Quote Archive | The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist

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The “Becoming Catholic” blog presents the biblical, philosophical, and historical evidence for why Eternal Christendom Founder, Joshua Charles, became and remains Catholic. The series table of contents is here.

(Updated December 2, 2024)

This Quote Archive is on the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Each Archive is a treasury of original source quotes on various topics relevant to the Catholic Faith, and addressed in Becoming Catholic articles. They are intended to help people explore the “gold, silver, and precious gems” that have been mined and sifted from the sources of the Great Tradition by Eternal Christendom as a labor of love for our readers, and all seekers of Truth. They are periodically updated as more research is completed.

Some Quote Archives cover topics that include multiple sub-topics, in which individual quotes only address particular sub-topics. The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is one such topic. Therefore, in order to help readers more easily identify the sub-topics addressed in each quote, they will be listed in alphabetical order after each citation.

The sub-topics in this Quote Archive are:

EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE
REAL PRESENCE

Apostolica Era Documents

Didache (§14) (c. 50) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned [Matt. 5:23-24]. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: “In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations” (Mal. 1:11, 14).

St. Pope Clement I (died 99) | WEST

St. Pope Clement I, Letter to the Corinthians (§44) (c. 70-85) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

For it will be no small sin in us if we depose from the office of bishop those who blamelessly and piously have made the offerings. Happy are the presbyters who finished their course before, and died in mature age after they had borne fruit; for they do not fear lest anyone should remove them from the place appointed for them.

St. Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107) | EAST

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans (§7) (c. 107) | REAL PRESENCE

I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans (§§6-7) (c. 107) | REAL PRESENCE

(§6) …But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God…

(§7) They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes…

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Philadelphians (§4) (c. 107) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Take heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever you do, you may do it according to [the will of] God.

St. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165) | EAST

St. Justin Martyr, First Apology (Ch. 66) (c. 151) | REAL PRESENCE

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins [baptism], and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body” (Luke 22:19; et al); and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood” (Luke 22:20; et al); and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.

St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (§41) (c. 155) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

Hence God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: “I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands: for, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, My name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering: for My name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord: but you profane it” (Mal. 1:10-12). [So] He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name, and that you profane [it].

St. Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-c. 202) | EAST/WEST

**St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies (c. 180)**

(Book 4, Ch. 17, §5) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of His own, created things—not as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither unfruitful nor ungrateful—He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, “This is My body” (Matt. 26:26, et al). And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve prophets, thus spoke beforehand: “I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, unto the going down [of the same], My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Omnipotent” (Mal. 1:10-11)—indicating in the plainest manner, by these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure one; and His name is glorified among the Gentiles.

(Book 4, Ch. 33, §2) | REAL PRESENCE

Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice, if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood?…

(Book 5, Ch. 2, §§2-3) | REAL PRESENCE

(§2) But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body [1 Cor. 10:16]. For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins” (Col. 1:14). And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for “He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills” (Matt. 5:45). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.

(§3) When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?—even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh [Luke 24:39]; but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones—that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption [1 Cor. 15:53], because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12:3], in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard to man. And might it not be the case, perhaps, as I have already observed, that for this purpose God permitted our resolution into the common dust of mortality, that we, being instructed by every mode, may be accurate in all things for the future, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves?

St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) | EAST

St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Book 1, Ch. 6) (c. 197) | REAL PRESENCE

“Eat my flesh,” He says, “and drink my blood” (John 6:53-54). Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and He offers His flesh and pours forth His blood, and nothing is wanting for the children’s growth. O amazing mystery! We are enjoined to cast off the old and carnal corruption, as also the old nutriment, receiving in exchange another new regimen, that of Christ, receiving Him if we can, to hide Him within; and that, enshrining the Savior in our souls, we may correct the affections of our flesh…

Tertullian (c. 155-c. 220) | WEST

Tertullian, Resurrection of the Flesh (Ch. 8) (c. 210) | REAL PRESENCE

[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed, in order that the soul may be cleansed; the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed (with the cross), that the soul too may be fortified; the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands, that the soul also maybe illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may fatten on its God…

St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170-235) | WEST

St. Hippolytus of Rome, Fragment on Proverbs 9:2 (c. 217) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

“And she has furnished her table” (v. 2): That denotes the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; it also refers to his honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper…

Origen (c. 184-c. 253) | EAST

Origen, Homily 13 on Exodus (244)¹

(§3) (pgs. 380-81) | REAL PRESENCE

I wish to admonish you with examples from your religious practices. You who are accustomed to take part in divine mysteries [the mass] know, when you receive the body of the Lord, how you protect it with all caution and veneration lest any small part fall from it, lest anything of the 380 | 381 consecrated gift be lost. For you believe, and correctly, that you are answerable if anything falls from there by neglect. But if you are so careful to preserve his body, and rightly so, how do you think that there is less guilt to have neglected God’s word than to have neglected his body?

