of Christ's sacrifice, "by symbols[1] both of His body and of His saving blood."[2] On the other hand, Athanasius shows signs of mystical ideas attached to the elements, especially as the sources of immortality by their effects on our bodies when we participate. Thus he speaks of "the holy altar, and on it bread of heaven, and immortal, and that giveth life to all that partake of it. His holy and all-holy body";[3] and yet in another place he says that the very object of the ascension was to draw men away from the thought of eating the body.[4] Evidently we are here at a transition stage. Some minds go further than others, and the same mind oscillates between the symbolical and the mystical conceptions.
Basil dwells on the peculiar sanctity of the communion and the benefit of daily participation in it; but he is far from ascribing to it a merely magical efficacy irrespective of intelligent ideas. Thus he says, "In no respect does he benefit who comes to the communion without understanding the word according to which the participation of the body and the blood of the Lord is given. But he that partakes unworthily is condemned";[5] and again, more definitely, "What is the peculiar benefit of those that eat the bread and drink the cup of God? To keep the continual memory[6] of Him that died for us and rose again."[7]
But now when we turn to Basil's brother, Gregory of Nyssa, we find a very different tone. Gregory was an enthusiastic Platonist and Origenist. Here however he entirely departs from the simple symbolism of the Alexandrian school. We are sometimes told that the dogma of transubstantiation dates from the Fourth Lateran Council, as late as the thirteenth century. That is true as regards the authoritative enforcement of acceptance of it on the papal Church, although Berengar had been condemned
- ↑ διὰ συμβόλων.
- ↑ Demonst. Evang. i.
- ↑ De Nicæno Con. c. Arium, p. 125, in Hebert, The Lord's Supper, vol. i. p. 154.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 156.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 194.
- ↑ τὴν μνήμην φυλάσσειν φιηνεκῆ.
- ↑ Hebert, Lord's Supper, vol. i. p. 193.
