Article II: On the Mode by Which Christ Is Offered

S. Th. III, q. 74, a. 1; q. 79, a. 7; q. 83, a. 1; q. 78, a. 3, ad 1 and 2.

320. State of the question. - Having demonstrated that the essence of sacrifice is verified in the consecration, there is asked the mode in which, in the consecration, the sacrificial oblation and immolation is made, or the mode in which Christ is offered and immolated.

Concerning this, many opinions have been set forth in the course of time, which can be reduced to three classes.

a. Some held that the sacrifice of the altar by one notion is absolute and by another representative, or that in itself it is a true and properly so-called sacrifice through something other than through the representation of the passion of Christ.

b. Others, on the contrary, constitute the very notion of sacrifice in the representation itself of the death of Christ, or in the mystical immolation or destruction representing the passion.

c. Others finally, supposing this immolation or its representation, formally place the sacrificial action not indeed in destruction, but in the oblation of the thing immolated or destroyed.

321. Principle I. The sacrifice of the altar is not by one notion a sacrifice and by another representative of the cross, but insofar as it is a sacrifice it is representative, and insofar as it represents the passion it is also a true sacrifice.

This is the traditional doctrine, which from the beginning and constantly is found set forth among the Fathers and Scholastics: that the very sacrifice of the Mass is formally representative of the cross, not indeed per accidens, or through some circumstance added to it, but per se, i.e., through its essence or through the immolation proper to it; which would not be unless the representation itself of the bloody sacrifice of the cross were itself the immolation of Christ in the Mass, and this unbloody immolation of Christ were the representation of the bloody immolation.

Thus, for example, Justin, Dial. LXX, 4; Cyprian, ep. 63; Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. 23; Sacramentary of Serapion XIII, 12-14; Apostolic Constitutions VII, 25, 4; Eusebius, dem. ev. I, 10; H. E. X, 2-3; Gregory Nazianzen, ep. 171; Chrysostom, de Sacerd. III, 4; de prod. Iud. I, 6; in Matthew, hom. 82, 1; Caesarius of Nazianzus, dial. 3, interrog. 169; Ambrose, in Ps. XXXVIII, 7; de off. min. I, 48; Augustine, ep. 98; Gregory, dial. IV, 58; Cyril of Alexandria, ep. 17; Paschasius Radbertus, de corp. et sang. Domini XIX, 3; Lanfranc, de corp. et sang. Domini 14; Alexander of Hales, p. 4, q. 10, m. 3, a. 2; St. Thomas, q. 79, a. 7; q. 73, a. 4, ad 3; q. 74, a. 1; a. 7, ad 2; q. 76, a. 2, ad 1; q. 78, a. 3, ad 7; q. 80, a. 12, ad 3; q. 83, a. 1.¹

¹ Nor in general do those authors deny this who formally place sacrifice, not in immolation or destruction, but in oblation alone. Let de la Taille, one of them, be heard, M. F., elucid. XIX: "The Fathers proclaimed with one voice that in our Eucharistic celebration there is both the notion of sacrifice and the representation of the passion; indeed, that the sacrificial character depends upon this, that there is an image of the passion (or symbolic immolation). Their opinion is so openly known to those who have turned their pages even with the tip of a finger, that if anyone insisted on heaping up testimonies, he would seem only to be doing what has already been done." Likewise Lepin, L'idee du Sacrifice de la Messe, p. 750, conformably to de Condren, Olier, Juenin, Le Brun, and others of the same school.

This is also confirmed from the sacrifices of the Old Law, which were prefigurative of the cross insofar as in them the victim was immolated.

Several thought otherwise, namely that the representation of the passion of Christ really present does not suffice so that a true sacrifice may be present: for thus, they say, there is not a true and real sacrifice by which Christ is destroyed, but He is only represented as destroyed; there is not a true immolation, but a mere representation of immolation. And indeed:

1. Some, such as St. Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus, said that Christ is destroyed insofar as He is received in communion, and thus His presence under the species ceases; which we have already sufficiently refuted in the preceding article, n. 317.

2. A few others said that it is a sacrifice insofar as bread and wine truly are destroyed. But a) this is asserted without foundation, as we noted in n. 314; b) Christ would no longer be sacrificially offered or immolated; c) bread and wine are not visibly destroyed, whence this does not suffice for constituting a properly so-called sacrifice, namely an external and visible one.

