COMMUNION IN BOTH KINDS. It is universally acknowledged that in the primitive church, at the celebration of the Lord's supper, both the bread and the cup were distributed to all who communed. Sects which, like the Manichteans, discarded the wine were condemned as irregular. As, however, there was frequent occasion to carry the consecrated elements from the church to sick persons at their homes, a became customary, for convenience, to dip the bread in the wine, administering, in this way, both in one. At length it was thought more convenient to omit the wine. In the. 13th c., Robert Pulleyn, of Oxford, approved the custom of giving to the laity the bread: only, in order, as was said, to avoid the danger of spilling the wine. This view was adopted by the scholastic theologians, who taught that Christ was wholly present in the sacrament under either form, and that, consequently, one form was sufficient for a valid observance of it. Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, especially, advocated administration of the communion under one form only. In proportion as the doctrine of transubstantiation was developed, it became the practice of the church to withhold' the cup from the laity. Against this the reformers of the middle ages, as the Waldenses;
Huss, Wyckliffe, and Savanarola, protested. The Protestant churches, also, were united in regarding the communion in both kinds as essential to the right observance of the ordinance. The practice of the'Roman Catholic church wat Confirmed made bind ing by the council of Trent in 1563. It has always since been adhered to, and is defended on the ground that the cup is not necessary to the completeness of the sacra ment. Since the whole Christ, as to his body, soul, and divinity, is not only in each species, but iu every particle of both, he who receives the consecrated bread receives the whole Christ, and derives all the benefit front communing that the sacrament can afford. But while this law is unifOrealy enforced in the western Roman Catholic church, those portions of the eastern churches that acknowledge the supremacy of the pope are allowed to retain both forms; and the same toleration has been offered to Protestants in order to facilitate their return into the unity of the church under the Roman see.
Sec LORD'S SUPPER, ante.