The Body of the Lord Eucharistic Study

THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC
MAGAZINE
Articles by or about
J.I. Wedgwood and C.W. Leadbeater
1924 1966
(various)
Vol. 2
Vol. 2
CONTENTS
1.
THE BODY OF THE LORD I
A STUDY OF EUCHARISTIC DOCTRINE
By THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD November 1936 Vol. XVII No. 2
2.
THE BODY OF THE LORD II
By THE RT. REV. J.I . WEDGWOOD
EARLY TEACHING December 1936 Vol. XVII No.3
10
3.
THE BODY OF THE LORD III
BY THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD January 1937 Vol. XVII No. 4
14
4.
THE BODY OF THE LORD IV
By THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD
THE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE February 1937 Vol. XVII No. 5
16
5.
THE BODY OF THE LORD V
By THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD March 1937 Vol. XVII No. 6
18
6.
THE BODY OF THE LORD VI
REFORMATION DOCTRINES April 1937 Vol. XVII No.7
20
7.
THE BODY OF THE LORD VII
BY THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD May 1937 Vol. XVII No. 8
24
8.
THE BODY OF THE LORD VIII
By THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD June 1937 Vol. XVII No.9
27
9.
THE BODY OF THE LORD IX
BY THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD July 1937 Vol. XVII No.10
(Part X, August 1937 Vol. XVII No. 11, is missing.)
29
10. THE BODY OF THE LORD XI

By THE RT. REV. J.I . WEDGWOOD September 1937 Vol. XVII No.12
31
11. THE BODY OF THE LORD XII

A MODERN INTERPRETATION October 1937 Vol. XVIII No. 1
33
12. THE BODY OF THE LORD XIII

SACRAMENTS AND MYSTERY CULTS November 1937 Vol. XVIII No. 2
35
13. THE BODY OF THE LORD XIV

By THE RT . REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD
EARLY ANTICIPATION OF THIS INTERPRETATION
December 1937 Vol. XVIII No.3
37
14. THE BODY OF THE LORD XV

THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST January 1938 Vol. XVIII No. 4
40
14. THE BODY OF THE LORD XVI

PSYCHOLOGY February 1938 Vol. XIII No. 5
42
15. THE WORLD CONGRESS OF FAITHS AT OXFORD

September 1941 Vol. XXI No.12
44
16. TACT AND TOLERANCE

By THE RT. REV. C.W. LEADBEATER
October 1941 Vol. XXII No.1
17. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
I. ESOTERIC
By THE RT. REV. C.W. LEADBEATER Vol. XXIV No. 7
48
18. ADDRESSES TO PRIESTS

By C.W . LEADBEATER
(I) SACRAMENTAL FORCE
A portion of an address given at Sydney, N.S.W., in the year 1926
and reprinted from THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC of March 1937.
January 1949 Vol. XXVI No. 5
58
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52
THE BODY OF THE LORD

I
November 1936 Vol. XVII No. 2
The official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Holy Eucharist is to be found in some
decisions of the Council of Trent held in the middle of the sixteenth century, with intervals from
1545 to 1563. That Council was summoned to take under review various doctrines promulgated by
Luther, Calvin , Zwingli, Eck, Bucer and other pioneers of the Reformation, and its findings are still
regarded by the Roman Church as its most authoritative pronouncement on the doctrine of the
Eucharist and on that of some other of the sacraments. Indeed, one has only to look at any of the
standard modern Roman Catholic books discussing the doctrine of the sacraments to find the
Council's decisions constantly referred to. The Rev. Dr. Darwell Stone, an Anglican priest , author of
a standard book bearing the title A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, writes as follows:
"The chief mark in the attitude of the authorities of the Church of Rome since the time of the Council
of Trent has been their careful adherence to the decrees of that Council'' (Vol. II, p. 441). The usages
there discussed included the mixed chalice (that is, the mixing of water with the wine in the
communion cup), the introduction of the vernacular, the offering of the Holy Sacrifice for the dead,
the saying of parts of the Mass secretly and in a low voice, and among other propositions the
question as to whether the Mass is simply a commemoration of the sacrifice on the Cross is in itself a
real and proper sacrifice offered to God. It is hardly within the scope of this article to discuss these
wider issues.
There are two principal decisions and definitions in that Councils Decrees and Canons which bear
upon our present subject. They can be quoted conveniently from a book, to which we shall have
further occasion to refer, The Holy Eucharist* by J. C. Hedley, formerly Roman Catholic Bishop of
Newport. The book is one of a series called ''The Westminster Library for Catholic Priests and
Students," and it ranks as a standard modern work. The first of these decrees of the Council of Trent
is from Session XIII, cap. IV.
"Seeing that Christ our Redeemer hath said that that which He offered under the appearance
(specie ) of Bread was truly His Body, therefore it hath ever been the conviction of the
Church of God, and this holy Synod declares it afresh, that there happens a conversion
(conversionem fieri) of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of
Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood;
which conversion conveniently and with propriety is called by the holy Catholic Church
Transubstantiation."
Bishop Hedley goes on to quote from the first Canon or definition of the same chapter:
"If any one shall deny that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist is truly, really, and
substantially the Body and Blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and therefore Christ wholly and entirely (totem Christum); but shall say that it is therein only
as a sign, or figuratively, or virtually; let him be anathema." (Hedley, p.38)
The word "species" figuring in the above definition is spelt alike in its Latin original and means
appearance or form . It describes the thing as it is seen by the eye or contacted through the other
senses. It is that which is outward and visible or extrinsic as opposed to that which is intrinsic. In the
language of the Schoolmen (of whom we shall speak later) this outer appearance goes by the name
of "accidents.'' That which stands behind this outer appearance and which is changed at the time of
consecration is called "substance. (Latin: sub=beneath, stans= standing). The Latin trans means
across. Transubstantiation is therefore the changing across of the one substance into the other. The
outer qualities of bread and wine remain.
Let us glance for a moment at some of the implications of the doctrine. The following quotation is
from an article written by J . Pohle in The Catholic Encyclopaedia and forms part of a long and able
exposition of Eucharistic doctrine. It is said that "together with His Body and Blood and Soul, His
whole Humanity also, and, by virtue of the hypostatic union, His Divinity, i.e., Christ whole and
entire, must be present." (Vol V, P. 578, column 2). By hypostatic union is meant the union of the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity with the human nature of our Lord, the Greek hypostasis
signifying "underlying nature or substance." Another technical term which figures in the doctrine is
"circuminsession"; in virtue of the perfect indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity in each other we
have in the consecrated species also the presence of the two other Persons of the Trinity. (Cf. A.
Devine: The Sacraments Explained pp.199, 200.) The Council of Trent also decreed that Christ
whole and entire is present under either species of Bread or Wine (cf. Hedley, p.102) This is known
as ''concomitance" (Latin: cum=with, unite or combine), and is held to justify the practical
convenience of giving communion under one kind, that is, the administration of the Host but not of
the Chalice, to communicants other than the celebrant .
The definition of the Council of Trent given above states that the substance of the bread and wine is
converted into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord. The reader should note that
the word substance is here repeated. The bread and wine remain unchanged as regards their species
or accidents. Bishop Hedley puts the meaning of substance quite clearly when he says that ''just as
substance meant the thing itself, so species meant the thing as it affects the senses" (p. 39). There is
one interpretation of this definition which is entirely acceptable to myself and would probably be to
other Liberal Catholics. If one may take it to mean that that which lies be hind the bread and wine is
changed into that which found and finds expression through the body and blood of Christ the
statement leaves nothing to be desired. The consecrated bread and wine become the instrument for
the direct expression of the being, the life and the benediction of the Christ, as was His physical body
in Palestine. Such an interpretation will be discussed later in this article. It is, however, a radical
departure from the outlook of the other Churches, whether Roman, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant.
As a preliminary observation we may note that the use of the word substance before the words "the
Body of Christ" is constantly dispensed with. This may be attributed to carelessness, but it is a
carelessness which is in keeping with the common outlook. Many instances of this omission could be
given, but three from the books already mentioned and from one other will suffice for
documentation. The Catholic Encyclopaedia article says: the substance of the bread and wine departs
in order to make room for the Body and Blood of Christ" (p. 580, column 1). Devine writes:
Transubstantiation "means the change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and the
whole substance of the wine into the Blood, of Christ by virtue of the words of consecration'' (p.
204). Bishop Hedley writes: ". . . the bread . . wholly ceases, and nothing of its substance remains;
but she (the Church) says, at the same time, that it is turned into the Body of Christ" (p. 49). The next
quotation is not from a Catholic source but is contained in an Instruction from Luther to
Melanchthon dated 1534: "This is the sum of our opinion, that the body of Christ is really eaten in
and with the bread, so that all which the bread does and suffers, the body of Christ does and suffers,
so that it is divided and is eaten and is bitten with the teeth" (Quoted in Darwell Stone, Vol. II, p.
21.)
Let us now examine the Roman teaching in further detail. The identity of the Eucharist Body of
Christ with that of His earthly and post-Resurrection life is definitely put forward. "The bread is
changed into the Body of Christ. That is the way it comes. It is changed into the very Body now in
the heavens It has its natural figure; it has head, trunk, limbs, heart and hands" (Hedley, pp 49
and 53). "The human Body of Christ, with all its parts, exists under the least quantity of bread"
5
(Devine, P. 208). "Christ, whole and entire, is present in this Sacrament; and in each separate particle
of the species, and in each separate part of the species when divided from the whole. That is, the
God-man that was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary - His Body that was
laid in the manger in Bethlehem that was nailed to the Cross, and enclosed in the sepulchre; that
same Body which was again united to His soul on the day of His resurrection, and which ascended
into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. (2) The Blood, the same that was shed for us
in the garden of olives, at the scourging and the crowning, and on the road to Calvary, and which
flowed from His five Sacred Wounds from the Cross, and which He assumed into His Body at His
resurrection - that blood which is the price of our redemption. (3) His Soul, that same Soul that was
sorrowful even to death, that went down to Limbo when the Body was in the tomb, and there
consoled the souls of the just, which was united again to His Body, and now enjoys in the glorified
Body the beatific vision" (ibid., p. 199). "Now, the glorified Christ , Who `dieth now no more' (Rom.
vi, 9), has an animate Body through whose veins courses His life's Blood under the vivifying
influence of the soul" (The Catholic Encylopaedia, p. 578, column 2).
The process by which this is brought about is characterised by the Council of Trent as "wonderful"
and "singular," which means that it is outside the order of nature, falling not under the category of
miracle but under that of mystery. We may quote Bishop Hedley once more:
"The words of consecration change the substance of the Bread into the substance of our
Saviour's Body. That is, the substance of our Lord's Body is under the species; but the words
of consecration do not bring His dimensions or shape under the species. True, the dimensions
and shape are there, but not in the localised sense of 'there.' That is, they have no relation to,
or contact with, the species. If you insist that where a body is, there are its parts, we reply that
it is one thing for the parts to be there, and another that those parts should be measurable or
definable on, and by the dimensions which surrounded them. It is not imaginable, but it is
quite conceivable. Our Lord's Body is not touched, or circumscribed, or bounded by the
species" (pp. 52-53).
". . according to the best-founded opinions not only the substance Body, but by His own wise
arrangement, its corporeal quantity, i.e., its full size, with its complete organization of
integral members and limbs, is present within the diminutive limits of the Host and in each
portion thereof ." (The Catholic Encyclopaedia, p. 583, column 1).
"Our Lord's Body is not a Spirit; and although it is truly said to be in the Holy Eucharist after the
manner of a spirit, yet this statement is an analogy only. It is in place after the manner of a material
substance deprived of actual dimensions, actual shape, actual extended parts; of a substance,
therefore, which has no point of contact with any material surroundings; a substance of which place,
in its formal sense, cannot be predicated. Therefore it can be in many places at once; because the
truth is, that it is (properly) in none of them. It cannot be moved about from one place to another;
because it is in no place to begin with. It is wholly in every particle or division of the species;
because the species does not contain it as a stone is contained by the clay in which it is embedded, or
a man's body by its surroundings - but in a way quite special to the Holy Eucharist, viz., as substance
with no dimen sive relation" (Hedley, p. 54).
"To use the language of the schools, our Lord's Body in the Holy Eucharist is rightly said to be
moved per accidens that is, it is not literally moved, but on account of something else being moved it
receives new relations to certain extrinsic objects" (ibid., p. 56).
Much more of this metaphysic might be quoted, but to do so, while interesting in itself would not be
germane to the purpose of this article. In studying and passing judgement upon the thought of this
period, as shown in the writings of the Schoolmen and as summarised in the Council of Trent, we
have to recognise that it was the outlook of a particular age, of an age which made use of a system of
dialectic analysis. Reason had had but little say in the early history of the Church; the appeal was to a
6
living tradition and to revelation, the outlook was primarily mystical, and such philosophy as did
emerge was mainly shaped on the Platonic method. It will be useful at this stage of our study to
explain how the Scholastic philosophy arose and how it acquired its name. Who then were the
Schoolmen? And what is the scholastic theology? The name and the method is inherited from the
early Christian educational establishments. The heads of these came to be known as scholastici or
doctores scholastici. In the early centuries, say from the sixth century onwards, " dialectici" or
logical discussion, based on the method of question and answer, was the only form of philosophy
taught and practiced in the schools. To put it briefly the science of reasoning was taught. The system
had been taken over from Greece. The subjects which came to be taught in the schools were those of
"the seven liberal arts," namely, grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and
music. In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries universities were founded at Paris,
Bologna, Salerno, Oxford and Cambridge. Those who taught philosophy and theology in these
universities were also given the name of Schoolmen. The philosophy of Aristotle, embodying the
methods of definition and syllogism or deductive reasoning, began to find its way more and more
into Europe through Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia, and on to the north coast of Africa. From this
last-named source the Moors crossed over into Spain. One important Arab philosopher who
influenced later philosophical thought is Averros (1126-1198).
This Aristotelian philosophy made its entry into Christian theology round about the nineth century,
as a consequence of the revival of learning in Europe dating from the time of Charlemagne (742814). The early Christian thought had been separated off from or opposed to philosophy, and
Tertullian (born probably in 160) was rather contemptuous of philosophy. There was some need for
philosophy, however, and, as we have seen, Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought did shape early
Christianity to some extent. Moreover, Augustine had been a philosophic pagan before he became
converted to Christianity. Be all this as it may, the Emperor Justinian closed down all schools of
philosophy in 529. In such philosophy as was incorporated into Church teaching during the ninth and
tenth centuries there was not much originality; the method of dialectic was pursued. But in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, speculation in
terms of reason grew apace; it was applied to various doctrines of the faith, these were co-ordinated
into a whole, and we get Scholasticism in full flow. Harnack with characteristic insight says that
Scholasticism was simply the play of science applied to religion, and that science like philosophy has
its variations and phases. The definitions which we have been studying represent the outlook of a
particular period in which philosophy was beginning to shape itself in Europe. The Scholastic
method is well defined by Professor Windelband. A text used as the basis for discussion is broken up
by division and explanation into a number of propositions; questions are attached and the possible
answers brought together; finally the arguments to be adduced for establishing or refuting these
answers are presented in the form of a chain of syllogistic reasoning, leading ultimately to a decision
upon the subject.'' ( A History of Philosophy , pp. 312-313). Scholasticism reached its zenith and
power in St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), ''the Angelic Doctor.'' His masterpiece, the Summa
theologica is subdivided into 3120 articles in which some 10,000 objections are proposed and
answered. The argument of the period reveals certain limitations of thought. A modern outlook may
proceed from different premises.
SOME ADVENTURES IN SPECULATION

The doctrine of the bodily presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar not unnaturally gave rise
to and invites much speculation. Indeed, to the departments of theology variously named Dogmatic,
Moral, Pastoral, and Ascetical and Mystical, there might well be added one qualified as Speculative.
We have mentioned already the dogma of the hypostatic union, that in our Lord divinity and
humanity ar e indissolubly united. The writer in The Catholic Encyclopaedia explains that the totality
of the presence was constantly affirmed as part of the Christian tradition, so that there can be no
question of partaking only of the Body and Blood, or, to use the technical word, sarcophagy, which
7
means flesh-eating. He then discusses an issue which was among those which engaged the attention
of the mediaeval writers. "In case the Apostles had celebrated the Lord's Supper during the triduum
mortis (the time during which Christ's Body was in the tomb), when a real separation took place
between the constitutive elements of Christ, there would have been really present in the Sacred Host
only the bloodless, inanimate Body of Christ as it lay in the tomb, and in the Chalice only the Blood
separated from His Body and absorbed by the earth as it was shed, both the Body and the Blood,
however, remaining hypostatically united to His Divinity, while His Soul, which sojourned in
Limbo, would have remained entirely excluded from the Euchartistic presence" (Vol. V, sub tit.
Eucharist, p 578, column 2). The same surmise figures in Devine. Speaking of circuminsession he
says: "From which we may understand that if the Apostles had consecrated while Christ was dead,
under the species of bread, the Body would be without the Blood and the Soul, and the Blood would
be under the species of wine without the Body and Soul; but under each species there would be the
Divinity, because whatever the Word hypostatically assumed He never relinquished" (p. 200). No
suggestion is put forward that our Lord might have decided to arrange matters differently. We may
also ask whether the Body need have been bloodless. Some particles of blood would certainly have
remained in a semi-congealed state in the body, and it is part of the Catholic teaching that one
particle suffices as matter for consecration.
The philosopher and scientist Descartes (1596-1650) turned away from dialectic methods and made
knowledge dependent on intuitional consciousness. In his work, and in the Inductive Philosophy of
Francis Bacon who preceded him, scholars see the beginning of modern philosophy. Descartes roots
everything in the activity of consciousness. He accepts the phenomena of experience as real only in
so far as they are clear and distinct. The Cartesian philosophy largely influenced theology and
inaugurated a period which saw the decline of the Scholastic regime. It had some peculiar reactions
on Eucharistic doctrine. Basing themselves on this philosophy Maignan (1601-1676) Drouin and
Vitasse advanced the theory that the Divine Providence so worked upon the five senses that after the
consecration the bread and wine were phantasmagorical accidents, illusions to the sense of sight and
other senses.
We have already referred to the doctrine that Christ's body with its integral members and limbs is
present ''whole and entire'' and "in its natural figure" is present in every particle of the Host . The
mode of compassing such a presence came to be the subject of detailed discussion among later
writers. Legrand (1711-1787) and Rossignol put forward the theory that our Lord was present in
diminished stature. Others, such as Oswald, Casajoana and Fernandez postulated ''a mutual
compenetration" of the members so that He could be comprised in the dimension of the point of a
needle (Cf. The Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. V, p. 583).
Another adventure in speculation postulates the presence of Our Lady in the consecrated Host. Dr. C.
J. Cadoux writes as follows: "The idea that in the Eucharist the communicant partakes, not only of
the flesh of Jesus, but also of the flesh of Mary, was taught not only by Ignatius Loyola (1491-1566)
and Cornelius Lapide (1567-1637) but by more recent Catholic writers like Heinrich Oswald
(whose Dogmatische Mariologie was published at Paderborn in 1850) and Faber 1814-1863), and
was known by Pusey to be prevalent among the poorer classes in Rome ( Catholicism and
Christianity , p. 365). The theory was also put forward by Christopher de Vega in the seventeenth
century. Darwell Stone gives quotations from Oswald and Faber (Vol. II, p. 419):
"We maintain a presence of Mary in the Eucharist ... We are much inclined to believe an
essential co-presence of Mary in her whole person, with body and soul, under the sacred
species . . . The blood of the Lord and the milk of His Virgin Mother are both present in the
Sacrament" (Op. cit., pp. 177, 179, 183).
Oswald's book was disapproved by the Roman authorities and placed on the Index. F. W. Faber is
well known as a writer of beautiful hymns. Before his entry into the Roman Church he was a priest
of the Church of England. The following passage is to be found in a book of his entitled The
Precious Blood :
"There is some portion of the precious blood which once was Mary's own blood, and which
remains still in our Blessed Lord, incredibly exalted by its union with His Divine Person, yet
still the same. This portion of Himself, it is piously believed, has not been allowed to undergo
the usual changes of human substance ... He vouchsa fed at Mass to show to St. Ignatius the
very part of the host which had once belonged to the substance of Mary'' (pp. 29, 30).
(To be continued).
*****
*T his book contains a wealth of carefully arranged documentation, and we may here express our indebtedness
to it for many quotations given in this article

