Transubstantiation

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

The Lord's Supper being observed in commemoration of the death of Christ, which was the sacrifice offered for the sins of men, the idea of a sacrifice was early conjoined with it; and finally, it came to be regarded not merely as the symbol of a sacrifice, but in some sense a sacrifice itself. There was also another cause which contributed to this belief. It was the anxious wish of some of the fathers to give to their religion, a degree of splendour, which might make a powerful impression upon the senses. Under the Jewish economy, the numerous sacrifices that were offered, in a remarkable degree riveted the attention; and, with reference to this, it became customary to hold forth the Lord's Supper as the great sacrifice in the Christian church. This mode of speaking quickly gained ground; it is often used by Cyprian, although he plainly understood it in a mystical sense; and the ordinance of the supper was not unfrequently styled the eucharistical sacrifice. It was very early the practice to hold up the elements, previous to their beings distributed, to the view of the people, probably to excite in them more effectually devout and reverential feelings; and this laid the foundation for that adoration of them which was, at a subsequent period, as we shall soon find, extensively introduced.

For several ages, says Dr. Cook, the state of opinion respecting the sacramental elements was, that they were memorials of Christ's death, but that, agreeably to his own declaration, his body and blood were, in some sense, present with them. The questions, however, what was the nature of that presence? and what were the physical consequences as to the bread and the wine? however much we may conceive these points to have been involved in the opinion actually held, or the language actually used, seem not to have been for a long period much agitated, or, at all events, not authoritatively decided, although the Roman Catholic writers gladly and triumphantly bring forward the expressions that were so often used from the earliest age, in support of the tenet which their church at length espoused. But it was not to be supposed that the curiosity of man would be permanently arrested at the threshold of this most mysterious inquiry; and accordingly a definite theory, with respect to it, was, in the ninth century, avowed, and zealously defended. Pascasius Radbert, a monk, and afterward abbot of Corbey in Picardy, published a treatise concerning the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, in which he did not hesitate to maintain the following most extraordinary positions: "That after the consecration of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, nothing remained of these symbols but the outward form or figure, under which the body and blood of Christ were really and locally present; and that this body so present was the identical body that had been born of the Virgin Mary, had suffered on the cross, and had been raised from the dead." The publication of notions so decidedly at war with all which human beings must credit, excited, as might have been expected, astonishment and indignation; and, accordingly, many writers exerted their talents against it. Among these was the celebrated Johannes Scotus, who laid the axe to the root of the tree, and, shaking off all that figurative language which had been so sadly abused, distinctly and powerfully stated, that the bread and wine used in the eucharist were the signs or symbols of the absent body and blood of Christ. The light of reason and truth was, however, too feeble to penetrate through the darkness which during this age was spread over the minds and understandings of men. No public declaration, indeed, as to the nature of the sacramental elements was made; and even the popes did not interpose their high and revered authority with regard to it; but there seems little doubt that the opinion of Pascasius was adopted by the greater part of the western church, although it is not likely that much deference was paid to his explanations of it. The question was again agitated, and attracted more notice than it had ever before done, in the course of the eleventh century. Several theologians, distinguished for the period at which they lived, shocked with the grossness and absurdity of the conversion which had been defended, strenuously opposed it. Among these Berenger holds the most conspicuous place, both on account of the zeal and ability which he displayed, and the cruel and unchristian manner in which he was resisted. About the commencement of the century, he began to inculcate that the bread and wine of the eucharist were not truly and actually, but only figuratively, and by similitude, the body and blood of Christ; and a doctrine so rational obtained many adherents in France, Italy, and England. He was, however, encountered by a host of opponents, numbers of whom possessed the highest situations in the church: and the church itself, either from having perceived that the doctrine which he laboured to confute was grateful to the people, or, what is more likely, tended to exalt the powers and to increase the influence and wealth of the priesthood, declared against him, various councils having been assembled, and having pronounced their solemn decrees in condemnation of what he taught. The councils did not rest their hope of overcoming Berenger upon the strength of the reasoning which they could urge against him: they took a much more summary method, and threatened to put him to death if he did not recant. At one synod held at Rome, under the immediate eye of the pope, the fathers of whom it consisted so successfully alarmed Berenger, that, not having sufficient vigour of mind to stand firm against their cruelty, he confessed that he had been in error, and subscribed the following declaration composed by one of the cardinals: "The bread and wine which are placed on the altar are, after consecration, not merely a sacrament, symbol, or figure, but even the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is handled by the hands of the priests, and broken and chewed by the teeth of the faithful." He had no sooner escaped from the violence which he had dreaded, than he shrunk from the tenet to which he had been forced to give his assent, and he again avowed his original sentiments; but he was afterward turned aside from his integrity by the arts and the infamous persecution of new councils, although he died adhering to the spirituality of Christ's presence in the eucharist. From this time the strange opinion of Pascasius rapidly gained ground, being supported by all the influence of popes and councils; but there had not yet been devised a term which clearly expressed what was really implied in that opinion. In the next century, the ingenuity of some theologian invented what was wanting; the change that takes place on the elements after consecration having been denominated by him transubstantiation. Still, however, some latitude was afforded to those who interpreted the epithet; but this in the thirteenth century was taken away, a celebrated council of the Lateran, attended by no fewer than four hundred and twelve bishops, and eight hundred abbots and priors, having, at the instigation of Innocent the Third, one of the most arrogant and presumptuous of the pontiffs, explicitly adopted transubstantiation as an article of faith, in the monstrous form in which it is now held in the popish church, and denounced anathemas against all who hesitated to give their assent. The opposition which after this was made to a doctrine so revolting to the senses and the reason, was very feeble, insomuch that it may, in consequence of the decree of the Lateran council, be considered as having become the established faith of the western church. In the Greek church it was long resisted, and, indeed, was not embraced till the seventeenth century, a time at which it might have been thought that it could not have extended the range of its influence.

