Michael McGuckian SJ faces the thorny ecumenical question: how is the Mass a sacrifice? Proposing a three-part schema of offertory, priestly mediation and communion, he views the Mass in its relation to the Old Testament models of sacrifice, the Last Supper and the sacrifice of the cross, and comes up with some challenging conclusions for liturgists and lay participants.
134 pp, Gracewing, 2005. To purchase this book online, go to www.gracewing.ie
CONTENTS
Abbreviations
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: A “True and Proper” Sacrifice
The Background
A Purely Sacramental Sacrifice?
The One Sacrifice of Christ
The Council of Trent on the Sacrifice of the Mass
The Eucharist as a Natural Sacrifice
According to the Order of Melchizedek
The Debate of 1562
Chapter 2: Two Old Testament Models of Sacrifice
The Three- Part Model of Sacrifice
The Offertory
The Priestly Mediation
The Meal
The Three- Part Structure of the Mass
The Argument against the Offertory
Chapter 3: The Last Supper and the Early Eucharist
The Last Supper as a Communion Sacrifice of Bread and Wine
The Last Supper as a Passover Sacrifice
The Chronology of the Last Supper
The Offertory of the Last Suppper
Matthew 5:23-24
Chapter 4: The Offertory in Tradition
The Didache
Saint Clement of Rome
Saint Justin Martyr
The Subsequent History of the Offertory
The Decline of the Offertory in the West
The Reform of the Offertory after Vatican II
Conclusion
Chapter 5: The Meal Theory of Sacrifice
The Meal Theory of Sacrifice
The Three Sacrifices of Israel
Chapter 6: The Sacrifice of the Cross
The Priestly Mediation
The Offertory of the Sacrifice
The Meal
Chapter 7: The Sacramental Sacrifice
One Sacrifice/Many Sacrifices
The Natural Sacrifice
The Distinction of Priesthoods
The Double Offering
The Private Mass
The Active Participation of the Faithful With Empty Hands?
The Sacramental Sacrifice
The Offertory
The Eucharistic Prayer
Communion
Conclusion
|
Review |
|
|
Chapter 1 – A “True and Proper” Sacrifice
The Catholic Church believes and teaches that ” [t]he Eucharist is above all else a sacrifice”(1). In the light of that, it is a strange situation for Catholic theology that we do not know clearly what a sacrifice is. Of course, we must have some idea of sacrifice, however vague, in order for the affirmation to have any meaning at all, but no concept of sacrifice has yet been worked out that meets with general acceptance. Does this not mean that we do not really know what we are talking about when we affirm that the Eucharist is a sacrifice? And does it not also mean that we do not really know what we are doing when we celebrate the Eucharist? We follow the rubrics of the Mass more or less carefully, but have we a real idea of what is going on?
The basic problem is that we have no experience of sacrifice on which to base a concept. Indeed, this lacuna is widely recognized. Hans Kung has remarked: “Since in modern man’s environment cultic sacrifices are no longer offered, . . . the concept of sacrifice is not related to any experience and has thus become largely misleading and unintelligible”(2). And another commentator has pointed out: “In contemporary sophisticated societies, talk of sacrifice can easily seem primitive and alien. One wonders how many people in our Eucharistic congregations really intend to sacrifice“(3). One must indeed wonder. But, if the Eucharist is “above all else a sacrifice,” and we are not sacrificing at the Eucharist, then something is fundamentally wrong.
It is not that the effort has not been made to work out a concept of sacrifice. A concerted effort was embarked upon in the wake of the Protestant Reformation to solve the problem, but it has failed. As one recent author put it: “In our own day, at the close of the second millennium, the situation which has obtained from the thirteenth to the twentieth century in the matter of the theology of Eucharistic sacrifice remains unresolved”(4).
The Background
Our present predicament has been a long time in the making. Up until the Reformation the sacrificial quality of the Eucharist was simply taken for granted in the Christian tradition. During the first millennium, sacrifice remained a commonplace aspect of the surrounding culture and everyone knew by experience what a sacrifice was. When Christendom was established throughout Europe, the practice of other sacrifices ceased, and gradually the experiential concept of a sacrifice, apart from the Eucharist itself, faded away. It was only in the twelfth century, with Peter Lombard, that anyone thought to ask the question, How is the Eucharist a sacrifice? And Lombard’s answer was: “We may briefly reply that what is offered and consecrated by the priest is called a sacrifice and an immolation because it is a memorial and a representation of the true sacrifice and holy immolation made upon the altar of the Cross” (Sentences, IV, dist. 12, cap. 5.).
This answer is clearly unsatisfactory. It is simply not true to say that because the Eucharist is a memorial and a representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross that it is itself, therefore, a sacrifice. The concept of a memorial does not include the re-enactment of the reality remembered. A memorial of a victory in war may be a statue of the general who won the war or a garden of remembrance for the soldiers who died in the war, but the one thing it cannot be is a victory in a war. What is clear from the answer that he gave is that Lombard had no idea what a sacrifice is. He made no suggestion at all as to how the Eucharist might be a sacrifice in its own right. No one saw this as a problem at the time, or for a long time to come. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, Lombard’s Sentences continued to be the manual of theological study, and during those three centuries, while commenting on the Sentences was the standard task of every doctor of theology, none of them commented on the 12th Distinction of Book IV, which deals with the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The important question in Eucharistic theology all during that period was the real presence and transubstantiation. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist was quite taken for granted, and the issue was only treated in passing in connection with related questions (5). “It was enough for them that the unanimous teaching of Christian antiquity, interpreting the text of scripture, regarded the Eucharist as the unbloody sacrifice of the new law” (6).
It is not surprising, then, that when Luther began the attack on the sacrifice of the Mass, Catholic theology was not well prepared to meet it. Francis Clark tells the story succinctly and well.
