Continued from The Papal System – X. Confirmation.

THESE three terms designate one institution, and when that solemn observance is viewed as it is presented in the Scriptures, the Protestant doctrine is undoubtedly the true one. In the English Catholic version in Matt. xxvi. 26-30, it is said:

“Whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed,and broke, and gave to his disciples, and said, Take ye and eat; this is my body; and, taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. And I say unto you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father. And a hymn being said, they went out unto Mount Olivet.”

In Mark xiv. 22-26, it is said:

“Whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessing, broke, and gave to them, and said: Take ye, this is my body; and having taken the chalice, giving thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it, And he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, that I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it new in the kingdom of God. And when they had said an hymn, they went forth to the Mount of Olives.”

And in Luke xxii. 19, 20, it is said:

“And taking bread, he gave thanks, and broke, and gave to them, saying: This is my body which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. In like manner, the chalice, also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.”

And in 1 Cor. xi. 23-27, it is said:

“The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and, giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye and eat; this is my body which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In like manner, also, the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood; this do ye as often as you shall drink for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord till he come.”

Such are the accounts given of the Lord’s Supper in the words of a Catholic version. Paul calls the body of the Lord bread twice after consecration, showing that it was bread. He says that the Lord’s Supper “shows the death of the Lord till he come,” declaring emphatically that the Lord is not in it, that he is away. The Saviour calls the cup: “This fruit of the vine,” in Matt. xxvi. 29, after consecration, and not blood: showing that it was unchanged. And as for the saying, “This is my body,” it means simply that the broken bread was a picture of his torn body, just as the words, “The Lord God is a sun and shield,” mean that the sun is a figure of the light which God gives, and the shield a figure of the defense which he bestows. No one, in his senses, while Christ uttered these words, would have imagined that the bread was his body, or the cup his blood. His body was entire at that moment; not a drop of his blood was spilled; and, hence, the supper is a “showing forth the Lord’s death till he come ”—a commemoration of the death of an absent Saviour.

The priests scorn the idea that there could be any figure in the declaration: “This is my body;” but when Paul says: “For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice,” they must grant that it is not the chalice but its contents that are to be drunk, If it is not a figurative expression, the priests of Rome should swallow the cup as well as the contents. The words, “I am the vine, I am the door,” are literal if the expression is not figurative, “This is my body.” No community would suffer more than the Catholic Church from a non-figurative interpretation of every scripture word. In the Catholic New Testament, Matt. xvi. 22, 23, it is said: “And Peter taking him began to rebuke him, saying: Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee; who turning said to Peter: GO BEHIND ME, SATAN, THOU ART A SCANDAL UNTO ME, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.” If the words, “This is my body,” must be taken literally, we would mildly insist that Christ’s address to Peter shall be taken literally too when he said to him: “Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me.” According to that interpretation, Peter is the chief of devils; and the Church of Rome, built on Simon, is founded on Beelzebub himself. A literal interpretation of the words, “This is my body,” leads to sacred cannibalism; and of the saying in Matt. xvi. 22, 23, makes Peter the devil, and Lucifer the foundation of the Papal Church. A figurative view of both passages is the true one.

The Lord’s Supper after the First and inside the Sixth Century.

The name missa or mass was applied very early to the supper. After a portion of the service at public worship was over, a deacon arose and said: “Ite, missa est [ecclesia]—depart, the assembly is dismissed.” Immediately all the non-church members withdrew.

At public worship in early times there was a twofold missa, the missa catecheumenorum, and the missa fidelium, the former describing the united worship of the unbelieving, the catechumens (those being taught the principles of Christianity), and the faithful church members; and the latter the observances of the communicants when the others had withdrawn. The word mass for many centuries had no odor of popery about it.

The Elements.

After the united service of the whole people was over, and before the beginning of the supper of the faithful, it was customary for every one to make offerings according to his ability. These gifts were placed upon the communion table by the minister. On this occasion it was deemed peculiarly disgraceful to appear before the Lord empty-handed. These donations were used to support the clergy, to relieve the poor, and to furnish bread and wine for the Lord’s table. The bread was common, such as served for the ordinary use of the people. The wine was mixed with water from very ancient times in all the churches. Some of the leading fathers regarded this practice as resulting from an express command of Christ.

The Prayer and Consecration Ceremonies of the Supper.

The elements being placed on the table, a deacon brought water to the bishop and his presbyters to wash their hands, signifying the purity which men should have who approach God. Then the deacon cried out, “Mutually embrace and kiss one another.” This holy kiss was very ancient, and was specially given at the supper as a token of reconciliation, forgiveness, and goodwill. Then the whole congregation with the minister began the COMMON PRAYER, a very lengthy and appropriate supplication, for the peace and welfare of the entire Church, for the tranquility of the world, for the prosperity of the age, for fruitful seasons, for kings, emperors, and all in authority, for soldiers and armies, believers and unbelievers, friends and companions, for the sick and distressed, and for all that stood in need of help. After the prayer the minister said to the people: “The Lord be with you;” and the people answered, “And with thy spirit.”