After transubstantiation was thus sanctioned, a change necessarily took place with respect to various parts of the service used in administering the eucharist. That solemn service was now viewed as an actual sacrifice or offering of the body of Christ for the sins of men, and the elevation of the host was held forth as calling for the adoration and worship of believers; so that an ordinance mercifully designed to preserve the pure influence of the most spiritual and elevated religion, became the instrument, in the hands of ignorant or corrupt men, of introducing the most senseless and degrading idolatry. When the Reformation shook the influence of the church, and brought into exercise the intellectual faculties of man, the subject of the eucharist demanded and received the closest and most anxious attention. It might have been naturally supposed, that when Luther directed his vigorous mind to point out and to condemn the abuses which had been sanctioned in the popish church, he would not have spared a doctrine the most irrational and objectionable which that church avows, and that he would have vindicated the holy ordinance of the Lord's Supper from the abomination with which it had been associated. He did, indeed, object to transubstantiation, but he did so with a degree of hesitation truly astonishing, although that hesitation was displayed by many of the first reformers. He declared that he saw no warrant for believing that the bread and wine were actually changed into the body and blood of Christ; but he adhered to the literal import of our Saviour's words, teaching that his body and blood were received, and that they were in some incomprehensible manner conjoined or united with the bread and wine. It is quite evident, that although this system got rid of one difficulty by leaving the testimony of the senses as to the bread and wine unchallenged, yet it is just as incomprehensible as the other, assumes as a fact what the senses cannot discern, and involves in it difficulties equally repugnant to the plainest dictates of reason. Powerful accordingly as most deservedly was his ascendency, and great as was the veneration with which he was contemplated, he was upon this point happily opposed; his colleague, the celebrated Carlostadt, openly avowing, that when our Lord said of the bread, "This is my body," he pointed to his own person, and thus taught that the bread was merely the sign or emblem of it. Luther warmly resisted this opinion; Carlostadt was obliged, surely in little consistency with the fundamental principle of Protestantism, in consequence of having professed it, to leave Wirtemberg; and although it procured some adherents, yet as it rested upon an assertion of which there could be no proof, it was never extensively disseminated, and was ultimately abandoned by Carlostadt himself. The discussion, however, which he had commenced, stimulated others to the consideration of the subject, and led Zuinglius, who had previously often meditated upon it, and OEcolampadius, two of the most distinguished reformers, to submit to the public the doctrine, that the bread and wine are only symbols of Christ's body and blood, but that the body of our Lord was in heaven, to which after his resurrection he had ascended. Luther composed several works to confute the opinions of Zuinglius. At the commencement of the controversy respecting the eucharist among the defenders of the Protestant faith, there seem to have been only two opinions, that of Luther, asserting that the body and blood of Christ were actually with the bread and wine, and that of Zuinglius, OEcolampadius, and Bucer, that the bread and wine were the emblems or signs of Christ's body and blood, no other advantage being derived from partaking of them than the moral effect naturally resulting from the commemoration of an event so awful and so deeply interesting as the crucifixion of our Redeemer. Calvin soon published what may be regarded as a new view of the subject. Admitting the justness of the interpretation of our Lord's words given by Zuinglius, he maintained that spiritual influence was conveyed to worthy partakers of the Lord's Supper, insomuch that Christ may be said to be spiritually present with the outward elements. The sentiments of this most eminent theologian made a deep impression upon the public mind; and although the churches of Zurich and Berne long adhered to the creed of Zuinglius, yet, through the perseverance and dexterity of Calvin, the Swiss Protestant churches at length united with that of Geneva in assenting to the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In other countries, too, he saw many adhering to what he had taught, and carrying to as great length as it could be carried what, under his system, must be termed the allegorical language which he recommended. The French Protestants in their confession thus express themselves: "We affirm that the holy supper of our Lord is a witness to us