Annotation CXI

”Jesus took bread, and blessed [it].” — Matthew 26:26

With what words Christ consecrated the Eucharist.

Thomas Cajetan, in the commentary, appends to these words such an elucidation: “Jesus took bread, and blessed [it] with a blessing of praise, not with a blessing of consecration. Which is plain from the fact that both Luke and Paul, in place of ‘blessing,’ put ‘thanksgiving,’ which is a blessing of praise.” Ambrose [Catharinus], bishop of Compsa, in the first edition of his Annotations, suspects that Cajetan brought this forth because he was uncertain and ambiguous about the form of consecration — that is, by what words Christ consecrated. And he brings forward two causes of [his] suspicion: one, that Cajetan was unwilling that these words be understood of the blessing of consecration, as St. Thomas and very many celebrated doctors have expounded; the other, that although he has so often in his commentaries explained that sentence “This is my body,” he has nowhere made even the least mention of the form of consecration which is included in it. Edward Lee condemned this same thing in Erasmus — [namely] that in the Annotations on the New Testament he wrote that it is not to be pertinaciously asserted by what words Christ consecrated, and by what words the priest confects [it], since this is nowhere expressly read; and that those words, “This is my body,” seem to be rather [the words] of one handing over bread already consecrated, than of one consecrating the bread.

Mark of Ephesus, bishop; Nicholas Cabasilas, bishop of Thessalonica; and certain other more

recent Greeks, who have published explanations on the Liturgy of the Greek Church — although they do not deny that the aforesaid words, “This is my body,” are necessary for the sanctification and consecration of the Lord’s body — nevertheless deny that these alone suffice for the perfect transmutation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, unless to these be added certain prayers and blessings handed down by the holy fathers, which, through the invocation of the Holy Spirit, have the power of transmuting the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord. Which opinion they also strive to demonstrate from the sacred Liturgies of the holy fathers — namely of James, Basil, and Chrysostom — in which, after the recitation of the Lord’s saying “This is my body,” there are superadded prayers which, through the imploring of the Divine Spirit, in act complete and perfect the consecration and transmutation of the bread and wine — which had already received, from the utterance of Christ’s words, the disposition and power [to that end] — so that by the following supplication of the priest they might be sanctified and turned into the Lord’s body. And the formulas of prayers of this kind are these.

James the Apostle, in the Liturgy — or Mass — published by him, prescribed the rite of confecting the Eucharist in this order: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, taking bread into his holy and immortal hands, looking up to heaven and showing [it] to thee, God and Father, giving thanks, sanctifying, breaking, gave [it] to us his disciples and his apostles, saying: ‘Unto the remission of sins, and unto eternal life, take and eat: this is my body, which is broken for you, and given for the remission of sins, Amen.’ In like manner, after he had supped, taking the cup and mingling [it] of wine and water, and looking up to heaven and showing [it] to thee, God and Father, giving thanks, sanctifying, blessing, filling [it] with the Holy Spirit, he gave [it] to us his disciples, saying: ‘Drink ye all of this: this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many, and is given for the remission of sins. Do this in my commemoration.’” And after these [words]: “Being therefore mindful, we also sinners, of his life-giving sufferings, offer to thee this awesome and unbloody sacrifice, praying thee, O Lord, that thou send down thy most holy Spirit upon us and upon these holy gifts set forth, that, coming upon [them], he may by his holy and glorious presence sanctify [them], and may make this bread the holy body of thy Christ, Amen; and this cup the precious blood of thy Christ, Amen.”

Clement, the third pontiff after Peter, in his Liturgy has [it] in this manner: “The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, taking bread into his holy and immaculate hands, and lifting up [his] eyes to thee, God and his Father, broke [it] and gave [it] to his disciples, saying: ‘Take, eat of it: this is my body, which is broken in pieces for many unto the remission of sins.’ In like manner also the cup, tempered with wine and water, he sanctified and gave to them, saying: ‘Drink ye all of it: this is my blood, which is shed for many. Do this in my commemoration.’ Being therefore mindful of his passion, according to his institution we beseech thee, that thou vouchsafe to send thy Holy Spirit upon this

[send thy Holy Spirit upon] this sacrifice, that he may make this bread the body of thy Christ, and this cup the blood of thy Christ.”

Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, also — relating in what manner the sacred host is consecrated — writes these [things] in the fifth Mystagogical Catechesis: “We pray the most benign God that he send forth the Holy Spirit upon those [gifts] set forth, that he may make the bread indeed the body of Christ, and the wine the blood of Christ. For altogether, whatever the Holy Spirit touches, this is sanctified and transmuted.”