Then the minister proceeded to the prayer of consecration, consisting of expressions of fervent gratitude to God for the death, resurrection and ascension of his Son, for the shedding of his blood, and the celebration of it in the supper. This usually ended with the Lord’s Prayer, and a hearty and universal acclamation of “amen” from all that were present. After the prayer of consecration the minister cried out: “Holy things to holy persons,” the people answering, “There is one holy, one Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he exhorted them to share in the holy mysteries, by singing, “Come taste and see that the Lord is good.” Then the bishop or presbyter broke the bread and gave it to the deacon, who distributed it to the communicants. During the time of celebration they sung hymns and psalms. The whole observance was concluded by prayer and thanksgiving, that God had given them such great privileges.

Posture at the Lord’s Supper.

Riddle says: “It would appear from direct evidence still extant, that for the most part, if not always, communicants received the consecrated elements standing.” According to Cave, the apostles received it reclining on couches after the Jewish custom of eating, but in the third century participants at the Lord’s table received the eucharist standing. Eusebius preserves a letter of Dionysius of Alexandria addressed to Xystus, Bishop of Rome, in which he speaks of an old communicant who doubted his baptism because it was received among heretics, and Dionysius tried to quiet his conscience by reminding him that for a long time he had “been in the habit of hearing the thanksgiving, and repeating the amen, and standing at the table, and extending his hand to receive the sacred elements.” Dionysius was a very distinguished bishop, and it is evident from this letter to the Bishop of Rome, that he was tenacious of the customs of the Church everywhere, and was afraid to make innovations. So that standing, and not kneeling, the attitude of worship, was the posture in which the eucharist was received in the early Church.

The Supper was Received on an empty Stomach.

St. Augustine says that the disciples at the first supper were not fasting, but now, for the honor of so great a sacrament, fasting before partaking of it is the custom of the whole world.

The Frequency of Observing the Supper.

According to Cave, it was dispensed daily in the early churches for some time; this was the use in Carthage in the third century, and in Rome and Milan in the fourth. In some eastern churches the supper was celebrated four times a week. From once a day it declined to once a week, then to once a month, and then to thrice a year, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide (Pentecost).

The Fragments of the Supper.

It was usual in early times to keep the remains of the eucharist for the innocent children of the church; and on a particular day they were brought there fasting, and partook of them. In some instances, wine was sprinkled upon them. At Constantinople, in the time of Justinian, according to Evagrius, it was an old custom to bring boys of a tender age from the schools to eat these fragments.

Pieces of the eucharist Carried Home.

Among the primitive disciples it was quite common for Christians to take to their dwellings portions of the Lord’s Supper. These they used to strengthen their faith in times of persecution, and to increase their love for each other. Nor was it very uncommon to carry it to sea, or about the body as a charm to ward off dangers and evil spirits.

Ministers sent the eucharist to each other,

This practice, at one time, was very common, and it was perpetuated as a token of peace and love between those who made these fraternal but singular exchanges. Ireneus, as quoted by Ensebius, tells Victor, Bishop of Rome, that his predecessors, Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus and Xystus, had sent the eucharist to ministers of churches with which Victor was engaged in a thoroughly popish quarrel, though popery was so little known in that day that Ireneus calls the men presbyters who governed the Church of Rome, over which Victor presided.

No Adoration of the eucharist in the Early Church.

There was no elevation of the elements in any part of the Christian world for seven hundred years after Christ. This occurred first among the Greeks; and it was done, not for adoration, but to represent our Saviour’s elevation on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Among the Latins there was no elevation of the elements before the eleventh century, and then it was for the same reason as led the Greeks to practice it. The first author, according to Bingham, who gives adoration as the reason for the elevation of the host is Gulielmus Durantus, who wrote about 1386. The adoration of the host had no existence before the twelfth century.

There was no Altar in the Early Church.

The communion table was simply the table of the Lord. Coleman is not mistaken when he says: “It was unknown until the third century.” Du Pin says: “Christians in the third century did not give the name altar to the table upon which they celebrated the eucharist.” Nor did they dream of a sacrifice, though the word was sometimes used, just as altar was, in and subsequent to the third century. Isidore, of Seville, who died in A.D. 636, according to Du Pin, gives us the conception of the eucharist as a sacrifice common in his day. Speaking of it, he says: “It is called a sacrifice because it is made sacred by a mystical prayer, in remembrance of the passion of our Lord. He defineth a sacrament the sign of a holy thing, communicating holiness.” Isidore was one of the most influential bishops of his day.

The Communicants in the Ancient Church.

The eucharist was first given to the bishop, then to the presbyters, then to the deacons, subdeacons, readers, singers, and ascetics, the deaconesses, virgins, and widows, then the children, and then all the people in order. This is the custom described in the Apostolical Constitutions, and probably it continued from the middle of the third till the sixth century.

After the united meeting of communicants and non-communicants was dismissed, and just as the supper is about to be celebrated, a deacon solemnly warned all the catechumens (that is all unbaptized persons, though preparing to unite with the church), all persons under the censure of the church, and all unbelievers, to retire from the sanctuary. The eucharist was only for baptized Christians in good standing.