The first generation of Catholic apologists. . . continued this traditional method. As the years passed, however, there grew a demand for a more rigorously scientific argument to meet the challenge of the Reformers. In his Apology for the Confession of Augsburg in 1531 Philip Melanchton taunted the Romanists with failing to give a definition of sacrifice. While they poured out a spate of books to assert that the Mass is a sacrifice, he said, not one of them had defined their basic term. Under the pressure of these controversies some of the Catholic theologians began to take up the challenge on the ground chosen by their opponents. The traditional explanation of the pre-Reformation theology, that the Eucharist was truly a sacrifice because it was the sacramental representation and offering of the sacrifice of the Cross, seemed to them too weak; it seemed to give an opening for the Reformers to retort: “We agree that the Eucharist commemorates the one past sacrifice, and for that very reason we argue that it cannot be itself a sacrifice.” Adequately to refute this objection it seemed necessary to work out a strict metaphysical definition of sacrifice and then apply it to the Mass. Cardinal Gaspar Contarini (d. 1542): “It is vain that we shall try to give an account of our sacrifice unless we first understand what sacrifice is – a point, I see, about which many of those who so often discourse about our Mass-sacrifice are in the dark. I have found few authors who have given a good explanation in their writings of what sacrifice is.” Melchior Cano: “If there has ever been a dispute in which it is necessary to define what it is all about, I am very sure it is this.” Matthew Galenus . . . referred to “the inextricable labyrinth of the attempt to find a definition of sacrifice in the proper sense” (7).
The effort to find an adequate concept of sacrifice has continued for more than four centuries now, and has still not met with success. That failure, however, cannot be accepted as terminal. The effort to uncover the truth about sacrifice must continue, for the urgency is as great now as it was four centuries ago. There is no single concept more important for Christian theology than that of sacrifice. And it is not simply a matter of the theology of the Eucharist. The concept of sacrifice is central to the whole vision of faith. The Eucharist makes the Church, and the Eucharist is a sacrifice, so, if we do not understand sacrifice we do not understand the Eucharist and we do not understand the Church. The Second Vatican Council teaches us that ” [t]aking part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the source and summit of the whole Christian life, [Christians] offer the divine victim to God, and themselves along with him” (Lumen Gentium, 11). And Saint Augustine understood the whole mystery of salvation as our sharing in the universal sacrifice, which is the whole community of the redeemed offered to God by their High Priest (De civitate Dei 10, 6: PL 41, 284). These quotations indicate that sacrifice is a concept necessary for the understanding of the overall shape of the Christian vocation. The concept also has ramifications throughout the range of sacramental theology. To take only the most obvious example, the problem of the crisis in priestly identity is immediately connected to the lack of a concept of sacrifice, for without an understanding of sacrifice there can be no understanding of priesthood, the two concepts being co-relative, a priest (sacerdos, hiereus) being a man who offers sacrifice.
A Purely Sacramental Sacrifice?
The need of this concept could not possibly be greater, and it is in this context that this book seeks to be placed. It is the purpose of this book to suggest that the concept of sacrifice which theology needs and has been searching for these last four centuries is now available. In fact, it has been available for at least the best part of a century already, but has not so far been put to its proper use. The reason for that lack of interest is connected with a change in the Catholic theology of the Eucharist during the twentieth century which must be discussed in order to justify the project as a reasonable effort at all, since during the past century the conclusion has begun to be drawn that the quest for a concept of sacrifice is futile, if not completely wrong-headed altogether. As Karl Rahner pointed out some time ago: “In recent theological writing it has been emphasized that it is incorrect or at least inadequate to assume as starting point for reflection on sacrifice in Christianity any idea of sacrifice belonging to the Old Testament or derived from comparative religion, and to demand that this concept must be exemplified in the sacrifice of the Cross or of the Mass. . . .” (8) This opinion, that a concept of sacrifice is not necessary to the understanding of the Eucharist, is justified on the basis that it is sufficient to assert that the Eucharist is a sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Cross. In that case, it is argued, whatever it is in the Cross that constitutes it as a sacrifice will be verified also in the case of the Eucharist by the power of the sacrament.
This is a new version of Lombard’s first answer to the question. He said that the Eucharist is a sacrifice because it is a memorial and a representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Now it is said that the Eucharist is a sacrifice because it is a sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Cross. This new version is, indeed, better than the old one. The concept of a memorial does not contain the re-enactment of the reality remembered, but the concept of a sacrament does contain the reality signified. It is, therefore, true to say that the Eucharist is a sacrifice because it is a sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and this point is essential to the theology of the Eucharist. There is no doubt that the understanding of the Eucharist as a sacramental sacrifice is perfectly valid in what it affirms; the problem is in what its current exponents take it to deny.
That the Eucharist is a sacramental sacrifice is beyond dispute. It has always been the teaching of the Tradition that in the Eucharist we offer the Sacrifice of the Cross sacramentally. Today, however, some are taking the further step and saying that it is a sacrifice only because it is a sacrament of the Sacrifice of the Cross, that it is a purely sacramental sacrifice, and not a sacrifice in its own right. One early exponent of this approach, Dom Anscar Vonier, considered the denial of the natural sacrifice to be essential to his understanding of the sacramental sacrifice. “It is of utmost importance, in order to safeguard the sacramentality of the sacrifice of the Mass, to eliminate from it all such things as would make it into a natural sacrifice, a human act, with human sensations and human circumstances” (9). And this opinion of Vonier seems to have gained many adherents. In his recent general review of Eucharistic theology, Edward Kilmartin proposed a judgment which seems to be widely shared. “The problem with all theologies of the Mass of the post-Reformation period originates in the search for the grounds of sacrifice in the rite itself, and not in the representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Catholic theology did not take seriously enough the fact that ‘sacrifice’ in the history-of-religions sense was abolished with the Christ-event” (10). Now, if this is true, then there is indeed no point in trying to work out how the Mass is a sacrifice, because, on this view, the Eucharist is not a sacrifice in the normal sense of the word at all. However, not all Catholic theologians have accepted this conclusion. Karl Rahner disputed it on a couple of grounds. He made the epistemological point that a word used in any intelligent discourse must have a meaning. “Consequently, if the sources of revelation call the death on the Cross or the Mass a sacrifice, they must employ a term which has at least a generally defined sense and content independent of its use in this instance. Otherwise they would only be putting a verbal label on an occurrence already understood without it” (11). And he further disputed the assertion that the Eucharist is not a sacrifice in the ordinary sense of the word on the basis of the traditional faith of the Church.
We know from the teaching of the Church that the liturgical proceeding which we call the Mass is a sacrificium visible (D 1740). This obviously states and means that the visible ritual action itself is a sacrifice. It cannot merely be the visible manifestation of a sacrifice which in itself is invisible. It is not the case that under or behind the visible ritual proceeding which is not itself a sacrifice (a mere meal, for example, or a celebration of the mysteries), something is present in a hidden way, and this is what can be called the sacrifice. A correct interpretation of the doctrine of the Council of Trent regarding the sacrificium visibile of the Mass must maintain that the sacrificial character of the Mass is to be sought on the plane of the visible liturgical action (12).
