Chapter V. On the Primary Office of the Christian Priesthood and the Truth of the Most Holy Eucharist

§ 1. I cannot pass over in silence, even in this place, that which is assailed by the mockeries of pseudo-politicians and the execrations of sectarians, and which is a laughingstock and scandal to the profane, but to us who believe is a saving mystery: the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist. I have treated of it elsewhere also, but now both the dignity of priests and the multitude of those who err demand it again.

No one fails to acknowledge that this dissension is most unhappy and that it especially incites peoples to mutual derisions and hatreds. In the year 1603 Pareus composed five books on this matter, by which he shows the most wretched condition of Europe, even if that controversy alone is considered. Indeed, in the preface he himself adds an admonition to all, which will be read with great profit because it graphically depicts for us from experience the condition and dispositions of the sectarians. It reads thus:

How long at last, O brothers, will human envy and contention vex you? How long will you continue, with the peace of Christ despised, to wage a most irreligious war of religion? To what end will the audacity of certain Stentors vaunt itself—men who, without conscience and fear of the divine power, disturb your Churches? Among you one hears, “I am of Luther”; “You are of Calvin”; but to say, “I am of Christ,” is nothing among you. O times! O morals! Was Luther crucified for you? Was any one of you baptized in the name of Calvin? Is Christ, who was crucified for all of you, nothing? And who was Luther? Who Calvin? Ministers, certainly, through whom you believed, and this as the Lord gave to each. Are you not therefore carnal, and do you not walk according to man?

What will you answer to the God of peace, you who lay waste his Church with contentions? What to Christ the Lord, whose commandment concerning charity you despise? Whose sons, therefore, will you be, if you are not sons of God? But how are you sons of God if you are not peacemakers? How do you profess Christ as master if no one recognizes you as his disciples? But who will recognize you as disciples of Christ if you do not love one another? Does pity not at last seize you for so many brothers for whom Christ died, whom by your altercations you destroy, so far as lies in you? Indeed, let pity at last seize you for yourselves, for whom salvation has been prepared in peace and certain destruction in contention. For if with one heart and mouth you invoke God the Father on earth, surely the one inheritance of sons will be set before you in heaven. But if you continue to bite and devour one another, what remains but that you be consumed by one another?

Do you not see what Satan has long been contriving against Christ? What the Roman Antichrist is attempting? How he conspires with tyrants? How through his Sinons he leads away captive the consciences of men? How at the same time he lays snares for you and prepares your destruction? Do you think that he will be more merciful to the one party than to the other if his contrivances should at some time succeed? And why should they not at last succeed, with the divine power angry at you and every one of you attending, not to the things which belong to God and to peace, but only to those which are your own and which splendid bile dictates, and rushing in hostility into opposing factions? What destroyed the East? Was it not internal dissensions? Was it not the schism of the West?

Why, therefore, do you not, after omitting these things and bidding them a distant farewell, at last return to yourselves? And, bearing with one another through charity, if you cannot yet establish peace by perfect agreement in all things—which in this infirmity has rarely been granted to the Church—nevertheless, in those things in which you truly hold the same, and by the grace of God you hold the same in very many things, establish peace and fraternity after the example of the Polish brothers, so that with united strength and arms you may fight against so many columns of common enemies. In the principal heads of doctrine, the three confessions of faith—the Augustan, Bohemian, and Helvetic, which is also the Palatine—agree according to the sacred Scriptures: concerning Holy Scripture, the true God, the person of the Son of God, the God-man (θεανθρώπου), the providence of God, Sin, Free Will, the Law, the Gospel, Justification through CHRIST, Faith, regeneration and good works, the CATHOLIC Church and its sole and supreme head CHRIST, the Sacraments and their number, end, and use, the condition of souls after death, the resurrection, and eternal life.