of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, because that he is not only once dead and raised up again from the dead for us, lint also he doth indeed feed and nourish us with his flesh and blood. And although he be now in heaven, and shall remain there till he come to judge the world, yet we believe that, by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit, he doth nourish and quicken us with the substance of his body and blood. But we say that this is done in a spiritual manner; nor do we hereby substitute in place of the effect and truth an idle fancy and conceit of our own; but rather, because this mystery of our union with Christ is so high a thing that it surmounteth all our senses, yea and the whole order of nature, and in short, because it is celestial, it cannot be comprehended but by faith." Knox, who revered Calvin, carried into Scotland the opinions of that reformer; and in the original Scottish confessions, similar language, though somewhat more guarded than that which has been just quoted, is used: "We assuredly believe that in the supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us, that he becometh the very nourishment and food of our souls. Not that we imagine any transubstantiation,—but this union and communion which we have with the body and blood of Christ Jesus in the right use of the sacrament, is wrought by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who by true faith carrieth us above all things that are visible, carnal, and earthly, and maketh us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus. We most assuredly believe that the bread which we break is the communion of Christ's body, and the cup which we bless is the communion of his blood; so that we confess and undoubtedly believe, that the faithful in the right use of the Lord's table so do eat the body and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus, that he remaineth in them and they in him; yea, that they are so made flesh of his flesh, and bones of his bones, that as the eternal Godhead hath given to the flesh of Christ Jesus life and immortality, so doth Christ Jesus's flesh and blood, eaten and drunken by us, give to us the same prerogatives." The church of Scotland, which did not long use this first confession, seems to have seen, in the course of the following century, the propriety, if not of relinquishing, yet of more cautiously employing the phraseology now brought into view; for in the Westminster confession, which is still the standard of faith in that church, there is unquestionably a great improvement in the style which has been adopted in treating of this subject. In it the compilers declare, that "the outward elements in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to him crucified, as that truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent; namely the body and blood of Christ, albeit in substance and nature they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before." Then after most powerfully exposing the absurdity of transubstantiation, representing it as repugnant not to Scripture alone, but to reason and common sense, they proceed: "Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine, yet as really but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses." The church of England was in its first reformation from popery inclined to adhere to the Lutherans; but in the time of Edward the Sixth, a more correct and Scriptural view seems to have been taken. In the thirty-nine articles, the present creed of the English church, it is said of this ordinance: "The supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup is a partaking of the blood of Christ." This strong language is, however, in the same article, so modified, as to show that all which was intended by it was to represent the spiritual influence conveyed through the Lord's Supper; for it is taught, "that the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner." The idea of Zuinglius, that the Lord's Supper is merely a commemoration of Christ's death, naturally producing a moral effect upon the serious and considerate mind, has been held by members of both the established churches in Great Britain. It was vigorously defended, about the beginning of last century, by Bishop Hoadly, in a work which he entitled, "A plain Account of the Nature and Ends of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper;" and it has more recently been supported by Dr. Bell, in a treatise denominated "An Attempt to ascertain the Authority, Nature, and Design of the Lord's Supper." The ingenuity of particular individuals has been exerted in giving other peculiar illustrations of the subject. Cudworth and Bishop Warburton, for example, represented the sacrament of the supper under the view of a feast upon a sacrifice; but such speculations have not influenced the faith of any large denomination of Christians.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

