Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/283

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CHic*. I�.] ,rmAHsu DOTANTL?.'rMW. him credit for changing the wine into blood ? If, when called to a mere corporeal marriage, he wrought that great wonder, shall we not much rather confess that he hath given the fruition of his own body and blood to the sous of the bridegroom ?"* Cyril does not compare the one change to the other; but he 8hnply m*?ue.? from the miracle performed at Cana, just as he might argue from any other miracle, that if the Lord could work miracles transcending the power of man, why should we doubt that he could also change the bread and wine into his own body and blood ? Such is the argu?e**t, not the amt/M?- �m; and it leaves the matter still undecided. The foregoing quota- tion from Cyril furnishes a specimen of the incautious and loose man- ner in which some of the ancient fathera expressed themselves; and we would at firat view suppose that Cyril favoured the doctrine of' transubstantiation, did wb not meet in his writings such passages as the following: "Ye are anointed with ointment, and ye have become Iratinkers of Christ. But take care lest you deem that ointment to be mere ointment. For as the bread of the eucharist, after the invocation d the Holy Spirit, is no longer mere bread, but the body of Christ; so this consecrated ointment is no longer mere or common ointment, but the free gift of Christ, and the presence of the very Codhead of the Holy Spirit, energetically produced."t 2. The doctrine of transubstantiation seems to have originated in the heresy of Eutyches, who believed that in Christ there was but one nature, that of the incarnate word; and that the human nature was eh?nged into the substance of the divine nature. Availlug himself of the phraseology of the ancient liturgies, though abundantly explained as to their real meaning, he made this the premises of his doctrines, which is well expressed by Theodoret by the following declaration of his Eraniate8, the spokesman for the doctrine of Eutyche8: "As the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before their con- seeration by the priest, but after their consecration are physically ehmged, and become quite another thing; so the material body of the Lord, after its assumption, was physically changed into the divine /I emence.'? The heresy of Eutyches was met by Thesaluter and Pope Oelasiu8 in the fifth century, and by Ephrem of Antioch in the sixth. 3. The seventh general council, held in Constantinople in the year 754, maintained that "Christ chose no other shape or type under heaven to represent his incarnation by but the sacrament, which he delivered to his minister8 for a type and effectual commemoration; commanding the substance of bread to be offered, which did not any way resemble the form of a man, that so no occasion might be given of bringing in idolatry.'* This council decreed against images. But the second Council of Nice, held in 787, decreed that the sacrament is not the image or antitype of Christ's body and blood, but is properly his body stud blood. So that the doctrine of the corporeal pressnee in the 8a* mument was first introduced to support image worship. Still, however, ? the dock'ins received the sanction of a general council, mad ? too, in direct contradiction of another gsneral eaunell, it was still f