De locis theologicis

FIRST EXAMPLE, WHERE A PRINCIPLE OF THEOLOGY IS CALLED INTO QUESTION

My first controversy with the Wycliffites and Lutherans concerns the sacrifice of the Eucharist. I depart from my usual practice by opening a disputation about a matter so clear. For when something is so certain and well established that learned men have always agreed about it, I do not usually argue the point, lest I make a matter that is hardly doubtful seem doubtful by arguing over it. Nor will I try here to prove by my own arguments something already plainly defined in the Church. Rather, I will work to confirm one of the principles of theology, not so much by reasoning as by explanation. In this way, once the truth has been brought to light, I will dispel the darkness of every error. The arguments for the Church’s sacrifice are indeed most certain. The arguments with which the Lutherans fight against it seem great to them, but in my judgment they are all trifling and fabricated, scarcely worthy of the labor and ingenuity of old women—arguments for which no one should depart from the common sense of the faithful, or even from the private opinion of a single friend. Yet the blind disciples of a frenzied master are swept along by error and argue themselves into believing that the Eucharist is no sacrifice. (First argument.) Calvin relies above all on this testimony of the Apostle (Hebrews 7): “The others were made priests in greater numbers because death prevented them from continuing; but this one, because he remains forever, has an everlasting priesthood. Hence he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for us. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and raised above the heavens. He has no need, like the priests, to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered himself. The law appoints men as priests who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son, perfected forever.” In this passage Paul distinguishes the priesthood of the Old Testament from that of the New: in the former there were many priests, while in the latter there is one priest. He explains the reason: those priests were mortal, so they needed successors to take the places of the dead. But since Christ is immortal, he has no need of successors.

Such successors would include priests who sacrifice daily, and who, though numerous and mortal themselves, turn back to the shadows of the Law, in which the priests were likewise numerous and mortal. Our priests too are weak and themselves need, day after day like the ancient priests, to offer sacrifices first for their own sins and then for those of the people. Since these new priests, then, are so like the old ones, they are priests of the Law, not of the Gospel. He also confirms this, he says, above all by the fact that a priest must be called by God, as Aaron was, as the same Apostle affirms (Hebrews 5); yet we can produce no calling to defend our priesthood. The sacrifice therefore vanishes, since there can be no sacrifice without a priest. (Second argument.) Calvin again thinks Paul is fighting against the faith of the Church when he says in the same letter (Hebrews 9): “Nor was it to offer himself often, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the beginning of the world. But now, once at the culmination of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by his sacrifice.” From this passage he again concludes that our priests are priests of the Law: they enter the holy places not only each year but every day, offering another’s blood, although, according to the Apostle, it was offered once. Since Paul expressly says that the victim sacrificed in an offering must be slain and killed, if Christ is offered in sacrifice at every Mass, he is also killed at every Mass. Either Paul’s argument is empty when he says, “Otherwise he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the beginning of the world,” or, if Christ is presented as a sacrifice, he truly suffers. But we offer a living body, incapable of suffering, on the altar. It may perhaps be an offering, then, but in no way a sacrifice. This is the argument Calvin and Oecolampadius trumpet so loudly, and without having crossed swords they strut about like victorious champions. (Third argument.) The Lutherans press the passage that follows more insistently (Hebrews 10): “The law has only a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of them; by the same sacrifices, which they offer without ceasing year after year, it can never make those who draw near perfect. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, once cleansed, would have no further consciousness of sin?” After much more that would take too long to recount, we read: “Every priest stands daily at his service, repeatedly offering the same sacrifices … but this one, having offered one sacrifice for sins … has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Paul shows that the offerings of the Old Testament were weak and ineffective because they were repeated so often. Those, then, who repeat the same sacrifices under the New Law testify by their repetition that their previous offerings were weak and inadequate, and indeed that Christ’s offering was imperfect, since they add many more every day. As Chrysostom says, the power of a remedy is that it be applied once, not often (Hom. 17 in epist. ad Hebr.). Theophylact likewise says that stronger medicines cure even when applied once, whereas medicines applied repeatedly thereby show themselves to be weaker (in cap. 10 epist. ad Hebr.). A medicine that has to be applied again and again shows that the same illness continues to trouble the patient. So if the same victim is repeatedly brought forward in new priestly offerings, as though the same medicine were being applied again and again, Christ’s first offering did not perfectly heal the sick or perfect forever those who are sanctified. People are healed, sanctified, and perfected by new sacrifices repeated every day.

He adds that a little later the Apostle says: “Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer an offering for sin.” After Christ’s one victim, then, by which all sins were expiated on the cross, and after iniquities have also been forgiven through Christ’s sacraments, no offering for sin remains. Therefore there is no such sacrifice in the Church. The Apostle immediately attests this, saying: “If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” When he says “none,” they say, he means that no victim remains at all—not even baptism. We, however, say that one does remain; therefore we contradict the Apostle. They say we cannot meet this argument by appealing to the fact that under the New Law there are not many different sacrifices as there were under the old Law, but that the same one is repeated often, as Chrysostom and Theophylact answer. For the Apostle rejects from the New Testament not only sacrifices of many different things, but also condemns the repeated offering of the same victim in these words: “Nor was it to offer himself often,” and so on (Hebrews 9). Yet Christ now offers himself on the altar as well, as will be shown later from the Catholic position. He also says that offerings were repeated under the Old Testament because the first was imperfect (Hebrews 10). Whether many different things are offered or the same thing is offered repeatedly, Paul’s argument remains invincible: if the first offering were perfect, it would need no later one, and later priests would cease offering. They argue that it follows that the other Catholic escape is also empty: namely, that the Apostle is speaking about the bloody offering by which Christ died once on the cross, whereas ours are bloodless. Whether a sacrifice is bloody or bloodless, if it is taken up again and again, the first offering did not perfectly sanctify or exhaust past sins, for which another victim is brought forward. There is, they think, no gap through which we can escape; we must admit that the whole Letter to the Hebrews overturns the sacrifices of the new priests. This is especially so in chapter 10: if Paul were speaking only of a bloody victim, he could easily be evaded when he says, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin,” or even more clearly when he says, “If we sin deliberately … there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” For it makes no difference whether the sacrifice is bloody or bloodless, if it is an offering and a victim for sin. (Fourth argument.) Moreover, Matthew (Matthew 26), Luke (Luke 22), and Paul (1 Corinthians 11) plainly report that at the Last Supper the Lord did not offer his body and blood to God, but distributed the Eucharist to his disciples to receive. The best Mass, then, will be the one most like the first; but the first Supper was not a sacrifice. For if Christ had then offered his blood for sins, they would have been forgiven before the cross—unless Christ’s blood was offered at the Supper in vain and did not obtain the forgiveness of sins that it obtains even now when priests present it to the Father. (Fifth argument.) Luther also raises passages in which the cup is called the testament of Christ’s blood (Luke 22; 1 Corinthians 11). A testament, however, is not the work of an heir but of a testator; sacrifice is our work; therefore the sacrament of the blood is not a sacrifice. Good God, how splendidly he dresses this reasoning up in words, like a monkey dressed in purple! “What great presumption,” he says, “to claim that a testament—that is, a promise of inheritance—is our work, something we present to the testator as satisfaction? Where we ought to be grateful for what we have received, shall we approach in pride to give what we are to receive, so that the testator is no longer the giver of his own goods but the receiver of ours? For it is impossible,” he says, “that the same thing be at once received and given, offered and accepted by the same person. How mad and needy would a poor man be if he claimed to give a good work to a rich man from whose hand he receives a benefit?”

(Sixth argument.) They also bring forward testimonies from the ancient saints for their case. First, Chrysostom says: “Our sacrifice is a model of the one Christ made on the cross. We do not make another sacrifice, but always the same one; rather, we perform its remembrance” (Hom. 17 in epist. ad Hebr.). Theophylact puts it even more precisely: “Rather, we make a memorial of that offering in which Christ offered himself” (in cap. 10 epist. ad Hebr.). From this correction Oecolampadius concludes that Chrysostom and Theophylact hold our Mass not to be properly a sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, but only a model. Otherwise they would not have corrected what had been said truly and properly. They add Augustine’s statement that Christ “gave the Church an image of his own holocaust to celebrate” (lib. 83 quaestionum), and elsewhere that Christians “celebrate the remembrance of the sacrifice that was accomplished” (lib. contra Faustum, cap. 18). In a letter to Boniface (epist. 23), Augustine also teaches that, in the Eucharistic immolation, the name of the thing is customarily given to its image and representation. Finally, Basil, as quoted by Euthymius (Commentary on Matthew, chapter 64), called these things of ours “models” of the true sacrifice. They are therefore not a true sacrifice, they say, but a figure of one. (Seventh argument.) They wish to press us not only with testimonies but also with reason. If sins were redeemed by sacrifice, as we Catholics maintain, then our redemption would also come from us ourselves through our offerings. Christ would not be the only redeemer; human beings too would be their own redeemers. That is plainly foolish. (Eighth argument.) They add that it is impossible for our action to bring another person remission of sin by the force of the action itself, what some of our own people call “by the work performed” (ex opere operato). Only Christ’s works and actions remit sins in themselves; but sacrifice and the Mass are our actions. It is therefore wicked to claim that, by its own power, the Mass both makes God propitious and wipes away sins. The Lutherans consider this the single point on which the whole controversy must be decided. They say they possess an argument so strong, certain, and clear that it can stand against all the gates of hell. Irenaeus seems to confirm it with these words (Against Heresies, Book 4, chapter 34): “It is not sacrifices that sanctify a person; the conscience of the one who offers sanctifies the sacrifice, being itself pure, and enables God to accept it as from a friend. The sinner who slaughters a calf for me is like one who kills a dog.” Since, then, the Church offers with simplicity, its gift is rightly reckoned a pure sacrifice before God. Paul says the same to the Philippians: “I have received in full what you sent through Epaphroditus, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.” He had said that this sacrifice is the one theologians try to infer from Malachi’s first chapter. Thus, no victim remains among us that of itself wipes away other people’s sins; whatever power it has comes from the one offering it. Bucer uses this argument against us. (Ninth argument.) Moreover, remission of sins is a person’s sanctification and justification; these come to each person through that person’s own faith, as the Apostle writes to the Romans. Therefore, no offering made by a priest remits another person’s sins by the work performed. For even Christ’s works, unless applied to people through their own faith, do not do so, as the words say: “God set him forth as a propitiation through faith.” Again, if the priest’s offering by its own force washes away the sins of others, then this sacrifice confers grace; for the washing away of sins cannot take place without grace, the spring of water welling up to eternal life. Nor can we escape by saying that sacrifice remits venial sins but not mortal ones. If Christ’s blood is offered in sacrifice, it surely remits all sins, since it was poured out for the remission of all. Otherwise we Catholics ask without cause or purpose that this sacrifice wipe away all our crimes and be the cleansing of our transgressions and the remission of all sins.

(Tenth argument.) Moreover, since we Catholics confess that Christ’s blood is contained in this sacrifice, it would follow that one sacrifice abolishes all the punishments for sins. For the thing offered is of infinite value. It would therefore be pointless to celebrate several Masses for the same people. The Lutherans refute in many different ways those who say that the priest offering it limits the fruit of an infinite victim. First, the fruit of the sacraments is not defined by their ministers; neither, then, is the fruit of the sacrifice. Next, even if the priest who offers it is in mortal sin, the sacrifice still benefits the person for whom it is offered; its power, therefore, receives no limit from the priest offering it. Again, the price of something infinite is not diminished whether it is given by a poor or a rich person: a hundred gold pieces are worth a hundred whoever offers them. Indeed, the greater the thing offered and the poorer the person who offers it, the more valuable the offering is reckoned. Further, if I offer my own blood to God once, once shed it is enough to wipe away all sins, and the one offering it does not diminish its value. For all the martyrs, though unequal in merit, alike obtained forgiveness of all sins. If, then, a priest truly offers Christ’s blood, he will set no bounds to it; even offered once, it is enough to redeem all sins. Finally, Christ the high priest now offers the sacrifice of the altar to the Father for us; from him, therefore, it has infinite value, just as for the same reason it had infinite value on the cross. We cannot deny this, since Christ has an everlasting priesthood and can therefore save forever those who draw near to God through him, always living to intercede for us. The Lateran Council under Innocent III says: “The universal Church of the faithful is one, in which the same one is both priest and sacrifice” (cap. Firmiter de Sum. Trin. et fide Cathol.). Without doubt it speaks of what we offer on the altar. The Council of Trent also defined that Christ offers all our acts of satisfaction to the Father; all the more, then, will he offer that victim which we set upon the altar as a sacrifice to appease God. Not only Ambrose, in a notable passage beyond the other Latins (lib. 1 off. cap. 48), but the Greeks too plainly attest this in their canon. Just as the priest consecrates and completes the sacrament of the Eucharist not in his own name, so he offers the Eucharistic sacrifice not in his own name but in Christ’s. If Christ’s blood is now a victim for the redemption of sins, and its value has no limit—especially when Christ himself offers it—it follows entirely that a single offering cancels all the punishments for sins. (Final argument.) Calvin lastly contends that the sacrament of the Eucharist conflicts with the word “sacrifice.” “The Eucharist,” he says, “is a gift to be received with thanksgiving, while a sacrifice is a price that God accepts in satisfaction.” A sacrifice, then, differs from a sacrament as much as giving differs from receiving.591 This argument would make it impossible for the other sacraments to be sacrifices as well. After sins have been freely remitted and reconciliation attained, the Eucharist also promises us life and an increase of grace. But sacrifice, he says, sings a different tune: God is supposedly still angry and appeased by the presentation of something as a price, and the sins that the sacrifice is said to expiate have not been expiated. I pass over other ridiculous arguments, unworthy of a serious answer. The earlier arguments too, as I said, may look plausible at first glance, but careful examination reveals them to be empty. As I now explain this and briefly set out my belief about the Church’s sacrifice, attend, I ask you, reader.

