1. Tertullian and Cyprian
The views of Tertullian and Cyprian moat be
first considered. The moat essential point is regard to the latter is that he subordinates
the sacra-
mental aspect to the sacrificial;
the Eucharist ~
"the sacrament of the Lord's passion and of our
redemption." His thoughts being thus occupied
with the crucifixion of the body and
the shedding of the blood, it is not
surprising that he does not think of
them as really present. The sacrament
is a symbolic commemoration of the Passion;
its reception
conveys, not
nourishment to eternal
life or anything of that sort, but the benefit of
Christ's redeeming work, in which every one has a
share who enters into union with him. Cyprian's
whole view is clearly and simply the symbolic.
sacrificial. The fact that an almost magical operation
is attributed to the sacred symbol (as is
De
lapsis, acv., xxvi.) is no proof to the contrary; the
idea of some dynamic change in the elements was
(unless spiritualiaed away) always connected in
those days with that of consecration, and we prao-
tically never find a purely symbolic view in the
modern sense. It will not, perhaps, do to say as
positively that Tertullian held the same view, in a
less developed form and occasionally combined
with
other thoughts; but there is much to show
that this was the case. Bread and wine are, for
him as for Cyprian, symbolic forms under which
the body and blood of Christ are represented. The
commentators have, however, usually forgotten to
ask whether these symbols were primarily intended
to be offered or to be received. That, as with Cyprian, the answer is the former, one may conclude
from the facts that with Tertullian, too, the body is
the crucified body and the blood that which was
shed, and that to him the Eucharist is the Passover of the new covenant, as well as from certain
passages the discussion of which would occupy too
much space.
2. Transition to Transubstantiation
These symbolic-sacrificial ideas, which are inseparably connected with the actual body and
blood of Christ, form the point of
departure for the
further
development of Western doctrine. Thus
they
determine Ambrosiaster's con
option of the sacrament: "It [the
Eucharist] is a memorial of our
redemtion, that, mindful of the
redeemer, we may be worthy to attain
greater things by him . . the testament is made
in
blood, because blood is a testimony of the divine
beneficence." Thus Ambrose says on
John vi. 56:
"You hear ` flesh,' and you hear ` blood,' and you
recognize the sacred pledges of the Lord's death."
(De fide, iv. 10).
Thus for Augustine the Eucharist is the "memorial sacrament" by which since the
ascension the real sacrifice of Christ is commemorated. When, accordingly, from the fourth
century, Greek ideas had a stronger influence in the
West than before, these symbolic-sacrificial conceptions prevented the dissociation of the real and
the sacramental body which was often noticeable
in the East; and the ideas of the realistic-dynamic
type took on, under their influence, an appearance
more "realistic" in the modern sense. This is
most clearly the case with Ambrose, though no
passage in his authentic works shows him a believer
in the real presence of the actual body and blood.
When, however, he says
(De fine,
iv. 10) " As often
as we receive the sacramental elements, which by
the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed
(trsnsfigurantur)
into the Flesh and the
Blood we do show the Lord's death," he comes
close to connecting with the symbolic offering a
change of the elements into the
body
and
blood of
Christ. It would thus not be inconceivable that
Ambrose should have addressed his catechumens in
the language found in the treatises
De mystera'ia
and
De sacramenlis
which pass under his name.
Cyril of Jerusalem speaks strongly in the same way
under the same circumstances (ut sup., ยง 9); and
the writers of these two works do not accept the
real presence. These treatises are of no small importance in the history of this question, even if
they are not Ambrose's, since long before the ninth
century they were thought to be his, and to the
men of the Middle Ages it was "Ambrose" who
led the way to the doctrine of transubstantiation.
In fact, they are really more interesting if not his.
If they had been, they must have been interpreted
by his other expressions; but as products of a later
period, they show that (just as in the East
with
Cyril of Jerusalem and Chrysostom) the realiaticdynamic conception, when it came under the influence of sacrificial ideas, approached ever nearer
to the doctrine of a positive change-nearer than
was the case with Ambrose himself.
