TRANSUBSTANTIATION (Lat. transubstantiatio, change of substance, from trans, over, and eubstantia, a substance), a word used by the scholastic writers of the Roman Catholic church to designate the change which is believed by Roman Catholics to take place in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine, in virtue of the consecration. Under the head REAL PRESENCE (q.v.), which is often loosely comprehended under the larger name of transub-tantiation, the doctrine of Catholics as to the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, after consecration, has been fully explained There remains, however, beyond this doctrine as to the presence of Christ, a further in quiry concerning the elements of bread and wine which had existed in their natural con dition before the consecration. For sacramentarians (q.v.), this question is easily resolved. But those Protestants who hold in common with Catholics the reality of Christ's presence, differ from them as to the copresence of the substance of bread and wine after consecration. Some Anglican divines, who hold the real presence of the body and blood, would appear to content themselves with remaining silent as to the mode of the presence. Dr. Pusey goes so far as to say, that the dispute between Angli cans and Humanists is " probably a dispute about words " (Eirenicon, p. 229). The Lutheran views as to the mode of the presence have been explained under the heads EMANATION, REAL PnEsExcE (q.v.). According to the Catholic doctrine, which has been explicitly defined as an article of faith (Council of Trent, Sess. xiii. Can. 2), " the whole substance of the bread is changed into the body of Christ, and the whole sub stance of the wine into His blood, the species alone remaining." What is the precise philosophical meaning of the word " species," called also • accidents," in this definition, is not declared; but in popular language it may be described as simply meaning the ap pearances, that is to say, those qualities or conditions of bread and wine which produce upon the senses the impression of the presence of bread and wine. It is not taught,
however, that in the change called transubstantiation, the body and blood of Christ are formed out of the substance of the bread and wine. but that, in virtue of the Eucharistic consecration, the substance of bread and wine cease to exist, and that the body and blood of Christ take their place; nor that the body and blood of Christ become what the schoolmen call the " subject " of the "accidents" of the bread and wine, but merely that, by a miraculous suspension of the ordinary law, the senses still continue to receive from the Eucharistic elements all the same impressions which they had previously received front the liread and wine: viz., of color, taste, smell, solidity, extension, figure, etc.
The history of the controversy regarding transubstantiation is sketched in the article LORD'S-SUPPEE. The objections to the doctrine have been chiefly drawn from the phil osophical difficulties which are involved in it; and the defenders of it have, for the most part, contented themselves with resting on the proofs which they profess to draw from Scripture and tradition, and a general demonstration that the doctrine, although mys terious, does not involve any philosophical repugnance or impossibility, and that the philosophical arguments against it are at least not conclusive. Some Catholic philoso phers have even undertaken to demonstrate the possibility of transubstantiation by phil osophical arguments; and it is especially remarkable that the celebrated Leibnitz (q.v.) has not only entered at great length, and in several portions of his works,'into this phil osophical discussion, but professes to prove, by strict philosophical principles—by the consideration of the properties of matter, of substance, of space, extension, and the like—that the essential principle of the body "may exist in many places at the same time, nay, under far-distrukt and distinct species."—Leibnitz's Deutsche Sckriften, i. pp. 283, 284.