É. deve rigettare qualunque mediazione del Verbo Incarnato. Per questa fatale china è slittato il protestante in liberale.

La divinità di Gesù, umilmente accettata, illumina le ombre del mistero, disispa le difficoltà. La fede nella presenza reale, prolungamento dell'Incarnazione, ne, ci unisce a Cristo, come l'Incarnazione ci accosta a Dio. Se l'Incarnazione è Dio che si fa uomo, l'É. è Dio che si fa ogni uomo: «Per hoc sacramentum omnes nos sibi univit Deus, cum in Incarnatione non univerit sibi nisi unius solius naturam» (Alberto Magno, In Mt. 26, 27; ed. Borgnet, XXI, col. 165). Così Dio entra non solo nei limiti della nostra natura, ma anche in quelli della nostra persona. La transustanziazione del pane nel Corpo di Gesù è l'emblema della trasformazione spontanamente del nostro essere, che i Padri greci chiamano divinizzazione (Θεοτολόγος). Nel banchetto eucaristico si attua l'unione più intima tra Dio e l'uomo: tutta l'umanità è il «sodalizio eletto alla gran cena». Come a Cana la Madre di Gesù interviene nel compimento del prodigio, figura dell'É., che consolò il cuore degli sposi e provocò la fede dei discepoli, così in questo perenne festino ove tutti i fedeli «sicut novellae olivarum» circondano la mensa della Chiesa, Maria è presente, larga dispensiera di favori ai commensali, mediatrice tra Cristo «la Chiesa, Madre del Capo e delle membra: Mater unitatis. Gesù, che entrò nel mondo la prima volta per la Madre, vi ritorna con Maria e attraversò l'É., s'inscrisse nella trama della vita individuale, permandola delle sue effusioni divine, s'intesta nel corso della vita sociale, cementandone la compagine nella forza coesiva dell'amore, s'aderge fastigio del creato in una ripercussione cosmica toccante le misteriose radici della sostanza e stringente cielo e terra in un amplesso eterno.

(1) 1949, 1), pp. 528-35. Soprattutto l'amicizia di Leone XIII, Mirae caritatis, del 18 maggio 1902.

In generale: S. Tommaso, Sum. Theol., 3°, qq. 73-83 con i classici commenti del Gaetano, Giovanni di S. Tommaso, Gocet, Billuart, Gotti; J. B. Franzlein, De SS. Eucharistia, Roma 1885 (1° ed. curata da G. Filograssi, 1° 1932); L. C. Hedley, The holy Eucharist, Londra 1897; L. Labouchere, Lettres d'un étudiant sur la Sainte Eucharistie, Parigi 1912; D. C. Gohlan, De Eucharistia, Dublino 1913; C. Gutberlet, Das hl. Sa-kranent des Altars, Ratisbona 1919; G. Ballerini, Gesù eucaristico e i suoi oppositori, Paris 1923; G. Mattiussi, De SS. Eucharistia, Roma 1925; A. D'Ales, De SS. Eucharistia, Parigi 1929; L. Eucharistie, 1° 1929; A. Janssens, De heilige Eucharistie, Lovatano 1929; M. De la Taille, Mysterium fidei, De augustissimae Corporis et Sanguinis Christi sacrificio atque sacramentum, Parigi 1931 (opera monumentale); L. Billot, De Sacramentis, 1°, 2° ed., Roma 1931, pp. 313-66 (vigorosa sintesi speciali); A. E. Lepicier, De SS. Eucharistia, 2° ed., 2 voll., 1° 1931; M. Brilliant, Eucharistia, Encyclopédie populaire sur l'Eucharistie, Parigi 1933 (con la collaborazione di numerosi autori); L. Parrot, La foi en la Ste Eucharistie, 1° 1939; A. Van Hove, De SS. Eucharistia, 2° ed., Malines 1941; R. Garigou-