In the single article concerning the Holy Supper it has not yet been granted to you to think one thing; and yet the disagreement does not concern the whole. For you think one thing concerning the spiritual presence and eating of the body of Christ, which is the thing signified and the kernel of the Sacrament; and just as it alone is necessary for salvation, so it alone suffices. The disagreement concerns the bodily and oral eating common to the pious and the impious; yet you agree that this is not necessary for salvation, that without the spiritual eating it profits nothing, but is pernicious to many. Why, then, do you not at last agree even upon the Formula of Sandomierz or some similar formula and, passing over the impious or unbelieving, embrace in common only what the faithful receive in the Eucharist?

“We cannot,” you say, “for what has light to do with darkness?” Nothing indeed. But we are not darkness; and would that you all were light. “But what part has the faithful with the unbeliever?” None. But how are we unbelievers, we who love Christ the Lord and invoke him with sincere faith? “We fight for the glory and majesty of Christ.” Would that it were not for your own. “Our conscience does not admit peace with you.” Rather, your passions do not admit it. “You err more horribly than the Papists themselves.” Truly, you who commonly inculcate these things know or weigh too little what the Papists err in, or rather blaspheme. But why do you not bring those who err back to the way with all meekness and teaching? The Apostle admonishes that a heretical man is to be avoided after one and a second admonition. Produce, then, your admonitions! What do you do but thunder anathemas? Produce also our heresies!

“You defend grave errors,” you say, “concerning universal grace and redemption, predestination, the promises of the Gospel, and Baptism.” But we do not acknowledge as our own the errors concerning these matters which you cast against us; rather, we say that they are just so many calumnies of certain Stentors. Our Apologies and declarations are extant; why do you not receive them? Indeed, why do you not permit them either to be read or to be sold? And, I ask, how do your own men agree concerning redemption? How concerning the cause of predestination? But we teach from the Gospel that all those controversies recently stirred up are to be decided by the condition of faith. For all and only believers are participants in Christ’s redemption; those who pass their life without faith remain empty of it. We acknowledge all and only believers as predestined to life, and this not on account of foreseen faith or works, nor because they were foreknown as persons who would believe and work well—for this was the heresy of the Pelagians—but by the mere εὐδοκίᾳ, good pleasure, of God, who wills to have mercy upon them rather than upon others and to give them grace so that they might believe and be saved.

We have learned that the promises of the Gospel and salvation properly belong to all and only believers, and in no way belong to unbelievers so long as they remain such, from that saying of Christ: “He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life; he who does not believe, upon him the wrath of God remains.” In Baptism all and only believers put on Christ and are regenerated by the Holy Spirit; unbelievers and hypocrites have no part in this word, even if they are externally dipped a thousand times: taught by the apostolic voice, we firmly establish this. Behold, then, our heresies.

Behold the dissension, behold the hatreds, behold among them the lies concerning concord. Unity cannot persevere amid these mutual combats and anathematizings, and therefore neither can the Church nor the state. Let us therefore seek peace and hold the true meaning concerning the sacrifice.

§ 2. We hold the literal exposition, τὸ ῥητόν, the express wording: what the Lord Jesus said to be his body and blood, this we say is his body and blood. In this matter we agree with the Lutherans, and he himself admits it in book 2, chapter 1, of the controversy concerning the Eucharist.

If you consider Luther and the Lutherans, their doctrine differs very greatly. Indeed, Pareus boldly and truly asserts in book 2, chapter 1, that Luther and the Lutherans differ so greatly that among the Lutherans, beyond the name and that common assertion, you will scarcely find anything Lutheran. The errors of the Lutherans and of others, however, are these:

1. “This is my body”—“This bread is my body.” On the Babylonian Captivity, in the year 1520.

This cannot be understood in any other way than by admitting transubstantiation; for “is” is understood by Luther substantively, not as “signifies,” and “my body” as Christ’s natural body. But this bread cannot truly be called Christ’s body unless transubstantiation occurs, although not even thus is it correctly expressed. Therefore neither the ancient Church nor Catholics ought to be blamed for believing transubstantiation, which Luther could not deny, which he at first approved, then regarded as an indifferent matter, and finally rejected with the greatest dishonesty.

