Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book II: On the Real Presence, from the Testimonies of the Fathers
Chapter 32: Testimonies of the Fathers of the Seventh Age: St. Gregory and Hesychius
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 Gregory, who at the beginning of the seventh century, that is, in the year 601, sat at Rome in the chair of Saint Peter, speaks thus, homily 22 on the Gospels: “What the blood of the lamb is, you have learned no longer by hearing, but by drinking; which blood is placed upon both doorposts, when it is drunk not only with the mouth of the body, but also with the mouth of the heart.” And Book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 58: “What of the faithful can doubt that at the very hour of immolation, at the voice of the priest, the heavens are opened, in that mystery of Jesus Christ the choirs of Angels are present, the lowest are joined to the highest, earthly things joined to heavenly, and one thing is made out of the visible and the invisible?” So he. Where he plainly enough described the true and real presence of the heavenly, highest, and invisible body of Christ in the species of earthly, lowest, and visible bread.
The same Gregory too proved by a notable miracle that the bread is truly converted into the flesh of the Lord, as John the Deacon testifies in Book 2 of the life of Saint Gregory, chapter 41, and Paul the Deacon in the life of the same Gregory. Now Paul the Deacon adds that, the miracle being wrought, Gregory spoke thus to the woman who had doubted concerning the truth of the body of the Lord in the Eucharist: “Learn to believe the truth, even now attesting it: The bread which I will give is my flesh, and my blood is drink indeed. But the Creator, foreknowing our infirmity, by that power by which He made all things from nothing, and fashioned for Himself a body from the flesh of the ever-Virgin by the working of the Holy Spirit, converts the bread and the wine mixed with water, the proper species remaining, into His flesh and blood, at the Catholic prayer, for our reparation, by the sanctification of His Spirit.” So he.
Hesychius, priest of Jerusalem and afterward bishop, was the equal of Saint Gregory; for those are deceived who say that he flourished in the times of Jerome and Augustine. For he was bishop of Jerusalem, as the Ordinary Gloss on Leviticus testifies; but there was no bishop of Jerusalem called Hesychius except the one to whom Saint Gregory writes in Book 9 of the Register, epistle 40. And besides, this author expounds in his commentary on Leviticus the version of Jerome as the common and received one in the Church, whereas it is well established that it was not so commonly received until long after the death of Jerome himself.
Hesychius, then, Book 2 on Leviticus: “The altar,” he says, “is a holy place; for there the Holy of Holies rests.” And below, explaining the rite by which whatever men could not eat of the Paschal Lamb was given to the fire, he says that by that rite it is signified that what we cannot grasp in the mystery of the Eucharist we should leave to the omnipotence of God: “Therefore,” he says, “from this which is done sensibly, a signification of a certain intelligible thing comes to those who attend; that when we fail at the eating of the sacrifice, and cannot eat it entirely, the mind perhaps being provoked or failing, whether that which is seen ought to be understood the body of the Lord, upon which neither can the Angels look with their eyes, it ought not to be left, but also given to the fire of the Spirit, that it may eat those things which to us, from infirmity, are uneatable. But how does it eat? When we shall have thought that to the power of the Spirit those things are possible which seem impossible to us.” And Book 6, chapter 22: “He receives through ignorance,” he says, “who is ignorant of its power and dignity, who knows not that this is the body and blood according to truth.” And below: “The sanctification of the mystical sacrifice, and its translation and change from sensible to intelligible things, must be given to Him who is the true priest, namely Christ, that is, the miracle concerning them must be ascribed and imputed to Him; because by His power, and by the word uttered by Him, the things which are seen are so sanctified that they exceed all sense of the flesh.”
But Peter Martyr objects, in his book against Gardiner, objection 187, those words of Hesychius from Book 2 on Leviticus, chapter 8: “Therefore commanding the flesh to be eaten with bread, that we might understand that mystery to be called by Him which is at once bread and flesh.” But this testimony, if it helped any of the heretics, would help the Lutherans, who acknowledge in the Sacrament true bread and the true body of Christ, but not the Zwinglians and Calvinists, who separate the bread from the body of Christ by as great an interval as the highest heaven is distant from the lowest earth.
But neither does it help the Lutherans, because in the same place Hesychius says that the Eucharist is bread and flesh, because the body of Christ, which we receive in the Eucharist, is the bread of life which came down from heaven.
