The Eucharist

“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”

“Perhaps you will say, "I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ?" And this is the point which remains for us to prove. And what evidence shall we make use of? Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed.”

“In order then that we may become this not by love only, but in very deed, let us be blended into that flesh. This is effected by the food which He hath freely given us, desiring to show the love which He hath for us. On this account He hath mixed up Himself with us; He hath kneaded up His body with ours, that we might be a certain One Thing, like a body joined to a head.”

“We firmly believe and simply confess that there is one only true God, eternal, immeasurable and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: three Persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature altogether simple. The Father from none, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy Spirit equally from both: without beginning, always and without end; the Father begetting, the Son being born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding; consubstantial and coequal and coalmighty and coeternal; one principle of all things; creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal; who by his almighty power from the beginning of time made together out of nothing both orders of creature, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is the angelic and the earthly, and thereafter the human, as it were common to both, composed of spirit and body. For the devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good in their nature, but they made themselves evil of their own doing. Man however sinned at the suggestion of the devil. This Holy Trinity, undivided according to its common essence and distinct according to the properties of the Persons, gave to the human race the doctrine of salvation, first through Moses and the holy Prophets and his other servants, according to the most orderly disposition of the times. And at the last the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, made flesh by the whole Trinity in common, conceived of Mary ever Virgin by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, made true man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh, one Person in two natures, showed more plainly the way of life. Who, although according to his divinity he is immortal and impassible, the same according to his humanity was made passible and mortal; who also, for the salvation of the human race, having suffered and died upon the wood of the cross, descended to the realms below, rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven — but he descended in the soul and rose again in the flesh, and ascended alike in both — to come at the end of the world, to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works, to the reprobate as to the elect: who shall all rise again with their own bodies, which they now bear, that they may receive according to their works, whether these have been good or evil; the one everlasting punishment with the devil, and the other everlasting glory with Christ. There is moreover one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved; in which Jesus Christ himself is both priest and sacrifice, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine, the bread having been transubstantiated into the body and the wine into the blood by divine power, so that, to accomplish the mystery of unity, we ourselves may receive of what is his what he himself received of what is ours. And this sacrament no one at all can confect but a priest who has been rightly ordained according to the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ himself granted to the Apostles and their successors. But the sacrament of baptism — which is consecrated in water at the invocation of God and the undivided Trinity, namely of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — rightly conferred by anyone in the form of the Church, profits unto salvation both little ones and adults. And if anyone, after receiving baptism, has fallen into sin, he can always be restored through true penance. Moreover not only virgins and the continent, but also the married, pleasing God by right faith and good works, deserve to come to eternal blessedness.”

“And this is done by Divine power in this sacrament; for the whole substance of the bread is changed into the whole substance of Christ's body, and the whole substance of the wine into the whole substance of Christ's blood. Hence this is not a formal, but a substantial conversion; nor is it a kind of natural movement: but, with a name of its own, it can be called "transubstantiation."”

“Whereas in certain parts of the world some rashly presume to assert that the christian people ought to receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist under both species of bread and wine, and give communion to the lay people everywhere not only under the species of bread but also under the species of wine, and even after supper or otherwise not fasting, and obstinately assert that communion must be given so, against the praiseworthy custom of the Church, reasonably approved, which they try to condemn as sacrilegious: hence it is that this present Council … declares, decrees and defines that, although Christ instituted this venerable sacrament after supper and administered it to his disciples under both species of bread and wine, nevertheless, this notwithstanding, the authority of the sacred canons and the praiseworthy and approved custom of the Church has kept and keeps that this sacrament ought not to be confected after supper, nor received by the faithful when not fasting, except in a case of illness or of other necessity granted or admitted by law or by the Church. And just as this custom was reasonably introduced in order to avoid certain dangers and scandals, so, although in the primitive Church this sacrament was received by the faithful under both species, afterwards it came to be received by those confecting it under both, and by the laity only under the species of bread; since it is to be most firmly believed and in no way doubted that the whole body of Christ and his blood are truly contained under the species of bread as well as under the species of wine. Wherefore to say that to observe this custom or law is sacrilegious or unlawful must be judged erroneous, and those obstinately asserting the opposite of the foregoing are to be restrained as heretics and severely punished by the local diocesan bishops or their officials or by the inquisitors of heretical depravity. …”

“In the name of the Holy Trinity, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, with the approval of this sacred universal Council of Florence we define that this truth of faith be believed and accepted by all Christians, and that all so profess it: that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and by a single spiration; declaring that what the holy Doctors and Fathers say — that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son — tends to this understanding, that by it is signified that the Son too is, according to the Greeks the cause, and according to the Latins the principle, of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, as is the Father. And since all that is the Father's, the Father himself in begetting gave to his only-begotten Son, save being Father, this very thing — that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son — the Son himself has eternally from the Father, by whom he was likewise eternally begotten. We define besides that the explanation of those words "Filioque" was lawfully and reasonably added to the Symbol for the sake of declaring the truth, and under the necessity then pressing. Likewise, that the body of Christ is truly confected in unleavened or in leavened wheaten bread, and that priests ought to confect the body of the Lord in either one of these, each according to the custom of his own Church, whether western or eastern.”

“But why should not Christ be able to include His body within the substance of bread, as well as within the accidents? Fire and iron, two different substances, are so mingled in red-hot iron, that every part of it is both fire and iron. Why may not the glorious body of Christ much more be in every part of the substance of the bread?”

“I believe that in the holy Eucharist, i. e., the supper of thanksgiving, the true body of Christ is present by the contemplation of faith. This means that they who thank the Lord for the benefits bestowed on us in His Son acknowledge that He assumed true flesh, in it truly suffered, truly washed away our sins by His blood; and thus everything done by Christ becomes as it were present to them by the contemplation of faith. But that the body of Christ in essence and really, i. e., the natural body itself, is either present in the supper or masticated with our mouth and teeth, as the Papists or some who look back to the fleshpots of Egypt assert, we not only deny, but constantly maintain to be an error, contrary to the Word of God.”

“If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood — the species only of the bread and wine remaining — which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema.”

“Therefore, if, by the breaking of the bread, the Lord truly represents the participation of his body, it ought not to be doubted that he truly presents and communicates it. And it must always be a rule with believers, whenever they see the signs instituted by the Lord, to assure and persuade themselves that they are also accompanied with the truth of the thing signified. For to what end would the Lord deliver into our hands the symbol of his body, except to assure us of a real participation of it? If it be true that the visible sign is given to us to seal the donation of the invisible substance, we ought to entertain a confident assurance, that in receiving the symbol of his body, we at the same time truly receive the body itself.”