A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

260 A Source Book for Ancient Church History[235]and firmly continuing in that in which they have believed—fromChrist in such a way as to prevent their undivided love fromalways abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecratingthe cup water alone should not be offered to the Lord, even aswine alone should not be offered. For if wine only is offered,the blood of Christ begins to be without us. 77 But if the wateralone be offered, the people begin to be without Christ, but whenboth are mingled and are joined to each other by an intermixedunion, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is completed.Thus the cup of the Lord is not, indeed, water alone, nor winealone, nor unless each be mingled with the other; just as, on theother hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or wateralone, nor unless both should be united and joined together andcompacted into the mass of one bread: in which sacrament ourpeople are shown to be one; so that in like manner as many grainsare collected and ground and mixed together into one mass andmade one bread, so in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, we mayknow that there is one body with which our number is joined andunited.Ch. 14. There is, then, no reason, dearest brother, for any oneto think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, whoin times past have thought that water alone should be offered inthe cup of the Lord. For we must inquire whom they themselveshave followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered noneis to be followed but Christ, we ought certainly to obey and dowhat Christ did, and what He commanded to be done, since Hehimself says in the Gospel: “If ye do whatsoever I command you,henceforth I call you not servants, but friends” [John 15:14 f.].…If Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest ofGod the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to theFather, and has commanded this to be done in commemorationof Himself, certainly that priest truly acts in the place of Christ77 Sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis. Paschasius Radbertus quotes this.De corpore et sanguine Domini, ch. II, MSL, 120:1308.