are stained with blood; and they received not the Word that is offered to God. Nor do the assemblies of heretics make it; for how can these prove, that the bread, over which the words of thanksgiving have been pronounced, is the body of their Lord, and the cup his blood, while they do not admit that he is the Son, that is, the Word, of the Creator of the world ?-Or how again do they maintain, that the flesh turns to corruption, and partakes not of life, which is nourished with the body and blood of the Lord? Wherefore, let them either give up their opinion, or cease from making that offering. But our sentiment accords with the nature of the Eucharist, and, the Eucharist again confirms our sentiment. The bread that we receive is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things, terrestrial and celestial.”[1] Adv. Hær. Lib.iv. c. xviii. p. 251.—“They are truly vain, (these heretics) who contemn the whole divine system, and denying the salvation and regeneration of the flesh, maintain that it is not susceptible of incorruption. According to this then, the Lord did not redeem us by his blood; nor is the cup of the Eucharist the participation of his blood, nor the bread, which we break, the participation of his body. When, therefore, the mingled chalice and the broken bread receive the word of God, they become the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ, by which the substance of our flesh is increased and strengthened : how then can they pretend, that this flesh is not susceptible of eternal
- ↑ ουκετι κοινος άρτος έστιν, αλλ' ευχαριστια, εκ δυο πραγματων συνεστηκυια, επιγεια τε και ουρανια. The heretics, against whom he writes, maintaining, that Christ was not the Word, in the language of St. John, by whom the world was made, and that the material things of the world were adverse to Christ—was it consistent in them, he asks, to say, that Christ, by his ordinance, changed the bread and wine into his body and blood, hostile as they were to his nature, which, however, they professed to believe, and that the Eucharist thus formed was the offering most acceptable to God?