II. EARLY TEACHING
December 1936 Vol. XVII No.3
The insistent stress laid in the Middle Ages on the corporeal presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist
and on the Body being one with that which suffered on Calvary was a symptom of the urge for
meticulous definition which marked that period of Christian thought and writing. It had its own
value, as has all attempt at clear and precise and definite thinking. It is not without relief, however,
that we turn to the noble symbolism and inspiring imagery of some of the primitive Christian writers.
There are some passages stressing the unity of all life to be found in the Didache or The Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles, dating from either the first or the second century. (On the historical value of this
document the student will do well to consult the book edited by Dr Swete entitled Essays on the
Early History of the Church and Ministry , and especially the contribution by Dr. J. A. Robinson.
Clement of Alexandria quotes the Didache as scripture and Athanasius says that it was used in his
day for the instructions of catechumens. Eusebius speaks of it as among the works rejected from the
canon.) The following passage from Didache 9, 10, is given in Darwell Stone (vol. I, p. 24).
"Concerning the Eucharist thus give thanks. First, as to the cup: we give thanks to Thee, our
Father, for the holy vine of David Thy servant, which Thou didst make known to us through
Jesus Thy servant: to Thee be the glory for ever. Then, as to the broken bread: we give thanks
to Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou didst make known to us through
Jesus Thy servant: to Thee be the glory for ever. As this broken bread was scattered upon the
mountains and being gathered together became one, so may Thy Church be gathered together
from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom: for Thine is the glory and the power through
Jesus Christ for ever. But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist but they who have been
baptised in the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord hath said, 'Give not that
which is holy to the dogs' (S. Matthew, vii. 6). And after ye have received thus give thanks:
We give thanks to Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy name, which Thou didst make to
tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which Thou didst
make known to us through Jesus that they might give thanks to Thee, but didst be stow on us
spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Thy servant.
We will pass over Clement and Origen for a moment and quote from the writings of a later writer
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, famous as a Church historian and a very learned man, who died in
339 or 340. A certain Marcellus of Ancyra is represented as citing our Lord's words "The flesh
profiteth nothing'' and arguing that it was unreasonable to suppose that He permanently preserved
His union with that flesh. Eusebius disposes of the argument in the following terms:
"But do you, receiving the Scriptures of the Gospels, perceive the whole teaching of our
Saviour, that He did not speak concerning the flesh which He had taken but concerning His
mystic body and blood. For when He had sustained the multitudes with the five loaves, and in
this had shown a great wonder to those who beheld it, very many of the Jews despised what
was done and said to Him, 'What then doest thou for a sign, that we may see, and believe?'
and then mentioned the manna which was in the wilderness, saying, 'Our fathers ate the
manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.' To this
our Saviour answered, 'It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven; but My
Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven.' Then He adds, 'I am the bread of life,' and
again, 'I am the bread which came down out of heaven,' and again, 'The bread which I will
give is My Body,' and He adds again, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh
10
and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; for I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is
true food, and My blood is true drink. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth
in Me and I in him.' When He had discussed these and such things more mystically, some of
His disciples said, 'The saying is hard; who can hear it?' The Saviour answered them, saying,
'Doth this cause you to stumble? What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending
where He was before? The Spirit is the life-giver; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I
have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life.' In this way He instructed them to understand
spiritually the words which He had spoken concerning His flesh and His blood; for, He says,
you must not consider Me to speak of the flesh with which I am clothed as if you were to eat
that, nor suppose that I command you to drink perceptible and corporal blood; but know well
that 'the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life,' so that the words
themselves and the discourses themselves are the flesh and the blood, of which he who
always partakes, as one fed on heavenly bread, will be a partaker of heavenly life. Therefore,
He says, let not this cause you to stumble that I have spoken concerning the eating of My
flesh and concerning the drinking of My blood; nor let the offhand hearing of what I have
said about flesh and blood disturb you; for these things 'profit nothing' if they are understood
according to sense; but the Spirit is the life-giver to those who are able to understand
spiritually. ( On the Theology of the Church, 111 pp.11-12, quoted in Darwell Stolle, vol. 1.
pp 88-89*).
Among the early writers the mystical apotheosis of the Eucharist finds its fullest expression perhaps
in Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Clement was for a time head of a school of learning at
Alexandria, and was succeeded there by Origen. The one died c.215 the other lived from 185 till 253
or 254. Alexandria was a place where different lines of thought were liable to mingle and to fuse,
and it was there that we find a great seat of early Christian thought and mysticism. Each of these
writers stresses the allegorical interpretation of the Eucharist, though, as we shall presently have
occasion to see, neither sets such an interpretation in antithesis to a conception of the Real Presence.
These larger and more sublimated conceptions are an interesting contrast to the literalism of the
Scholastic age.
Clement's exposition of the doctrine may usefully be prefaced by some words of an author who has
edited a collection of his writings, J.B. Mayor: "The flesh and blood of the Logos are the
apprehension of the divine power and essence; the eating and drinking of the Logos is knowledge of
the divine essence; the flesh is the Spirit, the blood is the Logos, the union of the two is the Lord
who is the food of His people" (Hoyt and Mayor: Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, Book vii. p.
383). Darwell Stone gives the following three extracts from Clement of Alexandria :
"The Lord expressed this by means of symbols in the Gospel according to John when He
said, 'Eat My flesh and drink My Blood,' depicting plainly the drinkable character of faith and
the promise by means of which the Church, as a human being consisting of many members,
is refreshed and grows and is welded together and compacted of both, of faith as the body
and of hope as the soul, as also the Lord of flesh and blood" ( Paedagogus, 1, vi p.38).
"The blood of the Lord is twofold. In one sense it is fleshly, that by which we have been
redeemed from corruption; in another sense it is spiritual, that by which we have been
anointed. To drink the blood of Jesus is to partake of the Lord's immortality; and the Spirit is
the strength of the Word, as blood of flesh. As then wine is mixed with water, so is the Spirit
with man. And the one, the mixture, nourishes to faith; and the other, the Spirit, guides to
immortality. And the mingling of both - of the drink and the Word - is called Eucharist,
renowned and beauteous grace; and those who will partake of it in faith are sanctified in both
body and soul, since the will of the father has mystically united the divine mixture, man, by
11
the Spirit and the Word. For in truth the Spirit is joined to the soul that is moved by it, and
the flesh, for the sake of which the Word became flesh, to the Word. " (Ibid, II, ii pp. 19, 20).
"The food is the mystic contemplation; for the flesh and blood of the Word are the
comprehension of the divine power and essence. 'Taste and see that the Lord is Christ,' it is
said; for so He imparts of Himself to those who partake of such food in a more spiritual
manner, when now the soul nourishes itself, as says the truth-loving Plato. For the eating and
drinking of the divine Word is the knowledge of the divine essence .
(Stromata V, x, p. 67).
It will be convenient and fitting at this stage of our study to cite some other words of Clement of
Alexandria in which the elements are identified with the Body and Blood of the Incarnate Christ:
"' Eat ye My flesh,' He says, 'and drink ye My Blood.' This suitable food the Lord supplies to
us, and offers flesh and pours out blood; and the little children lack nothing that their growth
needs." (Paedagogus I, vi, p. 43)
There are other passages in the writings of Clement in which the consecrated elements are identified
with the Body and Blood of Christ.
We pass next to Origen. The teaching of Origen on the nature of the sac rament will only be seen in
its right perspective when his general outlook on religion has been grasped. Scholars are disposed to
think that he and Clement were influenced in their outlook by the teaching of the Greek mysteries.
Origen moves in a realm of thought seldom entered, or at any rate seldom brought down into
concrete expression, by other early or mediaeval writers on the doctrine of the sacraments. He sees in
the Holy Eucharist the cosmic process at work in terms of the pleading of the Great Sacrifice before
the throne of God. In his writings Contra Celsum (VII, p. I, and VIII, p. 21) Origen speaks of those
whom the truth has set free as "offering to the God of the universe a reasonable and smokeless
sacrifice" and again of the true worshipper as "continually offering the bloodless sacrifices in his
prayers to the deity." On this side of his teaching Darwell Stone (I. pp. 51-52) writes with real
insight:
"Students who have made a serious attempt to master the theology of Origen will hardly be
confident that they have fully understood the intricacies and versatility of his thought or
exhausted the meaning of a thinker so enterprising and eccentric, so subtle and profound. But
amid all that is doubtful this much seems clear. To Origen the centre of Christian life and
worship was in the perpetual pleading of the ascended Lord at the Father's throne. In the
heavens are an altar and a sacrifice, not an altar of wood or stone or a sacrifice of carnal
things, but the abiding offering of that sacred Manhood which the Son of God took for the
salvation of the creatures in the Incarnation, the blood of which He shed in His death. In that
offering the holy dead and the priestly society of the Church on earth have their place and
share. Into it are gathered all the elements of the sacrificial life which Christians live, the
sacrifices of praise and prayers, of pity and chastity, of righteousness and holiness. To it there
is access in Communion, and he who keeps the feast with Jesus is raised to be with Him in
His heavenly work. So Origen says, with the emphasis of constant repetition, that our Lord in
His heavenly life 'is our advocate for our sins with the Father,' 'approaches the altar to make
propitiation for sinners,' presents in the inner sanctuary, the true Holy of Holies the heaven
itself, all those sacrificial offerings which Christians in the outer sanctuary on earth bring to
God's altar, so that they `come to Christ, the true High Priest, who by His blood made God
propitious to' man 'and reconciled' man 'to the Father,' and 'hear him saying, "This is My
blood" '; and that 'the souls of the martyrs' and 'those who follow Christ' 'stand at the divine
sacrifices' and 'reach to the very altar of God, where is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the
High Priest of good things to come'."
12
(To be continued)
*With a view to simplifying this article for readers various references to original Greek words given in
brackets in Darwell Stone's text, are omitted. (JIW)
13

III
BY THE RT. REV. J.I. WEDGWOOD
January 1937 Vol. XVII No. 4
In the quotations to follow Origen is certainly speaking in terms of the Logos doctrine, according to
one phase of which the life of the Second Person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity is continually
outpoured for the sustenance, the nourishment and the uplifting of the world. "All things were made
by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. . . . He came unto his own and his
own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name:.. (John 1, 3, 10, 11, 12). In the first of these
quotations the idiom used is strange to a generation nurtured in the scholastic theology and used to
the system of approaching the divine mysteries "from below upwards.'' Food is life and refreshment
for the body. Every work and word of the Lord is seen by Origen in terms of spiritual nourishment .
''Clean food" as applied to the Apostles and to true disciples means that they in their turn are
transmitters of spiritual nourishment and grace to the world. To use the more modern idiom, they are
a pure channel through which the waters of life can flow for the helping of the world, instruments in
the Lord's service. The passage reads as follows:
''Our Lord and Saviour says, Unless ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye will not have life
in yourselves; My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. Because therefore Jesus is
wholly clean, His whole flesh is food, and His whole blood is drink, because every work of
His is His and every word of His is true. Therefore also His flesh is true food and His blood
is true drink. For by the flesh and blood of His word as clean food and drink He gives drink
and refreshment to the whole race of men. In the second place after His flesh Peter and Paul
and all the Apostles are clean food. In the third place are their disciples. And so each one, in
proportion to the extent of his merits and the purity of his senses, is made clean food for his
neighbour." ( In Lev. Hom. VII, p. 5).
We may pass on to three other passages which continue the same idiom.
"Those of the Jews who followed the Lord were offended and said, Who can eat flesh and
drink blood? But the Christian people, the faithful people, hear the saying, and embrace it,
and follow Him who says, Èxcept ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye will not have life
in yourselves; for My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink.' And moreover He who
thus spoke was wounded on behalf of men, for He Himself 'was wounded for our sins,' as
Isaiah says. "Now we are said to drink the blood of Christ not only in the way of Sacraments,
but also when we receive His words, in which life consists, as also He Himself said, `The
words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life.' Therefore He. Himself was wounded,
whose blood we drink, that is, receive the words of His teaching.'' ( In Num . Hom. XVI, p. 9).
The bread which God the Word confesses to be His own body is the word that nourishes souls, the
word proceeding from God the Word, and is bread from the heavenly Bread, which is placed upon
the table of which it is written, 'Thou hast prepared before me a table against those that trouble me.'
And that drink which God the Word confesses to be His blood is the word that gives drink and
excellent gladness to the hearts of those who drink, which is in the cup of which it was written, 'And
Thy gladdening cup, how excellent it is.' And that drink is the fruit of the True Vine, which says, 'I
am the True Vine.' And it is the blood of that grape which, cast into the wine-press of the passion,
brought forth this drink. So also the bread is the word of Christ, made of that corn of wheat which
falling into the ground yields much fruit. For not that visible bread which He held in His hands did
God the Word call His body, but the word in the mystery of which that bread was to be broken. Nor
did He call that visible drink His blood, but the word in the mystery of which that drink was to be
poured out. For what else can the body of God the Word, or His blood, be but the word which
nourishes and the word which gladdens the heart? Why then did He not say, This is the bread of the
14
new covenant, as He said, This is the blood of the new covenant?' Because the bread is the word of
righteousness, by eating which souls are nourished, while the drink is the word of the knowledge of
Christ according to the mystery of His birth and passion. Since therefore the covenant of God is set
for us in the blood of the passion of Christ, so that believing the Son of God to have been born and to
have suffered according to the flesh we may be saved not in righteousness, in which alone without
faith in the passion of Christ there could not be salvation, for this reason it was said of the cup only,
'This is the cup of the new covenant.' " ( In Mat. Comm. Ser ., p. 85).
"Let the bread and the cup be understood by the more simple according to the more common
acceptation of the Eucharist, but by those who have learnt to hear more deeply according to the more
divine promise, even that of the nourishing word of the truth." (Tn Joann. XXXII, p. 24).
These last passages need not be taken to mean that Origen rejected the doctrine of the Real Presence
under the veils of bread and wine. It is more probable that he was urging that the earthly rite should
be seen in its larger and wider context of the heavenly and cosmic sacrifice. That he regarded the two
ideas as complementary may be judged from some other passages of his writings. In the following
passage the words "upper room'' evidently mean the higher ranges of man's being:
" He who keeps the feast with Jesus is above in the great upper room, the upper room swept
clean, the upper room garnished and made ready. If you go up with Him that you may keep
the feast of the passover, He gives to you the cup of the new covenant, He gives to you also
the bread of blessing, He bestows His own body and His own blood. " ( In Jer. Hom. XVIII,
p. 13).
Darwell Stone writes as follows (Vol. 1, p. 38) : " Origen speaks of . . . Christians receiving 'the
bread which becomes a kind of holy body because of the prayer ( Contra Celsum VIII p.33). If in
some places he seems to identify the flesh and blood of Christ with His words, in one remarkable
passage he reminds his hearers of the reverent care which they know is taken to prevent any part of
the body of the Lord which is received in the mysteries from falling to the ground or being lost, and
exhorts them to be no less careful to receive the words of Christ than to protect His body which
Origen thus distinguishes from them: 'If for the protection of His body ye take so great care, and are
right to take it, can ye suppose that to be careless of the word of God is a less offence than to be
careless of His body?' ( In Ex . Hom. XIII, p. 3).
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15

IV
By THE RT. REV. J.1. WEDGWOOD
THE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE
February 1937 Vol. XVII No. 5
The famous Council of Nicaea held1n 325 marked the beginning of a movement in the Church for
closer formulation of doctrine. The Council itself, and four others which followed it during the next
century-and-a-quarter, were mainly occupied with the doctrine of the Incarnation. Stress is
increasingly laid on the sacrament being that of the Body and Blood of Christ, but the language used
is still marked by a wealth of imagery. There is reference to Old Testament tradition, prophecy and
miracle, to New Testament miracle, to Christ as our great High Priest in heaven - likened sometimes
to Melchizedek, to the tabernacle in heaven, and much stress is laid on the Church as the mystical
body of Christ. To show the nature of the language used we may glance in passing at a few brief
passages from the writings of the period. For these we are once more indebted to the book of Dr.
Darwell Stone.
"Our Sanctuaries, as always, so also now are clean, adorned only with the blood of Christ and the
worship of Him". (Quoted from an Encyclical Letter by Athanasius in his Def ence against the
Arians, 5.)
"We do not approach a temporal feast, my beloved, but an eternal and heavenly. Not in shadows do
we show it forth but we come to it in truth. For they (the Jews) being filled with the flesh of a dumb
lamb, accomplished the feast, and having anointed their door-posts with the blood, implored aid
against the destroyer. But now we, eating of the Word of the Father, and having the lintels of our
hearts sealed with the blood of the new covenant, acknowledge the grace given us from the Saviour"
(Athanasius, A.D. 295-373 Festal Letters , IV, p. 3).
"The manna is a type of the spiritual food which by the resurrection of the Lord became a reality in
the mystery of the Eucharist ." (Unknown writer in Questions on the Old and New Testaments, XCV,
P. 3).
"Melchizedek showed the future mystery of the Incarnation and passion of the Lord when to
Abraham first as the father of the faithful he gave the Eucharist of the body and blood of the Lord
that there might be beforehand in the case of the father a type of that which was to be a reality in the
case of the sons" ( Ibid CIX , p. 18).
Nothing else is brought about by the participation of the body and blood of Christ than that we pass
into that which we receive, and bear throughout both in spirit and in flesh Him in whom we died and
were buried and were raised together with Him." (Leo the Gre at, of the fifth century, Serm., LXIII,
P. 7.)
"O God of truth, let Thy Holy Word come upon this bread that the bread may become the body of
the Word, and upon this cup that the cup may become the blood of the Truth." (Serapion of Thmuis,
a contemporary of S. Athanasius, Prayers, Eucharistic Anaphora I).
The last quotation of this series is taken from a work by a certain Macarius Magner who lived at the
end of the fourth Century. The book Apocritica is written in the form of a Dialogue between a
Christian and a heathen who questions and makes objection to the Eucharist:
"Common bread that is grown in the earth, even though it is the flesh of the earth, is not declared to
have eternal life, but it bestows upon those who eat it only a short-lived benefit, since without the
divine Spirit its force is quickly quenched. But the bread that is grown in the blessed earth of Christ,
16
being united to the power of the Holy Ghost, by the mere taste gives immortality to man. For the
mystic bread, having received the inseparable invocation of the Saviour - the invocation that is on His
body and blood - unites him who eats to the body of Christ and makes him the limbs of the Saviour.
For as the writing -tablet receives power through the letters which the teacher writes on it and gives
this power to the scholar, and by means of it uplifts and unites him to the teacher, so the body, which
is the bread, and the blood, which is the wine, receiving the immortality of the unstained deity, give it
from themselves to him who receives them, and by means of it restores him to the uncorruptible
abiding of the Creator. Therefore the flesh of the Saviour when it is eaten is not destroyed, and this
blood when it is drunk is not consumed, but he who eateth attains to an increase of divine powers,
and that which is eaten remains unspent, since it is kindred to and inseparable from the inexhaustible
nature." (III p.23.)
Certain words are used during this and the preceding period to describe the relation of the
consecrated elements to the indwelling Presence: symbol, sign, figure, image, likeness, copy,
representation, type, antitype, "trans-make," ''transelement.'' In modern times words like figure and
symbol have the sense of denying reality. We speak of a thing as being ònly figurative or
symbolical." This is largely the outcome of the dualistic philosophy which came to dominate the
teaching of the Roman Church, a philosophy which offsets natural and supernatural, nature and
grace, material and spiritual, body and soul, man and God. (The official Roman catechisms do not
speak of man as a tripartite being; they equivalate soul and spirit and so reduce man to a duality. The
following passage is from Cardinal Gasparri's The Catholic Catechism (p.77). "What is man? Man is
a creature, made up of a rational sdul and an organic body.'') The earlier original use of the words
now being discussed conveyed the idea of a true and real correspondence between the physical
object and that which is re-presented. This interpretation of such words has always be en stressed by
leading writers of The Liberal Catholic Church. "Symbol," says Darwell Stone, "is one of the words
which the Alexandrian theologians obviously borrowed from the terminology of the Greek
mysteries. Clement of Alexandria uses it for the various acts and objects which in these mystic rites
were regarded as at once the signs and the vehicles of divine gifts - the eating out of the drum, the
drinking from the cymbal, the carrying the vessel, the entrance into the bridal chamber, the reception
of the touch of the serpent gliding over the breast, the dice, the ball, the lamp, the sword and other
material things." (1, p. 30). And he quotes Harnack to the same effect: "What we now-a-days
understand by `symbol' is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time 'symbol' denoted
a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies." (Harnack , II. p. 144).
By way of illustration a few brief passages making use of some of the words mentioned may be
cited. Tertullian (born about the middle of the second century, died c.220 or 222) uses the following
words:
"The Lord . . . even up to the present time has not disdained the water which is the Creator's
work, by which He washes His own people, or the oil whereby He anoints them, or the
mixture of milk and honey with which He feeds them as infants, or the bread by which He
makes present (repraesentat) His very body, requiring even in His own Sacraments the
'beggarly elements' (mendicitatibus) of the Creator." (Tertullian, Adv. Marc ., I, p. 4.
Eusebius speaks of the consecrated elements as "the symbols of His body and His saving blood"
( Demonstratio Evangelica, 1, X, P.28). S. Cyril of Jerusalem uses the words: "In the figure of bread
is given to thee the body" ( Catechetical Lectures, XXII, p.3), the Greek word used being equivalent
to our "type." S. Cyril also makes use of the expression "anti-type" and the same word figures in the
writings of other theologians of the period; they speak of the bread and the wine being antitypes of
the precious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
17

