Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book IV: On the Sacrament of the Eucharist Itself
Chapter 28: That the Church for Just Causes Commanded Communion Under One Species
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book IV: On the Sacrament of the Eucharist Itself. 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).
Now follows that question: Whether the Church justly prescribed the mode of communicating under one species only: which question indeed, if the things be true which we have hitherto said, can be explained without trouble. And we shall demonstrate that the Church rightly did this, if we briefly prove that the Church could do it, and had most just causes why it should do it.
And first indeed this is thus demonstrated. The Church can ordain and prescribe those things which do not pertain to the substance of the Sacraments, nor are ordained by divine right. But the rite of communicating under one or under two species is of this kind: therefore it can be ordained and prescribed by the Church. The proposition is most certain, for since no rule is given by God, either there will be no rule and no order, or it must be established by the Church. Moreover it is clear from examples. For sometimes the Church bade men be baptized by triple immersion, when a cause required it, as is clear from canon 49 of the Apostles, and from Tertullian, in his book on the soldier's crown: and yet the same Church, a certain cause demanding the contrary rite, ordained the contrary, namely that Baptism be given by one immersion only, as is clear from the Fourth Council of Toledo, chapter 5. Finally this Augustine expressly teaches in letter 118, and proves from that of 1 Corinthians 11: The rest I will set in order when I come. And the assumption is proved. For that Communion under both is not commanded by divine right was proved in the whole preceding disputation: and that it does not pertain to the substance of the Sacrament is clear, because the use of a thing is never of the essence of a permanent thing, since it is really posterior to it. But Communion is the use of the Sacrament, and of the Sacrament which, as we proved above, is a permanent thing, not a transient action; therefore it is not of its essence.
Now that the Church had lawful causes for prescribing this is proved. For first the Church was moved by the custom already received and approved by the consent of nations and peoples: for the Council of Constance did not first institute that use, but forbade it to be taken away and abrogated.
Secondly the Church was moved to establish this use, and to confirm it by a law, by the fact that it saw it attacked by heretics and from error. For the first who began to attack the received use of Communion under one species was Peter of Dresden, as we taught at the beginning from Aeneas Sylvius: and he was infected with the leprosy of the Waldenses, and therefore was a Sacramentarian, even by the testimony of Luther, who wrote a book on the Eucharist to the Waldenses. But the Sacramentarians do not believe the concomitance of the Lord's blood with the body under the species of bread; whence also those of the Lutherans most press both species who with the Sacramentarians laugh at concomitance, as Illyricus, Hamelmann, and Heshusius. But the other Lutherans, who do not deny concomitance, seek both species from another pernicious error, because namely they think it commanded by divine right, and therefore that the whole Church for a long time basely erred in this matter, which can in no way be. Since therefore the Church held by sure faith that in each species is the whole Christ, and that the use of the same Church cannot be erroneous, deservedly, for detestation of this most grave error, it did not permit the custom of one species to be abrogated.
Thirdly the Church was moved by the uniformity and concord of the Christian people in receiving this Sacrament, which is the Sacrament of peace and unity. For if Communion be given under one species, in the whole world there can be the same use, as we now see in the Catholic Church dispersed through the whole world: but if Communion were free, or commanded under both species, uniformity could in no way be kept. For those who do not bear wine, as the abstemious, and those who cannot procure wine except with difficulty, would be compelled either never or most rarely to communicate, or to receive one species even against their will, while meanwhile others under both species communicated most frequently; which certainly would be a great inequality. From which too some rightly gather that if the Lord had willed Communion under both to be necessary for all, He would not have instituted the Sacrament in bread and wine, but in bread and water, that the matter might be easy and at hand in every region. For otherwise the Northern provinces, and others where wine is not found, could think that they were not cared for by Christ, or not as the other provinces, when He instituted the Sacrament.
