In Roman
Catholic Eucharistic theology, the transformation (Transubstantiation) takes
place when the priest utters the essential words (form/formula) needed to
confect the sacrament (“this is my body”; “this is [the chalice of] my blood”).
However, in Eastern Orthodoxy, the transformation takes place at the Epiclesis
(when the Spirit descends upon the bread and wine). As Ludwig Ott noted:
While the Greek-Orthodox Church wrongly
placed the power of transmutation either in the Epiclesis alone, following the
narrative of the institution, or in the connection of the words of institution
with the Epiclesis (Confessio orth. I 107), the Catholic Church adheres firmly
to the view that the priest consummates the transubstantiation solely by the
uttering of the words of institution. The Decretum pro Armenis teaches with St.
Thomas: “The words of the Saviour which He used when He made (confecit) this
sacrament are the form of the sacrament: the priest then speaking (these words)
in the person of Christ effects (conficit) this sacrament.” D 698. The Council
of Trent teaches that, according to the standing belief of the Church,
“immediately after the consecration,” that is, after the uttering of the words
of institution, the true body and the true blood of the Lord are present. D 876.
(Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma,
392-93)
This
teaching, while not a de fide dogma, is "Sententia certa" (i.e.,
while it is a teaching without final approval, it is clearly deduced from
revelation, according to Catholic theologians). Here are the
quotations from D 698 and D 876 referenced by Ott:
698 [DS 1320] The third
is the sacrament of the Eucharist; its matter is wheat bread and wine of grape,
with which before consecration a very slight amount of water should be mixed.
Now it is mixed with water because according to the testimonies of the holy
Fathers and Doctors of the Church in a disputation made public long ago, it is
the opinion that the Lord Himself instituted this sacrament in wine mixed with
water; and, moreover, this befits the representation of the Lord’s passion. For
blessed Alexander, the fifth Pope after blessed Peter, says: “In the offerings
of the sacraments which are offered to the Lord within the solemnities of
Masses, let only bread and wine mixed with water be offered as a sacrifice. For
either wine alone or water alone must not be offered in the chalice of the
Lord, but both mixed, because it is read that both, that is, blood and water,
flowed from the side of Christ.” Then also, because it is fitting to signify
the effect of this sacrament, which is the union of the Christian people with
Christ. For water signifies the people, according to the passage in the
Apocalypse: “the many waters … are many people” [cf. Apoc. 17:15]. And Julius,
the second Pope after blessed Sylvester, says: “The chalice of the Lord
according to the precept of the canons, mixed with wine and water, ought to be
offered, because we see that in water the people are understood, but in wine
the blood of Christ is shown. Therefore, when wine and water are mixed in the
chalice the people are made one with Christ, and the multitude of the faithful
is joined and connected with Him in whom it believes.” Since, therefore, the
holy Roman Church taught by the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, as well
as all the rest of the churches of the Latins and the Greeks, in which the
lights of all sanctity and doctrine have shown, have so preserved this from the
beginning of the nascent church and are now preserving it, it seems very
unfitting that any other region differ from this universal and reasonable
observance. We order, therefore, that the Armenians themselves also conform
with all the Christian world, and that their priests mix a little water with
the wine in the offering of the chalice, as has been said. [DS 1321] The words
of the Savior, by which He instituted this sacrament, are the form of this
sacrament; for the priest speaking in the person of Christ effects this
sacrament. For by the power of the very words the substance of the bread is
changed into the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine into the blood;
yet in such a way that Christ is contained entire under the species of bread,
and entire under the species of wine. Under any part also of the consecrated
host and consecrated wine, although a separation has taken place, Christ is
entire. [DS 1322] The effect of this sacrament which He operates in the soul of
him who takes it worthily is the union of man with Christ. And since through
grace man is incorporated with Christ and is united with His members, it
follows that through this sacrament grace is increased among those who receive
it worthily; and every effect that material food and drink accomplish as they
carry on corporal life, by sustaining, increasing, restoring, and delighting,
this the sacrament does as it carries on spiritual life, in which, as Pope
Urban says, we renew the happy memory of our Savior, are withdrawn from evil,
are greatly strengthened in good, and proceed to an increase of the virtues and
the graces.