Origen, Homily 7 on Numbers (Ch. 2, §2) (c. 249)² | REAL PRESENCE

You see the manner in which Paul solves the enigma of the law and teaches the forms of the enigmas and says that “the rock” was an enigma to Moses, before it was joined to this Ethiopian woman of ours. Now, in outward reality, “the rock is Christ,” for now God “speaks mouth to mouth” through the law. Previously, baptism was “in an enigma, in the cloud and in the sea” (cf. 1 Cor. 10:2) but now, in reality, it is a “regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit” (Tit. 3:5; cf. John 3:5). At that time the manna was food “in an enigma,” but now, “in reality,” the flesh of the Word of God is “true food,” just as he himself says: “My flesh is truly food and my blood is truly drink” (John 6:55). So then, even now Moses takes his place among us and unites with this Ethiopian woman. Either he himself speaks to us, or God speaks to him “not in an enigma, but in reality.”

St. Cyprian of Carthage (c. 210-258) | WEST

St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 3: On the Lapsed (§§15-16) (251) | REAL PRESENCE

(§15) …[Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, “Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27).

(§16) All these warnings being scorned and despised, [lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord…

St. Cyprian, Treatise 4: On the Lord’s Prayer (§18) (c. 251/252) | REAL PRESENCE

And we ask that this bread [“our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer] should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not by the interposition of some heinous sin be separated from Christ’s body by being withheld from communicating and prevented from partaking of the heavenly bread…

St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 62: To Caecilius, on the Sacrament of the Cup of the Lord (§14) (253) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

But if we may not break even the least of the Lord’s commandments, how much rather is it forbidden to infringe such important ones, so great, so pertaining to the very sacrament of our Lord’s passion and our own redemption, or to change it by human tradition into anything else than what was divinely appointed! For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have offered.

St. Aphrahat the Persian (c. 280-c. 345) | EAST

St. Aphrahat the Persian, Demonstration 12: On Passover³

(§6) (pgs. 23-24) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

For our Savior ate the Passover with his disciples in the watch night of the fourteenth (Nisan). He constituted the sign of the Passover in truth for his disciples. After Judas went out from them, he took bread, blessed and gave to his disciples, and saying to them, “This is my body; take, eat, from it, all of you.” So also he said a blessing over the wine, and saying to them, “This is my blood, the new covenant, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. Thus when you are gathered together you shall do for my memorial” (Matt. 26:26, 28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20). Our Lord was not yet seized. Our Lord said these things [at the Last Supper] and arose, from where He had celebrated the Passover sacrifice and had given His body to eat and His blood to drink, and He went out with His disciples to that place, where He was seized. For after He had eaten His body and drank His blood, He was counted with the dead. 23 | 24

Our Lord gave His body and by His own hands to eat. He gave His blood to drink before He was crucified…And He was among the dead in the night during which the fifteenth dawned, the night of Sabbath, the whole day and three hours in Friday, and in the night during which Sunday dawned, at the time He had given His body and blood to His disciples, He rose from the Sheol.

St. Serapion of Thmuis (died c. 360) | EAST

**St. Serapion of Thmuis, Bishop Sarapion’s Prayer Book (c. 350)**

(Prayer 1B: Oblation and Recital of the Institution) (pgs. 62-63) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Lord of Hosts, fill also this sacrifice with thy power and thy participation: for to thee have we offered this living sacrifice [Rom. 12:1], this bloodless oblation [Eph. 5:2]. To thee we have offered this bread the likeness of the body of the only-begotten. This bread is the likeness of the holy body, because the Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which he was betrayed took bread and broke and gave to his disciples saying, “Take ye and eat, this is my body which is being broken for you for remission of sins.” Wherefore we also make the likeness of the death have offered the bread, and beseech thee through this sacrifice, be reconciled to all of us and be merciful, O God of truth… 62 | 63 We have offered also the cup, the likeness of the blood, because the Lord Jesus Christ, taking a cup after supper, said to his own disciples, “Take you, drink, this is the new covenant, which is my blood, which is being shed for you for remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Wherefore we have also offered the cup, presenting a likeness of the blood.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313-386) | EAST

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 19 (§7) (c. 350) | REAL PRESENCE

Moreover, the things which are hung up at idol festivals, either meat or bread, or other such things polluted by the invocation of the unclean spirits, are reckoned in the pomp of the devil. For as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ, so in like manner such meats belonging to the pomp of Satan, though in their own nature simple, become profane by the invocation of the evil spirit.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 22 (§§6, 9) (c. 350) | REAL PRESENCE

(§6) Consider therefore the bread and the wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to you, let faith establish you. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the body and blood of Christ have been vouchsafed to you…

(§9) Having learned these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ; and that of this David sung of old, saying, “And bread strengthens man’s heart, to make his face to shine with oil, strengthen your heart,” by partaking of it as spiritual, and “make the face of your soul to shine.”…

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 23 (§§7-8) (c. 350) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

(§7) Then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and changed.

(§8) Then, after the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless service, is completed, over that sacrifice of propitiation we entreat God for the common peace of the Churches, for the welfare of the world; for kings; for soldiers and allies; for the sick; for the afflicted; and, in a word, for all who stand in need of succor we all pray and offer this sacrifice.