V
March 1937 Vol. XVII No. 6
Lastly we come to an interesting passage from the Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa of the
fourth century:
"Moreover, that body (the body of Jesus Christ) by the indwelling of God the Word was
transmade to the dignity of Godhead. Rightly then, do we believe that now also the bread
which is consecrated by the word of God is transmade into the body of the God the Word. . .
He bestows these gifts as He transelements the nature of the visible things to that immortal
thing by virtue of the consecration" (ch. 37).
As the years pass on the attempt to define and to explain the mode of the presence shows itself
increasingly. This is not unnatural. Human reason needs to play its appointed part in the processes
and adventures of life. And speculation in the domain of the spiritual is in keeping with this natural
urge in man. Theories and hypotheses are called forth in answer to doubt and scepticism, and it was
in this fashion that much of the early apologia for the Eucharist came into being. The process which
had to be defined was the feeding of the worshipper by our Lord with His Body and Blood. We find
at an early stage the imagery shaping itself of a mother feeding her child with the product of her own
body. This idea is worked out by Clement of Alexandria in a passage of which part has already been
quoted. The language is conspicuously that of imagery.
The young brood which the Lord Himself brought forth with throes of the flesh, which the
Lord Himself swaddled with precious blood. O holy birth, O holy swaddling clothes, the
Word is all to the babe, father and mother and tutor and nurse. 'Eat ye My flesh' , He says,
'and drink ye My blood' . This suitable food the Lord supplies to us, and offers flesh and
pours out blood, and the little children lack nothing that their growth needs." (Paedagogus
I.,VI pp.42,43)
The same imagery is worked out in the Dialogue of Macarius Magnes to which reference has also
been made in the course of this article. The argument is summed up by Darwell Stone as follows: In
the Dialogue , which represents a discussion between a heathen opponent and a Christian, the heathen
is depicted as taking exception to the Eucharist. The command to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink His blood as a condition of life is said to be unreasonable and savage; and it is maintained that
even if the words have some allegorical and mystic meaning the impression created by them is still
injurious to the soul. To this objection a lengthy reply is given. A new-born babe, it is said, must die
unless he eats the flesh and drinks the blood of his mother, since his food is the mother's blood which
a physical process has converted into milk If, then, the infant thus eats the flesh and drinks the blood
of his is mother, it is not unreasonable that Christ should command those to whom He gave authority
to become the children of God to eat His flesh and drink His blood, to eat the mystic flesh and drink
the mystic blood of her who bare them. For the Wisdom of God brought forth children and fed them
from the two breasts of the two covenants and gave them her own flesh and blood and bestowed on
them immortality; and this Wisdom of God is Christ'' (Vol. I., p.73).
And we come finally to St. Augustine of Hippo, who has been called 'the father of mediaeval
Christianity' and who lived from 354-430, somewhat later than the other two writers. His thesis is
now shaping itself more concretely and more in terms of dogma. We are indebted once more to
Darwell Stone for a summary of the argument: "In an earlier passage . . . from the Enarrations on the
Thirty- third Psalm (I., p. 6), St. Augustine uses the comparison between a mother feeding her child
with her own body and the feeding of the children of God with the body and blood of Christ. He
there says that our Lord has willed our salvation to be in His body and blood, and that His humility
18
has made it possible for us to eat and drink these. The food which the mother eats becomes fit food
for her infant child by means of the process of passing through her flesh. In like manner the Wisdom
of God feeds Christians and the Incarnation and the Passion have made possible the gift to them of
the flesh and blood of the Lord'' (Vol. I., p.48).
I have quoted these passages at length because they act as a signpost to the development of doctrine
in regard to the mode of the presence. Emphasis came to he laid increasingly on the presence in the
sacrament of the post-Resurrection flesh and blood with a view to stressing the continuance of the
human nature of Christ and of His touch with us. Doctrinal disputes as to the nature or being of the
Christ figure largely in the early history of the Church. Various schools arose propounding different
and conflicting theories. Of these three may be mentioned by way of illustration. The controversies
date from the later part of the fourth century to the middle of the fifth. The Apollinarians, named
after a certain Apollinaris, regarded Christ as a man into whom at the highest spiritual source the
Logos had been introduced. Nestorianism, named after Nestorius, saw in Him a being in whom the
two natures, divine and human, co-existed held together by a moral union, that is by conformity of
will. Eutychianism, named after Eutychius, otherwise known as Monophysitism, held that there was
but one nature in Christ, the human having been absorbed into the divine. (Needless to say, details of
the teachings are disputed; the above summaries are those of alleged teachings). These controversies
called forth official definitions as to the being of the Christ. The Council of Chalcedon, held in 451,
condemned the errors of Eutychius and affirmed the existence of two natures in Christ. Formulation
of doctrine as to the mode of the presence in the Eucharist followed gradually in the wake of these
doctrinal developments and decisions, and we find stress being laid increasingly on the taking up of
the manhood into heaven and of the coexistence of that in the consecrated species. It is easy to see
how controversy of one sort and another led to increasingly exact definition of belief. And we come
eventually to the close reasoning of the Schoolmen.
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19

VI
April 1937 Vol. XVII No.7
REFORMATION DOCTRINES*
With the advent of the Protestant Reformation new doctrines of the Eucharist came to the fore and
found acceptance. The Reformation needs to be seen in its historical perspective if it is to be rightly
understood. What was the Reformation? It was partly a revolt against the usurpation of civil
authority by ecclesiastics and against the worldliness in their life and outlook which was widely
prevalent. The amassing of wealth and such matters as the selling of indulgences had become a
crying scandal. What is called Humanism or the New Learning, the revival in Italy of classical
studies and culture, played its appointed part, as also the influx of Arabic culture, of a high order,
through the universities of Spain and of Southern Italy. The Moorish Empire had spread into many
countries. The Arabs had assimilated learning from a number of different sources Chinese,
Manichaean, Zoroastrian and Christian; they had also contacted the literature and thought of Greece.
It has often been pointed out that the Crusaders had found in Islam a civilization a great deal more
advanced than their own. The invention of printing, which wrested the monopoly of learning from
the few, was another potent factor in the emancipation of the intellect from the fetters in which it had
been held during the so-called Dark Ages. The introduction of printing led to the wide dissemination
of the Scriptures so that the sources of religion no longer had to be accepted at second-hand.
Learning was no longer the monopoly of the few. We may add to these influences the widening of
the world's horizons by the voyages of explorers and the expansion of trade and national intercourse.
It was at this period that Christopher Columbus discovered America. In the realm of philosophy
Plato could be offset as against Aquinas. In the realm of theology the Greek text of the New
Testament could be offset as against the Latin Vulgate with its many errors. The new learning left
Italy more or less undisturbed. But the leaven worked its fill in countries like Germany, Switzerland,
and the Low Countries. It took the scholars of those countries back to the study of the Greek New
Testament and to original and primitive Christianity. This was contrasted with the endless
speculation and foibles of the Schoolmen - arguments which, it should be remembered, had lost
much of their original acumen and had too often deteriorated into interminable hair-splitting.
In this article we are concerned with the effect which the Reformation had on Eucharistic doctrine.
To examine the various doctrines of the period at length will serve no useful purpose. Ideas were
slowly emerging and some of the writing is obscure. Some of the leaders in the Reformation changed
or developed or modified their views as the years moved on. Attempts were made to smooth over
differences between pioneers of the Reformation and between groups of their followers by ambiguity
of language and by formulating points of agreement while ignoring points of divergence. The
complexity of the situation will be illustrated by the fact that a certain Christopher Rasperger
published in the year 1577 at Ingolstadt a book dealing with some two hundred interpretations of the
words of consecration Hoc est corpus meum.
Four important modifications of the doctrine are summed up under the terms Consubstantiation,
Zwinglianism, Receptionism. and Virtualism.
(1) Consubstantiation . This was the doctrine put forward by Martin Luther (1483-1546), the
German pioneer of the Reformation. The word explains the doctrine. It is that after the consecration
of the elements the substance of the bread. and wine remain side by side (without confusion or union
of substance) with "the real body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.'' The doctrine did not originate
with Luther. It was taught explicitly by Berenger of Tours in the eleventh century and can be read
into the writings of Irenaeus of the second century. It was put forward by John Wyclif (1324-1384)
20
and defended by a Bohemian, John Hus (1369-1415). What lies at the back of the contention is the
setting up of an analogy between what takes place at the consecration and what took place at the
Incarnation. Our Lord assumed a human body and in so doing the natural substance of the body was
not overthrown. As He was at once divine and human, so, it was reasoned, the bread and wine did
not depart from their proper nature but became used also as the instrument or vehicle of the higher
process. The words of Irenaeus (140-200) are sometimes quoted (as by Gore in his The Body of
Christ, pp. 111-113) as supporting this doctrine: ''For as the bread of the earth, receiving the
invocation of God, is no longer common bread but Eucharist, made up of two things, an earthly and
a heavenly, so also our bodies, partaking of the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope
of the resurrection to eternity. (Adv. Haer. iv. xviii, p. 5). In the pursuit of all these studies we have
to remember that definition of doctrine is a gradual process and that too much stress should not be
laid on statements made before the doctrine had really passed through the mill of discussion.
Irenaeus was actually concerned to refute certain Gnostic speculations and wrote at a period when
(as Gore himself says) the belief in Christ's manhood was really imperilled by a false
supernaturalism . . . (p.112). Readers who are interested in the philososophical background of the
discussion as between consubstantiation and trans- substantiation will find much to interest them in
Bishop Gore's Dissertations . He claims that: ''Throughout the period during which the doctrine of
transubstantiation was in controversy, the reality of our Lord's manhood, and the principle of the
Incarnation which its reality expresses, were very inadequately held. The dogmas were indeed
retained but their meaning was little considered. What has been already described as nihilianism was
the current mode of conceiving the Incarnation: that is to say, the manhood of Christ was regarded
almost exclusively as the veil of Godhead or as the channel of its communication'' (p.279).
The doctrine of consubstantiation was adopted and stressed by Luther as a reaction against certain
ideas advanced in the discussions of the Schoolmen. There was the proposition, for instance, whether
it was possible for the same body to be at the same time present locally in two different places. The
Scotus (the school who followed John Duns Scotus) maintained that this was possible in the abstract,
and the Thomists (the school who followed St. Thomas Aquinas) denied it. Luther maintained that
by accepting the idea that real bread and wine and not only their accidents were on the altar "fewer
superfluous miracles would have to be introduced. "
Before taking leave of Luther it may just be mentioned that he follows the custom of the time in not
being careful to use the word "substance" before "Body of the Lord." In The Greater Catechism
(1529) he defines the Sacrament of the Altar thus: ''It is the real body and blood of our Lord Jesus
Christ in and under the bread and wine . . . " But in a later writing dated 1534 he says: "We hold that
the body and blood of Christ are present with the bread and wine in the Sacrament by way of
substance or essence" (quoted from Darwell Stone, vol.ii. pp.16 and 22).
(2) Zwinglianism. Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) was the leader of the Swiss Reformation. He was
opposed to Luther on many points, notably in regard to the latter's insistence upon an objective
presence in the Eucharist. The contention of Zwingli and his followers (often called the
"Sacramentaries though the name was sometimes used to include the followers of Luther and
others) was that the words "This is My Body" were figurative, just as other words of our Lord, "I am
the Vine,'' "I am the Door." In a work called Subsidium written in 1525 he says that "we find in
Scripture that the words `Body of Christ' are taken in three different senses. They designate in one
case the natural body of Christ that was born of the Virgin, and which died on the Cross. Again, they
designate Christ's risen body, and again, Christ's mystical body, which is the Church. Which of these
bodies did Christ give to His disciples to eat when He said 'Take, eat, this is My Body'? Plainly, it
was not His natural body. Jesus could not enjoin His disciples to eat it and to bruise it with the teeth,
since He had declared positively that the 'flesh profiteth nothing.' There could, on the other hand, be
no question of eating Christ's risen body, because, at the time of the Institution of the Supper, Christ
had not yet been raised. Finally, there was no question of eating the mystical body of Christ, for it
21
had not then been delivered unto death. We must therefore understand the words, 'This is My body'
figuratively" ( The Protestant Doctrine of the Lord's Supper , Alexander Barclay, 1927, p.58). In the
controversies which arose phrases like "The seven good kine are seven years' (Genesis XLI, 26) are
quoted as supporting the theory that in the Words of Institution the word "Is'' carries the meaning of
"signifies." The consecrated elements are figures or symbols (in the later meaning of the word) or
images or types of the Body and Blood. An act done in remembrance of Christ implies the bodily
absence of Christ. There is no question of the elements being anything more than bread and wine.
The rite is thus purely a commemoration of the Last Supper and of our Lord's death and crucifixion,
in which Christians are exhorted to realize their fellowship with Christ and with one another. In
Opera, 11, p.212, he writes as follows: "The Eucharist or Communion or Lord's Supper is nothing
else than a commemoration, whereby those who firmly believe that they have been reconciled to the
Father by the death and blood of Christ announce this life-giving death, that is, praise it and glory in
it and proclaim it." Elsewhere he says that the bread is no more the Body of Christ than "if a wife,
pointing to a ring of her husband which he had left with her, should say, 'This is my husband' " (Ibid.
p.293). The sacraments bring and dispense no grace, but are a public testimony, the badge of our
profession as Christians.
Like other writers of the period Zwingli seems to have modified or stressed differently his opinions
under the formative influence of controversy. The reader who wishes to study in detail the teaching
of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and other reformers will find a detailed account of the controversies of the
time in the book by the Rev. Alexander Barclay from which we have quoted above. Barclay speaks
of three phases of Zwingli's teaching. In the first he stresses the idea that external signs have no
value in themselves. Faith is the essential thing. What the worshipper receives in the Lord's Supper is
a strengthening of his faith. We do not say that ..Zwingli denies the mystical union of the believer
with Christ. He does not deny this union, but he regards it rather as a consequence of faith than as a
direct result of participating in the Supper" (Barclay, p.56). In the second period he was in
controversy with Luther and this period was one of much negation and denial. In the third phase,
Barclay insists, there came some more positive elements in consequence of mediating influences,
and there are passages in his writings which imply some fashion of feeding on Christ by the
contemplation of faith. Scholars are divided in opinion as to whether this third stage represents a
change of belief or was an attempt at conciliation with Luther and other Reformers. His real belief is
perhaps well summed up in the following words:
"All Sac raments are so far from conferring grace that they do not even bring or dispense it . .
Sacraments are given for a public testimony of that grace which is previously present to each
individual. . . By Baptism the Church publicly receives him who has previously been
received by means of grace. Therefore Baptism does not bring grace, but it bears witness to
the Church that he to whom it is given has received grace . . . . A Sacrament is a sign of a
sacred thing, that is, of grace which has been given. In the Holy Eucharist, that is, the Supper
of thanksgiving, the real body of Christ is present by the contemplation of faith, that is, those
who give thanks to the Lord for the benefit conferred on us in His Son recognise that He took
real flesh, that in it He really suffered, that He really washed away our sins by His Blood, and
so that everything done by Christ becomes, as it were, present to them by the contemplation
of faith. But that the body of Christ essentially and actually, that is, the natural body itself, is
either present in the Supper or is committed to our mouth and teeth, as the papists and certain
people who look back to the fleshpots of Egypt maintain, this we not only deny but we
constantly affirm that it is an error which is opposed to the word of God" (Opera, II, p.541).
22
We may study briefly the modifications of Zwingli's doctrine at the hands of other Reformers.
( Ecolampadius (1482-1531) whose real name was Johann Heusigen or Hussgen, figures a good deal
in the discussions of the period. He was born at Weinsberg in Suabia. He worked at Basle and was
the right-hand supporter of Zwingli. Like Zwingli he denied that the sacraments were channels of
grace. Bishop A.P. Forbes says that CEcolampadius "saw nothing more in the Eucharist than a
symbol whereby one is bound to sacrifice for one's neighbour, after the example of Jesus Christ,
one's body and blood, as baptism is a sign by which one binds oneself to give one's life for the faith
which one professes" ( Explanation of the 39 Articles Vol. II, p.497). In one of his publications De
Genuina Verborum Expositione he speaks of the Last Supper as an external symbol, which the
faithful should receive less for their own sakes than for the social example they set. The bread is
called a body in a figurative sense. As the bread which serves to nourish a man's body is broken, so
Christ's body is said to be broken in the sacrament for the feeding of the soul with heavenly food.
-------
*In the section which follows sentences have occasionally been incorporated from a book by the present
writer published in 1928 by The Theosophical Publishing House, entitled The Presence of Christ in the Holy
Communion.
23