The Dying receive the eucharist.

In the last struggles of the departing, as early as the third century, the Lord’s Supper was carried to them; and it was often dropped into their mouths when they were unable to lift it up themselves. Eusebius records a case of this kind: an old man named Serapion, speechless, except at short intervals, had the eucharist sent to him, and put in his mouth; and soon after receiving it he expired. Such was the custom in those days.

The Dead had the eucharist placed in their Mouths.

In Africa they sometimes baptized the dead; and it was not uncommon in the same country, and in France, prior to A. D. 578, to give the Lord’s Supper to deceased persons. It was also practiced in the East as late as the seventh century. The third Council of Carthage, the Synod of Auxerre in France, and the Council of Trullo in Constantinople, condemned these outrageous follies.

Infants receive the eucharist.

In North Africa the communion of infants was first introduced. The Christians in that region supposed that the declarations in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel referred to external participation in the Lord’s Supper; that act, as they understood it, was a mystical eating of the flesh, and drinking of the blood of the Son of God, without which there could be no eternal life; and regarding such communion as necessary to salvation, they gave it to infants.“ It is beyond dispute,” says Bingham, “that baptized infants were immediately admitted to the eucharist.” He quotes Radulphus Ardens, who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century, as declaring it to be the custom to give little children the eucharist in his day, immediately after baptism; and he refers to a direction in the old Ordo Romanus, composed in the ninth century, that “Infants, after baptism, should not eat any food, nor seek the breast without great necessity, till they had communicated in the sacrament of the body of Christ.”

In the twelfth century this custom was superseded in France, but there is reason for supposing that it lived longer in Germany and Switzerland. “The whole primitive Church, Greek and Latin, from Cyprian’s time, gave the communion to infants;” in the West, the practice began to die in the twelfth century. In the East the custom is universal at this day. ‘This usage was commended by the greatest names in the early Church. Augustine of Hippo, who had only one equal among all the fathers, commenting on the words: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you;” and supposing these words to allude to the eucharist, asks: “Dare any one be so bold as to say that this sentence does not belong to little children, or that they can have life without partaking of this body and blood” (of the supper).

Pope Innocent, the contemporary of Augustine, undoubtedly expresses the same opinion in his Epistle to Augustine, and the Council of Milevis. Pope Gelasius, about A.D. 495, writes in reference to the eucharist: “No one should venture to exclude any child from this sacrament, without which no one can attain to eternal life.”

But the infallible Council of Trent denounces and curses the sayings and practices of all Christendom for ages, including popes of Rome, who could not err in matters of faith, and yet did commit centuries of consecrated blunders, if the fathers of Trent were not mistaken. Their decree is: “If any one shall say that the communion of the eucharist is necessary for children before they arrive at years of discretion; let him be accursed.”

Singular Conceits about the Supper itself among the Primitive Christians.

In North Africa, when the eucharist ceased to be observed every day, it was customary to carry home some of the bread without the wine, and enjoy daily communion in this way. This is the first example of communion in one kind in the Christian Church, and it began in the end of the third century. But the eucharist was administered in both kinds in the churches without variation till the twelfth century. And just to show how the supper could be made defective in either element, children who were not able to eat bread, received the eucharist in wine only, and in this way, as was imagined, they were entitled to eternal life. Sometimes the bread was dipped in the wine, and the two united were given to children, and to weak or dying persons, who could not otherwise have swallowed the bread.

One ancient sect substituted water for wine in the eucharist, and from this custom were sometimes called Aquarians. The Council of Auxerre condemned some who offered honey and water instead of wine; others used milk for wine; and others substituted grapes. In the fourth century, there was a community who thought the eucharist was not properly celebrated unless cheese was offered with the bread. These people were called Artotyrites, that is, Bread-Cheesians. But these perversions of the ordinance were confined to few persons, and died out in a comparatively short time.

There was another denomination, which held that no visible elements could represent the divine mysteries; that perfect knowledge was their redemption; and, as a result of their opinions, they rejected the eucharist in every form. These ancient Quakers were called Ascodrutae.

There were no private eucharists or masses in the ancient Church. Even Bellarmine candidly owns that there is no express testimony to he found among the ancients that they ever offered the sacrifice without the communion of one or more persons beside the priest (nusquam expresse legitur a veteribus oblatum sacrificium sine communione alicujus vel aliquorum preter ipsum sacerdotem).

At the Synod of Paris, under Gregory IV., A.D. 829, a decree was passed, stating that a culpable custom had crept in, in many places, partly by negligence, and partly by covetousness; that some presbyters celebrate mass without any attendants; the decree then proceeds to order “every bishop to take care that no presbyter in his diocese shall presume to celebrate mass by himself alone” (provideat que unusquisque episcoporum, ne in sua parochia quisquam presbyterorum missam solus celebrare preesumat). At this period, the practice had just “crept in,” and it is emphatically condemned.

Bingham is sustained by all Christian antiquity in his statement: “The eucharist was not intended as a sacrifice to be offered by a single priest in a corner, without communicants or assistants, or for the intention, or at the cost, of some particular persons, paying for it; but for a communion to the whole Church, as the primitive Church always used it: and there is not an example to be found of the contrary practice.