2. “The bread is my body”—“My body is in the bread.”

3. In the Greater Confession, page 530, he concedes that Christ’s body is worn away and crushed by the teeth.

4. “This” signifies the bread and the body of Christ together.

5. Others understand “This is my body” adjectivally; Hunnius, page 393.

6. “This is my body,” that is, “Behold my body.” Flacius in the gloss.

7. It is permissible to use signs other than bread and wine; thus, after others, Sharpe this year, column 1293. And indeed he adds: “things which we commonly use for food and drink.” Therefore we shall employ vegetables, tree-fruits, roots, cheeses, milk, and meats, and we shall say that this agrees with the intention of the institutor; for he himself professes this.

8. Some say that the breaking of bread belongs to the essence, and deny that all others have a true supper. Others will have it to be commanded but not essential to the Sacrament; others, entirely indifferent.

9. The Calvinists condemn both our hosts and those of the Lutherans, and indeed Beza, volume 3, folio 220, prescribes household bread. Neum, page 18, calls it not bread but the foam of bread. Yet this is altogether false, for that bread of ours is made from the purest flour and from dough kneaded together, and nothing belonging to the nature of bread is lacking in it. Moreover, Christ prescribed neither large nor small loaves, much less a definite shape. “But Christ,” they say, “used a larger loaf, which he broke.” Certainly; he also used unleavened bread, and yet the Calvinists do not do this. Not everything that he did must necessarily be imitated, for he gave his body in the evening and after supper, whereas now most prefer the morning time.

Bucanus, page 710, argues even more ineptly: “All must partake of one loaf; therefore a large loaf is needed.” For if that is necessary, a loaf in the likeness of a mountain will have to be baked so that it may suffice for all, or for a single most numerous Church. Moreover, concerning those hosts of ours, Epiphanius may be seen in the Ancoratus.

10. Eating takes place only by the worthy—although many both eat and drink judgment for themselves, not discerning the body of the Lord, as the truth teaches.

11. Zwingli, writing to Matthew Alber, interprets “Eat” as “Believe.” But if this is true, when the Lord said, “Take, and eat, and drink,” they ought not to have brought it to the mouth but merely to have believed—which they could do even if they put it away in a cloth. If “Drink of this, all of you” is metaphorical and signifies “Believe,” then also “And they all drank of it” means “They all believed,” and thus, with the significations of words changed, we shall have nothing certain in Scripture. These things could not be borne if they raved only to themselves; but now they strive to propagate those corruptions and accuse of heresy those who understand Christ’s words in the way in which the Apostles understood them. Why do we now dispute concerning the meaning? The Lord said, “Eat, drink”; the Apostles judged that one must eat and drink. And lest we suspect that they did not understand

the intention of the Lord, Paul explains it to us in the same way in 1 Corinthians 11:20.

12. The Synusiasts dream of impanation; for Luther calls the bread artocreas and ἀρτόσωμα, “bread-body,” in the Greater Confession, page 540. Hence those expressions: flesh-bread, Fleischbrot; blood-wine, Blutswein; vessel-wine, Weinfass; wood-wine, Weinholtz.

13. Carlstadt understands Christ’s words, “This is my body,” thus: “Here sits my body.” Zwingli deservedly refutes him, as do Beza and others.

14. In their very errors they disagree. Zwingli to Matthew Alber, folio 156, Polanus, page 257, Danaeus, and Beza place the trope in the verb, or the copula “is.” On the contrary, Keckermann argues thus in the Theological System, page 445: “Others will have the trope to be in the copula, which itself also cannot be proved. For if they take the copula for the copulative word and verb, there cannot be a trope in it, since a trope has a place in categorematic words, that is, such as signify a definite thing by themselves, but not in consignificative words, such as that verb which is put in the place of the copula. Indeed, if the trope is in the copula, there cannot be a predication of one disparate thing concerning another disparate thing.”