St. Gregory Nazianzus (c. 329-390) | EAST

St. Gregory Nazianzus, Letter 171: To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (c. 383) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

For the tongue of a priest meditating of the Lord raises the sick. Do then the greater thing in your priestly ministration, and loose the great mass of my sins when you lay hold of the Sacrifice of Resurrection…But, most reverend friend, cease not both to pray and to plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when with a bloodless cutting you sever the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for the glaive.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395) | EAST

**St. Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse⁴**

(Part 3, Ch. 18, §§2-3) (pgs. 103-105) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

(§2) For who does not know how the deceit of demons had filled every part of the inhabited world, having mastered the life of men through the madness of idolatry? [Or] how this was customary for all the peoples in the world, worshipping demons by means of idols, with animal sacrifice and pollutions upon [their] altars? 103 | 104

(§3) But from when, as the Apostle says, “the saving grace of God appeared to all men” (Tit. 2:11) by sojourning in human nature, all like smoke departed into non-being, so that the madness of oracles and soothsayers ceased, annual processions and the blemishes of the blood of hecatombs was abolished, and among most of the peoples altars and temple gateways and sacred precincts by the worshippers of demons to the deception both of themselves and of those who chanced upon them, so that in many of the places it is not even remembered if these things had ever happened, but in all the inhabited world temples and altars have arisen in Christ’s name, and the august and bloodless priesthood, and the lofty philosophy, which is directed more by deed than by word, and contempt for bodily life and disdain for death, which those who were compelled by tyrants to abandon the faith manifestly exhibited, accepting the body’s torments and the sentence of death as if it were nothing. 104 | 105

Obviously they would not withstand these things unless they had a clear and indisputable proof of the divine sojourn.

**St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism (c. 380)**

(Summary; Ch. 37) | REAL PRESENCE

(Summary) Ch. 37—The Eucharist unites the body, as Baptism the soul, to God. Our bodies, having received poison, need an Antidote; and only by eating and drinking can it enter. One Body, the receptacle of Deity, is this Antidote, thus received. But how can it enter whole into each one of the Faithful? This needs an illustration. Water gives its own body to a skin-bottle. So nourishment (bread and wine) by becoming flesh and blood gives bulk to the human frame: the nourishment is the body. Just as in the case of other men, our Savior’s nourishment (bread and wine) was His Body; but these, nourishment and Body, were in Him changed into the Body of God by the Word indwelling. So now repeatedly the bread and wine, sanctified by the Word (the sacred Benediction), is at the same time changed into the Body of that Word; and this Flesh is disseminated amongst all the Faithful.

(Ch. 37) But since the human being is a twofold creature, compounded of soul and body, it is necessary that the saved should lay hold of the Author of the new life through both their component parts.

Accordingly, the soul being fused into Him through faith derives from that the means and occasion of salvation; for the act of union with the life implies a fellowship with the life. But the body comes into fellowship and blending with the Author of our salvation in another way. For as they who owing to some act of treachery have taken poison, allay its deadly influence by means of some other drug (for it is necessary that the antidote should enter the human vitals in the same way as the deadly poison, in order to secure, through them, that the effect of the remedy may be distributed through the entire system), in like manner we, who have tasted the solvent of our nature [Eve eating the fruit?], necessarily need something that may combine what has been so dissolved, so that such an antidote entering within us may, by its own counter-influence, undo the mischief introduced into the body by the poison.

What, then, is this remedy to be? Nothing else than that very Body which has been shown to be superior to death, and has been the First-fruits of our life. For, in the manner that, as the Apostle says, a little leaven assimilates to itself the whole lump, so in like manner that body to which immortality has been given it by God, when it is in ours, translates and transmutes the whole into itself. For as by the admixture of a poisonous liquid with a wholesome one the whole draft is deprived of its deadly effect, so too the immortal Body, by being within that which receives it, changes the whole to its own nature. Yet in no other way can anything enter within the body but by being transfused through the vitals by eating and drinking.

It is, therefore, incumbent on the body to admit this life-producing power in the one way that its constitution makes possible. And since that Body only which was the receptacle of the Deity received this grace of immortality, and since it has been shown that in no other way was it possible for our body to become immortal, but by participating in incorruption through its fellowship with that immortal Body, it will be necessary to consider how it was possible that that one Body, being forever portioned to so many myriads of the faithful throughout the whole world, enters through that portion, whole into each individual, and yet remains whole in itself.

In order, therefore, that our faith, with eyes fixed on logical probability, may harbor no doubt on the subject before us, it is fitting to make a slight digression in our argument, to consider the physiology of the body.

Who is there that does not know that our bodily frame, taken by itself, possesses no life in its own proper subsistence, but that it is by the influx of a force or power from without that it holds itself together and continues in existence, and by a ceaseless motion that it draws to itself what it wants, and repels what is superfluous? When a leathern bottle is full of some liquid, and then the contents leak out at the bottom, it would not retain the contour of its full bulk unless there entered in at the top something else to fill up the vacuum; and thus a person, seeing the circumference of this bottle swollen to its full size, would know that this circumference did not really belong to the object which he sees, but that what was being poured in, by being in it, gave shape and roundness to the bulk.

In the same way the mere framework of our body possesses nothing belonging to itself that is cognizable by us, to hold it together, but remains in existence owing to a force that is introduced into it. Now this power or force both is, and is called, nourishment. But it is not the same in all bodies that require aliment, but to each of them has been assigned a food adapted to its condition by Him who governs Nature. Some animals feed on roots which they dig up. Of others grass is the food, of others different kinds of flesh, but for man above all things bread; and, in order to continue and preserve the moisture of his body, drink, not simply water, but water frequently sweetened with wine, to join forces with our internal heat.

He, therefore, who thinks of these things, thinks by implication of the particular bulk of our body. For those things by being within me became my blood and flesh, the corresponding nutriment by its power of adaptation being changed into the form of my body.