VII
May 1937 Vol. XVII No. 8

Martin Bucer or Butzer (1491-1551) was an Alsatian who played the role of mediator between
Luther and Zwingli. His statements are often obscure and at times seem to be contradictory. Like
Zwingli he denied that Christ was "present in some manner of this world or enclosed in or joined
together with the bread and wine,'' but held that "we through faith are raised to heaven and placed
there together with Christ, and lay hold of Him in His heavenly majesty and embrace Him." These
passages are from a Confession Concerning the Holy Eucharist published in 1550. To relieve him of
his political difficulties, Archbishop Cranmer invited Bucer to England in 1549, and seems to have
been influenced not a little by his friend's views. Bucer was made Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge, where he died shortly afterwards.
John Calvin. We come finally to John Calvin (1509-1564), who lived a generation later than Luther
and the others, and whose name is associated with Geneva. He was born in France of a French father
and a German mother. His early training was that of a Schoolman and not under Humanist influence,
which fact perhaps led him to continue the work of Bucer in striking a note of compromise between
Luther and Swingli. He teaches an extreme form of Receptionism together with a touch of
Virtualism. He seems to hold that the elements of bread and wine are unchanged, and, as is only
consistent with his theory of predestination and election, insists that faith is a necessary condition of
reception for Christ to be received without faith is no more reasonable than for a seed to sprout in
the fire'' ( Institutes of the Christian Religion , IV., XVII, p.33). Christ's Body is in heaven and
nowhere else." They locate Christ in the bread; while we deem it unlawful to draw Him down from
heave n" (Ibid ., p.31). He speaks of those who are detained in the outward sign as wandering from the
right way of seeking Christ. Hence he held that by the action of faith "a power emanating from the
Body of Christ, which is now in heaven only, is communicated to the spirit" (Forbes, op. cit , p.499);
the faithful thus receive from heaven the efficacy of Christ's Body and Blood, whilst for others the
Sacrament is only a bare symbol. The Dutch Hervormde Kerk, as well as the Dutch Gereformeerde
Kerk, still hold to the Calvinistic doctrine, though in their ordinary catechisms one misses the
Virtualist element noted above.
(3) Receptionism. This doctrine is best described in the words of the Anglican divine, Richard
Hooker (1553-1600), taken from his work Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity , a book renowned for
its weighty argument and faultless courtesy: "the Real Presence of Christ's most blessed Body and
Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament"
(Book V. 1xvii). Those who hold the doctrine in a positive sense deny any objective presence of the
Christ in the bread and wine. The act of consecration does not change the bread and wine, but
attaches to them, not a presence, but a promise - the promise that when the communicant shall
partake of the bread which has been blessed he shall be a partake of the Lords Body. It is at the
reception of the Sacrament that the communicant partakes of the Sacred Body and Blood, and then
only by virtue of faith. Most Receptionists would add that he receives them not in a corporal or
carnal manner - that the Presence is not to the elements at any stage, but to the soul of the receiver
thereof. There are adherents of this doctrine who prefer to associate such action as does take place at
the altar with the entire Prayer of Consecration and not specifically with the recital of the Words of
Institution. A memorandum to this effect was signed by a group of Anglican clergy in recent years.
24
It is difficult to trace the origin of Receptionism in history. Some foundation for it may be seen in the
writings of St. Augustine, which, like many of the older writings, are not altogether consistent when
studied critically. Bishop Charles Gore writes as follows: "Augustine's language is certainly as a
whole susceptible of being interpreted in the sense of an 'objective' spiritual presence in the
elements, after such a manner as does not interfere with the permanence of the bread and wine, such
a presence as faith only can either recognize or appropriate; or it may fairly be interpreted on a
receptionist theory like Hooker's - it is in fact probably somewhat inconsistent - but it is not
susceptible of an interpretation in accordance with the doctrine of transubstantiation" (Dissertations,
p. 232). Again: Augustine "speaks of the consecrated elements in the Eucharist as in themselves only
'signs' of the body and blood of Christ; signs which, if they are themselves called the body and blood
of Christ, are so called on the principle that signs are called by the name of the thing they signify. He
draws a marked distinction between the physical manducation of the sacrament which is possible to
all and the manducation of the flesh and blood of Christ which he sometimes plainly declares to be
possible only to the believing and spiritually minded, or to those who hold the unity of the Church,
'the body of Christ' in love" (p. 232). Dr. Gore then in a footnote gives some quotations which
support the view he is expounding, that "the spiritual gift of the eucharist is really the flesh and blood
of Christ," the same flesh and blood in which He lived on earth, but 'raised to a new spiritual power,
become "spirit and life," and that "the consecrated elements are signs of the body and blood, and not
in themselves the things they signify" (p. 233).
Darwell Stone among other quotations cites the following: " 'This is the bread which cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Yes, but he who eats that which pertains to the
virtue of the Sacrament not that which pertains to the visible Sacrament; who eats within, not
without; who eats in the heart, not he who presses with the teeth" (Treatise on the Gospel of St. John,
XXVI., 12). Harnack' s view is that Augustine "agrees undoubtedly with the so-called pre-Reformers
and Zwingli. The holy food is rather, in general, a declaration and assurance, or the avowal of an
existing state, than a gift" (History of Dogma, Vol. V., p. 159). Darwell Stone's judgment is that in
the document above quoted "the ideas of feeding on Christ by faith and the need of spiritual union
with Christ if sacramental communion is to be profitable cross and re-cross the conception of the
Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ" (Vol. I, p.92).
Receptionism in its explicit form developed after the Reformation. We may see in it a reaction
against the teaching of the real absence propounded by Zwingli. Hooker, whose classic phrase was
quoted in defining this particular doctrine, carefully abstained from indicating his own belief in
regard to the objectivity of the Presence in the bread and wine. He has been claimed on both sides of
the controversy. He wrote at a critical period of change and upheaval when, as he himself explained,
"some did exceedingly fear lest Zwinglius and (Ecolampadius would bring to pass that men should
account of this Sacrament but only a shadow, destitute, empty and void of Christ" (Ecclesiastical
Polity , V., 1xvii). He saw signs of an earnest desire for agreement and of its realisation, and his
thesis was that people could unite on the simple minimum basis proposed by him. The doctrine came
to be held widely in the Church of England; it was not devoid of spiritual idealism but admitted just
that form of compromise in which the "safe" party in the Anglican Church delighted and is still apt
to delight. It is fast losing ground in that communion in favour of a belief in the Real Presence. It is
really no mark of skill to say that "down here" in this world of which we do know something, there
exist ordinary bread and wine and that in the spiritual or heavenly world, of which the ordinary man
knows nothing, some mysterious process takes place. There is no explanation or consistent theory
here at all. The difficulty has simply been burked by refusing to it any consideration in this world,
and then referring the whole problem to a world of unknown character where it is left unsolved. I
may quote a few trenchant words from the pen of a clear- headed and experienced theologian of the
Anglican Church, the late Canon Malcolm MacColl, of Ripon, taken from his able book, The
Reformation Settlement:
25
"The Eucharistic Presence is quite independent of the faith of the recipient. Faith creates nothing. Its
province is not to create but to receive a gift external to it and offered to it. Faith is sometimes
compared to an eye. But the eyes does not create the light. It receives and transmits it to the brain
and intellect. But a man may injure his eyes, so that they cease to be accurate conductors to the soul.
The vision is thus blurred and distorted. Or he may destroy his eyes altogether and then the whole
realm of light, with all its entrancing visions, is shut out from the soul. But the light is there all the
same. It embraces the blind man in its radiance, but can find no avenue into his soul, since he has
destroyed his organs of vision. The light is there, but no longer for him. Yet it impinged on his blind
eyes. It touches his optic nerve. But there is no response, for the organ of apprehension is gone. And
this is true of all our senses; the function of each is to receive an impression, an impact from an
external object charged with its appropriate virtue. And philosophers may discuss, and have
discussed, whether the gift is in the external object or in the recipient of the impact; whether the
sweetness is in the sugar or in the palate; whether the beauty is in the sunset or in the percipient
mind. The sunset prints the same image on the eye of the brute as on the human eye; but there is no
corresponding res sacramenti, if I may so express myself. For indeed Nature is a sacrament, as the
old Fathers loved to think; "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual Presence
energising through all her operations and phenomena.
But however philosophers may dispute, we all agree that our bodily senses are our organs of
communication with external facts, and that our sensations are no mere subjective impressions but
impressions resulting from contact with objective realities. The senses do not create the impressions.
They only receive and convey them.
So with faith. It no more causes the Presence in the Eucharist than the eye causes the sunset. The
Presence is objective - that is, outside of it and indepedent of it. If faith be lacking, the Presence has
no more access to the soul than the glory of the setting sun has through sightless eyeballs. . . .
Thus we see that, alike in the Kingdom of Nature and of Grace, the Presence that nourishes the soul
must be objective before it can become subjective. (pp. 12-14).
---------
26

VIII
June 1937 Vol. XVII No.9
IV. Virtualism. This doctrine, as usually understood, is a mi-chemin between that of the objective
Real Presence and that of Receptionism. It was developed as one of the many reactions from the
Scholastic philosophy, which, as we have seen, holds that the substance of our Lord's Body is under
the species, but that the act of consecration does not bring His dimensions or shape under the
species, in other words, that the dimensions and shape are there, but not in the localized sense of
"there." Among the questions discussed at the Reformation was one to the effect that if Christ's Body
is in heaven how can it be localized in the sacrament? Luther solved the difficulty - only to raise a
fresh one - by developing his theory of the ubiquity of Christ's Body. Where Christ is as God, he
reasoned, there must He also be as man. Since He is present everywhere as God the Body must be
everywhere. Faced with the dogmatic assertion that Christ is at the right hand of God the Father (as
affirmed in the Nicene Creed) he replied, in 1580, that "the right hand of God is everywhere"
(Formula of Concord).
The aim of the time was to get rid of elaboration of this sort, and Virtualism is certainly an attempt to
escape from this impasse. It was as a reaction to such questionings and in order to dissociate
themselves from the idea of a carnal or corporal presence that some thinkers developed the doctrine
of Virtualism. Its distinguishing feature is that Christ's Body and Blood are not present objectively
but that their virtue and effect is conveyed to the soul. The bread and wine are not in themselves
changed, they are set apart by the act of consecration for sacred purposes, and when administered to
the faithful convey to the soul the virtue and grace of union with Christ. There is no need, in this
way, to maintain that the sacrament presents either Christ's natural Body or His post-Resurrectional
or glorified Body.
This doctrine crops up with some regularity from the time of the Reformation onwards. It varies in
the detail and manner of its presentation. It is opposed, on the one hand, to the teachings of Luther,
Bucer and Calvin, and, on the other hand, to those of Zwingli and (Ecolampadius. Virtualism in the
sense above defined seems to have been the final view reached by Archbishop Cranmer (14891556). It was put forward in A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the
Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ (1550) and in his famous Answer to Stephen Gardiner (1551).
The gist of his teaching can be summed up in a few sentences from the latter document:
. my meaning is that the force, the grace , the virtue and benefit of Christ's body that
was crucified for us and of His blood that was shed for us be really and effectually present
with all them that duly receive the Sacraments; but all this I understand of His spiritual
presence, of the which He saith, 'I will be with you until the world's end' and `Wheresoever
two or three be gathered together in My name, their am I in the midst of them,' and 'He that
eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him.' Now no more truly is
He corporally or really present in the due ministration of the Lord's Supper than He is in the
due ministration of Baptism." (p.3.)
A similar doctrine is propounded by Dr. Daniel Waterland (1683-1740) , at one time Master of
Magdalene College, Cambridge, Canon of Windsor and Archdeacon of Middlesex. Waterland writes
thus of the Words of Consecration:
"They cannot mean that this bread and wine are really and literally that body in the same
broken state as it hung upon the cross, and that blood which was spilled upon the ground
1700 years ago. Neither can they mean that this bread and wine literally and properly are our
Lord's glorified body, which is as far distant from us as heaven is distant; all sense, all
27
reason, all Scripture, all antiquity, and sound theology reclaim against so wild a thought.''
(Works, IV, 573. )
"If God hath been pleased so to order that these outward elements, in the due use of the
Eucharist, shall be imputed to us, and accepted by him, as pledges of the natural body of our
Lord, and that this constructional intermingling His body and blood with ours shall be the
same thing in effect with our adhering inseparably to Him as members or parcels of Him;
then those outward symbols are, though not literally, yet interpretatively and to all saving
purposes, that very body and blood which they so represent with effect; they are appointed
instead of them." (Ibid. 574)
Waterland goes on to say: . the result of such feeding is the strengthening or perfecting our
mystical union with the body glorified; and so, properly speaking, we feed upon the body as dead,
and we receive it into closer union as living, and both in the Eucharist when duly celebrated." ( Ibid.,
6o8.)
Other writers express themselves in a similar strain. What is here advanced is that the bread and wine
are, so to speak, tokens of a spiritual participation in the virtue and grace of Christ's Body and Blood.
There is an element of Receptionism in the doctrine, for faith is a necessary condition of true
reception. Waterland, in the same context, says that "suitable dispositions" are "supposed in the
recipient," and that it is "not the truth of the case" "that the Lord's body is received by all
communicants, worthy or unworthy." We are dealing with a period and a phase of thought in which
words like token and symbol have lost their earlier and primal meaning and do not imply
correspondence but difference.
At the hands of another school of writers Virtualism is freed from Receptionism, and the symbolism
of the elements is treated in terms of correspondence, not of difference. This presentation of the
doctrine is found among the Nonjurors, as they are called, and among some who remained in the
Established Church (of England) yet sympathized with the Nonjurors and shared their doctrinal
position. The Nonjurors were a body of people who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William
and Mary in 1689 after the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty, and were accordingly deprived of their
sees and benefices in the Church of England. There were some men of outstanding ability among
them; they were "high church" in their outlook and even entered into negotiations (which, however,
proved unsuccessful) for union and intercommunion with bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
In their correspondence with these bishops the Nonjurors declined to accept a doctrine of
Transubstantiation or of a corporal presence. They regarded the words of institution as figurative and
advanced the argument that:
our Saviour calls Himself a door and a vine; and in other places of Holy Writ He is called
the Lamb of God and the Lion of the tribe of Judah. All which texts we doubt not but the
Oriental Church will allow must be construed in a metaphorical sense; and, if these phrases
are to be figuratively interpreted, why not the other at the institution of the Holy Eucharist,
which, if restrained to the letter, is no less shocking than the rest. Farther, St. Paul calls the
Eucharistic element bread, even after consecration, when it was to be received." (I Cor. XI,
28.)
After citing some testimonies from the primitive Fathers, they continue:
"Pope Gelasius . . . . plainly declares, the substance and nature of the bread and wine remains
after consecration. It is true, he then tells us, the elements are changed into a divine thing,
that is, raised to a divine efficacy by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Which change we must
willingly confess, namely, that there is a mystic virtue and supernatural force transfused upon
the Eucharistic elements by the priest's pronouncing the words of institution and his prayer
for the descent of the Holy Ghost." (Darwell Stone, II, P. 479.)
28

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July 1937 Vol.XVII No.10
This same doctrine is worked out in able fashion by others of the Nonjurist school, notably by a
certain John Johnson, Vicar of Cranbrook in Kent, one of the clergy who took the oath of allegiance
to William of Orange and remained in possession of his benefice, but who was in friendly relations
with the Nonjurors; and by Thomas Deacon (1697-1753) who was consecrated a Nonjuring bishop in
1747. Johnson's writings were published from 1710-1724, the most important book being one with a
long title which is usually abbreviated as The Unbloody Sacrifice . The salient points of the teaching
as to the mode of the presence are thus summed up by Darwell Stone: "Johnson says many times that
the elements are after consecration the 'body and blood' of Christ, or His 'spiritual body and blood,
or 'sacramental body and blood,' or 'Eucharistical body and blood.' But he further explains that Christ
does not 'personally' or 'literally' offer Himself in the Eucharist'; that He is not `personally there
present in His human nature'; and that the consecrated bread and wine are His 'very body and blood'
'not in substance, but in power and effect', or 'in inward life and spirit'." (Vol.II , pp475-6)
Deacons's bold conception of the Last Supper as being the anticipatory offering of His Body answers
the objection sometimes lodged against Virtualism; namely, how it explains the words "This is My
Body which is given for you" and of the Blood "which is shed for you." He states his case as follows
- and I quote it at length because it is a very fine piece of reasoning and one which we shall presently
have occasion to discuss. The passage is from a "Shorter Catechism" included in Deacon's A Full,
True and Comprehensive View of Christianity , 1747:
"It was at the institution of the Eucharist that our Saviour began to offer Himself to His
Father for the sins of all men . . . But because it would have been unnatural for Him to have
broken His own body and shed His own blood, and because He could not as a living High
Priest offer Himself when He was dead, therefore . . . He offered to the Father His natural
body and the blood voluntarily and really though mystically under the symbols of bread and
wine mixed with water; for which reason He called the bread at the Eucharist His body,
which was then broken, given, and offered for the sins of many, and the cup His blood, which
was then shed and offered for the sins of many. All the sacrifices of the old law were figures
of this great one of Christ; and the Eucharist or sacrifice of thanksgiving, which we celebrate
according to His institution, is a solemn commemorative oblation of it to God the Father, and
procures us the virtue of it.
Thus we see that by the consecration of the Eucharist the bread and mixed wine are not
destroyed, but sanctified; they are not changed in their substance but in their qualities; they
are not made the natural but the sacramental body and blood of Christ; so that they are both
bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ at the same time but not in the same
manner. They are bread and wine by nature, the body and blood of Christ in mystery and
signification; they are bread and wine to our senses, the body and the Blood of Christ to our
understanding and faith; they are bread and wine in themselves, the body and blood of Christ
in power and effect. So that whoever eats and drinks them as he ought to do, dwells in Christ
and Christ in him, he is one with Christ and Christ with him.''
29
A STUDY OF THE DOCTRINES

Transubstantiation . The reaction to Eucharistic Teaching shown at the Reformation will only be
understood when it is realized how gross and literal was much of the outlook of the time. The
literalism dates in some measure from early times. Harnack has the following passage on the
teaching of St. John Chrysostom (c.347-407), the writer of the well-known prayer figuring in the
Anglican Mattins and Evensong and in altered form in our own Liturgy: "Chrysostom, on the
contrary, spoke of a complete identity, and did not shrink from the boldest and most repugnant
expressions. 'In proof of his love he has given us the body pierced with nails, that we might hold it in
our hands and eat it; for we often bite those whom we love much .. . . . . . Our tongue is reddened by
the most awful blood.' .. 'He has permitted us who desire it not merely to see, but to touch and eat
and bury our teeth in his flesh, and to intermingle it with our own being'. (Vol. IV. p.297). Berengar
was made to assent to a document drawn up by Cardinal Humbert and forced upon Berengar at
Rome, in the presence of Pope Nicholas and other bishops in the year 1059. He was made to say of
the consecrated elements that they are "not only a Sacrament but also the real body and blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and that with the senses (sensualiter ) not only by way of Sacrament but in reality
( non solum sacramento sed in veritate ) these are held and broken by the hands of the priests and are
crushed by the teeth of the faithful." (Dr. Darwell Stone, 1, p. 247). A certain Witmund, who became
Archbishop of Aversa in Italy, writes between the years 1060 and 1078 against the Berengarian
belief . "He does not shrink from the idea that Christ's body is pressed by the teeth of communicants,
or even of animals, for it lay in the tomb and after the resurrection it both trod the earth and was
touched by the hand of Thomas" (Gore: Dissertations , pp. 259-260; references to the originals are
given). In a footnote Bishop Gore states that the carrying off of consecrated Hosts by animals would
seem to have been of frequent occurrence; reference to this is made in the writings of Abelard and
Peter Lombard. "Most of the contemporary writers against Berengar assert that the body and blood
of Christ are to be eaten and drunken 'with the mouth of the body as well as the mouth of the heart';
and like some of the earlier Greeks, they deny that the elements after consecration retain their natural
properties of nourishing or becoming corrupted or digested. The nature of the bread and wine was
understood to be destroyed in everything but appearance. Miracles were recklessly postulated, and it
was sufficient objection to any more reasonable treatment of the mystery that in diminishing the
difficulty of belief it redu ced the merit of faith'' (Gore: The Body of Christ, pp. 117-118). The wellknown Anglican writer Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), makes this comment: "And, by the way, let me
observe that the expressions of some of the chief men among the Romanists are so rude and crass
.. they thought Christ intended they should tear Him with their teeth and suck His blood" ( Works ,
VI, p. 28). Archbishop Ussher mentions the legend of "a Roman matron who found a piece of the
sacramental bread turned into the fashion of a finger, all bloody; which afterwards, upon the prayers
of St. Gregory, was converted to its former shape again" (Answer to a Jesuit, Works, IV, p.225).
There can be no doubt but that many abuses had sprung up in connection with the Mass. In the
Preface to his edition of Barlowe's Dialogue Lunn says that Pilkington, Bishop of Durham (15201575), refers to the custom of driving cattle into church at the Last Gospel to be cured of their
diseases: Pilkington "incidentally lets out one of these abuses: when the accusation was brought that
the Mass had been changed; he answers that it was only restored to what it was intended to be, a
religious rite for the benefit of men's souls (and therefore to what the Missal contemplated), and not
'for pocky pigs, stalled horses, or scabbed sheep," (p.20). At the Synod of Rome held in 648 the Host
was mixed with ink for the purpose of signing the condemnation of the Monothelite heretics (cf.
Bishop A.P. Forbes: Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles, p. 551).
There was a natural reaction and revolt against this grosser interpretation of the bodily presence.
(To be continued)
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30

XI
September 1937 Vol. XVII No.12
Doctrines, as we have seen, came to be formulated in answer to and in reaction to questioning, doubt
and heresies. One of the Thirty-Nine Articles of The Church of England Prayer-Book represents the
outlook of the time when it teaches: "Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body,
with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man's nature; wherewith he
ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day'' (Article IV).
The more modern outlook is that our Lord having given the example of a noble and blameless life
returned to His place in the sphere of the things of the spirit. And, as we see in Him the
representative of humanity at large, He showed us in His victory over life and death the perfect
ensample of a godly life, the promise of the gradual ascent of man, and the fulfilment of the Divine
Purpose which lies behind the creation of man. Mr. Richardson (p. 269) quotes a passage from a
book written more than a generation ago by the present Anglican Bishop of Durham, Dr. Hensley
Henson, which interprets much of the early Apostolic narrative: "The Apostolic Church may be
compared to a child striving to describe some astonishing experience. The childish vocabulary is too
limited, the childish intelligence too undeveloped, to dispense with the aid of the childish
imagination; and the story which the child succeeds in telling certifies by its embellishment the great
impression made on the childish mind. We do not judge those to be wise persons who sweep aside
the whole story as without foundation because forsooth it contains manifest inaccuracy. So with the
early accounts of Christ's Resurrection" ( The Value of the Bible , P. 208 f). What may be said to lie
behind the doctrine is well summed up in a single sentence from an early "modernist" book by
another Anglican writer: The individual personality of our Lord ''was not lost or dissipated or
absorbed in something greater than itself, it was all there, freed, as we say, from some of its earthly
limitations, but not from those of individuality, still having an organ of expression of itself'' (Dr. J.F.
Bethune-Baker: The Faith of the, Apostles' Creed, p. 132). If our Lord is to be vested with a physical
body, glorified and spiritualized, that body ought surely to be thought of as remaining on earth to
keep relation with struggling humanity and to remain as an organ of contact with physical
conditions. A glorified physical body in superphysical worlds is a contradiction in terms; an
instrument of self-expression in higher worlds need not be thought of as physical - even to be
possessed of ''bones'' and ''sinews'' and to have blood coursing through its veins - and as taken up by
a process of resurrection from the tomb. Zwingli wrote against this confusion of thought, using, of
course, the idiom of his time, and meaning by the word ''body'' the physical body:
To be a body and to be eaten after a spiritual manner are inconsistent with one another, for
body and spirit are so different that, whichever you take, the other cannot be.''
They say, We adore and eat the spiritual body of Christ. What, by great Jupiter, is the
spiritual body of Christ? Is any other spiritual body of Christ anywhere found in Scripture
than either the Church . . or our faith? . . . A spiritual body is just as much understood by a
human being as if you spoke of a bodily mind or a fleshly reason. ( Opera , II., pp. 206, 215).
The Reformation Doctrines. There is no need to consider the doctrine of Consubstantiation. What has
been said about the "risen body'' applies also to this doctrine. Zwinglianism can be seen as a very
natural reaction against mediaeval superstition and grossness and crudity of outlook. It was the
outcome of a rationalizing effort. It does fail, however, to account for the remarkable change of
consciousness or experience of spiritual things which overtakes so many people at the Eucharist.
There is a widespread conviction against the "bareness," the "nudity,'' the "frigidity'' of the doctrine,
to quote descriptive words used by writers of repute. And our outlook in these days is different. We
have outlived the tendency to equivalate spirituality with other-worldliness. Zwinglianism and its
31
derivatives say that the Presence, if there be any Presence, is supra- mundane. It is in this world of
struggle and conflict that we have the greatest need of help, and it is surely a truer view of the
situation to say that it is precisely in this world that the great Lord of Love and Compassion deigns to
give us the blessing and succour of His Sacred Presence. The physical body is that in which man's
consciousness is focussed and for the time being limited, and it is only reasonable to suppose that it
is to the heightening of the bodily consciousness that the help of the sacraments is directed. The Holy
Eucharist may be viewed as an extension of the Incarnation.
Receptionism need not be discussed further; it was and is a doctrine which simply exchanges the
objective for the subjective, and was capably criticized in the passage which we quoted from Canon
Malcolm MacColl' s book, The Ref ormation Settlement, when dealing with the doctrine.
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32