3. Others, such as Suarez and Scheeben, posited a conversive destruction, saying that bread and wine are sacrificed insofar as they are destroyed, Christ insofar as He is produced: for not only is the thing offered which is changed and destroyed, as an animal, but also that into which it has been changed or which is produced anew, as smoke in a holocaust. But a) bread and wine are not sacrificed, as was already said in n. 314; b) it is false that Christ is produced (n. 244); c) although a thing produced can be offered, nevertheless against common sense a thing is said to be sacrificed insofar as it is produced.

4. Others, such as Lugo and Franzelin, say that Christ is destroyed not really but equivalently or in a human mode, insofar as, although He is glorious in heaven, here under the species of bread and wine He is constituted in a lower, humbler state and as if dead, reduced to the state of food and drink, destined for consumption, and unfit for exercising the connatural actions of bodily life, just as the incarnation of the Word is called by the Apostle the emptying of the Son of God (Phil. II, 7). Waffelaert and Lamiroy approached this opinion in some way, saying that Christ is placed in an immolative state insofar as His body becomes edible and food, His blood drinkable and drink, and therefore He is placed in the state of an immolated victim.

But a) nothing is sacrificed insofar as it is destined for the use of man or placed in the state of food: for thus it is rather accommodated to the use of man than offered to God. b) Christ remains unchanged in this sacrament (n. 243-244); therefore, although He does not exercise actions concerning surrounding things, because He exists there in an unextended mode, namely after the manner of substance, nevertheless He is there with all the vital actions and glorious endowments which He exercises or has in heaven. Whence Christ undergoes no diminution in Himself, but only externally is placed in the humbler state of an inanimate thing, as if He were not living.²

² It is useless to recall the singular opinion of Cienfuegos (Vita abscondita, disp. 2, lect. 1), saying that Christ miraculously exercises acts of sensitive life in the sacrament, then afterwards suspends these, and in the mixing of the body with the blood assumes them again; moreover, that in the vicissitude of those acts the essence of the sacrifice is placed. - But these things are asserted without reason, and contradict the doctrine of St. Thomas, q. 76, a. 7, ad 2, and a. 8, ad 2; nor in that way would there be a sacrifice essentially representative of the passion.

The aforesaid opinions must all be rejected, because, as has been said, the sacrifice itself of the Mass, by this very fact that it is a sacrifice, is also representative of the passion; which is not verified in the stated opinions.

322. Principle II. The Eucharistic sacrifice essentially consists in a symbolic or mystical immolation, i.e., in the representation itself of the Lord's passion, insofar as Christ, once bloodily immolated, under sacramental signs is placed and offered in an external condition of immolation through separated species, as if His blood had really been poured out from His body.

This is a more perfect statement and more accurate exposition of the traditional doctrine set forth under the first principle. It is proved:

1. From the words of Christ instituting, who teaches that the Eucharist is a sacrifice by saying that His body is there given and His blood poured out. But the blood of the Lord is not poured out except insofar as under a distinct species it becomes present as if it were separated from the body. Therefore in this the Eucharistic sacrifice consists.

2. From the authority of the Fathers and Theologians handed down above.

3. By reason: The essence of the Eucharistic sacrifice represents the immolation of the cross; but the sacrifice of the cross is represented insofar as Christ is offered under distinct species; therefore in this consists the very essence of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Yet this is not always explained rightly; and indeed:

1. Vasquez and Perrone, to whom Coghlan in some measure approaches, said that the Mass is not an absolute sacrifice in itself, but merely representative, and therefore that in it no real immolation or true change is required, but that the mere representation of this suffices. - But a) then the Mass would not be a true sacrifice, but only its image: for representation as representation is not sacrifice, although the Council of Trent, sess. 22, c. 1, says the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice; b) although this opinion differs in word from the opinion of the Protestants, which says that the Mass is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross, because it says that it is a relative sacrifice, and therefore was not condemned by Trent, can. 8, nevertheless in reality it does not seem to differ from it. A true unbloody immolation cannot be confused with an immolation merely figurative and metaphorical.