On this basis, Karl Rahner reached the methodological conclusion which we hope to confirm here: “As far as method is concerned, therefore, we can and must start from the usual concept of sacrifice (or at least from those elements of it which are generally acknowledged to belong to a sacrifice), in the way that has been customary in the theology of the last few centuries”(13).
The One Sacrifice of Christ
Karl Rahner maintained that the teaching of the Church “obviously states and means that the visible ritual action itself is a sacrifice.” And yet Vonier believed that he had to deny it, and his reason was a serious one. According to him, the denial of the sacrifice on the level of the visible ritual action is demanded by the unicity of the Sacrifice of the Cross. “If the Eucharistic sacrifice were in any way a natural sacrifice it would be simply impossible to avoid the conclusion that there are two different sacrifices, and the query: Why two sacrifices? would be most justifiable. . . . [I]f it be a sacrifice in natura, however it be disguised, it is truly another sacrifice, and not the same sacrifice” (14). There is no denying the force of this argument, and the underlying difficulty has long been recognized. This aspect of the mystery was first adverted to and clearly formulated by Saint John Chrysostom in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In Christ the saving victim was offered once. Then what of ourselves? Do we not offer every day? Although we do offer daily, that is done for the recalling of his death, and the victim is one, not many. But how can that be – one and not many? Because Christ was immolated once. For this sacrifice is what corresponds to that sacrifice of his: the same reality, remaining always the same, is offered and so this is the same sacrifice. Otherwise, would you say that because the sacrifice is offered in many places, therefore there are many Christs? No, but there is one Christ in all those places, fully present here and fully present there. And just as what is offered in all places is one and the same body, so there is one and the same sacrifice. Christ offered a victim and we offer the selfsame now; but what we do is a recalling of his sacrifice. Nor is the sacrifice repeated because of its weakness (since it is what perfects mankind), but by reason of our own, because we sin daily (15).
The problem is here clearly presented, and Clark tells us that no other text from the Tradition was commented on more than this one during the subsequent centuries (16). Chrysostom saw the difficulty, but, despite the difficulty, he was not tempted to deny the daily sacrifice to make sense of it. “Do we not offer daily? Although we do offer daily, ” he wrote. And Saint Augustine saw the problem also, and likewise saw no reason to deny the daily sacrifice when he wrote to Boniface: “Was Christ not immolated once in Himself, and still in the Sacrament, not only at every paschal solemnity but every day He is immolated by the people, nor does he lie who responds to the question that He is immolated?” (17). And none of the Catholic theologians who followed after were tempted to deny the daily sacrifice either.
It was not until Luther and the Reformers that the theological difficulty was turned into an objection to deny that the Eucharist is a sacrifice in its own right. And Trent continued the line of Catholic Tradition by simply re-affirming the truth of the sacrifice in the Eucharist despite being unable to explain the apparent contradiction. And it is not that the precise problem of the unicity of Christ’s Sacrifice of the Cross was not adverted to. It is true that the problem of the unicity of Christ’s sacrifice was not taken seriously to begin with. It was only one of the different lines of attack put forward by Reformation theology, and the Catholics were so familiar with it from the Tradition that it didn’t seem to pose any new or great difficulty. However, over the years of the Council, the point was taken up more seriously by Catholic theologians. Indeed, a group of highly competent Dominican theologians, who were influential bishops at the Council, argued the case very strongly at the Council itself, and still the conclusion was rejected. Now, given that the Council’s teaching on this point seems to have passed somewhat into oblivion in Catholic theology, it is necessary to review what happened there in order to verify the accuracy of Rahner’s confident assertion and to establish accurately exactly what the teaching of the Council was.
The Council of Trent on the Sacrifice of the Mass
In its treatment of the Mass, the Council of Trent was responding directly to Luther’s denial of the sacrifice. This was a central element of Luther’s platform, for he considered it “by far the most wicked abuse of all.” He made the point vigorously in one of his three programmatic pamphlets of 1520. “The third captivity of this sacrament is by far the most wicked abuse of all, in consequence of which there is no opinion more generally held or more firmly believed in the church today than this, that the mass is a good work and a sacrifice” (18). And again: “Now there is yet a second stumbling block that must be removed, and this is much greater and the most dangerous of all. It is the common belief that the mass is a sacrifice which is offered to God” (19). It can hardly be doubted that Luther was denying that the Mass is a sacrifice in the plain and straightforward meaning, a “good work”, something “offered to God”, and that this is the faith of the Catholic Church, since “there is no opinion more generally held or more firmly believed in the church today than this”. The issue was discussed at each session of the Council, and on each occasion one of the “errors” listed was to the effect that “the Eucharist is not a sacrifice. . . but only a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross” (20).
At least one supporter of the purely sacramental sacrifice of the Eucharist has suggested that the appropriate response to Luther would have been along the lines of that theology. “The Protestant attack suggested a perfectly natural solution, in terms of the traditional definition of the mass as the sacramental representation of the passion. All that was necessary to say was that in the mass the sacrifice of the cross was made really present by means of this sacramental representation of the passion” (21). The Catholic theologians could have agreed with Luther that the Eucharist is not a natural sacrifice, but that neither is it a “mere” commemoration. It is a commemoration, indeed, but in what is taken to be the full biblical sense, making the reality remembered actual again in the present, and so can be legitimately recognized, on this basis, as a “true and proper” sacrifice.
The question is whether or not this response represents the faith of the Church. In fact, the Catholic theologians responded to Luther’s denial with a strong affirmation of the sacrifice in the plain, straightforward sense that Luther was denying. As Hughes himself admits: “With a hundred variations they repeated that it was a sacrifice, and that it was utterly unheard of to question this truth” (22). And so indeed it was at the Council. At Bologna in August 1547, some of the theologians responded directly to Luther’s assertion that the Eucharist is not a sacrifice but only a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Six spoke directly to the point, and three managed to make the clear rebuttal that the Eucharist is not only a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross, but a sacrifice that is celebrated in commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross. One affirms: “that the offering in the Mass is a commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross, but not only a commemoration, but also a sacrifice, and this sacrifice is a memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross”(23) .At Trent in 1551, three theologians speak to this point on this occasion, and this time only one, the famous Melchior Cano, managed to state explicitly that “if we do not offer a sacrifice, we do not represent the Sacrifice of Christ offered on the Cross”(24).