But Peter Martyr insists: “But by bread in this place we ought to understand not wheaten bread, but heavenly bread, that is, the flesh of Christ; therefore when Hesychius says that the mystery of the Eucharist is bread and flesh, the sense will be that it is flesh and flesh, which certainly seems an absurdity.” I answer: That objection ought to be made not to us, but to Hesychius himself. For he so expounded his own opinion that he said bread must be understood not wheaten bread, but heavenly bread. But there is no absurdity in his words; for he meant to say that the Eucharist is a food of such a kind that it deserves the name of flesh and bread on account of its various effects; in the manner in which the Lord too says, John 6: The bread which I will give is my flesh. But of these things enough.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXXII. Testimonia Patrum VII xtatis S. Gregarii , et Isichii. Sanctus Gregorius, qui ad initium septimi sieculi, id est, anno G01. Roma; sedebat in ca¬ thedra Sancti Petri, ita loquitur, liomil. 22. in Evangelia: « Qukl sit sanguis agni, non jam audiendo, sed bibendo didicistis; qui sanguis super utrumque postem ponitur, quando non solum ore corporis, sed etiam ore cor¬ dis hauritur » et lib. iv. Dialog. cap. 58. « Quis fidelium habere dubium possit, in ipsa immolationis hora ad sacerdotis vocem ctelos aperiri, in illo Jesu Christi mysterio Angelorum choros adesse, summis ima so¬ ciari, terrena coelestibus jungi, unum quid ex visibilium, atque invisibilibus fieri? » Ha}c ille. Ubi satis aperte descripsit pnesentiam veram et realem corporis Christi codestis, summi et invisibilis, in specie panis ter¬ reni, imi, et visibilis. Idem quoque Gregorius insigni miraculo probavit, vere panem in carnem Domini con¬ verti, ut testantur Joannes Diaconus lib. ii. vita; Sancti Gregorii, cap. 41. et Paulus Dia¬ conus in vita ejusdem Grcgorii. Addit vero Paulus Diaconus patrato miraculo ita Gre- gorium fuisse locutum ad mulierem, qua) de veritate corporis Domini in Eucharistia dubi¬ taverat : « Disce veritati, vel modo etiam con- testanti credere : Panis, quem ego dabo, caro mea est, et sanguis meus vere est potus. Sed preescius Conditor nostra} infirmitatis, ea potestate, qua cuncta fecit ex nihilo, et cor¬ pus sibi ex carne semper Virginis operante Spiritu sancto fabricavit, panem et vinum aqua mixtum, manente propria specie in car¬ nem et sanguinem suum, ad Catholicam pre¬ 125 cem ob reparationem nostram Spiritus sui sanctificatione convertit. » lla)c ille. Isichius Hierosolyma) Presbyter, ac deinde Episcopus, sancti Gregorii a)quulis fuit: fal¬ luntur enim, qui eum Hieronymi, et Augu¬ stini temporibus floruisse dicunt.Nam episco¬ pus fuit Hierosolyma), ut -Glossa ordinaria in Levitic. testatur : nullus autem fuit Hieroso¬ lyma) Episcopus, qui Isichius diceretur, nisi ille ad quem scribit sanctus Gregorius libro 9. Registri epistol. 40. Et praderea exponit hic auctor in comment. in Levitic. versio- nem Hieronymi, tanquam communem, et receptam in Ecclesia, cum satis constet, eam non fuisse ita communiter receptam, nisi longo tempore post ipsius Hieronymi obi¬ tum. Igitur Isichius lib. ii. in Levitic. cap. « Est, inquit, locus sanctus altare : ibi enim sanctus sanctorum requiescit : » Et infra, explicans ritum, quo igni tradebatur quidquid ex Agno Paschali homines comedere non potuerant, dicit eo ritu significari, ut quod non possu¬ mus capere in mysterio Eucharistia), id om¬ nipotentia; Dei relinquamus : « Ergo inquit, ex hoc, quod agitur sensibiliter, significatio cujusdam intelligibilis rei eis, qui intendunt, provenit ; ut quando ad comestionem sacri¬ ficii deficimus, et comedere illud integre non possumus, mente forsan lacessente, sive deficiente, utrum ea qua) videtur, corpus oporteat intelligi Domiui, in quod oculis nec Angeli possunt prospicere, non relinqui, sed etiam tradi ea igni oportet Spiritus, ut ea comedat, qua) nobis sunt ex infirmitate inesibilia. Quomodo autem comedat? Cum cogitaverimus virtuti Spiritus esse possibilia ea, qua) nobis impossibilia videntur. » Et lib. 6. cap. 22. « Per ignorantiam, inquit, percipit, qui virtutem ejus et dignitatem ignorat, qui nescit, quia corpus hoc et san¬ guis est secundum veritatem». Et infra: « Sanctificationem, inquit, mystici sacrificii, et. a sensibilibus ad intelligibilia translationem, commutationem, ei qui verus est sacerdos, videlicet Christo oportet dari, id est, ipsi dc eis miraculum caniore, et imputare : quia per ejus virtutem, et prolatum ab eo ver¬ bum, qua) videntur, tam sanctificata sunt, quam cunctum carnis excedunt sensum. » Sed objicit Petrus Martyr in lib. contra Gardinerwn, objecto 187. illa verba Isichii ex lib. ii. in Levit, cap. 8. Proptcrca carnes emn panibus comedi praicipiens, ut nos in- telligercmus, illud ab eo mysterium dici, 126 LIBER II. quod simul panis, et caro est. » At hoc testi¬ monium si quos haereticorum juvaret, Luthe- ranos juvaret, qui in Sacramento verum pa¬ nem, et verum Christi corpus agnoscunt, non autem Zwinglianos et Caivinistas, qui tanto intervallo separant panem a corpore Christi, quanto summum coelum abest ab ima terra. Sed nec Lutheranos juvat, quia ibidem Isichius dicit, Eucharistiam esse panem et carnem, quia corpus Christi, quod in Eucha¬ ristia sumimus, est .panis vitee, qui de ccelo descendit. Sed instat Petrus Martyr : «Sed per panem hoc loco intelligere debemus non panem triticeum, sed panem coelestem ; id est, car¬ nem Christi ; ergo cum Isichius ait, myste¬ rium Eucharistiae esse panem, et carnem, sensus erit, esse carnem, et carnem ; quod sane par absurdum videtur. » Respondeo : Objectionem istam non nobis, sed ipsi Isi- chio fieri debere. Ipse enim sententiam suam ita exposuit, ut per panem, non panem triti¬ ceum, sed panem coelestem intelligendum diceret. Nulla autem est in ejus verbis ab- surditas : id enim dicere voluit, Euchari¬ stiam ejusmodi cibum esse, ut carnis, et panis appellationem mereatur ob varios suos effe¬ ctus, quemadmodum etiam Dominus Joan. vi. ait : Panis , quem ego dabo , caro mea est. Sed de his satis.