Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book II: On the Real Presence, from the Testimonies of the Fathers
Chapter 26: The Testimony of Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople
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).
Proclus was at the same time bishop of Constantinople as Cyril was of Alexandria. There exists his most brief and most robust testimony in his book On the Tradition of the Divine Liturgy. For after he had said many things of the wonderful affection of the Apostles and of the other most ancient Fathers toward the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and that they always had in mind those words, This is my body, and performed very long prayers and psalmodies amid the sacred mysteries, he thus subjoined: “By these prayers they awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit, that His divine presence might make the bread and the wine mixed with water, set forth in the sacrifice, that very body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” So he. For by these words this author so openly teaches that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, that the solutions of the adversaries about a sacramental change by the addition of a mere signification have no place here; for to such a change there would be no need to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXVI. Testimonium Procli Episcopi Constan- tinopolitani . Proclus eodem tempore Episcopus erat Constantinopolis, quo Cyrillus Alexandriae. Exstat ejus testimonium brevissimum, et ro¬ bustissimum in lib. de traditione divinae Li¬ turgi»;. Nam posteaquam multa dixerat de mirifico affectu Apostolorum, atque aliorum Patrum antiquissimorum, erga Sacramen¬ tum Eucharistiae, ct quod semper in mente habebant illa verba : Hoc est corpus meum, et longissimas preces, ct psalmodias inter sacra mysteria peragebant ; ita subjunxit : « Per has preces Spiritus sancti adventum expe- ctabant, ut ejus divina praesentia propositum in sacrificio panem, et vinum aqua permix¬ tum, ipsum illud corpus, et sanguinem Sal¬ vatoris nostri Jesu Christi efficeret. » Haec ille. Ilis enim verbis tam aperte docet iste auctor mutari panem, et vinum in corpus, et CAPUT XXVII. 121 sanguinem supcrnaturali virtute Spiritus sancti, ut nullum hic locum habeant solu¬ tiones adversariorum de mutatione sacra- mentali per additionem solius significationis : ad istam [enim mutationem non esset opus invocare prsesentiam Spiritus sancti.