876 [DS 1639] This,
indeed, the most Holy Eucharist has in common with the other sacraments, that
it is a “symbol of a sacred thing and a visible form of an invisible grace”;
but this excellent and peculiar thing is found in it, that the other sacraments
first have the power of sanctifying, when one uses them, but in the Eucharist
there is the Author of sanctity Himself before it is used [can. 4]. [DS 1640]
For the apostles had not yet received the Eucharist from the hand of the Lord
[Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22] when He Himself truly said that what He was offering
was His body; and this belief has always been in the Church of God, that
immediately after the consecration the true body of our Lord and His true blood
together with His soul and divinity exist under the species of bread and wine;
but the body indeed under the species of bread, and the blood under the species
of wine by the force of the words, but the body itself under both by force of
that natural connection and concomitance by which the parts of Christ the Lord,
“who hath now risen from the dead to die no more” [Rom. 6:9], are mutually
united, the divinity also because of that admirable hypostatic union [can. 1
and 3] with His body and soul. [DS 1641] Therefore, it is very true that as
much is contained under either species as under both. For Christ whole and
entire exists under the species of bread and under any part whatsoever of that
species, likewise the whole (Christ) is present under the species of wine and
under its parts [can. 3].
Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386)
In his Catechetical Lectures, Cyril wrote:
Then having sanctified ourselves by these
spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon
the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and
the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is
surely sanctified and changed. (On
the Mysteries, 23, 5, 7 [NPFN2, 7:154]
The Greek
term translated as “changed” is μεταβεβληται (to change/transform; “transmuted”
per Ott, ibid., 382). Cyril uses it within the context of the Epiclesis, not
the essential “form” of the Eucharist.
Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428)
In his Catechetical Homilies (which probably
date from 388-92), it appears that Theodore believed that the “transformation”
of the bread and wine took place, not when the priest said the “essential form”
of the sacrament, but at the Epiclesis. As John McKenna (Catholic) noted:
. . .the weight of evidence would seem to favor
the epiclesis as the “moment of consecration.” The following texts, cited by
Quasten from Mingana, are cases in point:
We ought not to regard the elements merely as
bread and cup, but as the body and the blood of Christ, into which they were so
transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit (Cat. Hom.5, 76 Mingana).
Those who have been chosen as the priests of
the New Testament are believed to perform sacramentally, by the descent of the
Holy Spirit . . . these things which we believe that Christ our Lord performed
and will perform in reality. (Ibid., 86 Mingana).
One is the bread and one is the body of
Christ our Lord, into which the element of bread is changed; and it receives
this great change from one descent of the Holy Spirit. (Cat. Hom. 16, 110 Mingana).
It is indeed offered so that by the coming of
the Holy Spirit it would become that which it is said to be: the body and blood
of Christ (ibid., 111 Mingana).
Picture in your mind the nature of this oblation,
which, by the coming of the Holy Spirit, is the body of Christ (ibid., 113 Mingana).
At first it is laid upon the altar as a mere
bread and wine mixed with water; but by the coming of the Holy Spirit it is
transformed into body and blood, and thus it is changed into the power of a spiritual
and immortal nourishment (ibid., 118-119 Mingana). (John H. McKenna, The Eucharistic Epiclesis: A Detailed
History from the Patristic to the Modern Era [2d ed.; Chicago: Hillenbrand
Books, 2009], 58-59)
Ambrose of Milan (d. 397)
As McKenna
notes about Ambrose’s eucharistic theology vis-à-vis the question as to when the transformation takes place:
A number of his texts would seem to indicate
clearly that for Ambrose the words of institution are responsible for the
transformation of the gifts in the Eucharist. In De Mysteriis IX, for
instance, in the midst of trying to show his readers that if God could work
wonders through the prophets, if he could create the world from nothing with a
word, then it is reasonable to suppose he could change bread into Christ’s
body. As Ambrose states:
For the sacrament, which you receive, is
effected by the words of Christ . . . The Lord Jesus himself declares: “This is
my body.” Before the benediction of the heavenly words another species is
mentioned; after the consecration the body is signified. He himself speaks of
His blood. Before the consecration it is mentioned as something else; after the
consecration it is called blood. (De
Mysteriis IX, 50-54)
Three other
texts, however, at least raise the possibility that Ambrose considered some
other prayer or prayers as having played a role in the transformation of the