With these distinctions we must return to the consideration of the question before us. The question was, how can that one Body of Christ vivify the whole of mankind, all, that is, in whomsoever there is Faith, and yet, though divided amongst all, be itself not diminished? Perhaps, then, we are now not far from the probable explanation. If the subsistence of every body depends on nourishment, and this is eating and drinking, and in the case of our eating there is bread and in the case of our drinking water sweetened with wine, and if, as was explained at the beginning, the Word of God, Who is both God and the Word, coalesced with man’s nature, and when He came in a body such as ours did not innovate on man’s physical constitution so as to make it other than it was, but secured continuance for His own body by the customary and proper means, and controlled its subsistence by meat and drink, the former of which was bread—just, then, as in the case of ourselves, as has been repeatedly said already, if a person sees bread he also, in a kind of way, looks on a human body, for by the bread being within it the bread becomes it, so also, in that other case, the body into which God entered, by partaking of the nourishment of bread, was, in a certain measure, the same with it; that nourishment, as we have said, changing itself into the nature of the body. For that which is peculiar to all flesh is acknowledged also in the case of that flesh, namely, that that Body too was maintained by bread; which Body also by the indwelling of God the Word was transmuted to the dignity of Godhead.

Rightly, then, do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the Word of God is changed into the Body of God the Word. For that Body was once, by implication, bread, but has been consecrated by the inhabitation of the Word that tabernacled in the flesh.

Therefore, from the same cause as that by which the bread that was transformed in that Body was changed to a Divine potency, a similar result takes place now. For as in that case, too, the grace of the Word used to make holy the Body, the substance of which came of the bread, and in a manner was itself bread, so also in this case the bread, as says the Apostle, “is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:5); not that it advances by the process of eating to the stage of passing into the body of the Word, but it is at once changed into the body by means of the Word, as the Word itself said, “This is My Body.” Seeing, too, that all flesh is nourished by what is moist (for without this combination our earthly part would not continue to live), just as we support by food which is firm and solid the solid part of our body, in like manner we supplement the moist part from the kindred element; and this, when within us, by its faculty of being transmitted, is changed to blood, and especially if through the wine it receives the faculty of being transmuted into heat. Since, then, that God-containing flesh partook for its substance and support of this particular nourishment also, and since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption. He gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He transelements the natural quality of these visible things [bread and wine] to that immortal thing [His body and blood].

St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 340-397) | WEST

**St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries (c. 390)**

(Ch. 8, §47) | REAL PRESENCE

We have proved the sacraments of the Church to be the more ancient, now recognize that they are superior. In very truth it is a marvelous thing that God rained manna on the fathers, and fed them with daily food from heaven; so that it is said, “So man ate angels’ food” (Ps. 78:25). But yet all those who ate that food died in the wilderness, but that food which you receive, that living Bread which came down from heaven, furnishes the substance of eternal life; and whosoever shall eat of this Bread shall never die, and it is the Body of Christ.

(Ch. 9, §§50, 53-54, 58) | REAL PRESENCE

(§50) Perhaps you will say, “I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ?” And this is the point which remains for us to prove. And what evidence shall we make use of? Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed…

(§53) …And this body which we make is that which was born of the Virgin. Why do you seek the order of nature in the Body of Christ, seeing that the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a Virgin, not according to nature? It is the true Flesh of Christ which crucified and buried, this is then truly the Sacrament of His Body.

(§54) The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: “This is My Body” (Matt. 26:26). Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood. And you say, “Amen,” that is, “It is true.” Let the heart within confess what the mouth utters, let the soul feel what the voice speaks…

(§58) Wherefore, too, the Church, beholding so great grace, exhorts her sons and her friends to come together to the sacraments, saying: “Eat, my friends, and drink and be inebriated, my brother” (Song. 5:1). What we eat and what we drink the Holy Spirit has elsewhere made plain by the prophet, saying, “Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that hopes in Him.” In that sacrament is Christ, because it is the Body of Christ, it is therefore not bodily food but spiritual. Whence the Apostle says of its type: “Our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink” (1 Cor. 10:3), for the Body of God is a spiritual body; the Body of Christ is the Body of the Divine Spirit, for the Spirit is Christ, as we read: “The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord” (Lam. 4:20). And in the Epistle of Peter we read: “Christ died for us” (1 Pet. 2:21). Lastly, that food strengthens our heart, and that drink “makes glad the heart of man,” as the prophet has recorded.

St. Ambrose of Milan, Commentaries on Twelve Psalms of David (Ch. 38, §25) (c. 389)⁵ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

We saw the prince of priests coming to us, we saw and heard him offering his blood for us. We follow, because we are able, being priests, and we offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people. Even if we are of but little merit, still, in the sacrifice, we are honorable. Even if Christ is not now seen as the one who offers the sacrifice, nevertheless it is he himself who is offered in sacrifice here on earth when the body of Christ is offered. Indeed, to offer himself he is made visible in us, he whose word makes holy the sacrifice that is offered.

