For when we show that our prayers are offered through the eternal Priest, the Lord Christ, we confess the true flesh of our race in Him; according to that which the Apostle says: 'For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in the things pertaining to God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins' (Heb. 5:1). But when we say 'Thy Son,' and add, 'who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit,' we surely commemorate that unity which the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have by nature: wherein it is shown that the same Christ who exercised the priestly office for us has natural unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
See, I pray, how many heretics are hereby refuted. For principally our faith is distinguished from the error of the Manichaeans, when through that Priest we offer our prayers, who is therefore a true Priest because He offered Himself as a true sacrifice for us; which the Apostle undoubtingly affirms, saying: 'Be ye therefore imitators of God, as most dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also loved us, and delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness' (Eph. 5:1-2). And He surely would not have offered a true sacrifice, if the truth of flesh had not been in Him.
The truth of this sacrifice, after He rose from the dead, that same great High Priest showed to His disciples and offered to be handled, saying: 'Handle and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have' (Luke 24:39). 38. Hence also our faith is distinguished from the error of Eutyches; who, although he does not dare to deny the incarnate Word, yet, since he does not confess that the very flesh of the Word was taken from the flesh of the Virgin, utterly empties out the mystery of the great High Priest. To him that opinion which I set forth above contradicts the Apostle: 'Every high priest (he says) taken from among men is appointed for men in the things pertaining to God' (Heb. 5:1). And in another place:
'For nowhere doth He take hold of the angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become merciful and a faithful high priest to God, that He might make propitiation for the sins of the people' (Heb. 2:16-17). By this discourse, therefore, in which we show that we offer our prayers through Jesus Christ, true faith resists every error which does not confess in Christ the truth of the human body. But because Christ is not only true man, but is also by nature true God, and one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we worthily say to God the Father: 'who liveth and reigneth with Thee,' in that natural unity indeed which He set forth, saying: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30).
Wherein likewise our faith is distinguished, not only from the error of Arius and Sabellius, but also from that of Nestorius: for in the very term of unity, just as the substance of Father and Son is known not to be diverse, so when we say 'who liveth and reigneth with Thee,' it is shown that there is not one person of the Father and the Son. It also appears that the eternal Priest is Himself the true Son, who reigns with God the Father in unity of nature. But when we say 'in the unity of the Holy Spirit,' we show one nature of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. And what else does the unity of nature show but that the Trinity is one God, and thereby also one kingdom? For diversity of nature can show in a kingdom a diversity of power.
But where the unity of the kingdom is natural, there remains also one power of reigning: whereas in that kingdom those can have a diversity of power to whom the power itself is bestowed by grace, not supplied by nature. But there is not diversity, but unity of power in the Trinity, which bestows that very power on each according to its own will, because it has ineffably a natural unity. But see what blessed Augustine feels concerning the Holy Spirit in the sixth book (chapter 5) On the Trinity, where, saying: 'The Son therefore is equal to the Father, and is of one and the same substance,' he immediately subjoined: 'Wherefore the Holy Spirit also consists in the same unity of substance and equality.'
'For whether it be the unity of both, or their holiness, or their charity, or their unity because it is charity, and their charity because it is holiness—it is manifest that He is not one of the two by whom both are joined, by whom the Begotten is loved by the Begetter and loves His own Begetter; and that they are so, not by participation, but by their own essence; nor by the gift of any superior, but by their own, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' And a little after: 'The Holy Spirit therefore is something common to the Father and the Son, whatever it be; but that very communion is consubstantial and coeternal. And if it can fittingly be called friendship, let it be so called; but it is more aptly called charity.'
'And this too is substance, because God is substance and God is charity (1 John 4:16), as it is written.' Again in another place of the same book (in the same chapter 5) he says: 'The Holy Spirit therefore is likewise equal; and if equal, equal in all things on account of the supreme simplicity which is in that substance. And therefore there are not more than three: one loving Him who is from Him, and one loving Him from whom He is, and love itself. Which if it is nothing, how is God love? If it is not substance, how is God substance?' By these words therefore blessed Augustine did not hesitate to call the Holy Spirit, just as charity and holiness, so also the unity of the Father and the Son;
nor merely something common to them, but also confidently to proclaim it a consubstantial and coeternal communion. Which surely is therefore said by catholics, that from the very name of unity we may be acknowledged by the faithful to have one essence, and thereby one kingdom, and in that same one kingdom one power of the Trinity, and one majesty: lest it be thought that either the Son or the Holy Spirit reigns with the Father according to the divine nature in the way that an inferior reigns with a superior; but that that unity of the Holy Spirit, which is the communion of the Father and the Son, together with that kingdom shows the unity of the divinity, and teaches that there is one eternity of reigning, one power, one majesty, and one dominion of the supreme Trinity. FIFTH QUESTION. 39.