The conversion or change of the substance of the bread and wine in the eucharist into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which the Romish church suppose to be wrought by the consecration of the priest. Nothing can be more contradictory to Scripture, or to common sense, than this doctrine. It must be evident to every one who is not blinded by ignorance and prejudice, that our Lord's words, "This is my body, " are mere figurative expressions: besides, such a transubstantiation is so opposite to the testimony of our senses, as completely to undermine the whole proof of all the miracles by which God hath confirmed relation. According to such a transubstantiation, the same body is alive and dead at once, and may be in a million of different places whole and entire at the same instant of time; accidents remain without a substance, and substance without accidents; and that a part of Christ's body is equal to the whole. It is also contrary to the end of the sacrament, which is to represent and commemorate Christ, not to believe that he is corporeally present,  1 Corinthians 9:24-25 . But we need not waste time in attempting to refute a doctrine which by its impious consequences refutes itself.

See Smith's Errors of the Church of Rome, dial. 6; A Dialogue between Philalethes and Benevolus; Kidder's Messiah, part 3: p. 80; and Brown's Compendium, p. 613.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) A change into another substance.

(2): ( n.) The doctrine held by Roman Catholics, that the bread and wine in the Mass is converted into the body and blood of Christ; - distinguished from consubstantiation, and impanation.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(change of substance), a word applied to the alleged conversion or change of the substance of the bread and wine in the eucharist into the body and blood of Jesus Christ at the time the officiating priest utters the words of consecration.

I. The Terms. — Probably the first to make use of the word Transubstantiatio was Peter Damili ( Epositio Can. Miss. cap. 7; Mai, Script. Vet. T. Nov. Col. I, 2, 215), A.D. 988-1072; though similar expressions, such as Transitio, had previously been employed. Its use was, however, limited, and in the 12th century was becoming very rare. Its first appearance as a term accepted and recognized by the Church is in the first of the Seventy Constitutions presented to the fourth Council of Lateran (1215) by Innocent II, and tacitly adopted by that council. The term thus adopted by the Western Church has its counterpart in the Eastern Church in the term Metousiosis ( Μετουσίωσις ) , which was formally adopted, in the "Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East," in 1643; and in Art. 17 of the Council of Bethlehem, or of Jerusalem, in 1672.

The Church of England never adopted the word. "transubstantiation" in any formal document; and at the same time that the Council of Trent was fixing it upon the Latin Church, the sacred synod of the English Church was declaring, in the 28th art. of Religion "Panis et vini Transubstantitatio in Eucharistia ex sacris literis probari non potest, sed apertis Scripture verbis adversatur et multarumr superstitionum dedit occasioneum" (A.D.1552). This part of Art. 28 now stands in English in the following form: "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions" (A.D. 1571).