That a sacrifice in the plain meaning of the word was being affirmed is made clear by the arguments brought forward in support of the proposition. It was surely a handicap in rebutting Luther’s denial that the theologians had no clear idea what a sacrifice is and that they had no tradition of dealing with this question to refer to. They did what Catholic theology had been doing for centuries and based themselves on the teaching of the Fathers of the Church in the matter. The discussions ranged over many areas, but a perusal of the minutes makes clear that two particular lines of patristic teaching predominate in the final decree, and we will deal with them in turn.
The Eucharist as a Natural Sacrifice
The first stream of tradition is precisely to the effect that the Eucharist is a natural sacrifice continuous with the sacrifices of the Old Testament. This teaching was first clearly formulated by Saint Irenaeus and subsequently became standard. Saint Irenaeus deals with the issue of sacrifice in chapters 17 and 18 of Book 4 of the Adversus Haereses. He begins by discussing the prophetic critique of sacrifice in the Old Testament, introducing it as follows: “The prophets indicate abundantly that it was not because He had need of their service that God prescribed the observances contained in the Law; and the Lord, in His turn, taught openly that God demands an offering for the sake of man who is offering”(25). After a thorough review of the prophetic teaching, making it clear that the prophets were not attacking the institution of sacrifice, but sacrifice that is not accompanied by a sincere religious spirit, he repeats again our Lord’s attitude to sacrifice. “To His disciples also, He counselled the offering to God of the first fruits of His creatures” (26). He elaborates the point shortly after. “Therefore, the offering of the Church, which the Lord taught should be offered in the whole world, is to be reckoned a pure sacrifice before God and acceptable to Him, not because He has need of our sacrifice, but that the one who offers is glorified in what he offers if his gift is accepted”(27). He makes his point most clearly in a further text which was to become a classic reference. “And the class of offerings has not been abrogated; for there were offerings there, and there are offerings here. Sacrifices there were in the People; sacrifices there are, too, in the Church: but the species alone has been changed, inasmuch as the offering is now made, not by slaves but by freemen”(28).
Saint Irenaeus is clearly affirming that the Christian sacrifice is to be understood as standing in continuity with the Old Testament sacrifices and uses the standard sacrificial terminology to express himself. It is a stronger statement of this opinion than any that went before, and interpreters have sought reasons to explain Irenaeus’s heavy emphasis on this aspect. The explanation is usually found in the fact that Saint Irenaeus was rebutting the over-spiritualized doctrine of the Gnostics, and that he exaggerated in the opposite direction. This would seem to be a doubtful explanation. To suggest that Saint Irenaeus distorted the faith of the Church to make a debating point is hardly to do justice to his reputation as a Father of the Church. However, our immediate interest here is not in seeking an interpretation of the reason why Saint Irenaeus taught as he did, but in the fact of his teaching and the use made of this line of patristic interpretation at the Council of Trent, where it was officially sanctioned.
The discussion of the Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass began at Bologna in 1547, and at the first meeting of the theologians discussing the “errors”,this point about the natural sacrifice was made by five of the theologians who spoke. All we have are short summaries of their speeches, but even in the form of the minutes it is clear what was being said. There is sacrifice according to the natural law, according to the Law in the Old Testament, and there must be sacrifice now in the Christian dispensation, which is the perfection of all that went before (29). These men are simply repeating Saint Irenaeus and the other Fathers of the Church who made this same point.
Nothing further was done at that time, and when the issue came up for discussion the second time, in Trent in December 1551, the formulation of this particular “error” had been enlarged to include the denial that the Eucharist is a “true and proper” sacrifice, and a draft of canons was produced, the first of which anathematized these denials. In the discussion of the theologians, this issue was not greatly in evidence, since by this time attention was focused elsewhere, as we shall see. However, lack of mention did not at all imply any less emphasis on the doctrine. In January 1552, a committee set about drafting a new version of the decree. In the accompanying Doctrinal Statement on the Mass, the point which had been made at Bologna in 1547 was included. It was affirmed that “the abolition of the sacrifices of the Old Testament [did not] deprive [Christians] of the whole reality of sacrifice [sacrificandi rationem], but rather a new and clearly divine sacrifice was bequeathed to the Christian priests” (30). And later the statement asserts: “Nor would it be fitting, clearly, if the New Law, which is perfect in every way, were to lack any external and visible sacrifice” (31). On this occasion the sacrament of Orders was being discussed at the same time, and the following day the same committee produced a draft of a set of canons on the sacrament of Orders that would anathematize anyone who would deny that “in the New Testament there is a visible and external priesthood” (32). This same teaching was included in the Doctrinal Statement on the Sacrament of Orders, where it is affirmed that “in the Church of God there is an external sacrifice, and therefore a visible and external priesthood” (33). These are strong affirmations of a “visible and external priesthood” offering an “external and visible sacrifice” in continuity with the “reality of sacrifice” of the Old Testament. If this draft had been promulgated as it stands, there would hardly have been any doubt as to the “plain and obvious” meaning of the teaching of the Council, but the situation was to change quite considerably before the final decree was produced in 1562. The controversy arose concerning the second major line of patristic interpretation, and this first affirmation of the natural sacrifice was only very lightly treated after 1551. The little that further needs to be said about it will be placed in its temporal sequence when we discuss the major debate of 1562.
According to the Order of Melchizedek
A second line of patristic teaching which came to dominate the conciliar debate is one which sees in the Last Supper and the Eucharist the fulfilment of the prophecy in Psalm 110:4: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (34). The Fathers understood this according to a simple schema. Melchizedek offered sacrifice in bread and wine, and so, in fulfilment of the figure, Christ our Lord offered sacrifice in bread and wine and commanded that the same be done in his memory. This came to be a hotly debated issue at the Council, and the theologians defending this interpretation as the faith of the Church drew up lists of patristic texts in its favor (35), so a short presentation of the patristic doctrine is again in order.