Lagrange. De SS. Eucharistia. Torino 1943: F. Carpino. De SS. Eucharistia. Roma 1945 (ad uso privato): E. Hugon. La Eucharistia, trad. it., Torino 1947; I. Filigrassi, De SS. Eucharistia. 2a ed., Roma 1947; A. Polanti, De Sacramenti, 2a ed., 1947, pp. 161-303; E. Doronzo, De Eucharistia, 2a vol., Milwaukee 1947-48; L. Lercher-F. Dander, Institutiones theologicae dogmaticae IV, parte 1, 2, Innsbruck 1948, pp. 305-383; J. Pohle, 8, V. Cali. Enc., V, coll. 372-90; Th. Spach, 8, V. in LThK, III, coll. 82-30. I riflessi dell'E. sull'arte sono brillantemente illustrati da A. D. Sertillanges, L'Eucharistie, Parigi 1931; M. Volberg, L'Eucharistie dans l'air, 2 vol., 1941; C. Costantini, Dio nascosto, Splendori di fede e di arte nella S. E., Roma 1944.

B. L'E. NELLA MORALE E NEL DIRITTO.

SOMMARIO:

2. Materia dell'E

II. Forma dell'E

III. Ministro della Consacrazione

IV. Ministro della Comunione

V. Obbligo di ricevere l'E.

3. Materia dell'E

II Sacrificio della Messa deve essere celebrato con pane di frumento di vino naturale di vite, cui s'infonde modicissima quantità d'acqua (can. 814): i larini devono usare pane azimutato, quasi tutti gli orientali pane fermentato (can. 816). Alcune qualità del pane e del vino sono richieste per la validità della Consacrazione; altre invece soltanto per la liceità.

4. Valid matter

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

The words: *Qui pridie*, etc.; *Simili modo*, etc., which respectively precede the Consecration of the bread and the wine, must be pronounced with grave matter; 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 free from grave sin. Some of these variations render the Consecration either null or 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), i.e., placed before and near the celebrant. Therefore the Consecration of matter placed behind the celebrant’s back or behind the altar is invalid; at least doubtful is the Consecration of matter more than fifty paces distant from the celebrant, or enclosed in the tabernacle, or placed under the corporal or among the leaves of the missal. Determined (moral presence): it is necessary that the celebrant intend to consecrate a specific matter. Therefore he consecrates invalidly who, wishing to consecrate only one of two hosts he holds in his hands, does not determine which; who, having the intention of consecrating only what he perceives to be present or never having resolved to consecrate unknown matter, does not perceive the presence of the matter (De defat., tit. VII, n. 1). Instead, he consecrates validly two hosts if, believing he has only one, he intends to consecrate what he holds in his hand; if he has placed, ordered to be placed, or perceived and verified that the piscina was placed on the corporal, or if, after it was removed, he neither at the Offertory nor at the Consecration noticed the piscina’s absence. Matter involuntarily placed outside the corporal is not consecrated if the priest intended to consecrate only what he found on the corporal; it is consecrated if he intended to consecrate also what he found involuntarily outside the corporal; it is probably consecrated even if it is uncertain what intention he had, because it must be presumed that he wished to consecrate this matter as well. In practice it is better to reconsecrate it conditionally at another Mass.
### III. MINISTER OF CONSECRATION

The minister of consecration is solely the priest who, in the person of Christ, consecrates and offers sacrifice (cf. Trid., sess. XXII, De Sacrificio Missae, c. 2, 3; Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 82, a. 1, 7, ad 3; can. 80). For valid consecration, in addition to what has already been stated regarding the matter, the minister must at least have the intention of doing what the Church does. A virtual or implicit intention suffices; but, as has already been said, it must be determined with respect to the matter to be consecrated. For licit consecration:

a) The matter:
a) must possess the qualities already mentioned above;
b) must be placed on the corporal; therefore, one gravely sins who knowingly and willingly places the matter outside it;
c) at least at the time of consecration, it must be placed on the sacred stone if the mensa is not entirely consecrated; however, this does not seem obligatory even sub levi.

b) The priest must:
a) be in a state of grace, which, ordinarily, must be obtained through sacramental confession by one who is in mortal sin (can. 80); the obligation to make confession beforehand is probably only of ecclesiastical precept (cf. Trid., sess. XIII, De Euch., c. 7). However, when there is urgent necessity to celebrate (due to an obligation of office or vow, so that the people may fulfill their precept, to administer the Gospel to a dying person, or to avoid grave danger of confusion, infamy, or serious harm), and at the same time there is no physical or moral possibility of confessing (if there is no confessor available to hear the confession, or if confession cannot be made without harm to the confessor, the penitent, or others, or without serious inconvenience caused by lack of time, excessive distance, or prudent fear of grave inconvenience), the priest may nevertheless 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.