Fourthly the Church was moved, and that vehemently, by the irreverence and profanations of so great a Sacrament, which could scarcely be avoided in so great a multitude of the faithful, if both species were given to all, as we demonstrated above.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXVIII. Ecclesiam justis de causis preecepisse Commu¬ nionem sub una specie. Sequitur jam illa quaestio : Utrum juste Ecclesia praescripseritmodum communicandi sub una tantum specie : quae sane quaestio, si vera sint quae hactenus diximus, facili nego¬ tio explicari potest. Demonstrabimus autem Ecclesiam recte id fecisse, si breviter proba¬ verimus Ecclesiam potuisse id facere, et ju¬ stissimas causas habuisse, cur id faceret. Ac primum quidem illud ita demonstratur. Ecclesia potest ordinare, et praescribere ea, quae ad substantiam Sacramentorum non pertinent, nec sunt jure divino ordinata. Sed ritus communicandi sub una, vel sub duabus speciebus ejusmodi est : potest igitur ab Ecclesia ordinari, et praescribi. Propositio certissima est, nam cum a Deo nulla regula’ data sit, aut nulla erit regula, nullus ordo, aut is ab Ecclesia statui debet. Praeterea patet exemplis. Nam aliquando Ecclesia jus¬ sit baptizari homines trina mersione, quando (i) I Cor. XI, 25. CAPUT XXIX. 291 causa id requirebat, ut patet ex can. 49. Apostolorum, et Tertulliano lib. de corona militis : et tamen eadem Ecclesia, postulante certa causa contrarium ritum, contrarium statuit, nimirum, ut tantum una mersione daretur Baptisma, ut patet ex concilio IV Toletano, cap. 5. Denique id expresse docet Augustinus in epistola 118. et probat ex illo I Corinth. xi : C aster a cum venero , dispo¬ nam (1). Assumptio autem probatur. Nam non esse jure divino mandatum Communio¬ nem sub utraque, tota disputatione superiore probatum est : non pertinere autem ad Sa¬ cramenti suhstantiam, patet, quia usus rei nunquam est de essentia rei permanentis, cum sit reipsa posterior. Communio autem est usus Sacramenti, et Sacramenti, ut supra probavimus, quod est res permanens, non actio transiens; non igitur, est de essentia ejus. Jam vero habuisse Ecclesiam legitimas causas id praescribendi, probatur. Nam pri¬ mo movit Ecclesiam consuetudo jam recepta, et approbata consensu gentium, et populo¬ rum : non enim Concilium Constantiense primum instituit istum usum, sed prohibuit tolli, et abrogari. Secundo movit Ecclesiam ad hunc usum stabiliendum, et lege firmandum, quo.d vide¬ ret ab haereticis, et ex errore oppugnari. Nam primus, qui coepit oppugnare usum re¬ ceptum Communionis sub una specie, fuit Petrus Dresdensis, ut initio docuimus ex iEnea Sylvio : ille autem infectus erat lepra Waldensium, et proinde erat Sacramenta- rius, vel ipso teste Luthero, qui librum de Eucharistia ad Waldenses scripsit. Sacra- mentarii autem non credunt concomitantium sanguinis Domini cum corpore in specie panis, unde etiam ii Lutheranorum maxime urgent utramque speciem, qui cum Sacra- mentariis rident concomitantiam, ut Illyri¬ cus, Ilamelmannus et Heshusius. Ceeteri au¬ tem Lutherani, qui concomitantiam non ne¬ gant, ex alio pernicioso errore petunt utram¬ que speciem, quia nimirum existimant jure divino esse prseceptam, et propterea totam Ecclesiam a longo tempore in hac re turpi¬ ter errasse, quod nullo modo fieri potest. Cum igitur Ecclesia certa fide teneret in qualibet specie totum esse Christum , et usum ejusdem Ecclesia; non posse esse erro¬ neum, merito ob hujus gravissimi erroris detestationem non permisit abrogari consue¬ tudinem unius speciei. Tertio movit Ecclesiam uniformitas , et concordia populi Christiani in Sacramento hoc percipiendo , quod est Sacramentum pacis et unitatis. Nam si in una specie detur Communio, in toto orbe terrarum poterit esse idem usus, ut modo videmus in Ecclesia Catholica toto orbe dispersa : ,at si libera esset Communio, vel sub utraque specie im¬ peraretur , non posset ullo modo servari uniformitas. Nam qui vinum non ferunt, ut abstemii, et qui vinum comparare non pos¬ sunt, nisi difficulter, cogerentur, aut nun¬ quam, aut rarissime communicare, aut unam speciem vel inviti accipere, cum interim alib sub utraque frequentissime communicarent, qua; certe magna ineequalitas esset. Ex quo etiam nonnulli recte colligunt, quod si Domi¬ nus voluisset Communionem sub utraque esse necessariam omnibus, non instituisset Sacramentum in pane et vino, sed in pane et aqua, ut esset materia facilis, et in promptu in qualibet regione. Nam alioqui possint Boreales provinciae, et aliae, ubi vinum non invenitur, existimare, se Christo curae non fuisse, aut non ita , ut alias provincias , quando Sacramentum instituit. Quarto movit , et quidem vehementer , irreverentia, et profanationes tanti Sacra¬ menti, quae vix evitari possent in tanta fide¬ lium multitudine, si omnibus daretur utra¬ que species, ut supra demonstravimus.