St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) | EAST

St. John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood (Book 3, §4) (c. 388) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

For when you see the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood, can you then think that you are still among men, and standing upon the earth? Are you not, on the contrary, straightway translated to Heaven, and casting out every carnal thought from the soul, do you not with disembodied spirit and pure reason contemplate the things which are in Heaven? Oh! What a marvel! What love of God to man! He who sits on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to those who are willing to embrace and grasp Him.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 8 on Romans (c. 391) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Reverence now, oh reverence, this Table whereof we all are partakers! [1 Cor. 10:16-18]. Christ, Who was slain for us, the Victim that is placed thereon! [Heb. 13:10]. Robbers when they once partake of salt, cease to be robbers in regard to those with whom they have partaken thereof; that table changes their dispositions, and men fiercer than wild beasts it makes gentler than lambs. But we though partakers of such a Table, and sharers of such food as that, arm ourselves against one another, when we ought to arm against him who is carrying on a war against all of us, the devil.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on 1 Corinthians (§§3-4) (c. 392) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

(§3) “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16).

What do you say, O blessed Paul? When you would appeal to the hearer’s reverence, when you are making mention of awful mysteries, do you give the title of cup of blessing to that fearful and most tremendous cup? Yea, says he; and no mean title is that which was spoken. For when I call it ‘blessing,’ I mean thanksgiving, and when I call it thanksgiving I unfold all the treasure of God’s goodness, and call to mind those mighty gifts. Since we too, recounting over the cup the unspeakable mercies of God and all that we have been made partakers of, so draw near to Him, and communicate; giving Him thanks that He has delivered from error the whole race of mankind; that being afar off, He made them near; that when they had no hope and were without God in the world, He constituted them His own brethren and fellow-heirs. For these and all such things, giving thanks, thus we approach. How then are not your doings inconsistent, says he, O you Corinthians; blessing God for delivering you from idols, yet running again to their tables?

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the Blood of Christ?” Very persuasively spoke he, and awfully. For what he says is this: “This which is in the cup is that which flowed from His side, and of that do we partake.” But he called it a cup of blessing, because holding it in our hands, we so exalt Him in our hymn, wondering, astonished at His unspeakable gift, blessing Him, among other things, for the pouring out of this self-same draught that we might not abide in error: and not only for the pouring it out, but also for the imparting thereof to us all. “Wherefore if you desire blood,” says He, “redden not the altar of idols with the slaughter of brute beasts, but My altar with My blood.” Tell me, What can be more tremendous than this? What more tenderly kind? This also lovers do. When they see those whom they love desiring what belongs to strangers and despising their own, they give what belongs to themselves, and so persuade them to withdraw themselves from the gifts of those others. Lovers, however, display this liberality in goods and money and garments, but in blood none ever did so. Whereas Christ even herein exhibited His care and fervent love for us. And in the old covenant, because they were in an imperfect state, the blood which they used to offer to idols He Himself submitted to receive, that He might separate them from those idols; which very thing again was a proof of His unspeakable affection: but here He transferred the service to that which is far more awful and glorious, changing the very sacrifice itself, and instead of the slaughter of irrational creatures, commanding to offer up Himself.

(§4) “The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the Body of Christ?” Wherefore said he not, the participation? Because he intended to express something more and to point out how close was the union: in that we communicate not only by participating and partaking, but also by being united. For as that body is united to Christ, so also are we united to him by this bread.

But why adds he also, which we break? For although in the Eucharist one may see this done, yet on the cross not so, but the very contrary. For, “A bone of Him,” says one, “shall not be broken.” But that which He suffered not on the cross, this He suffers in the oblation for your sake, and submits to be broken, that he may fill all men…

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Ephesians | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Further, our discourse is concerning this Body, and as many of us as partake of that Body and taste of that Blood, are partaking of that which is in no wise different from that Body, nor separate. Consider that we taste of that Body that sits above, that is adored by Angels, that is next to the Power that is incorruptible. Alas! how many ways to salvation are open to us! He has made us His own body, He has imparted to us His own body…

I observe many partaking of Christ’s Body lightly and just as it happens, and rather from custom and form, than consideration and understanding. When, says a man, the holy season of Lent sets in, whatever a man may be, he partakes of the mysteries, or, when the day of the Lord’s Epiphany comes. And yet it is not the Epiphany, nor is it Lent, that makes a fit time for approaching, but it is sincerity and purity of soul. With this, approach at all times; without it, never. “For as often” (1 Cor. 11:26), says he, “as you do this, you proclaim the Lord’s death,” i.e., “you make a remembrance of the salvation that has been wrought for you, and of the benefits which I have bestowed.”

Consider those who partook of the sacrifices under the old Covenant, how great abstinence did they practice? How did they not conduct themselves? What did they not perform? They were always purifying themselves. And do you, when you draw nigh to a sacrifice, at which the very Angels tremble, do you measure the matter by the revolutions of seasons? And how shall you present thyself before the judgment-seat of Christ, you who presume upon His body with polluted hands and lips? You would not presume to kiss a king with an unclean mouth, and the King of heaven do you kiss with an unclean soul? It is an outrage.

