S. MARUTHAS,[1] G. C.-“ Do this in remembrance of me. This was necessary and very proper : for if the perpetual participation of the Sacraments had not been delivered, whence could we have learnt salvation through Christ; or by whose persuasion have been led to the knowledge of so great a mystery? To the bulk of mankind it would have been most difficult to be believed; and thus they would have been deprived of the communion of the body and blood of Christ. But now, as often as we approach, and receive on our hands the body and blood, we believe, that we embrace his body, and become, as it is written, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones. For Christ did not call it the figure or species of his body, but he said : This, truly, is my body; and this is my blood.”(e) Com. in Matt. Apud Assemani, Bibl. Orient. T.i. p. 180. Romæ, 1719.
CENT. V.
ST. AUGUSTIN, L.C.[2] - “As you know, the sacrifice of
- ↑ St. Maruthas was Bishop of Tagrit, in Mesopotamia, and began to flourish about the end of the fourth century. He compiled the Acts of the Martyrs, who suffered in the persecution of Sapor from 340 to 380, and wrote some commentaries on St. Matthew, and other works, in Syriac. He was the friend of St. Chrysostom, but survived him many years. He died before the middle of the fifth century.
- ↑ This Father, more perhaps than any other, was surrounded by Pagans, which frequently obliged him, in pursuance of the discipline of secrecy, to speak with caution, and a studied obscurity, on the Eucharist, in the treatises and popular discourses, to which all sorts of persons were led from curiosity to hear him. Yet, did not express himself less clearly than the other Fathers, when he found himself emancipated from the fear of compromising the secrecy of the mysteries.