But a trope cannot be in the copula; for if it signifies the body of Christ, it is therefore not κοινωνία, that is, a participation in the body of Christ. Meanwhile, unwittingly, Zwingli pleads the cause of truth in his Brief Instruction, folio 575, when he says: “If the verb ‘is’ is understood substantively, it cannot happen otherwise than that the substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the flesh itself.” By this single utterance he asserts the Catholic truth. Namely, if the copula “is” is understood properly, there is true transubstantiation in the Eucharist.

15. Others interpret “body” as “the sign of the body.” But the Apostle resists them, for “body” is understood in the same way by Christ and Christ’s Apostle; but when the Apostle says that the bread is a communion of the Lord’s body, he understands the true body, not a sign.

16. Jerome Zanchi, in his Confession, page 171, interprets the words “Which is delivered for you” as “insofar as”; Piscator likewise in question 3 on the Supper. But the interpretation is novel and forced; next, it contradicts the text, for it reads thus:

Τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον· τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ αἷμά μου, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυνόμενον.

“This is my body, which is delivered for you; this is my blood, which is poured out for you.” Or: “This is my body delivered for you,” and so forth. For the relative article is not ὃ, “which,” or ὅτι, “that” or “because,” but τὸ, “the.” Next, what meaning is this: “This is my body insofar as it is delivered for you”?

17. Many of the Lutherans teach that the Eucharist exists only in its use, and this manifestly against Luther, Pomeranus, and others.

18. Musculus, page 863, and Ant. Sadeel, volume 3, page 143, condemn private use of the Eucharist and do not wish it to be carried to the sick. Yet Christ by no means condemned it, and the primitive Church always used it. Beza, nevertheless, does not dare to condemn it. But he is impious even in this, because he doubts; for why is there not a little Church in the houses of the sick, since in 1 Corinthians 16 there is a domestic Church? If Christ is present where two or three are gathered in his name, why is there not a communion of Christ? What does the circumstance of place or multitude contribute to the matter, so that the consolations which we read were employed from all antiquity should be denied to the sick?

19. The Calvinists who deny the truth of the Sacrament of the Eucharist deny that it is to be adored; much more absurdly, certain Lutherans, although they acknowledge Christ God as present, deny that he is to be adored. Certainly Luther judged that he was to be adored, and Calvin reproaches him with this in letter 72 to Bucer: “His ravings also brought idolatry with them. For to what end is that ‘adorable Sacrament’ of Luther, unless an idol is to be erected in the temple of God?”

20. They teach that both species must necessarily be supplied to all and always, because Christ did this, although they themselves omit so many things which Christ did. Indeed, they remove Christ himself from the Eucharist and substitute a sign for the truth. Do you insist upon the chalice and wine? But at your own discretion you change the entire matter. Beza, letter 25: “If wine is lacking,” he says, “simple water can be substituted, or another kind of drink not unusual in that place.” He himself teaches that this was Calvin’s opinion and that those who depended upon wine, so that under the compulsion of necessity they were unwilling to use an ἀνάλογον, an analogous symbol, were regarded as superstitious. And in letter 2: “Where bread or wine is either not used at all or at a definite time is not available, will no Supper of the Lord be celebrated? Rather, it will be celebrated rightly if that which takes the place of bread or wine, either by common use or according to the condition of the time, is employed in the place of bread or wine. For this was the intention of Christ when he chose bread and wine for these mysteries: that, by setting before us the signs of those things by which our body is nourished, he might represent true spiritual nourishment as if before our eyes. Therefore, he departs in no respect from Christ’s intention who, with no zeal whatever for innovation, substitutes for bread and wine those things which, although they do not possess an equal analogy of nourishment, nevertheless possess a similar one.”