The letter contains the fifth, that is, the last question in these words. What is it that Luke the evangelist, being about to narrate the Supper of the Lord, first says that He took the cup and immediately handed it to the disciples to be divided among themselves; and then thereafter, having taken bread, said, 'This is my body'; and having likewise taken the cup after He had supped, then said, 'This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you' (Luke 22:17ff.)? Having proposed this question, you subjoin and say: Was it one cup that was given a second time, or one before and another afterward?
And if it is so, you ask, to the sacrament of what thing does that cup pertain, concerning which especially the others who wrote the Gospels were silent? REPLY. 40. Some have wished this passage of the Gospel to be understood in such a way that they do not assert that two cups were given by the Lord, but rather affirm that it was said by anticipation; and that it was one cup that is recorded to have been given to the disciples, both to be divided beforehand and to be drunk afterward. But some affirm that a cup was given a second time. But whether one hold this or that, either sense is such that it is found in no way foreign to the true faith. But those who according to
They hold that a cup was given a second time, and they have said that this was done as a sign. Some assert that in the first cup the Lord prefigured His own Passion, but in the second the Passion of His faithful. Others, however, have said that in both cups this was shown, which is commanded in the Old Testament (Exod. 12:5; Num. 9:11), namely, that whoever has not observed the Passover of the first month by eating the lamb should carry it out in the second month by eating a kid. Yet to me there seems to be found here also another mystery befitting the Christian faith, namely, that in both cups each Testament ought to be understood. Especially since Truth itself has so demonstrated this to us that no difficulty remains for those who seek:
For the Lord Himself deigned to call the cup which He gave to be drunk the New Testament, as the tenor of the Gospel utterance shows. And so it is found attested beyond doubt by three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The words of Matthew are these: As they were supping, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, and said: Take and eat: This is My body. And taking the cup, He gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: Drink ye all of this: For this is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins (Matt. 26:26). But Mark, about to explain the mystery of the Lord's bread and cup, says this:
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread; and blessing it He broke it, and gave it to them, and said: Take, This is My body. And taking the cup, giving thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And He said to them: This is My blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many (Mark 14:22). But of Luke, who it is certain named the cup in the second place, the narrative is found set in order and explained in these words: And taking the cup, He gave thanks, and said: Take, and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God come. And taking bread, He gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying: This is My body, which is given for you:
do this in remembrance of Me. In like manner also the cup, after He had supped, saying: This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which shall be shed for you (Luke 22:17ff.). Hence it is that blessed Paul too, recalling the most sacred mystery of that supper, intimates that the cup was named by the Lord none other than the New Testament. For among other things he speaks thus: For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks broke it, and said: This is My body which is for you: do this in remembrance of Me. In like manner also the cup, after He had supped, saying: This cup is the New Testament in My blood:
do this, as often as you shall drink it, in remembrance of Me (1 Cor. 11:23). 41. By this attestation, therefore, of evangelical and apostolic sayings, in this place at least, under the name of the cup we are permitted to understand nothing other than the divine Testament. For there is no doubt that in other places the grace of the Passion is signified by the Lord under the name of the cup. This surely He wished to be understood when He said to the sons of Zebedee: Can you drink of the cup which I am about to drink (Matt. 20:22)? And in that very hour in which He willed to be seized by the hands of the wicked, admonishing blessed Peter with these words to put his sword back into its sheath, He showed that He would drink the cup of the Passion, saying: Put up thy sword into the sheath.
The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it (John 18:11)? That in this cup the Passion is to be understood He also showed there, where, withdrawn from His disciples about a stone's cast, about to die for the sins of men, He truly displayed in Himself the affection of human weakness as well; and so that He might deign to remove despair from the weaker (or lower) members, that very Power which willed to be our Head did not disdain, out of divine love, to say what His members would afterward say out of human fear. Hence it is that Luke the evangelist recalls that He said: Father, if Thou wilt, remove this cup from Me (Luke 22:42). Matthew too testifies that His words were these:
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me (Matt. 26:39). But Mark, to show what we ought to understand by that cup, says: And when He had gone forward a little, He fell upon the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him (Mark 14:35). What hour do we suppose is here signified by the holy evangelist, except that of which the Lord says: My hour is not yet come (John 2:4); and of which John the evangelist says: And no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come (John 7:30)? The hour, surely, not of compelled death, but of voluntary Passion;
beyond doubt that hour in which He would undergo a triumphant death, and, loosing the pains of hell, would Himself mercifully and wondrously stand forth as the death of death, as He had already said through the Prophet: I will be thy death, O death; I will be thy bite, O hell (Hos. 13:14). That this hour was named by the Lord in His prayer under the name of the cup, the blessed evangelist subsequently shows, by adding the prayer of that same Lord, in which He says: Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee: remove this cup from Me (Mark 14:36). For it is surely manifest that to pray that the hour might pass from Him was to say that the cup might be removed from Him.