offerings. In De fide IV, 10, 124, discussing Christ’s
statement “ . . . et qui manducat me, et
ipse vivit propter me,” Ambrose declares:
And then he adds: For my flesh is truly food and my blood truly drink. You hear
flesh, you hear blood, you know the sacraments of the Lord’s death and do you
misrepresent the divinity? Hear him saying it himself: Because a spirit does not have flesh and bones. We, however, as
often as we receive these sacraments, which, through the mystery of the sacred prayer,
are transformed into flesh and blood, proclaim “the death of the Lord.” (De fide IV, 10, 124)
De Spiritu
Sancto III, 16,
112, where Ambrose stresses the Spirit’s equal sanctity with the Father and the
Son, reads:
How, then, does He not possess everything
that is God’s, who is named by priests together with the Father and the Son in
baptism, and is invoked in oblations, is proclaimed by the Seraphim in heaven
with the Father and the Son, dwells in the saints with the Father and the Son,
is poured forth among the just, is infused within the Prophets. (De Spiritu Sancto III, 16, 112)
And in De
sacramentis IV, 5, 21, in bringing out the fact that it is the “sermo
Christi” that “consecrates” the bread and wine, he seems to include more than
simply the words of institution in this “sermo
Christi”:
Do you want to know by what divine words it
is consecrated? Listen to what the words are. The priest speaks. “Make this offering
approved, spiritual and acceptable for us. It is the figure (“figura”) of the body
and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ who, before he suffered, took bread into his
holy hands, looked up to heaven to you, Holy Father almighty, everlasting God, and
giving thanks, he blessed it, broke it and gave it broken to his disciples and
apostles, saying: ‘Take and eat of this, all of you; for this is my body which
shall be broken for the many.’” (De
Sacramentis IV, 5, 21) (Ibid., 59-61)
John of Damascus (d. 749)
According to
McKenna there is little to no doubt that John of Damascus viewed the epiclesis
as consecratory:
In De
fide orthodoxa IV, 13 he seeks to bring out the relationship between the
efficacy of God’s word and the operation of the Holy Spirit. In drawing a
parallel between Creation, Incarnation, and Eucharist, as Chrysostom had once
done, he writes:
. . . In the beginning He said: “Let the earth
bring forth the green herb,” and even until now, when the rain falls, the earth
brings forth its own shoots under the influence and power of the divine
command. God said: “This is my body,” and, “This is my blood,” and, “This do in
commemoration of me,” and by His almighty command it is done, until He shall
come, for what He said was “until he come.” And through the invocation the
overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost becomes rainfall for this new
cultivation. For just as all things whatsoever God made He made by the
operation of the Holy Ghost, so also it is by the operation of the Spirit that
these things are done which surpass nature and cannot be discerned except by
faith alone. “How shall this be done to me,” asked the blessed Virgin, “because
I know not a man?” The archangel Gabriel answered, “The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow three.” And now you
ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine and water the blood
of Christ. And I tell you that the Holy Ghost comes down and works these things which are beyond description and understanding. (PG, 94:1140-41)
And again:
. . .
What is more, it is not amiss to say this, that just as bread by being eaten
and wine and water by being drunk are naturally changed into the body of the
person eating and drinking and yet do not become another body than that which
the person had before, so in the same way are the bread of the offertory and
the wine and water supernaturally changed into the body and blood of Christ by
the invocation and coming down of the Holy Ghost, yet they are not two bodies,
but one and the same. (Ibid., 1145).
In Homilia
in sabbatum sanctum he makes a similar statement:
Now the flesh of God from the grain, and the
blood of God from the wine, truly and inexpressibly changed by the invocation,
for the one promising is trustworthy. (PG, 96:637-40)
Finally, one passage of De Fide orthodoxa IV, 13 seems to have banished the doubts of even
the most enthusiastic proponents of “consecration” through the institution
narrative alone. Attempting to explain Basil’s use of the word “antitype”
Damascene states:
Moreover, although some may have called the
bread and wine antitypes of the body
and blood of the Lord, as did the inspired Basil, they did not say this as
referring to after the consecration, but to before the consecration, and it was
thus that they called the offertory bread itself. (PG, 94:1142-53) (Ibid.,
66-67)
This is a
problematic issue for Catholic apologists who claim that their doctrines and
dogmas are often reflective of the “unanimous consent” (as in moral majority)
of the Fathers. For more articles addressing the Catholic doctrines relating to
the Mass, see:
Responses
to Robert Sungenis, Not By Bread Alone (2000/2009)