He asserts that this is Christ’s intention, but with no witness, unless it is that he imitates the abominable heresies concerning the matter of the Eucharist—namely those of the Gnostics, Montanists, Artotyrites, Aquarians, and Manichaeans.

§ 3. We say that the whole Christ is under one species; we deny that both species were commanded, for that law cannot be fulfilled among those who abstain from wine, and in many places a scarcity of wine would impede communion. Nor is the end of communion denied, which is that we receive Christ, whether under one species or under both. He who eats Christ likewise also drinks, since blood is also present in a living body. There are other causes, such as the danger of spilling and the horror felt by some who are unwilling to drink from the same cup with many persons. Indeed, in Christ’s time one species alone was frequently employed. And yet at this point the sectarians are most especially mad and utter calumnies.

21. At last they proceed so far as to deny that one body can be in several places. Thus Sharpe, On the Eucharist, controversy 3, question 1. This seemed ridiculous and impious to all Lutherans and to the more prudent of the Calvinists. For why can God not establish in India the one and same body which he placed in Germany? Can a body which is in Germany restrain God’s power so that it may not be in India?

But what contradictions does he collect? First, it would be in India and not in India; it would at the same time be lower and higher than itself. In one place it will be cold, in another it will be hot. It will be outside itself. Angels cannot be in different places. It will be in a place and not in a place. It cannot exist at the same time in different times, and therefore neither in different places. Amid jubilation he serves up anew these childish things, refuted a thousand times. For why would that body be in India and not in India? It would certainly be in India, while the assertion that it was not in India would be false; but it would be true that it was also outside India, or had another presence besides that which

is in India. The matter is clear: the whole soul is in the head, and the whole is in the feet, yet we do not deny that it is in the head because the same essence is in the feet; rather, we say that there are several presences of one essence. Thus the soul is, without contradiction, lower and higher, because these things are not said according to the same presence; but for a contradiction it is necessary that the things said be said in the same respect. And so those bodies will be able to experience contrary things, if it shall seem good to God, but in different places.

He nevertheless continues: “A body in two places will be outside itself.” If he means alien to its own nature, this is false; but if he means that it will be in different places and, insofar as it is in one, will be distant from itself as it is in the other, this is readily admitted. For the indivisible soul, as it is in the feet, is distant from itself as it is in the head. But by his omnipotence God can preserve the head living and animated, and likewise the feet, while the intervening body dies; by that fact the soul will be altogether distant from itself by reason of place. By the same reasoning we also assert that Angels can be in different places.

What next from Sharpe? “It will be in a place and not in a place. In a place, from the hypothesis; not in a place, because that which is in a place is so circumscribed that it is not in another place.”

An acumen worthy of dull Sharpe. For it is not merely in a place, but in several places. Thus the assertion that it is not in a place is false. But what he adds—that what is in a place is so contained by the place that it is not in another place—is true if you regard the order of nature, but false if you regard the power of him who created nature operating above nature. For the question concerning that power is whether it can place some whole thing in one place in such a way that the same thing is nevertheless also in another place.

Finally, the most acute Sharpe, the Alpha of the jubilators, fights with a Chrysippean subtlety: “The same thing cannot at the same time exist in different times, past and future; therefore neither in different places.” You have touched the matter with a winnowing-fan, not a needle. Set before me two times, past and future, existing simultaneously, and I shall simultaneously dispute with you in the past and future—and I have disputed. Two places, Germany and India, exist simultaneously; two times cannot exist simultaneously, because the past has been and the future does not yet exist.

§ 4. If they were to rise against the unbloody sacrifice as truly as they do furiously, they would long ago have possessed the whole people. There is no part of the sacrifice, no ceremony, which they do not receive with thoroughly buffoonish sneers and shameful taunts. Matthias Hoe, in Saxony, speaks thus in his second Jubilee sermon:

The Papists object in addition that it is novel that we do not celebrate the Mass, which nevertheless was celebrated for many centuries without interruption.

