Starting from the fact that the immolation of the victims of the Old Testament implied a substitution of these victims for men, and a voluntary abasement of man before GOD,* he shows that the only perfect sacrifice would be that of a man free from all sin, who with every power of body and soul should perfectly fulfil the will of GOD; for this victim would be a sweet-smelling savour and a live coal of charity offered to GOD.† Such, he says, was JESUS CHRIST, sacrificed in Soul and Body upon the Cross, where, to reconcile man to GOD, He presented to Him sacrifice and reparation infinitely greater than the offence of our sins. He sees in the Passion the ransom of the whole world, and in the Eucharist the application which our Blessed LORD makes of this ransom to those whom He finds rightly disposed. He also adds to our His definition conception of sacrifice an interesting definition: "To ofs. sacrifice, properly speaking, is this: to make sacred the gift itself by offering it, and so to sanctify the offerer as well as the person for whom it is offered." § The voluminous writings of Albert the Great (ob. 1280) close this period and prepare the way for the work of his illustrious disciple, S. Thomas. We find in Albert the Great a theory of the Mass far more fully worked out than in any of his predecessors, whose views to a certain extent he gathers up and harmonizes. He regards the Sacrifice from two points of * William of Auvergne, De Legibus, c. xxiv. † Ibid., c. xxviii. Idem., De Sacramento Eucharistiæ, c. ii. "Hoc est proprie sacrificare, ipsum scilicet munus offerendo sacrum facere, et tam offerentem quam eum pro quo offertur sacrificare [sanctificare]" (De Legibus, c. xxiv.). He speaks also of the priest "qui sacramentat seu sanctificat populum” (De Sac. Eucharist., c. ii.). Albert the Great regards standpoints. the S. from two But he places its essence in its effects. view. For CHRIST, he says, is immolated and offered in Sacrifice to GOD HIS FATHER. But "immolation signifies the act of oblation from the point of view of the thing offered, and "sacrifice" the same act from the point of view of the effect produced.* Further, in comparing the Eucharist with the sacrifices of the Law, he calls it "the one Sacrifice of truth," because it alone produces and contains that which it signifies, the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST; and because it alone comprises the source of an abundant sanctification.† Albert, however, places all the essence of the Sacrifice in its effects, but, regarding it from this twofold aspect, he sees a double effect on the one hand, our union with JESUS CHRIST in His oblation; on the other, our participation in the fruits of His Sacrifice. And this double effect manifests itself to him in the twofold matter of the Eucharist, for he regards the bread, formed from many grains, as the symbol of the union of the faithful with JESUS CHRIST, and the wine, as the symbol of the application of the Redemption which is made for us in the Eucharist. He even thought that our LORD had in view this double element of the Eucharistic Sacrifice when He said: "He that eateth My Flesh [under the species of bread] and drinketh My Blood [under the species of wine], dwelleth in Me [by reason of the union with Me signified by the species of bread], and I in him [by reason of the Redemption applied to him by My Blood, which is signified by the species of wine]."S "Immolatio dicit actum offerendi ex parte rei oblatæ, et sacrificium dicit eumdem actum ex parte effectus" (Albert Mag., Sent., 1. iv., d. xii., a. 23). † Idem, De Sac. Euch., d. v., c. 4. S. John vi. 56. § Albert Mag., Sent., 1. iv., d. viii., a 13, ad I. His "Explanation of the Canon of the Mass." "Elevation." It is the consideration of this double relation of the faithful to JESUS CHRIST offered in the Eucharist which furnished Albert the Great with the main thought of his Explanation of the Canon of the Mass. In the three prayers which precede the Consecration he traces our union with our LORD; and in the prayers which follow, our participation in the fruits of His Sacrifice. For he sees in the three prayers at the beginning of the Canon what he calls " the triple Communion of the Church" with the Victim about to be offered: (1) in the Te igitur, the union of the Universal Church; (2) in the Memento of the living, the union of individuals; (3) in the Communicantes, the union of the saints in heaven. Then, he says, follows the completion of the Eucharist by the Consecration; and after that completion, another part begins, which he terms the "Ele- His view of the vation," because with him it extends as far as the elevation of the Host which precedes the Paternoster. It is in this part that the fruits of the Sacrifice, and