Basil too, in [his] Liturgy, sets down the words of consecration thus: “Christ, on the night on which he delivered himself for the life of the world, taking bread into his holy and immaculate hands, and showing [it] to thee, God and Father, giving thanks, blessing, sanctifying, breaking, gave [it] to the Apostles, saying: ‘Take, and eat: this is my body, which is broken for you unto the remission of sins, Amen.’ In like manner also the cup, etc.” And after these [words]: “Therefore we pray that thy Holy Spirit come upon us, and upon these gifts set forth, and bless them, and sanctify [them], and make this bread indeed the honorable body of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ; but that which is in this cup, the very blood of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, which was shed for the life of the world.”

Chrysostom likewise, after the recitation of the Lord’s word “This is my body,” uses such a deprecatory [petitionary] consecration: “We pray, we beseech, and we implore that thou send thy Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these gifts set forth; and make this bread indeed the precious body of thy Christ, and that which is in this cup the precious blood of thy Christ, changing [them] by thy Holy Spirit, Amen.” From these [things], then, those Greeks maintain that the words of the Lord’s consecration, without the prayers of the fathers, do not suffice for the transmutation of the bread and wine into the body of Christ.

But that the mind of the Latins and of the ancient Greeks is one and the same on this matter, Chrysostom clearly demonstrates in the homily On Judas the Traitor, where — teaching that the conversion of the mysteries is accomplished by the word of Christ alone, uttered by the priest — he writes thus: “It is not man that makes the body and blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ. The words of Christ are uttered by the mouth of the priest, and by the power and grace of God the [gifts] set forth are consecrated. ‘For this,’ he says, ‘is my body.’ By this word the [gifts] set forth are consecrated. And just as that voice which said, ‘Increase and multiply, and fill the earth,’ was indeed said [but] once, yet through all time it obtains its effect for generation, nature operating [it]; so too that voice [of Christ] was said [but] once, yet through all the tables [altars] of the Church, up to the present day, and up to the coming of Christ, it gives firmness to the sacrifice.” To this opinion of Chrysostom accedes the decree of the ecumenical Synod of Florence — received by the consent of all the Latins and Greeks — in these words: “We decree that the Armenians conform themselves to the whole Christian world, and that their priests, in the oblation of the cup, mingle a little water with the wine; using the form of this sacrament, which is the words of the Savior, by which this sacrament is confected. For by the power of these very words the substance of the bread is converted into the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine into the

blood — yet in such wise that the whole Christ is contained under the species of bread, and the whole under the species of wine.”

But to those [things] which the bishops Mark and Nicholas bring forward, I find a threefold response among the Latins.

First, Gentianus Hervetus, in the preface to the work of Cabasilas translated by him, says that when in the Masses of the Greek fathers, after the utterance of the words of Christ, there is added “Let it become the body, let it become the blood,” etc. — it is not to be believed that the conversion then first takes place (which was already made a little before), but that it is [thereby] shown that, although the word of Christ has passed away in [its] utterance, yet the effect of the consecration remains under the symbols, or species, of bread and wine. And he says that a similar manner of speaking is found in Mark, concerning the woman laboring with an issue of blood: who, after she had been healed by Christ through faith and by the touch of the fringe of his garment, nevertheless hears from Christ, “Be [thou] healed of thy plague” — though she had already been healed; that it might be signified that, although the effect of the touch of the fringe had passed, yet the [effect] obtained thence persevered.

Second, John, bishop of Ostuni, in the scholia on Clement, thinks — unless I am mistaken — that these [words] are to be taken by the figure of πρωθύστερον [hysteron-proteron, the latter put first]: that is, that we should understand the Holy Spirit to be invoked then as the operator of a consecration already accomplished and of a conversion already perfected.

Third, Bessarion, Patriarch of Constantinople, expounding these [things], says that the Lord’s body is twofold — the true, namely, and the mystical — and that the former is perfectly confected by the words of the Lord himself, whose body it is; but the latter (which is [what] we ourselves are) is completed by the superadded prayers of the fathers, in which, after the transmutation of the bread and wine into the very body of Christ, the priests pray that those standing by the mysteries may, through the worthy reception of the sacrament, be made one body with Christ. Which interpretation those prayers confirm which, immediately after the consecration of the Eucharist, Basil and Chrysostom append in these words: “That we all, who partake of the one bread and cup, may be united together into the communion of the one Holy Spirit; and mayst thou make [us] to receive thy holy body, that we may find mercy and grace in the assembly of all the saints.”