The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
I reply that bread, by a Hebraism, stands for any food (2 Kings ii. 22). So Christ is called manna (S. John vi. 31), and bread (Ibid. vi. 41). The reason is that bread is the common and necessary food of all. Moreover, S. Paul does not say “bread” simply, but “the bread which we break,” i.e., the Eucharistic or transubstantiated bread, which is the body of Christ, and yet retains the species and power of bread. In this agree all the Fathers and orthodox doctors. Christ, on other occasions as well as in the Last Supper, is said to have broken and distributed the bread, according to the Hebrew custom, the head of the house was wont to break the bread and divide the food among the guests sitting at table. For the Easterns did not have loaves shaped like ours, which need a knife to cut them up, but they used to make their bread into wide and thin cakes, as, amongst others, Stuckius has noticed ( Convival lib. ii. c. 3). Hence “to break bread” signifies in Scripture “to feast,” and breaking bread signifies any feast, dinner, or meal. In the New Testament it is appropriated to the Eucharist; therefore “to break bread” is a sacramental and ecclesiastical term. Hence S. Paul calls here the Eucharist “ the bread which we break,” meaning the species of the body of Christ which we break and consume in the sacrament. See further on c. xi. 24.
Ver. 17. — For we being many are one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers of that one bread. As one loaf is made out of many grains of wheat, so of many faithful is made one holy and living bread, the one mystical body of Christ, the Church, not only generally and mystically, but properly and substantially, because all are really united to the body of Christ, and become one with it, in the Eucharist, just as food becomes one with him that eats it. Hence it may be rightly argued against Protestants that we all eat really the same body of Christ. They, however, say that in the Eucharist all Christians become one, because they eat the same sacramental bread, which is a type of the body of Christ. But who would ever say of such a feast in common that it makes all who share in it one, merely because they sit at the same table and eat of the same bread ? It would be a statement at once untrue and foolish. It is, however, true when applied to the body of Christ, because we all feed on what is numerically one, especially because this holy bread, as S. Augustine says, when eaten, is not changed into our substance, but rather changes us into its own, and unites us to itself and makes us like it, which ordinary bread does not do. Here Cyril of Alexandria (in Joan. lib. iv. c. 17) says: “As wax is incorporated into wax , and leaven permeates through bread, so do we become fused into the body of Christ.” And Cyril of Jerusalem ( Catachesis , 4) says: “In Holy Communion we become , not only bearers of Christ, but also sharers of the same body and the same blood as He.” This is because we become one with Christ and Christ with us, because we are really blended with the flesh of Christ, and therefore with His Person, His Godhead, and His omnipotence. Irenaeus says the same (lib. iv. c. 34), and Hilary (de Trin. lib. viii.).
It is for this reason that the Eucharist is called Communion by the Fathers : it really unites us to the body of Christ, so that all become one in Him and with Him. “ Communion ,” then, is the common union of the faithful, who, by feeding on the same true body of Christ in the Eucharist, are made one mystical body, the Church. So says Bede, following S. Augustine. Hence, too, the Council of Trent (sess. xiii. c. 8) says : “ This sacrament is the sign of unity , the bond of charity , the symbol of peace and concord ”; no doubt because, in a wonderful way, it signifies and perfects the unity of the body of Christ, i.e., of the faithful of the Church. For this reason, too, the Eucharist was formerly given to infants after their baptism, that they might be perfectly incorporated into Christ (vide S. John vi. 55). Again for the same reason the Eucharist was called by S. Dionysius, Synaxis , i.e., “congregation,” because the faithful were in the habit of assembling in the church to receive the Eucharist. Tertullian even says (de Oratione, cap. ult.) that prayer should end when the body of the Lord has been received. The Apostle too, in the next chapter (ver. 20), says: “ When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.” For although the Church becomes the body of Christ through faith and baptism, yet this is done more truly and properly in the Eucharist.
Heretics raise the objection that therefore only the good and righteous are parts and members of the Church, for the Apostle says, “ We are all one bread ; ” but bread, they say, is made from grains of wheat, not from chaff ; therefore the Church is formed from the righteous, not from the wicked ; for the righteous are the corn, the wicked are the chaff.
I reply (1.) that this does not follow, because a similitude is not bound to be in all points alike ; (2.) that the major premiss is false, for often chaff, grains of sand, lentils are mingled with the wheat, and with it go to make up the bread. Hence S. Paul (c. xi. 29) says that even the wicked eat of this bread. But here he says that all who partake of this bread make up the one body of Christ, which is the Church : therefore the wicked, also, who eat of this bread are of the Church. Vide S. Cyprian (Ep. ad Magnum , lib. i. ; Ep. 6).
Ver. 18. — Behold Israel after the flesh . . . partakers of the altar? That is, of the victim offered on the altar, by metonymy. All this is meant to prove that things sacrificed to idols ought not to be partaken of ; and the sense is : See, O Corinthians, Israel after the flesh: when they eat of the victims offered to God, are they not deemed to be partakers of the sacrifice offered on the altar to God, and to consummate the sacrifice, and in a sense therefore to sacrifice ? In the same way that they who eat of the Eucharistic bread are sharers of the Eucharistic sacrifice, are they who eat of things offered to idols sharers of idolatrous sacrifices : they consummate them, and in a sense sacrifice to idols. He proves, from the example of the Jews, that they who eat of things sacrificed to idols give their consent to such sacrifices, and tacitly sacrifice to those idols.
Ver. 19. — What say I then? that the idol is anything, &c. By no means : for the idol and that offered to it are nothing, have no influence or power. See viii. 4.
Vers. 20, 21. — But I say . . . Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils . The table is the altar, which is, as it were, God’s table at which He feasts with us. See Lev. i. ; Mal. i. 12; Ambrose, Anselm, and the Council of Trent (sess. xxii. c. 1), where it lays down from this passage that the Eucharist is a sacrifice. For that the Apostle is dealing with the Eucharist and not with the sacrifice of the Cross appears plainly — 1. Because the Victim of the Cross has passed away, and long ago ceased ; but the Apostle is here treating of a sacrifice of which the Corinthians were partakers daily.
2. From the phrase, “the Lord’s table,” i.e., the altar. Where there is an altar there is a priest and a sacrifice, for the three are correlative terms. If, then, the Corinthians had an altar, they had also a sacrifice, and that of course none other than the Eucharist.
3. “ The cup of the Lord ” can only be the cup offered to the Lord, for the cup of devils is none other than the one offered to them.
4. From the context, and the line of the Apostle’s argument, which is this : As the Jews, when they eat of their peace-offerings, share in and consent to the sacrifice of them that is made on God’s altar, so do those who eat of things sacrificed to idols share in and consent to the sacrifice of them that is made to idols ; and so do Christians, when they receive the Eucharist, become partakers of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and sacrifice the Eucharist to God by the priest. It is consequently unseemly altogether that they should also sacrifice to a devil, which they do by partaking of things offered to idols, as a part of the idolatrous sacrifice ; for no one can at once sacrifice to God and a devil. Cf. S. Augustine (contra Advers . Legis et Prophet lib. i. c. xix). Chrysostom in loco , Anselm, Theophylact, Œcumenius, Ambrose, Theodoret say the same thing. S. Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly teaches the same lesson, and confirms it by the numerous examples of those who, after eating of things offered to idols, came to the Eucharist, and were punished by God accordingly ; and he adds : “An earthly commander will not suffer any one of his soldiers to fly to the camp of his enemies and there to work ; how much less can God suffer His followers to take part in the banquets of devils ?”