He replies:

Neither Christ Jesus himself nor the holy Apostles celebrated it; and, what is more, the Holy Spirit long ago described the Mass, or the idol Maozim, as a horrible abomination, Daniel 12. Therefore we deservedly ought to flee and avoid it as a most shameful corruption of our Lord’s testament, Galatians 3, because Christ was offered only once upon the cross, and that oblation was sufficient to expiate our offenses, Hebrews 9 and 10.

It is no wonder that many rise against the sacrifice of the new law, and do so most furiously, since Satan himself, present, has assumed this role for himself and persuaded Luther that that sacrifice is idolatry. Luther himself writes the history in volume 7, Wittenberg 1558, folio 228, and it has often been related by many Catholics. But let us examine the imposture of Matthias Hoe. Missa is either a Latin or a Hebrew name; among the Greeks it is customarily called λειτουργία, “liturgy.” In Deuteronomy 16:10, missa is called an oblation. From this either the Latins borrowed the name or they employed their own, to signify a sacrifice and prayers sent to God. Greek writers, as I said, call it λειτουργίαν, a liturgy. Sometimes they call it προσφοράν, θυσίαν, ἱερόν, θυσίαν ἀναίμακτον, μυστήριον, μυσταγωγίαν, τελετήν, τελετὴν τελετῶν—an offering, sacrifice, sacred rite, unbloody sacrifice, mystery, mystagogy, rite, and rite of rites. All these terms contain within themselves the rationale of sacrifice.

But the Evangelists and Paul teach us that Christ offered this sacrifice. “This is my body, which is given for you,” Luke 22:19; and then he says concerning the chalice, τὸ ἐκχυνόμενον, “that which is poured out”; and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:24 calls it τὸ σῶμα τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν κλώμενον, “the body which is broken for you.” Therefore, in Christ’s supper itself his blood was being poured out for us and his body was being broken for us, that is, it was being immolated and sacrificed. For he was truly handing over the body and blood, the bread and wine having been changed. Next, not even the Lutherans can deny this, since they say that the body handed over is under the bread and in the bread. But that which is thus poured out and broken for others, and by that change or transubstantiation comes to exist in a new and ineffable mode, is rightly said to be sacrificed.

§ 5. “The Apostles,” he says, “did not sacrifice.” But the Liturgies of the Apostles cry out against him. The first is Peter’s, concerning which the ancients speak, especially St. Isidore of Seville in book 2 of the Offices, and Paschasius of Corbie in On the Body and Blood of the Lord. The second is that of James, as Clement of Rome testifies. The third is that of James the Less, who is called the brother of the Lord. The fourth is that of Matthew the Apostle, which the Ethiopians generally use; they call the sacrifice Corbon. In this they speak as follows, according to the Apostle’s institution:

You are the bread of life descending from heaven, who, before you came, were present in the figure of the immaculate lamb for the redemption of the world. Now, O lover of human beings, we humbly implore your goodness that you show your face upon this bread and chalice on this portable altar. Bless, sanctify, cleanse, and change this bread into your immaculate flesh and this wine into your precious blood. Let it become a burning and acceptable sacrifice, a remedy and salvation for our soul and body, and so forth.

The fifth is St. Mark’s. All these agree with one another as to substance, but differ in ceremonies and rites. St. Andrew himself thunders these words against the tyrant and all sectarians: “I sacrifice daily to almighty God an immaculate lamb which, although it has truly been sacrificed and its flesh truly eaten by the people, remains whole and one.” Thus the presbyters of Achaia. But if for this reason the innovators drown out the truth with a discordant sound, the cause is common to the ancient Church: we say that Christ offered an unbloody sacrifice before his Passion, and we assert that the Apostles and their successors did the same. We cannot lose a cause which has such great patrons. Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 3: ὦ θεοτάτη καὶ ἱερὰ τελετή, “O most divine and sacred sacrifice”; likewise Martial, letter to the people of Bordeaux, chapter 3. Clement of Rome, Apostolic Constitutions:

Ἀντὶ θυσίας τῆς δι’ αἵματος, λογικὴν, καὶ ἀναίμακτον καὶ τὴν μυστικὴν, ἥ τις εἰς τὸν θάνατον τὸν τοῦ κυρίου συμβόλων χάριν ἐπιτελεῖται τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ καὶ αἵματος.