The first evidence of this relating of the Melchizedek figure to the :Last Supper and the Eucharist is to be found in Clement of Alexandria, and all he does is mention it. It was taken up and maintained in both the East and the West, as the list of texts compiled makes clear. However, of these texts, only two develop the doctrine at any length, and of those two by far the fuller is Saint Cyprian’s Letter 63 to Caecilium, (36) and it is quite obvious from a perusal of the minutes of Trent that this letter was the foundation of what the theologians and the bishops were all saying. It relates directly to the issue under discussion, the sacrificial character of the Eucharist on the level of the liturgy itself. What prompted Saint Cyprian to write to his fellow Bishop Caecilium was the fact that in some places Christians had begun celebrating the Eucharist using only water instead of wine mixed with water, and Cyprian wrote to condemn this practice.
He opens the letter by stating the problem as he sees it, mentioning that “some either from ignorance or simplicity in blessing the Lord’s chalice and ministering to the people do not do what Jesus Christ our Lord and God, author and teacher of this sacrifice did and taught. . .” (37)He then lays down the principle to be applied. “You know we have been warned that in offering the Lord’s chalice we must follow tradition and we should do nothing different from that which the Lord first did for us, that the chalice which is offered in His memory should be offered mixed with wine” (38). Then he applies the figure of Melchizedek:
Likewise, in the priest Melchizedek, we see the sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord prefigured. . . . This order, indeed, is the one coming from that sacrifice and thence descending because Melchizedek was a priest of the most high God, because he offered bread, because he blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered sacrifice to God the Father and offered the very same thing which Melchizedek had offered, bread and wine, that is, actually, His Body and Blood. . . . the image of the sacrifice goes before, appointed actually in bread and wine. Accomplishing and fulfilling this action, the Lord offered bread and a chalice mixed with wine. . . (39).
For the rest of the letter he continues emphasizing and repeating these same points, that Christ offered bread and wine, and that we must do what he did. One example will suffice. “For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered, only Christ is to be followed, likewise we must obey and do what Christ did and what he commanded to be done. . .” (40). With this background in mind, we can now examine what happened at the Council.
This point was raised by the theologians during the first meeting at Bologna in 1547. Five of them mentioned it, and the influence of Saint Cyprian is plain to be seen. One of them said: “The sacrifice of Melchizedek was the type and figure of the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Just as Melchizedek offered bread and wine, so the priest offers bread and wine, so that it will be transubstantiated into the Body of Christ” (41). Another formulated it as follows: “Moreover, if Christ sacrificed to the Father in bread and wine and said ‘Do this in memory of me,’ therefore the priest does the same in the Mass” (42). In 1551, when the Council reconvened at Trent, this point came more to the fore, and now the focus was on the sacrificial quality of the Last Supper itself. The issue must have arisen in controversy in the meantime, because even before the discussion of the sacrifice of the Mass began, many of the theologians had presented lists of errors for discussion, and among the errors listed by almost all of them was the denial of this teaching that Christ had offered a sacrifice at the Last Supper (43). Although no mention of the point appeared on the official list of errors proposed for discussion, the interventions were more frequent than at Bologna and reported at greater length. The basic affirmations are the same as before, the only new point being the introduction of the phrase “under the appearances of bread and wine.” ”And since Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, it is necessary that he sacrificed according to the order of Melchizedek, in bread and wine. Christ only did that at the Last Supper, therefore Christ at the Last Supper offered His body under these appearances (sub illis speciebus)” (44).
Until this point no controversy had arisen in these discussions. This situation changed dramatically, however, when the Council Fathers came to discuss the draft of the chapters and canons on Orders and on the Mass in January 1552, when there began a heated debate which would not end until the Council closed ten years later. A group of Dominican bishops, all of whom had studied at the University of Salamanca, began what seems to have been a concerted effort to overturn the consensus on this issue. A study of their different interventions at the Council makes it clear that their opinion was substantially the same as that which has now come to be widely accepted in Catholic theology. They did not accept the “true and proper,” “visible and external” sacrifice of the Mass, though this was not explicitly the point they opposed. They focused their attack on the Melchizedek prophecy and the Last Supper sacrifice, with the teaching on the sacrifice of the Mass understood to be at stake by implication.
The first of them to speak was Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, who would be a central figure in the drama right to the end. He objected to the use of the Melchizedek prophecy on the grounds that it is doubtful if Melchizedek offered sacrifice at all in Genesis 14:18 (45), and he was followed in this by another Salamanca Dominican, Tomas Campegi, Bishop of Feltri (46), who added his opinion that Hebrews 7:1ff. does not refer to Melchizedek’s sacrifice but to his lack of genealogy, thus referring to the eternity of Christ’s priesthood (47). Then came the intervention that shocked the Council and remained the focus of all attention in this debate until it concluded in 1562 (48). It was another of the Salamanca Dominicans, Cornelio Musso, Bishop of Bitonto, who said he disapproved “that it is said that Christ offered himself at the Last Supper, because then he would have died in vain, because that [sacrifice] would have sufficed to reconcile us with God” (49).
In this first denial of the sacrifice at the Last Supper, the Bishop of Bitonto gave the fundamental reason that was to cause the difficulty, that a sacrifice at the Last Supper is incompatible with the unicity of the Sacrifice of the Cross, the same objection, notice, that Luther had already used and that Vonier would subsequently use to deny the natural sacrifice. These denials of the sacrifice of Melchizedek and the sacrifice of the Last Supper were almost unanimously rejected by the other bishops. Five of the bishops reaffirmed the Melchizedek prophecy (50), and many more rejected the denial of the Last Supper sacrifice (51). One after another, they affirmed that Christ offered a sacrifice at the Last Supper, according to the order of Melchizedek, with only one, yet another Dominican from Salamanca, supporting Musso (52).
A revised version of the Doctrinal Statement was presented on January 20,1552. We have already pointed out that it contained a strong statement of the natural sacrifice, and it also contained a strong statement of this doctrine of the Last Supper sacrifice, presenting it as the primary reason in favor of the sacrifice of the Mass.
That the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice is shown first of all by the oath of God the Father: “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 109:4). Christ our Lord exercised this priesthood, when he offered Himself to His Father at the Last Supper under the sensible appearances of bread and wine, and He will not cease to offer through priests who exercise His ministry, just as Melchizedek himself offered bread and wine in sacrifice to God (53).
It was not possible to conclude the work on these documents at this session of the Council, and so it was not until ten years later that the debate was resumed.
