Others, with some plausibility, have maintained that Justin is to be understood as meaning that in the Eucharistic service there is a repetition of the incarnation of Christ when the divine nature is in corporated with the bread and' wine, which thus become the true body of Christ, though not the same body as that which was crucified. The rarticles of Christ's body thus becotning by assimi lation united to the bodies of the communicants, are the germs of immortality and the principles of their resurrection bodies. This form of the doc trine of the real presence, apparently held by several of die Fathers, has been called impanition. It, or something very like it, seems to have been held by Irenmus, who says, As bread taken from the earth is, on the invocation of God, no longer common bread but Eucharist, consisting of two substances, the earthly and the heavenly ; so our bodies partaking of the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, but have the hope of the everlasting resurrection ' (Adv. Ifeeres., lib. iv., c. 34).
From this root grew, though slowly, the doctrine of transubstantiation, although in the middle ages it was strenuously opposed by some of the greatest theologians of Europe, as in the ninth century by Raban Maurus, archbishop of Mentz, and Ber tram, abbot of Corbey; in the tenth century, by lElfric the grammarian, whose letters to \Vulf stan, archbishop of Vork, and Wulfsin, bishop of Sherbourn, have been pre,,erved in the cathedral libraries of Worcester and Exeter ; and in the eleventh century by Berenger, archdeacon of An gers. All controversy was for ever closed on this subject in the Romish Church by the decree of the Council of Trent, which declares that by the consecration of the bread and wine a conversion is made 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' (Sess. xiii., c. 4) This do for the remembrance of nie.'—These words, preserved by Luke and Paul, teach us the meaning and intention of the service. It is a commemorative observance, the authorised coin memoration of the death of Christ. This most Christians admit, though many contend that it is also something more than a commemoration.
Roman Catholics assert that in the sacrament of the Eucharist the body and blood of Christ are offered a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. It is understood that they are offered especially for the sins of the person on whose behalf the mass is said, whether he be a living man or soul in purgatory. As Catholics cannot believe that the body of Christ is put to dTath in the Eucharistic service, we may inquire how it is sacrificed upon the altar? or how an unbloody sacrifice,' as they call it, of a human body can be any sacrifice at all? In support of this doctrine, the only argument we can discover independent of the authority of the church, is the frequent mention of sacramental obla tions and sacrifices in the writings of the Fathers.
Justin Martyr speaks of the Eucharist as an offering and sacrifice—' Concerning the sacrifices which are offered by us in every place, that is the bread of the Eucharist' (Dia4 c. Tryph. c. 117). But the offering of the bread of the Eucharist' is very different from the offering of the body of Christ for sin. On these words Justin himself supplies the best commentary in the words already cited, When the bread and a cup of wine and water are brought to the president, he offers praise and thanksgiving to the Father of all. In the Dialogue he also says (c.. 117), That prayer and thanksgivings oferea' by the worthy are the only peilect ana' acceptable sacrifices (Ovcrinc). For them only Christians have received a command to offer at the commemoration of their dry and wet food (bread and wine), in which they commemorate the sufferings that the Son of God endured for them.' Irenxus and Tertullian used the words obla tion' and sacrifice ' in reference to the Eucharist in the same nia.nner as did Justin, and as they designated other acts of re/igious worship. In doing so, they followed the example not only of Justin, but of the inspired writers, Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.' No one can suppose that by the sacrifice of praise is intended a propitiatory sacrifice for sin.
A different signification of the words oblation and sacrifice is found in Cyprian (Tract. x. 12), 'Think you that you celebrate the Lord's Supper who entirely neglect the offering, who come into the Lord's house without a sacrifice, and take part of that sacrifice which the poor have offered ?' By the offering and sacrifice Cyprian intended the offering of bread, wine, or other things needful to the church at the communion, without reference to any official act of a priest. This sense of the words may be found in later writers, though gradually a more literal and unevangelic spirit was given to them, until the table became an altar, the president a priest, and the bread the host or sacri fice offered for sin, and given to the communicant in assurance that the propitiatory sacrifice had been offered for his sins.