Tell me, would you choose to come to the Sacrifice with unwashed hands? No, I suppose, not. But you would rather choose not to come at all, than come with soiled hands. And then, thus scrupulous as you are in this little matter, you come come with soiled soul, and thus dare to touch it? And yet the hands hold it but for a time, whereas into the soul it is dissolved entirely. What, do you not see the holy vessels so thoroughly cleansed all over, so resplendent? Our souls ought to be purer than they, more holy, more brilliant. And why so? Because those vessels are made so for our sakes. They partake not of Him that is in them, they perceive Him not. But we do—yes, verily. Now then, you would not choose to make use of a soiled vessel, and do you approach with a soiled soul? Observe the vast inconsistency of the thing. At the other times you come not, no, not though often you are clean. But at Easter, however flagrant an act you may have committed, you come. Oh! the force of custom and of prejudice! In vain is the daily Sacrifice, in vain do we stand before the Altar; there is no one to partake. These things I am saying, not to induce you to partake any how, but that you should render yourselves worthy to partake. Are you not worthy of the Sacrifice, nor of the participation? If so, then neither are you of the prayer…

Look, I entreat: a royal table is set before you, Angels minister at that table, the King Himself is there, and do you stand gaping? Are your garments defiled, and yet do you make no account of it?—or are they clean? Then fall down and partake. Every day He cometh in to see the guests, and converses with them all. Yes, at this moment is he speaking to your conscience: “Friends, how stand you here, not having on a wedding garment?” He said not, Why did you sit down? No, before he sat down, He declared him to be unworthy, so much as to come in. He saith not, “Why did you sit down to meat,” but, “Why came you in?” And these are the words that He is at this very moment addressing to one and all of us that stand here with such shameless effrontery. For every one that partakes not of the mysteries is standing here in shameless effrontery. It is for this reason, that they which are in sins are first of all put forth; for just as when a master is present at his table, it is not right that those servants who have offended him should be present, but they are sent out of the way: just so also here when the sacrifice is brought forth, and Christ, the Lord’s sheep, is sacrificed; when you hear the words, “Let us pray together,” when you behold the curtains drawn up, then imagine that the Heavens are let down from above, and that the Angels are descending!

As then it is not meet that any one of the uninitiated be present, so neither is it that one of them that are initiated, and yet at the same time defiled. Tell me, suppose any one were invited to a feast, and were to wash his hands, and sit down, and be all ready at the table, and after all refuse to partake; is he not insulting the man who invited him? Were it not better for such an one never to have come at all? Now it is just in the same way that you have come here. You have sung the Hymn with the rest: you have declared yourself to be of the number of them that are Worthy, by not departing with them that are unworthy. Why stay, and yet not partake of the table? I am unworthy, you will say. Then are you also unworthy of that communion you have had in prayers. For it is not by means of the offerings only, but also by means of those canticles that the Spirit descends all around. Do we not see our own servants, first scouring the table with a sponge, and cleaning the house, and then setting out the entertainment? This is what is done by the prayers, by the cry of the herald. We scour the Church, as it were, with a sponge, that all things may be set out in a pure church, that there may be “neither spot nor wrinkle” (Eph. 5:27). Unworthy, indeed, both our eyes of these sights, and unworthy are our ears! “And if even a beast,” it is said, “touch the mountain, it shall be stoned” (Ex. 19:13). Thus then they were not worthy so much as to set foot on it, and yet afterwards they both came near, and beheld where God had stood. And you may, afterwards, come near, and behold: when, however, He is present, depart. You are no more allowed to be here than the Catechumen is. For it is not at all the same thing never to have reached the mysteries, and when you have reached them, to stumble at them and despise them, and to make thyself unworthy of this thing…

That I may not then be the means of increasing your condemnation, I entreat you, not to forbear coming, but to render yourselves worthy both of being present, and of approaching. Tell me, were any king to give command and to say, “If any man does this, let him partake of my table,” would you not do all you could to be admitted? He has invited us to heaven, to the table of the great and wonderful King, and do we shrink and hesitate, instead of hastening and running to it? And what then is our hope of salvation? We cannot lay the blame on our weakness; we cannot on our nature. It is indolence and nothing else that renders us unworthy.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 17 on Hebrews (§§6-7) (c. 403) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

(§6) What then? Do not we offer every day? We offer indeed, but making a remembrance of His death, and this [remembrance] is one and not many. How is it one, and not many? Inasmuch as that [Sacrifice] was once for all offered, [and] carried into the Holy of Holies. This is a figure of that [sacrifice] and this remembrance of that. For we always offer the same, not one sheep now and tomorrow another, but always the same thing: so that the sacrifice is one. And yet by this reasoning, since the offering is made in many places, are there many Christs? But Christ is one everywhere, being complete here and complete there also, one Body. As then while offered in many places, He is one body and not many bodies; so also [He is] one sacrifice. He is our High Priest, who offered the sacrifice that cleanses us. That we offer now also, which was then offered, which cannot be exhausted. This is done in remembrance of what was then done. For (says He) “do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). It is not another sacrifice, as the High Priest, but we offer always the same, or rather we perform a remembrance of a Sacrifice.

(§7) But since I have mentioned this sacrifice, I wish to say a little in reference to you who have been initiated; little in quantity, but possessing great force and profit, for it is not our own, but the words of Divine Spirit. What then is it? Many partake of this sacrifice once in the whole year, others twice; others many times. Our word then is to all; not to those only who are here, but to those also who are settled in the desert. For they partake once in the year, and often indeed at intervals of two years.

Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428) | EAST

Theodore of Mopsuestia, Catechetical Homily 15 (§10) (c. 410)⁶ | REAL PRESENCE

Then, when [our Lord] distributed the bread, he did not say that this is a type of my body, but that “This is my body”; and in like manner as regards the chalice [of wine], that this is not a type of my blood, but that “This is my blood.” For, when we receive the grace coming from the Holy Spirit, [our Lord] wanted us no longer to regard the nature [of the body and blood] but accept them as the body and blood of our Lord. Also the body of our Lord did not naturally possess immortality and [the power] to give immortality, but this was given him by the Holy Spirit. At his resurrection from the dead, he attained to his [full] union with the divine nature, and then became immortal and the cause of others’ becoming immortal.

St. Augustine (354-430) | WEST

St. Augustine, The City of God (Book 17, §20) (c. 419) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, “There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink” (Ecc. 2:24), what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table, which the mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come…Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it.

St. Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 34 (§1) (c. 405) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Because there was there a sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and afterwards He of His Own Body and Blood appointed a sacrifice after the order of Melchizedek; He changed then His Countenance in the Priesthood, and sent away the kingdom of the Jews, and came to the Gentiles…“And was carried in His Own Hands”: how carried in His Own Hands? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, “This is My Body” (Matt. 26:26)…

Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, “This is my body” (Matt. 26:26). For he carried that body in his hands.

St. Augustine, Sermon 62 (92) on Luke 14:16 (§4) | REAL PRESENCE

He gave to the disciples the Supper consecrated by His Own Hands; but we did not sit down at that Feast, and yet we daily eat this same Supper by faith. And do not think it strange that in that supper which He gave with His Own Hand, one was present without faith: the faith that appeared, afterwards was more than a compensation for that faithlessness then. Paul was not there who believed, Judas was there who betrayed. How many now too in this same Supper, though they saw not then that table, nor beheld with their eyes, nor tasted with their mouths, the bread which the Lord took in His Hands, yet because it is the same as is now prepared, how many now also in this same Supper, “eat and drink judgment to themselves” (1 Cor. 11:29)?

St. Augustine, Sermon 227: Easter, to New Converts (c. 411)⁷ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

I am not unmindful of the promise by which I pledged myself to deliver a sermon to instruct you, who have just been baptized, on the Sacrament of the Lord’s table, which you now look upon and of which you partook last night. You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, consecrated by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what the chalice holds, consecrated by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. Through those accidents the Lord wished to entrust to us His Body and the Blood which He poured out for the remission of sins. If you have received worthily, you are what you have received, for the Apostle says: “The bread is one; we though many, are one body” (1 Cor. 10:17). Thus he explained the Sacrament of the Lord’s table: “The bread is one; we though many, are one body.” So, by bread you are instructed as to how you ought to cherish unity. Was that bread made of one grain of wheat? Were there not, rather, many grains? However, before they became bread, these grains were separate; they were joined together in water after a certain amount of crushing. For, unless the grain is ground and moistened with water, it cannot arrive at that form which is called bread. So, too, you were previously ground, as it were, by the humiliation of your fasting and by the sacrament of exorcism [done prior to baptism]. Then came the baptism of water; you were moistened, as it were, so as to arrive at the form of bread.

But, without fire, bread does not yet exist. What, then, does the fire signify? The chrism. For the sacrament of the Holy Spirit [Confirmation; see Quote Archive | The Sacrament of Confirmation] is the oil of our fire. Notice this when the Acts of the Apostles are read…Therefore, the fire, that is, the Holy Spirit, comes after the water; then you become bread, that is, the body of Christ. Hence, in a certain manner, unity is signified.

St. Augustine, Sermon 235: Easter Season, on Luke 24:13-31 (§§2-3)⁸ | REAL PRESENCE

(§2) Ah, my brethren, where was it that the Lord wished to be recognized? In the breaking of bread. We are safe; we break bread, and we recognize the Lord. He did not wish to be recognized except in that act, for the sake of us who were not destined to see Him in the flesh but who, nevertheless, would eat His flesh. Therefore, whoever you are who are faithful, you for whom the title Christian is not an empty name, you who do not enter this church without reason, you who hear the word of God with sentiments of fear and hope, let the breaking of bread bring consolation to you. The absence of the Lord is not real absence; have faith, and He whom you do not see is with you…

(§3) Therefore, the Lord revealed Himself in the breaking of bread. Learn where to seek the Lord; learn where to possess Him; learn where to recognize Him, that is, when you eat His body. Truly do the faithful discern something in that reading which they understand better than they who do not discern.

St. Augustine, Sermon 272 (c. 411)⁹ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

What you can see on the altar, you also saw last night; but what it was, what it meant, of what great reality it contained the sacrament, you had not yet heard. So what you can see, then, is bread and a cup; that’s what even your eyes tell you; but as for what your faith asks to be instructed about, the bread is the body of Christ, the cup the blood of Christ…

St. Augustine, Letter 98: To St. Pope Boniface I (§9) (408) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Was not Christ once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true? For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ’s body is Christ’s body, and the sacrament of Christ’s blood is Christ’s blood, in the same manner the sacrament of faith is faith.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444) | EAST

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Book 11: Leviticus¹⁰ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Now again observe that, with respect to all its affairs, the church is administered by sacred and divine laws. For those elements that pertain to the sacrifice [the Eucharist] belong to the one who offers it. Everyone who has been brought up under the laws of the church knows what I mean. That the church of God is the especially fitting place for divine ceremonies and that the mystery of Christ is necessarily performed within it, is plainly indicated when to those matters I have spoken of it adds, “It shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle of witness” (Lev. 6:26).