If there is any disputation in which the subject under dispute must be defined, I think this is especially such a one, since we see not only Wycliffites and Lutherans but also some Catholics, ignorant of the force and nature of sacrifice, caught in grave error and ignorance of the most important matters. As I am about to explain what sacrifice is and what its definition contains, I begin by affirming that sacrifice is an act proper to religion—that is, to the virtue that offers worship and ceremonial service to God. For sacrifice is, as it were, something made sacred, as Gregory says (1 q. 1 cap. Multi); and making things sacred for God plainly belongs to the worship and reverence due to him. Sacrifice, then, is an action proper to religion, dedicated to the honor of God alone, as Augustine says (Contra adversarios legis et prophetarum, lib. 1, cap. 18; De civitate Dei, lib. 10, cap. 4), and as Luke also writes in Acts (chapter 14). I next take sacrifice to be a species of sacred and religious work, so that sacred work is, as it were, its genus. Those who extend the word to all sacred ceremonies and acts of religion may see for themselves how they can do so; certainly they conflict with the constant usage of both the Church and Scripture. The Church recognizes seven sacraments, but does not recognize seven sacrifices. Not every sacred work or religious rite, then, is a sacrifice. The Council of Florence likewise distinguishes sacrifices from other sacred things clearly enough. In the Old Law there were distinct laws about sacrifices and about the other sacred rites. This is necessary so that we do not confuse sacrifices with other sacred observances. Further, a victim must be present in a sacrifice, to be immolated to God; it is absurd to imagine a victim in every religious ceremony. Further still, the Latin translator always uses “sacrifice” for what the Greeks call θυσία. In Greek, θυσία does not mean just any sacred work, but a particular religious ceremony in which something sacred is consecrated to God, whether through blood, fire, or some other means. Theophylact, however, says that θυσίαι properly refer more to things sacrificed by fire than to those sacrificed by blood. Porphyry too says that among the Greeks thysia, which we call “sacrifice” in Latin, was anciently named from the exhalation of fire, which they call thymiasin. “But now,” he says, “we misuse it when we call the worship performed with blood thysia.” So much for Porphyry. Even if that is the word’s original source, these authors do not deny that its common usage embraces all things immolated either by fire or by blood; Latin translators say these are called sacrifices. Let this, then, be established: sacrifice is a particular kind of sacred worship. If we take the proper meaning of this word from the usage of those who speak correctly and from the custom of divine Scripture, we will find that sacrifice exists only when something sacred is offered to God. Where there is no offering, there can be no sacrifice. Someone who performs the sacrament of baptism, confirmation, orders, marriage, or extreme unction unquestionably does something sacred and divine, but it would be absurd to say that he makes a sacrifice. Even the Eucharist is not called a sacrifice while it is kept in the pyx; it is first called a victim when it is offered. Offering, therefore, belongs to the definition of sacrifice. Paul often teaches this, as in Hebrews 5: “Every high priest is appointed to offer sacrifices for sins”; in chapter 7: “to offer sacrifices for his own sins”; in chapter 9: “gifts and sacrifices are offered”; and in chapter 10: “the same sacrifices which they offer without ceasing.” ¹

There is no need to labor over this point, since nothing here is ambiguous. I add something that some people find hard to accept: if we weigh the force and nature of this word, not every sacred offering is a sacrifice; something beyond an offering also claims the name “sacrifice.” St. Thomas said this with his usual great subtlety (II-II, q. 85, art. 3 ad 3). Theophylact says (in cap. 8 epist. ad Hebr.): “There is, strictly speaking, a distinction between a gift and a victim. θυσίαι—that is, sacrifices—are offerings of blood and flesh, or at any rate all things sacrificed by fire. Gifts, however, include fruits and everything else without blood or fire.” Paul carefully observes this distinction in his Letter to the Hebrews: “Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices” (Hebrews 5). Again: “Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and victims” (Hebrews 8). Chrysostom, too, carefully notes this difference between offering and sacrifice when explaining “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire” (Hom. 18 in epist. ad Hebr.). Not every offering, then, is a sacrifice. The clearest proof is that when a living animal was offered in accordance with the Law, the offering was nowhere called a victim or a sacrifice. Unless, that is, one wishes to claim that the Jews sacrificed their children when they presented them to the Lord after the rites of purification. Since that is absurd, let us agree that not everything offered to God is a victim or sacrifice. 603. But if the priest performed some sacred act upon the thing being offered—for example, if he poured out an animal’s blood, caused incense to burn, ground grain, or fried flour mixed with oil in a pan—only then did he truly make a sacrifice. We read that sacrifices were made from all these things in Leviticus 2 and 6, Numbers 5, and 2 Chronicles 28. St. Thomas therefore wisely and aptly observed that sacrifice consists in doing something to the thing offered to God, by which the thing itself is in some way consecrated. If the priest offered it whole and unharmed, it would be called a gift or offering, but not a sacrifice. This is clearer in the Greek word θυσία, as we said just above. Once these points are set out, it is easy to see that the Lutherans in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession wrongly defined sacrifice as a ceremony or work rendered by us to God to honor him, such as gifts, first fruits, and tithes. Even without considering their other arguments, the Apostle refutes this definition and its examples well enough, both by distinguishing gifts from sacrifices and, more forcefully, by arguing that if Christ often offered himself in sacrifice, he would also often suffer. To clarify this hidden and obscure matter, an objection is raised against what has been said: the Prophet often mentions a sacrifice of praise (Psalms 49, 106, and 115), which Paul interprets as “the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Hebrews 13). The definition of sacrifice, then, is not so narrowly confined. Another apparent objection comes from what the Apostle writes to the Romans: “I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12). A sacrifice, then, need not involve a victim to be slaughtered; it is enough to offer our living body as a sacrifice. Third, people commonly cite: “A contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God” (Psalm 50). Finally, Paul writes: “I have received what you sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice” (Philippians 4); and again: “Do not forget beneficence and sharing, for by such sacrifices God is pleased” (Hebrews 13). Moved by such arguments, some have thought that the word “sacrifice” must be defined more broadly, since we have restricted it too narrowly.

I am so far from that view that I think these arguments not only fail to obscure the true definition of sacrifice that I set out above, but actually make it clearer. Words in sacred Scripture are used in two ways: literally and figuratively. This is easy to understand, yet well worth attending to; ignorance of the distinction has misled many people, both outsiders and our own. I say, then, that the word “sacrifice” is used in Scripture in two ways, literally and figuratively. When we define things as philosophy requires, we explain not what a word means metaphorically or through some other figure, but what it literally contains. We have therefore defined the proper nature of sacrifice plainly; in all the testimonies raised against us, the word is used figuratively and in an extended sense. This is easy to see in each case if we compare it with the true and proper nature of sacrifice. In the first testimony, the fruit of lips praising God is called a victim, when the tongue and lips are consecrated to praising God by being mortified. Just as a calf slaughtered as a victim made no sound except in praise and glory of God, so a tongue dead to insults, slander, and foul speech and consecrated to praising God alone is offered like a kind of sacrifice, in keeping with the words written: “We will render the calves of our lips” (Hosea 14). In the Psalms, however, the words “sacrifice” and “victim” may be used literally, since the Law prescribed, among other things, a sacrifice of thanksgiving in which real victims were slaughtered. But Paul (Hebrews 13), as he often does, allegorically turned those fleshly victims into the spiritual sacrifice of lips praising God. The metaphor in the second testimony is clearer and more straightforward. We offer our body to God as a victim when we mortify our members that are on earth and offer to the Lord our flesh, dead to sin but alive to righteousness. As Jerome says, “That virginity is a victim of Christ whose mind no thought has stained and whose flesh no lust has defiled” (lib. advers. Iovinianum 1). Perhaps, too, when the Apostle called it a living victim he played, as he often does, on words that seem to conflict. There are similar expressions: “The widow who lives for pleasure is dead while living”; “the sea is sweet”; “earth is heavenly”; “flesh is spiritual”; “spirit is fleshly.” We should not conclude from the Apostle’s words “living victim” that an animal need not be slaughtered when it is presented as a victim. If we understand Paul’s manner of writing, we can argue just the opposite. In the third testimony, too, the expression is plainly figurative: the heart, like grain crushed and kindled, as it were, by the fire of divine love, is called a sacrifice by comparison. Moreover, it is common for sacred authors to apply the names of images to the things represented by them, as when Christ is called David (Ezekiel 34) and also the Rock (1 Corinthians 10). So too: “I am the true vine.” Since those external sacrifices of the Law foreshadowed certain greater spiritual realities, Scripture calls these realities sacrifices, holocausts, and victims. The slaughter of irrational animals figured the mortification of the carnal and irrational passions that rule the body; hence the mortification of the flesh is called a victim, not literally but figuratively. The other cases work in the same way, and need not be explained at length. We have therefore removed the first three difficulties completely. We can dispose of the fourth more easily once it is established that in these passages the Apostle speaks figuratively, not literally. This can be shown clearly. First, sacrifice belongs directly to religion, whereas almsgiving and beneficence belong to mercy or generosity. Next, Hosea says: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6). In that passage, sacrifice is

clearly separated from works of mercy. Certainly, if the word “sacrifice” literally included gifts given to the poor, the Prophet could never say: “You did not desire sacrifice and offering.” What, then, does the Apostle mean when he calls gifts given to the poor victims? He means they are most pleasing to God. The people believed that victims pleased God above all and gave off a most delightful fragrance (Genesis 8; Exodus 29; Leviticus 1 and 3; Numbers 28). This belief had taken such hold even in the hearts of the faithful that they sometimes neglected works of piety and charity in favor of sacrifices. The Apostles knew this well and wished to lead the unlearned people back to true and genuine piety; so they called works of mercy and charity “victims,” not falsely, but with a slight figurative turn of phrase. Thus Paul (Philippians 4) called their gift “an acceptable sacrifice, a fragrant aroma.” Thus James says that pure and undefiled religion is to visit orphans and widows in their distress (James 1). An expert in the Law expressed the same point plainly, without changing the words: “To love one’s neighbor as oneself is greater than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12). Enough has been said about what sacrifice is literally and how the word is transferred by a figure of speech. This may not seem too much, since we see many arguments wander and go astray through ignorance of the force and meaning of this word. These matters needed fuller explanation lest the weight of the argument be lost through excessive haste and brevity. But enough of this. Next, let us divide sacrifice into its species as briefly as possible. The Lutherans say in the Apologia Augustana that sacrifice has two nearest species, and no more: a propitiatory sacrifice, to appease God and obtain forgiveness of sins, and a eucharistic sacrifice, that is, one of thanksgiving. They insist that in this controversy we must keep these two species of sacrifice in view and take particular care not to confuse them. I insist on that too, but I also point out that this division wrongly omits many kinds of sacrifice. Sacrifice was offered not only for sin or to give thanks, but also as a petition, so that one might obtain from God the benefits and prosperity of life. If Latin allowed it, we could call this “impetratory.” Such was Jacob’s sacrifice (Genesis 28), as were the sacrifices of the woman who said in Proverbs: “I have vowed victims for my well-being” (Proverbs 7). In Leviticus (Leviticus 7), after the sacrifice for sin, peace offerings are divided into two kinds: some are offered in thanksgiving to God after he has been entreated; others are offered in fulfillment of a vow or voluntarily, to entreat God. Besides these kinds, perhaps there was another sacrifice prepared for ratifying a covenant with God by the shedding of blood, mentioned in Exodus 24 and 4 Kings 23. I omit the sacrifice for the consecration of the high priest, which the Lawgiver distinguished from the other sacrifices (Leviticus 7). For there can be no doubt that the holocaust, the special tribute of human service offered to God as a declaration of his majesty and dominion, belongs to neither of those two species. There were therefore more than two kinds of victim in the Old Testament. Whether there is at least one in the New Testament is now the question. I answer it at once, after explaining two points that are very easy to explain in this controversy but are nonetheless essential. The first is that the word “sacrifice” sometimes means the thing offered to the Lord, and sometimes the act of sacrificing itself. It refers to the thing offered, as in Hebrews 5: “Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” ²

It may refer to the act of sacrificing, as in Cicero’s passage: “to provide victims for sacrifice.” St. Thomas used the word this way too (II-II, q. 85, art. 3 in c. et ad 3), not absurdly, since learned writers use “craft” (artificium), “weaving” (lanificium), and similar words in the same way. The second point is that Catholics affirm the Eucharistic sacrifice, just as they do the Eucharistic sacrament, in two ways. There is the sacrament alone: the outward appearances of bread and wine that contain Christ’s body and blood. There is also the reality and sacrament: Christ’s body and blood, the reality contained inwardly beneath those appearances. Similarly, in our offering and Mass there is the outward sacrifice of the appearances of bread and wine, which Augustine in Psalm 37 called “the sacrifice of bread and wine.” There is also the inward sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, which we chiefly offer to God the Father beneath those appearances. I call it inward, not because it cannot in some way be seen through the appearances, but because enclosed beneath them it is hidden and invisible in itself. With these points established, let the first conclusion be this: in the New Law there truly is, properly speaking, a sacrifice. This is plainly proved first from Malachi: “I have no pleasure in you,” he says, “and I will accept no offering from your hand. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering” (Malachi 1). The Lutherans interpret this passage as referring to the spiritual sacrifice common to all the faithful. That interpretation cannot be defended. First, all our works are like a polluted garment (Isaiah 64); they therefore cannot simply be called a pure offering, especially for Luther, who claims that our righteousnesses are sins. Second, they themselves say that presenting our work as a pure offering and sacrifice is Pharisaical, but the Prophet is not speaking of a Pharisaical sacrifice. Moreover, spiritual sacrifices are not peculiar to the evangelical Law; they were common under every law. The Prophet, however, speaks explicitly of a sacrifice peculiar and unique to the New Law. Finally, speaking again in chapter 3 of this same sacrifice of the New Law, the same Prophet says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi—not the sons of Israel, but of Levi … and they will offer sacrifices to the Lord in righteousness.” A special priesthood, then, had to be established, with special ministers of sanctification for the special sacrifice of the evangelical Law. By referring the passage in chapter 1 to the spiritual sacrifice common to all the faithful, but the one in chapter 3 to the preaching of the Gospel—which Paul discusses in Romans 15 (“I minister the Gospel,” etc.)—the Protestants show by this inconsistency that they depart from the unity of truth. And since these are sacrifices expressed figuratively, those who resort to tropes here undermine the whole force of Scripture and contradict themselves. They themselves admit that we should not resort to figures in interpreting sacred Scripture unless a great absurdity would follow from taking the words literally. Augustine does not agree with them either: in Book 2 of Against the Letters of Petilian, chapter 86, he interprets this passage from Malachi as a sacrifice of praise, of which it is written, “Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.” The Septuagint likewise translated it: “From the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations.” The Apostle explains this when he says: “Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips confessing his name.” Nor does Jerome disagree, when he explains Malachi’s testimony in these words (almost the same in his commentary on Zechariah 8): “Thus, strictly speaking, the passage now addresses the Jewish priests.” ³

They offer the blind, lame, and sick for sacrifice, so that they may know that spiritual victims would succeed carnal victims, and that it is not the blood of bulls and goats but incense—that is, the prayers of the saints—that is to be offered to the Lord; and that an offering is to be made not in one province of the world, Judea, but in every place, not an unclean offering as by the people of Israel, but a clean one, as in the ceremonies of Christians. These authors, I say, do not stand against the adversaries or stand with falsehood against the truth. For it is a rule of Scripture, as Jerome himself testifies in that very place, that where the clearest prophecy of future things is woven, one must not weaken what is written by uncertain allegory. Since, then, throughout the whole world and among all peoples one and the same victim is offered—a pure and sacramental victim, externally in the forms of bread and wine, free from all foulness of flesh and blood, and inwardly bloodless too, although it is itself the body and blood—what purpose is served by turning aside through allegorical and spiritual interpretations the prophecy that we see properly fulfilled in the most pure sacrifice of Christ? Therefore, if Augustine and Jerome recognize in the Church of the nations a sacrifice of praise, the prayers of the saints, and finally other spiritual victims, which are victims allegorically and figuratively, they do not thereby exclude the true and proper sacrifice of the Eucharist. On the contrary, Augustine himself, writing to Paulinus, believed that every kind of supplication, prayer, and praise of which Paul speaks (I Timo. 2) is contained in the Mass and sacrifice that the Church celebrates and regularly offers. Indeed, the Eucharistic offering is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise, excelling all other offerings in greatness and excellence, in which the name of God is glorified most gloriously and magnificently and illuminated with the highest splendor. The Eucharist is also that true incense of most sweet fragrance, to which all the prayers and petitions of the saints are referred, from which they too borrow their pleasing fragrance. This was why Irenaeus (Lib. 4 contra haere. c. 32 et 34) understood from Malachi’s prophecy that both victims would exist in the Church of Christ: the one that is properly a victim of thanksgiving and praise, which for this very reason we call the Eucharist, and the one that is called a victim figuratively by way of allegory. But lest the Lutherans complain that they are being attacked by obscure prophetic testimonies, let us bring forward another, most clear one from the Gospel. There is, then, in Luke a most explicit testimony written for the approval of this matter: “He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup—that is, he took it and gave thanks, saying: This is the cup of the new testament in my blood, which shall be poured out for you” (Luc. 22). Here I first observe that Cornelius, bishop of Bitonto, was rightly rejected by the Fathers and all the theologians at the Council of Trent, since he said that at the Supper Christ did not offer his body and blood. For according to the Jewish rite, to give thanks to God by taking and lifting the cup in one’s hands is truly to offer a victim of thanksgiving. When, therefore, the Lord said, “Do this,” he plainly commanded the apostles to do as they saw him doing: that they too should present the victim of the Eucharist, that is, of thanksgiving. As Cyprian explained to Caecilius in these words (De consecra. dist. 2, cap. Scriptura): “Scripture says that whenever we offer the cup in remembrance of the Lord and his passion, we should do what the Lord is known to have done.” And a little later: “We have been admonished and instructed by the Lord to offer the cup of the Lord mixed with wine, according to the way the Lord offered it.” And Irenaeus (Lib. 4, cap. 32) says, “He likewise confessed the cup to be his blood and taught the new oblation of the new testament,” which the Church, receiving it from the apostles, offers throughout the whole world to God, who provides sustenance