2. Many, such as Lessius, Sylvius, Gonet, Billuart, Pesch, and Hugon, hold that Christ is immolated insofar as by force of the words the blood is separated from the body: for although by concomitance the blood is also present with the body, nevertheless this happens per accidens with respect to the words of consecration. - But a) if per accidens the blood is not separated, per accidens no sacrifice is given, for which it does not suffice that the cause of immolation be posited, but that the victim truly be immolated: thus if the sword does not kill the victim, per accidens there will be no sacrifice. Therefore it remains that in the aforesaid opinion there is nothing except an attempted sacrifice; - b) the words do not have the force of separating the blood from the body, for they do not exclude the blood: before consecration either the blood was separated, and then the separation is not made by force of the words; or it was not separated, and then the words have not separated it and will not separate it.

3. Whence it must be said otherwise and more soberly: By force of the words, namely, only the body is present under the species of bread, and only the blood under the species of wine; whence the consecrated species of bread represents only the body, the species of wine represents only the blood. Therefore the body and blood, although not really, nevertheless sacramentally, i.e., by their signs, are separated; whence Christ under the species is in the external condition of the separation of the blood from the body, no otherwise than if the blood had really been separated from the body. Moreover the species of bread and wine are species of an inanimate thing; therefore they represent only the body and blood as inanimate: the body bloodless and dead, the blood poured out; whence although Christ is not really dead, nevertheless He is in the external condition of destruction and death, no otherwise than if He had been bloodily killed.

The placing of the victim in such a state suffices for sacrifice, which is a symbolic sign of the supreme dominion of God and of our subjection to Him; but a sign is something external and visible; therefore for the essence of sacrifice there is not required a real and bloody immolation, but a symbolic and perfect representation of this suffices, by which the victim really present is placed in the external condition of slaughter and death, so that outwardly it appears altogether as if it were dead. And although that external condition would not always suffice for repairing sin and for a sacrifice efficaciously propitiatory of itself, for which true and real immolation is required, because sin makes one guilty of death; nevertheless it has the same force of signifying our submission as real death has, and much more expressly than the pouring out of wine, or the breaking of food, or the sending of a goat into the desert. And therefore it suffices for a victim already really immolated to be offered again in honor of God in a sacrifice, which is not propitiatory except because it truly contains the immolated victim and because it applies the satisfactions of this victim already furnished for sin.³

³ Let it be noted that our opinion differs entirely from the doctrine which De Lugo proposed: 1. because we affirm that the representation of the blood poured out, in the order of sacrificial signification, is equivalent to real immolation, which he denies; - 2. because in this representation we place the essence of the sacrifice: for the essence of a thing is that which is conceived as first in it, and from which all other things are derived; but in bloody death that which is conceived as first is the pouring out of blood, from which is derived both the absence of motion and life, and the state of death; therefore also in symbolic death, that which is conceived as first and, as it were, the essence is the sacramental separation itself of the blood from the body, of which the external condition of death is only a concomitant consequence. Therefore we do not deny that the external condition of death pertains to the notion of sacrifice, but we say that it is not principal in it, as the essence, but rather has itself after the manner of a certain consequence; - 3. because we explain why the essence of the sacrifice consists in the consecration of the twofold species, without which the pouring out of blood is not represented; in Lugo's opinion no reason for this is given, because even under one species Christ is constituted in the external condition of death.

This is the opinion which St. Thomas learned from tradition and teaches in the cited places, and which the great Thomists propose, such as Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, likewise Pasqualigo, Bossuet, and more recently Billot, Van Noort, Grimal, Pegues, and Garrigou-Lagrange.

323. Principle III. The Eucharistic sacrifice of the altar, although it formally consists in oblation, nevertheless does not require an oblation distinct from immolation, but is offered in the unbloody or symbolic immolation itself.

Thus against several more recent authors,⁴ who hold immolation as a mere prerequisite condition for sacrifice, but formally, or even exclusively, place sacrifice in oblation. Undeservedly, as it seems.

⁴ Thus Habert already reports concerning certain persons; several expressly taught this in France, such as de Condren, Olier, Plowden; more recently Thalhofer, de la Taille, Lepin, to whom Battifol, Riviere, MacDonald, Grivet, and also d'Ales in some measure approach.

For: 1) This is opposed to St. Thomas saying, q. 79, a. 7: "insofar as in this sacrament the passion of Christ is represented, by which Christ offered Himself as a victim to God..., it has the notion of sacrifice," and q. 73, a. 4, ad 3: "it is called sacrifice insofar as it represents the passion itself of Christ."