b) Be free from irregularities, censures, or other penalties that prohibit the celebration of Mass.

c) Recite the Office of Matins with Lauds and the preparatory prayers beforehand (cf. can. 80). This prescription probably does not bind even sub levi.

d) Observe the eucharistic fast from midnight (can. 80); computed according to local (true or mean) or legal (regional or extraordinary) time. This is an ecclesiastical precept binding under pain of grave sin, which does not admit of parvity of matter (v. COMUNIONE EUCARISTICA). Exceptions to this law include:
x) the necessity of completing the Sacrifice (after consecration has already been made) (cf. De defect., tit. III, n. 5; tit. IV, n. 4, 5; tit. X, n. 3), and probably also the necessity of administering Viaticum;
f) exceptional grave harm or inconvenience resulting from omitted celebration;
g) dispensation from the Holy Office (can. 247 § 5) or from the local Ordinary, who, acting with the faculty granted by the Holy See, may dispense priests from the eucharistic fast, provided this is required for the spiritual good of the faithful, only liquids that are not intoxicating are taken (milk, coffee, broth even with small pasta, etc.) (Holy Office, 4 June 1893; 7 Sept. 1897), and the danger of scandal is avoided (Holy Office, 22 March 1923; AAS, 15 [1923], p. 151). Recently, the Holy Father, on 28 January 1947, acceding to a petition from the Belgian bishops, granted certain faculties regarding the eucharistic fast and the celebration of Holy Mass in the afternoon. These concessions were further generously extended in the letter of the Holy Office of 28 October 1947 to Cardinal E. C. Suhard, Archbishop of Paris. The concessions essentially amount to this: permission, under certain circumstances, to begin the eucharistic fast not from midnight but three hours before Holy Mass or Communion for solid food and alcoholic beverages, and one hour before for non-alcoholic beverages, even if nutritious. The concessions are local and granted annually; yet they may be seen as an indication of a new direction in the discipline of the eucharistic fast (cf. Monitore ecclesiastico, 72 [1947], p. 111; 73 [1948], pp. 76-80).

h) Be free from irregularities. Sometimes a physical defect does not prevent private celebration. He must also be decently dressed in clerical attire and be shod.

### IV. MINISTER OF COMMUNION: V. COMUNIONE EUCARISTICA.

### THE EUCHARISTIC CHURCH (EUCHARISTIA)

From the 11th century onward, the repository of the Eucharist was transferred to the same place of devotion; hence “sacrarium” came to mean both the sacristy and the wall-mounted cabinet, as well as the tabernacle itself. Here are the principal systems of custody after the year 1000:

a) The sacristy. Widely used, especially in Milan. A Synod of Ravenna in 1311 leaves the choice free between the sacristy and the church.

b) The eucharistic column. Of modest proportions, it held the ciborium in a cavity in its back; it was affixed to a plate and suspended from the canopy of the ciborium. Very widespread in France and England, especially before the decline of the Limoges glass industry.

c) The wall-mounted cabinet. This was the most widespread system in Italy and Germany, as it was the most practical and secure. Usually set into the wall near the high altar, in the Roman manner, or in the choir, it was equipped with a small door and lock; inside was placed the ciborium containing the Eucharist. Notable examples include the *prothilatorium* and the sacramental aedicules. The former is a small, portable coffer in which the ciborium is kept. Its use was confined to certain cities in Italy and France. The sacramental aedicules were almost exclusively a feature of churches in Northern Europe from the late 14th to the mid-17th century. They are tower-like in form and often very large.

d) Tabernacle (v.). During this period, the first attempts were made to associate the tabernacle with the altar, but without lasting success, since the altar retained its ancient apostolic form of the Mass. An early example in Italy is found in the 14th century in Venice, in the altarpiece of S. Tarasio in S. Zaccaria. The final historical phase of the tabernacle began in the 16th century, when, chiefly through the work of Giovanni Matthei, a goldsmith of Verona (1524-43), it began to be placed on the mensa of the altar.

