Purgatory, By The Rev. M. Canty, P.P., Part 42.

THE NATURE OF THE PAINS OF PURGATORY PART 1.

THE next question we have to turn attention to is, of what kind are the pains of Purgatory? At the outset we may say that there are some things certain, and some things uncertain, regarding them. Let us separate the certain from the uncertain.

In the first place it is certain, as we have before now seen, that neither despair, nor the fear of damnation, constitutes any of the pains of Purgatory. The souls in that place are troubled by no sentiment, of despair, and no dread of hell.

In the second place it is certain that these souls suffer the pain of loss, which consists in the deprivation of the Divine vision. The soul is deprived of the vision of God. It is a great pain to it, that on account of  its sins it is deprived of the enjoyment of. Him, to whom it ardently longs to be united.

In the third place, it is certain that, in addition to the pain of loss, the soul also suffers another pain, which theologians call the pain of sense. This pain proceeds, not from the bereavement of the beatific vision, but from another cause. Because the soul while in this life, in committing sin, turns away from God, and turns to a creature, or the object or motive for which it sins, it is but just that it should be afterwards afflicted, not alone by the bereavement of God, but even by some created object.

In the fourth place it is certain, from the words of St. Paul (I. Corinth, iii. 15.) : " He shall be saved, yet so as by fire; " and of Jesus Christ Himself in the Gospel (Matt. xxv. 41.) : "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire; " that in Purgatory, as well as in hell, there is the pain of fire, whether we are to take that fire literally or metaphorically, and whether we connect it with the pain of sense or with the pain of loss. Not alone in the Scripture, but even in the works of the Fathers, the pain of Purgatory is called a fire. So far we have seen what is certain. Let us now turn attention to things that are not absolutely certain, or that have formed matter of dispute.

I. It is most probable, or at least more probable, that the fire of Purgatory is corporeal. That is, it is a fire in the true and proper sense of the word, and of the same species as our fire.

This has been never defined by the Church, and consequently is not a matter of Catholic faith. The Greeks openly professed in the Council of Florence that they did not believe there was fire in Purgatory. Still the Council defined, in the last session, that there was a Purgatory, without making any mention of the fire. This notwithstanding, we should hold that there is fire in Purgatory. Dens says : (Tract, de quatuor Novissimis. ) "It is the opinion, constant and to be retained, of the Latins, that in Purgatory there is a material fire, similar to the infernal fire: hence the Church asks for the souls of the faithful not only a place of light and peace, but also of refreshment, verily against the great heat of the fire." Mangeart, (Tome 2, page 241.) while denying it to be of faith that there is a corporeal or material fire in Purgatory, defends it to be proximate to faith. Bellarmine uses milder language, and only says that it is " most probable." Lessius says (II. 18, page 827.) that the reason why Bellarmine does not use stronger language is, " because the Greeks in the Council of Florence, the last session, although confessing that they had always believed in Purgatory and prayer for the dead, nevertheless say they doubt whether they may be tormented with corporeal fire, or darkness only, or any other way, which opinion of theirs the Council tolerates."

I. The first proof of the existence of fire in Purgatory is found in the consent of theologians and scholastics. These, ancient as well as modern, have more commonly held that there is punishment by fire in Purgatory. Their opinion, as Bellarmine says, " cannot but rashly be contemned." It is extremely rash to run counter to it. This would be like opposing or contemning the general opinion of lawyers on a point of law.

Dupin, a writer of the beginning of the last century, well known for his inroads on Catholic doctrine, entirely misinterpreted the sense of St. Augustine, when he asserted that this holy doctor (Lib. de Octo Dulcitii Quaestionibus, q. i, n, 12 ; and Lib 21, de Liv. Dei, cap. 9, n. 2.) left it an open question to every one to believe that the souls in Purgatory, as well as those in hell, suffer from fire. After having discussed at great length the fire by which souls are tormented in the other life, St. Augustine sums up (Lib. 21, do Liv. Dei, cap. 9, n. 2. ) thus: "Let each one choose whichever of the two that pleases him, whether he may consider also that the worm of conscience extends to the body properly, or to the mind, the term being transferred from corporeal to incorporeal things . . provided, however, we in no way believe that those bodies are about to be such that they may be affected by no pains from fire" From this we easily infer that St. Augustine, no matter what sense Dupin may attribute to him, taught that there is a punishment by fire in the other world.