for us, as the first fruits of his gifts in the new testament. And later, in chapter 34, he says: “We offer him the Eucharist, not as though he were in need, but giving thanks for his gift,” etc. Here, setting aside authorities, I would not hesitate to seek the truth by the matter itself and by reason. (Irenaeus’s argument.) For just as it happens in other matters that we offer them to God in a holy and religious way after first receiving them from him, so—and much more—when in the Eucharist we have received Christ’s body and blood through the gift of heavenly blessing, we would surely be impious and ungrateful unless we returned the highest thanks, giving back to God those very gifts that we received from him, according to what is written: “All things are yours, O Lord, and what we have received from your hand, we give back to you” (I Paralip. ultim.). And again: “What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation” (Psal. 115). The Chaldean paraphrase of this passage reads: “I will take the cup of redemption in the world to come.” For Paul also testifies that this psalm pertains to the mysteries and faith of the Gospel (2 ad Corinth. 4). Christ is salvation, as Simeon sang in the Gospel (Lucae 2). But rightly does it say, “I will take,” because unless I receive, I cannot repay. Although in general we can give nothing of our own to God, but can only return to him what we received from him as if it were already ours, since we had received it by his gift, these particular gifts, offerings, and holy sacrifices were heavenly; they therefore had to be received from heaven, and the name of the Lord invoked so that, consecrated by that name, they might become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we devoutly, gratefully, and wisely pour out our own blood to God, so that we preserve not only the memory of his benefits but also our observance of them, why should we not pour back to him the blood of Christ, which God specifically gave us, since he gave us the Son and, with the Son, the Son’s blood? Hesiod commands us to return the same measure as we have received, or even a greater one if we can. We, who have received Christ’s blood and body, if we cannot return a greater measure, shall we not return the same? What of Christ? Did he not, through the force of friendship, as it were, having become one with us, regard as his own the gifts bestowed on us by the Father? Certainly. Unless, then, he was foolish and ungrateful, when he took the bread and cup he gave thanks not only in our name, but returned to the Father, in fullest abundance, the fitting and owed gratitude for his supreme benefit; surely he repaid an equal measure for an equal one, and thought it should be remembered and repaid for as long as the race of the faithful exists. “Do this,” he says, “in remembrance of me.” I appeal to you, Luther, and indeed to all you Lutherans. Do you not understand how openly you are at war with Christ’s Gospel? You, receiving the Eucharist but not offering it, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, but you do not perform the sacrifice of the Cross. One of your own, overcome by the argument, confesses this: “In our Eucharist the death of Christ is proclaimed in words only, not also in symbols” (Bucerus li. 2 de vera et falsa Domini. coenae admi. c. 9). Your Eucharist is therefore not Christian. For Christ did not command us to say these things in his remembrance, but to do them. “Do this,” he says, “in remembrance of me.” Therefore in the mysteries Christ’s victim must not only be spoken of, but also enacted. The memory of Christ’s sacrifice must accordingly be represented on the altar by symbols, not merely by words. Otherwise, if it is a meal and not an offering, it will be a model and image of the Supper, but not a model and image of the sacrifice. How much better the whole Church throughout the world has understood this: when the priest, having consecrated the mysteries in the name of Christ, says, “As often as you do these things, you will do them in remembrance of me,” she replies in the priest’s own voice: “Wherefore, mindful, O Lord, we your servants and also your holy people, offer to your glorious majesty, from your gifts and endowments, a pure victim,” etc.

Therefore, in no way can it be denied that the Church, offering Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, does so both following Christ’s example, led by evident reason, and finally moved by the Lord’s own command. Yet they object that when the Apostle had quoted that command of the Lord, “Do this,” etc., he immediately added: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup of the Lord, you proclaim the death of the Lord,” etc. Therefore, the very eating and drinking is a symbol of the Lord’s passion. It is not necessary, then, to offer a sacrifice in order to commemorate Christ’s victim by symbols as well. I answer this argument first as follows. If someone says, “Whenever we dine together, we will converse,” we do not immediately understand dining and conversation to be the same thing. Likewise, if the Apostle said, “As often as you eat,” etc., it is not necessary to interpret the Lord’s meal as the proclamation of his death. The Lord therefore willed that what is a table should also be an altar for us—that is, that we should not only dine but also sacrifice. Accordingly, he instituted it to be at once both a sacrament and a sacrifice: the former a symbol of the Lord’s Supper, the latter a symbol of the Lord’s death. Paul’s meaning, then, is this: “Do not think you will satisfy the law if you eat and drink, by which you will make remembrance of Christ’s Supper; for you must also commemorate his death, which is done more by sacrificing than by eating.” Second, I do not deny that by eating the body and drinking the blood, through the separation of blood from body, what took place on the Cross is plainly signified. “When the victim is broken,” Augustine says, “when Christ’s blood is poured into the mouths of the faithful, what else is signified than the immolation of the Lord’s body on the Cross?” But in truth, as we said, death can be signified by the separation of blood from body; a victim, however, is not properly signified unless the body that dies is offered. Although the consuming of the offered species pertains to the perfection of the sacrifice. Thus the people, once consuming the victim with the priest, truly completed the sacrifice and thereby presented a perfect sign of the victim of the Cross. I further think it should be observed that even if Christ had offered absolutely no sacrifice at the Supper, nevertheless, by saying, “This is my body, which will be handed over for you,” etc., and then immediately adding, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he sufficiently showed that we would mystically hand over the body and pour out the blood—something that he himself would later do openly and in reality, without a mystery. That is: “Do what I shall do; but I shall do it by a bloody sacrifice, while you do it in my remembrance by an unbloody one.” But the Lord, as one can see in all the Greek copies, always used the present-tense verb. For he did not say, “This is my body, which will be given for you,” but “which is given”; nor, if you render word for word, did he say, “This is the blood that will be poured out for you,” but “that is poured out” (Lucae 22). And in Paul: Τών μού σώμα τό ύπέρ ύμών κλώμενον (1 Cor. 11), that is, “This my body, which is broken for you,” as Ambrose in his exposition of this passage of Paul and Bede in his exposition of the Gospel of Luke also read. Catholics should not doubt—and we will explain this matter later—that in the sacrifice of the altar Christ’s blood is poured out with no less effect than if it were now being poured out on the Cross, and Christ’s body is likewise broken in efficacy as if it were now being broken for us on the Cross. Besides, in the external sacrifice, mystically and as in a model and image, both Christ’s blood is poured out and his body is broken. Hence Augustine says, “When the victim is broken, what else is signified than the immolation of the Lord’s body on the Cross?” (De consecr. dist. 2, cap. Quum frangitur). Nor is it only a sacrament, but also the true

body of Christ “is broken by the hands of priests,” as the Roman Council under Nicholas decreed (De consecr. dist. 2 Ego Berengarius). Do you see how everything agrees with us? We establish that Christ mystically handed over his body and blood at the Supper, and instituted us to follow that same pattern, not only by things and reasons but also by his very words. For nothing prevents us, when refuting the Lutherans, from adhering especially to the Greek copies when they agree. But since the Sacramentarians complain that they are not much pressed by these arguments, which for the most part assume that Christ’s true body and blood are in the Eucharist—a point they deny—come, let us also press them with arguments we have gathered. Although some of those we have already set forth constrain the Sacramentarians even more tightly than they can sometimes escape. And, to omit their denial of a matter plain and manifestly established from Sacred Scripture (for today I do not wish to contend with the Sacramentarians about this), I say that even if Christ’s body and blood were not in the species of bread and wine, as in truth they are, many grave arguments could still prove that a sacrifice exists on the altar of Christians. This is the first and gravest, strongest argument, drawn from the definition of sacrifice and the Church’s perpetual custom: our priests offer bread and wine to God and perform something sacred concerning the offerings, namely, breaking the bread and dipping a portion of it in wine; add, if you wish, that they also consume both. Therefore they truly and properly sacrifice. For if the offering of fine flour mingled with oil was a sacrifice as a figure of Christ’s future death, there is no doubt that breaking the offered bread and dipping it in wine as a figure of his past death is a sacrifice. What, then, will the Lutherans criticize in this action? That we return to God the gifts of bread and wine received from him? Let them criticize Abel and the other fathers under the law of nature; let them criticize Moses with his written law; let them criticize the offerings that they readily concede were piously made in the primitive Church. Indeed, let them criticize nature itself, which has taught us to give thanks, although we can do so to God in no other way than by returning to him the gifts we received. But they will criticize the bread being broken and dipped. By these ceremonies we represent the immolation of the Cross (De consecr. dist. 2, cap. Quum frangitur). It is astonishing if they blame us for commemorating Christ’s passion not only in words but also in things, especially since the Lord said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Certainly, if that is a sin, then those who baptize also sin, because by symbols they figure the death of Christ. If, then, the definition of this word has been correctly explained and circumscribed for us, the priest undoubtedly truly sacrifices on the altar, even if you consider nothing but the external species of wine and bread. And further, if you consider the very parts of sacrifice—being offered, broken, dipped, and also consumed—since there is no fault in these things being performed mystically, as has been shown, it follows that our priests sacrifice not only truly and properly but also piously and religiously. Augustine, considering this matter, calls the species of bread a victim (De consecr. dist. 2, Cum frangitur hostia), a name so deeply fixed in the ears and tongues of all the faithful that he is empty-headed and foolish who tries to tear it out from there. The Sacramentarians, therefore, even if they denied that the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood exists in the Church, could in no way deny the sacrifice of bread and wine, lest they seem ignorant of the proper notion of sacrifice. Moreover, Melchisedech was priest of God Most High; therefore he offered a sacrifice to God, for every priest is appointed in order to offer a sacrifice. But it is recorded that he offered nothing other than

bread and wine; since, then, we offer the species of bread and wine in the same manner and order, we truly and properly present a sacrifice. This was why the Church celebrated that saying of St Thomas on the solemn feast of the Eucharist: “The Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech offered bread and wine.” The Lutherans evade this argument in two ways. First, they deny that Melchisedech offered bread and wine to God; they say he offered it to Abraham, not to God, as Gene. 14.c. relates. Epiphanius acknowledged this (lib. 2. contra haereses, haeresi. 55). Second, they deny that Christ’s sacrifice consisted in his offering bread and wine according to the order of Melchisedech; rather, they affirm that it consisted in Christ’s not becoming a priest according to the law of carnal commandment by bodily oil, but, like Melchisedech, in his being anointed by God with the oil of the Spirit above his companions. For this is how the Apostle interprets it (Ad Hebr. 7. Euse. 1 lib. eccle. histor. cap. 1). But the first difficulty is removed as follows. I do not deny that Melchisedech gave bread and wine to Abraham to refresh his army. But since Scripture immediately added, “For he was a priest of God Most High,” unless the reason is absurd, we must understand that he was accustomed to offer to God the same things he was then presenting to Abraham: to the latter as food, to the former as a sacrifice. Cyprian (ad Caecilium), Ambrose (lib. 5 de sacramentis, ca. 1), Jerome (in 26 Matthaei caput), Augustine (in psal. 33, concio. 1), Cassiodorus (in psal. 109), Damascenus (lib. 4, ca. 14), and Chrysostom (hom. de prodit. Iudae) are authorities for this (De consecrat. dist. 2 In calicem, et cap. Accipite). We shall remove the second difficulty in this way. If in one respect Christ’s priesthood is like that of Melchisedech, this does not exclude every other likeness. Indeed, if the figure is perfect, it can aptly correspond in many respects. Nothing therefore prevents Christ from appearing most like Melchisedech both in the constitution of the priesthood and in its offering. Further, there is no law or religion without the office and function of a priesthood. For these three things have always been so joined together that, if you remove one, the others must necessarily be removed. “When the priesthood is transferred,” he says, “the law must also be transferred” (Ad Hebr. 7). If, then, we Christians have a law and religion, we certainly have a priesthood as well. But every priest is appointed for this, to offer sacrifice (Ad Hebr. 5 et 8); therefore we Christians still retain sacrifice, without which we can uphold neither priesthood, religion, nor law. They say that all of us are priests and offer spiritual victims. But since these are not properly victims but victims by translation, the priesthood too will not be proper but transferred and improper; and when the priesthood is transferred, the religion will likewise be transferred. Thus those who take away our sacrifice are at the same time trying to take away the true religion of Christ and introduce the false religion of the one who will remove the continual sacrifice from the Church. For they will also be more tightly bound by the testimony of Daniel (Danie. 12) than they can escape. The adversaries must be asked what that continual sacrifice is which Antichrist will take away from the Church for 1,290 days. Since there is no other continual sacrifice in the Church besides that which we offer on the altar, we rightly argue that the Lutheran ministers are ministers of Antichrist. But why am I arguing? Why do I dispute further? Must an argument or conjecture be sought even in matters so plain? Can it be doubted that where there is no special sacrifice, indeed no sacred rite, and no priest properly speaking, there cannot even be religion? Plato teaches (Lib. 16 qui est de regno) that priests ought to abound in great dignity because of the greatness of the matters with which they deal; therefore, among the Egyptians a king was not permitted to rule without priesthood (...). In many ⁴

Greek cities, the chief sacred rites were instituted by the highest magistrates; and among the Athenians, after a king was appointed, the greatest sacred rites were assigned to him. He again teaches (Dial. 8 de legibus) that one of the magistrates should always sacrifice on behalf of the city to some god. Aristotle then testifies (Lib. polit. 3, cap. 10) that in heroic times kings used to perform divine worship, except where the sacrifices were such as required a priesthood. In another place the same author teaches (Lib. polit. 7, cap. 9) that in the best republic priests should be appointed from among the most honored. For, he says, neither a farmer nor an artisan nor anyone engaged in lowly occupations should be appointed a priest: honor must be paid to the gods by the citizens. Cicero (Lib. de divin.) and Valerius (Lib. 1) write that the ancients had such zeal for observing religion that the Senate, when the empire was flourishing, decreed that a few chosen sons of the leading men should be handed over to the Etruscan peoples to learn the discipline of sacred rites, lest so great an art, because of men’s poverty and religion’s authority, be reduced to a matter of wages and profit. So great was the honor naturally accorded to religion among the ancients that only princes and nobles had authority over the ceremonies performed toward God. Yet the Lutherans would have Christ been so foolish as to establish a republic in which all sacrifices were common and trampled underfoot, and priests were crazy old men, chattering old women, frivolous youths, tailors, butchers, and cooks—whose honor I would have to list if I wished even to mention them cursorily. Clearly, the Lutherans want to shape our priesthood after the manner of the Turks, among whom priests differ little from the common people. How much more religiously the ancient Germans once decreed that no one should be allowed to scourge or punish a man except by the authority of priests, so that judgments might seem divine rather than human. But why do I bring forward common arguments of nature? Let us return to our own, that is, theological ones. The Apostle (1 Cor. 10), wishing to deter the faithful from the worship of idols, used chiefly this argument: if they sacrificed to idols, they would be participants in the altar and table of the impious and irreligious; for without distinction he calls it both table and altar. Those, however, who approach Christ’s altar are also participants in this altar. It is impossible to be participants in both at once unless we serve God and idols alike. The Church, therefore, has an altar; therefore it has a sacrifice. For just as the table is called the place where food is eaten, so the altar is where sacrifice is offered. Let the Lutherans therefore deny that the faithful have altars and grant us only tables, since they say we have food but not sacrifice. Let them also take away not only the name of altar but that of Mass, which will be an empty thing, adorned with the sound of a vain word, if we have no oblation on the altar. Both our most learned men and most of Luther’s followers attest that the word Mass is borrowed from the Hebrew language. In Hebrew, Micça means an offering. Indeed, it will be quite clear that we have from apostolic tradition both altars and the oblation of Christ’s body and blood, which we call the Mass and sacrifice, if we bring to bear the rules we laid down in the third book of this work for investigating apostolic traditions. Certainly Irenaeus (Lib. 4, cap. 32 et 63) asserts in unmistakable words that it is from the tradition of the Apostles that we offer the body and blood of the Lord. The apostle Andrew too, according to Philactetus’s account from the letters of the priests of Achaia, says to the proconsul Aegeas: “I sacrifice the immaculate Lamb daily on the altar” (De consecr. dist. 1, cap. Iacobus). The fathers of the Trullan Synod testify that James also added the celebration of the Mass (cano. 32). The Council of Carthage III also says (Cap. 24) that the Lord ordained that in the sacrament of his body and blood nothing more than bread and wine be offered. But, as I said, ^{5 6}

