The opinion which sought to establish a 'via media' between transubstantiation and consub stantiation, on the one hand, and Zwinglianism on the other hand, is known as the Receptionist theory. This recognized a presence and insisted on its being spiritual, as opposed to material. But, in the last analysis, it must he admitted that this presence, according to Calvin and his fol lowers, was not in the sacrament itself, and by virtue of the net of consecration, but in the heart of the recipient and by virtue of an act of faith on his part. This view ignored the res sacra wenti, as did Zwingli's, but preserved and ished the rirtus or beneficia, and hence has been designated by some writers as •Virtnalism; Another view, and one held largely in the Anglican communion, is known as the Objective Real Presence. The adjective has been inserted in the definition as a safeguard against virtual ism. Dr. l'usev says: "Finding that the words [Zeal Presence were often understood of what is in fact a real absence, we added the word 'ob jective,' not as wishing to obtrude on others a 0.1111 of modern philosophy, but to express that the life-giving body, the roc sacrumenti, is, by virtue of the consecration, present without us to be received by us, in the words of the Fathers, 'for us to lay up Christ in ourselves. and place the Saviour in our breasts.'" 'Elie Presence he calls "sa crmental. supernatural. mystical, in citable, as opposed not to what is real, but to what is natural."
The advocates of this view of the Holy Com munion contend that it not only embodies the teaching of the early and undivided Church, but that it does so in language calculated to preserve the sacrament from the several forms of error with which it has unhappily been associated. They assert also that it stands the test of the Chaleedonian formula as summed up by the ju dicious As in the Incarnation our Lord was truly (aXnth'Zs) divine and perfectly (reXlcas) human, and as the two natures were. in llis one Person, united inseparably (dotaLpIztas) but un confusedly (davyx&rws), so in the sacrament of His body and blood there is the supernatural presence 'under the form of' the natural bread and wine, and the two arc united inseparably, but unconfusedly. The natural is not merged and lost in the supernatural. The supernatural is not overlooked or ignored. The two are neither cut asunder nor fused together. There is neither a separation nor an amalgamation.
The assertion made recently by Bishop Gore that the spiritual presence is for a purpose—'in order to he eaten,' as he contends the prayers of consecration in the old liturgies indicate—may possibly conduce toward a harmonizing of dis cordant views. (For the development of the ser vice used in connection with the sacrament, see LITURGY; for details relating to communion. see