cration pronounced, than from bread it becomes the flesh of Christ." [1] To prove this position more clearly, he elucidates it by a variety of comparisons and examples. In another place, when explaining these words of the Psalmist: "Whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done in heaven and on earth," [2] he says: " Although the species of bread and wine are visible, yet faith tells us that after consecration, the body and blood of Christ are alone there." [3] Explaining the same doctrine almost in the same words, St. Hilary says, that although externally it appear bread and wine, yet in reality it is the body and blood of the Lord. [4]
Here the pastor will not omit to observe to the faithful, that we should not at all be surprised, if even after consecration, the Eucharist is sometimes called bread: it is so called because it has the appearance and still retains the natural quality of bread, which is to support and nourish the body. That such phraseology is in perfect accordance with the style of the Holy Scriptures, which call things by what they appear to be, is evident from the words of Genesis, which say, that Abraham saw three men, when, in reality, he saw three angels; [5] and the two angels also, who appeared to the Apostles after the ascension of our Lord, are, called not angels, but men. [6]
To explain this mystery in a proper manner is extremely difficult. On the manner of this admirable conversion, the pastor, however, will endeavour to instruct those who are more advanced in the knowledge and contemplation of divine things: those who are yet weak may, it were to be apprehended, be overwhelmed by its greatness. This conversion, then, is so effectuated that the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed by the power of God, into the whole substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine, into the whole substance of his blood, and this, without any change in our Lord himself: he is neither begotten, nor changed, nor in creased, but remains entirely and substantially the same. This sublime mystery St. Ambrose thus declares: " You see how efficacious are the words of Christ; if, then, the word of the Lord Jesus is so powerful as to summon creation into existence, shall it not require a less exercise of power, to make that sub sist, which already has existence, and to change it into another thing?" [7] Many other Fathers, whose authority is too grave to be questioned, have written to the same effect: "We faithfully confess," says St. Augustine, " that before consecration it is bread and wine, the produce of nature; but after consecration it is the body and blood of Christ, consecrated by the blessing." [8] " The body," says Damascene, "is truly united to the divinity, the body assumed of the virgin; not that the body thus assumed