The Debate of 1562
When the Council reconvened at Trent in 1562, the situation was completely transformed. This time one of the presidents of the Council, Geronimo Seripando, was firmly against the idea of the Last Supper as a sacrifice and the whole related emphasis on the visible sacrifice of the Mass, and that meant that the whole discussion had to start again from the beginning. A new list of “errors” was drawn up and a new draft of chapters and canons (54). One of the members of the commission established to produce a new draft of the decree was none other than Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, who had argued against the Last Supper sacrifice in 1551. He was opposed in the commission by Antonio Panthusa, Bishop of Lettere, but since Seripando, as one of the presidents of the Council and also opposed to the doctrine, was the referee in the dispute, the result was to be expected. When the document was produced, the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Last Supper, together with the strong statements on the “true and proper” sacrifice of the draft of 1551, had been completely set aside, and so the scene was set for a vigorous debate when the document came for examination in the General Congregations (55).
The section of the chapter that spoke of the Last Supper read as follows:
And to speak first of the institution of this sacrifice, it is to be held that Christ our Lord instituted it when at the Last Supper, changing bread and wine into His Body and Blood, He offered Himself under the symbols of these things to the Apostles to be eaten and offered and commanded them saying: “Do this in memory of me.” The Church has always understood these words as a command to priests to offer this sacrifice in memory of Christ (56).
It is to be noted that there is no mention of the Last Supper as a sacrifice, no mention of Melchizedek. Christ “offered Himself under the symbols of these things to the Apostles”, not to God. This formulation is closer to Luther than to the text produced eleven years before. The new draft was first discussed by the theologians on July 19, 1562. The withdrawal of the draft of 1551, with its strong affirmation of the natural sacrifice, probably explains why five of those who spoke are recorded as making the same point that had been made at Bologna in 1547 that the Christian sacrifice is according to human nature and in continuity with the sacrifices of the Old Testament (57). There was also almost complete unanimity among them that the Melchizedek prophecy and the doctrine of the sacrifice at the Last Supper should be restored to the decree, with only one dissenting voice, that of another Dominican from Salamanca.
This near unanimity among the theologians against this draft had no impact on the situation, and in the draft of chapters and canons submitted to the Council Fathers on August 6, 1562, there was still no mention of the Last Supper sacrifice. The section dealing with the point about the Mass as a “true and proper” sacrifice remains very much watered down and contains none of the language of the “external and visible” sacrifice from the draft of 1551 (58). This second point, however, was not addressed at all in the General Congregation, since all the attention was focused on the Last Supper sacrifice. When the Council Fathers began the discussion of the decree on August 11, 1562, the first to speak was one of the presidents of the Council, Cardinal Madras. He set the agenda of the whole debate when he pronounced his opinion that the doctrinal statement should speak of the sacrifice “which Christ offered at the Last Supper,” and that “Do this in memory of me” should be explained to mean that “Christ offered at the Last Supper, and commanded to be done what He himself had done when he offered according to the order of Melchizedek at the Last Supper” (59). This was effectively the only issue of substance addressed throughout the debate. Everyone of the 137 Fathers who spoke expressed an opinion one way or the other, and a statistical analysis was done by Alonso in his book. Five of the Fathers explicitly denied the sacrifice, 91 explicitly affirmed it, 33 accepted it with certain reservations, and of 14 it is hard to say what exactly their position was. Four Fathers expressed themselves indifferent on the question, and about the other nine it is not clear whether they spoke at all.. (60). The opponents of the doctrine were the same five Dominicans from Salamanca, and the basic argument was the same. Christ cannot have offered sacrifice at the Last Supper because there is only one sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the Cross. Many of the bishops made clear that they simply did not know where the truth lay. Various difficulties were put forward; different suggestions made. The debate is a marvelous mine of arguments on one side and the other, but this is not the moment to enter into such a discussion or to attempt to resolve the difficulties with the doctrine, which are very real. Our interest is in knowing what the doctrine is, what the Council finally decided on the issue.
The point at issue was clear to all. Did Christ offer sacrifice at the Last Supper according to the order of Melchizedek, in other words, in bread and wine? And did he command the apostles to do what he had done, so that the Eucharist is likewise a sacrifice under the appearances of bread and wine? This doctrine is in response to Luther’s denial of the sacrifice of the Mass, and the response is a direct contradiction of his denial. The precise point debated was about the Last Supper sacrifice, but the related positions were all understood. The debate ended on August 27 and the decree was rewritten to meet the desire of the majority. The point about the natural sacrifice, so much emphasised in the draft of 1551, was restored in a single clause asserting that Christ instituted the Eucharist “in order to leave to his beloved Spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as human nature demands) . . . “(DS 1740/ND 1546), corresponding to the first canon, which states: “If anyone says that in the Mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God. . . anathema sit” (DS 1751/ND 1555). Even though the reference to this point is so small as to appear almost negligible, it is clear that the doctrine so fully formulated in the draft of 1551 was being affirmed by the Council. Any doubt that might remain on this point regarding the visible, natural sacrifice can be overcome by reference to the Decree on the Sacrament of Orders which was promulgated in the subsequent 23rd Session. There the Council taught on the sacrament of Orders: “Sacrifice and priesthood are by the ordinance of God so united that both have existed under every law. Since, therefore, in the New Testament the Catholic Church has received from the institution of Christ the holy, visible sacrifice of the Eucharist, it must also be acknowledged that there exists in the Church a new, visible and external priesthood into which the old one was changed” (DS 1764/ND 1707). And Canon 1 corresponding reads: “If anyone says that there is in the New Testament no visible and external priesthood. . . anathema sit” (DS 1771/ND 1714). In regard to the Last Supper sacrifice, Cardinal Madruzzo’s suggestion was implemented and the doctrine asserts that “declaring himself constituted ‘a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ (Ps 109:4), [Christ] offered his body and blood under the species of bread and wine to God the Father, and under the same signs gave them to partake of to the disciples (whom he established as priests of the New Testament), and ordered them and their successors in the priesthood to offer, saying: ‘Do this in memory of me,’ etc. (Lk 22: 19; 1 Cor 11 :24) as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught” (DS 1740/ND 1546). And the corresponding second canon reads: “If anyone says that by the words ‘Do this in memory of me’ (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24) Christ did not establish the apostles as priests or that he did not order that they should offer his body and blood, anathema sit” (DS 1752/ND 1556).