St. Bonaventure (Part 7 Breviloquii, cap. 2.) says ; "The purgatorial fire is a corporal fire, by which only the spirits of the just, who in this life did not perform penance and worthy satisfaction, are afflicted."

Cardinal Hugo (Super Matth. cap. 3. ) speaks of the fire of Purgatory, and defines it thus : "The fire of Purgatory is, where shall be purged, what is not here purged."

Richard of St. Victor (Part I. de Judiciaria potestate.) says of it: " The purgatorial fire "is that by which the rust of sin is consumed in those who are to be saved."

St. Vincent Ferrar (Part I. Serm. 2 Dom. Lex.)  depicts it in the following strong language: " Purgatory is a house full of fire which by Divine virtue torments the souls more than if they were in a burning furnace."

2. The doctrine by far the more common among the Fathers, holds that the fire of Purgatory is corporeal. That this doctrine is common among them, the reader will be able to judge after a few quotations from their works.

Origen, speaking of one who has not perfectly satisfied the justice of God for his sins, and thus dies without being fully purged, writes: (Homil. 13 in Jerem.) " He is a sinner who needs the baptism of fire, who is cleansed by burning, that whatever he may have of wood, hay, and stubble, fire may consume" According to Origen, those souls that owe something to the justice of God at death must be purified by fire in the other life.

St. Augustine (In Psalm xxxi. 13.) writes: “Because it is said: He shall be saved, That fire is contemned. . . . How ever, that fire shall be more severe, than whatever man can suffer in this life." In another part of his works (De Civit. Dei.lib. 21, cap. 10.) he expresses himself in the same sense.

St. Gregory the Great (Lib. 4, Dialog., cap. 30.) says : " It must be believed that there is a purgatorial fire before judgment for some light faults." More than this, he expressly says (Cap. 29. ) that the fire, by which souls are punished in the other life, is corporeal. It is true that it is said in another part (Lib. 15, cap. 14 moralium) of his works that the fire of hell is incorporeal. But this is evidently the fault of the copyists, who wrote incorporeal, for corporeal. The fault clearly lies with the copyists, for St. Gregory immediately after says that those in hell burn corporally.

St. Cyprian (Epist. 59, ad Autonianum. ) writes: "It is one thing to be purged long by fire, another thing to have purged all sins."

St. Jerome also writes (In Psalm xxxvi. n. 26.) "Woe to me if my work shall have burned. . . . We shall be saved by faith, thus, however, saved as if by fire ; and if we be not consumed, still we shall be burnt''

The above quoted Fathers teach us that there is fire in Purgatory. They use the word fire in the literal sense as denoting corporeal fire. St. Gregory, in speaking of it, calls it corporeal fire, and even proves it to be such. He says : (Cap. 29 p. 417.) "If the devil and his angels, although they be incorporeal, are to be tormented with corporeal fire, what wonder is it if souls, even before they recover the bodies, can feel corporeal torments ? " Then St. Thomas, according to his custom, reasoned logically when he said : (In 4, dist. 21, q. I, art.) "It is the same fire which torments the damned in hell, and which purges the just in Purgatory." Not only the punishment of hell, but also that of Purgatory is called fire in Scripture and Tradition. The inspired Word and the writings of the Fathers constantly speak of the fire of Purgatory. It is a rule of interpretation laid down by St. Augustine, followed by Biblicists and theologians, and universally adopted, that Scripture and Tradition are to be received in their proper and literal sense, unless something absurd follows therefrom. But there is : nothing absurd to follow, if we understand the fire of Purgatory in its literal and obvious sense.

The Mass In The Infant Church By Rev Garrett Pierse Part 20.

Some Circumstances of the Sacrificial Celebration. Part 3.

When the Church gradually spread, when it was no longer a select community that could conveniently assemble in an upper room, but a great organization requiring the celebration of its principal function in divers centres, the presidency at the Eucharistic celebration would, naturally, have devolved on priests of the second order. " If, in the absence of the bishop, a presbyter is present, let all turn to him ; and let them honour him as the bishop is honoured." 1

When Justin Martyr, whose writings belong to the middle of the second century and to the beginning of our period, speaks of the Eucharist as celebrated by " the president " of the congregation, he means, in all probability, the bishop. 2 On the other hand, when Tertullian says, at a much later date, that the Eucharist was received from the hands of no others except the presidents, 3 the expression may include even priests of the second order, if there was question of the absence of the bishop.