II. The Doctrine. — In the Confession of the Synod of the fourth Lateran Council, transubstantiation is thus defined: "There is only one universal Church, beyond which no man can in any way be saved. In' which Jesus Christ is himself the priest and sacrifice, whose body and blood are really contained in the sacrament of the altar, under the form of bread and wine, being Transubstantiated, the bread into the body and the wine into the blood, by divine power." By the institution of Corpus Christi Day by pope Urban IV in 1264 and pope Clement V in 1311 at the Synodo of Vienne, the doctrine in question was expressed in a liturgical form and its popularity secured. Henceforth the sacrifice of the mass formed more than ever the center of the Catholic ritual, and reflected new glory upon the priesthood.

The change effected by transubstantiation is declared to be so perfect and complete that, by connection and concomitance, the soul and divinity of Christ coexist with his flesh and blood under the species of bread and wine; and thus the elements, arid every particle thereof, contain Christ whole and entire divinity, humanity, soul, body, and blood, with all their component parts. Nothing remains of the bread and wine except the accidents. The whole God and man Christ Jesus is contained in the bread and wine, and in every particle of the bread, and every drop of the wine. The natural result of such a doctrine is the elevation of the Host for adoration, a practice unknown till the rise of transubstantiation.

It is claimed by the advocates of transubstantiation that it had the belief and approval of the early fathers of the Church. Bingham (Christ. Antiq. bk. 15 ch. 5, § 4) asserts that "the ancient fathers have declared as plainly as words can make it that the change made in the elements of bread and wine by consecration is not such a change as destroys their nature and substance, but only alters their qualities, and elevates them to a spiritual use, as is done in many other consecrations, where the qualities of things are much altered without any real change of substance." We give some extracts from the authorities quoted by Bingham. Thus Gregory of Nyssa (De Bapt. Christi, 3, 369); This altar before which we stand is but common stone in its nature, but after it is consecrated to the service of God, and has received a benediction, it is a holy table, an immaculate altar, not to be touched by any but the priests, and that with the greatest reverence. The bread also at first is but common bread, but when once it is sanctified by the holy mystery, it is made and called the body of Christ." Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. Myst. 2, note 3), "Beware that you take not this ointment to be bare ointment; for as the bread in the eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is not mere bread, but the body of Christ, so this holy ointment, after invocation, is not bare or common ointment, but it is the gift or grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit, who by his presence and divine nature makes it efficacious."

Chrysostom, in his famous Epistle to Caesarius, explaining the two natures of Christ that he had both a human and a divine substance in reality says, "As the bread, before it is sanctified, is called bread, but after the divine grace has sanctified it by the mediation of the priest it is no longer called bread, but dignified with the name of the body of the Lord, though the nature of bread remain in it, and they are not said to be two, but one body of the Son; so here, the divine nature residing or dwelling in the human body, they both together make one Son and one Person." When this passage was first produced by Peter Martyr, it was looked upon as so unanswerable that the Romish Church declared it to be a forgery, and it was stolen from the Lambeth Library during the reign of queen Mary. Theodoret plainly says that the bread and wine remain still in their own nature after consecration. Augustine, instructing the newly baptized respecting the sacrament, tells them that what they saw upon the altar was bread and the cup, as their own eyes could testify to them; but what their faith required to be instructed about was that the bread is the body of Christ, etc. Answering an objection, supposed to be urged, that Christ had taken his body to heaven, Augustine replies, "These things, my brethren, are therefore called sacraments, because in them one thing is seen and another is understood. That which is seen has a bodily appearance; that which is understood has a spiritual fruit." He also says that "this very bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ; consequently. it could not be his natural body in the substance, but only sacramentally. The natural body of Christ is only in heaven, but the sacrament has the name of his body, because, though in outward, visible, and corporeal appearance it is only bread, yet it is attended with a spiritual fruit." Isidore, bishop of Seville (A.D. 630), speaking of the rites of the Church, says, "The bread, because it nourishes and strengthens our bodies, is therefore called the body of Christ; and the wine, because it creates blood in our flesh, is called the blood of Christ. Now, these two things are visible, but, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, they become the sacrament of the Lord's body" (De Eccles. Ofic. 1, 18). From the time of Paschasius this doctrine had been the subject of angry contention, and one of its bitterest opponents was the able scholastic writer Duns Scotus, whose opinions were maintained in the 11th century by Berengarius and his numerous followers.