XII
A MODERN INTERPRETATION
October 1937 Vol. XVIII No. 1
We may now consider another interpretation of the mode of the Sacred Presence. It turns on the
meaning which may be attached to the words body and blood. It was the custom two thousand years
ago, as we have already seen, to use these words in a symbolic sense. They were so used by our Lord
Himself. The discourse in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John is cast in terms of
mysticism and allegory. ''He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in
him.'' "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
"For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world" (John
VI, 56, 51, 33). Reference is made to the Jews who "did eat manna in the desert," and Christ then
speaks of a mystical sustenance through which His people draw their spiritual nourishment from
Him even as He lives by the Father who sent Him. Later in the same Gospel there is parallel
reference to their spiritual dependence upon and incorporation in Him: "I am the true vine, and my
Father is the husbandman.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can no nothing" (John XV. 1 and 5). St.
Paul carries on the same symbolism: "For as the body is one , and hath many members, and all the
members of that body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ . . . . . Now ye are the body of
Christ, and members in particular" (I Corinthians XII , 12 and 27).. I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me (Galatians 11, 20). This doctrine of mutual dependence is also worked out, this time in
terms of building symbolism, in Ephesians 11, 20-22 .... Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner
stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In
whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."
All this represents the idiom of the time. In Psalm 80, for instance, the phrases occur: "Thou feedest
them with the bread of tears." "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt" (verses 5 and 8). The
Didache , as we saw, refers to "the holy vine of David Thy servant." The use of such mertaphor in the
presentation of religious truth was common among the Jews. It figures widely also in the mysterycults of other religions. In this context I may quote a passage from a book by The Rev. John Gamble,
B.D., entitled Baptism, Conf irmation and the Eucharist: "The Body of Christ. We can well believe
that when Christ, taking the bread into His hands, said, This is My body , His words would be at once
intelligible to His disciples. We cannot suppose that He would utter what He knew would be an
enigma. The disciples had probably keys to His meaning , which we no longer possess. The `body of
heaven' occurs in a passage in Exodus as a synonym for the heaven itself 'And they saw the God of
Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the
body of heaven in his clearness' (XXIV, 10). This analogy would suggest that by 'His body' Christ
meant Himself in the fulness of His personality. The invitation to eat His body recalls the same
striking figure as we find it used by Ezekiel. In one of this prophet's visions a hand presents to him a
rolled book, and spreads it out before him. The Divine voice bids him eat the book and tell its
contents to the house of Israel. 'So,' he proceeds, 'I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat the
roll. And He said unto me, 'Son of Man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I
give thee.' Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness' (III, 3). We find the
same strong image in Revelations X, 9: 'And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the
little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall
be in thy mouth sweet as honey.' Evidently what is meant is a complete appropriation, so that the
thing received becomes a part of him who receives it (pp.90-91."
33
Bearing these facts in mind it does not seem necessary or even reasonable to identify the consecrated
elements with the post-Resurrection body and blood of Christ. That interpretation belongs to an age
which we have outgrown. We do well to remember that the work of the Schoolmen was the first
effort at a philosophical presentation of some doctrine of the Presence. It followed upon what are
called the "Dark Ages,'' from the sixth century onwards, when learning had in the We st practically
been eclipsed. The discoveries of modern science have displaced our landmarks of thought and our
psychology moves in a new orbit. Our conception of the universe is altogether different from that
which prevailed in the days of the Schoolmen and of the Reformers.
What is a body? It is the instrument through which the directing intelligence of man, that is, the real
man, expresses himself. The organism is so built up that man can use it for making relationship with
the world around him. Through it he can come into contact with his surroundings in terms both of
giving and receiving. The word also is used in an extended sense. We speak of the body-politic,
meaning the State or organized society; of the body-corporate, meaning a group of people who form
a single entity in law; and of the corpus juris, the body or code of laws. Is not this interpretation of
the word applicable to the Host? The Host serves as the organism or physical nucleus or instrument
through which our Blessed Lord pours abundantly of His Life for the blessing and uplifting of His
world and for the nourishing of our spiritual being. It serves also as the medium through which we
are privileged to reach up into closer and more intimate fellowship with Him. On this hypothesis the
term body is applied to the consecrated bread, and there is no need to postulate identity of the risen
and ascended earthly Body of the Lord and the consecrated Host. In other words, the process can be
interpreted in terms of life or consciousness rather than of matter. The Lord Christ enters into direct
relationship with the bread and wine; they serve as the physical medium through which His Life is
contacted. Jeremy Taylor, Anglican Bishop of Dromore in Ireland (1613-1667), represents the
outlook of his time when he writes as follows:
In the explication of this question it is much insisted upon that it be inquired whether, when
we say we believe Christ's body to be 'really' in the sacrament, we mean, that body, that flesh,
that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was crucified, dead and buried. I answer, I know none
else that He had or hath: that there is but one body of Christ natural and glorified; but he that
says that body is glorified that was crucified, says it is the same body , but not after the same
manner; and so it is in the sacrament; we eat and drink the body and the blood of Christ that
was broken and poured forth: for there is no other body, no other blood of Christ; but though
it is the same which we eat and drink, yet it is in another manner" (quoted in Gore's The Body
of Christ, p. 62).
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34

XIII
SACRAMENTS AND MYSTERY CULTS
November 1937 Vol. XVIII No. 2
In these days our outlook is different. The human voice is made well-nigh ubiquitous by means of
the wireless apparatus. Telepathy is now widely acknowledged as a fact. These physical similes
support the thesis that our Lord need not be restricted to one body but can use countless bodies, or, in
other words, outposts of His consciousness, through which He may deign to express Himself.
The view has sometimes been put forward that the sacraments are a later importation into
Christianity, that they were, in fact, taken over from the mystery-cults of the Mediterranean basin.
The verdict of scholarship is against this contention. The question is briefly discussed by Dr. N.P.
Williams in Essays Catholic and Critical, and the book by Dr. F. Gavin, to which we have already
referred, The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments, adduces weighty evidence to the
contrary. The two systems, however, were not isolated from each other. Dr. Williams acknowledges
that St. Paul "was writing for persons familiar in a greater or less degree with Mystery Religions
(p. 431). Are we to think that our Lord was a stranger to all that was contained in other great
religions of the world? It is surely not unreasonable to suppose that He in His wisdom may have seen
fit to embody in this new religious impulse something of the same procedure which had appeared
elsewhere and to adapt it to His own sacred purpose. In the Mysteries of ancient Egypt the body of
Osiris was dismembered and scattered and eventually reintegrated. So also in Hinduism we have the
doctrine of the One becoming Many and of the Many returning to the One - the putting out of the
Divine Life into manifestation and the final reintegration into the consciousness of God. There were
sacramental meals in a number of the mystery-cults through the partaking of which the recipient
became incorporated in the deity. Scholars and Christian apologists have a habit of belittling these
mystery-cults and of accentuating doctrines and licentious excesses which may have taken place at
one period or another of their history.
They acknowledge that little historical material is to hand. Is there any reason to suppose that some
of these may not have been lofty and pure in their inception? Has the world been bereft of the Divine
Providence during the half million or million years in which man in his present make-up has been
existent?
We have so far considered the interpretation of the word ''body. How are we to understand the word
''blood''? A study of ancient rites shows that blood sacrifices were widespread. They were prevalent
in the early days of Judaism. In Exodus XXIV, 8, there is an account of a covenant between Jehovah
and the Israelite tribes ratified by the sprinkling of blood. The rite of circumcision would seem to
carry the same significance of a covenant. The blood represents the being of the person. In Leviticus
XVII, ii, it is said "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to
make atonement for your souls .. In another and higher phase of the sacrificial ritual we find the
fruit of the vine replacing blood. In the Mysteries of Bacchus (which may quite well have been lofty
and pure in their inception), of Attis, Eleusis and Mithra, the drinking of the cup figured. There was a
blessing of God for wine at the Jewish fellowship meals (cf. Gavin, p. 65 et seq.). The idea of a
covenant figures in the Gospel accounts of the institution. I quote from the Revised Version of the
Scriptures: "This is My blood of the covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins"
(Matthew XXVI, 27); "This is My blood of the covenant which is shed for many" (Mark XIV, 24);
"This cup is the new covenant in My blood, even that which is poured out for you" (Luke XXII, 20);
"This cup is the new covenant in My blood" (I Corinthians XI, 25).
35
For the foundation meaning of these rites we need only to turn to the Christian scriptures. Blood and
wine have alike figured in ritual ordinances from early times as symbolical of the Divine Life
outpoured in sacrifice. In Revelations V, 6, (Revised Version) we have the symbolism of "a Lamb
standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits
of God, sent forth into all the earth.'' And verse 8 of chapter XIII reads as follows: "And all that
dwell on the earth shall worship Him, every one whose name hath not been written in the book of
life of the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world. " These references are to the
primal sacrifice of the Logos, of which there will be occasion to speak later in more detail. We have
already discussed the symbolism of the Vine and the branches worked out in the sixth chapter of the
Gospel according to St. John and in other passages. In speaking of the cup as being, His blood, and
as figuring a covenant of undying love and fellowship between Himself and His people, our Lord
was speaking to the Jews of Capernaum in their own language. The symbolism is one to which
people of our time do not always take kindly. We are naturally repelled at the thought of blood
sacrifices, and the word itself calls up in the mind unpleasant scenes of cuts and wounds and perhaps
of savagery. There is, however, another and juster interpretation of the physical symbolism. The
blood is the life-distributing and life-regulating agent in the body. Were it to stop flowing and
functioning in its manifold capacity a man would collapse. The blood, therefore, is a vital possession
for which we should be exceedingly grateful. It is sometimes asked whether it would not be in
keeping with the outlook of our time to substitute other words for "Body" and "Blood." It is urged
that they represent a form of symbolism which has been outgrown. One can only reply that changes
of that scope would require to be made and sanctioned by the Catholic Church at large and not by
some small section of it. When one considers the unspeakable privilege bestowed on the
communicant, matters of archaism in terminology fade into the background. Moreover, ways of
looking at things which find approval in these days may not commend themselves in two hundred
years' time. We shall return to this subject when we discuss the doctrine of the "mystical body" of
Christ.
A form of Virtualism akin to the interpretation of the words Body and Blood which we have been
advancing is developed by Mr. Will Spens, C.B.E., M.A., Master of Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, in Essays Catholic and Critical. Mr. Spens draws the analogy of a florin as being "an
object which has certain natural properties and certain purchasing value. We tend to think of the
latter as to all intents and purposes a property of the object; yet it depends simply and solely on the
fact that the object is an effectual symbol. . . . . Such considerations justify the tendency to speak of
the consecrated elements as Host and Chalice, or as the Blessed Sacrament, or, using our Lord's
words, to describe them as His Body and Blood, not as asserting any material or quasi-material
identity with His natural or glorified body and blood, but as asserting that they render Him
appropriable as our sacrifice" (pp. 441, 442) . He uses for this proposition the words "Convaluation"
or "Transvaluation"; and he goes on to say, what I myself said at the opening of this article, that if
the word substance be given a modern meaning, and the changing of the substance of the bread and
wine into the substance of the body and blood assumed by our Lord at the Incarnation be postulated,
the doctrine can be described as one of transubstantiation. Professor O.C. Quick examines this theory
in his book, The Christian Sacraments (pp. 214-220). He is afraid that it may be used to "mask an
important ambiguity, "but he goes on to say that the doctrine can be "accepted whole-heartedly'' if it
means that "sacraments are at once expressive symbols and effective instruments of spiritual realities
and operations A sacrament is actually an instrument whereby God's power operates upon us,
not solely through the medium of a meaning apprehended by our minds." It has already been pointed
out in this article that in earlier times the word "symbol" meant something which expressed rather
than cloaked the underlying reality.
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36

XIV
EARLY ANTICIPATION OF THIS INTERPRETATION
December 1937 Vol. XVIII No.3
I have described what has been said above as a modern interpretation of the mode of the Presence.
The idea is nowhere clearly worked out in the writings of the past, but some writers have reached out
more or less unconsciously towards it. The thought of the time had no occasion to cope with ubiquity
and did not embrace the idea that Christ might have many bodies.
Let us first consider Harnack's interpretation of Origen. Harnack (Vol. IV. pp. 290-291) quotes a
German writer Steitz, to the effect that in Origen's view the Eucharist is the equivalent of the
offering of the shew-bread in the Jewish worship. In that rite twelve loaves of unleavened bread are
"shown" or presented before the Lord in the sanctuary of the tabernacle by the high priest each
Sabbath. In the Christian rite the Church lays this bread before God in commemoration of the
passion and death of Christ, using the words with which He introduced and founded the Supper. And
Steitz goes on to say whenever Origen speaks of the Supper or indeed in a more general sense of the
eating of the flesh or of the drinking of the blood of Christ, he does this without any reference to the
body which He had as man or to the blood which flowed in the veins of this body. In our study of
Origen we saw that he regarded the rite mainly in its sacrificial aspect as portraying the life
outpoured for the nourishment of our souls. Harnack does not agree with Steitz's claim that the rite
was regarded as symbolic in the modern sense of that word. He stresses the fact that the ancient
Church interpreted symbol in terms of reality and says that in this later sense of the word, "A purely
symbolic conception of the Supper never existed, for it was always harmoniously united with a ritual
which was based on a very realistic way of conceiving of it" (Vol. IV. p. 289). Harnack next
discusses Eusebius, from whose writings we have quoted a passage in this article. The consecrated
elements are "symbols of the mystical body of Christ . . . . : only from the sacrificial point of view do
they already possess the value of mysterious symbols of the actual body, the body which was once
offered up" (p. 291). We need not concern ourselves with Harnack's treatment of the other primitive
writers. His judgment is to this effect: in all the Fathers the spiritualistic amplifications of the
doctrine occur always with reference to John VI." In this chapter of St. John's gospel Jesus speaks of
Himself as "the bread of God which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." And
Harnack maintains that what the Fathers had in mind in the Eucharist was not the body which He
wore on earth but a mystical body which for them was absolutely real" (p . 292). (I do not quote his
language because it is involved and would require close study on the part of the reader.)
In our examination of the earlier teaching we saw that such words as symbol, figure, sign, likeness,
type, mark a correspondence between the elements of bread and wine and that of which they become
the early instrument or vehicle or channel or re-presentation. On the earlier phases of this doctrine
Gore writes in explicit language:
"The symbol, or 'outward and visible sign,' then, is the evidence to the senses of a divine
reality actually present. It is for this reason that the visible gifts and altar are called 'mystical
or 'spiritual. For as surely as with the outward eye you behold the bread and wine lying on
the table, so surely with the eye of faith you are to behold heaven opened and brought down
to earth, and the angels worshipping, and the eternal living priest exhibiting to you His once
more offered sacrifice in His body and His blood, and coming to you to feed you with the
life -giving food. Certainly the theologians of that period, though they are highly rhetorical
and occasionally use language which could not be rigidly justified, as a whole suggest to us
not precisely an image of a Christ contained in or under veils of bread and wine. There can be
no doubt that their theology led them to shrink from any such formulation of their belief as
37
suggested, a Christ subjecting Himself to limits of space. They preferred the language which
suggests the breaking away of material limits before the eye of faith" (The Body of Christ, pp.
89-90).
Further:
"It is a suggestive fact that they frequently introduce into the immediate neighbourhood of
some particularly definite or local phrase with reference to our Lords eucharistic presence,
another of a vaguer character which takes the edge off the seemingly local definition'' (pp.
91-92).
There is some foreshadowing of the doctrine in the writings of St. Augustine. His writings, like those
of other early exponents of doctrine, are not always consistent when studied critically. Writing of St.
Augustine's doctrine of the Eucharistic Bishop Gore has the following passage in his book
Dissertations:
"Perhaps at times he thought of the spiritual essence of Christ's humanity, the 'flesh', as
receiving a new symbolical 'body' in the bread and wine; this spiritual essence of Christ's
humanity becoming also the spiritual essence of the Church; so that the sacramental 'body'
represents equally Christ and the Church" (pp.233-234). The same doctrine shows itself in
the ninth century. A certain Paschasius Radbert, a monk of the Abbey of Corbey, wrote a
treatise on the Eucharist in c.831, de Corpore et Sanguine Domini. In this book he maintained
the doctrine which presently came to be known as "transubstantiation.'' His teaching was that
the presence is spiritual, but that the body is the very body born of Mary, crucified and
buried, and which rose from the tomb. He goes on to record "a number of materialistic
miracles, in which the hidden reality was made to appear in the form of the divine infant or as
a bleeding limb of flesh.'' ( Op cit pp. 236-237) This gave rise to what is described as the first
controversy on the Eucharist. As the detail of the controversy is complicated we may content
ourselves with quotations from various writers giving the gist of the discussion. Rabanus
Maurus (776-856), who became Archbishop of Mainz in 847 and is described as the ablest
scholar of his time, emphatically denies that the body of the eucharist is the same body as that
in which Christ lived and died. He himself asserts an objective spiritual transformation in the
elements . . . '' (Op.cit., p.239). The `state and mode of presence' is different from "His state
in His life on earth and His mode of presence in the glory of His heavenly life (Darwell
Stone, I., p.223). The teaching in this case is that the Host is the Body of Christ, not a Body.
A monk named Ratramn of the same monastic home as Paschasius writes more definitely in
opposition to Paschasius. We may quote one more from Barclay's The Protestant Doctrine of
the Lord's Supper : "The second question propounded to Ratramnus, 'Whether it is that body
which was born of Mary; suffered and died and was buried, which rose again and ascended
into heaven' this question Tatramnus answers in the negative . . . Ratramnus insists that the
historic body of Christ cannot in any fashion be in the Supper, and he gives three reasons for
this impossibility. 1st. After the resurrection, Christ's historic body is imperishable and
eternal. 2nd. After the resurrection, the historic body of Christ is still visible and tangible.
3rd. The historic body is true God and true Man, and one could not grant these attributes to
Him who is in the Eucharist. What, then, according to Ratramnus, does the Lord's Supper
bestow? The answer can only be - The Invisible Bread, the Spirit of Christ, the Power of the
Logos (paras. 22, 26, 44ff) - Christ the Word is spiritually imparted to us through the mystic
form of the Sacrament'' (p. 290). Gore writes as follows: "He distinguishes between the
historical actual visible body of Christ, which is now in heaven - the `veritas carnis quam
sumpserat de virgine' - and the sa cramental body - the 'sacramentum carnis - and that in the
most emphatic way. In this connection he seems to speak as if the presence in the sacrament
were only a presence of the divine Spirit, or the Word of God: and as if the sacrament were
38
only called the body of Christ because the bread and wine make a new body for the divine
Spirit or Word to operate through . . . . Again he speaks as if the bread were in no other sense
Christ's natural heavenly body than it is the mystical body, that is the Christian people, which
it also represents" (pp. 244-245).
The same idea is developed in beautiful language by a certain Aelfric, Abbot of Cerne in Dorset
before 1000 and who became Abbot of Eynsham in 1005. He wrote two books of "homilies," or
expository sermons between the years 985 and 990. He says that:
some things are said of Christ through a figure and others literally.... He is called bread
through a figure, and a lamb, and a lion, and what else . . . Great is the difference between the
invisible might of the holy housel (an archaic word for the Sacred Host) and the visible
appearance of its own nature. . . Great is the difference between the body in which Christ
suffered and the body which is hallowed for housel. The body truly in which Christ suffered
was born of Mary's flesh with blood and with bones, with skin and with sinews, in human
limbs, with a reasonable soul living; and His spiritual body, which we call housel, is gathered
of many corns, without blood and bones, without limb, without soul, and therefore nothing
therein is to be understood bodily but all is to be understood spiritually. . . Many receive this
holy body, and yet it is all in every part after the spiritual mystery." (Darwell Stone, I, p. 237)
One more writer should be quoted, Berengar of Tours, who became Director of the Cathedral School
there in 1031. Bishop Gore deals at some length with the case of Berengar in Dissertations, pp. 249269. Berengar is ultra-controversial in his writings. Of one book Gore says: "His book indeed is
important, as for other reasons, so for its place in scholasticism. The Church had not yet made up its
mind to adopt the rising philosophy of the time. There was a great tendency on the part of
ecclesiastics to glorify simple belief and to deprecate the attempt to understand Christian doctrines,
or to meet all mental difficulties with a simple appeal to the divine omnipotence" (Op.cit. p. 249)
Berengar argues forcibly against the doctrine of transubstantiation. His view is perhaps most
conveniently summed up in a letter to him quoted in Darwell Stone (I, p. 245):
Not later than the summer of 1049 Hugh, Bishop of Langres. who also had been a fellowpupil with Berengar, wrote to him on the same subject, remonstrating with him for his
contention that the body of Christ is in the Sacrament 'in such a way that the nature and
essence of the bread and wine are not changed,' and maintaining that if the body present in
the Eucharist is only a creature of the mind and the actual body of Christ is in the Sacrament
merely in power and effect, this Sacrament would lose its distinctness from other Sacraments
and particularly from Baptism."
The reader will understand that passages such as these which we have been quoting are rare. From
the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 and still more after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 which
affirmed the two natures in Christ, divine and human, the doctrine gradually assumes the forms with
which we are familiar. The taking of the manhood of our Lord into heaven came increasingly to be
stressed and the Eucharistic doctrine followed suit. Harnack throws light on the development of this
doctrine: "The antignostic Fathers acknowledged that the consecrated food consisted of two things,
an earthly (the elements) and a heavenly (the real body of Christ). They thus saw in the sacrament a
guarantee of the union between spirit and flesh, which the Gnostics denied; and a pledge of the
resurrection of the flesh nourished by the blood of the Lord (Vol II p. 145). Thus, he points out, we
come eventually to the doctrine of transubstantiation .
--------
39