Communion.

The inscription of Pectorius of Autun shows that in this early period the communicants received the sacred Elements into their hands—" holding the Fish in your hands.'' This ancient rite of communicating rendered necessary much caution in guarding the Sacred Elements from falling. The rite of receiving Communion into the hand continued in the much later days of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who speaks of the custom of placing the left hand, as a throne, under the right, which directly received the Holy Communion. 4

The Eucharistic Elements, taken in the hand, were much larger than the present-day particles if, as is likely, they are represented by the baskets of large loaves, so often seen in the Catacombs.

The chalice, also, was handed around in those early days. " How do we teach or encourage men to shed their blood in the confession of His name, if, as they are about to start on their warfare, we deny to them the blood of Christ ? Or how do we fit them to drink the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them, with the right of communicants, to drink the cup of the Lord in the Church ?" 5 It is unnecessary to point out to anyone believing that Christ's body is whole and entire in any part of the Eucharist, that reception under both species is not necessary for the substantial fruit of the Sacrament.

Reservation of the  Communion.

The Eucharist was utilised not merely during the celebration of the Sacrifice, but, like other food of a much inferior nature, it was stored up. Origen regarded  as a symbol of the Eucharistic mysteries the command in Leviticus to eat the remnant of the sacrificial food the day after the sacrifice, and to reserve nothing until the third day. 6 This passage, while strongly insinuating the sacrificial nature also of the Eucharistic food, indicates that in Alexandria the Sacrament was reserved only for one day. The primary object of this reservation seems to have been its reception at a later date. Dissuading a Christian woman from marriage with a heathen husband, Tertullian writes : " Your husband will not know what you are taking secretly before all other food.'' 7 The mind of Tertullian seems to have been that the husband had opportunities of seeing, if not of fully realising what the wife was secretly taking. The secrecy implies that there was question of a home reception of the reserved Eucharist. It will be also observed how it was said by Tertullian to be received before all other food. The Canons of Hippolytus, also, are witnesses of the fasting reception of the Eucharist. " Let not any of the Faithful taste anything before he has partaken of the mysteries, especially, on the day of the holy fast." 8 St. Cyprian rebuked Christians, who attended objectionable heathen games, because carrying the Eucharist according to custom after having just left the Church, they exposed it to profane surroundings. 9 The Eucharist was reserved in a small casket. " When a certain woman tried to open her box, in which was contained the holy thing of the Lord, she was deterred from touching it, fire rising therefrom." 10

This miraculous story associated with the box containing the Eucharist, whatever be its truth, shows the reverence with which the Sacrament was regarded. The worship, paid to the reserved Eucharist according to those testimonies, may be taken to be the germ of the more fully evolved worship of later days, manifesting itself in Benediction, or in regular visits to the Blessed Sacrament.

It was seen in Justin's writings that another purpose of reserving some Eucharistic elements during the Sacrifice was to take them to the absent brethren. 11

A curious purpose of reservation was to send it to strangers, or to foreign churches as a token of unity or of common faith. Thus, Irenaeus wrote to Pope Victor that his predecessors in the Roman See saw their way to send the Eucharist to foreign bishops, even though the latter had a different way of celebrating Easter, and that Pope Anicetus yielded " the Eucharist" to Polycarp in spite of a difference on the Paschal question, showing thereby that communion between the Churches could be preserved in the face of a difference in customs. 12

Vestments.