our participation in those fruits are described. They are, glory rendered to GOD, and graces produced in us; for, according to Albert, it is by participating in the fruits of the Sacrifice that we are sanctified, and, being thus sanctified, are brought nearer to GOD, Whom we thus glorify. He points out that this elevation begins with the offering of the Body of JESUS CHRIST and of all those who are united to Him by means of the triple Communion which precedes the Consecration. This offering is made through the prayers which follow the completion of the Consecration, as far as the Supplices Te. The elevation continues throughout the prayers which ask the application of the fruits of the Mass to the dead (the Memento etiam Domine famulorum, etc.), and to the living (Nobis quoque peccatoribus). The Greek this period. S. John of It ends in the elevation of the Host with the ascription, Per quem hæc omnia. This elevation, Albert says, recalls the lifting up of our LORD upon the Cross, and is the climax of the Sacrifice of the Mass, since the Sacrifice consists in the effects of the offering, and these effects are expressed in the Mass by this elevation. During this period the Greek theologians contheologians of tributed practically nothing to the elucidation of our subject. The celebrated work of S. John of Damascus (ob. 756), De Fide Orthodoxa, was largely the basis of the theological summaries of the Western Church in the Middle Ages. It had been translated into Latin a few years before Peter Lombard wrote his book of the Sentences, and was itself probably not a little influenced by the writings of S. Dionysius the Areopagite. In this, the only systematic work on dogmatic theology in the Greek Church, the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is dismissed in a few words which contribute nothing new to the conception of it. S. Dionysius the Areopa gite. The commentators: Ecumenius, Euthymius Zigadenus, Theophylact. III. Post Medieval and introduces this period. touching on the E. S., he The later Greek commentators, Ecumenius (ob. circa 950), Euthymius Zigadenus (fl. about 1100), and Theophylact (fl. about 1100), simply repeat the teaching found in the commentaries of S. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and S. John of Damascus. III. THE POST-MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN EPOCH. This period begins with the works of S. Thomas Aquinas, who, while he contributed but little to the While scarcely treatment of the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist, incidentally changed the whole current of theological thought in regard to this subject, by his view, not so much of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, as of sacrifice in general. With respect to the former, we find in S. Thomas gives a definition of S. which changes the current of indications of the old conception of the Eucharistic Sac- theological rifice, which regarded it from the point of view of its thought. effects. In tracing in the Eucharist the image of the Passion, S. Thomas introduces a new idea, in that he sees in the act of offering, not merely a moral effect upon the offerer, but a physical transformation of the thing offered. This new thought is expressed in the following general definition of sacrifice: Sacrifices are properly so called when something is His definition, done to things offered to GOD, as when [among the Jews] animals were slain and burned, when [with us] bread is broken and eaten and blessed. And this, indeed, the word itself signifies; for sacrifice is so named from the fact that man makes something sacred.” * While the old view still lived on for some time, yet revived by in the sixteenth and following centuries this definition Vasquez, was, from the time of Vasquez, the basis of most of the theological treatment of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. And it is responsible for importing into the definition of the E. S. sacrifice, as a necessary condition, the idea of a physical destruction, or of its moral equivalent. Another element in the conception of sacrifice, which originated with William of Auvergne and Albert the Great, but gained new force from its adoption by S. Thomas, was the view that sacrifice was the exterior sign of that worship of latria, which we render to GOD as the Author and End of our being, and by which GOD is reconciled to man.† A third point on which S. Thomas enlarges in his * S. Thom., Summa za zæ, q. lxxxv., a. 3, ad 3. For the Latin of this passage see footnote, page 41. "Sacrificium proprie dicitur aliquid factum in honorem proprie Deo debitum ad eum placandum" (S. Thom., Summa 3a, q. xlviii., a. 3). became the basis of the treatment of S. Thomas also held that S. was the sign of "latria." |