Argument V. Matthew 26,
Mark 14, Luke 22. In the words of institution, Christ says: “This is my body,
which is given for you; this is my blood, which is shed for you.” These words in
the present tense signify that the body is being given and the blood is being
shed to God in sacrifice. He responded, 1. The Latin Vulgate version was
pronounced authentic by the Council of Trent, so that no one may depart from it
under any pretext. Now in the Vulgate (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22), it does
not say in the present tense “which is shed” but in the future tense “which
shall be shed,” and in 1 Corinthians 11 it does not say in the present “which
is given” but in the future “which shall be delivered.” The entire structure of
the argument, drawn from the words of the present tense, therefore collapses.
2. The Canon of the Mass
likewise reads “shall be shed,” not “is shed,” and the words of the first part,
“which is delivered for you,” it omits entirely.
3. Gorranus on chapter 26
of Matthew: “Shall be shed, that is, shall be poured out, by the ordaining of
the Father, the willing of the Son, the granting of the Holy Spirit, the
betrayal of Judas, the scheming of the Jews, the judgment of Pilate, the
execution of the gentile.”
4. Denis the Carthusian on
chapter 22 of Luke: “Which is given for you, that is, for your liberation it is
now exposed to suffering and death, the betrayer delivering and I willingly
embracing the suffering, Which shall be shed for you that is, for your
salvation I shall shed and permit this blood to be shed.”
5. George of Ataide,
theologian of the King of Portugal, at the Council of Trent, said that the words
“This is my body, which is given for you,” and “the blood which is shed for you,”
have a plainer meaning if they are referred to the body and blood in their
natural being than in their sacramental being, Just as when Christ is said to
be the true vine that brings forth wine, it is understood that not a symbolic
vine but a real one produces wine, so in the words “This is my blood which is
shed,” what is said to be shed is not the sacramental and signifying blood but
the natural and signified blood (Peter Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent,
book 6, p. 640).
6. Adrianus Hoffstadius,
Minorite, says that Christ, when he says he is giving his body and shedding his
blood, did this at that time by will and desire, not in act, and that this is
also reckoned before God as done which is done by will and desire alone
(Adrianus Hoffstadius, Sermons, serm. 33, p. 322).
7. Vasques holds that
Christ spoke thus because the time of his death and passion was immediately impending,
in which blood was to be shed and his body to be delivered unto death, indeed
in a sense it had already begun. In the same passage (ch. 1 and 2), he teaches
that those words are expounded not only by Chrysostom, Anselm, Theophylact,
Euthymius, but also by Titelmann, Cajetan, Mirandola, Hosius, and Denis the
Carthusian, as referring to the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the cross
(Gabriel Vasquex, Disputations, vol. 3, disp. 199, ch. 1, no. 8).
8. If the verb in the present
tense denotes the shedding of blood at the Sacred Supper, it follows that Christ
did not use this word in its proper signification but in a metaphorical one.
For in the Eucharist there is no true and real shedding of blood in the manner
of a sacrifice, but a representation and a figure of it. For in the cup of the
Lord the blood is not separated from the body of Christ, and therefore is not
really shed, but the death of Christ and the separation or shedding of his
blood is represented in it. But to hold that the word “to shed” is not to be
taken in its proper but in a metaphorical signification favors the trope of the
Calvinists. For if the word “shedding” is to be taken tropically, then also the
words “body” and “blood” will have to be taken tropically. This argument is
that of Vasquez (Gabriel Gazques, Disputations, at the passage). Huntly
invented a threefold bloodless shedding of blood that took place at the first
Supper. First, he says just as in the Old Testament blood was separated from
the body by a material sword, which the priests afterward caught in a vessel,
so at the last Supper, by a spiritual sword, namely by his word, he separated
his blood, as it was really under the form of wine, from his body, which was
under the form of bread, and caught his blood in the chalice which he held in
his hand. Thus, when Christ drank his blood, the blood of Christ was shed upon
our mystical alter, which is Christ. Finally, at the Supper he shed or
sprinkled his blood upon the people. But none of these sheddings is sacrificial.
For separation is not the essence of offering. That pouring was a drinking. The
sprinkling did not reach the people (James Gordon Huntly, On the Mass, p. 271).
9. If they say that the
blood of Christ is shed at the Supper under the species of wine, they can be
pressed: either the blood is truly shed, or only the species of wine. They cannot
say the former, since the shedding of blood cannot be bloody. IF they wish to
say the latter, they will be compelled to concede that the species of wine is
shed for the remission of sins. Vazques urges this argument (Gabriel Vasquez,
Disputations, ch. 2, no. 1): Christ calls his blood, which is shed, the blood
of the New Testament. But the New Testament is sanctified by the shedding of
the blood of Christ on the cross. Therefore he is speaking of the shedding made
on the cross.
