The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

has not redeemed us by His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the
communication of His blood, nor the bread which we break the
communication of His body; for blood is not save of veins and flesh, and of
the rest of human substance, in which the Word of God was truly made."
"How say they that the flesh passeth to corruption, and partaketh not
of life, the flesh which is nourished from the body of the Lord and His
blood. Either let them (i.e. heretics) change their mind or abstain from
offering the things above spoken of (that is, the Eucharist). Our doctrine
harmonizes with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our doctrine,
and we offer to God His own, carefully teaching the communication and
union of the flesh and spirit, and confessing the resurrection.' For as the
earthly bread (literally, the bread from the earth,) (apo gees artos),
receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but
Eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly, so also our
bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope
of the resurrection to eternal life."
Here we see distinctly, First, the doctrine of the copresence, really
and truly, of the two elements,--the earthly one, true bread; the heavenly
one, true body; the earthly one, the true cup; the heavenly one, the true
blood. Second. We see that the earthly is regarded as the communicating
medium of the heavenly, and a supernatural efficacy, reaching both body
and soul, is connected with them. We see, moreover, that the consecration
(the ekkleesis or epikleesis) of God produces the union of the earthly and
heavenly. The doctrine of Irenaeus alike is opposed to the Romish denial
of the bread and the Reformed denial of the body.
Very violent is the pretext of Doellinger and Möhler, who make the
earthly part the body and blood of Christ, and the heavenly part, the
Logos; but the passage says nothing about the Logos, nor would the
Fathers call the Logos a pragma, a thing or part of the Eucharist. The
"epigeion" (earthly) manifestly refers to the "apo gees," (just before,) the
earth, from which the bread is said to come, and with reference to which it
is called “earthly."