the bread his body, what was at that time (the time of Jeremiah) his intention that the bread should signify.” (p) Adversus Marcion, L. iv. c. xl. p. 733.-He had before advanced the same sentiment; L. iii. p. 677.—And again: "He rejected not the bread by which he represents his own body.") Ib. L. i. p. 624.—In other passages, following his contemporaries, Tertullian is less ambiguous: "Our flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ,(") that the soul may be nourished with God." De Resurrect. carnis, c. viii. p. 569.-There are Christians worse than Jews; "for these laid violent hands on Jesus but once, but they daily insult his body." De Idol. c. vii. p. 240.— "Christ is our bread, because Christ is life, and bread is life. I (he says, John vi) am the bread of life. And again:

(P) The opinion of the Marcionite heretics whom he combats, was, that the two covenants were opposed to each other. This he refutes by shewing that Christ was anxious to apply to himself the prophecies of the old covenant, and to fulfil them. Thus Jeremiah having used the word bread to prefigure the body of Christ, Tertullian remarks that when Christ said of the bread, This is my body, he plainly signified that the prophecy was fulfilled, the bread being the ancient figure used to denote his body. This is my body, that is, the figure of my body, agreeably to the expression of the prophet Jeremiah. The same heretics also pretended that Christ, having no real body, adopted the bread for his body; so that according to them, in the eucharist was a real body, that is, the bread but no sacrament; no sign or figure of the real body of Christ.-Endless have been the contests on the meaning of the above passage. See Perpétuité de la Foi, vol. iii. lib. 11.

(9) Corpus suum repræsentat. The latter word is often used by him and others, for-præsentem facere, to render present. (r) Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur.

(s) Quotidie corpus ejus lacessunt.

The bread is the word of God, that came down from heaven. As also because his body is acknowledged to be in the bread."-This is my body: wherefore, when we pray for our daily bread, we beg for a perpetuity in Christ, and individuity from his body." De Orat. c. vi. p. 181.

CENT. III.

ORIGEN,(") G. C.

THOUGH this great man was very fond of allegorising, that is, of not confining himself to the literal meaning of the scriptures; yet, on the subject of the eucharist, he seems sometimes to speak sufficiently plain: thus in his great work against Celsus, he says: "We who study to please the Creator of all things with prayers and giving of thanks for benefits received, eat of the breads that are offered, which by prayer are made a holy body. By this, they who partake of it with a pure spirit, are rendered more holy." Lib. viii. T. 1. p. 766.—Again : "You that have been accustomed to be present at the

(4) Corpus ejus in pane censetur.

(u) Origen was contemporary with St. Clement of Alexandria, and succeeded him as catechist or teacher, in the celebrated school of that city. Few men, from a variety of causes, have left behind them a greater name, applauded and opposed, admired and persecuted. His works, as we have them, are imperfect; as written, they were almost innumerable. He died about the year 252.

(2)

προσαγόμενους άρτους ἐσθιομεν, σωμα γενομένους δια την ευχην

άγιον τι.

divine mysteries, know when you receive the body of the Lord, with what care and veneration you preserve it, lest any particle of it fall to the ground, or be lost; and you think yourselves guilty, and with reason, if it should so happen through your negligence." Hom. xiii. in Exod. T. ii. p. 176.-" In former times, baptism was obscurely represented in the cloud and in the sea: but now regeneration is in kind, in water, and in the Holy Ghost. Then, obscurely, manna was the food; but now in kind the flesh of the word of God is the true food;(*) even as he said: My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Hom. (a) vii. in Num. T. ii. p. 290.

S. HIPPOLYTUS,() G. C.

Commenting on the words of Proverbs ix.; Wisdom hath built herself a house, he says: "He (Christ) prepared his table, that is, the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; and moreover, his venerable and sacred body and

(*) Tunc in ænigmate erat manna cibus, nunc autem in specie caro verbi Dei est verus cibus.

(a) These homilies, which are not extant in Greek, are thought to have been rather loosely translated by Rufinus of Aquileja; but as Rufinus lived in the fifth century, the contemporary and antagonist of St. Jerome, his testimony alone serves to prove the faith of the age.

(b) St. Hippolytus flourished in the beginning of the third century, but of what see he was bishop is uncertain. Of the many works he wrote, only fragments remain, which were published by Fabricius, in 1716. He suffered martyrdom about the year 230.

blood, which are every day offered up(c) in remembrance of that divine and mysterious supper. Come, eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you, that is, his divine body and his venerable blood, which he gave us to eat and drink(") for the remission of sins." In Prov. c. ix. T. 1. p. 282. Edit. Hamburg, 1716.

S. CYPRIAN,(e) L. C.

Speaking of those, who in time of persecution had through weakness denied their faith, he relates instances of signal judgments that had fallen on many, who after that, dared to profane the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. The facts may, perhaps, by some be disputed; but the belief of the narrator on the point of the real presence in the elements, cannot be questioned. A woman having brought home with her-which then was usual— part of the consecrated bread, when she attempted to open the box which contained the Holy Thing of the Lord, was alarmed by a rising flame. And a man in similar circumstances, opening his hand, discovered nothing but ashes."

(ε) το τιμιον και άκραντον αυτου σωμα και αιμα, & καθ' έκαστη ἐπιτελοῦνται θυομενα.

(d)

την θειαν αυτον σαρκα και το τιμιον αυτου σωμα.

(e) St. Cyprian was bishop of Carthage, and died a martyr in the year 258. Actively concerned in the affairs of his own and of other churches; he corresponded widely, and has left us eightyone Epistles on various ecclesiastical subjects, and several Tracts; among which is one on the Unity of the Church, written against the Novatian schismatics, who disturbed the peace of the church. In qua Domini Sanctum fuit.

De Lapsis, p. 132, 133.-Of the same weak Christians he had before said: "Returning from the altar of the devil, they approach, with filthy and sordid hands, to the holy of the Lord. In this state of contamination they invade his body.(9) Regardless of the menaces of God, they dare to offer violence to the body and blood of the Lord;(4) thus sinning more against him than when they denied him." Ibid. p. 128.-" Christ is the bread of life, and this is not the bread of all, but it is ours: and as we say Our Father, because he is the father of the intelligent and the believing; so we say our bread, because Christ whose body we touch,() is our bread. This bread we daily pray for, lest, belonging to Christ, and receiving the eucharist daily for the food of salvation, we be withheld by some grievous crime from that heavenly bread, and be separated from the body of Christ. He has said: I am the bread of life who came down from heaven. If any one eat of my bread, he shall live for ever. But the bread which I shall give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Hence it is manifest, that they have this life who approach his body(*) and receive the eucharist." De Orat. Dom. p. 146, 147.

He elsewhere laments, that some ministers of the altar dared, before the forms of repentance and confession were fulfilled, to distribute the Eucharist, and "thus profane the holy body of the Lord." Ep. xv. p. 34.—" At this time, peace is necessary not to the weak, but to the strong; that while we excite and exhort them to battle, we leave

(g) Domini corpus invadunt.

() Vis infertur corpori ejus et sanguini.

Qui corpus ejus contingimus. (*) Qui corpus ejus attingunt. (1) Sanctum Domini corpus profanare audeant.