XV
THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST
January 1938 Vol. XVIII No. 4
In some nine passages in the Epistles ascribed to St. Paul the Church is spoken of as the body of
Christ. One passage of outstanding beauty will be familiar to readers: "And he gave some, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ: . From whom the whole body fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of
every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians IV,
vv.11,12,13,16). The symbolism here worked out is masterly - as also the English translation of the
text. It is a symbolism which lies at the basis of Freemasonry. And it is a symbolism, which has also
been worked out in the doctrine of the Mystical Body of the Church. In every society the members
are united for the special purpose and end which the society has in view. It is a common purpose.
And each member contributes his own peculiar talent, serving in that way the same diversity of
function and "effectual working" as do the several organs of the physical body. In the mystical body
of the Church Christ is the source of life and love, binding the members together as one. The lifeblood which courses through the body of the Church is the love of Christ, flooding the world with its
unique power.
The doctrine of the Mystical Body of the Church is briefly worked out in The Catholic
Encyclopaedia in these terms:
"The doctrine may be summarized as follows: (1) The members of the Church are bound
together by a supernatural life communicated to them by Christ through the sacraments.
Christ is the centre and source of life to Whom all are united, and Who endows each one with
gifts fitting him for his position in the body. These graces, through which each is equipped
for his work, form it into an organized whole, whose parts are knit together as though by a
system of ligaments and joints. Through them, too, (2) the Church has its growth and
increase, growing in extension as it spreads through the world, and intensively as the
individual Christian develops in himself the likeness of Christ. (3) In virtue of this union the
Church is the fulness or complement (pleroma) of Christ. It forms one whole with Him; and
the Apostle even speaks of the Church as `Christ' (I Cor., XII., 12). (4) This union between
head and members is conserved and nourished by the Holy Eucharist. Through this sacrament
our incorporation into the Body of Christ is alike outwardly symbolized inwardly actualized
'We being many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread' (I Cor., X. 17)."
The doctrine is founded, of course, upon the beautiful imagery used in the fifteenth chapter of the
Gospel according to St. John, detailing the parable of the vine and the branches. "I am the vine, ye
are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without
me ye can do nothing" (v. 5). The synopsis which introduces the chapter in the Authorized Version
reads in this wise: "The consolation and mutual love between Christ and his members under the
parable of the vine." The use of the word "members'' is happy. Our Lord stresses the same idea and
lays down the same ideal of mutual dependence elsewhere. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew, XXV. 40). And in relation with
His disciples: "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that
despiseth me despiseth him that sent me" (Luke, X, 16). The same symbolism of mutual dependence
in the body-corporate is wonderfully expounded, as we have seen, by St. Paul. And in I Corinthians,
X, vv. 16-17, St. Paul relates it with the Eucharist: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
40
communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of
Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread."
Here St. Paul sets forth the idea of our being one body and of the Eucharist helping us to the
realization of that fundamental and already existing relationship with Our Lord and with one another.
"Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (I Corinthians, XII. 27).
These ideas of the Eucharist are developed in some measure by various early writers, some of whom
we have already quoted. The symbolism of the vine constantly recurs. The Didache (which dates
from either the first or the second century) in regard to the offering of the chalice speaks of "the holy
vine of David" made known "to us through Jesus Thy servant''; and in regard to the host uses this
phrase: "As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and being gathered together became
one, so may Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom:...... (Dr.
Darwell Stone Vol. I. , p.24). Clement of Alexandria has recourse to the same symbolism, likening
the Church to the human body ''consisting of many members." Origen, as we saw, applies the
expression "clean food" to the Apostles as transmitters of spiritual grace to the world, after having
said of the Lord that "He gives drink and refreshment to the whole race of men." St. Augustine also
had closely in mind the relation between the Eucharist as the Body of Christ and the Church as His
mystical body. Dr. Darwell Stone (I., pp. 95-96) gives the following passages from his Sermons.
Speaking of the Eucharist St. Augustine says: "That virtue which is there understood is unity, that
being joined to His body and made His limbs we may be that which we receive." Again: "Brethren,
these things are called Sacraments for this reason, that in them one thing is seen, another thing is
understood.... If you wish to understand the body of Christ hear the Apostle speaking to the faithful,
'Now ye are the body and members of Christ.' .What is the one bread? 'Many are one body.'
Remember that the bread is not made from one grain but from many. Many grapes hang on the
cluster, but the juice of the grapes is gathered together in unity. So also the Lord Christ signified us,
wished us to belong to Him, consecrated on His Table the mystery of our peace and unity." St.
Chrysostom deals with the Pauline exposition in the following terms: "What is the meaning of 'a
communion?' We are that body itself. For what is the bread? The body of Christ. And what do they
who partake become? The body of Christ, not many bodies but one body" ( Ibid., p. 96). Alcuin, who
lived in the ninth century has the following passage: "In the grains of wheat whence the flour is
made that it may become bread, the union of the whole Church is indicated, which by the fire of the
Holy Ghost is baked into one body, so that the members may be united to their Head. Also in the
waters which are mixed with the wine there is a figure, as we said, of the nations" (Ibid., p. 200).
These few passages will suffice for our purpose. They show that the larger idea of the Christian
forming part of the mystical body of the Lord is included in the tradition handed down in the Church,
and that the realization of that mystical incorporation is the purpose of communion.
-----
41

XVI
PSYCHOLOGY
February 1938 Vol. XIII No. 5
Since these passages were penned and the above-mentioned doctrines formulated a whole science
has been developed and worked out in the western world in the domain of human psychology.
Psychology is defined in the following terms in The Universal Dictionary of the English Language ,
edited by Dr. H.C. Wyld (1934): "That branch of philosophy which examines and treats of the
growth, functions and processes, conscious or subconscious, of the mind in relation to sensations,
feelings, emotions, memories, will and conduct, whether examined introspectively, or from the
behaviour of others under specified conditions; usually contrasted with logic and metaphysics." The
faculty with which we are specially concerned in connection with the subject now being reviewed is
that which goes by the name of intuition. Intuition is postulated in Plato's doctrine of Ideas, and its
fruits are to be seen in the writings of Christian and other mystics. As a science its study was
developed by Descartes, Leibnitz, Berkeley, and in modern times by that outstanding genius, Henri
Bergson. The most penetrating scheme of psychology which the world has yet seen is to be found in
the ancient Indian scriptures. Intuition there receives the fullest recognition under the name of
buddhi. And in the light of these teachings the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ takes on new
values. The Christian outlook is still hampered by the practice of looking upon man as the physical
bodily organism which possesses a soul and a spirit. The official Roman doctrine is typical; it ranks
the words soul and spirit as synonymous and speaks of man as a duality. Cardinal Gasparri's wellknown book, The Catholic Catechism, thus defines man: "Man is a creature, made up of a rational
soul and an organic body" (p. 77). This habit of identifying man with the body he wears has left its
impress on the whole of Christian worship, as expressed in the Liturgies of the historic Churches,
with their appeals for mercy and constant attitude of self-abasement .
The origin and destiny of man is set forth in thrilling language in a single verse of the Hindu
Mundaka Upanishat: "As from a blazing fire in a thousand ways similar s parks spring forth, so from
the Indestructible, O beloved, various types of beings are born, and also return to Him. "And the RigVeda tells us: "He willed: 'May I be many, may I be born.' " On the process at work there is no need
to dwell here, and we cannot do better than quote a few words by way of general outline from a book
by Dr. Annie Besant: "Man is an Immortal Being, clad in a garb of flesh, which is vivified and
moved by desires and passions, and which he links to himself by a thread of his immortal nature.
This thread is the mind, and this mind, unsubdued and inconstant, wanders out among the things of
earth, is moved by passions and desires, hopes and fears, longs to taste all cups of sense-delights, is
dazzled and deafened by the radiance and the tumult of its surroundings. And thus, as Arjuna
complained, the 'mind is full of agitation, turbulent, strong and obstinate.' Above this whirling mind,
serene and passionless witness, dwells the True Self, the Spiritual Ego of man. Below there may be
storm, but above there is calm, and there is the Place of Peace (The Spiritual Lif e , pp.61-62). On the
reality of the struggle to reach the state of the Unity we are all agreed for we are all engaged in it.
The secret of reaching the knowledge of the Unity behind all lower phenomenal manifestation is the
learning to identify ourselves with the True, to distinguish and to choose between the Real and the
Unreal. It is to the first-hand knowledge of this One Life that the power of the Blessed Sacrament
brings those of us who are Christians and who value and make due use of this sublime gift. Darkness
and illusion fall away before the Presence of Him Who is the Light of the World. This is the great
truth which lies behind the phrase in the Gospel story, ''he was known to them in breaking of bread"
(Luke, XXIV, 35).
42
We have in this study of Eucharistic doctrine devoted most of our attention to the different
hypotheses as to the mode of the presence, to the change that takes place in or under the outer
manifestations of bread and wine. But the process of real significance is the relation that is set up
between the power of the Lord playing through the consecrated elements and that which lies behind
them and the Christ Who dwells within ourselves. The Christ spirit Immanent in man is quickened
into relation with the flood of Life-power which flows through the Host. "Seated equally in all
beings," says an Indian scripture, "the Supreme Lord of All, indestructible within the destructible: he
who thus seeth, he seeth" ( Bhagavad-Gita, X111, 27). And in our own Liturgy we speak of our Lord
as showing Himself this day upon a thousand altars and yet as being One and indivisible, and then
proceed to pray for the at-one-ment of the world: "as Thou, O Lord Christ, wast made known to Thy
disciples in the breaking of bread, so may Thy many children know themselves to be one in Thee,
even as Thou art one with the Father." It is the mark of the intuitional experience in consciousness
that whilst knowing all men to be different in their make-up and in the characteristic contribution
they are able to make to the world-process, one knows them to be bound together in an inseparable
unity. This is what is meant by oneness in the body of Christ. And the awakening of this, and of the
sense of our relationship with our Blessed Lord Who is the source of this One Life, is the priceless
blessing given to us in the Eucharist.
SOME OTHER APPLICATIONS OF WORD ''BODY"
To complete our study of the "The Body of Christ,'' we should briefly take note of other senses in
which those words are applicable. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of
God dwelleth in you?" So writes St. Paul in I Corinthians, III, 16. In addition to the Blessed
Sacrament being the Body of the Lord, as also to the Church being His Mystical Body, there is this
sense in which the individual man is the spiritual and personal expression of Christ. St. Paul says
elsewhere: "... for ye are the temple of the living God; .. (II Corinthians, VI, 16). In propor tion
as man is able to bring his personal equipment into right relationship with his Ego or individuality so
is he able to make resplendent that true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world"
(John, I, 9).
The phrase ''The Body of Christ" can also be used in the cosmic sense of that field of manifestation
into which is poured the life of the Logos or Word. As all things were made by him, without him
was not anything made that was made (John 1, 3). The earth on which we live is His Body. And in
the still wider field of correspondence also the universe, in which our earth is an infinitesimal speck.
The earth can be envisaged as a living organism embodying the Divine Life in the same sense as we
embody it. May it not be that this organism expresses itself in relation with other planetary bodies in
the whole scheme of correspondences? There are certain Eastern traditions of a festival celebrated
yearly in which the earth receives a special blessing as the consummation of the working out of a
certain ceremonial. May not that event be equivalent at its own infinitely exalted level to the
consecration of the Host, so that the said ceremony is designed not only to help those dwelling on
this earth but that the earth also should make its special contribution of blessing to the worlds around
it and with which it is in ordered relationship?
(The end)
------
43
THE WORLD CONGRESS OF FAITHS AT OXFORD

Docteur (Sciences) de l'Universit de Paris
September 1941 Vol.XXI No.12
Any readers of THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC will know of the existence of an organization called
''The World Congress of Faiths'' and working under the skilled and beneficent leadership of Sir
Francis Younghusband, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E. The first congress of this body was held in London in
1936, the second at Oxford in 1937, the third at Cambridge in 1938, the fourth at The Sorbonne in
Paris in 1939, the fifth in 1940 had been planned for The Hague in Holland, but on the outbreak of
the war had to be transferred to Bedford College, London. The Congress of this year took place at
Oxford, June 27 - July 2; it was convened in The Ladies' College, Lady Margaret Hall, where
sleeping and feeding accommodation was also provided. The attendance at the meetings this year
ranged from two hundred to two hundred and fifty persons. At the London Congress of 1936 some
three hundred and fifty were in regular attendance at the ordinary meetings.
At these congresses adherents of the many world faiths meet together in harmony and concord and
discuss various subjects from the standpoint of these representative world faiths. No attempt is being
made to fuse the various religions into one or to build up a new ''world-religion.'' On this issue it will
be of interest to quote Sir Francis Younghusband: ''To promote the spirit of fellowship was the one
aim of the Congress. The organizers had no intention of formulating another eclectic religion, nor of
appraising the value of the existing religions and discussing their respective merits and defects, nor
of maintaining that all were 'the same,' all equally true and one as good as another, nor of seeking the
lowest common denominator and building on that. Not breadth without depth did they seek, but only
that breadth which naturally comes from deepening depth. They sought to bring out and intensify
that sense of community which is latent in all men, and so form a fellowship of common
understanding and mutual appreciation."* Another passage headed "The Purpose of the Congress'' is
printed on the back of the programme of this year, and reads as follows: "The object for which the
World Congress of Faiths is organized is to promote a spirit of fellowship among mankind through
religion. The main object is not an appraisement of the various religions, still less an attempt to
merge them into one. It is a World Fellowship in which each fellow will be allowed full play for his
own distinctive individuality, since only through recognizing differences can the closest unity be
attained. It is hoped that the Congress will awaken a livelier world-consciousness and give men a
vision of a happier world order in which the roots of fellowship will strike deep down to the Central
Source of all spiritual loveliness until that which sprouted as human shall flower as Divine. We aim
at something deeper than the Brotherhood of Man. We would touch men's souls: we would promote
kinship of souls. Not until men's souls are satisfied will they be happy: not until they are happy will
they be at peace with themselves and with one another. Therefore do we seek to satisfy men's souls.
This is the greatest work in the world to-day for it is world-wide in its scope, fundamental in its aim,
universal in its appeal."
The lecturers at these congresses are mostly men of high scholarship and some renown, and
members of the audience are able to join in the subsequent discussions. It will interest our readers to
know the main subject chosen in each of these years around which the lecturing and discussion was
to range itself. In 1936 "World Fellowship through Religion"; in the subsequent years ''The World's
Need of Religion," "The Renascence of Religion," "How to Promote the Spirit of World-Fellowship
through Religion, ''The Common Spiritual Basis for International Order and this year "World
Religions and World Order: the Interdependence of Religion and the Political, Economic, Social and
Educational Aspects of the New World Order."
44
The morning meetings begin with some act of worship led on successive days by a representative of
the Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim faiths. At the Oxford Congress of this year the members were
invited by the Vicar to attend service at the University Church of St. Mary, High Street, Oxford, and
places were reserved for them.
The Congress was welcomed to Oxford by the Warden of All Souls', on behalf of the ViceChancellor of the University, who had to be at another meeting; and there were various speakers at
the Inaugural Meeting. Sir Francis Younghusband, in discussing the post-war situation and schemes,
said that they would need a spiritual inspiration and basis. Because of the divine element in all men
they should learn to get together, and not only to talk about their ideals but to put them into practice.
A Spaniard, Senor de Madariaga, known for his efforts the world over in the cause of peace, spoke
along similar lines. No economic or political scheme was going to suffice in any future settlement
unless it brought into it that Spirit common to all faiths. The next speaker, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, in
a fine speech, pointed a contrast of function between east and west. Religions come from the east.
Muhammedanism came from Arabia; Judaism and Christianity from Palestine. It was the function of
the west to supply social and political help. And he asked how India was going to be treated. A
Christian followed in the person of Canon Grensted. He claimed that reason had set itself in the place
of God. Our divergent ways of looking at things were so intricate that we had missed the essential
simplicity of God.
On the morning of Saturday, June 28, the Chairman was Lord Samuel, the speaker Dr. Gilbert
Murray and the subject "The Political Aspect." Dr. Murray asked if the self- contained armed nation
is still to be in it. We are groping towards a unity which shall be the essential core of our nations and
of our religions. He thought that the main stream is this desire for unity, not the wickedness which is
kicking against this onward movement.
In the afternoon the Chairman was Diwan Runganadhan, the speaker Lord Davies and the title "The
British Commonwealth a Way to World Commonwealth.'' An animated discussion followed,
centring round the defects of, and the possibility of, a reconstitution of The League of Nations.
On Sunday, June 29, prior to the Anglican Church service at the University Church of St. Mary, a
meeting was arranged at which the talk was on "The Religious Home the Basic World Unit.'' The
Chairman was Dr. Maxwell Garnett and the speaker The Hon. Mrs. B.R. James. The afternoon
lecture was magnificent. It was given by Mr. A. Yusuf Ali on ''The Inter-Religious Aspect, the
occupant of the Chair being Baron Pahmstierna. Mr. Yusuf Ali spoke of politics, economics,
education and morality. Religion needed to be behind all these. He had known France intimately
since his student days. "Politics in France is a game by which wicked men seek to hide their
wickedness.'' The British Empire is very stable - perhaps the most stable thing in the world to-day.
This is partly due to the fact that the Empire is decentralized. When discussing morality he said that
sanctions of morality are likely to break down under stress of strong economic difficulty. We need to
enrich our social life, to give pleasure to those in distress, consolation to those in trouble,
understanding to those in confusion, to lend a helping hand to those struggling. Such enrichment of
the social life makes us feel our common brotherhood. How is this enrichment of politics,
economics, education and morality by religion to be effected if religions are constantly in c onflict?
We are not likely to be rightly helpful to our neighbour if we think his religion all wrong. Let us
gather spiritual experience in the same way that a bee gathers honey from the various flowers to
which it goes. There is a spiritual food and there are spiritual flowers.
45
On Monday, June 30, in the morning, the Chairman was Dr. William Brown, the speaker Miss Maud
D. Petre and the subject "The Social Aspect.'' We should keep the sense of eternity behind our daily
life and our relationships; something eternal is going on behind all our outer processes. A good
discussion followed this talk, to which Mr. Arthur Jackman contributed some suggestive passages. In
the afternoon the Chairman was Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, the speaker Mr. Kenneth Lindsay, M.P.,
and the subject "The Educational Aspect." The growth of tariffs was discussed and the failure of
economic conferences. Dr. Eisler contributed to the discussion.
Tuesday, July 1, was the final day of the discussions. In the morning the Warden of All Souls'
occupied the Chair and the speaker was Mr. Peter Mayer, a German. Life was one long process of
reaching outwards and enlarging one's field of activity and interest. The sequence of units was the
individual, the family, the region, the nation, the communal and the world. We need to start the
individual going about the world doing good. The Iman of the Moslem mosque in London took part
in the discussion. The Chairman ended the discussion by saying that economics has to be our servant
and not our master; that the end of war is peace and the end of work leisure . We must not make too
sharp a division between work and leisure. They have to be married in the service of humanity.
-----It is heartening to see that work of this kind is now being done by competent scholars and publicists
of the world at large. The study of comparative religion formed, and forms, part of the Second
Object of The Theosophical Society, and it was this Society which for years did pioneer work in
making known the priceless teachings enshrined in other great religions of the world - the so called
heathen and pagan religions. (Similarly the study of "the powers latent in man'' is now becoming
widespread.) As the world-process moves onwards the ''Divine Wisdom'' will increasingly command
acceptance. The opportunity came to myself at the 1936 meeting in London of The World Congress
of Faiths to put in a plea for the recognition of the other religions. I then declared that I found the
best explanation of the existence of what we call evil in the teachings of Hinduism - the existence of
"the pairs of opposites," the complementary phases of involution and evolution, of the Path of
Forthgoing and that of Return of the Divine Life; the Pravritti Marga and the Nivritti Marga . Evil
has its value and use. Evil and good are the two facets of the one world-process. Wrong-doing
develops faculty, and that faculty will later be used in the service of good. Evil, so to speak, is the
raw material of good. Evil and good are relative terms. What may be evil under some conditions or
in the case of one person may be good under other conditions or in the case of a less developed
person. To kill another man in ordinary civil life is murder, to kill him under conditions of war is an
act of patriotism. Morality as between nation and nation, or as between one body corporate and
another, is at a lower stage of achievement, and more difficult of achievement, than between
individual and individual of corresponding culture. Much water has flown under the bridges since
man regarded this earth on which we live as the centre of the universe and the sun and the moon as
dutifully revolving round it. When I received the sacrament of confirmation in the Church of
England as a boy at school I was given a nicely got-up and bound edition of the Bible. It contains
marginal notes, and opposite the heading Chapter I of the Book of Genesis is printed the date B.C.
4004 assigned to the creation of the world in the chronology of Abp. Ussher (died 1656). Christians
at large and newspapers like The Church Times in particular may no longer accept this date, but they
have not stretched their minds adequately. According to them the coming of Jesus Christ into the
world and the founding of Christianity is the one supreme and unique event in the world's history,
redeeming the world from the fall of man depicted in Genesis. According to science this earth which
we inhabit is a small speck in the galaxies of universes. Does it need the plenitude of Deity to
redeem this microcosmic speck? Man has inhabited this world in human form perhaps one million
years. Has the world been vouchsafed the one true religion during the past two thousand years and
been left sterile (apart from the Old Testament) for the other nine hundred and ninety eight thousand
years? There is a school of thought in The Church of England headed by men of the calibre of Dr.
W.R. Inge, late Dean of S . Paul's Cathedral, and Dr. H.D.A. Major, the editor of The Modern
Churchman and Principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, who are Neo- Platonists in their outlook and hold
46
that the very core of man is rooted in the Divine Life, that man has in him, and is in fact, the divine
spark or the divine seed. This is different from the Roman Catholic and the more widely held
Anglican and Protestant teaching. On such a substratum of philosophy we can reconcile the other
great religions and their Founders with the divine scheme. In Them that life has emerged in its
fulness or quasi-fulness so far as this world in which we and They live is concerned. And the world
has never been left without its inspired Teachers and Saviours and without the divine guidance.
------* Foreword to Faiths and Fellowship, the Proceedings, of 1936, p. 9., J. M. Watkins, London
47
TACT AND TOLERANCE