2. Sacrifice is not constituted by a mere and formal oblation: a) not indeed by internal oblation: this indeed is the formal element by which sacrifice is constituted in the notion of an act of virtue, namely of religion, and which suffices for internal sacrifice; but it is insufficient for constituting external and properly so-called sacrifice as such, or for distinguishing it formally from other acts of religion; b) nor by external oblation, because not every oblation is sacrifice; - but c) it is constituted by a real oblation which is proper to sacrifice, and which is had through sacrificial immolation. Therefore the true Eucharistic sacrifice of the altar is not constituted as such by the internal oblation of Christ; nor by the mere external oblation of the sacrifice accomplished on the cross, which also is made to the Father in the heavens through a certain metaphorical and improper sacrifice; but Christ is offered by the symbolic and unbloody immolation itself.

3. Just as the voluntary death itself of Christ formally is the bloody sacrifice of the cross, so the representation itself of the cross in the sacrament formally is the unbloody sacrifice, but not through an oblation distinct in act.

324. Corollaries. - 1. The sacrifice of the Mass is not a new immolation in the proper sense, or a bloody slaughter; whence St. Thomas, q. 83, a. 1, teaches that the celebration of this sacrament is called the immolation of Christ because it is a certain image representative of the passion of Christ, which is His true immolation, and because through this sacrament we are made participants in the fruit of the Lord's passion. - Nevertheless on the altar there is made a new symbolic and analogical immolation, or a true unbloody immolation, as the Fathers speak: Cyprian, ep. 63; Augustine, ep. 98; Gregory, dial. 4, and the Scholastics, such as Peter Lombard and Albert the Great. Wherefore the Council of Trent itself, sess. 22: "in this divine sacrifice... Christ... is immolated unbloodily" (c. 2), since "He instituted a new Passover, Himself to be immolated by the Church through priests under visible signs" (c. 1).

2. A new victim is not made on the altar. Christ by the hypostatic union itself was sanctified and consecrated as a victim forever, which nevertheless does not prevent His human nature, "when it was offered to God in the passion, from having been sanctified in a new way, namely, as a victim then actually presented" (III, q. 22, a. 2, ad 3). By the resurrection and ascension Christ acquired the definitive state of an immolated, accepted, and glorified victim remaining forever. Hence in the sacrifice of the altar He is not consecrated in a new way into a victim, but the perpetual victim is constituted sacramentally present to be offered anew.

3. The sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the altar are in one way one, in another way a twofold sacrifice. It is substantially one, by reason of the principal offerer, Christ, by reason of the thing offered or victim, and by reason of the value or merit and satisfaction; modally twofold, by reason of the form or rite of offering, for the Council of Trent says: the manner of offering is diverse. And because in sacrifice the offerer, and the gift which is offered or the victim, and the merit are principal, but the mode or rite is rather something secondary, therefore the sacrifice of the New Law is simply one, and twofold in a qualified respect.

Hence if in sacrifice there is formally considered the sacrificial oblation and immolation itself: a) the sacrifice of the Mass is distinct from the sacrifice of the cross; for, even if the internal oblation of Christ were said to have remained one and the same and to be going to remain forever, nevertheless the external oblation, which is essentially constitutive of sacrifice properly so called, is renewed through the priest; whence the unbloody sacrifice is multiplied as often as the passion of Christ is represented by multiplied oblations; - b) the sacrifice of the Mass is also diverse in some way from the sacrifice of the cross, because the oblation is diverse in an unbloody immolation and in a bloody one; - c) nevertheless they bespeak an essential order to one another: the sacrifice of the Mass essentially is referred and subordinated to the cross, because it is essentially commemorative and applicative of the cross; for it is not a sacrifice except because it contains the passion, namely Christ, the victim really immolated on the cross, under the very signs of immolation; but sacramental immolation in a sign is not immolation except by reason of the real immolation on the cross. Whence they are not to be counted together as separate things, but they are one sacrifice by unity of order and immolation, because the same immolation is in reality and in sign, the same sacrifice in its proper species and in the species of sacrament.⁵

⁵ Cf. vol. II, n. 697.

4. The sacrifice of the Mass is the same as to substance with the sacrifice of the supper; nevertheless it differs from it accidentally: in the supper Christ was offered as passible and mortal, by Himself, for signifying the future death of the cross, and in union with that death for acquiring merit and satisfying for our sins; - in the Mass He is offered as impassible and immortal, by the hands of the priest, for representing the past death of the cross and for applying to us the merits acquired.