there is no need for a longer discourse, since it is easy to adapt those formulas for seeking tradition to the present dispute. The authority of the Church in support of this conclusion is now more familiar and more frequent than it needs to be pointed out. For nothing is more often proclaimed, both in the canon and elsewhere, than that she offers to God as a pure and immaculate victim the body and blood of Christ. There are also many councils with this opinion: the first Council of Toledo (cap. 5); the eleventh Council of Toledo (cap. 14); the twelfth Council of Toledo (cap. 5); the third Council of Braga (cap. 1); the Council of Auxerre (cap. 8); the third Council of Carthage; the Council of Ephesus; the Council of Nicaea (cap. 14); the Lateran Council under Innocent III; add also the Trullan Council, which Gratian cites under the name of the Sixth Synod; add also the Council of Florence in the decree of union with the Armenians. The error was also condemned at the Council of Constance: “It is not established in the Gospel that Christ ordained the Mass.” What of the bishops of the Apostolic See? They profess the same faith as the Apostles and the Church. Anacletus (de consecr. dist. 1. cap. Episcopus); Clement (de consecr. dist. 1 cap. Hic ergo); Alexander I. (de consecr. dist. 2. cap. Nihil); Eusebius (de consecr. dist. 1 cap. Consulto); Julius (de consecr. dist. 2. cap. Cum omne crimen); Felix (de consecr. dist. 1 cap. Sicut non alii); Soter (in epistola ad episcopos Italiae); Siricius (ad Cumerium Tarraconen. episcopum cap. I); Innocent I (ad Exuperium Tolos. episcopum cap. I); Leo (ad Dioscorum epistola 79; de consecr. dist. 1 cap. Necesse est). All these are ancient pontiffs of the Church—for why mention later ones? If I wished to report the ancient authors whom the Church has both canonized and publicly honored, I would burden the reader. Therefore I shall not list all, but only the most renowned. Among the Greeks, Dionysius teaches this above all (cap. 3. lib. de Eccl. Hiera.); Ignatius (in epistola ad Smyrne.); Athanasius (in lib. quaestionum ad Antiochum. quaest. 34); Gregory Nazianzen (in carminibus ad episcopos); Eusebius Emissenus (de consecr. dist. 2 Quia corpus); Chrysostom (homil. 17. in epist. ad Hebraeos, which is falsely cited under Ambrose’s name by Gratian, de consecr. dist. 2. cap. In Christo); Chrysostom likewise (lib. 6 de sacerdo. paulo post principium), with whom Theophylact agrees (in cap. 10 epist. ad Hebraeos); and Damascenus (lib. 4. ca. 14). Among the Latins you have Irenaeus (lib. 4. cap. 32 et 33 et 34 et 63); Cyprian (lib. 2, epistol. 3, quae scribitur ad Caecilium: de consecr. dist. 2, cap. 2 et 3; and he repeats the same in sermone de coena Domini); Ambrose (lib. I officiorum, cap. 48); Jerome (ad Hedibiam quaest. 2 et ad Tit. I); Paschasius (in lib. De pascha: de consecr. dist. 2 cap. Iteratur); Augustine (lib. 10 De ciui. cap. 20 et lib. 17 cap. 20 et lib. 20 contra Faustum cap. 18: a passage which both Calvin and Bucer shamelessly cite on their own behalf); Gregory (4 lib. dialogorum cap. 58 et in quadam homilia paschali: de consecr. dist. 2, cap. Quid sit); and finally Fulgentius (lib. 2 ad Monimum). Calvin answers all these testimonies by saying that the Fathers call the Eucharist a sacrifice because it is an example and image of the sacrifice on the Cross; for it is neither new nor unusual to assign the names of things to images of those things: Ad Gala. 3, “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed and crucified among you”; Ad Rom. 6, “Buried with him in baptism”; Apocl. 10, “The Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.” He says that Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Augustine explained their belief about sacrifice in this way. Calvin says this (Instituio, c. 18, libr. 2, cap. 7). For Bucer does indeed say that some of the Fathers chiefly had this in view when they called it a sacrifice, but that others, he says, chiefly had in view the offerings that the faithful made from their own possessions and consecrated to the Lord. That ⁷

is what Luther too had observed in that most pestilent book De captituitate Babylonica. But that saying is apt: once a man has crossed the bounds of modesty, he must be thoroughly and vigorously shameless. First, they infer that if the holy authors say the Eucharist is an image of the sacrifice made on the Cross, it immediately follows that it is not a true sacrifice. But if one may infer in this way, then not even the ancient sacrifices were properly and truly sacrifices, since all were figures and images of that one victim which Christ immolated in dying. Both, therefore, must be considered signs of one and the same victim: ours of what is past, that of the ancient law of what is future, yet both are truly sacrifices. Unless someone is so insane as to think that it pertains more to the nature of a sacrifice to signify something to be done than to commemorate something already done. I for my part judge that our Eucharist cannot be an image of Christ’s sacrifice unless it is itself also a sacrifice. I have carefully explained this a little earlier. For just as our Supper would not be a commemoration, image, and model of the Lord’s Supper unless we truly ate, so neither would our Eucharist be an image and model of Christ’s victim unless we truly sacrificed. Next I ask them whether the saints say that in this mystery we offer Christ’s body and blood. Bucer denies it, but denies what is nevertheless plain. For, to pass over the rest, Cyprian (ad Caecilium), Ambrose (lib. officiorum I), Augustine (17 De ciui. Dei et Contra Faustum lib. 20), Damascenus (lib. 4), Irenaeus (lib. 4), and finally Pope Alexander (ad omnes orthodoxos) clearly teach this. I do not wish to be lengthy by calling up the others. If, then, we offer Christ’s blood in this mystery, it is truly a sacrifice, and yet it is an image, since the image of the bloody victim is bloodless—but so bloodless that it stands as if the blood itself were now being poured out. These arguments compel so many Lutherans that they now partly agree with the Church in asserting a sacrifice. For they do not wholly deny sacrifice, but persist in saying that those who admit a victim for sins do injury to Christ’s most perfect sacrifice, by which alone all sins were forgiven; thus, they say, the Church has a sacrifice of thanksgiving, which they call eucharistic, but none for sin, which they call propitiatory. But for us the second conclusion in this controversy is itself most certain: the Eucharist is not only, in keeping with its name, a sacrifice by which we render thanks to God, but also one that makes God placated and propitious toward us; thus the same victim is for thanksgiving and for sin. This is first shown from that passage in Luke: “This is my body, which is given for you”; and likewise concerning the cup: “which is poured out for you” (Luc. 22). It is therefore a sacrifice for sins. The form of consecration also declares this, for it says that the blood is poured out for the remission of sins (Ambrosius : De consecr. Dist. 2 cap. Si quotiescumque). As for what certain Lutherans say, that the words by which the priest performs this mystery are to be taken materially, not significatively, this is not the place or time to refute it. But this much is certain: if the words of the formula were taken materially, the priest would not make the body and blood in Christ’s name; indeed, he would not make them at all. Moreover, if the priest does not utter those words significatively, by the force of the words we have neither Christ’s body nor blood in the sacrament. From this arises the folly of the Sacramentarians. Further, every priest, as the Apostle teaches in Hebrews (Hebr. 5), is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins: therefore either we have no priest, or ⁸

we have a propitiatory sacrifice. For Paul was not speaking only of the legal priesthood; otherwise he would have argued ineptly that Christ also offered himself for sins because he was a priest. Moreover, we believe that some punishment remains after guilt has been remitted, not only because the Church defines this, but because Scripture also teaches it. Since, then, by God’s gift we possess Christ’s body and blood as our own things, we can certainly offer them to God for the redemption of our souls, just as we offer our own punishments and even our own blood. Epiphanius (lib. 3 contra haereses) and Chrysostom (ad populum Antioch.) clearly teach that this is apostolic tradition, and it can easily be shown by the rules I set out above, which it would be rather burdensome to adapt here to the present use of our passage after so long a discussion. Yet the Church alone is enough to implant certain faith in this matter in our minds. Both elsewhere very frequently, and especially in the canon, she professes that the holy assembly of the faithful offers this victim to God for the redemption of their souls. It would be superfluous to list the Roman pontiffs. Therefore we shall report only two of the most ancient and holy: Alexander, who says in his epistle to all the orthodox, “Crimes and sins are blotted out by these sacrifices”; Julius agrees with him (de consecr. dist. 2 cap. Cum omne crimen). I add also St Gregory (de consecr. dist. 2, cap. Quid sit). Among the councils we have that of Cabilon (de consecr. dist. I cap. Visum est); we also have the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent; add, if you like, the Council of Trullo as well. The holy Fathers of old also teach this matter most consistently. Chrysostom (homil. 17 ad Hebraeos) and Theophylact (in cap. 8 eiusdem epistulae) openly say that in the mysteries and the sacrifice there is remission of sins. Eusebius Emissenus calls it “an offering of redemption.” Damascenus affirms that it is “a cleansing of every stain.” Athanasius also proved the same (lib. quaest. ad Antiochum). Epiphanius likewise introduces the heresy of Aerius in these words: “Does the living person pray or make an offering”—that is, a Mass—“what benefit will it bring the dead?” Epiphanius answers him that “such prayers are of complete benefit to the dead, even if they do not remove the whole guilt.” It is incredible how perversely Bucer tries to twist this passage. But it is well that we have other authors whom the heretics cannot twist, even if they burst with rage. Chrysostom says (homil. 69 ad populum Antiochenum): “It was not rashly ordained by the Apostles that a commemoration of the departed should be made in the dread mysteries. For they knew that great gain could come to them from it. When all the people have gathered, the whole sacerdotal company is present, and the dread sacrifice is set forth, how could we fail to entreat God for them in our prayers? See also the same author, lib. 6 De digni. sacer. Gregory (lib. 4 dialog. cap. 55) says: “If sins are not insoluble after death, as he had taught they are not, the sacred offering of the saving victim is often of great help to souls even after death.” Theophylact (in ca. Lucae 12, in illud, Eum timete, etc.) says: “Those who die as sinners are not always sent to hell, but they are in God’s power, so that they may also be forgiven. I say this on account of the offerings made for the dead, which are of no small benefit even to those who died in grave sins.” See Ambrose too (epistola 8, lib. 2 ad Fausti.); and Cyprian (lib. I epistola 9), for in sermone de coena Domini he openly says that this sacrifice is an expiation of sins. See also

Paschasius (de consecratio. dist. 2, cap. Iteratur) and Augustine (de cu. pro. mor. ge. c. 1 et lib. conf. 9, cap. 11 et 28, et de haer. c. 53 et in enchi. c. 110). We could add the numerous theologians whose hands have often been victorious in the slaughter of heretics. But what use are they to victors who come after the triumph over the enemies of the Church has already taken place? Thus they will indeed come late to the battle, but in time for the palm of victory. Yet at this point it was necessary to summon them, not to confirm our arguments and reasons, but to refute the opposing arguments closely and sharply, as in the schools. For scholastic theology has such power in refuting the arguments of heretics that it can easily show that what seems weighty to them is very slight. The first argument, which Calvin so insistently vaunts, is easily dissolved. For who cannot see clearly what he decorates and amplifies with so many words? Our one priest has accomplished what all those ancient priests did not accomplish at all: namely, the remission of sins in his own blood. Again, he is immortal and everlasting, always present before God for us; he presents to the Father on the lofty altar not only the scars of his wounds but also the blood he shed on the Cross, all the offerings and prayers of the Church, and finally himself and his Church. Moreover, by one single offering he accomplished what even those many ancient sacrifices could not. These things are well worn and familiar even to the least of theologians. We add what Calvin does not know: there is a difference between the ancient priests and ours, because among them there was no one whose vicars the others were. Later priests did not act as the representatives of an earlier one; each brought his own victim and offered it in his own name, not that of another priest. In this respect, then, there were many priests, for they did not all converge on one head in whose place they ministered. But ours, since they approach the altar in Christ’s name and person, are in a certain way all one priesthood, just as bishops and vicars constitute one tribunal. In another respect, too, the ancient priests were many because they offered many victims, and different ones; but a priest, so called from performing a sacred act, when he offers the same victim and performs the very same sacred rite, is in a certain way the same priest, although they may seem to be many. In truth, Christ alone is the priest who appeased God with his blood and reconciled the world. We are not called priests in this sense, but because we are stewards of his mysteries, applying to the people the blood he shed on the Cross and offering it together with him. For our offering derives its force from him, not from us. Therefore we are not many priests in the manner in which the Apostle teaches that there were many priests of old. As for Calvin’s claim that our priests are weak and sinful, as they were under the old law, we recognize a great difference. For when they brought victims that could not in themselves please God—“The things offered to you according to the law were not pleasing,” he says—when, I say, they brought the blood of goats and bulls, if they were sinners, they obtained nothing through their sacrifices (Ad Hebr. 9). For God looked upon Abel and his offerings, and, as Gregory rightly admonished, “the gifts pleased because the offerer pleased, not the offerer because of the gifts.” The weakness of the Law, then, was that it had neither a victim acceptable to God in itself nor unblemished priests who, being pleasing to God, could make the victim pleasing too. Our priests, though they are weak, do no harm to the sacrifice of the Church, since it derives its force not from them but from Christ, the high priest with whom the Father was well pleased, who is both priest and sacrifice, as Innocent III said at the council (De Summa Trinit. cap. Firmiter).

The outstanding excellence of the Gospel victim is that it is in itself most pleasing to God, and that it has one holy and unblemished priest forever, whose offering gives force to the sacrifice and benefits all the faithful throughout every age. Accordingly, just as an impious minister does no harm to the Church in Christ’s sacrament, so neither does a wicked priest deprive the Church of the fruit of divine benefit in Christ’s sacrifice, although he himself gains no profit but ruin. So much for the first argument. The confirmation of this argument need not now be weakened by a long discourse, lest we establish here a new controversy about the priesthood of the new sacrament. We say briefly that those priests are called by God who are called duly and in order by the Apostles and their successors. The nature of our priesthood is not popular, nor is it to be declared by the votes of many; it was not contrived on earth, but brought down from heaven. “Stir up,” he says, “the grace of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands” (2 ad Timo. 1). And elsewhere: “Do not neglect the grace that was given to you with the laying on of the hands of the presbyterium” (1 ad Timo. 4). And in the epistle to Titus: “I left you in Crete so that ... you might appoint presbyters in every city, as I also directed you” (Tit. 1). Finally, Paul and Barnabas appointed presbyters in every church with prayer and fasting (Acto. 14), as is the custom and is still done in the Church. Therefore, just as whoever heard the Apostles heard Christ, so those whom the Apostles called were called by Christ, and those whom they excluded from the priesthood Christ himself excluded. The defense now attempted by them—that these passages of Scripture concern elders who administered civil affairs, not priests who performed divine rites—shows clearly how little they value the dignity and authority of the priesthood, if they think it is either separate from the venerable gray hair of old age or detached from the government of the Church. Aristotle (Polit. 7, cap. 9), moreover, did not believe anyone fit for the priesthood except those who were kings or leaders of the city, or at least those who, after governing the republic for a long time by their counsel or accomplishing great deeds in war, had grown old and weary, free from every human concern and labor, so that the priesthood would reside only in those of senatorial age and authority. The Apostles followed this ordinance of nature. Since they understood that Christ had entrusted the government of the Church to priests, they judged that those who were truly presbyters—that is, elders—should be enrolled in the order of priests. Thus it came about that the name presbyter remained as the name for one who performs sacred rites. But we have been placed in a time when we need not look far ahead to see the future decline of the priesthood, since we see it now. For the custom of our ancestors has already strayed far from its course, and bishops now hand over to us as priests those whom they have ordained, who are not only not presbyters but also very young. Thus the authority of the priesthood is a mockery to the most wicked enemies of the Church. We are not disputing here the abuse of bishops; what we contend is that we received from the Apostles the manner of creating a priest, and the Apostles received it from Christ. The clearest proof that we may not doubt this is that Christ said at the Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me.” For if what he commanded them to do was a sacred rite—or rather, if, as we proved above, it was a sacrifice—then he instituted the Apostles as priests at that time, unless he commanded them to do it but gave them no power to do so. But to make Christ’s body and blood so that we may offer sacred rites to God cannot be done without divine power, since it is beyond nature. Since the Lord commanded that this sacrifice be performed until he comes, it is necessary that the Apostles passed on to their successors through all ages the power Christ gave them to perform this continual and perpetual sacrifice. For in this way, as Oecumenius says, Christ’s priesthood is eternal according to the order