III. Arguments. — The doctrine of transubstantiation is defended by a literal interpretation of the words spoken by our Lord at the last supper, "This is my body," "This is my blood." From these words it is argued that there is the real bodily presence of Christ's body, which is accounted for by the miracle of a change of substance of the bread and wile. In answer it is urged,

1. The accounts which the Romanists give of this supposed miracle are at variance with their own statement of it. In such a case, for instance, as that of the miracle of Moses rod, every one would say, "the Rod was changed into a Serpent" (all the attributes of this last being present), not Vice Versa ; so that by Romanists' own account it is Christ's body and blood that are Changed Into Bread And Wine.

Wherever a miracle was wrought in the Old or New Test., as in the instance above alluded to, or in the turning of the water into wine at Cana, such change was obvious to the senses; the appeal, in fact, for the reality of the miracle is to the senses; while, therefore, we might admit that if a Romish priest were to assert that he had converted our Savior's body into bread and wine, he was safe as far as the senses go, we should hold, per contra, that if he professed to have turned bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, that body and blood ought to be clear to the senses.. We had bread and wine before the consecration; we have, as to sense, bread and wine after. In the whole history of miracles, nothing of this sort has ever been known; nor can we, under such circumstances, admit that the alleged change has taken place. Suppose Aaron's rod to have remained still with all the attributes of a rod, could Pharaoh and his court believe it to be now a serpent?

2. The late origin of the doctrine of transubstantiation has been alleged as one reason for its rejection, and it is certainly a point worthy of considerable notice. If, however, it had been as early as the superstitious veneration for relics and images, it would have been but an ancient error.

3. It must be evident to everyone who is not blinded by ignorance and prejudice that our Lord's words, This is my body," are mere figurative expressions; and that they were no more likely to be designed to be received literally than the declarations; made by our Lord that he was a "vine," a "lamb," a "door," a "way," a "light … "

4. Besides, such a transubstantiation is so opposite to the testimony of our senses as completely to undermine the whole proof of all the miracles by which God has confirmed revelation. According to such a transubstantiation, the same body is alive and dead at once, and may be in a million of different places whole and entire at the same instant of time; accidents remain without a substance, and substance without accidents; and a part of Christ's body is equal to the whole. It is also contrary to the end of the sacrament, which is to represent and commemorate Christ, not to believe that he is corporeally present ( 1 Corinthians 9:24-25).

5. The practical evil of this and of consubstantiation (q.v.) is that it leads to the paying divine adoration to a bit of bread, and the still more noxious superstition of thinking that Christ's body can be received and act like a medicine on one who is "not considering the Lord's body," as, e.g., an infant, or a man in a state of insensibility.

See Blunt, Dict. of Hist. Theol. s.v.; Gardner, Faiths of the World, s.v.; Bingham, Christ. Antiq. (see Index); Brown, Compendium, p. 613; Cosen, On Transubstantiation (1858); Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines (see Index); Hill, English Monasticism (Lond. 1867); Kidder, Messiah, 3, 80; Knott, On the Supper of our. Lord (1858); Smith, Errors of the Church of Rome, dial. 6; Thirlwall, Transubstantiation: What Is It? (1869); Van Oosterzee, Christ. Dogmat. (see Index); Watson, Biblical Dict. s.v.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The doctrine of Roman Catholics as defined by the Council of Trent, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is, after consecration by a priest, converted mystically into the body and blood of Christ, and is known as the docrine of the Real Presence.