In the light of what we have seen, it can hardly be doubted what the teaching of the Council is. The doctrine that the Eucharist is a visible, a true and proper sacrifice, traditional for centuries and taken for granted by the vast majority of those involved, was clearly affirmed. That much is admitted even by those who do not accept the teaching. We saw earlier that John Jay Hughes suggested that Trent should have taught otherwise, implicitly accepting the fact of the clear teaching that was given. Edward J. Kilmartin, too, who rejects the opinion, concedes that it was taught by Trent. “The Council of Trent . . . teaches that through the offering of the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine, the Eucharist is a visible sacrifice which, in itself, has a sacrificial character. . . . In other words, the commemorative actual presence of the sacrifice of the cross is not identified as the ground of the sacrificial character of the Mass. Rather, it is the sacrificial character of the Mass that grounds why it can represent the sacrifice of the cross” (61). What is new in the Tridentine teaching is the affirmation of the sacrificial quality of the Last Supper itself. This point was implicit in the Cyprianic reasoning, that what Christ did we also must do, but it had never before been explicitly formulated. The point was not spelled out in a clear definition, but it was taught, and the only remaining question is as to the status of this teaching. Did the Council make a binding judgment on this matter? Some say not. Consider, for example, Raymond Moloney.
One of the hotly debated points in this chapter was whether the Last Supper was to be regarded as a sacrifice. The affirmative view seemed to many to take from the propitiatory function of the Cross. The negative view seemed to create a dichotomy between the Last Supper and the sacrifice of the Mass. From the perspective of present-day theology we can interpret this dispute as a conflict between notions of natural sacrifice and sacramental sacrifice, which were not fully worked out at that time. Fortunately the Council did not decide the issue in a fundamental way. They were content to teach in the first chapter of the decree that in the Last Supper Christ offered himself, but they left open how this was related to the other aspects of Christ’s sacrifice (62).
One has to admit that on the basis of the text of the final decree taken by itself, the issue is not clear. However, as a help to the formation of a judgment on the correct answer to this question, there are a few significant points of information available. At the stage of the final drafting of the decree, the effort was made to avoid issuing a definitive judgement on this point. Cardinal Seripando and those against the Last Supper sacrifice insisted that the phrase “which is the opinion of the Fathers” (ut est patrum sententia) be added to the sentence affirming the sacrifice, and it was contained in the draft presented on September 5. However, on September 6 the Council was informed that this phrase was to be removed, by order of the papal legates (63). During the discussion begun on September 7, the vast majority simply agreed: Placet. Of those few opposed, Guerrero was the only one opposed to the affirmation of the Last Supper sacrifice in any sense. “He warned the Fathers, that before they establish a dogma of faith, they should give the matter diligent and mature consideration beforehand” (64). He caused great annoyance by staying away from the public session on September 17, and when he was prevailed upon to return, he entered a statement into the record which stated, among other things, that: “he did not agree to its being defined, that Christ offered Himself at the Last Supper, since the holy doctors assert that He only did this once” (65).
It is clear that the Archbishop of Granada considered that the Council was proposing a doctrine as of faith in this matter. And he was not alone. Another bishop, writing to Cardinal Morone, relates his amazement that without having much time for study the bishops were able to settle this question so quickly. He mentions the matter of the phrase “as many Fathers have said” and the fact that the papal legates had removed the qualification, and concludes: ”And so we are making an article of faith without the testimony of Scripture and without apostolic tradition, and of something one has never heard spoken of in the schools” (66). One last witness in this line is worth adverting to. On September 16, on the eve of the public session to proclaim the decree, Cardinal Seripando himself presented a minute to his fellow papal legates requesting a solemn declaration that he, Cardinal Seripando, disapproved of the decree. The first papal legate, Cardinal Hercules Gonzaga, signed the declaration, the first sentence of which says:
We, Hercules etc., do solemnly affirm that, Geronimo Cardinal Seripando, in the private meetings of the Papal Legates, never wished to consent that in the decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass, anything should be written as certain, indubitable, and of faith regarding the oblation or immolation or sacrifice of Christ our Lord in the Last Supper, and he asserted that he was moved to this view by reasons which he presented to us in writing (67).
These are just a few witnesses, but they include important figures in the Council. The two men most opposed to the declaration, Archbishop Guerrero and Cardinal Seripando, were both convinced that a binding judgment was being made. It stands to reason also that the papal legates did not dispute Seripando’s assessment of what was being done, since they could easily have disabused him, and it was precisely they who removed the qualifying clause which Guerrero and Seripando held dear. Weighing all the evidence, one would find it hard to fault the judgement on this issue of a recent commentator. “The sacrificial character of the Last Supper was not formally defined; however, despite the strong objections made and the difficulties that became clear during the debate, it was restored to the doctrinal section of the Decree and, on September 17th, solemnly proclaimed as the teaching of the Council and, therefore, of the Church.” (68)
This teaching that the Last Supper was a sacrifice will be of interest in our further discussion in due course. However, it is clear that this teaching on the Last Supper sacrifice is not being affirmed in isolation, as a question on its own. It represents the keystone of an interlocking set of doctrines that constitutes the Council’s reply to Luther’s denial of the visible sacrifice of the Eucharist from which the discussion began. This is the point of immediate interest to us here, and there can be no doubt that Rahner’s short summary of the “plain and obvious” teaching of the Church in this matter is completely accurate. We set out to re-establish the traditional position that the Eucharist is a sacrifice in its own right, and that has been done. We are ready, then, to proceed to the task we have set ourselves of presenting an alternative concept of sacrifice which can make sense of that affirmation. Before leaving this preliminary discussion, it must be noted that the difficulty raised by Luther, the Salamanca Dominicans, and Vonier as to how the sacrifice in the Eucharist does not conflict with the doctrine of the unicity of the Sacrifice of the Cross has not yet been resolved. There are pointers towards a solution to be found in the Tridentine discussions, but it seems wiser to leave a consideration of this point until later, when the sacrificial quality of the Eucharist has been more clearly established.
Notes
1. “In primis autem est Eucharistia sacrificium”. Dominicae Coenae (1980), II 9, AAS 72 (1980), 130.
2. Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (London: SCM, 1977),425.