of Melchisedech. Yet in refuting the confirmation of the first argument we have granted rather more than the reason allowed. In the second argument, many things are raised at once against what we have said on the authority of the Church, but we shall set everything out clearly, so that what has been said may almost be grasped by hand. First, this is objected to our priests: that they offer another’s blood. This is undoubtedly false, since Christ’s blood, though by God’s gift, is nevertheless ours—ours, I say, as our universal cause. The sun is yours for generating, but it is not so yours that it generates without your particular action. Calvin next objects that Christ’s blood was offered once, according to the Apostle. Many rightly understand this to mean the bloody offering, which was openly set before everyone’s eyes. For the same Apostle explained himself when he added, “Once at the consummation of the ages he appeared through his own victim.” The discourse, then, concerns that victim which was openly slain on Mount Calvary before the eyes of all in the province of Judea. From this it is understood that the Apostle says not a single word against the altar offering, where Christ’s blood is poured out in the mystery and is seen not by the eyes of the body but by those of the mind. Nor can the adversaries twist Paul’s words to refer to the unbloody offering that Christ makes in heaven, always appearing before the Father for our sins. But lest I appear to take refuge in this escape, I think it should especially be observed that there is not simply one kind of offering. One is universal, the other particular; the particular applies the universal, as it were, to produce an effect. Since all the Lutherans seek to judge every offering by a single pattern and rule, we shall take an example of this distinction from natural things, to make their ignorance more evident. Philosophers understand illumination in two ways: as universal and as particular. Clearly, as soon as God produced the sun, one may say that he illuminated the world once, namely, as a universal cause. Yet there are many particular illuminations each day, which not only do not conflict with that general illumination but serve it, so that without them that universal illumination would be almost useless, or certainly wholly useless. We interpret in the same way the saying, “He enlightens every man coming into this world”: namely, by a certain general illumination, which in this kind is one and the same, sufficient and suitable, and indeed everlasting. But if particular illuminations, by which the minds of individual people are privately enlightened, are lacking, that universal illumination has sufficiency but not efficacy. For general causes effect nothing unless their common power of producing effects is joined to the particular and proper actions of secondary causes in producing individual effects. Similarly, then, Christ’s offering was one universal cause of human redemption and sanctification, not only suitable but also complete in every respect; in its kind, nothing can be added to or taken away from it. Yet there are many particular offerings by which that universal efficacy is applied to certain individual effects. Therefore no one should think us priests of the Law because we offer frequently and individually in each sacrifice of the altar. Rather, one should reason thus: these priests are secondary ministers under the one high priest, Christ, and stewards of his mysteries. We have discussed the first and second parts of this argumentation; the third and final part remains, on which Calvin and Bucer boast more insolently, as if they had found an argument that we cannot refute. In that one matter, I admit, they are superior: they have found a way to confirm their fanciful opinion, while I cannot find a way to weaken and refute so slight an argument

I can. But come now, let us curb their insolence and show how seriously—and how ridiculously—people rejoice who are ignorant not only of Apostolic doctrine but of all philosophy. First, even if we wanted to unfold again the complex notion of sacrifice, it would not be easy to determine whether it includes slaughter and killing when an animal is to be sacrificed. Someone might object that the prophets of Baal also offered a kind of sacrifice when they cut themselves with lances and knives until they were covered with blood (3 reg. 18). But let us grant this and concede to those making the argument what we too believe pertains to the complete immolation of an animal: I say that the animal must also be killed if it is truly sacrificed. Yet we offer a living and breathing body, for Christ is the same in the Eucharist as in Heaven. But even if Christ’s body is alive in the Eucharist and his blood is in his body, we do not offer the body because it is alive, nor the blood because it is in the body, but the body because it was slain, and the blood because it was poured out on the cross. If Christ, offering himself on the cross, had not withdrawn from our sight but hung forever on the cross before the eyes of all the faithful, present in every place and at every time, there would have been no need for him to leave us an example of the deed or for the reality to be transferred from the animal example into an image. For just as those who were then beside the cross offered the same victim with Christ to the Father, if they were truly devout and understood what was being done, so if the same external victim of the cross remained forever in our sight, we would need no model or image of that victim. But although that outward offering and slaying have passed, it nevertheless remains before God with such an acceptable and enduring power that it is no less efficacious today in the Father’s sight than on the day when blood flowed from the wounded side. Therefore, we truly now offer the same victim of the cross with Christ, just as those beside the cross did, although no image was set before their eyes, since none was needed then, when the living reality was present and placed before their eyes. For us, however, Christ has brought that victim to mind through an image and, as it were, set it before our eyes as a model. Yet this image and model in no way prevents us from now offering the very same blood that Christ shed on the cross, as though it were now being poured out before us. This is the view of Chrysostomus, falsely attributed to Ambrosius (de consecr. dist. 2, cap. In Christo). (See also Eusebius Emissenus: de consecr. dist. 2 Quia corpus.) Add that the death required must be of the same kind as the sacrifice: if the sacrifice is bloody, the death too must be bloody; but if the sacrifice is bloodless, the death will also be mystical and bloodless—that is, the effect of death as if it were now present. It is enough for the sacrifice to be true and proper that death is now applied to the remission of sin as though Christ himself were dying now. This is confirmed by the testimonies of the ancient writers. Gregorius says: “Living immortally in himself, he dies again in this mystery” (De consecr. dist. 2 Quid sit). Augustinus says: “Christ was sacrificed once in himself, yet he is sacrificed daily in the Sacrament” (De consecr. dist. 2 Semel). Paschasius says: “Christ is mystically sacrificed for us every day, and Christ’s Passion is handed down in the mystery,” and so on (De consecr. dist. 2 Iteratur). Cyrillus (in concilio Ephesino), Athanasius (ad Antiochum), Theophilactus (in decimum caput epistolae ad Hebraeos), Damascenus (in quarto libro), and finally Gregorius Nazianzenus, to pass over the others, call this an unbloody and bloodless immolation, unique indeed and unlike any other, through which Christ is sacrificed for us to such effect, just as for those who were present when he

offered himself on the cross. But because the offering is made without the shedding of blood now visible to the eyes, and instead by applying the blood already shed, the Fathers rightly call it an unbloody sacrifice. We have said enough in answer to the things the Lutherans said in their second argument. There is also no need later to labor at refuting the third argument. For we have taught that Christ’s offering on the cross relates to the redemption of sins just as light relates to illumination, or medicine to healing: I mean a light that would emit all light, a medicine that would cure every disease. Who would doubt that perfect and principal causes accomplish nothing without auxiliary and proximate causes? For no matter how available and beneficial a medicine is, unless it is applied to a sick body, it neither helps someone in need nor restores health. If the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world expiated our offenses by himself, without any assisting or cooperating cause, then baptism must be removed, penance must be absent, priesthoods must be silent, ministries must cease, and indeed every sacrament and instrument of our salvation must be taken away. The command “Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” would be vain (Math. ultim.); the grace “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them” would be vain (Ioan. 20); the saying “Repent, and let each of you be baptized ... for the remission of sins” would be empty (Acto. 2); and finally this would be false: “He saved us through the laver of regeneration” (Tit. 3). Indeed, if that is how we wish to reason, because Christ prayed for us, let us not pray; because he fasted, let us not fast; because he wept, let us not weep. For these clever dialecticians conclude that since Christ offered himself once, we should not offer. Therefore, just as we suffer with him so as to share in his Passion, so we also offer, so as to share in his offering. For us religion is active; for the Lutherans it is idle. They want us to be inert in our leisure, like pampered children doing nothing. Thus they uproot religion from people’s minds when they remove sacrifices, priests, and the other ministers of religion. We therefore do not testify through repeated offerings that Christ’s sacrifice was weak, but that it was the principal and perfect cause which, however sufficient and complete in itself, accomplishes nothing without the application of auxiliary causes. The saying “By one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” is like saying that God illuminated the world forever by one act of illumination. In fact, he did this when he kindled the sun as an everlasting light. Otherwise, why does the Apostle elsewhere (2 ad Corin. 7) command that we cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? Certainly Christ’s blood cleansed us of every offense, and yet Paulus says, “Let us cleanse ourselves.” Certainly by one offering Christ perfected those who are sanctified, and yet Paulus urges us to perfect holiness in the fear of God ourselves. Christ therefore cleanses and perfects, and we too perfect and cleanse; but he acts with us as the principal cause, while we act under him as auxiliary causes. For “we are God’s co-workers” (1 Corin. 3). But they add: “Where there is remission of sins, there is no longer an offering for sin.” We answer: if remission exists only in a universal cause, then there is no general offering for sin; there is, however, a particular offering that applies its power to bring about the effect. It is as if the world were illuminated universally: no other general illumination is needed, for we need neither another sun nor another moon nor other stars. Nevertheless, the individual illuminations of the air must occur each day if the earth is to be illuminated day by day. They also add: “After iniquities have been remitted through Christ’s sacraments, why do we make offerings for sin?” I answer: remission of iniquity is twofold: one is complete, the other

is incomplete. Complete remission occurs when not only guilt but also the whole punishment is remitted. This is what is meant by: “You have cast all my sins behind your back” (Esai. 38); “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered” (Psal. 31); “He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Mich. 7); and similar passages. This happens to all who are baptized through baptism. We call remission incomplete when either guilt is forgiven but not the whole punishment, or punishment is remitted after guilt has already been forgiven. This is what we understand by “for the remission of past sins” (Rom. 3), and again, “for the redemption of the transgressions under the former covenant” (Hebr. 9). There is no doubt that the ancient Fathers’ sins were forgiven before Christ’s death, for they died according to faith, having been approved by the testimony of faith. But Paulus confirms that they were not completely forgiven when he says that Christ died for the remission of past sins. If Moyses, Aaron, Dauid, and the other holy people under the Law and in the state of nature had been fully forgiven, the door of the heavenly kingdom would not have been closed to them, nor would the lower regions have been assigned to them as a place of custody. Who would say that crimes are entirely absolved when their punishments are being served in prison? The witnesses are Dauid’s crimes of murder and adultery, which were remitted when he confessed his sin at the Prophet Nathan’s words: Nathan himself (2 Reg. 12) and the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus (Eccle. 47). If Dauid had received complete remission, why did he say: “Blot out my iniquity. Wash me more fully from my iniquity ... Turn your face away from my sins,” and so on? Certainly, he did not obtain this fuller and more complete pardon from the Lord until after the Lord had chastised him most severely with many punishments. Therefore, if someone receives complete remission of sins through Christ’s sacraments, we make no offering for such sins—for example, if someone has just now received baptism. But if a sinner has not obtained complete remission, as usually happens in the sacrament of penance, we offer a sacrifice for his offenses, so that God may at last be propitious to one with whom he is still angry. What, then, does the Apostle mean when he terrifies his hearers with dreadful threats in these words: “If we sin voluntarily ... there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins”? Certainly, anyone who says that no sacrifice remains for those who sin voluntarily after receiving knowledge of the truth undoubtedly implies that some sacrifice remains for those who sin in ignorance, especially those who sinned before receiving knowledge of the truth, as Chrysostomus and Theophilactus argue. The Apostle therefore heightens the point with grander words and, as is his custom, uses exaggeration to instill fear. He shows not what a merciful and compassionate judge sometimes grants in his kindness, but what punishment is deserved by someone who, after receiving the singular benefit of baptism, tramples the Son of God underfoot, regards the blood of the covenant as unclean, and insults the Spirit of grace. Surely, someone like this is unworthy of having Christ crucified again for him. Christ is crucified and sacrificed for us as many times as his cross and death are applied to us for the remission of sin. If we are speaking of justice, then, no sacrifice remains for the sins of those who sin out of malice. But if we are speaking of God’s mercy, which surpasses all understanding, a sacrifice remains not only for the weak and ignorant, but also, though rarely, for those who sin voluntarily after receiving knowledge of the truth. The fact that the Apostle’s discourse is elevated and emphatic is shown first by what he immediately adds: “But a certain dreadful expectation of judgment,” and so on. Then immediately: “Anyone who sets aside the Law of Moyses,” and so on. A little later: “Recall the former days,” and so on. Finally: “Do not lose your confidence, which has a great reward.” The following point strongly confirms this interpretation: in chapter 6, after he had said

“It is impossible for those...” and so on, he did so lest people think there was no expectation of better things; as though wishing to call them back from despair to hope, he says: “We are confident of better things concerning you, beloved, and things nearer to salvation, although we speak in this way.” From this qualification Hieronymus (lib. adversus Iouinianum 2) concludes that the Apostle terrified the Hebrews by exaggeration (De poeni. dist. 2, cap. Si enim). There is also another answer worthy of serious consideration, unless everything deceives me. A sacrifice for sin can be understood in two ways: either for the punishment or also for the guilt. That the word “sin” is used for the punishment of sin is shown by these words: “It is not I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7). And again: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much; but the one to whom less is forgiven loves less” (Luc. 7). There the Lord calls the punishments of many sins “many sins.” Anyone who considers her earlier tears cannot doubt that the guilt had already been forgiven. She had received pardon for the sins she had loved and lamented. But the person to whom it is now said, “Your sins are forgiven; go in peace,” receives the fullest pardon and the payment of all punishments. In the case of punishments, it is fitting that greater love receive greater remission and lesser love receive less, for either all guilt is remitted at once or none of it is. Even in common speech, everyone repeats the saying of the Machabaei: “It is a holy and healthful thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins.” Here he undoubtedly called the punishments due for sins “sins.” Something similar is: “Redeem your sins with alms.” Daniël thought punishments could be redeemed with money (Dani. 4), for guilt is either cleansed by penance or resolved by grace without payment. Whether, then, the name of a cause is figuratively transferred to its effect, or remission of punishment belongs to complete remission of guilt, it makes little difference. Nevertheless, D. Thomas (lib. 4, dist. 12, q. 2, ar. 2, q. 2) and Innocentius testify that these are improper expressions, by which sins are said to be erased, cleansed, washed away, or remitted, because it is the punishments that are paid. Thus, when the Apostle says that no sacrifice remains for sin, “sin” must properly be understood as guilt. This view does not conflict with the claim that the sacrament of penance remains, for it is a judgment, not a sacrifice; nor with the claim that a sacrifice for punishment remains, which is improperly called a sacrifice for sin. But you ask why many of the ancients called baptism a sacrifice, and therefore said no sacrifice for sin remained, because baptism cannot be repeated. It is certainly because in baptism we die with Christ, and through this sacrament the sacrifice of the cross is applied to us for the complete remission of sin. Therefore, they figuratively called baptism a sacrifice, and interpreted the words to mean that after baptism had once been received no sacrifice remained, because there is no second baptism. But in the sacrament of penance Christ’s death is not applied by way of sacrifice but by way of judgment. Thus, although penance remains after baptism, a sacrifice for sin does not thereby remain. But enough about the third argument. The fourth needs not refutation but rebuke. What ignorance or shamelessness could there be in raising against us testimonies that are emphatically on our side? It is well established that the Eucharistic sacrifice has four parts: first, the consecration of the body and blood; second, the offering; third, the breaking; and finally, the consumption. I will prove that anyone who denies our sacrifice is restored, accomplished, and completed by these four parts has learned nothing about the nature of a perfect sacrifice, has sought nothing, and knows nothing. As for the consecration and offering joined with thanksgiving, from

