10. Cyril

The Christological conflicts of the fifth century mark an epoch in the further development. Up to this point the views of the Fathers show a mixture, in varying proportions, of the three conceptions just analyzed. Since the idea has been widely prevalent that three of the Fathers of this period--Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom-went beyond all three theories (which agree in the impossibility of conceiving a real presence of the actual body and blood of Christ), some reference must be made to the language used by them. One must begin by remembering that the liturgical tradition, becoming fixed and written by the fourth century, had still adhered closely, for all its increasing variety of expression, to the universal form of language in the Church. By its retention of the common designation of the elements, it could not fail to repress the spiritualism of theologians; and by its development of a "memorial of the great sacrifice," its emphasis on the "offering of the body of Christ," it brought the Eucharist into increasingly close connection with the real body and blood of Christ, The first of these three authors, Cyril, wag teaching his newly baptized hearers about the Lord's Supper with especial reference to the words and usages of liturgical tradition. Bearing this in mind, and remembering how closely church teaching in Justin's time held to the "this is," it is not surprising to find the catechist coming down to the level of the aimplices. As the object of the " holy and moat awful sacrifice " (" Catechetical Leoturee," v [xsiii.], 9) the " bloodless service " (ib. v [axiii.], 8), he sets forth the " slain Christ " himself: "We offer up Christ sacrificed for our sins" (ib. v [xxiii.], 10); and the question as to the meaning of the eucharistic gifts is settled for him by the words of the Savior: " Since then he himself dodared and said of the bread, ` this is my body,' who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since he has himself affirmed and said ` this is my blood,' who shall ever hesitate, saying that it is not his blood? He once in Cana of Galilee turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that he should have turned wine into blood?" (ib. iv [xxii.], 1-2; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 151). As the cause of this "change" appears the invocation of the Holy Spirit; we pray God, he says " 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 " (" Catechetical Lectures," v [xriii.], 7; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 154). The neophyte is to believe firmly 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 " (" Catechetlcal Lectures," 1V [x%11.], 9; NPNF, 2 ser., vii. 152). Stronger or more positive language could scarcely be found; if his words were taken literally, they would necessitate the acceptance of a transubstantiation. But Cyril is speaking as a catechist. Even to him, as a matter of fact, the bread and wine are only so far transubstantiated as they are made more than common bread and wine; for him, too, the real sense of the eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ is the nourishment of the soul by the incarnate Word. What Cyril does show is how the transubstantiation theory grew up, by a sort of fusion of the realiatio-dynamic and the symbolio-sacrificial views. But before it could proceed in a definite form from this fusion, it was necessary for the idea of a change to be carried further than the mere "sanctification," and for the symbolic part of the symboliosacrificial to be discredited. The latter result followed on the defeat of, the Antiochian theology in the fifth century; the fulfilment of the former condition is usually attributed to Gregory of Nyssa.