As to the vestments used in the Eucharistic celebration, there is but meagre evidence in this period. The Canons of Hippolytus are almost the only source of early information. "As soon as the bishop wishes to celebrate the mysteries, let the deacons and presbyters come together to him, clad in white vestments, more beautiful than those of all the people, and as splendid as possible. But good work excels all vestments. Let the lectors also have festive garments.'' 13 Later, therefore, than the end of the second century, the clergy, officiating at the Eucharist, wore a distinctive dress. Polycrates tells us that St. John wore a golden ornament or mitre. 14 As to the authority of Polycrates, and as to whether this dress may have been exceptional, we cannot have certainty. Without much evidence, some have theorized that the Christian vestments were borrowed from Judaism ; others, that they were derived from Paganism itself. On philological grounds, it seems more likely that they were at first merely the ordinary dress of the time, which became definitely stereotyped. The alb (alba) was the early tunic or shirt. It had to be fastened with a cincture (cingulum). The cope (capa) was the outer garment of a Roman citizen. The chasuble (casula, or little hut) was the name for a cloak. Probably, these simple and ordinary articles of attire comprised the dress worn by the celebrants in the second century down to the time of which the Canons of Hippolytus speak. The idea is suggested by the picture of the "President" in the Fractio Panis in the Greek Chapel of the Catacombs. His dress differs not from that of the ordinary citizen of those days. It was believed that the cloak, covering the figure near the tripod table in the Chambers of the Sacraments, was also a Christian vestment. But the fact that it leaves the right shoulder and right side entirely nude, if coupled with the theory that the figure is a representation of Christ, renders the supposition most unlikely.

1 C. H. xxxiv.

2 Apol i., 65.

3 De Corona Milit. 3

4 Catech. xxiii,, c. 22.

5 Cyprian, Ep, 54.

6 In Levit. Hom, v., c. 3.

7 Ad Uxorem, ii„ 5, P.S.I., 1296.

8 xxviii.

9 De Spectaculus, 38.

10 De Lapsis, c. 26.

11 Apol. 1, 67.

12 Eusebius H E. v. 24, 16.

13 xxxvii.

14 Letter to Pope Victor, Euseb, H,E. v. c. 24

The Mass In The Infant Church By Rev Garrett Pierse Part 6.

Chapter IV

The East and a Strict Sacrifice— (Continued).

Origen

Strange as it may seem, the great Alexandrian theologian, Origen, does but apply and extend the main principles of his teacher, Clement, just as the latter professes to be indebted for his intellectual system to some predecessors. The philosophical method, the allegorising principle of exegesis, the Discipline of the Secret, all so familiar in Clement's writings, meet us, like old acquaintances, in the pages of Origen. Because of the undefined character of certain doctrines since made clear, Origen was betrayed into some errors. Some baseless speculations of his singularly free mind were not the result of rashness, as is abundantly testified by his consciousness of his, absolutely speaking, limited theological researches, 1 his implicit belief in the clear points of the Creed, 2 his reverence for Tradition manifested in his secrecy about the Eucharistic mysteries.

Applying to Scriptural exegesis the philosophical principle of Plato concerning the three elements in man—body, soul, and spirit,—he distinguished a material, an animal, and a spiritual sense. In practice a two-fold distinction alone was used by Origen—the material or literal, and the spiritual or allegorical sense. According to him all things in Scripture bore a hidden, allegorical sense, but some matters, even in the Gospels, could not bear a literal sense, for, from a close examination even of separate words, he thought he was justified in concluding that certain things, taken in the literal sense, were impossible or irrational. 3 Fortunately he did not apply the latter principle to the texts bearing on the Eucharist. But he included in the Eucharistic texts an allegorical sense which he conceived to be higher, and apparently, more valuable. He asserts that "this Bread and Wine maybe understood by the simple people according to the received interpretation in the subject of the Eucharist, but those who have learned to listen more closely will understand according to the more Divine promise of the Word which nourishes us with the truth." 4 Origen, accordingly, compares the Scriptures to a field containing a hidden treasure; as the surface of the field contains all manners of common grasses, while beneath one might find the more valuable deposit of gold or jewels, so too was it the business of more profound minds to penetrate beneath the superficial sense to the deeper meaning. It was their duty to see in the material type the spiritual antitype. 5 But, it will be seen, this higher knowledge did not of necessity exclude the more simple.

The Discipline of the Secret sometimes made Origen obscure when speaking in the presence even of Church congregations, and as his spoken homilies were afterwards printed, they exhibit some vagueness, containing merely a hint or fragment of his whole doctrine. He says that the more secret things are passed over in silence when the hearers appear to be unsophisticated and to have need of doctrinal milk. 6 Even in those written hints of the Eucharist, we can with perfect safety read between the lines the doctrine of a strict sacrifice of the Eucharist.

Strict Sacrifice.