the Gospel, as we showed just above. But the breaking is taught most clearly. The difference is that the Lutherans think there is nothing mystical in the breaking, only the distribution of the bread so that each receives a portion; but when the holy Church breaks the victim, by signifying the breaking of the Lord’s body on the cross, she commemorates Christ’s victim (De consecr. dist. 2 Quum frangitur), as Christ himself taught us to commemorate it in word and deed. The twelfth Council of Toledo testifies that the consumption of the species belongs to the full nature of this sacrifice, saying: “What kind of sacrifice would it be if the one who sacrifices were not known to share in it?” (De consecr. dist. 2, cap. Relatum). Moreover, Augustinus agrees in the book of Sententiae of Prosperus that when blood is poured from the chalice into the mouths of the faithful, the immolation of the Lord’s body and the pouring out of his blood are signified (De consecr. dist. 2 Quum frangitur). Therefore, consumption of the species pertains to the perfect signification of the sacrifice. This has always led Catholics, when the priest consumes the species, to say that he does not eat them, even though he does, but consumes them, so that we understand that in the Mass consideration is given more to consumption than to eating, and more to sacrifice than to supper. Realizing this, the Lutherans denied that Christ received his own body and blood, lest he be shown to have consumed and sacrificed them. But the very nature of a banquet first requires sharing and partaking of the food; otherwise, one who invites people to supper would be not a fellow diner but only its host and provider. The reclining meal of friends, which we more properly call a banquet, the Greeks call both a drinking together and a dining together. Thus, someone who invites others to supper but is not himself a fellow diner and drinking companion begins not merely an inhospitable banquet but no banquet at all. Next, as Chrysostomus argues, Christ himself had to taste the food first so that the disciples would not shudder at the flesh and blood. Christ surely commanded the Apostles to do what they saw him do; the Church has always understood that priests are required to receive. Therefore Christ also received it, unless the priest, who was perfect in every respect, made the sacrifice not complete but merely begun. I am not unaware that D. Thomas sometimes seems to have taught (III, q. 83, art. 4) that the sacrifice is performed before the breaking of the host, and that reception properly pertains to the sacrament while the offering pertains to the sacrifice; and that he again asserted (Art. 6.6) that breaking the host is not so necessary that the sacrifice remains incomplete if it is omitted, since the significance of this act refers not to Christ’s true body but to his mystical body. Therefore, breaking should not be counted among the parts of the sacrifice. That the sacrifice is performed before the breaking is supported by the strong argument that the priest immediately after consecration says these words: “We offer to your glorious majesty, from your gifts and things given, a pure victim,” and so on. The host, then, has not yet been broken, but it is already both an offering and a sacrifice. But the person who brings Divus Thomas against us is trying to make Thomas contradict both himself and the true nature of sacrifice. For his words in the second part of the second part (q. 85, 3.3) are clear: sacrifice is properly said to occur when something is done with the things offered. He confirms this also with the example of bread being broken and eaten. From this he concludes that first fruits are offerings, not sacrifices, because nothing sacred was done with them. Therefore, D. Thomas and the Church sometimes call the host a victim before the breaking in the same way that we name an imminent and near event as if it were present. Thus Cicero says: “Provide victims for the sacrifice,” where he calls the animal that is to be sacrificed a victim. Indeed, in Leviticus and many other places, a burnt offering, victim, and sacrifice take their name from what is about to

happen. We commonly call the bread itself a victim before consecration, and even Divus Thomas does not reject this usage. Before consecration, the priest says that he offers holy and spotless sacrifices, and so on. What theologian was ever so remarkably foolish as to think the sacrifice had been completed before the victim was consecrated? And, to say nothing of the hidden and interior sacrifice of the body and blood, an external and mystical sacrifice is certainly not constituted by the offering alone. Since, then, before the breaking the sacrificer has done nothing with the species, the sacrifice has not yet been completed. Likewise, since Christ instituted us to enact his death by means of symbols of realities, if our sacrifice is true and perfect and a complete model of his victim, which Christ offered on the cross, and since there is no symbol of these realities before the species have been broken, mingled, and consumed, we can receive the most certain proof that before the breaking the sacrifice has not yet been completed. It therefore remains that not only consecration and offering but also breaking and consumption pertain to the integrity of the external sacrifice. This has been shown to us not by some slight argument or indication but by a weighty and consistent line of reasoning; besides, it is very easy to show that we received these parts of the sacrifice from the Apostles, since I have already shown above that Christ handed them down. Let the Lutherans next devise more probable arguments, if indeed this fourth one we have just refuted is improbable. I say it is improbable to use the testimonies of Lucas and Paulus to overthrow the Church’s sacrifice, for the argument added to them is deceptive and can mislead the inexperienced by its appearance of truth. First, someone who answered the Lutherans that Christ offered a sacrifice at the Supper not for sin but in thanksgiving would not easily be refuted by them. He would give a plausible reason: since the day of the bloody sacrifice was at hand, or certainly its hour was already near, it was not fitting to present a mystical victim for sin at supper when that general victim was imminent, in which it pleased the Father for all sins to be absolved. Moreover, Christ offered for us the blood of circumcision, and fasted and wept for us, yet the remission of sin that was ultimately to be expected from the cross did not follow. For just as the full efficacy of martyrdom lies not in every shedding of blood, but only in the one in which martyrdom is completed, although a martyr has offered his blood to God from the very beginning, so the everlasting, absolute, and perfect force of Christ’s Passion lay not at the beginning or in the middle, but at the end. Next, the effect of the mystical offering is not what the Lutherans falsely think we believe, namely, that it absolves all guilt and punishment. We will speak about this shortly. For the victim openly slain by Christ on the cross has one efficacy, and the victim he mystically presented at the Supper under certain species has another. As we said, the former is general and is applied to widely different effects not only through sacrifice but through each sacrament individually. The latter has a particular efficacy and, under certain species, is directed to particular effects. Therefore, Christ offered a victim at the Supper both for venial guilt and for the punishment due even for mortal guilt. This is the particular effect of a sacrifice in the remission of sin. The blood offered at the Supper had this effect, for on the cross it had the power of general remission. But since, as I just said, we will explain this matter at greater length while refuting the following arguments, let us proceed in order to refute the remaining arguments.

To refute the fifth argument, the Bishop of Roffensis says that the chalice is called “the new testament” because it confirms the new testament. Though I cannot prove this usage of the word by testimonies, I dare not reject it. I affirm that the term “testament” is sometimes used for what comes to us from a testament, as in the letter to the Hebrews, ca. 7: “Jesus was made the surety of a better testament.” For the authors of Scripture use the word “promise” for the thing promised: “Imitate those who through faith and patience will inherit the promises” (ad Hebraeos 6); “that they may receive the promise of an eternal inheritance,” and so on (ad Hebraeos 9); and “they should wait for the promise of the Father” (Actorum I). If, then, “promise” is used for the thing promised, and even Luther considers a testament to be a promise, it is no wonder that it is used for the very thing left by the testament. The first and most important thing Christ bequeathed to us in his testament was his blood. What, then, prevents us from repaying with funeral rites and honors the thing I received through the testator’s generosity? What, I ask, prevents us from giving back to the living one what we received from the dying one? Unless we needlessly and irrelevantly repeat: “All things are yours, O Lord, and what we have received from your hand we return to you.” That the chalice is improperly called a testament is clear. Whether, as Innocentius thinks (Cap. Cum Marthae, de celeb. Miss.), a testament is a promise, or, as Vlpianus rightly thinks, a just declaration of the will concerning what we wish to happen after death, it is entirely clear that the chalice is properly neither a promise nor a declaration, but the thing left by the testator’s promise and declaration of will. Who, then, prevents us from presenting this victim in sacrifice? Enough about the fifth argument. Why answer the sixth argument now, unless I want to repeat the same words I said above? For, of course, these keen dialecticians infer that if the Eucharist is a model and image, it is not truly and properly a sacrifice. This inference is surely ridiculous. What could be more foolish than to say that the sacrifices of the Old Law were not sacrifices because they were models of real ones? Innocentius III (Cap. Cum Marthae de celeb. Miss.) rightly mocks those who thought that the truth of the body and blood of Christ is not in the sacrament... because Scripture sometimes says that the mystery received at the altar is an image, figure, and model. The Pontiff learnedly and gravely refutes their error: if the sacrament of the altar is denied to be reality because it is a figure, then neither the death nor the resurrection of Christ should be believed to be real, since the Apostle says they are a likeness and an image, and Petrus too writes that Christ left us an example in his Passion. Nothing therefore prevents the external sacrifice from being the form, species, image, and model of the sacrifice of the cross, while the reality of that same sacrifice exists in the blood and body, the things enclosed within. But since on the cross, as we have said elsewhere, the bloody victim was openly displayed without mystery, while on the altar it is hidden and mystically concealed, Theophilactus rightly cautioned us, together with his Chrysostomus, that we do not sacrifice Christ in the same way that he sacrificed himself on the cross, but rather commemorate that victim of the cross. But because our commemoration is not idle or shadowy, and instead effects what it signifies, although we do not kill Christ, who rose from the dead and dies no more, we nevertheless apply Christ’s death as if it had just taken place. We apply it not by faith alone or by words alone, but also by symbols. For after the words “This is my body, which will be given up for you,” the Lord did not say “Believe this” or “Say this,” but “Do this in memory of me.” Unless I am mistaken, this was why the Apostle called the symbols of the Old Law empty shadows,

not the very images of realities. For the Gospel contains the very images of realities as if they were alive, not only for signification but also for efficacy. Thus baptism is an image of spiritual cleansing, which was accomplished through Christ’s blood on the cross; nevertheless, the realities are so joined together as if Christ himself were now shedding blood for the baptized person. Therefore, he even once dared to say that Christ is crucified in each person baptized, not merely in the manner of speaking in which Ioannes the Evangelist wrote that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, but rather in such a way that the effect is exactly the same as if Christ were truly now being crucified for those who receive baptism. Nor do I think that when Paulus said the Law has a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of realities, he was debating their signification, as many have interpreted it, understanding a shadow to be an obscure and imperfect sign, and an image to be an exact and perfect sign. I do not deny that this is true, but I judge it foreign to the Apostle’s principal purpose. This is plainly established by the words of the same Apostle. For he says: “The Law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the realities, can never, through the same sacrifices which they offer continually, make those who approach perfect,” and so on. Since those sacrifices had no power to produce an effect, he therefore said that the Law had a shadow of the good things to come under the Law of grace. For the shadow of fire does not do what fire does, nor does the shadow of a person do what the person does; a shadow is the weakest and emptiest thing of all in its capacity to act. But our sacraments and sacrifice are images of realities, not painted or shadowy, empty and weak in producing an effect. They are instead expressed as vividly as the realities themselves, and, if it is permissible to speak this way, are the living realities themselves in efficacy, the realities of which they are images. Such is the power of Christ and the Gospel that he has given symbols and images the very same efficacy as the realities themselves would have if they were truly enacted when they are commemorated. But I have spent too much time refuting the sixth argument. It needed no response; those people only had to examine the same passages carefully and reread them in good faith. There they would plainly find that the holy authors affirm both a true sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood in the Church and a most real model: one in the external form and figure, the other in the reality hidden and enclosed in the secret mystery. Euthymius, however, interprets the model as referring to the time before consecration, but after consecration to the reality of the sacrifice. Damascenus also explains Basilius in this way (4 lib. cap. 14). In the seventh argument, people with little practice in theology think that our acts are in no way causes of our redemption, sanctification, or cleansing. If this were true, all of the following would be false: “Everyone who has this hope sanctifies himself” (1 Ioan. 3); likewise, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7); likewise, “Redeem your sins with alms” (Dani. 4); likewise, “Sins are purged by mercy and faith” (Prover. 15); likewise, “Iniquity is redeemed by mercy and truth” (Prover. 16); and many other passages of this kind found throughout Sacred Scripture. Nothing in these statements, contrary to their false judgment, takes away anything from Christ’s grace, merit, power, or redemption for us; on the contrary, they attribute much more to the grace of God and Christ. I will give an example from nature so that the power of grace may shine more clearly. All philosophers know that all things are moved by an innate power toward their respective ends. Thus the God who created the world gave fire lightness so that it might rise to the place suited to its nature; and, so that it might heat, which is an action suited to the nature of fire, he imparted

heat. It is easy to see the same in other things, which are moved from the beginning by their inner form in such a way that they not only do not resist but seem to act spontaneously. Animals not only have this inclination and form from nature, but also move themselves through certain actions of their own, both to seek the good that suits them and to repel evils that oppose them. This is especially clear in human beings, who are not moved as slaves but rather act freely as masters: they choose means by reason and set themselves in motion to attain their proposed ends through such means. Yet the power of the first cause is not thereby diminished, nor is its efficacy weakened. On the contrary, it is greater and more abundant because it reaches mightily from end to end and disposes all things gently. What power could be stronger than one that has placed such gentle and fitting impulses in the nature of things, so that it moves them without any force being imposed and yet moves them with great force? This outstanding power and remarkable gentleness of God extends much more broadly in the effects of grace than in natural effects. For through the form of grace and the virtues, a mortal person not only produces in himself vital operations that are above nature, but also prepares himself by his own action to receive life itself and becomes a cause of his own life. Just as if matter itself produced the dispositions by which it is prepared to receive the form of fire, it would be the efficient cause in itself of being informed by that form, so, since a person effects in himself the preparations for life-giving grace, he becomes God’s co-worker in his own regeneration. In this respect, as I said, grace is gentler and more abundant than nature. You can preserve and care for the life given to you by nature, seek health, and drive away diseases, both by applying external medicines and by rousing the powers of the soul within. But you cannot be the cause of your own life; you receive it from elsewhere, without any operation of your own, without any disposition of your own. For every disposition by which the body is prepared for the soul is produced by the father who begets, and in no way by the son who is begotten. In spiritual birth, however, the one who is born is not only the beginning of his recovery after illness, but also, after having died, of having life and having it more abundantly. Therefore, that saying was excellently expressed and well suited to philosophical reasoning: “The just man will live by his faith.” From this Hieronymus concludes that a person is “the cause of his own vivification.” For a person himself performs acts of faith, hope, charity, and penance, which God uses to give life to the soul, although he is moved by gratuitous and supernatural help. Do not argue, as though our acts were efficient causes of grace and the remission of guilt, since they do nothing but prepare the soul to receive God’s grace and righteousness. Just as heat is a preparation that affects the matter of wood so that it receives the form and nature of fire. But just as one person is not the cause of another person’s rational soul, yet is the cause of his living through a rational soul, so a person, although not the cause of grace, is nevertheless the cause of living through grace. From this view follow these sayings: “Purifying your souls” (Primae Petri 1); likewise, “Wash your heart from wickedness” (Hiere. 4); and “If anyone purifies himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and ready for every good work” (2 Timo. 2). God himself indeed made and prepared these vessels for honor and glory. But, as Damascenus argues, if the cleansing of our soul did not come from our will, Paulus would not have said, “If anyone purifies himself,” and so on. But perhaps these points are discussed more subtly than the Lutherans, entirely ignorant of philosophy, can understand. Let them grasp this briefly: in the work of our salvation, sanctification, cleansing, and healing, we are God’s co-workers. “On the day of salvation I helped you” (2 Cor. 6); and again, “The grace of God was with me” (1 Cor. 15).

