The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
2. As to the indignity offered to Christ, I reply that Christ suffers nothing : it is the species alone that are affected. For Christ is here after a mysterious and indivisible manner, as a spirit. As, then, an angel who should enter the Host, or as God, who is in reality in every body and every place, suffers nothing if the Host or the body containing Him is vomited, burnt, or broken, so neither does the body of Christ in the Eucharist suffer anything, because it is like to an angel. Erasmus ( Prof, in lib. Algeri.) says : “ God, who, according to nature, is as truly in the sewers as the skies, cannot be hurt or defiled, nor can the glorified body of the Lord.” And again (ad Conrad Pellican) he says : “ Up to the present, with all Christians I have adored in the Eucharist Christ , who suffered for me, nor do I yet see any reason why I should abandon my belief. No human reasons will ever have power to draw me away from the unanimous belief of the Christian world. Those few words, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ have more weight with me than all the arguments of Aristotle and the rest of the philosophers , by which they strive to show that the heavens and the earth had no beginning . So, too , here we have the words of God, ‘This is My body, which is given for you,’ ‘This is My blood, which is shed for you.’”
I have dealt with these objections at some length, because of the importance of their subject, and because of the modern Protestant controversies, which, I observe, are causing some of our neighbours, and especially the Dutch, to swerve from the ancient orthodox faith, because of the supposed difficulty or incredibility of this article of the Eucharist, when, as a fact, there is no other article in Holy Scripture , the Fathers, or councils so firmly fixed as this is.
From what has been said, it appears (1.) that in the Eucharist the species of bread does not remain, but is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, as the wine is into His blood, as the Lateran Council lays down, and as the Church has always held. Consequently it also appears (2.) that the accidents only of the bread and wine remain without a subject, and (3.) that the body of Christ is present after the manner of a spiritual substance, invisible, indivisible, the whole in the whole and the whole in each part of the host, as is thought universally by theologians. Let us now weigh the meaning of the words of consecration.
This . This pronoun is not so much a substantive denoting an indefinite individual (as some think it to stand for “this thing,” or “ what is contained under these species,” whether bread or the body of Christ) as it is an adjective signifying the same thing indeterminately, as “My body” signifies distinctly and by name. Similarly, when we say, “This is a servant,” “This is a man,” the word “ this ” merely points out the servant or the man in an indeterminate way. You will perhaps reply that when Christ said “ this,”
it was not yet the body of Christ, and therefore the word cannot stand for it. I answer that, as this is a form of consecration, the words are not enuntiative but efficacious, and that, therefore, the word “this ” refers to that which is not yet, but which comes through the use of the formula, and will be there when that has been said.
Perhaps you will urge again: This efficacious form of words signifies, This is transubstantiated into My body: therefore this refers to the bread; for it is the bread alone that is so transubstantiated . I deny the major, viz., that transubstantiation is here signified primarily and directly. Primarily there is only signified that the body of Christ is made to be present in such a way that when the species is signified, so too is the body ; it then follows secondarily, that the bread is transubstantiated and annihilated. Still, if you wish to explain “this is” indirectly, as meaning “This is transubstantiated into My body,” then I grant that it refers to the bread. It is no wonder if this pronoun stands for two different things, because the one proposition, “This is My body,” is of manifold meaning, efficacious, enuntiative, nay, efficacious in a twofold way.
But to clearly understand all this, take notice that if Christ had taken the species only of bread without the substance, and had then consecrated it, nay, if He had taken not even the species but had created it, as He consecrated, out of nothing, by saying, “ This is My body,” then primarily He would have done just what He did when He took the bread and consecrated it and said, “ This is My body.” But in the two supposed cases He would not have transubstantiated anything, for no substance of bread would have been there before, nor would the pronoun “ this ” have referred to bread or any other substance, but only to the body of Christ, which would be simply produced ; therefore in our last case, and in the actual consecration, there is not primarily signified transubstantiation, nor does “this” refer to the bread but to the body of Christ.
Similarly, when God created the heaven, He could have said, “This is heaven,” i.e., this is created and brought into being, and is heaven ; “This is earth,” i.e., this is created, is produced, and at the same time, by these very words, the earth is; “This is Eve,” i.e., she is produced, and at the very instant that she comes into being she is Eve. In like manner, when it is said, “ This is My body ; this is My blood,” the meaning is, This is consecrated, produced, and becomes My body and blood, so that at the close of the consecration it is in fact My body and blood.
This form of consecration then, “ This is My body,” seems, from what has been said, to signify properly and primarily, not the starting-point, viz., the change and annihilation of the bread, but the goal, viz., the production of the body and blood of Christ ; and this is pointed to in the pronoun “ this.” In other words : that which under the species of bread and wine is produced and comes into being, and when it comes into being exists, is My body and blood. Still, in a secondary sense, the form of words denotes the destruction of the starting-point, the bread, and its transubstantiation. For, as under these species the substance of bread and wine formerly existed, and as they have to give place to the body and blood of Christ, which are produced by virtue of the words of consecration, so the pronoun “this” refers to nothing else but the body and blood of Christ.
Hence, since by these words it is signified that the body of Christ is produced, it is necessarily also signified that the bread is done away with and transubstantiated into the body.
The words of consecration are (i.) simply practical, and denote, “This is made My body;” (2.) enuntiative, denoting, This at the end of the consecration is My Body; (3.) conversive and trans-substantiative, and denote that “this” substance of bread contained under this species is changed into the body of Christ, in such a way that, when the consecration is finished, bread no longer remains, but has been changed into the body of Christ.
Is. (1.) We must notice that Christ does not seem to have said is, for the Hebrew and Aramaic do not use the verb substantive but understand it, nay, they do not possess the present tense. Consequently in Greek and Latin the verb is not of the essence of the form of consecration ; still in practice it ought not to be omitted, and cannot be omitted without grievous sin, for the form of consecration would be ambiguous without it. (2.) The verb “ is ” is better supplied than “is made,” (a) because there is no change here from not being to being, as “ is made ” would imply, for the flesh of Christ existed before; (b) because “is” expresses the instantaneousness of the change, and includes what is and what was ; (c) because the pronoun “this” properly points to what is, not to what is being made, for what is not yet cannot, strictly speaking, be seen and pointed to, yet it is afterwards said to be pointed to when it is shown to be coming into existence so as to be seen ; (d) because “ is ” signifies the abiding, unchanging truth of this sacrament; ( e ) because, lastly, it is better to say, “Take eat: this is My body,” than, “This is being made My body.” (3.) Notice again that Christ consecrated by the words, “This is My body,” and not when He blessed the bread. So priests now consecrate by them in imitation of Christ, as the Councils of Florence and Trent and all the Fathers lay down, in opposition to the Greeks. Hence these words are used by the priest (a) historically, as relating what Christ did ; (b) personally, as imitating in consecrating the exact actions of Christ. Hence in consecrating and transubstantiating the priest puts on the person of Christ.
My Body . — 1. Notice that “body” here signifies, not the whole man, but the flesh as distinguished from the soul, which flesh is here present by the force of the words alone. The soul and divinity are present, however, by concomitance, both with the body and the blood. So too by concomitance the blood is with the body under the species of bread, and the body in turn is with the blood under the species of wine. Cf. the Council of Trent.
2. Notice that Christ here instituted the sacrament of the
Eucharist for all to partake of, and at the same time a sacrifice for the priests to offer to God. So the Church teaches, following Apostolical tradition, and as the Council of Trent lays down (sess. xxii. c. 1). This is the one sacrifice of the New Law, the antitype of all that were under the Old Law. Therefore this one sacrifice is at once Eucharistic, a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a peace-offering.