springs her children are refreshed? For if the body of God is delivered, this God is the true God, Christ the Lord, not a mere man, nor an angel, as some pretend. And if it be the blood of God, the cup of God, this God is not purely God, one of the adorable Trinity, the Son of God—but the Word of God made man. But if the body of Christ be our food, and the blood of Christ be our drink,' and this Christ be a mere man, how is eternal life promised to those who approach to the holy table? And how again shall this body be divided here, and in many places, and not be diminished ? A mere body cannot impart life to those who receive it.Wherefore, let us receive the body of life itself; that life, which for us has dwelt in our body; and let us drink his sacred blood, for the remission of our sins, and to partake of that immortality, which is in him; believing Christ to be the priest and the victim, him that offers and is offered." Hom. in Mysticam Cænam, T. v. parte ii. p. 378.
“ The Jews strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat !—This How is a Jewish exclamation, and a cause of the severest punishment.--For will they not be worthy of the greatest torments who so contemn God, the creator of all things, as to dare to put the question How respecting his operations ?—The ill-disposed, indocile man, immediately with arrogance rejects as frivolous and false, whatsoever he does not understand; yielding to no one, and thinking that there is nothing which is above his comprehension. And of this cast, we shall discover, were the Jews: for whereas they ought readily to have received the words of our Saviour, whose divine virtue and power had been evinced to them by the evidence of his miracles; and had any things appeared difficult, they should have asked a
