remains; so do thou thus conclude, that the mysteries (the bread and wine) are consumed by the substance of the body. Wherefore, approaching to them, think not that you receive the divine body from a man, but fire from the hand of the Seraphim.” Hom. ix de Pænit. T. ii. p. 349, 350.
There is a letter, written to the monk Cæsarius, and ascribed to this Prelate, wherein he says, refuting the monk's opinion, that the divinity and humanity in Christ were so mixed, as to form but one nature : “ Jesus Christ is God and man; God as impassible, man as having suffered. Yet is there one only Son and one Lord : one and the same, who by the union of the natures are not consubstantial; for each one retains, without mixture, the characters which distinguish it. The natures are united without being confounded. For as in the Eucharist before it is sanctified, the bread is called bread; but when the divine grace, by means of the priest, has consecrated it, it is freed from the appellation of bread, and is esteemed worthy to be called the Lord's body, although the nature of bread remains in it, and we do not say, there are two bodies, but one body of the Son: so here, the divine nature being joined to the human, they both together form but one Son, one person : yet it must be acknowledged, according to an unconfused and indivisible manner, not in one nature, but in two perfect natures."[1] Ep. ad Cæsarium, T. iii. p. 744.
- ↑ Sicut enim antequam sanctificetur panis, panem nominamus; divina autem illum sanctificante gratia, mediante sacerdote, liberatus est quidem appellatione panis, dignus autem habitus est Dominici corporis appellatione, etiamsi natura panis in eo permansit, et non duo corpora, sed unum corpus filii prædicatur. Sic et hic divina insidente corporis natura, unum filium, unam personam, utraque hæc fecerunt: agnoscendum, tamen inconfusam et indivisibilem rationem, non in una solum natura, in duabus perfectis.— The Greek original of this letter is not extant, and the Latin translation seems imperfect : but what difficulty there may be in the word nature, applied to the bread after consecration, should be explained by the other passages from the same Father, which clearly express the real change of substance. Fromother ancient writers, such as Gelasius of Rome,and Theodoret of Cyrus, in Syria, both of the fifth century, passages, similar to that above, are adduced, wherein the word natura, and the Greek equivalents, qvois and ovola, are used, in comparisons from the Eucharist, to denote the external qualities of bread and wine, which before and after consecration remain the same. See Perpétuité de la Foi, T. iii. and on the authenticity of the Letter to Cæsarius, Dupin Bibliot. T. iii. Care Hist. Lit. p. 267, and Montfaucon, T. iii. Op. S. Chrysostomi, p. 736. To my own apprehension, the Letter is manifestly spurious.