" Again, Celsus," Origen writes, " wishes us to be thankful to these demons, imagining that we owe them thanks-offerings.  . . . And we have a symbol of gratitude to God in the Bread which we call the Eucharist." 7

Again, " For you who are joined to the Lord, to Jesus Christ, the true High Priest, who by His blood has recovered for you the grace of God, and has reconciled you to the Father, do not hold on any longer to the blood of sacrificed animals, but recognise the blood of the Word, and hear Him saying : ' This is My blood which is shed for you unto the remission of sins '; however, he that is initiated knows already the body and blood of the Word. We do not long dwell on what is known sufficiently by those who know and cannot be explained to those who do not know." 8

Also, " As for us who return thanks to the Creator of all things, we eat the breads which are offered with prayers and thanksgivings, because we have received these breads which by prayer become a holy body which sanctifies those who receive it with a pure heart." 9

The only difficulty here is to show that Origen speaks of a sacrifice of the Eucharist in the strict and material sense. Now, in the first passage, in the very context where his opponent, Celsus, is speaking of the necessity of offering literal sacrifices, Origen speaks of the Eucharist as also a symbol of thanksgiving to God, Who is superior to angels. If we couple this statement with that in the last-quoted passage, it will be evident that the Bread forms an offering of thanksgiving—a thanks-offering. But, perhaps, to Origen's allegorising mind it is only a purely spiritual offering of prayer or the like. That it cannot be a purely spiritual offering, however, is evident from the fact that the Eucharist is called a symbol. What else can a symbol be but a visible, material sign ? The Eucharist, therefore, is not a purely spiritual but a material and visible offering.

Besides, that Origen regarded the Eucharist as a sacrifice in a literal and material sense is clear from the last-quoted passage alone. He speaks of breads offered, which became a holy body. Surely, breads offered constitute a visible, palpable offering. Nor could a merely spiritual offering, a subjective sacrifice, a creation of the mind, be said with any propriety to become a " holy body." "Holy body" is a cryptic expression of Origen when influenced by the Discipline of the Secret, and means the holy body of the Lord.

In the remaining passage, or the second passage above cited, Origen speaks of the repudiation of the blood of sacrificed animals, and, at once, directs the Christian to the blood of the Word, shed unto the remission of sins. Surely, therefore, that blood is sacrificial. But where ? In the Cross alone, or in the Eucharist also ? In the Eucharist, for Origen says that the initiated know already the body and blood of the Lord, while the uninitiated are to be kept in ignorance. Why should the Discipline of the Secret show its influence here, unless Origen is speaking of the sacrificial nature of the real blood of Christ in the august Sacrament of the Eucharist itself. He has written numerous discourses on purely spiritual interpretations, and here he is unusually secret. The only reasonable explanation is the one given.

Hence, the elements of the Eucharist are sacrificial even as early as Origen's epoch. The unconsecrated bread is explicitly said to be part of the offering or. sacrifice; the Consecrated Wine or blood of Christ appears, from what has been said, to be expressly believed by Origen to be sacrificial and to be the term of the offering. Lest it may be said that Origen did not believe in the real presence of Christ's blood, lest he may be thought to believe in pure symbolism in the doctrine of the Eucharist, I shall consider what, in other passages, is at least implied as the thing offered.

The Object Offered.

"I wish," Origen writes, " to admonish you with examples drawn from your religion: you who are wont to be present at the Divine mysteries know how, when you have received the body of the Lord, you guard it with all care and reverence lest any small part should fall therefrom, lest some part of the consecrated gift should fall down. For you believe yourself guilty, and rightly so, if any part should fall therefrom through your; negligence." 10

Again, " we are said to drink the blood of Christ, not alone in the rite of the mysteries, 11 but also when we receive His discourses in which consists life, just as He himself says : ' The words I have spoken are spirit and life."' 12

But he writes : " That bread with which the Divine Word declared His body to be identical is the word nourishing souls, the word proceeding from the Divine Word, and the bread proceeding from the Heavenly Bread. . . And the drink with which the Divine Word declared His blood to be identical, is the word which saturates and wonderfully inebriates the hearts of the drinkers. . . . For the Divine Word did not declare His body to be that visible bread which he held in His hands, but (He declared it to be rather) the word in whose mystery that bread was to be broken. Nor did He declare His blood to be that visible drink, but (rather) the word in whose mystery that drink was to be poured out. For what else can the body or blood of the Divine Word be but the word that nourishes and the word that gladdens the heart." 13

