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B. THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD’S SUPPER IN HISTORY.
1. BEFORE THE REFORMATION.
Even in the apostolic age the celebration of the Lord’s Supper
was accompanied with agapae or love-feasts, for which the people brought the necessary
ingredients, and which sometimes led to sad abuses, I Cor. 11:20-22. In course of time the gifts
so brought were called oblations and sacrifices, and were blessed by the priest with a prayer of
thanksgiving. Gradually these names were applied to the elements in the Lord’s Supper, so that
these assumed the character of a sacrifice brought by the priest, and thanksgiving came to be
regarded as a consecration of those elements. While some of the early Church Fathers (Origen,
Basil, Gregory of Nazianze) retained the symbolical or spiritual conception of the sacrament,
others (Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom) held that the flesh and blood of Christ were in
some way combined with the bread and wine in the sacrament. Augustine retarded the realistic
development of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper for a long time. While he did speak of the
bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, he distinguished between the sign and the
thing signified, and did not believe in a change of substance. He denied that the wicked, though
receiving the elements, also received the body, and stressed the commemorative aspect of the
Lord’s Supper. During the Middle Ages the Augustinian view was gradually transplanted by the
doctrine of transubstantiation. As early as 818 A.D. Paschasius Radbertus already formally
proposed this doctrine, but met with strong opposition on the part of Rabanus Maurus and
Ratramnus. In the eleventh century a furious controversy again broke out on the subject
between Berenger of Tours and Lanfranc. The latter made the crass statement that “the very
body of Christ was truly held in the priest’s hand, broken and chewed by the teeth of the
faithful.” This view was finally defined by Hildebert of Tours (1134), and designated as the
doctrine of transubstantiation. It was formally adopted by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Many questions connected with this doctrine were debated by the Scholastics, such as those
respecting the duration of the change of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus
Christ, the manner of Christ’s presence in both elements, the relation of substance and
accidents, the adoration of the host, and so on. The final formulation of the doctrine was given
by the Council of Trent, and is recorded in Sessio XIII of its Decrees and Canons. Eight Chapters
and eleven Canons are devoted to it. We can only mention the most essential points here. Jesus
Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the holy sacrament. The fact that He is seated
at the right hand of God does not exclude the possibility of His substantial and sacramental
presence in several places simultaneously. By the words of consecration the substance of bread
and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ. The entire Christ is present under each
species and under each particle of either species. Each one who receives a particle of the host
receives the whole Christ. He is present in the elements even before the communicant receives
them. In view of this presence, the adoration of the host is but natural. The sacrament effects