Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book V: On the Sacrifice of the Mass (First)
Chapter 18: The Sacrifice Is Proved from the Liturgies
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book V: On the Sacrifice of the Mass (First Book). 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).
The fourth head is taken from the rite of celebrating. For first, from all the ancient Liturgies which are extant — of James, Clement, Basil, Chrysostom, and from the fifth and sixth books on the Sacraments of Ambrose, and from the fourth and fifth mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem, who expound a great part of the Liturgy — it is most clearly evident that the ancient Fathers celebrated the mystery of the Eucharist with such a rite that they in no way doubted it to be a most true sacrifice: for they are full of the names of oblation, sacrifice, victim, of signs, blessings, elevations, and other such rites. Wherefore Luther (as we noted above), in his book on the form of the Mass, took away the whole Canon, because he thought that, while it remained intact, it could not be defended that the Mass is not a sacrifice. But the Canon, with the words not much changed, is found almost entire in the Liturgies, and in the books of Ambrose and Cyril already cited: there certainly are found all those things which offended Luther, namely the names of oblation and of sacrifice.
Calvin, Book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 18, § 11, says the ancients cannot be excused from having sinned in the manner of the action: “For they imitated,” he says, “more closely the Jewish manner of sacrificing than either Christ had ordained or the nature of the Gospel bore.” Forsooth Calvin, who was born yesterday, knows better what Christ ordained than James the brother of the Lord, who was present at the Lord's Supper with Christ Himself, or Clement, who learned from the Apostle Peter, or Basil, Cyril, Ambrose, Chrysostom, who preceded Calvin by a thousand and two hundred years.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XVIII. Probatur sacrificium ex Liturgiis . Quartum caput sumitur ex ritu celebrandi, Nam in primis ex omnibus antiquis Liturgiis, quse extant, Jacobi, Clementis, Basilii Chry- sostomi, et ex libro quinto et sexto de Sacra¬ mentis Ambrosii, et ex Catechesi quarta et quinta mystagogica Cyrilli Hierosolymitani, qui magnam partem Liturgise exponunt; clarissime patet, veteres Patres eo ritu cele¬ brasse mysterium Eucharistiae, ut nihil dubi¬ taverint, eam esse verissimum sacrificium: plena sunt enim nominum oblationis, sacri¬ ficii, victimae, signorum, benedictionum, ele¬ vationum, aliorumque ejusmodi rituum. Qua¬ re Lutherus (ut supra notavimus) in libro de formula Missae, totum canonem abstulit, quod non putaret eo incolumi existente, posse de¬ fendi, Missam non esse sacrificium. Canon autem verbis non multum mutatis, totus ferme invenitur in Liturgiis, et in libris Ambrosii, et Cyrilli jam citatis : illa certe inveniuntur omnia, quae Lutherum offende¬ bant, nimirum nomina oblationis, et sacrificii. Calvinus lib. iv. Institut. cap. 18. §. ii. excusari dicit non posse veteres, quin in a- ctionis modo peccaverint : « Imitati sunt enim, inquit, propius Judaicum sacrificandi mo¬ rem, quam aut ordinaverat Christus, aut Evangelii ratio ferebat. » Scilicet melius novit Calvinus, qui heri natus est, quid ordinave¬ rit Christus, quam Jacobus frater Domini, qui Caenee Domini cum ipso Christo interfuit, aut Clemens, qui ab Apostolo Petro didicit, aut Basilius, Cyrillus, Ambrosius, Chrysostomus, qui mille et ducentis annis Calvinum prae¬ cesserunt. 332 LIBER V.