10. Barradius, in his
explanation of the words of the Supper, treats them thus among other things: “The
Lord uses the present tense for what was shortly to be future. For the words
are to be understood of the impending and imminent passion in this sense: ‘This
is my body, which for you is to be given or delivered shortly to suffering and
death, and which shall be broken for you by scourges, thorns, nails, and a lance,
and so forth’” (Sebastian Barradius, Commentaries, vol. 1, book 3, ch. 4, p.
59). Although in the same passage he adds from others a secondary interpretation,
that the body of Christ is offered to the heavenly Father in the sacrifice of
the Eucharist, he nonetheless does not repudiate the former exposition but in
the end acquiesces in it. “The Lord,” he says,” had openly said that this was
his body which he was giving to his disciples; he indicates this more clearly when
he adds, ‘which is given and broken for you,’ that is, which will shortly be
offered to death for you and broken by nails; for these things can fit only a
true body.” In this, Barradius supplies us with a response to the argument drawn
from the Pauline phrase, “which shall be broken for you.”
11. If grammatical
propriety were observed, according to the mind of the Papists, the Lord ought
not to have spoken in the present but in the past tense, because the flesh of a
victim is not presented to be eaten unless the victim has first been
slaughtered, as Bellarmine argues.
12. The enallage of the present
tense for what is immediately and very shortly to come is acknowledged here
also by Gregory of Valencia (Gregory of Valencia, On the Mass, book 1, ch. 4,
p. 686), Salmeron (Alphonsus Salmeron, Commentaries, vol. 1, proleg. 15, p. 282
and vol. 9, p. 203), and John de la Haye (John de la Haye, Triumph of Truth,
ch. 170), following Euthymius Zigabenus on chapter 26 of Matthew.
13. The Jesuit Sa, on
chapter 26 of Matthew, verse 28: “Shall be shed, namely on the cross. In Greek,
it is ‘is shed,’ the present of the future.” Compare him also on chapter 22 of
Luke.
14. Cardinal Cajetan, on chapter
26 of Matthew: “’Is Shed’ for ‘shall be shed,’ For the time of his passion had
now begun. He knew what was then being done by Judas and the Jews toward the
shedding of his blood.” The same on chapter 22 of Luke: “He does not say ‘will
be given’ but ‘is given,’ because the giving had already begun, since he had
already been sold.” The same on 1 Corinthians 11: “Nor should the Latins be
horrified by the particle ‘shall be broken,’ since it was most true that the
true body of Christ was broken in multiple ways. For it was broken as to the
skin when he was scourged by the soldiers of Pilate, broken also as to the
flesh in his hands by the nails with which he was fixed to the cross, and
broken finally in his side when one of the soldiers pierced his side with a
lance. But if anyone calls into question the verb in the present tense ‘is
broken,’ let him attend to what is written by the other Evangelists, and the
question will cease. For the three Evangelists, in narrating the words of consecration
of the chalice, use the verb in the present tense, saying ‘which is shed for
you’ or ‘for many’; by the same reasoning by which those Evangelists signified in
the present tense ‘is shed’ the future shedding of blood on the cross, by the
same reasoning Paul signifies in the present tense ‘is broken’ the future
breaking of the flesh of Christ on the cross. And the common reason why the
Lord Jesus at the Supper expressed in the words of the present tense the future
shedding of blood and breaking on the cross is that he might make clear to the
disciples that such shedding and breaking were not distant in time but as it
were present. And speaking truthfully in the grammatical present tense, the time
of the shedding and breaking was then present, since the time of his passion had
already begun. And just as with the beginning of a day, whatever happens on
that day can be signified by the verb of the present tense, so with the day of
his passion now begun, all his suffering could be signified by the verb of the
present tense; for the grammatical present is not an instant but a certain
diffuse present.”
15. Estius notes that all
Greek interpreters expounds the words of the Apostles in 1 Corinthians 11 in
such a way that by the shedding of the chalice, which was done at the Supper
and not on the cross, what is to be understood is the shedding into the mouths
of the disciples, and by no means a breaking through an oblation other than
that of the cross (William Estius, Annotations on 1 Corinthians 11, p. 409 and
on Luke 22:20).
16. Of the future delivery
of the altar of the cross, Thomas expounds in the Catena and in part 3,
question 78, article 3, reply 7, as do John Fetus and Cornelius a Lapide on 1
Corinthians 11. “The Lord is said to have used the present tense ‘shall be
delivered, shall be shed,’ because he was shortly to be delivered. ‘Is broken,’
that is, shortly it shall be broken and immolated on the cross.” So Anselm,
whence our verse: “shall be delivered, and this because this breaking and
immolating was not so much future as present. For the day of the Passover and
of Christ’s passion had begun when Christ said these things, so that they were
then a diffuse present.” (Johann Gerhard, Confessio Catholica: On the Sacrifice
of the Mass—Article XV [trans. Koden A. Green [2026], 51-54)