The ciborium was obligatory; however, the use of a silk pouch is also found, for example, in Salzburg in 1220. The renewal of the hosts was done every seven days, or every fifteen; among the Greeks, annually. The remaining hosts were consumed by the priests; in France, they were sometimes given to children, and in England to adults. For convenience, the Holy Oils, relics, incense, and everything needed for the sick were also kept with the Eucharist. Custody was entrusted to the priest. In the 11th century, lamps and candles were used between Holy Thursday and Good Friday. In the following century, more explicit mention of the lamp appears; by the 13th century, examples increase. It should be noted that the first idea of the lamp is found in the Nestorian Synod of Seleucia in 904, but we do not know what influence it exerted on the Roman Church.

In the early centuries of the Middle Ages, there is no mention of the lamp, nor of visits to the Blessed Sacrament or other eucharistic devotions, because everything was centered on the Mass as a sacrifice, of which Christ is the Priest. Only in the 12th century, as the objective sense of the sacrifice waned and the subjective sense of devotion to the Eucharistic and Crucified Christ—distinct from the Mass—grew stronger, did such practices begin to develop.

3. Third period: from the Council of Trent to the Code of Canon Law. Under the impetus of Protestant denials, Eucharistic devotion takes on new expressions. The definitions and laws of the Council of Trent and the later edition of liturgical books codify and establish several Eucharistic practices. Viaticum remains the fundamental reason for custody, while Communion of the faithful is considered by canonists as a subordinate reason. The first clear testimony of Communion to the faithful, even outside Mass, is found in the Milanese Council of 1579. It is fixed in the Roman Ritual of 1614. The long centuries of development around the Eucharist, first treated as a thing, culminate in Trent, which, while defining the cult of the Blessed Sacrament, draws attention to the person of Christ. Not that this idea was absent before, but it is greatly strengthened. The use of expositions, processions, visits, the Forty Hours, and perpetual adoration spreads.

A novelty of this period is that parish churches must always keep the Eucharist (Synod of Treviso, 1678). Parish churches always have the duty of custody, but cathedrals, which are not always parish churches, depend on the bishop. In their churches, religious follow the norms of parishes regarding internal religious. For nuns, however, the Council of Trent (session XXV, chap. 10) forbids custody within the cloister. For male religious, there was no such express prohibition. Modern religious congregations have various faculties from the Holy See in this regard, so that by the end of the last century, custody among them could be called general custom.

To find a law ordering custody on the altar, one must, as mentioned, go back to Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona (1524-43); yet even in 1773 Gregory XIII declares (Bull. Rom., VIII) that it is difficult to fix a single place. The first prescription of custody on altars is from the Roman Ritual of the Sacraments, published in 1584. The altar preferred for custody, until the 16th century, is the so-called high altar. Considering some reverence during holy functions, the Eucharist began to be moved elsewhere. Indeed, in cathedrals, the tabernacle was placed on another altar (Caerimoniale Episcoporum, I. 11, chap. 29). Some synods admit a double custody in the same church, especially when the main tabernacle is inconvenient. The tabernacle is now general. It is St. Charles Borromeo who introduces the use of the corporal. The Roman Ritual of 1614 abolishes the use of materials in the tabernacle. The greatest dignity is required in the custody of the Eucharist, which is almost exclusively entrusted to priests. Renewal is frequent. The obligation of the lamp extends more and more: from the mid-16th century, it becomes common use, at least during the day.

5. Fourth period: Current Law — CIC 1269-73

This is the first systematic legislation, albeit not complete, of the Church regarding the custody of the Eucharist. It exists not only for viaticum but also for the Communion of the faithful and for exposition. This specimen of the document of Peter V to the Camera has been proposed again. Recently, the entire matter has been gathered in the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments of May 26, 1938 (AAS, 30 [1938] pp. 198-207), compiled by another of September 15, 1943 (AAS, 35 [1943] pp. 282-83).

