Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book II: On the Real Presence, from the Testimonies of the Fathers
Chapter 11: The Testimony of St. Athanasius
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book II: On the Truth of the Body of the Lord in the Eucharist, from the Testimonies of the Fathers. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
Saint Athanasius, who flourished at the very time of the Council of Nicaea (since indeed he was present at that council), is cited by Theodoret in his second Dialogue in these words: “It is a body to which He says: Sit at my right hand; whose enemy also was the devil with the evil powers, and the Jews and the Greeks; through which body He was Pontiff and Apostle, and was so called, in that which He delivered to us, saying the mystery: This is my body, which is broken for you, and the blood of the new Testament, not of the old, which is shed for you. But the Divinity has neither body nor blood.” These are cited from the oration On the Faith, which, although perhaps it does not now exist, yet the testimony of Theodoret suffices that we should not doubt these words are Saint Athanasius’s. Now in this place Athanasius wishes to prove that Christ had a true body, and that there was in Him not only true divinity, but also true flesh. And this he proves because it is said to Christ by the Father: Sit at my right hand; but to sit in a certain place belongs not to the divinity, but to the body. Likewise he proves it from this, that Christ as Pontiff and priest offered His body and delivered it to us, when He said: This is my body. Where, if Athanasius did not understand a true and properly-so-called body, he would favor the heretics whom he assailed; for they confessed that Christ had a certain apparent body, and so a figure of a body, but denied that He had a true human body.
But the adversaries object another passage from Athanasius. For in his treatise on those words, Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him, and so forth, he says thus: “For how many men would His body have sufficed as food, that it should become the nourishment of the whole world? But for this reason He made mention of His ascension into heaven, that He might draw them away from a bodily understanding, and that they might thereafter understand His flesh (of which He had spoken) to be a food from on high, a heavenly and spiritual nourishment, to be given by Him. For the things which I have spoken to you, He says, are spirit and life; which is as if He said: My body, which is shown and given for the world, shall be given as food, that it may be spiritually bestowed on each one, and become for each a safeguard and preservation unto the resurrection of eternal life.” So he. Of this passage Peter Martyr so triumphs, in his book against Gardiner, objection 180, that he says: “Than this argument I think scarcely any other is firmer, or more invincible, of those which are taken from the Fathers.”
I answer: The force of the adversaries’ argument consists in three points. The first, that Athanasius says the eating of the body of the Lord ought not to be taken carnally, because the flesh of Christ would not suffice for so many who are to eat it, if it had to be received carnally. But this fights not against our opinion, but against the Capharnaites, who thought the flesh of Christ must be divided into particles and so distributed to the eaters; for in this manner it truly would not suffice for so many without some new miracle. But we say that the flesh of Christ is so received that it is received whole and indivisibly by all.
Then, that Athanasius says the flesh of Christ is a spiritual nourishment, and is distributed spiritually. But neither does this fight with our opinion. For the flesh of Christ is most rightly called a spiritual nourishment, because it is given as food of the spirit, not of the body, and is distributed spiritually, not bodily, because it is not divided into parts, but is given whole at once, as we said, indivisibly. Whence also Saint Bernard, in his sermon on Saint Martin, says that the flesh of Christ is given and eaten spiritually, and yet in the same place says that in the Sacrament there is present the true substance of the flesh.
Lastly, that Athanasius says Christ, when He spoke of the eating of His flesh, made mention of His ascension into heaven, to draw the hearers away from a bodily understanding. But neither does this stand against our cause. For the Lord made mention of the ascension to show that His flesh is not to be eaten after the manner of other flesh, which was the bodily understanding of the Capharnaites, but in a certain spiritual manner; for if the Lord had given His flesh torn into particles, as the Capharnaites suspected it was to be given, certainly He could not have ascended into heaven with that flesh. Since therefore we learn that Christ ascended into heaven with immortal and glorious flesh, we learn at the same time that that flesh is not eaten carnally, so as to be torn and consumed.