By THE RT. REV. C.W. LEADBEATE R
October 1941 Vol. XXII No.1
The Intent given us in our Liturgy for to-day* is Tact and Tolerance. How rare these qualities are. It
is indeed quite a rare thing to find people who exhibit them as they ought to be exhibited, and yet
how necessary they are. Tolerance, for example, is a duty - nothing more nor less than a duty. It does
not in the least mean any laxity or uncertainty with regard to our own belief, but it means a wider
comprehension of what belief really is. You know that at different stages of evolution different sides
of the many faceted truth have to be emphasized. There are many classes in the divine school, and
for one of us to be intolerant of another man's form of faith is just like a boy let us say who is
learning mathematics scorning another boy because he is learning languages at the moment, or
drawing. All these things are necessary as parts of a liberal education; each has to pass through all
these stages in turn and each religion has something to give towards the total comprehension of the
truth. The truth is a very big thing, a very many-sided thing, and it is rare to find any single man or
any single body of men in possession of all sides of that truth at once. We are gradually evolving
towards a condition when we hope that that may be true of us, but we have not got there yet. All
truth is potentially ours, and all truth will be consciously ours in time, but in the meantime we must
devote ourselves to the learning of one side or the other side - that side perhaps in which in previous
lives we have been deficient.
So we who love ritual, we who are taking advantage of the outpourings of force which Christ gives
to His Church, we are learning that side of the truth, but there are many others who like what may
seem to us an altogether colder intellectual presentation of religion such as you get in some of the
dissenting services, such as you get, I think, in the Dutch Reformed Church, for example, and to
some extent among the Lutherans, but which would seem to us to be not a devotional but a very cold
intellectual presentation. I have heard the same thing in Scotland preached by the Established
Presbyterian Church there - a great deal of argument over all sorts of niceties of high belief which
did not interest me, because it did not seem to me that it mattered anyhow, and also in many cases no
human being could possibly know which was true. But there are many people who are at that stage
and can be reached only by that kind of intellectual presentation. Intellectual development is a very
fine thing and by no means to be despised, although to me, because I happen to be at a different
stage, other sides seem more important, more attractive. Perhaps that is a prejudice, but we must be
prepared to see that other people's ideas are precisely as good as our own, only they are emphasizing
a different side of the thing.
Outer forms and names are always unimportant. So very much stress has been laid on them in
Christianity through, I think, a mistaken interpretation of certain texts. They say that at the name of
Jesus every knee shall bow, and except through Him there can be no salvation. That is a misunderstanding of a great and beautiful truth. It is very true that through the Christ in man everyone does
gain his progress. The Christ in you is your hope of glory, as is very truly said, and it is through that
Christ in you that you can progress, and truly only in that way, but it does not mean that you must
apply a particular name to that, and unless you use that particular name you will not suc ceed in your
effort. That is not the meaning at all, for we use many different names; we speak of God, the
Frenchman speaks of Le bon Dieu. Different names are used in different languages. You do not
suppose that God cares by which language you address Him. He stands behind them all and above
them all, and it is all the same to Him. And just so when you go a little further away from your own
conception, you find that other people call God Allah, or even Shiva, Vishnu, Bramah. What does it
matter? They are all names for God, and it is the same thing to approach Him along a different
religion as along a different language. The outer names do not matter at all; it does matter that you
should have the right conception of God. Those who still think of Him as savage and cruel, as
merciless, unjust and capricious, they are very far from a right conception of Him. Of course, I do
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not say for a moment that they cannot reach His feet; they assuredly will, because that is God's will
for them, but I do feel that those who look upon Him in that way are further from Him, and further
from a comprehension of the glory and the beauty than are those who grasp the idea that God is Love
and that God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.
Those who still hold that contrary view will surely some day have to learn better. They will have to
learn more about God, but if they recognize Him as the loving Father by what Name they address
that loving Father does not matter in the slightest. So anything like intolerance of other faiths is a
sign of ignorance; it is a sign of selfishness; it is a sign that we are emphasizing too strongly our own
opinions. You must have your own opinions, but you need not make a fuss about them, and you have
no right to try to force them upon other people. You must remember that the world at large is not
interested in our convictions, any more than you are closely interested in the convictions of your next
door neighbour. Each person has his own line to follow; we cannot say it is wrong for him to follow
his own line and naturally he thinks most about that. Certainly you should be ready to explain your
convictions if asked, to give your reason for your belief, and if you meet with a person who holds
what seems to us to be an entirely wrong view of God you have the right to put forward your own
view, hoping that it may appeal to him. But even then, remember, you must do it very gently, very
courteously, putting yourself in that other man's place, and knowing exactly how it would seem to
him. If someone holding a different view were roughly to attack your religion, roughly to attack the
things that seemed sacred to you, you would be repelled. If he began in that way, you would not be
disposed to listen to his arguments. If he began very gently and very tactfully and if he says ''Are you
sure that is so," and tactfully and very carefully gives his reasons for thinking otherwise than as you
do, at least you are not antagonized. You may or may not see reason in his view, but at least no harm
is done; a seed is dropped into your mind and it may some day go further and bear fruit.
You must remember that as far as this life is concerned we have all of us been born in certain
countries and certain religions, and there is a strong sentiment attached to the form of religion to
which we are accustomed. I was born and brought up in the High Church of England. My mother
was a disciple of Dr. Pusey, of the old Oxford Movement. I know all that teaching in and out from
my youth up, and, of course, I have a warm corner for it always. I think the line we take here in the
Liberal Catholic Church is more advanced, is somewhat fuller of understanding of the truth than that
taken even by the High Church party in the Church of England, but I always seem to understand
their attitude, and I feel undoubtedly an attachment and affection for that form in which I was
brought up. Now I take it that is the same with all of you, but what you must not forget is that it is
the same with the people who hold directly opposite views. They have been brought up in something
they love, something for which they have deep affection, and you should remember that; do not rush
at their beliefs; that is not showing tact and tolerance; it may show noble indignation, but it is
distinctly out of place when dealing with religious matters. Be very gentle and very tactful; so you
see your tolerance merges into tact after all.
Now remember, tact is not merely just a means of getting on in the world as I am afraid some people
think; it is a Christian duty of the highest importance. It is really kindliness expressed in action. It is
fundamentally unselfishness. You must forbear all self-assertion just as much in speech as in action.
You must think as I have said about tolerance, you must think of the other man's feelings and you
must put yourself in his place. Think how a certain action, a certain word on your part will affect
him; think if you were in his place how would this appear to you. So often people, quite good and
quite kindly in intention, do not stop to think of that. They do not stop to see how it would appear
from the other man's point of view, which may be an entirely different one from your own.
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You must not sacrifice truth, but at the same time you must emphasize the good in everything and in
everybody. You have your own opinion about certain people and about certain things; you are not
bound to thrust it upon them; if you are asked your opinion you can give at least the best part of it,
you can make prominent the good qualities. There may be circumstances under which you are
obliged to say something as to the other side; if, for instance, you are asked for the character of a
servant, or if someone wants to know the whole truth about a person in order to be able to help him
better, then you would have to mention the failings as well as the good qualities, but I should put the
good qualities first. I should not bring forward the failings unless it became a real necessity. Then
people say, "You must think about the failings in order to try to help the person to correct them."
Now that shows you do not know anything about psychology. That is precisely what you must not
do. You must not think and talk about someone's failings in the hope of getting him out of them. The
more you think and talk about some evil thing, the more you strengthen that evil thing, and send out
influence of that same character. Suppose you have a man who has taken to drink. If you think,
"How dreadful it is that the man should drink; what an awful crime this is, whatever can we do about
it," all the time you are emphasizing the idea of drink and drinking, and you are sending thoughtforms about that very thing to that man. You are making his road harder for him to tread. You should
think with all your strength, "I wish that man were sober; I know that he has the power to be sober; I
wish he would recognize that power. Let me send him the strongest possible thoughts of self-control
and sobriety." Think about the opposite good and force that upon him, because every thought you
send out will help the man. If instead of doing that, you think how dreadful it is that he should drink,
the thought vibrations you send out are in harmony with the evil habit and the dwell on the evil and
strengthen it in him. But instead of that think strongly of the opposite good.
Then, again, take the case of a person who is cold and hard. Do not think, "How dreadful it is that he
should be so hard and cold; how awful it is, I am glad that I am not like that." All that is not good at
all; it. just emphasizes the hardness and coldness. Keep on pouring love on the man; think, "God is
Love; you are part of God even if you do not know it, therefore there is love in you." Stir it up; I do
not know how deep down it may be buried, but every effort helps it to come a little nearer to the
surface. In that way the thoughts of your neighbours and friends will do them good, but at present
your thoughts are liable to do them harm. You all mean well, but through not understanding the laws
of nature, which are the laws of God, you are liable to misdirect your energies and do more harm
than good. To think of a thing is to strengthen it always; so seize upon the good points in everybody
and think of them, and you will intensify them, and the more you intensify their good points the
more will those good points spread and develop more good qualities in them and tend to reduce the
evil.
I remember a quaint story in some of the old Jewish books which will serve as a good illustration of
this. It is said that when Jesus and His disciples were out walking as was their custom on the shore of
the Sea of Galilee they came upon the carcase of a dead dog far advanced in putrefaction. The
disciples remarked upon it and they had plenty to say about its unfavourable aspects; how horrible a
sight it was, how it ought not to be there; that the worms were already beginning to devour it; all the
general horror of it and so on; but Jesus said, "But don't you notice how beautifully white the teeth
are." Well, that is a very small thing, but yet you will notice that He, with the higher development,
just notices the one thing that could be praised, the one thing that was beautiful.
A similar idea, but very differently expressed, I have heard from one of the Masters of the Wisdom.
He said, "You have a good deal o f criticism among you, and you are always picking holes in things;
do you knout there is a kind of criticism which looks as eagerly for a pearl as your criticism does for
a flaw?'' And that, remember, is what you must do. Kritein in Greek means to judge, and the word
critical ought to mean exactly the same as judicial. Judicial is simply the Latin translation of the
Greek word critical, but we have given it a different meaning, and it should not be so. Our business
is to look for the good, and insist upon the good, and to see that is to help to strengthen the good. So
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we must find the best in everything and every man, and as far as possible we must try to meet people
along their own line in order that we may be able to help them.
You heard in the Epistle how St. Paul said that whatever was the line of the man with whom he had
to deal he tried to meet him along that line, to use his terms and explanations in order that he might
be able to help the man, to give him the good news. He says, If I have to deal with a strong Jew, I
behave to him as though I were a Jew. If, on the other is a slave to the law, very well, I talk along the
line of the law. If he has thrown all that off I talk outside that. If he has no strength I talk to him
down at that level, just as though I had the same difficulties, though perhaps I have not. There is
nothing deceitful in doing that; you are simply putting yourself in his place and giving him the
advice which you think most suitable for him at that level. It is no use talking higher mathematics to
a little child who is just learning the multiplication table. It is no use putting the highest ideals before
the man who is not at the level where he can grasp and understand them, so you adapt yourself to
everybody according to the measure of your knowledge and power, and the reason for doing that is
the reason given in the Collect, where it is said that God meets every man along the line by which he
comes, and in which we ask for grace from the Lord so that by our wisdom and gentleness and our
kindliness we may be able to draw souls to Him, to bear the kindly message of love and fatherhood
to as many as may be.
To do that you must put it in the right way. Plunge in and help. That is the thing you have to do.
Some say, "If I cannot have the thing my way I will not do anything. As far as I am concerned the
thing shall not be done at all. That is foolish; that is egotism; that is selfishness. You must
undoubtedly show courtesy to all, and the reason for your doing so is precisely the reason which is
given to us here in our collect, ''Grant us such a measure of Thy wisdom that by our love and
gentleness wandering sheep may be guided to thy fold." That is the work we have to do, and the way
to do it is the way of tact and tolerance and love.
--------
* 19th Sunday after Trinity.
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THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