3. Raymond Moloney, The Eucharist (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995),212.
4. Edward J. Kilmartin, SJ, The Eucharist in the West (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1998), xxiv.
5. M. Lepin, L’Idee du sacrifice de la Messe d’apres les thiologiens (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1926),215-220.
6. Francis Clark, SJ, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967),442.
7. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation, 442-443.
8. Karl Rahner and Angelus Haussling, The Celebration of the Eucharist (London/New York: Burns & Oates/Herder and Herder, 1968), 13.
9. Dom Anscar Vonier, OSB, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1925), 87.
10. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West, 184.
11. Rahner and Haussling, The Celebration of the Eucharist, 13-14.
12. Ibid., 18. 13. Ibid., 13.
14. Vonier, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, 135.
15. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation. This is Peter Lombard’s version from IV Sent., d. 12, c. 5, translated and quoted by Clark on page 75.
16. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation, 75.
17. Augustine, Ep. 98 Bonifatio episcopo, § 9; CSEL 34, 2, 530, 21-531,3; PL 33, 363.
18. Martin Luther, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” (1520), in Abdel Ross Wentz, editor and Helmut Lehmann, general editor, Luther’s Works Volume 36 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 11-126, at 35.
19. Ibid., 51.
20. CT VI, 322.1-3.
21. John Jay Hughes, Stewards of the Lord (London and Sydney: Sheed and Ward, 1970), 104.
22. Hughes, Stewards if the Lord, 112.
23. CT VI, 350.27- 30.
24. CT VII, I, 389.8-10.
25. Adv. Haer. IV, 17, 1; SC 100,574-575. 26. Adv. Haer. IV, 17,5; SC 100,590-591. 27. Adv. Haer. IV, 18, 1; SC 100,595-597.
28. Adv. Haer. IV, 18,2; SC 100,598-599.
29. CT VI, 325.18-19; 327.9-10; 334.16-18; 337.1-2; 345.41-346.1. 30. CT VII, I, 475.18-19.
31. CT VII, I, 478.8-9.
32. CT VII, I, 461.1.
33. CT VII, I, 485.23-24.
34. On this see Manuel Alonso, SJ, El Sacrificio Eucaristico de la ultima cena del Senor segun el Concilio Tridentino (Madrid, 1929).
35. From the lists minuted, the texts I could verify were the following: Clement of Alexandria; Stromata IV, xxv. (PG 8, 1369/1370B.); Cyprian, Epist. 63 ad Caecilium (PL 4, 376A; CSEL III, II, 703f£; CCL, III C, 389ff.); Ambrose; De Abraham, I 3, 16 (PL 14427 A; CSEL XXXII, I, 514, 4 ss.); De sacramentis IV 3 (PL 16,438, CSEL LXXIII 50, 16-17.); Augustine, De civitate Dei XVI 22 (PL 41, 500; CSEL, XL, II, 164,3 ss.); ad Innocentium I epist. 177 (olim 95), c. 12 (CSEL XLIV 681, 5s.; De doctrina Christ. IV 21, 45 (CCL XXXII 152,29-33, quoting Cyprian 703, 1-5.); Jerome, ad Marcellum epist. 46,2 (CSEL LIV 331, 14-17); John Chrysostom, Hom. de Melchisedeco (PG LVI 261££); Chrysostom, In Genesim homil 35, 3 (PG LIII 328); Theophylact, Expositio in epist. ad Hebr. 5:6 (PG CXXV 241D [Migne has C twice on this page].) ; John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa IV 13 (PG 94, 1149C).
36. The other is Chrysostom’s homily on Melchizedek. 37. CCL, III C, 389.7ss.
38. Ibid., 391.22ss.
39. Ibid., 392.40ss. (Alternative references: Cyprian, Epist. 63 ad Caecilium (PL 4, 376A; CSEL III, II, 703, Iss.). English trans., The Fathers of the Church (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964),4.
40. Ibid., 409.254 ss.
41. CT VI, 350.17-19. 42. CT VI, 361.19-20.
43. Some examples in CT VII, II, 350,21-24; 363, 1-3; 366,18-19. 44. CT VII, I, 411.9-~3.
45. CT VII, I, 445.22-23.
46. CT VII, I, 446.7-8.
47. CT VII, I, 446.9-12.
48. Melchior Cano was later to comment that this assertion came as a complete surprise to all the bishops and theologians at the Council (a patribus et theologis universis explosum). De Locis XII, 12.
49. CT VII, I, 449.27-28.
50. CT VII, I, 446.26-27; 447.30-32; 448.22; 452.31-33; 454.28-30.
51. CT VII, II, 450.8-10; 450.31-32; 451.14-23; 451.33-34; 453.3-4;
453.13-25; 454.7-11; 455.9-18; 456.2; 456.12-15; 457.9-15; 457.24-26; 458.29-30; 459.1.
52. CT VII, I, 459.9-18.
53. CT VII, I, 475.20-24.
54. Alonso, 122.
55. Ibid., 131.
56. CT VIII, 751.15-21.
57. CT VIII, 727.5-6,26-29; 728.5-11; 740.21-25; 744.32-39. 58. CT VIII, 751.10-15.
59. CT VIII, 755.10-13.
60. Alonso, El Sacrificio Eucaristico, 192.
61. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West, 176£
62. Moloney, The Eucharist, 169f.
63. CT VIII, 879.1-3.
64. “admonuit Patres, ut antequam dogma fidei constituant, omnia prius diligenter et mature considerare velint.” CT VIII, 954.23-24.
65. “Non item placet definiri, Christum in coena se obtulisse, cum sancti doctores asseverent illum semel hoc fecisse.” CT VIII, 964.1-2.
66. “Mutinensis: Et così facciamo un articolo di fede senza testimonio della Scrittura et senza traditione apostolica, et d’una cosa, della quale mai si senti parlare nelle schole”. CT VIII, 915, fn.2.
67. Alonso, El Sacrificio Eucaristico, 227-228.
68. Erwin Iserloh, “Das tridentinische Messopferdekret in seinen Beziehungen zu der Kontroverstheologie der Zeit,” in Il concilio di Trento e la riforma tridentina: Atti del convegno storico internazionale, Trento- 2-6 Settembre, 1963, Volume II (Herder, 1965), 401-439, at p. 437. Also in Concilium Tridentinum (hrsg. von R. Baumer), (Darmstadt, 1979),341-381, at p. 379.