Nothing, therefore, is gathered from that passage of Athanasius against the opinion of the Catholics; but rather something is gathered for it. For what Athanasius says in the same place, that the very body which was shown to the world, and given to death for the life of the world, is now given to us as food, indicates plainly enough that a true body is given to us, not a symbolic body; for a symbolic body was not given to death for the life of the world. And that this true body is given to us not only by the apprehension of faith, but also by the apprehension of the bodily mouth, those words of Athanasius indicate: “That it may be to us a safeguard and preservation unto the resurrection.” For (as we said above) the ancient Fathers were wont to prove the resurrection of bodies from the conjunction of our mortal body with the immortal body of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XI. Testimonium S. Athanasii. Sanctus Athanasius, qui ipso tempore Ni- ejeni concilii floruit (quippe qui eidem con¬ cilio interfuit) citatur a Theodoreto in n. Dialogo in haec verba : « Corpus est, cui di¬ cit : Sede a dextris meis ; cujus etiam fuit ini¬ micus diabolus cum malis potestatibus, et Ju- deei, et Grseci, per quod corpus Pontifex, et Apostolus fuit, et dictus est per id, quod no¬ bis tradidit, mysterium dicens : Hoc est cor¬ pus meum, quod pro vobis frangitur, et san¬ guis novi Testamenti, non veteris, qui pro vobis effunditur. Divinitas autem, neque cor¬ pus habet, neque sanguinem». Heec citantur ex oratione de fide, quee etsi fortasse nunc non exstet, tamen sufficit Theodoreti testimo¬ nium, ut non dubitemus hsec verba esse S. Athanasii. Porro in hoc loco probare vult Athanasius, Christum verum corpus habuisse, et non solam in eo fuisse veram divinitatem, sed veram etiam carnem. Id autem probat, quia Christo dicitur a Patre : Sede a dextris meis ; sedere autem in certo loco, non divi¬ nitati, sed corpori convenit. Item probat ex eo, quod Christus ut Pontifex et sacerdos corpus suum obtulit et tradidit nobis, cum ait : Hoc est corpus meum. Ubi si non verum, et proprie dictum corpus intelligeret Athana¬ sius', haereticis faveret, quos oppugnabat : illi enim fatebantur Christum habuisse cor¬ pus quoddam apparens, atque adeo figuram corporis, sed negabant verum corpus huma¬ num habuisse. Sed objiciunt adversarii alium locum ex Athanasio. Nam in tractatu super illa verba : Quicumque dixerit verbum in Filium ho¬ minis , remittetur ei, ctc. sic ait : « Quot homi¬ nibus corpus ejus suffecisset ad cibum, ut universi mundi alimonia fieret? Sed propter- ca ascensionis suce in coelum mentionem fe cit, ut eos a corporali intellectu abstraheret, ac deinde carnem suam (de qua locutus erat) cibum e supernis coelestem et spiritualem ali¬ moniam, et ab ipso donandam intelligerent. Quae enim locutus sum vobis, inquit, spiritus, et vita sunt ; quod perinde est, ac si diceret : Corpus meum, quod ostenditur, et datur pro mundo, in cibum dabitur , ut spiritualiter unicuique tribuatur, et fiat singulis tutamen, prseservatioque ad resurrectionem vitee eeternaj. » Hsec ille. De hoc loco ita triumphat Petrus Martyr in lib. contra Gardinerum , ob- ject. 180. ut dicat: « Hoc argumento vix puto ullum aliud firmius esse, aut magis in¬ victum ex his, quse sumuntur ex Patribus. » Respondeo : in tribus modis consistit vis argumenti adversariorum. Primum in eo , quod Athanasius dicat manducationem cor¬ poris Domini non debere accipi carnaliter, quia non sufficeret caro Christi tam multis qui eam manducaturi sunt, si carnaliter sumi deberet. Atqui hoc pugnat contra sententiam nostram, sed contra Capharnaitas, qui puta¬ bant debere dividi carnem Christi in parti¬ culas, et sic distribui manducantibus : hoc enim modo vere non sufficeret tam multis sine novo aliquo mirdculo. Nos autem dici¬ mus ita sumi carnem Christi, ut indivisibi- liter ab omnibus puniatur tota. Deinde in eo quod Athanasius dicit, car¬ nem Christi esse alimoniam spiritualem, et spiritualiter distribui. Sed neque hoc pugnat cum sententia nostra. Vocatur enim caro Christi rectissime alimonia spiritualis, quia datur in cibum spiritus, non corporis, et dis¬ tribuitur spiritualiter, non corporaliter, quia non dividitur in partes, sed datur tota si¬ mul, ut diximus, indivisibiliter. Unde etiam S. Bernardus in serm. de S. Martino dicit : carnem Christi spiritualiter dari, et mandu¬ cari, et tamen ibidem dicit in Sacramento adesse veram carnis substantiam. Ultimo in eo, quod Athanasius dicit, Chri¬ stum cum loqueretur de manducatione car- xv\s suae meminisse ascensionis in coelum, ut auditores abstraheret a corporali intellectu. Sed neque hoc officit causa? nostra?. Domi¬ nus enim meminit ascensionis, ut ostenderet, carnem suam non manducandam more alia¬ rum carnium, qui erat corporalis intellectus Capharnaitarum, sed spirituali quodam mo¬ do : si enim Dominus dedisset carnem suam in particulas discerptam, ut Capharnaita? suspicabantur esse dandam, certe in coelum CAPUT XII. 87 ascendere non potuisset cum illa carne. Cum ergo discimus, Christum ascendisse in me¬ lum cum immortali et gloriosa carne, simul discimus carnem illam non manducari car- naliter, ita ut laceretur, et consumatur. Nihil igitur ex loco illo Athanasii colligitur contra Catholicorum sententiam, sed contra potius aliquid pro ea colligitur. Nam quod ait ibidem Athanasius, illud ipsum corpus, quod ostensum est mundo, et datum ad mor¬ tem pro mundi vita, dari nunc nobis in ci¬ bum, satis aperte indicat verum corpus nobis dari non corpus symbolicum ; non enim cor¬ pus symbolicum datum fuit ad mortem pro mundi vita. Istud autem verum corpus dari nobis non solum per apprehensionem fidei, sed etiam per apprehensionem oris corpora¬ lis, indicant illa verba Athanasii : « Ut sit no¬ bis tutamen, et prseservatio ad resurrectio¬ nem. a Nam (ut supra diximus) veteres Patres probare solebant corporum resurrectionem, ex conjunctione corporis nostri mortalis cum corpore Christi immortali in sacramento Eu¬ charistia?.