The Opinions of the Primitive Church, after the First Century, on the Nature of the eucharist.

The early Christians fell into the Lutheran view of the Lord’s Supper soon after the last of the apostles entered upon his rest. No man ever abhorred transubstantiation more than the mighty reformer of Wittemberg. But while he avowed his abhorrence of the doctrine that the eucharist was the body and blood of Christ, he taught distinctly that: “The body and blood of Christ are truly present in the sacrament, in the form of bread and wine, and there distributed and received.” He would say with other Protestants, that the bread and wine were symbols of the body and blood of the Lord; but he went beyond them in declaring that the body and blood of Christ are truly present in the sacrament. This was substantially the opinion of the Church from the second till the end of the ninth century.

A Romanist now never speaks of his mass as a figure, sign, or likeness of Christ’s body; to him, it is the very body born of the Virgin. The early Christians spoke of the eucharist as the body and blood of the Lord, and yet freely called it bread and wine, after consecration, and frequently designated the elements figures and similitudes of the body and blood of Christ: showing that they did not believe that the bread and wine were the literal flesh and blood of the Saviour.

Tertullian repeatedly uses a sentence like this about the supper: “He made bread his body by saying: This is my body; that is a figure of my body.”

Ignatius, speaking about the eucharist, says: “Breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, a remedy against death.” He regarded the loaf as bread after it was broken and consecrated.

Clemens Alexandrinus, writing about the supper, says: “For be ye sure he did also drink wine, for he also was a man; and he blessed wine when he said: Take, drink; this is my blood, the blood of the vine: for this expression: ‘Shed for many for the remission of sins,’ signifies, allegorically, a holy stream of gladness.” The consecrated cup is the blood of the vine, after the blessing has fallen upon it, and it signifies, allegorically, a holy stream of gladness.

Cyprian, reasoning with one who had used water in the eucharist instead of wine, argues: “For since Christ says: I am the true vine, the blood of Christ is not, therefore, water, but wine; nor can his blood appear to be in the cup by which we have been redeemed and made alive, when the wine is absent from the chalice, by which the blood of Christ is represented.”

Eusebius says: “He gave to his disciples the symbols of divine economy, commanding the image of his own body to be made.” Surely, the great Bishop of Caesarea had no faith in transubstantiation. In his interpretation of John vi., Eusebius says: “We are not to believe that Christ spoke of his present body, or enjoined the drinking of his corporeal and sensuous blood, but the words which he speaks are spirit and life; so that his words themselves are his flesh and blood.”

Chrysostom says: “As the bread before it is sanctified is called bread, but after the divine grace has sanctified it by the mediation of the priest, it is no longer called bread, but dignified with the name of the body of the Lord, though the nature of bread remain in it.”

Ambrose says: “Make this our oblation a chosen, rational, acceptable oblation, because it is made for a figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Augustine states, that “The Lord did not hesitate to say ‘This is my body,’ when he gave the sign of his body.” “Christ admitted Judas to that banquet, in which he commended and delivered unto his disciples the figure of his body and blood.”

Jerome states that Christ “did not offer water, but wine as a type of his blood.”

Pope Gelasius writes in A.D.490: “Doubtless the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we receive, are a divine thing; and, therefore, by them we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them; and, indeed, the image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in, the mysterious action.”

Facundus, an African bishop, about A.D. 590, wrote: “The sacrament of adoption may be called adoption, as we call the sacrament of his body and blood, which is in the consecrated bread and cup, his body and blood, not because the bread is properly his body, or the cup his blood, but because they contain the mystery of his body and blood.”

Isidore, Bishop of Seville, writing about A.D. 680, says: “The bread, because it nourishes and strengthens our bodies, is therefore called the body of Christ, and the wine, because it creates blood in our flesh, is called the blood of Christ.” This distinguished bishop saw in the sacramental elements only resemblances of the Saviour’s body and blood.

The transition period from consubstantiation to transubstantiation.

Up till the early part of the ninth century, the Christian Church had not been disturbed by controversies about the eucharist. A few heretics occasionally attempted to make innovations even upon it, but they were soon quieted, and the belief of centuries flowed calmly on in worshiping hearts.

Paschasius Radbert was the first man who promulgated the doctrine of transubstantiation, though he used another name; for that term was not yet applied to the doctrine. He was a monk, a native of Soissons, and a man of great acuteness of mind. He wrote, in A.D. 831, a book “Concerning the Body and Blood of our Saviour,” in which he took the ground, that the wine of the sacrament is “The very blood that ran out of the Saviour’s side upon the cross, and that for that reason water is mingled with the eucharistical wine;” and that the bread of the Lord’s Supper “is the very flesh of our Saviour which was born of the Virgin.” This was the first formal and unmistakable announcement of transubstantiation ever made by one man to another.

