Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

Letter XCIII. 2328
To the Patrician Cæsaria, 2329 concerning Communion.
It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body and
blood of Christ. For He distinctly says, “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath eternal life.” 2330 And who doubts that to share frequently in life, is the same thing as
to have manifold life. I, indeed, communicate four times a week, on the Lord’s day, on
Wednesday, on Friday, and on the Sabbath, and on the other days if there is a commemoration
of any Saint. 2331 It is needless to point out that for anyone in times of persecution to
be compelled to take the communion in his own hand without the presence of a priest or
minister is not a serious offence, as long custom sanctions this practice from the facts
themselves. All the solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, take the communion
themselves, keeping communion at home. And at Alexandria and in Egypt, each one of the
laity, for the most part, keeps the communion, at his own house, and participates in it when
he likes. For when once the priest has completed the offering, and given it, the recipient,
participating in it each time as entire, is bound to believe that he properly takes and receives
it from the giver. And even in the church, when the priest gives the portion, the recipient
takes it with complete power over it, and so lifts it to his lips with his own hand. It has the
same validity whether one portion or several portions are received from the priest at the
same time. 2332
is of a different οὐσία or ὑπόστασις. On the distinction between οὐσία and ὑπόστασις see Letters xxxviii., cxxv.,
and ccxxxvi. and the De Sp. Sancto. § 7. On the difficulty of expressing the terms in Latin, cf. Letter ccxiv. As
ὑπόστασις was in 325 understood to be equivalent to οὐσία, and in 370 had acquired a different connotation, it
would be no more difficult for Basil than for the Church now, to assent to what is called the Nicene position,
while confessing three hypostases. In Letter cxxv. Basil does indeed try to shew, but apparently without success,
that to condemn the statement that He is of a different hypostasis is not equivalent to asserting Him to be of the
same hypostasis.
2328 Placed in 372.
2329 Two mss. read Cæsarius.
2330 John vi. 54.
To the Patrician Cæsaria, concerning Communion.
2331 A various reading is “martyr.” In Letter cxcvii. to S. Ambrose, S. Basil, states that the same honour was
paid to S. Dionysius of Milan in his place of sepulture as to a martyr. So Gregory Thaumaturgus was honoured
at Neocæsarea, and Athanasius and Basil received like distinction soon after their death.
2332 The custom of the reservation of the Sacrament is, as is well known, of great antiquity. cf. Justin Martyr,
Apol. i. 85; Tertull., De Orat. xix. and Ad Ux. ii. 5; S. Cyprian, De Lapsis cxxxii.; Jerome, Ep. cxxv. Abuses of the
practice soon led to prohibition. So an Armenian Canon of the fourth century (Canones Isaaci, in Mai, Script.
Vet. Nov. Coll. x. 280) and the Council of Saragossa, 380; though in these cases there seems an idea of surreptitious
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