As for the redemption of sins, the question is much easier. Scripture sometimes uses this word to mean the payment of punishments that remain after guilt has been forgiven. We pay these not only through Christ’s sacraments but also through our fasts and almsgiving. Therefore, when we count out and pay to God the prices established for punishments due, we redeem our sins. This price was not made equal by our nature, but by God’s grace: he could have demanded more severe punishments for guilt and more severe compensation for punishments. But he established these prices through a law of clemency and mercy, though mixed with equity and justice. If these prices, although ours, have some value for redeeming sins because he who is the just judge of all things by his own will established them in this way, how much more truly and justly do we ourselves redeem our iniquities by offering Christ’s body and blood on the altar? Christ, I say, who became our sanctification, righteousness, and redemption. Though he alone is our redeemer, since he nevertheless uses us and our actions to accomplish the effect of redemption, we also help him in this respect. The Redeemer’s glory is not diminished by this, but increased, since he has made us partners and sharers not only in the divine nature but also in the divine operation. But in refuting this argument we have spent a great deal of effort and labor, especially since we will explain some of these matters at greater length shortly. For in the eighth argument, these ridiculous harpists always strike the same string when they deny that causes assist God in the work of human redemption. We can show the nature of this foolishness with an example from nature. Some people were so unskilled in natural philosophy that they thought second causes—as philosophers call them—did absolutely nothing of themselves, but that God, the maker of all things, produced all effects by himself whenever causes called secondary and proximate were present. This incredible delusion of utterly foolish people was driven from the School of Philosophy not only with hisses but with reproaches. Yet the Lutherans commit the same error in matters above nature as these people did in nature: while attributing redemption to God alone, they exclude auxiliary causes, as if it were blasphemy for us to say in grace what the wisest people have said about nature, namely, that there are auxiliary and proximate causes used by the first and principal cause to produce supernatural things. In this respect, God’s force and power stand out all the more gloriously, the more he shares himself with a human being, not only so that the person exists but also so that he is a cause, which, although its power is received from God, truly produces an effect and even helps God himself in making things. For the Apostle (1 Cor. 2 et 3) did not hesitate to write that we are God’s co-workers, stewards, and ministers of his mysteries; likewise, that he had planted, laid the foundation as a wise architect, and begotten children in Christ through the Gospel. We will pass over such passages as: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father,” and so on (Matth. ultimo); “Whatever you bind on earth,” and so on (Matth. 18); “Whose sins you forgive,” and so on (Ioan. 20). From these the Council of Constantia plainly concluded that a priest truly absolves and truly consecrates. If these things are completely certain, as they surely are, there is no need to deny, as Albertus Pighius does, that sacrifice is our action. Divus Thomas said this far more learnedly—I touched on the passage briefly above—when he affirmed that sacrifice is an offering and an act of the virtue contained in the devout worship of God. I certainly do not deny that it is our action. But our actions are of two kinds. Some are performed in our own name and depend on our grace and merits, such as almsgiving and fasting. Others do not get their efficacy from us but

entirely from Christ, as baptism and the priest’s absolution in the sacrament of penance. Because the priest baptizes and absolves not in his own name but in Christ’s, these actions, in which there is nothing but pure and simple ministry, receive their power not from the minister but from Christ; indeed, they are said to belong more to Christ than to us, for he is the one who baptizes and the one who absolves. Therefore, whether the minister is just or unjust makes absolutely no difference to the sacrament’s effect. It likewise makes no difference whether the person who kindles a fire and applies it to burn something is cold or hot. For it imparts only as much heat as the fire applied has, not as much as the person himself has. Our earlier actions, then, do not confer remission of sin on others by the work performed—that is, by the power of the thing done—but whatever effect they achieve, they achieve through our merit. Actions of the latter kind, however, can themselves remit sins, because, as we said, they belong more to Christ than to us. Thus, if we ourselves perform Christ’s sacraments and apply them to others, through the efficacy of the things performed we remit the guilt and punishment of others and impart Christ’s grace, not our own. The sacrifice of the altar, which I explained while refuting the first argument, belongs to the latter kind of action. For the priest offers the victim not in his own name but in Christ’s; he presents to God not his own merit and grace but Christ’s; and he offers not his own blood but Christ’s. Just as someone who makes a fire and applies it to burn something brings about the fire’s effect, so when he consecrates Christ’s blood on the altar and applies it by his offering, he brings about the efficacy of Christ’s blood. Therefore, this sacrifice’s effect is neither greater with a good minister nor less with a bad one, and the priest’s wickedness does not impede the sacrifice’s effect, as Innocentius testifies (lib. 3 De sacro alta. myste. cap. 5). This doctrine is not a recent invention, for it is widely found in the books of ancient authors. Gregorius teaches it (I. q. I. Multi), Augustinus (de consecra. distinct. secunda. Utrum), Hieronymus (aduer. Lucif.), and Chrysostomus (hom. secunda in secundam ad Timo. epistolam), whose words I will quote: “The sacred offering, whether it is offered by Petrus, Paulus, or a priest of any merit, is the same as the one Christ himself gave to his disciples and which priests now consecrate. It has nothing less than that offering. Why? Because it is not men who sanctify this offering, but Christ, who had sanctified that one before. Anyone who thinks this one has less than that one does not know that Christ himself is here now and is at work.” Thus far Chrysostomus. We will explain this more clearly with an example from philosophy. Philosophers teach that not all instrumental causes act in the same way. Some act only if they have received a similar quality from the principal cause. For example, air does not illuminate the eyes unless the sun shares its light with it; water does not heat unless it has first received heat from fire. In this kind of cause, the effect is greater or smaller according to the extent to which a form and power of action have been communicated to the auxiliary cause. If it lacks this form and power, it does nothing at all, as air does without light or water without heat. Other auxiliary causes apply the power of principal causes, as when someone applies fire to straw or wood. In this kind of action, differences in the quality of those who apply the cause do not produce different effects, provided the same fire is applied. Ministers of Christian sacraments and sacrifice are causes of this second kind. They do not sanctify others through a sanctity they themselves share, nor do they cleanse others because they themselves were first cleansed by Christ. Whatever their character, if they administer Christ’s sacrament or offer his sacrifice, they join to them the same blood and merits of Christ.

Irenaeus, first, is speaking not only of the sacrifice of the altar but also of the other offerings which are figuratively called sacrifices. This is easy to see, since he cites the testimony of Paulus to the Philippians, where the subject is almsgiving. He also cites: “God looked upon Abel and his gifts,” and again: “If you offer your gift at the altar,” and so on. Next, Irenaeus is plainly speaking about sacrifice in relation to the one offering it. The victim of the altar does not purify even the person offering it if he himself is wicked and impure. Indeed, a sacrilegious offering defiles him even more. Thus he also says (Lib. 4, cap. 34) that if someone does not fear God, he does not bring God within himself, who is sinful, through a sacrifice rightly offered outwardly. “Nor will such an offering,” he says, “do him any good.” Moreover, the sacrifice of the altar belongs not to the minister alone but to the whole Church. Therefore, although it does not benefit a bad priest who offers it but harms him, it is useful to the person for whom it is offered, not through the priest’s merit but through the Church’s. Irenaeus explains this in the same chapter with these words: “Since, then, the Church offers in simplicity, her gift is rightly considered a pure sacrifice.” Since the head, Christ, is also included in the Church of God, it follows that the holiness of the ministering priest need not sanctify a sacrifice that is holy in itself and offered by an undefiled priest. For the priest and sacrifice are one and the same: Christ Jesus. Since, then, I have refuted with answers clearer than daylight the argument that seemed to them most firm and weighty, what, I ask, will their remaining arguments be like? They have no force to prove anything and are certainly weak in their attempt to contradict. The ninth argument, of course, will be refuted with the least difficulty. For two things are understood in the remission of sin: forgiveness of guilt and release from punishment. Forgiveness comes to people either through their own faith and charity or through the sacrament of faith; release from punishment comes also through another’s faith and charity. For the community of faithful brothers in the Church, through friendship, shares common punishments. Proving this belongs to another place and time. A just man participates in this release from punishment much more through the Passion of Christ. The Passion of Christ is not only commemorated through the sacrifice of the altar but also shared. Therefore, a priest’s offering benefits the person for whom it is made twice over by releasing him from punishment: first, because the priest’s own work is meritorious, and he generously and freely grants it to his neighbor to discharge the punishment; and second, because it is a sacrifice of the Church and therefore of Christ. This is the effect we attribute to sacrifice by the work performed, whereas the first effect comes from the work of the one performing it. Therefore, if the priest is upright and wishes to give his work and satisfaction to a needy brother, he serves that brother’s interests and benefit in two ways, as I just said. But if he is wicked, the sacrifice still has one benefit, which comes from the Church and Christ who offers it; the sacrilegious minister cannot intercept it at all. Just as a detestable servant who distributes alms cannot take away the benefit of the alms from his master. In confirming this argument, the question is what power the sacrifice has in remitting sin: whether it remits guilt, punishment, or rather both, guilt and punishment. I see three views on this, and I approve of none. One is that a sacred offering can remit even mortal guilt and therefore confer grace. Another grants sacrifice no role in the remission of sin except as a means of obtaining it, as when almsgiving delivers someone from every sin and from death because it serves as a prayer through which we obtain these goods from God. Ecclesiasticus explains this when he says: “Enclose almsgiving in the heart of the poor, and it will plead for you against every evil.” Yet they do not deny that sacrifice is propitiatory, since someone who obtains forgiveness for another is said to have made him propitious when he appeased him with his prayers. Through this

they therefore say that this sacrifice remits not only punishments but also every sin, venial and mortal. A third opinion says that the sacrifice is effective by the work performed for punishments, but not at all for guilt: thus the altar victim provides satisfaction and payment of punishment, not expiation and remission of guilt, since the sacraments were prepared for this latter effect, while sacrifice was instituted for the former. Those who introduced the first opinion use the same arguments we have mentioned: Alexander and Iulius teach that all crimes are wiped away by this sacrifice; Athanasius, Cyprianus, and Damascenus affirm that every stain is expiated; Chrysostomus and Theophilactus plainly teach that there is remission of sins. If theologians infer from those words, “Whose sins you forgive,” etc., that ministers can remit all guilt and confer grace by the work performed, why should we interpret the same words differently concerning sacrifice? Especially since sins properly mean guilt, while liability to punishment is called sin only by a trope in which the effect is signified by the name of its cause. A theologian may not resort to tropes when there is nothing absurd about taking a statement literally. Again, the holy Fathers taught that this sacrifice washes away crimes and wipes off stains. Whoever washes away stains removes the blemish; therefore this victim dissolves not only punishments but guilt as well, in which we understand the blemish to lie. For once guilt is remitted, punishment remains, but the blemish does not. Add that Christ’s blood is mystically poured out here for the remission of sins, as the very form of consecration instructs us; yet Christ’s blood was poured out for guilt as well, not only for punishment. This sacrifice therefore remits both. Finally, since the same Christ is offered on the altar who offers himself to the Father in Heaven, just as the offering he presents to the Father upon entering the Holy of Holies remits mortal sins too, so the offering made on the altar remits both guilt and punishment. Nor does the second opinion lack its own support. After the sacrifice for sin has been offered, the Church prays in these words so that the faithful may understand that the power of prayer in the victim is directed to wiping sin away: “May this sacrifice be a saving intercession for pardon, a cleansing of crimes, a strength for the weak, a bulwark against the dangers of the world, a remission of all sins.” Divus Thomas too (in quarto, distinctione duodecima, quaestione secunda, articulo secundo, quaestiuncula secunda), after objecting in his first argument “may this be a cleansing of crimes,” etc., replied that such expressions are improper. For this sacrament is said to cleanse crimes because it strengthens us against them by supplying strength. And in response to the fourth argument he says: “The Eucharist, insofar as it is a sacrifice, has an effect upon those for whom it is offered. It does not presuppose in them an actual spiritual life; and therefore, if it finds them disposed, by the power of a true sacrifice it obtains grace for them, from which all grace has flowed into us, and consequently it deletes mortal sins in them—not as a proximate cause, but insofar as it obtains for them the grace of contrition.” So far Divus Thomas. Finally, the third opinion (if I should call these opinions what I see to conflict with the common understanding of Catholics) cannot distinguish mortal sins from venial sins in the efficacy of this victim. To avoid conceding that both kinds are remitted through sacrifice, it thinks one must necessarily resort to the punishments for both. This is their chief reason for holding the view. As I said, I agree with none of these three opinions. The first cannot be true unless all theologians are mistaken, since they dissent from it with one voice and mind. For if mortal guilt were dissolved through sacrifice, the sacrament of penance would not be necessary for salvation. Once a priest had deleted such sins by offering sacrifice, there would be no need to extinguish those same sins again by another remedy. Nor would God, who does nothing in excess, institute two external signs for virtually the same effect. It is clear, however,

that the sacrament of penance was instituted to remit guilt. If the sacrifice of the altar also abolished sins of itself, we would be abusing two external signs indiscriminately for the remission of guilt. Since sacrifice provides this remedy so readily, the discipline of penance would be entirely evaded, for offering sacrifice is the most accessible remedy for anyone. What is more, priests could remit mortal sins without confession, simply by offering sacrifices. If a priest can do this, the Church would press the command of confession in vain. For priests would dissolve all the guilt of sinners through sacrifice without either hearing their confession or knowing the case. Thus, after baptism had been received, some other victim would remain for sins—something, as we said earlier, opposed by all the ancient interpreters (perhaps these people will disregard the modern ones). From this the delusion of Ambrosius Catharinus is clear: sins committed before baptism, he says, are remitted through the sacrifice of the Cross, while all sins after baptism are remitted through the sacrifice of the altar. The Apostle teaches both in Romans and Hebrews that the victim of the Cross is the universal cause of the remission of sins, whether committed before baptism or afterward. We too would show this most plainly, were it not foolish to refute implausible inventions. What should instead be refuted are the claims these people make against us: Alexander, Iulius, Athanasius, and others say that sacrifice deletes crimes and remits sins. We refute this in three ways. First, as I said not long ago (Ad 3), when the punishments due for sins are deleted, dissolved, or remitted, then the crimes are also said to be deleted, dissolved, or remitted. In this sense the Church grants through indulgences a most complete pardon of all sins—that is, of all the punishments we have incurred by sinning. It makes little difference whether such things are said improperly and figuratively or literally without a figure, since guilt is not fully remitted as long as the sinner remains liable to pay the punishment. Next, since reception is part of the perfection of sacrifice, as we showed above (Ad 4)—for the ancients did not consider a sacrifice completed and perfected unless it was consumed—it is no wonder that the body and blood of Christ, since they confer grace when received, consequently remit all sins; this effect is proper to and joined with grace. The Church seems to signify this when she says, “May the sacraments we have received, we beseech you, O Lord, wipe away all our crimes.” By these words she intended it to be understood that, if one considers guilt, the sacrifice deletes crime not because it is offered but because it is received. For in this way it is also the sacrament and the perfection of sacrifice. Finally, Divus Thomas, in the fourth book of the Sentences, replied—as just cited—that such statements should be recast according to the way we say prayer accomplishes what we ask for in prayer. In this sense it is said, “Grant a pure life, release those bound by guilt,” etc. Moses too seems to have had this in mind when, after prescribing each victim for sin, he adds: “The priest shall pray for him, and it shall be forgiven” (Levit. 4, 5 et 6). But it would be ridiculous to refer the words “Whose sins you forgive,” etc., simply to guilt and punishment, and then to interpret in exactly the same way every similar expression, whoever says it, wherever and whenever they say it. Believe me, it is one thing to appoint judges who pass sentence on sins, have the power to retain and absolve, and impose a harsher or milder punishment according to the lesser or greater guilt; it is another to become a participant in the Lord’s altar after receiving grace and the sacrament of reconciliation. If, after guilt had been remitted, no punishment remained at all, and no venial sins were admitted after mortal sins had been pardoned, there would be no need, once the sacrament of penance was instituted, to have a propitiatory victim.