Even Du Pin substantially admits this by saying about Radbert’s book: “It was not usual in those times to say positively that the body of Christ in the eucharist was the same that was born of the Virgin, and to assert it so plainly.” And he sustains this opinion by quoting a declaration of the celebrated Father Mabillon, asserting that “Before the book of Paschasius on the Body and Blood of the Lord, all Catholics confessed that the true body and true blood of Christ the Lord existed assuredly in the eucharist; and likewise, that in it the bread and wine were changed. But no one at the time of Paschasius had heard that that body was the same which was born of the Virgin Mary.”

This is just the point of the whole controversy. The Lutherans, and the early Christians for centuries taught, that the body and blood of Christ were received in the elements, though neither believed that the bread had ceased to be bread, or that the wine had lost its original properties. Du Pin and Mabillon are Catholic witnesses that Radbert’s doctrine was a novelty.

But this monstrous creation, when it was first taught, stirred up the leading men of Europe to oppose it; and those who resisted it were a multitude. Two anonymous writers gave it a complete exposure; and as the commotions excited by the controversy threatened a schism in the Church, Charles the Bald expressed his fears of such a rupture to Bertram, and with a view to quiet the angry passions aroused by Radhert, he asked him to answer these two questions in a treatise: “Are the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist? If so, is it the body born of the Virgin?” The very existence of such a trouble in the Catholic countries subject to Charles, and the pressure on him to quiet his own mind and the anxieties of his subjects show, still farther, that Radbert was only an innovator. The first question he answers by proving that the “Body and blood of Christ received in the church by the mouth of the faithful are figures, if considered in the visible form of the bread and wine. But if considered in their hidden qualities they are the body and blood of Christ.”

The second question he answers by proving that the body and blood which the faithful participate in in the eucharist are quite another thing, both in the sign and the thing signified, from the body born of the Virgin and seen on the cross. Bertram was a man of commanding influence and intellect. John Scotus, another man of the highest culture, was consulted by Charles on the same subject, and at his request wrote a work to show that “The sacraments of the altar are not the real body and blood of our Saviour, but only a commemoration of them.”

Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, about A. D. 825, says: “Lately indeed some persons, not thinking rightly concerning the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, have said that that very body and blood of the Lord which was born from the Virgin Mary is the same as that which is received from the altar. In opposition to which error, as far as lay in our power, writing to the Abbot Egilus, we propounded what ought to be believed.”

Herigar, Abbot of Laub, in the territory of Liege, wrote a book against Radbert.

Du Pin says that “among the authors of the ninth century that have cursorily treated of this matter, Amalatius, Florus, and Druthmarus speak of the eucharist like Bertram.” And Bingham adds to the enemies of Radbert’s theory, in addition to those already named: Walafridus, Strabo, Heribaldus, Lupus, Frudegardus, Prudentins, Trieassin, Alfricus, and the Saxon homilies, Fulbertus Carnotensis, Luthericus Scnonensis, Berno Augiensis,” and others he says might be mentioned.

At first the doctrine of Radbert was repugnant to the cultivated and the godly, but it was broached in a rude age, and the monks favored it; the materialistic character of European thought assisted it, and gradually it had a host of friends and was prepared to frown down all opposition.

Berenger was born at Tours, near the beginning of the eleventh century; he was endowed with a clear understanding; and blessed with an able and pious teacher in Fulbert of Chartres. He was at first the principal of the Cathedral School of Tours, and afterwards archdeacon of Angers. Berenger adopted the views of the eucharist held with impunity and defended with vigor by John Scotus and Bertram two centuries before. But times were changed; his learning, piety, and eloquence gave him extensive influence, and his opinions great success. This however only excited his enemies to greater fury, and made them resolve to silence the good archdeacon or slay him. Lanfranc, his old friend, took the side of his enemies; others proved equally conscientious or treacherous; he was excommunicated by a Roman council, condemned by all grades of dignitaries, and rescued from destruction by Gregory VII. Through his protection he spent his last years in peace. Gregory called upon the Archbishop of Tours and the Bishop of Angers, to defend him against his enemies; and he granted him a Bull, excommunicating those who should injure him in person or estate or call him “Heretic.”

Those favors made some doubt Gregory’s orthodoxy; and with reason. Gregory was a man of unequaled intellect, and could quickly detect the absurdity of transubstantiation. Besides, that doctrine though very popular in the eleventh century, was not yet a dogma of the Church; and it was only two hundred years old. Berenger denying transubstantiation to his social friends, passed the evening of his days, “admired for innumerable good qualities, and especially for humility and almsgiving.”

The name transubstantiation first applied to the mass.

The eucharist had been known by several new names after the days of Radbert. Transitio was one of these. Hildebert of Tours, the famous city of Berenger, gave it its immortal name—transubstantiation.

The eucharistic bread of the Romish Church consists of cakes of meal and water, small, round and thin, in the shape of wafers. This style appears to have been brought into general use after the rise of the controversy with the Greek Church, in a. D, 1053.

Transubstantiation is incorporated into the Church of Rome.