Here, as I have said, our Head displayed in Himself the weakness assumed from His members, to whom He knew He would give the strength to suffer, so that He might teach that the merit of the Passion is not to be voided if, in a man about to suffer for the faith and love of Christ, a trembling of the will coming from the weakness of the flesh should strive to shake his ready spirit, but rather that the human will should subject itself to the divine will, and out of weakness accomplish strength, since the gift of spiritual grace prevails:
retaining the faculty given him by Him whose will he does not doubt is to be preferred to his own, and thus that man might patiently overcome that which he would will out of human weakness, so as happily to arrive at that to which the divine will profitably calls. 42. Therefore the will of Christ could not be other than the Father's, since in the Father and the Son the natural unity ever preserves one will. But He who, assuming human nature, came to save the nature which He had made, brought forth also the words of that same nature by a not deceitful but most truthful assumption, whose affection too He received with most clement goodness; that affection, namely, which the flesh has from the trembling of dying, not from the desire of sinning;
for He who knew no sin, without sin took up, not the affection of our iniquity, but of our weakness. For truly of Him blessed Peter says: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22). Accordingly, because He did no sin, He did not have a will differing from the Father's will; and because no guile was found in His mouth, out of the affection indeed of human weakness, it is not doubted that He brought forth true words. Although, therefore, in those sayings of our Savior by which He named the cup, the Passion is to be understood—both His own and that of His saints (in which sense blessed David too named the cup, in that place only where he says:
What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord [Ps. 115:3]: where, showing that this cup is nothing other than the death of the saints, he immediately added: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints)—yet under the name of the cup there is received also the perfect grace of charity, by which strength is poured in for the Passion to be undergone for the name of Christ; so that, even if the opportunity be lacking whereby anyone might undergo the Passion for Christ, nevertheless such great strength is present in the heart by the gift of the divine bounty, that nothing is wanting to him for enduring pain, for despising life, and for undergoing death for the name of Christ. This is well understood in that place where it is said in the psalm:
And how goodly is Thy inebriating cup (Ps. 22:5)! But he prefixed: Thou hast anointed my head with oil. What ought we to understand by the head anointed with oil, except the mind strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit? For the goodly richness of this oil is the inseparable fortitude of spiritual grace, by which a holy inebriation is poured into the inmost recesses of the heart, so that every affection of the flesh, consigned to oblivion, is overcome. Filled with this inebriation, the soul learns to rejoice always in the Lord, and to count as contemptible whatever it loved in the world; this inebriation we shall drink when, having received the Holy Spirit, we shall possess the grace of that perfect charity which casteth out fear.
Hence it is that blessed Ambrose in the morning hymn taught us to ask for this grace of inebriation, when we sing: Joyfully let us drink the sober inebriation of the Spirit (Weekday I, at Lauds). 45. In other places, therefore, the name of the cup can be understood in some other way whatsoever, according to the rule of true faith; yet in this passage of the Gospel of which we are now disputing, we are not permitted to understand anything other than what is expressed in the very words of our Lord and Master, who says: This cup is the New Testament in My blood (Luke 22:20); and from this rule, whereby this cup is called the New Testament, in that cup which He gave first, not without reason is the Old Testament understood.
The Lord Himself, therefore, gave both cups, He who bestowed both Testaments upon His faithful. For this reason too, in that same supper He both ate the Jewish Passover, which had to be offered, and gave the sacrament of His body and blood, which had to be instituted for the salvation of the faithful: He ate the Passover of the Jews by which Christ was promised, that He might come to our Passover by which Christ was immolated. Finally, attend to what Luke the evangelist recalls that He said with His disciples. For he says thus: And when the hour was come, He reclined at table, and the twelve apostles with Him; and He said to them: With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer (Luke 22:14).