Any custody outside the church is forbidden, whether in the homes of laity or religious. Only the Ordinary, for grave reasons, may permit the Eucharist to be transferred to another place at night, which must be decent and more secure than usual. This applies especially to mission lands among heretics and infidels. No one may carry the Eucharist with them during travel. All churches with care of souls are obliged to keep the Eucharist. Cathedrals also have this obligation, as do churches attached to religious houses, both male and female. If they are not exempt from the bishop’s jurisdiction, his permission is necessary.

The Eucharist must be kept in church, preferably in one altar only, placed in a most conspicuous and noble location (can. 1268, §2). Usually, this will be the high altar, except in cathedrals, collegiate churches, and conventual churches. This altar must be beautiful and adorned in a way that awakens the piety of the faithful. The prescriptions for the tabernacle are as follows: The Most Holy Eucharist must be kept in a tabernacle, immovable, placed in the center of the altar. It must be well constructed, solid, securely closed, adorned according to liturgical laws, and free from anything else (can. 1269). Great diligence is required in custody to avoid profanation. The key to the tabernacle must be kept by the person responsible for the church. The consecrated hosts must always be kept in a ciborium of solid and suitable material, clean, securely closed, covered with a veil of silk or a similar material. The hosts must be fresh and renewed frequently, avoiding any danger of corruption. Near the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Sacrament is reserved, a lamp must burn day and night, fueled 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 illuminates.

D. — THE EUCHARIST IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART

I. IN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS

There still exists among interpreters disagreement regarding the use of the Eucharist as a subject of figurative representation in early Christian art, disagreements due chiefly to an incomplete understanding of the intimate nature of the figurative language employed in these representations. Can it be said that the Eucharist was truly “represented,” whether as a Sacrament or as a sacrifice, in the paintings of the catacombs, in the sculpture of sarcophagi, or in the minor arts? Or must the Eucharistic meaning attributed to certain representations be excluded as the result of overly subjective interpretations? The answer seems to be that early Christian art, rather than representing the Eucharist in its reality or “portraying” it, continually brings it to mind as φάσμαχος τῆς ἀθανασίας, proceeding by means of simple allusions of a typological or merely symbolic nature that were immediately intelligible and full of mystical meaning to Christians. Thus, in order to express the Eucharistic concept, Christian art selects real elements drawn from the Gospel or from the rites of the Church, but in composing its pictorial phrases, it combines them into a whole that is no longer realistic but merely evocative. It is precisely the variety of such combinations, together with the precise sense of certain compositional elements, that allows one to rediscover beneath the apparently descriptive or narrative form the fabric of Eucharistic speculations.

The starting point for these considerations on early Christian art has been: the familiar words of Jesus: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:45); the account of the multiplication of the loaves in the desert; and the two Eucharistic species. Moreover, through the rite of Baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist was part of Christian initiation, and on account of the extraordinary importance of the latter in the life of every Christian, the two Sacraments were thus often evoked, even on tombs.

In general, art employs three types of Eucharistic representations. The first group consists of narrative scenes, among which the so-called Eucharistic fishes in the Lucina region of the catacomb of St. Callistus, grouped with baskets containing bread and wine, are the most prominent; to these are added: the tripod with bread and fish among seven baskets; the baskets of the multitude of loaves and the jars of the miracle at Cana grouped in two sets; loaves and fishes grouped together, etc. The second type portrays Christ performing the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and of the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana; often the two miracles serve as counterparts on either side of an orant, as if to emphasize the effects of the Eucharist in the afterlife. Finally, the banquet (v.) of the seven reclining around the σιβidium, which finds its finest representation in the so-called Fractio Panis in the catacomb of Priscilla, on account of the continual presence of baskets of bread drawn from the miracle in the desert and the figurative contexts in which it appears as an evocation of the Eucharistic agape. A special place is occupied by two compositions: one in St. Callistus, in which a figure dressed as a philosopher blesses the bread placed on a tripod, with an additional loaf; and that in the catacomb of Domitilla (now in the Museum of Catania), in which Christ, speaking of the living water to the Samaritan woman, holds five loaves in the fold of his pallium.