In A.D. 1215, Innocent III. was pope. He was a man of distinguished talents. From childhood, he had suspended his common sense when thinking about Radbert’s doctrine. He knew that it was in no creed, canon, or authorized standard of the Church of which he was the head. He felt that it was absurd to require men to receive a doctrine to which the Church had never given that adoption so freely conceded to other dogmas not half so momentous. He assembled a Council in Rome, in the Lateran Church, A. D. 1215, consisting of 412 bishops, in whose hearing he read seventy canons which he had drawn up, and in which they seemed to acquiesce; among these was the famous canon, which, FOR THE FIRST TIME, gave transubstantiation a legal place in the Catholic Church. The important part of the canon is:

“But there is one universal Church of the faithful, out of which no one at all is saved; in which Jesus Christ himself is at once priest and sacrifice; whose body and blood, in the sacrament of the altar, are truly contained under the species of bread and wine, which, through the divine power, are transubstantiated, the bread into the body, and the wine into the blood; that for the fulfillment of the mystery of unity, we may receive of his that which he received of ours.”

The Mass is declared a propitiatory Sacrifice.

The Council of Trent, nearly 350 years later, took another step, and declared the host an atoning sacrifice:

“And, since in the divine sacrifice which is performed in the mass, the same Christ is contained and offered in an unbloody manner, who, on the altar of the cross, offered himself, with blood, once for all; the holy Synod teaches that that sacrifice is, and becomes of itself, truly propitiatory, so that if, with a true heart and right faith, with fear and reverence, we approach to God, contrite and penitent, we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The Lord, forsooth, being appeased by the offering of this, and granting grace and the gift of repentance, remits crimes and sins, even great ones; for it is one and the same host, the same person now offering by the ministry of the priests, who then offered himself upon the cross, only in a different manner of offering; and by this unbloody sacrifice, the fruits of that bloody one are abundantly received; only far be it that any dishonor should be done to that by this. Wherefore, according to the tradition of the apostles, offering is duly made, not only for the sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are alive, but also for the dead in Christ, who are not yet wholly cleansed.”

Christ is in the Mass, Soul, Body, and Divinity.

The Synod of Trent says: “If any one shall deny that in the sacrament of the most holy eucharist, there is contained really, truly, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so whole Christ, but shall say he is only in it in sign, or figure, or power, let him be accursed.” This curse falls harmlessly upon the whole Christian world, including Roman popes, for more than eight centuries.

There are no Bread and Wine in the Mass after Consecration.

The fathers at Trent declare that: “If any shall say that in the holy sacrament of the eucharist, there remains the substance of bread and wine, together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and remarkable conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, while only the appearance of bread and wine remains, which conversion the Catholic Church most appropriately names transubstantiation; let him be accursed.”

A whole Christ in every particle of the Mass.

The Tridentine Council says: “If any one shall deny that Christ entire is contained in the venerable sacrament of the eucharist, under each species and, when they are divided, under every particle of each kind; let him be accursed.”

The eucharist Worshipped as God.

The Council of Trent asserts that: “There is, therefore, no reason to doubt but that all Christ’s faithful people, in their veneration, should render this most holy sacrament the SAME WORSHIP which is due to the true God, according to the custom which the Catholic Church has always received.”

A Day Appointed to Commemorate and Worship the Body of (eucharist) Christ.

In A.D. 1264, Urban IV. set apart Corpus Christi (body of Christ) day in honor of the deity, adopted into the Church A.D. 1215, by Innocent III. and the Fourth Council of the Lateran; the wheaten god. According to Du Pin, Urban’s institution was confirmed by the Council of Vienne, A.D. 1311, and Clement V. This transubstantiated god is a novelty in the Church of Jesus.

The eucharist carried around in Procession for Worship.

The Council of Trent declares that “The church of God has very piously and religiously introduced the custom that in every year, on some special feast day, this illustrious and venerable sacrament should be celebrated with particular veneration and solemnity, and that it should be carried about in procession, in a reverent and honorable manner, through the highways and public places.”

The following description of the annual procession of the host is a specimen of what occurred for centuries in the old world: “The Corpus Christi procession begins to move out exactly at nine in the morning; it consists of forty communities of friars who have converts in this town. They follow one another in two lines, according to established precedent. Next appears the long train of relics belonging to the cathedral, in vases of gold and silver: a tooth of St. Christopher, an agate cup belonging to Clement, the successor of St. Peter, an arm of St. Bartholomew, a head of one of the eleven thousand virgins, a part of St. Peter’s body, and of the bodies of St. Lawrence and St. Blaise, a thorn from the Saviour’s crown, a fragment of the true cross, and the bones of several other saints. Then the prebendaries (clergy) and canons, attended by inferior ministers. The streets are profusely decorated and are shaded with a thick awning; they are covered with rushes. Under these circumstances, the appearance of the host in the streets is exceedingly imposing. Encircled by jewels of the greatest brilliancy, surrounded by lighted tapers, and enthroned on the massive yet elegant temple of silver, no sooner has it moved to the door of the church than the bells announce its presence with deafening sound, the bands of military music mix their animating notes with the solemn hymns of the singers, clouds of incense rise before the moving shrine, and the ear is thrilled by the loud voice of command and by the clash of the arms which the kneeling soldiers strike down to the ground, When the concealed bearers of the shrine present it at the top of the long street, where the route commences, the multitudes which crowd: both the pavement and the windows fall prostrate in profound adoration, without venturing to rise up till the object of their awe is out of sight.”