He therefore ate the Passover by which He was signified as about to suffer, before He suffered voluntarily for us. But there is also something in the Lord's own sayings which must be more attentively recognized by the faithful, in which the distinction of both Testaments can appear. For blessed Luke, concerning the cup which he first named, speaks thus: And taking the cup, He gave thanks, and said: Take, and divide it among yourselves; but speaking afterward of the bread and the cup, he says: And taking bread, He gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying: This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me. In like manner also the cup, after He had supped, saying:
This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you (Luke 22:17-19). It does not seem to me that a certain distinction of words was made here idly by the very Wisdom of God; seeing that He gave the first cup to be received in such a way that He commanded it to be divided, saying: Take, and divide it among yourselves; which in that cup which He gave with the bread He by no means said: for there He commends His body and blood, and asserts that same cup to be new in His blood, the Testament, saying: This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you;
but no mention is made of the cup being divided—which is likewise found in the other two evangelists also, namely Matthew and Mark, as their sayings, set down above by us, evidently show. This cup, therefore, in which we have said the Old Testament is intimated, the Lord for this reason commanded to be received and divided, so that the apostles, instructed by the gift of heavenly wisdom, might so reverently receive the Scripture of the Old Testament that in its very precepts they might, having received the spirit of discernment, know what was to be done and what was to be omitted. For this is to divide rightly: that each one should know, according to the fittingness of the time, what he ought to omit and what to hold. 44.
Hence it is that, by a most careful order of division, the Church of the living God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), discerns the times of Christ who is to come and of Christ who is coming; and, the sacrifices being omitted by which Christ was promised as about to suffer, offers this sacrifice by which Christ is shown as having already suffered. She also divides that time of celebrating circumcision from this time of receiving baptism. Of this division she retains a most salutary manner also in the precept of the new moon, since she does not idly sound forth with Jewish trumpets, but ceases not to preach that each one should be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and put on the new man, the holy Church. All these things she divides wholesomely, which she now venerably receives
in the reading, but now no longer celebrates in deed, applying the ear of her heart to the apostolic sayings, by which blessed Paul instructs all the faithful, saying: Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ (Col. 2:16). For, expounding also the sacrament of circumcision, he says: Beware lest any man deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ;
for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in Him who is the head of all principality and power, in whom also you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand in the despoiling of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism (Col. 2:8-12). These things and things like them the Church both receives wisely and divides: by receiving, she believes them promised by God in truth; by dividing, she recognizes them already rendered by God Himself in truth; nor does she await them to be fulfilled in figures, but holds them fulfilled in truth. For the holy Church knows God to be faithful in His words, and holy in all His works;
whence, just as in the Old Testament she understands the faithful words of the promising God, so in the New Testament she recognizes the holy works of the God who renders what He had promised. For certain words of the promising God were the sacraments of the Old Testament, by which Christ was promised to us: which words have passed away, from the moment that He, by whom they were promised, is found exhibited. Therefore in the very sacrifice of the body of Christ we begin with a giving of thanks, so that we may show Christ not as to be given, but as given to us in truth; and in the fact that we give thanks to God in the oblation of the body and blood of Christ, let us recognize that Christ is not still to be slain for our iniquities, but has been slain; nor that we are to be redeemed by that blood, but have been redeemed.
For true is the preaching of blessed Peter, who says: For you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled, of Christ (1 Pet. 1:18). 43. The holy Church therefore divides figures from truth, shadows from the body: which the holy apostles taught her, who salutarily received that cup from the Lord to be divided among themselves. But the Lord for this reason gave the division of this cup to His disciples, because through their teaching the holy Church received the knowledge of this division.
But He says that they should divide it among themselves, that is, that in the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, they should distinguish the sacraments of the New Testament by the ceasing of the old sacraments: which in the cup of the New Testament He does not prescribe to be done by the apostles. For in the New Testament there is no division of sacraments, but of gifts, which consists not in the power of men, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. For there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministrations, but the same Lord; there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all (1 Cor. 12:4)
Hence it is that, whereas to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healing in the one Spirit, and the rest which the apostolic discourse wove together—these are not given to be divided by men; but all these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to everyone according as He will. This division, which He did not give to men, but the Trinity reserved to itself alone, the blessed Apostle showing in another place, admonishes not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety; to everyone as God hath divided the measure of faith (Rom. 12:3).
And because there is one division of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, therefore Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, says in the Proverbs: I walk in the ways of justice, and I dwell in the midst of the paths of equity, that I may divide substance to them that love me, and may fill their treasures with good things (Prov. 8:20). 46. Both cups, therefore, are given by the Lord to the apostles, yet not both are commanded to be divided: for the division of that one was necessary, in which the distinction of times had to be considered. Hence it is that in the Old Testament we recognize certain sacraments duly celebrated at that time in figures, and we venerably receive them;