I. ESOTERIC
By THE RT. REV. C.W. LEADBEATER
Vol. XXIV No. 7
(A Conversation at Sydney, Australia)
The conversation here reproduced was delivered at Sydney, N.S.W. in 1924. It was taken down at the
time by a very competent scribe who typed it out almost immediately after it was spoken.
The grammar is sometimes peculiar; that is because sentences are sometimes broken off before they
are completed as so often happens in conversational speech peculiarities have been left unaltered.
To edit such conversations would be to spoil them by depriving them to that extent of the
individuality of the speaker.
QUESTION: You mentioned the Trinity in our last talk, would you continue that?
BISHOP LEADBEATER: The only place where you can get any information is out of the Hindu
books. There is first of all, so we are told, the Absolute. Then out of that springs forth, what I
suppose we should have to call the First Logos, the First Manifestation; then there is that and that
from which He has sprung. I don't know anything about it, but Subba Rao told us that when the First
Manifestation sprang forth from the unmanifested, He looked back upon that from which He had
come forth and saw over that a veil which is Mulaprakriti. Would that be the First Trinity? Or don't
you count the Absolute as the First Trinity. The Absolute, then the First Trinity springing forth from
it, and that upon which He looks back? Otherwise you would have to make the Trinity the Firs t
Logos, the Christ springing forth from the Bosom of the Father, though that would make Him the
Second Trinity and then Mulaprakriti, the Mother, and all the rest is the reaction of spirit on matter.
I mean that there are at least two ways in which you c ould take the Trinity, but when you once get
two poles, positive and negative, spirit and matter, then all the rest is the reaction of one upon the
other.* So you would say spirit, matter and the product - the first product of the action of spirit and
matter. That would be the First Trinity and that fits in not with our set so much as with the Father,
Mother and Son.
The Solar Logos is not exactly an image of that, but comes much nearer to our Christian conception
of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, because there is the Logos as a whole, then that part of Him which
remains on that level just as atma remains at that level and the second part put forth corresponding
to the buddhi, and then there is the action of atma on buddhi which produces that third which
descends somewhat lower, but it is not like the reaction there; those are rather the three
manifestations standing at the same level, coming out at three different levels.
Af ter a long digression on the subject of discipleship, he continues:
But any how, coming back to our subject, when you reach the level where you can be made one with
a Master, it will be one of those three lines, except that the third line is broken up into a great many,
as it were. Either you will belong to and work along the First Ray, that is the governing class,
governing and directing, remember, in very many ways. It is not only kings and great rulers who are
on the First Ray, but those who are to work under the Manu in the direction of His races, whatever
race He happens to be developing at the time.
Then the Second Ray is, as you know, that of the Teacher in all its aspects. The ideal person of the
First Ray is the King; the ideal person of the Second Ray is the Priest. Then the ideals of those who
work under the Maha Chohan are many and various, but they belong along the lines of those Rays,
only the Rays intermingle and often we cannot see clearly along which line you have to work. The
reason that those are grouped together in the way that they are is that there is so often a transfer from
one to another. Not that you change your Ray necessarily, though that is sometimes done. If you
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change your Ray it is usually either on to the First or on to the Second and a long process is involved
in that. But I mean those who are on any one of those Five Rays have certain points in common.
Pupils on such Rays are not infrequently lent by their own Master to a Master on another Ray to do a
bit of work for Him. They seem in some ways less clearly defined. The First and Second stand out
beyond all the rest, and people are trying for recruits for the First and Second because they will be so
much wanted just now, not only because of the coming of the Lord, but because of the coming of the
new Subrace and of the new Root Race, the lines of which will be already laid down. They want help
most on those lines, but of course each line has not only its own qualities, but its own dangers. You
have often heard the proverb to the effect that a man has the defects of his qualities. That is to say
that he may have certain splendid qualities for which he can be used, but, along with them, those
very qualities bring certain defects. I mean that a man having those qualities, would be much more
likely to have the defects which go with them. You can see how that would be. The First Ray is a
ruling Ray, and the person belonging to that is a managing person. He always knows, or thinks he
does, how to do everything, he goes straight at it and gets it done, and he usually has the good
quality of getting others to work with him and under him . But you can easily see that such a person,
if he were not wholly free from pride, might become exceedingly proud of his power to do all these
things. He might easily become artogant. He might be dictatorial. You can see how these qualities
might arise. You get the same thing with the Second Ray. The qualities of the Second Ray are
Wisdom and Love, and the great characteristics of that Ray are possessed to some extent by all those
who belong to it. But the very possession of that wisdom may make a man conceited about it. That is
the danger of you very intellectual people. I am thankful that we are not all very intellectual. There
must be the intellectual man, I know he is regarded as the salt of the earth in many ways, but
unfortunately he so often knows it and of course it is not good for a man to know it too much. And,
you know, conceit is not the only danger by any means connected with the intellectual side of things.
There is a kind of unconscious conceit also. The man knows better than others about a very large
number of things and he gets to accept so well. He looks down, at any rate semi-contemptuously,
upon them. That is bad, because it is not the perfect sympathy which for the Second Ray you must
have. The Second Ray qualities are perfect wisdom and perfect love. It is sometimes difficult to
combine them; although perfect wisdom would involve perfect love, but if you come to that, perfect
love would involve perfect wisdom, because everything which is perfect would have all qualities,
because it is part of God Who is perfect.
You will say the man cannot go wrong in the love of the Second Ray. Well, he can, you know, if he
has not the wisdom to balance it. I suppose we have all seen cases of people who loved others very
intensely, and yet through that very love did not treat them wisely. It is a thing which quite often
happens. Without wisdom the force of love, and it is the great driving force of the world, without
proper wisdom it may sometimes be used in wrong directions, and it may lead not at all to the results
which are intended or expected.
Then, of course, on each of your lines under the Third Ray there are difficulties too. The splendid
ceremonial of the Seventh Ray might lead some people to depend entirely on ceremonial, and n ot
have the reality behind it. Might become a mere outer shell. I have seen cases where that happened.
Sometimes it happens, I know, in the great Roman Catholic Church. Things become so much a
matter of use that they are done without the full realization behind.
Then devotion is a magnificent quality, but you may have a devotion which becomes mere blind
devotion, which loses the faculty of distinguishing even good from evil sometimes. So the
meticulous accuracy of the Fifth Ray man might descend into such a close attention to detail that the
man lost the big sweep altogether and failed to grasp the bigger things.
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And again your beauty and harmony or art, whatever kind of art it may be, sometimes so occupies
the mind of its devotees that they forget the necessity for goodness or purity behind the art. You may
have something which is very beautiful, but somewhat smirched, not perfectly pure or clean. Of
course the highest art could never descend to that. Again, you know, the wonderful tact and
adaptability of the Third Ray might lead a person to be somewhat flabby, to be so entirely occupied
in adapting himself to suit the immediate desire or attitude of other people that he might fail to have
a definite line, or sufficient stamina for himself.
But that three-fold division does run into everything. You have it from the Logos Himself at the
summit of all down to the three- fold qualities of matter - sattva, rajas and tamas. There are so many
of these threes.
QUESTION: What would be the reason that only the Third Aspect is divided up into five Rays? Is
there some fundamental reason?
BISHOP LEADBEATER: There are those Rays, and that is the way in which they group themselves. I
suppose our nearest manifestation of it is atma, buddhi and manas in ourselves. You see what those are doing.
It is manas that breaks into all the manifold lines and possibilities, because that comes down lowest. That
seems to be the closest touch with earth that we can understand, more or less along those lines, but when you
come into the sublime heights of the Second and still more of the First you touch things very much beyond
your comprehension. But all is splendid; all is glorious.
-------* Cf. St. Augustine Inter se arrant - 'They (the Father and the Son) inter-love.' - Ed.
II. HISTORICAL
By F.W. PIGOTT
Controversies, creeds and decisions of councils do not concern members of a truly liberal Church to
any great extent. There is no particular reason why we should, for freedom in matters of belief is of
the essence of liberalism, and creeds and conciliar decisions were originally formulated, mainly it is
true to show what the Church did not hold, but also with the idea of binding authoritatively to what
was believed to be the true faith. Yet since we are a true part of the Catholic Church and embody in
our Liturgy the real Chalcedonian Creed, commonly called the Nicene creed - the one and on1y
confession of the faith which has any claim to be authoritative for the whole Church - the history of
creed-making and the formulation of Christian doctrine cannot or ought not to be wholly without
interest for members of the Liberal Catholic Church .
In this short paper the history of one of the creeds - the Quicunque Vult, commonly known as The
Athanasian Creed, is considered.
To appreciate truly the meaning of any old document such as this it is necessary to have some
knowledge of its historical setting. In the case of the Athanasian Creed as of all Christian creeds we
must visualize in the background discussions, prolonged and sometimes very bitter, about the nature
of Our Lord the Christ and, following from that, about the Three in One. For those of us who do not
think theistically the disputes of these early centuries may seem to have been unnecessary. However
that may be they were for those who engaged in them matters of very real importance. For the
Christian fathers and doctors were, almost without exception, theists. They thought of God as the
Jews thought of Him and as practically all Christians from then to the present day have thought of
Him, as separate from though not unconcerned about the human race and other parts of His creation the work of His own hands. That philosophy is so different from the more eastern philosophy which is the background of the thought of Theosophists and of very many Liberal Catholics - that it
is difficult perhaps for the latter to appreciate the difficulties of the early Christian teachers. But if
54
we can place ourselves in imagination in their place we shall see how really difficult it was for them
to formulate in words the belief that the Lord Christ was both God and man, and that as God He was
in a real and true sense a manifestation in human flesh of one aspect of the Godhead. How could God
become incarnate and - most difficult idea of all - suffer? Could God possibly be divided in
substance or essence? Or did God in His totality become incarnate? We need not pursue this part of
the subject further. It is too difficult, and perhaps in these days too uninteresting. Yet it is necessary
for a true appreciation of creeds to visualize the difficulty as it was then and always must be for
theists.
In attempting to answer these subtle questions and to find a formula which would not overbalance
either on the one side or the other, many suggestions were thrown out. Some of these seemed to
possess great merit and to meet the required need, but by some slight over-emphasis were found after
much discussion and sometimes a good deal of bickering to be not quite satisfactory. It was thus that
heresies arose. So for centuries the discussions raged. Perhaps the most important of the heresies is
that which is now known as Arianism. It slightly over-stressed the human nature in the Lord's
person.
His essence, according to Arius, was like the divine essence but not quite identical with it. It could
not be said of Him that 'there never was a time when He was not.' That teaching nearly won the day
and probably would have done had it not been for the insistence of Athanasius that it was not
sufficient to speak of the Lord as of like essence or substance with the Father, He must be described
as of 'the same essence.' All that happened in the early and middle decades of the fourth century and
ever after that the controversialists were divided into two main groups, namely, the Arians and the
Athanasians. To anticipate a little, the Athanasians eventually won the day and at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451 the declaration which we now call the Nicene creed was put out as the
authoritative declaration of the whole Church on th is main question. This Chalcedonian declaration
may be considered as in principle the final definition of the whole Church.
Arius was no doubt the arch-heretic, but there were also others whose names and whose teachings
are not so well-known to-day simply because their particular suggestions or heresies were not quite
so fundamentally important as those of Arius and because, for that very reason, they did not attract
quite so strong (both quantitatively and qualitatively) a body of followers. Amongst these lesser
heretics was a certain Sabellius who seemed to teach that Christ was an incarnation of God the
Father and that it was the Father Who suffered in the flesh (patripassianism). These were the people
referred to in the Athanasian creed as `confounding the persons.'* Another was a certain Apollinarius
who out-athanasianed Athanasius by teaching that the divine Logos took the place in Christ of the
human reason and will; thus according to this `heretic' Christ was not really perfectly human, not
'perfect man,' not òf a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.' Later there came Nestorius and
Eutyches each with his own particular suggestion which was later turned down as heretical. We need
not examine them all in detail or pursue the `heretics' any further. Enough has been said for our
purpose, which is now to try to fix the date and the authorship of the creed we are considering.
Practically all competent scholars in this field are agreed that Athanasius never wrote this creed
which bears his name. According to a fairly common custom in those days a very important name
was attached to this document for the sake of the added weight of authority which such a name
would supply. This may not be quite in accordance with our standards of honesty but we are not
concerned here with questions of morality. The creed was considered by those who supplied the title
to be Athanasian, which in substance it certainly is; that was enough for them. Who then was the
author and what was its date? Dr. Headlam, the present Anglican Bishop of Gloucester, has recently
shown that close examination of the document reveals that its teaching is intended to refute the
heresies of Sabellius and Apollinarius but stops short of those of Nestorius and Eutyches. This would
give the year 431, the year in which Nestorianism arose, as the terminus ad quem: that is to say, that
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it is not later than that date. So much for the internal evidence. And with this date external evidence
agrees. It is quoted in documents later than that date but not earlier. This gives the early part of the
5th century as the probable date.
Next, who was its author? To digress for a moment; there is off the south coast of Gaul or France a
small island once named Lerinum, now called St. Honorat, which in the days which we are
considering fulfilled the same function in relation to the mainland of southern Europe which the little
islands of Iona and Lindisfarne fulfilled in the history of British Christianity at a later date. It was a
home of learning from which from time to time, great lights in the history of the Church went to the
mainland and there spread their teaching. One of the greatest offhe lights that emanated from the
island of Lerinum was a certain Vincentius whose chief work was the Commonitorium. St Vincent is
well known to us as the author of the Vincentian canon, which has usually been taken as the criterion
by which Catholic teaching may be tested. His teaching is thoroughly Augustinian and there is a
marked resemblance between the theology of the Athanasian creed and that of Augustine, but with
one important difference; while the creed speaks of the substance of the Godhead, using the Latin
substantia as a translation of the Greek ousia, St. Augustine always speaks of the essence (essentia).
Thus it is argued with good reason that the creed reproduced the thought of Augustine but was not
composed by him.
All things considered therefore there is good reason to suppose both on internal and external
evidence that the creed was written by St. Vincent of Lerinum somewhere about the years 400 to 430
and that owing to the widespread influence of the community of Lerinum the authority of the creed
was equally widely extended. At any rate no other teacher has so great claim as St. Vincent to be
considered as the author of the creed.
The later history of the creed is interesting especially to us who live in or are connected with Great
Britain. In the middle ages St. Thomas Aquinas valued it highly and perhaps it was largely owing to
his considerable influence that it gained the importance that has since attached to it. He called it a
creed and it was included with the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds in many popular primers and books
of devotion. It is used in the Roman Church at Prime on certain Sundays of the year, that is, at a
service at which the laity are not usually present. There are Greek versions of it but these are clearly
translations from the Latin. It is distinctly a Western creed. At the Reformation the English Church
added to its importance by including it in the Prayer Book and directing that it should be sung or said
in place of the Apostles' Creed at the service of Mattins or Morning Prayer - a service which is
intended for the people and not just for clergy - on several great festivals throughout the year. For
some reason the English Reformers were anxious to stress their soundness on the doctrine of the
Trinity and doubtless this accounts for the practice in the Anglican Church of numbering Sundays,
throughout half the year 'after Trinity' instead of 'after Pentecost' and for the prominence given in the
Prayer Book to the Quicunque Vult. In more modern times its recital at Morning Prayer has given
rise to much searching of heart because of the opening and closing clauses of the creed which
threaten everlasting punishment and the forfeiture of salvation to all who do not 'thus think of the
Trinity' and 'believe faithfully' the Catholic Faith. To anathematize unbelievers was a common
practice in the days of the great councils, but that was merely a form and meant nothing more than a
strong emphasis on the importance of the truths proclaimed. To anathematize unbelievers to the
extent of 'perishing everlastingly' is felt to be going a little too far by the sort of people who attend
Morning Prayer at English parish churches, to say nothing of the very learned people who attend the
same service at cathedrals and college chapels. Hence the discontent at the present time in Anglican
circles in regard to the singing or saying of this otherwise very excellent definition of faith.
56
We in the Liberal Catholic Church need not concern ourselves with that particular dispute because
we do not include the Athanasian Creed in our Liturgy. Nevertheless we shall find it an interesting
and profitable occupation to study the creed carefully from time to time because of its historical
associations, the beauty of its diction and, if we may say so without presumption, the soundness of
its teaching. It is to be found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer .
------* Seep, 203.
57
ADDRESSES TO PRIESTS
(I) SACRAMENTAL FORCE
A portion of an address given at Sydney, N.S.W., in the year 1926
and reprinted from THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC of March 1937.
By C.W . LEADBEATER
January 1949 Vol. XXVI No. 5
As to the question of the Angels investigations into that led me back to the investigations we did in
connection with the Holy Eucharist because there is a distinct similarity. Five of us in this room are
priests. We have all to grow into the use of the powers conferred upon us when we were orda ined,
and I suppose all of you who are priests feel now that you can do much more with the priestly power
than you could years ago. There is still much more ahead of you, but in the meantime you realize
that you have made a great deal of progress along that particular line of being able to use the power.
You could do it from the moment of your Ordination; you could consecrate the Host and you could
forgive sins; you could bless in the Name of the Logos. Your consecration of the Host and your
forgiveness of sins are not in themselves worth more to-day than they were in that first hour, but you
can add to them a great deal in the way of grace and beauty and upliftment which you could not give
then.
I wonder whether you have ever seen that at all. The bare fact you can do. Here, let us say, is a man
who has been doing something wrong, what is called sin. It is a word I do not like because of its
connotations. The connotations are all wrong; the thing itself is a fact. I would rather call it by some
word which would indicate a mistake, a miscalculation. The word sin has a very unpleasant aura.
There is the flavour of misery about it; the idea of the miserable sinner. It is bad enough that we do
make so many mistakes, but we do not want to add to that the additional mistake of being miserable
about it.
Well, you could comb out what was wrong as soon as the power had been given to you. It may be, if
you will forgive the insinuation, that you would have done it a little crudely; you would have used
the thick end of the comb in your combing out, and you would probably tear the hair rather roughly,
almost tear it out by the roots in the process. Now, without making any special study of that art, you
approach the thing much more delicately, and therefore more efficiently. The force you send out will
comb out all these things, but it will do it more gently, more delicately, more gracefully in
appearance. I wish I could make you see it. You see the young priest, in a tremendous effort of
earnestness at using this power, send out a tremendous rush and you see how it tears through. Mind,
it does not affect the man who is not in earnest who has not made a determined resolve that he will
get rid of the particular mistake and not do it again. Such a man it hardly affects; it tears past him,
but the man who is open to it and is throwing himself open to it, it tears through him like that . It is
effective, but it is rather a shock if he is at all sensitive. I do not say it does not do the work, but any
of you now would pour out over the people a stream which would go through just as irresistibly but
more gently. It would be the difference between tearing through with a steam-plough and sending
through a liquid stream which would force its way through just the same, but force its way through
not by tearing like that, but by a general steady pressure. It would take a few seconds probably, but it
would be more efficient, and it looks so much more aesthetic. It does not matter whether it looks
aesthetic if it does the work, I suppose, but we do promise that we shall try to make our lives
beautiful, and it certainly does when you have got used to it.
And so with the greater thing. You can (but the truth is, it is not you) change the bread and wine into
the absolute Vehicle of the Christ. It is the Christ Himself through the Angel of the Presence, but it is
you who make all the preliminary arrangements. I do not mean to be irreverent, but it is you who
make it possible, who make it easy. It is you who make all the arrangements by means of which the
final stroke is done by the Angel of the Presence, who is the thought-form, the projection of the
58
Christ. But, you know, it is your privilege to distribute to the people, and you can give so much more
now than you could at first.
The Body of the Lord Christ is His body and the Wine is His blood under any circumstances when
consecrated by one who has just that moment received that power. But you can give with it your own
decoration of love and of reverence and of sympathy with the people, your own added blessing. That
you give as you say the words of distribution. It is essentially the same thing, but clothed more
beautifully. I do not want to mislead you in any way, but if you will yourself watch (you can hardly
watch when you are distributing yourself) but if you will watch others, I think you will be able to
feel, even if you cannot exactly see what I mean, that things go more smoothly and easily because of
your having lived into it and made it a part of yourself and yourself a part of it. But, re member, you
must think as much as at the beginning of what you are doing. I do not think you will reach a stage,
but I am sorry to say that I am afraid I have seen cases in which priests took the whole Service rather
as a matter of course, in which even the distribution of the Host was just a matter of course; where a
priest while doing that would let his mind, not all the time, but occasionally, stray to other things,
would cease to have his mind fixed upon what he is doing. And if ever you should find, any of you,
that happening to you, just put it aside, because that is of all occasions the one in which you must
think exactly of what you are doing all the time. But if you distribute to fifty or sixty people every
morning, I suppose there is just the possibility that sometimes it might be said mechanically and
one's mind might wander. Well, it must not.
The Christ in one aspect of Himself sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, or at least very far
above these planes. Even in His aspect as the World Teacher, His aspect as Man, even in that He is
not, I suppose, omnipresent, but practically so, very nearly that as far as our ideas go. His
consciousness spreads abroad in a way which is wonderful and beautiful, but not, I am afraid,
comprehensible to physical brains, to brains like this. Now that universal Christ is nevertheless
present on a thousand altars, on many hundreds of thousands of altars, present in the tabernacle
simultaneously. Well, you say, how is it done? You can draw a sort of image of the thing for yourself
of a central sun and a thousand rays pouring out from it, and the tip of one ray being the Host in the
tabernacle. But then, you know, if you made that kind of conception you would have to add to it a
conception that the whole sun could be present in any one of those points in some infinitesimal
fraction of a second. The whole sun is not fully present all the time, as I will tell you how you can
prove that to yourself. You may go into any Church where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, and
you will see the glow in the tabernacle. But if it is in France or Italy you will see someone go in,
perhaps some poor peasant woman will put down her basket and kneel and say a little prayer. And
you will see a flash like sunlight coming from the Host to her. For the moment the whole is there
which was there in potentiality before. When there is a full congregation you see flashes in all
directions like the pines of a porcupine standing out, as it were, and each of these persons is getting
more than he would get if being in the same spot, he were not thinking of the Host. By his own
devotion, his own thought he throws himself open to something much fuller. He would get the
radiation even if he did not know it were there, but when he thinks of it his devotion brings upon him
that flash of the very Highest in a moment.
The real Presence is there, but the full power of the thing can flash into it at any moment, but is not
there all the time. Any physical analogy is always misleading if you push it too far. If I were to say
that the Christ is not fully present in every Host whether anyone is thinking of it or looking at it or
not, I should certainly be making a misstatement, and vet that other condition which I described
earlier is also true. Down here that look's like a paradox, but it is also true that when any demand is
made upon it somehow the Presence is more fully there, although it was fully there before. You
cannot make any sense of it, but these are the facts of the case. You have to sort them out as well as
you can.
59
You, who are priests, have a permanent link with the Lord Christ, but that also has that same
wonderful capacity. If you are walking along through the woods thinking of business or of work you
have to do, or of anything not especially of the Lord Christ, there is nevertheless in you a definite
link with Him. Of course it is a stronger link than a person not specially thinking about it would have
in the presence of the Host. But at any moment in one or two ways, either by your own volition or
without your own volition, because there is a need near to it, that would become the full connection.
There is always within each of you what is equivalent to the Host. The actual Host is in many cases
within us, but that power is also there. But just as in a moment that will flash out in response to a
thought of devotion, so will it flash out in you if you think of some particular case to which you wish
to give your blessing or your help. In a moment that full power flashes out to you, and through you
to that person wherever he may be. He may be in England, it does not matter. That is one of the
beautiful things that a priest has that power. And that would affect not only lower vehicles, that
would be largely within your will. The intention which you added to your thought, the intention with
which you sent it would very largely affect that. But normally it should go from you as an ego to the
man as an ego. That is to say, it would be the causal bode of your man that you were principally
affecting.
As far as it goes is that a clear idea? I want to make it clear in my own mind because I devoted some
part of last night in preparation for this meeting to-day, trying to disentangle the enormous number
of complications which are connected with this. I want to tell you the main facts first and then only
by degrees the side issues that arise, because their name is legion.
Now, without your knowledge, or with it, the same thing happens sometimes. You may meet
someone in your work, though perhaps he does not know you, who is in great need of such help as
can be given through a Priest. If he realized it and stopped you and asked if you would give him the
blessing or the absolution, whatever it may be that he needed, of course you would do what you
could for him. But without that, the fact of the need calls forth a response. You, down here, would
know nothing about it. I have spent ever so much time trying to test whether your ego, you, as an
ego, would know of it and do it intentionally. As far as I have got the honours are divided.
Sometimes he does and sometimes he does not. There appear to be those two stages of the thing.
You, as an ego may discern that man's need, and if so, you as an ego draw from the Christ and send
what is needed. But there can be no doubt, after many observations, that the Christ often uses you
without your ego knowing of it. I know that sounds odd, but there seems to be no doubt of it. I have
tested all round and with all you people, with Church of England priests and with Roman priests and
they are unquestionably used in the performance of what would be their functions when they do not
know of it.
So there are apparently three ways in which the thing can be. You down here in your personalities,
you may send out this force. You as an ego may send it out without troubling to inform the
personality, and furthermore the Christ can do it through you without troubling your ego. I have a
dark suspicion that the Monad knows, but the Monad is so far away from practical politics with most
of us that it does not very much matter whether he does or not. I have been trying, only the trouble is
that I cannot get at a Monad.
-------(The second part of this article was written by the Rev. Keith Dear.)
60

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THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC

10. THE BODY OF THE LORD XI

11. THE BODY OF THE LORD XII

12. THE BODY OF THE LORD XIII

13. THE BODY OF THE LORD XIV

14. THE BODY OF THE LORD XV

14. THE BODY OF THE LORD XVI

15. THE WORLD CONGRESS OF FAITHS AT OXFORD

16. TACT AND TOLERANCE

18. ADDRESSES TO PRIESTS

THE BODY OF THE LORD

SOME ADVENTURES IN SPECULATION

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

May 1937 Vol. XVII No. 8

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

A STUDY OF THE DOCTRINES

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE BODY OF THE LORD

THE WORLD CONGRESS OF FAITHS AT OXFORD

TACT AND TOLERANCE

* 19th Sunday after Trinity.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

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