Procession of the Host to the Sick.

In Spain it was customary for a priest in taking the eucharist to the dying to be carried in “a sedan chair and to be attended by a party of soldiers and a bellman. The bellman, as they pass along, gives three strokes, in allusion to the three persons of the Trinity, and then ceases. At this well known sound, whatever be the state of the weather or the condition of the streets, every one drops on his knees, and continues in this devout posture till the object of his adoration is out of sight. If the procession should pass a theater or a festive gathering, the actors on the stage immediately drop on their knees, and so do the dancers in the ball-room.”

There is no trace of the use of incense at the Lord’s Supper before the end of the sixth century.

A Minister Living in the Greatest Iniquity can make Jesus Christ out of Flour and Water.

The Council of Trent says: “If any one shall declare that a minister, in mortal sin, cannot perform or confer a sacrament, provided he shall observe all the essentials which appertain to the performing or conferring a sacrament; let him be accursed.” Truly the thought is curious that right reverend Judas, even at the time Satan entered him, and filled him with mortal sin, could regenerate a man by baptism or manufacture the Saviour out of wheat and water! And yet no priest out of the mortal sin of inexcusable ignorance, and in the fear and love of Christ, would be likely to continue long the deity-making business, or the office of imparting the other papal sacraments. So that the admission of mortal sinners into the calling of dispensing the sacraments is politic, and indispensably necessary.

Half communion

For the first twelve hundred years the faithful of both sexes regularly and without question received the eucharist under the forms of bread and wine. Transubstantiation, teaching the people that the cup was the blood that flowed through the Saviour’s physical heart, inspired them and their priests with horror lest a drop of it should fall on the ground, or hang on a layman’s beard; it was unquestionably the prime cause why the cup was taken from the laity. It is of course still used in celebrating mass, and regularly emptied by the priest, but tasted by no one else.

Two Popes denounce Half Communion.

Gelasius complains: “That some received the bread, but abstained from the cup; whom he condemns as guilty of superstition, and orders that they should either receive in both kinds, or else be excluded from both, because one and the same mystery cannot be divided without grand sacrilege.” Leo the Great denounces them with equal vehemence: “They receive the body of Christ,” says he, “with unworthy mouth, but refuse to drink the blood of our redemption, such men’s sacrilegious dissimulation being discovered, let them be marked, and by the authority of the priesthood cast out of the society of the faithful.”

Gelasius was a respectable pontiff, but Leo the Great deserved his title: he was one of the ablest churchmen, and most celebrated popes that ever lived, and his condemnation of half communion in Catholic eyes should strip it of all authority.

The Council of Constance decrees that the Laity shall not have the Cup in the eucharist.

In A.D. 1215, the synod of Constance prohibited the cup to the laity in the following words: “. . . . and in like manner, though this sacrament was received in the primitive Church by the faithful under both kinds, yet to escape any dangers and scandals, the custom has reasonably been introduced, that it be received by the officiating persons under both kinds, but by the laity only under the kind of bread.” …. Fourteen hundred years after the eucharist was instituted, a body of bishops burn Christ’s two great servants, John Huss and Jerome of Prague; and destroy half of his own glorious image in the Lord’s Supper.

Trent and the prohibition of the cup.

The Council of Constance could not mutilate the Lord’s Supper and make men satisfied with the sacrilegious change. After its impious alterations of divine institutions, and diabolical burnings were over, agitation about the forbidden cup shook Europe, and a hundred years later it was just as active as ever. Soon after the assembling of the Council of Trent, which met A.D. 1545, demands came in by almost every mail for the cup, not from Protestants; they had it already; but from Catholics; from the Emperor Charles V., Ferdinand, his brother, Charles IX., King of France, the Duke of Bavaria, and from a multitude in all classes of society. The result is thus expressed:

“If any one shall say, that by the command of God, or by the necessity of salvation, all and each of the faithful in Christ should partake of each species of the most holy sacrament of the eucharist; let him be accursed.”

“If any one shall say that the holy Catholic Church was not moved by just causes and reasons to communicate with laymen, and even clergymen not celebrating mass under the species of bread only; or that in that course she has erred; let him be accursed.”

Finally the council, perplexed by the threatening attitude of the leading Catholic laymen of Europe, and yet fearing to injure the authority of general synods by repealing the decree of the infallible Council of Constance, referred the whole matter to the pope: “To give the cup to any person, nation, or kingdom, if fair reasons agreeable to Christian charity urged it; and to fix the conditions upon which the concession should be granted.” The popes have never exercised this discretionary power; and the formal decrees of Trent have bound all Catholics ever since they were issued.

The Words that change the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.

“By these words: Do this in commemoration of me, Jesus gave his apostles and their successors, the bishops and priests of the Church, the power to change the bread and the wine into his most holy body and blood. The priest blesses the bread and wine as Christ did; he speaks over them the same words of consecration which Christ spoke; and thus the bread and wine are changed now on the altar, as they were at the last supper, into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

The Sacrifice of the Mass a Modern Invention.

