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| To the Patrician Cæsaria, concerning Communion.
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Letter XCIII.2328
To the Patrician Cæsaria,2329
| 2329 Two
mss. read Cæsarius. | 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
| 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. | 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
| 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
reservation. On the doctrine of the English Church on this
subject reference may be made to the Report of a Committee of the
Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury in 1885.
The Rubric of 1549 allowed reservation,
and it does not seem to have been prohibited until 1661. Bishop
A. P. Forbes on Article xxviii. points out that in the Article
reservation is not forbidden, but declared not to be of Christ’s
institution, and consequently not binding on the Church. The
distinction will not be forgotten between reservation and worship of
the reserved Sacrament. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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