But even in this matter Christ was especially generous to us: he gave us not only penance to restore and repair lost grace, but also left us the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is likewise the sacrifice of the altar, so that we might keep grace intact. By this sacrifice we not only repay an equal gift for the friendship restored; we also render propitious the judge who had been angered and was threatening temporal punishment for sin committed and forgiven. By this sacrifice we wash our feet; what the water poured into the basin did for the Apostles, the blood poured into the cup does for penitents, and much more. Finally, by offering this sacrifice we are disposed, cleansed, and prepared to approach the Lord’s table in purity and friendship, and to “sit down at the banquet of the gods.” The order of things and the nature of the sacraments therefore demand that we not interpret the remission of sins in the same way in the sacrament of penance and in the victim of the altar. Nor do we resort to tropes here. For it has been explained that the resolution of punishment belongs to the complete remission of sin, and that guilt is not fully remitted when a punishment remains to be paid. If in this passage we turned the sayings of the saints toward a trope, we would do so neither without necessary cause nor without common usage of that word. But cleansing of crimes does not occur without the water of grace, and nothing is wiped or washed unless it has a stain. Reader, I do not want to “cut to the quick” the metaphors of cleansing and stain, as perhaps those who investigate such things too subtly do—rightly, but with little benefit to the common good. For if we always insist on measuring the testimonies of Scripture and the ancients by that standard, we will sometimes find them to differ from the truth. I will make this clear with just one example, since even I am already wearied by the length of this disputation. No one can doubt that David’s guilt was remitted upon his confession of sin, unless he has either not read what we wrote just above or has never reflected on it. “I will confess,” he says, “my injustice against myself to the Lord,” etc. But David himself testifies that he had not yet attained complete cleansing after guilt was remitted, saying, “Wash me more thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”; and again, “You will sprinkle me,” etc. Whoever says “more thoroughly” undoubtedly feels that he has already been washed, but not fully and perfectly. Some stain, then, had been left behind; some filth remained that had not been completely wiped away by the earlier washing. In this way, then, the ancients said that sacrifice washes away crime and cleanses stains, although they knew that guilt had already been remitted through penance and the grace of justification received. Since all punishment is a purgation and medicine of the soul, the ancients called the resolution of punishment a washing and cleansing. Or they understood that the human heart is not fully healed, washed, and cleansed by imperfect grace, because from sin we retain ingrained habits of vice and certain inclinations toward mutable good. These things do not immediately vanish through every act of contrition, and it is well established that they are like stains and diseases of the soul. The Lord therefore dealt graciously with Sion according to his will: after the sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart, by which guilt is deleted, he accepts another sacrifice of justice, by which punishment is resolved. Both sacrifices purge stains; by both we are washed and cleansed, but not in the same way. For there are many different kinds of purification arising from different things; anyone who wants to say they are all alike would have to admit he is foolish. Neither reason nor authority allows the stain of sin to be entirely washed away by any washing of grace, so that not even a trace remains. But Christ’s blood is offered and mystically poured out for the remission of all sins. As I have often reflected on this, it usually seems to me that the central point is

what I briefly noted when refuting an earlier argument: Christ’s blood works in all the sacraments, but in each it produces its own particular effect according to that sacrament’s distinctive meaning and nature. Just as the first universal cause does not pour its whole power into each assisting cause, but adapts itself to their power, whether perfect or imperfect, and produces offspring of varying perfection, so Christ’s blood brings about remission of sins both in Baptism and in Penance, but not in the same way. In Baptism, because it is regeneration, it completely resolves all guilt and punishment; in Penance, because it is a judgment with satisfaction joined to it, it resolves guilt but does not fully remove punishment until satisfaction has been completed. In all the other sacraments, too, there is remission of sins, but in a certain way and almost incidentally. Confirmation, Eucharist, Order, and Matrimony are not instituted in themselves to remit sin, but they cannot have their proper operations without grace; if they find sins in the soul, grace expels them as something contrary to it. When I bring the reasoning back to the truth, I find that the sacrifice of the altar is propitiatory in itself and was itself instituted for the remission of sin. Yet because it has the species of bread and wine, and because this altar is also a table, the nature and order of things themselves require that its effect occur in those who can share this table—that is, after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, since it is absurd to approach the banquet of friends before then. Mortal guilt has been remitted in these people. Therefore Christ’s blood in the species of bread and wine of itself remits punishment and venial sins; sometimes, however, it remits mortal sins too, although incidentally—not because it is offered but because it is received. For then, as I have often said, the sacrifice is completed. If it happens to find a person in mortal sin, though that sin is unknown, it confers grace and justifies him, if we trust Divus Thomas. Therefore, although Christ’s blood is offered and mystically poured out for the remission of sins, as we now reply to the argument, the signification of the species of bread and wine, as an instrumental and assisting cause, determines it to effect the remission shared by those who approach the Lord’s altar worthily—that is, those conscious of no mortal guilt that they have not first washed away through penance. This concerns the effect of sacrifice by the work performed. For I know that it may also be offered for someone in mortal sin, as if in place of a prayer, to obtain grace. It does not necessarily always have this effect, as if by an established law it had to obtain penance and thus pardon for a sinner, although this prayer is most pleasing to God. But you object: “The Son was always heard because of his reverence,” and this sacrifice is always offered to the Father by the Son; therefore it has an everlasting effect, for the Son’s prayer cannot be poured out in vain. I answer this argument as follows. The Father hears at every time and place the prayers that Christ himself pours out, but he does not always hear those that Christ offers through human beings. The first cause, when it chose to produce certain effects by itself and without another assisting cause, never acted in vain in producing them. But when it works through secondary causes, it is sometimes said to act in vain—that is, the end sometimes fails, not because of the principal cause but entirely because of the assisting cause. In the same way, if Christ offers this sacrifice in Heaven, as he truly does, he does not offer it to every effect of his blood, but to the effect determined by certain species and figures. Thus let the first opinion have been refuted in this way. Those who place in the victim of the altar only the power of obtaining grace first err about the punishments for sins, which they say are redeemed by the blood of Christ presented as the price, since the matter was

known, as we briefly noted just above. If the punishments for sins are redeemed by almsgiving, why should we deny that they are redeemed when Christ’s blood is offered on the altar? Who could tolerate punishments being resolved by the sacrifices of the old Law but not by the sacrifice of the new Law? Is Christ’s blood less precious to God than the blood of a goat? Just as in the sacraments satisfaction is joined to the punishment due for guilt not only because our action is meritorious, but also because Christ’s blood is properly applied to us through such signs, so that by the power of his blood greater grace is conferred and a greater part of the punishment remitted, so too in the sacrifice of the altar remission of punishment is more abundant by the work performed, that is, by the power of Christ’s own blood. It reaches both the one offering it and those for whom it is offered, not only because our offering has merit but because through this external sign the Passion of Christ is commemorated and thus applied. I mean the living, since the same reason does not apply to the dead. For just as Christ’s merits reach them through indulgences only in the manner of a suffrage, perhaps the power of the sacrifice likewise serves them only as a prayer and suffrage. But it benefits the living by way of redemption and payment, which must be accepted according to the law of justice, just as if the exact amount owed were paid. These writers are also wrong about venial sins, which both the theologians of the schools and the ancient saints testify are altogether deleted by this sacrifice (De consecr. dist. 2, cap. Iteratur et cap. Utrum). The Church agrees no less that venial sins are remitted through the sacrifice of the altar than through holy water, the Lord’s Prayer, or similar works of religion. The proof is immediate and certain: from the force of the formula by which the blood is consecrated, and of the species of bread and wine, we concluded above that this sacrifice resolves the sins of friends, namely those who approach the Lord’s table worthily. Those sins are light and venial, such as can also be found in friends. See plainly Christ’s providence and kindness toward us: for more serious illnesses he applied the more serious remedy of penance, while lighter ones he cured with the easier medicine of sacrifice. But enough of this. Let these writers, and those who follow the third opinion, see how they can defend their case, since reason and truth itself prove that not only punishments but also venial guilt is remitted through the altar victim. I fear we have said too much in confirming the ninth argument. The tenth argument raises a very obscure question about the value of sacrifice. I understand that certain theologians, whom I see were considered very learned in the schools, approved some remarkable views on it. Yet nothing is so implausible that argument may not sometimes make it seem probable, especially to those who judge things by appearances and pursue Theology’s smoke with their clever tricks. Refuting their opinions about the value of the Mass would be long and tiresome. I will therefore briefly set out my own view, as far as needed to answer this argument. First, it must not be doubted that the value of the Mass is infinite in a certain respect—that is, in sufficiency, not in efficacy. For just as God’s virtue and power is sufficient to produce an infinite effect, since it is itself infinite, yet always produces a finite effect because no created thing can contain the infinite, so Christ’s blood, wherever it is found, whether on the Cross or on the altar, is of infinite price, since it is capable of making satisfaction for infinitely many people, if there were infinitely many. But since they are always finite in number, the effect is always finite, although the price of the blood has no limit. We have no dispute today about the victim of the Cross. But that the altar victim has infinite value has been clearly understood and known by two arguments. The first is

the argument we are now trying to refute. In the part where it teaches that the sacrifice is infinite because it presents to God blood of infinite price, it is difficult not to approve the force of that argument. The second argument is that if the value of the Mass were finite, ten people offering the sacrifice would make less satisfaction for the punishment due than if only two offered it. For if you divide any finite thing among ten people, each will receive a smaller share than if it were divided among only two. Thus, if ten people heard Mass, the value, divided among more, would be smaller for each of them than if only two were present at the sacrifice. Likewise, the more ministers who assist at a solemn sacrifice, whether at the altar or in the choir, the smaller share of the victim each would receive. Thus whoever joined me at Mass afterward, whether as a listener or assistant, would take away a share of its fruit and satisfaction from me. All of these consequences are plainly absurd. It follows that if two faithful people give a stipend and alms to a priest to offer a victim for them, the first will not receive less benefit from Christ’s blood than if no one had joined him afterward. In the same way, if someone were to offer that blood with Christ to the Father beside the Cross, he would gain no less if he were alone than if countless others were there at the same time, offering the same sacrifice with the Son. For the victim is the same on the Cross and at the altar, although there it is visible and here hidden in the mystery. Yet a priest cannot receive from many people, for one Mass, any payment he likes for his labor, but only enough to let him eat from the altar in moderation. He does not sell the fruit and merit of Christ’s blood, but hires out his labor and ministry. Therefore he can claim no more from many people than if the benefit were less for many than for one. Every opinion must agree that a priest, whether he celebrates for a few or for many, has a right to seek the food necessary for his life. If one person does not provide it, he does no one an injustice by seeking it from several. Indeed, you do him an injustice if you force the priest to offer the victim for you alone without providing him food. Prudence rather than Theology judges how much food of what kind a person needs. At one time and place an agennus coin will not be enough; at another it may be more than enough. Caietanus rightly warned that what we have said about the benefit of the sacrifice applies only to those who offer it. Those who do not offer it do not receive an equal share when it is offered for many as when it is offered for one alone. For example, if a priest freely offers the sacrifice for absent friends who have not invited him, I say it does not benefit many as much as it would benefit one if he offered it specifically for one of them. I am speaking of satisfaction; for the power of obtaining grace is no less in a sacrifice offered for many than in one offered for one alone. This is common to all prayers: their power to obtain is not diminished because they are poured out for many. But those who assist at and hear Mass, including those who provide the priest with food or in any way serve the sacrifice, truly offer the sacrifice and therefore each receives a share of that victim according to his devotion. Certainly, the closer an assisting cause of the sacrifice is joined to the principal cause, the more it satisfies for punishment: the priest more than the deacon, the deacon more than the subdeacon, the subdeacon more than the acolyte, the acolyte more than the hearer; and the person who has given the priest the food necessary for life surpasses both of these. They too will make greater satisfaction the more devoutly and religiously each performs his office. Such devotion and religion may be present in offering the sacrifice that the whole punishment due is resolved by a single offering. For if the sacrifice has infinite value, it does not follow that the whole punishment is always redeemed. For it is infinite in the genus

of a universal cause, which, though infinite, assisting causes ordinarily determine to finite effects—greater or smaller according to whether the power of the assisting causes is greater or smaller. We see this in the first cause of natural things: although it has infinite power in itself, it produces finite effects through secondary causes, effects as great and of such a kind as the power and nature of the assisting causes permit. The priest does not impose limits on the sacrifice by his merit and holiness but by his intention and application, by which he applies the power of the sacrifice for this or that person. Just as through the minister’s intention Christ’s blood is applied to baptized infants and a certain degree of grace is conferred—not the degree determined by the minister’s holiness but the one Christ willed to prescribe, for mortals do not know what degree it is—so, for those for whom the sacrifice is offered, if they do not offer it themselves as well, a certain degree of punishment is remitted, which we do not know but which Christ established by his will. As adults receive greater grace from baptism the more religiously and devoutly they receive it, so the person who offers the sacrifice more holily and fervently will receive greater benefit from it. In infants, the minister’s particular washing determines the power of the Cross to a certain degree of grace, which we believe is equal in all of them because their disposition is equal. In adults, however, since their dispositions are not the same but differ from person to person, different degrees of grace are conferred on different people. Thus the offering of an individual priest determines the universal and infinite power of the sacrifice either to a certain and equal remission of punishment in those who are disposed toward the sacrifice in the same way, or to unequal remission in those who, as assisting causes of the sacrifice, are affected differently—that is, well, better, or best. If Christ’s blood were ours as properly as each person’s own blood is his, then without doubt the whole punishment, however infinite, would be resolved by the offering of Christ’s blood. But, as we said, Christ’s blood is ours in the way the sun’s light is ours, namely, as a universal cause. Its power is received to a greater or lesser degree according to how much the subject is disposed and how much the assisting causes help bring about the effect. After this, there is no need to spend more words refuting the tenth argument. The eleventh argument deserved ridicule more than refutation: “But the Mass is ridiculous, especially since”—in such blindness and misery among people—“there is nothing for us to laugh at.” The first part of that argument is easily eluded. There is no contradiction; indeed, it is most fitting that we offer to an angered God the very thing by which we give thanks to him as our benefactor. The ancient Fathers used the same gifts—a bull, a sheep, or a lamb—to give thanks to God and to seek to appease him. In the same way, we return to God both propitiatorily and eucharistically the body and blood of Christ, gifts granted to us by divine donation. These writers are greatly mistaken in thinking the kinds of sacrifice are confused if one and the same offering is eucharistic and propitiatory. The three powers of the soul—vegetation, sensation, and understanding—are not confused when they exist eminently in one rational soul. It follows that if the many and varied sacrifices of the old Law have all passed into one sacrifice of the new Law, in which they are contained and excel, this is not a confused mixture of kinds but the perfect excellence of Christian sacrifice. We also see in morals that different kinds of virtues and vices can converge in one action when different ends are joined to it. The same act can be theft and sacrilege; the same can be mercy and religion. Nothing, then, prevents the same victim, when directed to different ends, from being both propitiatory and eucharistic.

We acknowledge God to be both merciful and just in the remission of sin, so that he remits sins freely and nevertheless remits them at a price. “Having been justified freely … through the redemption that is in Christ Iesu” (Rom. 3). And again: “You were bought with a great price” (1 Cor. 6). Christ gave us this price, and gave it freely, so that we might pay our debts. Therefore we give immense thanks both to the Son and to the Father; indeed, as we have said at times, we repay an equal gift for an equal one. Since this price, although received as a gift, is nevertheless ours, when we truly present it we redeem our sins and appease God with his own benefits. Irenaeus (Lib. 4, cap. 34) pursues this point in these words: “God, who needs nothing, takes our good works into himself so that he may give us the reward of his good things. As the Lord says, ‘Come, blessed ones,’ etc., … so he also gave the people the word to make offerings, although he did not need them … Thus he also wills us to offer a gift at the altar.” So far Irenaeus. And Celestinus I (In epist. ad omnes Galliarum episcopos) exclaims elegantly: “O the mercy of God, who wills our merits to be your gifts, and for the things you have generously bestowed, will give eternal rewards.” This was why Christ our Lord gave thanks at the very beginning of the Supper, taking bread and wine to distribute to the disciples. He himself was receiving what he gave, and therefore he gave thanks. In this way we both give thanks to God for the gift received and offer what we received for the redemption of our souls. Nearly all these points were explained in argument 2 for the first conclusion, in argument 3 for the second conclusion, and in the response to argument 5. The latter part of this eleventh argument was also sufficiently refuted in the response to argument 3. The reason the Eucharist is a sacrifice while the other sacraments are not is not the reason these people give, but that Christ’s body and blood truly remain in the Eucharist and do not remain in the other sacraments. Since we have such precious gifts in the Eucharist, we may rightly offer them to God and indeed must do so. There is no sacrifice without an offering. In the offering of the Eucharist Christ is also immolated mystically and without bloodshed; that is why there is a victim there, whereas there is none in the other sacraments. I say “properly,” for by metaphor baptism is sometimes called a victim. Let the blind and ignorant Lutherans depart, then; in this one example we have shown that they know nothing of any discipline: Theology, Philosophy, Dialectic, or Grammar. For they are ignorant not only of the thing itself but also of the word “sacrifice.”