Now at that time there was only one tabernacle in the wilderness and one temple after that, which Solomon built in Jerusalem. And those who offered sacrifices outside the tabernacle suffered death. For the sacred Scripture says, “A man of the people of Israel who slaughters a calf, a sheep, or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters any of these outside of the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the tabernacle of witness so as to present it as a gift to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed to that man who has shed blood. That person shall be utterly destroyed from among the people” (Lev. 17:3-4).

Surely then, to wish to reside with ungodly heretics and to cleave to them in fellowship is a lawless act and a profanity under the condemnation of death. For they sacrifice the sin offering [the Eucharist] outside the holy tabernacle [the Catholic Church], and do not perform the sacred offering in the holy place. For the church is one, just like the temple of old, and the tabernacle was also one, showing forth the beauty of the church by way of figures. We, then, will sacrifice the offering for sin in the holy court, as it were, and we will eat holy flesh; that is, we will be sanctified when we partake of the mystical blessing. For the law bears witness to this when it says, “Anyone who touches its flesh will become holy” (Lev. 6:27).

St Cyril of Alexandria, Instructions to His Deacon Posidonius¹¹ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | Real Presence

We too acknowledge that the Word of God is both immortal and life itself, but we believe that he became flesh: that is that, after uniting to himself flesh with a rational soul, he suffered in the flesh according to the scriptures, and when his body suffered, he himself is said to have suffered, even though he is impassible in his nature, and when his body rose again (for “his flesh did not know corruption” (Acts. 2:31)), we say that he himself rose on our behalf. But that man [Nestorius] does not agree with this, but 132 | 133 says that the sufferings were a man’s and the resurrection a man’s, and that in the [eucharistic] mysteries the body that is offered up is that of a man, while we believe it is the flesh of the Word, which has the power to give life, because it has become the flesh and blood of the Word, who bestows life on all things.

This he [Nestorius] refuses to say…

When this attempt failed [by Nestorius to depose a priest who accused him of heresy], he had recourse to something else. For he said, “Why did you hold an unauthorized Eucharist and perform the offering in a house?” And although virtually all the clergy said, “Each of us does this when the occasion and necessity require it,” he issued a decree of deposition against the man.

St. Sechnall of Ireland (died c. 447/448) | WEST

St. Sechnall of Ireland, Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick (c. 444) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE

Boldly he blazons the name of the Lord to the infidel races, giving them grace without end, out of the laver of life [baptism]. Day after day for their sins unto God he makes his petition, slaying for health of their souls victims worthy of God.

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (c. 472/467-527/533) | WEST

**St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, To Peter on the Faith (524)**¹²

(§62) (pg. 97) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

Hold most firmly and never doubt that the only-begotten God the Word himself became flesh offered himself for us as a sacrifice and victim to God with a pleasing fragrance. In the time of the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed by the Patriarchs and Prophets and Priests to him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the time of the New Testament, the sacrifice of bread and wine, in faith and holy charity, the Holy Catholic Church throughout the whole world does not cease to offer to him with the Father and the Holy Spirit, with whom there is one divinity with him. In those fleshly victims was signified the flesh of Christ, which he himself, without sin, would offer for our sins, and the blood which he would pour out for the forgiveness of our sins. In this sacrifice, there are thanksgiving and a memorial of the flesh of Christ which he offered for us and of the blood which the same God poured out for us. Concerning this the blessed Paul says in the Acts of the Apostles, “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the Church of God that he acquired with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). In those sacrifices, therefore, was signified in a figure what was to be given to us; but in this sacrifice is clearly shown forth what has already been given to us. In those sacrifices, it was foretold that the Son of God would be killed for sinners; in this, however, it is proclaimed that he has been killed for sinners, as the Apostle bears witness that “Christ, while we were still helpless, yet dies at the appointed time for the ungodly,” and that, “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:6, 10).

St. John of Damascus (c. 675/676-749) | EAST

St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book 4, Ch. 13) (700s) | REAL PRESENCE

[I]f God the Word of His own will became man and the pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever-Virginal One made His flesh without the aid of seed, can He not then make the bread His body and the wine and water His blood?…For just as God made all that He made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now the energy of the Spirit performs those things that are supernatural and which it is not possible to comprehend unless by faith alone…

Councils

Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325)

(Can. 18) | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [priests], though neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the body of Christ to them that do offer [it]…

Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431)

St. Cyril of Alexandria (before the Council), Third Letter to Nestorius (431)¹³ | EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE | REAL PRESENCE

This too we must add. Proclaiming the death in respect of the flesh of the only-begotten Son of God, that is, Jesus Christ, and acknowledging His return to life from the dead and ascension into heaven, we perform in the churches the bloodless cult, approach the sacramental gifts, and are sanctified by our participation in the holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all, not by receiving common flesh (God forbid!) nor that of a man sanctified and conjoined to the Word in oneness of dignity or by enjoying divine indwelling, but as the truly life-giving flesh belonging to the Word Himself. For being life by nature as God, when He became one with His own flesh, He made it life-giving, with the result that, although He says to us, “Truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood…” (John 6:53) we shall not attribute even this to a human individual like us (for how could human flesh be life-giving of its own nature?) but shall count it as having truly become the very own flesh of the one who became for us, and was accounted, Son of Man.