You will search in vain through all the writings of Christians, for the idea of transubstantiation, before the book of Paschasius Radbert was written in the ninth century. At that time the doctrine met with violent opposition from all quarters, and especially from the first thinkers in the Christian Church. Gradually the idea became popular, and in the twelfth century a name was born for it, then in the thirteenth it was formally installed as a dogma of the Church. We firmly and DEFIANTLY declare TRANSUBSTANTIATION A NOVELTY; and as the whole system of Romanism rests upon it, that system is founded not upon the Rock of Ages, but the sands of earth, and it will surely perish in the storms destined to overthrow every scheme of error.

The Catholic version of the Scriptures makes Jesus say: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.” Acts ii. 27. Now every wafer swallowed by Catholics enters the physical system, and corrupts with the decaying body, if not sooner. Every fragment of Christ’s body that ever entered the stomach of one of the faithful, has seen corruption already in the bodies of all the dead, or will see it in the moldering remains of all the living.

Every miracle of Christ was an apparent miracle; it could be tested by the senses; and the wonder had to be acknowledged by friend and foe. When he turned the water into wine at the wedding, let us suppose that it had the taste of water still, and its clear appearance; and that he and his mother assured the festive company that their senses deceived them, that it was really wine. How many at the marriage would have believed Jesus? Such a statement would have blasted the Saviour’s veracity forever among these people. Or when he feeds the thousands with the five loaves and two fishes, let us suppose that the miracle is of the mass order, that there is no increase of the loaves and fishes of which the people have any sensible evidence. He breaks them in little pieces, giving a portion to each: when the hungry multitude swallow the little morsels, they cry out: “What folly to give us these atoms!” Says Jesus: “I have magnified them by miracle into a sufficiency to satisfy you all.” “You have!” they reply. “It looked small, it felt small, it tasted small; and we are ravenously hungry as if it had been small.” “Ah,” he replies, “but your senses, deceive you, you cannot trust them.”

If the Saviour had been capable of such a piece of imposition, these thousands would have branded Him as the most deceitful and barefaced trickster that ever tried to take advantage of human credulity. Every miracle of Jesus appeared a supernatural occurrence to those who beheld it. The mass shows no change. It appears bread, its friends say it is flesh and blood; it is certainly a case of false appearances; it is no miracle of Jesus. His were all real, visible, undoubted.

A story is told of the celebrated Duke of Buckingham, that he consented to receive the ministrations of a priest during an illness, The duke, even in sickness, loved a joke, and as the father made some effort to convert him, he feigned a sort of dreamy unconsciousness of his presence. He held a cork in his hand, which he treated as if it were a splendid horse; he spoke of its height, its action, its beauty, and addressed it as an old equine acquaintance. The priest tried to convince him that it was not a horse, that he was certainly mistaken; that if he would look at it he would see it was not a horse but only a cork; that if he would scent it he would learn that it was a cork; that if he would taste it he would be satisfied that it was a cork; that if he would feel it he would perceive it was but a cork; that if he would listen to it for years he would never hear the snorts, neighing or breathing of a horse. The duke professed his conviction that it was only a cork. As conversation progressed, the eucharist was introduced, and the priest declared it to be Jesus Christ, soul, body, and divinity. The duke expressed his astonishment at the statement of the father; intimated that he must be somewhat beside himself: for if you touch it you will understand that it is not a human body, if you look at it you can only receive that conviction, if you taste it you will discover nothing but water and flour; if you scent it you will find no odor of flesh and blood. And he informed the father that a man must be out of his mind who believed a thing so contrary to his senses.

We receive all knowledge through our senses. If we cannot believe each of them in its own limited sphere, when each is in healthful exercise, we are not safe in believing anything. Our taste, touch, scent, sight, testify that the priest’s wafer is not Christ’s body and blood, but the flour and water of the cook. He tells us that it is Christ’s body, but he gives no evidence to establish the truth of his statement, except such testimony as would prove Christ to be a literal rock, lamb, corner-stone, sun, door, vine, shepherd, or morning star, between which objects and Jesus, in some features of his person or work, there is such a resemblance as led him to be called by their names; or such evidence as would prove Peter, the foundation of the Romish Church, to be the devil.

Were the keen old satirist living who laughed so immoderately at the follies of Egyptian idolatry, and who derisively complimented that people in the well-known words: “O holy nations, for whom these divinities grow in the gardens!” with what cultivated, heathen scorn, he would address his degenerate Roman fellow citizens, and exclaim: “O happy pontiff! O blessed papal fold, whose god grows in every ear of wheat, whose divinity is made by a baker and a priest, and then swallowed!”

The human body of Christ is in heaven; and as no material substance can be in two places at one time, or in a hundred thousand places at one time, the wafer-body of Christ is an imposition, a plain, unmitigated counterfeit, the reception of which is not an act of faith, but a deed which flings away the Bible and common sense for an impious dogma which the Scriptures never taught, and a soul exercising its intelligence could not believe.

(To be continued.)

All chapters of The Papal System by William Cathcart