Answer unto a Crafy and Sophistical Cavillation, Debate · Confutation of book 2 · Section 29
Caunterbury.
WHere you like not my translatiō of Chrisostomes wordes, I trow you would hauehave me to learne of you to trāslate, you vse such sincerity and playnnes in your translation. Let the learned reader be iudge. I did translate the wordes my selfe out of the copye of Florence, more truely than it seemeth you would hauehave done. But whan you see the wordes of Chrisostome so manifest and cleare agaynst your fayned Transubstantiation (for he sayth, that the nature of bread remayneth still) you craftely for a shift, fall to the carping of the translation, bicause you cannot answere to the matter. And yet the wordes of Chrisostome cyted by master Peter Martyr in latine out of Florence copy, and my translation, and the translation of master Peters booke in English, do agree fully here in sense, although the wordes be not all one, which neyther is required nor lightly found in any two translators, so that all your wrangling in the diuersity of the translations, is but a fleight and common practise of you, whan you cannot answer the matter, to seeke faultes in the translation, where none is.
And for the speciall poynt, wherin you do note a meruaylous diuersity in report, and would gather therof no truth to be, where such diuersity is, let the reader be iudge, what a wonderfull diuersity it is. The Latine is this, Panis dignus habitus est dominici corporis appellatione. The translator of M. Peter Martyrs booke sayth. The bread is reputed worthy the name of the Lordes body. My translation hath, The bread is exalted to the name of the body of the Lord. When a man is made a Lord or Knight, if one say of him, that he is reputed worthy, the name of a Lord or Knight, and an other say, that he is exalted to the name of a Lord or Knight, what difference is betwene these two sayinges? Is not this a wonderfull diuersity? I pray thee iudge indifferently good reader.
A figure requireth not the presence of the thing that is signified.But (say you) a figure can neuer be counted worthy the name of the thing onles the thing were there in deede. Wrangle then with S. Ihon Chrisostome himselfe, and not with me, who sayth that the bread is exalted to ye name of ye Lords body or is reputed worthy ye name of ye Lordes body after the sanctificatiō, and yet the nature of ye bread remayneth still, which can not be as you say, if the body of Christ were there present.
And who heard euer such a doctrine as you here make, that the thing, must be really and corporally present, where the figure is? For so must eueryevery man be corporally buried in deede,Rom. 6. when he is Baptised, which is a figure of our buriall. And when we receaue the Sacrament of Christes body, then is accomplished the resurrectiō of our bodies, for that Sacrament you affirme to be the figure therof. But your doctrine herein is cleane contrary to the iudgement of Lactantius,Lactantius institu. lib. 2. Capi. 1. and other olde writers, who teach that figures be in vayne, and serue to no purpose, when the thinges by them signified be present.
And where you thinke it strange, to say that the diuine nature is or resteth in the body of Christ, it is nothing els, but to declare your ignorance in Gods word, and auncient authors, in reading of whome, forasmuch as you hauehave not bene much exercised, it is no meruayle though their speach seeme strange vntounto you. The greeke word of Chrisostome is foreign, which I pray you english, and then we shall see what a strange speach you will make.Ihon. 1. Did you neuer heare tell at the least, that the word was incarnated? or Verbum caro factum est? And what signifieth this word Incarnate: but God to be made man, and his diuine nature to be in flesh? Doth not S. Iohn bid vsus beware,1. Iohn. 4. that we beleue not eueryevery spirite: for there be many false prophets, and eueryevery spirite sayth he, that confesseth not Iesus Christ to hauehave come in flesh, is not of God, but is the spirite of Antichrist? Is this then a strange speach to you, that the diuine nature resteth in the flesh, that is to say, in the body of Christ? which if you deny, you know whose spirite yon hauehave. But your trust is altogither in obscure speaches, wherwith you trust so to darken the matter, that no man shall vnderstand it, least that if they vnderstand it, they must needes perceaue your ignorance and error.
But when you promise to come to the purpose, (as to say the truth, all that you sayd before is clearly without purpose) but when you promise (I say) now at length to come to the purpose, your answere is nothing to the purpose of S. Chrisostoms mynd: for he made not his resemblance (as you say he did) onelyonly to shew the remayning of the accidents (which you call the properties) but to shew the remayning of the substances, with all the naturall properties therof. That as Christ had here in earth his diuinity and humanity, remayning eueryevery of them with his naturall properties, the substance of his godhead, being a nature single without composition, without conuersion inuisible, immortall, incircumscriptible, incomprehensible, and such like, (for these be Chrisostomes owne wordes) and the substance of his humanity, being a feble nature, subiect to hunger, thyrst, weeping, feare, sweating, and such passions, so is it in the bread and Christes body, that the bread after sanctification or consecration (as you call it) remayneth in his substance that it had before: and likewise doth the body of Christ remayne still in heauen in his very true substance, wherof the bread is a Sacrament and figure. For els, if the substance of the bread remayned not, how could Chrisostome bring it for a resemblance, to proue that the substance of Christes humanity remayneth with his diuinity? Mary this that you say, had bene a gay lesson for the Manichees, to say that there appeareth bread by all the accidents therof, and yet is none in deede, that then by this similitude they might say likewise, that Christ appeared a man by all the accidences and properties of a man, and yet he was none in deede. And to make an ende of this author, your vayne comment will not serue you, to call the accidents of bread, the nature of bread, except you will alow the same in the Manichees, that the nature of Christes body, is nothing els but the accidences therof.
Now followeth Gelasius of the same matter.
Hereunto accordeth also Gelasius, writing agaynst Eutiches and Nestorius,Gelasius contra Eutichen & Nestorium. of whome the one sayd, that Christ was a perfect man, but not God: and the other affirmed cleane contrary, that he was very God but not man. But agaynst these two heinous heresies, Gelasius proueth by most manifest scriptures, that Christ is both God and man, and that after his Incarnation remayneth in him as well the nature of his Godhead, as the nature of his manhod, so that he hath in him two natures with their naturall properties, and yet is he but one Christ.
And for the more euident declaration hereof, he bringeth two examples, the one is of man, who being but one, yet he is made of two partes, & hath in him two natures remayning both togither in him, that is to say, the body & the soule with their naturall properties.
The other example is of the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ, which (sayth he) is a godly thing, and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine, do not cease to be there still.
Note well these wordes agaynst all the Papistes of our tyme, that Gelasius (which was Bishop of Rome more then a thousand yeares passed) writeth of this Sacrament, that the bread and wine cease not to be there still, as Christ ceased not to be God after his incarnation, but remayned still perfect god, as he was before.