: remain entire, though joined in the person. The Eutychians said this was impossible. But as in the sacrament the bread was changed into Christ's body, so in the ascension was the humanity turned into the Divinity. To this Theodoret answers in a dialogue between the Eutychians under the name of Eranistes and himself the Orthodoxd: "Christ honoured the symbols and signs which are seen with the title of his body and blood, not changing the nature, but to nature adding grace." The words are not capable of an answer if we observe that he says there is no change made, but only grace superadded; in all things else the things are the same. And again: "For neither do the mystical signs recede from their nature; for they abide in their proper substance, figure, and form, and may be seen and touched," &c. So the humanity of Christ and a little after; "So that body of Christ hath the ancient form, figure, superscription, and (to speak the sum of all) the substance of the body, although after the resurrection it be immortal and free from all corruption." Now these words spoken upon this occasion, to this purpose, in direct opposition to a contradicting person, but casting his article wholly upon supposition of a substantial change, and opposing to him a ground contrary to his, upon which only he builds his answer, cannot be eluded by any little pretence. Bellarmine, and the lesser people from him, answer, that by nature he understands the exterior qualities of nature, such as colour, taste, weight, smell, &c. 1. I suppose this, but does he mean so by substantia too? Ovoía: Does he by substance mean accidents? but suppose that a while, yet, 2, if he had answered thus, how had Theodoret confuted the Eutychians? For thus says Eranistes, "As the bread is changed in substance into the body of Christ, so is the humanity into the Divinity" yea but, says Theodoret according to Bellarmine, "the substance of bread is not changed; for the colour, the shape, the bigness, and the smell remain :" or thus, "The accidents remain, which I call substance; for there are two sorts of substances, substances and accidents; and this latter sort of substances remain, but not the former; and so you are confuted, Eranistes." But what if Eranistes should reply; "If you say all of bread is changed excepting the accidents, then my argument holds: for I only contend that the substance of the humanity is changed, as you say the substance of bread is." To this nothing can be said, unless Theodoret may have leave to answer as other wise men must. But now Theodoret answered, that the substance of bread is not changed, but remains still, and by substance he did mean substance, and not the accidents; for if he had, he had not spoken sense. Either therefore the testimony of Theodoret remaineth unsatisfied by our adversaries, or the argument of the Eutychians is unanswered by Theodoret. 3. Theodoret in these places opposes nature to grace, and says, all remains without any change but of grace. 4. He also explicates nature by substance, so that it is a substantial nature he must mean. 5. He distinguishes substance from form and figure, and therefore by substance cannot mean form and figure, as Bellarmine dreams. 6. He affirms concerning the body of Christ, that in the resurrection it is changed in accidents, being made incorruptible and immortal, but affirms that the substance remains; therefore by substance he must mean as he speaks, without any prodigious sense affixed to the word. 7. Let me observe this by the way, that the doctrine of the substantial change of bread into the body of Christ was the persuasion of the heretic, the Eutychian Eranistes, but denied by the catholic Theodoret; so that if they will pretend to antiquity in this doctrine, their plea is made ready and framed by the Eutychian, from whom they may, if they please, derive the original of their doctrine, or if they please, from the elder Marcosites; but it will be but vain to think the Eutychian did argue from thence, as if it had been a catholic ground; reason we might have had to suppose it, if the catholic had not denied it. But the case is plain; as the Sadducees disputed with Christ about the article of no spirits, no resurrection, though in the church of the Jews the contrary was the more prevailing opinion; so did the Eutychians upon a pretence of a substantial conversion in the sacrament, which was then their fancy, and devised to illustrate their other opinion; but it was disavowed by the catholics. 