He says that Christ gave us, in place of a bloody sacrifice, a rational, unbloody, and mystical one, which is of his body and blood and is celebrated as a symbol toward the death of the Lord.

With the same meaning Alexander I, in the letter to all the Orthodox, says: “In the oblations of the Sacraments which are offered at the solemn rites of Masses, the Passion of the Lord must be mingled,” and so forth.

And Justin Martyr, in the Dialogue with Trypho: “Therefore, concerning all who offer sacrifices in his name which Jesus Christ handed down—that is, those of the bread and chalice in the Eucharist, which are made by Christians in every place on earth—God, anticipating them, testifies that they are pleasing to him.” Sixtus I inserted into his Decrees the requirement that, when the priest begins the action of the Masses, the people should sing a hymn. Telesphorus, in the letter to all, and Hyginus establish the same; all basilicas must be consecrated with Mass. One may see the testimonies of Pius I, Soter, Irenaeus, and others. Hence I argue thus:

We say that Christ and the Apostles truly sacrificed; all the Fathers whose writings make mention of the Christian sacrifice constantly profess the same, with none excepted. There was no Bishop in the past who did not offer sacrifices. No orthodox person condemned those who sacrificed. Therefore the swarms of mutually battling sects ought not to condemn the ancient Martyrs, nor to rejoice against us because, at the Devil’s persuasion, they have exterminated the sacrifice from their territories.

But what they say—that the Mass is Moghozim or Mahuzim—is plainly ridiculous; for there is a great difference between Missa and Maghuzim, and they agree only in the single letter mem. It is just as if we were to pretend that Cerdo and Calvin are the same because the initial letter of each heresiarch’s name is the same.

“But Christ was offered once upon the cross and made satisfaction once.” We too teach this, and it is found in the writings of all the Fathers. And we hear the Apostle saying that we have been perfected by one oblation. We confess this and give thanks to the kindness of the Redeemer, who offered for us a price of infinite valuation, a price most sufficient. Nevertheless, the consensus of the Catholic Church has always taught that this price is applied to us through the Sacraments, through faith, and through the unbloody sacrifice. Otherwise Abraham or Moses would not have offered holocausts and victims without crime, for they too were saved by the sacrifice of the cross which was to come. But they were also made participants in it through those sacrifices which they offered either voluntarily or at God’s command.

Indeed, prayer would be not only superfluous but also blasphemous, for Christ prayed for us and was heard because of his reverence. Does he therefore not now intercede for us? Can we not pray if he obtained by his prayer the things which must be sought? Does our prayer not render Christ’s prayer void—indeed, his sacrifice void? For if the unbloody sacrifice renders void and destroys the fruit and honor of the bloody sacrifice, why does the prayer of a sinful human being, asking anew for what Christ obtained both by sacrifice and by prayer, not issue in the ignominy of the sacrifice and prayer of Jesus Christ, to which it appears to be added as though Christ’s were insufficient?

And this is the exposition of sacred Scripture which speaks of a unique sacrifice. The whole Church, from the Apostles onward, has held this exposition not only in writings and sermons, but in oratories, chalices, altars, basilicas, and the perpetual use of the sacrifice itself. No petty reasonings of so many sectarians have destroyed it. Those, therefore, who have made a secession in this cause have withdrawn not from Monks or Jesuits, as they boast, but from the whole ancient Church, and they interpret Scripture in a novel manner.