The Last Supper, recalling the institution of the Eucharist, appears for the first time in the Museum of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna and in the miniature of the purple codex of Rossano, which also adds the Communion of the Apostles. This new historical form will replace the previous one in the future of Christian art.

As regards the figures of the Old Testament, it should be noted that the themes developed by Paleo-Christian art continue to appear in the following centuries, stimulating the decoration of churches and museums. The manna, the sacrifice of Abel, the offering of Melchisedech, the Paschal lamb, etc., are frequently represented. This is the case in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, where there is a clear parallel between the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the institution of the Eucharist, as well as in those of S. Vitale and S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. Subsequent Christian art did not greatly modify or enrich these iconographic themes, whether in the miniatures of the Carolingian period, such as, for example, in the Sacramentary of Drogo (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 9428), where the large initial T of the Canon of the Mass (Te igitur) is adorned at the ends and in the center of the upper bar with three small scenes featuring Abel, Melchisedech, and Abraham. Similar schemes also appear in works of goldsmiths, in the enamels adorning ciboria and liturgical coffers similar to those of the 13th century preserved in the Louvre.

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

As for the numerous plastic and pictorial representations of the two Gospel miracles considered as prefigurations of the Eucharist—namely, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and the miracle at the wedding at Cana—it should be noted how the primitive iconographic tradition is transmitted throughout the Middle Ages, especially in Byzantine artistic culture, and flourishes again in the West during the Romanesque period, gaining new importance when, at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths developed these themes in an infinite series of works.

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

Regarding the promise, that is, the illustration of the passage from the Gospel of St. John (Jn 6:26–52), when Jesus said to the crowd in the synagogue at Capernaum, “I am the bread of life,” etc., it cannot be said that a precise iconographic type was ever defined. It is a discourse addressed to a crowd of people without any particular gestures or attitudes to characterize II. Very different is what can be observed regarding the scene of the institution of the Eucharist, when Christ is seated at table with the Apostles, with bread and wine before them. The oldest and most frequent representations of this event are found in documents of Eastern origin and date back to the 6th century, such as a silver paten now in the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as in the miniatures of the Rabbula Gospels and the Codex Purpureus of Rossano. In S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, the first of the mosaics with which the representation of the Passion of Our Lord begins depicts Christ and eleven people seated at a table on which are some pieces of bread and, in a dish, two fish. Christ is in the act of blessing. The theme is repeated with few variations, especially in the number of the Apostles, until the threshold of Romanesque art, when it will assume great development. Thus, in the 11th century at S. Angelo in Formis near Capua and at S. Urbano alla 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 various bronze reliefs of the doors of the cathedral of Benevento, in a panel of the ciborium of Salerno, etc.

From the 14th century onward, the composition is clearly defined, and almost everywhere the use prevails of depicting Christ with St. John leaning on his breast. Thus, in a notable group of 14th-century compositions, such as that by Giotto in the Arena Chapel in Padua, that by Taddeo Gaddi in the refectory of S. Croce in Florence, and then, in the 15th century, that by Andrea del Castagno in the refectory of S. Apollonia in Florence (1457) and others by Ghirlandaio in the refectory of Ognissanti and in the small one of S. Marco, the series culminates with the famous composition by Leonardo in the refectory of the convent of S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

As for the other Gospel narrative directly connected with the Eucharist, namely the Communion of the Apostles, it should also be noted how the first iconographic definition of the theme is probably to be assigned to the East, where it already appears clearly in a silver paten from the Museum of Istanbul discovered at Stima near Aleppo, in the Rabbula Gospels, in the Codex of Rossano, where the Apostles approach with acts of deference to Christ in a single row, five in one scene and six in another. The theme developed widely from the 9th to the 14th century in Byzantine art, and in the mosaics of S. Sophia in Kiev, dating to the 11th century, Christ is standing beside the table, with two angels next to him, while the Apostles, six on each side, approach with measured steps, almost in a dance; similarly in a painting, also from 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’s in Rome (12th century).

Meanwhile, in the West, in Carolingian art compositions, the image of Christ seated on a throne holding the Host in his right hand is also found. Such a depiction in Sacramentaries is sometimes accompanied by that of the Crucifixion to remind one that the Mass renews the Sacrifice of Calvary.