31. Gelasius was engaged against the same persons in the same cause, and therefore it will be needful to say nothing but to describe his words f. For they must have the same efficacy with the former, and prevail equally: Certe sacramenta, &c.; "Truly the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we receive are a Divine thing, for that by them we are made partakers of the Divine nature, and yet it ceases not to be the f Gelasius de Duabus Naturis, cont. Eutychetem et Nestorium. : And truly an image substance or nature of bread and wine. and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the mysteries." These are his words; concerning which this only is to be considered, beyond what I suggested concerning Theodoret; that although the word ovoía in the Greek, which we render substantia, might be apt to receive divers interpretations, though in his discourse he confined it to his proper meaning, as appears above; yet in Gelasius, who was a Latin author, the word substantia is not capable of it: and I think there is no example where substantia is taken for an accidental nature. It may, as all other words can, suffer alterations by tropes and figures, but never signify grammatically any thing but itself, and his usual significations: and if there be among us any use of lexicons or vocabularies, if there be any notices conveyed to men by forms of speech, then we are sure in these things and there is no reason we should suffer ourselves to be outfaced out of the use of our senses and our reason and our language. It is usually here replied, that Gelasius was an obscurer person, bishop of Cæsarea and not pope of Rome, as is supposed. I answer, that he was bishop of Rome that writ the book out of which these words are taken is affirmed in the Bibliotheca PP., approved by the theological faculty in Paris 1576: and Massonius de Episcopis Urbis Romæ, in the Life of pope Gelasius, saith, that pope John cited the book de Duabus Naturis, and by Fulgentius it is so too. 2. But suppose he was not pope, that he was a catholic bishop is not denied; and that he lived above a thousand years ago; which is all I require in this business. For any other bishop may speak truth as well as the bishop of Rome; and his truth shall be of equal interest and persuasion. But so strange a resolution men have taken to defend their own opinions, that they will, in despite of all sense and reason, say something to every thing, and that shall be an answer whether it can or no. 32. After all this, it is needless to cite authorities from the later ages; it were indeed easy to heap up many, and those not obscure either in their name or in their testimony: such as Facundus, bishop of Hermian in Africa, in the year 552, in his ninth book and last chapter, written in defence of Theod. Mopsuest., &c. hath these words: "The sacrament of his body and blood, we call his body and blood: not that bread is properly his body, or the cup his blood, but that they contain in them the mystery of his body and blood." Isidore, bishop of Sevil, saysh, Panis quem frangimus, &c.; "The bread which we break is the body of Christ, who saith, I am the living bread. But the wine is his blood, and that is it which is written, I am the true vine. But bread, because it strengthens our body, therefore it is called the body of Christ; but wine, because it makes blood in our flesh, therefore it is reduced or referred to the blood of Christ. But these visible things sanctified by the Holy Ghost pass into the sacrament of the Divine body." Suidas in the word ̓Εκκλησία: Σῶμα ἑαυτοῦ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν καλεῖ ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ διὰ ταύτης ἱερατεύει ὡς ἄνθρωπος, δέχεται δὲ τὰ προσφερόμενα ὡς Θεός. Προσφέρει δὲ ἡ ἐκκλησία τὰ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ dè ǹ tà tov καὶ τοῦ αἵματος σύμβολα, πᾶν τὸ φύραμα διὰ τῆς ἀπαρχῆς ἁγιάζουσα. Christ calls the church his body: and by her as a man he ministers: but as he is God he receives what is offered. But the church offers the symbols of his body and blood, sanctifying the whole mass by the first fruits. Symbola, i. e. signa, says the Latin version. The bread and wine are the signs of his body and his blood. Lúμẞora onueîa: so Suidas. Hesychius, speaking of this mystery, affirms', Quod simul panis et caro est; "it is both bread and flesh too." Fulgentius saith, Hic calix est novum testamentum, i. e. Hic calix quem vobis trado, novum testamentum significat. "This cup is the new testament, that is, it signifies it." Παρέδωκε γὰρ εἰκόνα τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος τοῖς μαθηταῖς, said Procopius of Gaza; "He gave to his disciples the image of his own body;" σύμβολα ταῦτα καὶ οὐκ ἀλήθεια, said the scholiast upon Dionysius the Areopagite1; "these things are symbols, and not the truth or verity;" and he said it upon occasion of the same doctrine which his author (whom he explicates) taught in that chapterm; Επιτεθέντων τῷ θείῳ θυσιαστηρίῳ τῶν σεβασμίων συμβόλων δι ̓ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς σημαίνεται καὶ μετέχεται, &c.; “The Divine symbols being placed upon the altar by which Christ is signified and participated." But this only I shall remark, That transubstantiation is so far from having been the primitive doctrine, that it was among catholics fiercely disputed in the time of Charles the Bald, about the year 880. Paschasius wrote for the substantial conversion; Rabanus maintained the contrary in his answer to Heribaldus, and in his writing to abbot Egilo. There lived in h Isidorus Hisp. 1. 1. de Offic. c. 18. i L. 20. in Levit. c. 8. k In Gen. xlix. 1 In Eccles. Hier. c. 3. the same time in the court of Charles the emperor, a countryman I shall only add this, that in the church of England Bertram's |