It will be made clear from a close examination of these passages of Origen that his exegesis of the Eucharistic texts included a literal as well as an allegorical interpretation, that he was in the matter of the Eucharist a realist as well as a symbolist. It will be also remembered how, in a passage quoted much earlier, he declared the offered breads to be a " holy body." How can this "holy body'' be taken in a merely spiritual signification ? In the present texts Origen appeals to the practice of the faithful, how they prevent with all scrupulousness and reverence any part of the consecrated gift from falling to the ground. Origen does not merely mention their faith ; he endorses it, saying that they rightly believe in their positive guiltiness, if a particle falls through negligence. If there is no Real Presence, if the Eucharist is to be taken in a purely symbolic sense, why such scrupulousness concerning this pure symbol ? Why a sense of guilt in the case of irreverence towards a particle ?

It has been already remarked how Origen pauses, and becomes silent concerning certain aspects of the Eucharist, though he is diffuse in speaking of its symbolic interpretation, for example, in the sense of doctrine. Why should there be this observance of the Discipline of the Secret, unless there was a literal acceptation of the Eucharist, which might be exposed to profanation ?

Accordingly, Origen, in the second passage quoted, shows expressly that he includes the literal acceptation; he says that the blood of Christ is drunk not merely in the sacramental rite, but also when His doctrine is received. There is a drinking of the blood of Christ, not merely mental but corporal.

To this it may be objected, from the third passage quoted, that he speaks exclusively of the symbolical sense of the Eucharist, that he declares that Christ did not equate His body with the visible bread which He held in His hands : Nan enim pattern ilium visibilem quern tenebat in manibus corpus suum dicebat Deus Verbum. Before we can intelligently solve this apparent contradiction in Origen—his inclusion of the literal sense in one place and his apparent exclusion of it in another—we must state that Origen was so far inaccurate as to believe in the remaining of the bread after the Consecration. He says that " even the food consecrated by the word of God and prayer, according to its material element, goes into the belly and is cast into the privy." 14 Here Origen cannot reasonably be interpreted as meaning the species or material appearances of the Sacrament. For how could appearances be cast into the privy ? You may say that it is a new substance supervening which is cast forth. But Origen does not give so neat a distinction, but speaks of the material element of the consecrated food as completely following the ordinary process of digestion.

Now, in the difficult passage quoted, Origen is commenting on the very texts dealing with the institution of the Eucharist. He conceived, according to what has been said, the bread as remaining after the Consecration. If this is remembered, there is no difficulty. Origen, then, says that Christ did not declare His body to be visible, substantial bread, which He held in His hands. What then ? He declared it to be the word proceeding from the Divine Word, or doctrine. He declared His body to be this metaphorical bread. He declared His blood to be, not the visible substantial wine, but the doctrine which gladdens the heart. Origen is but repeating the teaching of his master, Clement, who has been quoted as declaring, even in a passage devoted to the Eucharist, that the word is metaphorically wine or the holy stream of gladness. 15

We are justified in construing the body and blood of Christ as subjects and not the predicates of the clause. For the Latin sentence last quoted will show plainly that these are meant to be the subjects of the discourse. It is only if bread were the subject and the body of Christ the predicate, it is only if it were meant that Christ did not declare the visible bread to be His body —it is only then there would be a serious difficulty against the Real Presence ; only then, with any show of reason, could it be said that Origen here speaks of the Eucharist in an exclusively symbolical sense. But such a mode of translating the text of Origen, as it has come down to us in Latin, is seen to be inadmissible.

It is fortunate that Origen is singularly explicit about one effect of this oblation containing the real body and blood of Christ—its propitiatory effect. His development of this aspect of the Eucharist is an added proof of his belief in its sacrificial character. Other writers, before his time, may express themselves merely on the propitiatory effect wrought by subjective dispositions, for example, by prayer and a good life. Irenaeus, for instance, may only say that the mind of the giver hallows the gift. But it is a special development in Origen's teaching—his giving a propitiatory value to the objective Eucharistic commemoration.

Propitiatory Effect of the  Sacrifice.