Returning now to the Communion of the Apostles, it should be recalled how, in the 15th century, the theme found one of its highest manifestations in Italian art in a fresco by Fra Angelico in the Convent of S. Marco in Florence, where Christ, standing, approaches the Apostles at the table and gives them Communion one by one. The theme, taken up by Luca Signorelli in 1512 in a painting in the cathedral of Cortona, developed widely at the end of the 16th century. In this regard, mention may be made of the composition by Barocci in the church of the Minerva in Rome, that by Ribera in the Charterhouse of S. Martino in Naples, and that by Rubens in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, in which the table of the Last Supper is transferred to a church. — See pl. XLIX–L. Bruml.: K. Künstle, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, Frühm. in Br. 1928, pp. 413–23; M. Volberg, L'Eucharistie dans l'art, 2 vols., Grenoble–Paris 1946; Ch. de Bovin, Le culte de l'Eucharistie d'après la miniature du moyen âge, in Studia Eucharistica DOC anni a condito festa Santissimi Corporis Christi di S. Actes, Antwerp 1946, pp. 326–32; J. Helbig, L'iconographie eucharistique dans le vitrail belge, ibid. 1947, pp. 369–78. Emilio Lavagnino

EUCH, Johannes von. - Bishop, born into a noble family at Meppen (Hannover) in 1834 and died at Copenhagen on 17 Aug. 1922. Soon after his priestly ordination in 1860, he went to Denmark and was first appointed assistant priest at St Ansgar’s, the principal Catholic church in Copenhagen, and then from 1864 until 1883 parish priest at Fredericia, the other Catholic church in Denmark. In 1884 he was named canon of the cathedral of Osnabrück and shortly afterwards elected Apostolic Prefect of Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands; in 1892 titular Bishop of Anastasiopolis and Apostolic Vicar of Denmark; in 1917 Assistant at the Pontifical Throne. He was also awarded the knighthood of the Order of the Dannebrog.

When he arrived in Denmark he found only two Catholic churches with barely 1,000 faithful. At his death Catholics had grown to about 6,000 and in all the principal cities there were Catholic stations with church or chapel and school, served by resident priests and nuns, most of whom came from Germany. He founded and supported missionary works of every kind and promoted magazines, higher schools, unions of students and young people, and several religious associations. He organized the first national pilgrimage since the so-called Reformation. His high culture won him great respect and sympathy, and the funeral rites accorded to him were a striking demonstration of esteem.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. Chenius, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. Chenius, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. Chenius, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. Chenius, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. CHENIUS, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between the British and French governments over the SIRIAM QUESTION. The British government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of international law, while the French government claimed that the SIRIAM QUESTION was a matter of national honor. The dispute was eventually settled in favor of the British government.

E. CHENIUS, SLOAN FILM TROOP SULTAN BID.

The SIRIAM QUESTION was a dispute between

The 1873 edition is a reprint of the previous one. In these two Roman editions, the rite of the consecration of a church is missing. Moreover, no edition contains the abandoned elements of Byzantine ecclesiology scattered in the monasteries. A large part of this material is found in the works of G. Goar and A. Dmitrievskij, as well as in separate liturgical monographs printed in Greece and Russia. NIC. PAN. PAPADOPULO enriched his edition of the E., published in Athens in 1927, with rites and prayers drawn from these sources.

From the complete E. (Εὐχαίρουν τὸ Μέγα) described above, one must distinguish the small E. (Εὐχαίρουν τὸ Μικρόν), which contains only the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the sacramental rites, some Epistles and Gospels, and a few prayers. The collection of the most used blessings formed the ritual called Aghiasmatario Benedizione, while the ritual elements most employed by the bishop are found in the Archiatrica, and the prayers recited by the deacon gave rise to the Diaconico (Διάκονος). The most authoritative commentary on the E. is a Latin translation of the texts found in the masterly work of G. Goar: Εὐχαίρουν, sive Rituale Graecorum. Except for the Sacraments, the rites of the Greek E. and of the Slavonic Trobnik, which is its equivalent, are commented upon with the help of the manuscripts in the aforementioned work by de Mestre.