" But if these things (the twelve loaves of proposition) " he writes, " are referred to their great mystic signification, you  will find that that commemoration, (mystically understood) has the effect of a mighty propitiation. If you return to that Bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to this world: that Bread of Proposition, which God set forth as a propitiation in His blood through faith ; and if you look to that commemoration, about which the Lord says : ' Do this in commemoration of Me,' you will find that that is the only commemoration which makes God propitious to men. If therefore you recall more intently the Church mysteries you will see in what is written by the Law an image formed beforehand of the future truth. But about these things we must not discourse further, since the matter can be understood by a mere mention thereof." 16

Origen, in the context, proposes to give the antitype of the twelve showbreads, or loaves of proposition, mentioned in Leviticus. 17 These breads, which were ordered to be set forth on a most clean table, which were called a commemoration of the " oblation of the Lord," which were to be renewed every Sabbath, which were received from the children of Israel according to an "everlasting covenant," which were eaten only in the Holy Place, and by Aaron and his sons alone, which were called the most holy of the sacrifices—these, it can be seen, had many aspects which rightly recalled to Origen's mind the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

He represented their literal meaning as comparatively insignificant. But taken in the mystic sense, they, or rather their antitype, must be held to have the effect of an " immense propitiation." The antitype, however, is a rather multiple object : it is the Bread which comes down from heaven and gives the life of grace to the world (note the present tense suggesting the continued descent in the Eucharist); it is the Bread which God set forth as a propitiation in His blood, evidently on the Cross; it is the commemorative act which was ordered by the words : " Do this in remembrance of Me."

In the description of the antitype, the mention of the commemoration contained in the Eucharist, immediately after the reference to the sacrifice of the Cross, suggests at once to any careful observer that Origen regarded the Eucharist as a commemoration of the offering on Calvary, as, to use St. Paul's word, "a showing forth of the death of the Lord." 18

Speaking of the Eucharist, he says that this mystery, the objective thing, namely, is the only commemoration which makes God propitious to humanity. But, surely, he must not be forgetting the sacrifice of the Cross, to which he had just referred. Was not that, too, an extraordinary work of propitiation ? Yes, but it was not a commemoration, and its atoning efficacy, therefore, is not excluded.

Origen is not new in the development of the idea that the Eucharist is a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross. But he was new in explicitly mentioning the sacrificial character of the Consecrated Elements, of the Saviour's body and blood really present, as I endeavoured to show already. His singular service in, at least, the expression of the doctrine is his teaching that the objective Eucharistic commemoration was propitiatory, was, indeed, the propitiatory instrument par excellence. These teachings that there is an offering of the Divine Victim really present, that the Eucharist is a representation of the death of Christ, that it has a propitiatory effect, that it is a strict sacrifice, contain the essence of the present-day Catholic definitions on the Mass.

1 See: " On the Inspiration of Scripture.''

2 Be Principiis, Preface.

3 See " On the Inspiration of Scripture."

4 In Joann. Comment xxxii. 24.

5 See : " On the Inspiration of Scripture."

6 Contra Celsum, iii. 52.

7 Ibid., vii., 57.

8 Hom. In Levit, ix., n. 1C.

9 In Levit, Hom. 13, p. 176.

10 In Exod. Horn. xiii. 3, 

11 Non solum sacramentorum ritu.

12 In Num, Horn, xt, N. 9. See also Horn, xvi,

13 Panis iste quern Deus Verbum corpus suum esse fatetur, verburu est nutritorium animarum, verbum de Deo Verbo procedens, et panis de pane coelesti. Et potus quern Deus Verbum sanguinem suum fatetur, verbum est potans et inebrians praeclare cordabibentiurr..

Non enim panem ilium visibilem quern tenebat in manibus, corpus suum dicebat Deus Verbum, sed verbum in cujus mysterio fuerat panis ille fraugendus. Nee potum ilium visibilem sanguimem suum dicebat, sed verbum in cujus mysterio potus ille fuerat effun dendus. Nam corpus Dei Verbiaut sanguis, quid aliud esse potest nisi verbum quod nutrit et verbum quod laetificat cor. (In Mat. Comment Series 85).

14 Libri in Matt. M, P. G. t xiii,, col. 949, note 37.

15 Paed ii. 2.

16 In Levit. Hom. xiii. 3. 

17 Ch, xxiv.

18 1. Cor. xi.