The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist κατ' οὐσίαν. On the interpretation and the source of a fragment from the Homily of George Scholarios and its impact on the Eucharistic doctrine of the Greek Orthodox Church

Abstract

The Homily On the mystical body of our Lord Jesus Christ by George Gennadios II — Scholarios (ca. 1400 — paulo post 1472) was the first original Orthodox theological text to use the word μετουσίωσις (transubstantiatio) as an ex professo Eucharistic term and to adopt the doctrine associated with it. In this paper I propose a new reading of the fragment, in which Scholarios writes that God communicates with the faithful in the Eucharist by substance (κατ’ οὐσίαν). I argue that this fragment was a paraphrase of the third paragraph of chapter 61, book four of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa contra gentiles and should not be interpreted in the context of Palamite theology as has been proposed hitherto. I find support for my case in the manuscript Taurinensis XXIII (C-II-16), a compilation encouraged by Scholarios in 1432 and which contained the translation of the Summa contra gentiles by Demetrios Kydones. In addition, I outline the post Scholarium history of the expression κατ’οὐσίαν (secundum substantiam), which played a key role for the later development of the Eucharistic doctrine of the Orthodox Church in the post-Byzantine period.

1. A Fragment to be interpreted

The Homily On the mystical body of our Lord Jesus Christ ² was the first original Orthodox theological text to use the word ‘transubstantiation’ (Greek μετουσίωσις, Latin transsubstantiatio) as an ex professo Eucharistic term and to adopt the doctrine associated with it. Its author, Georgios Scholarios (ca. 1400 — paulo post 1472), the future Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadios, in chapter 4 compared the Eucharist with the other Sacraments and wrote:

2. Earlier interpretations

In 2008 Aleksey Dunaev in a paper on Eucharistic theology in the context of the Palamite controversies argued that this passage should be interpreted in the context of Palamite theology. According to this interpretation, Scholarios does not suggest, like Theophanes of Nicaea (d. 1381), that communion with God in the Eucharist is possible only through energy (operation) but, on the contrary, states that this sacrament enables one to communicate with God by substance indirectly — through the Body and Blood of Christ. Accordingly, the Eucharist surpasses all other sacraments.⁵ In Dunaev's opinion, Scholarios reverts to the doctrine of John Damascene⁶ on communicating with the divine nature in the Eucharist⁷ and does not share the energy-symbolic theology of the Eucharist which is the mark of such followers of Gregory Palamas as Theophanes of Nicaea and Philotheos Kokkinos.⁸ On this way of thinking, Gennadios’ use of the verb κοινωνεῖν, the noun δύναμις, and the adverbial κατ’ οὐσίαν, combined with the absence of traces of Palamism in his early works⁹ makes the interpretation of this passage in the context of partaking of divine essence attractive. However, I propose another reading of this passage.

3. A new source for the Homily

Martin Jugie, the editor of Scholarios’ works, has established that one of the sources used in the Homily was the treatise De sacramento Eucharistiae ad modum praedicamentorum, attributed to Thomas Aquinas.¹⁰ The treatise expounds the Eucharistic theology of Aquinas in the light of the ten Aristotelian categories. Apparently, it was the form of exposition that determined its choice as a basis for the Homily by an Aristotelianizing Scholarios. The latter had first discovered Aquinas as a commentator on Aristotle. In the early 1430s he opened a school in which the philosophy of the Stagirite was taught, and he would later call Aquinas ‘the best exegete and summarizer (συνόπτης) of Christian theology on those matters where his Church is in agreement with ours’.¹¹

The first part of the passage cited is to be found in chapter 4 of Scholarios’ Homily. It reflects a traditional Patristic interpretation of the life-giving character of the Eucharist: this Sacrament is life-giving, because the Body of Christ being partaken of has already been joined in a hypostatic communion with the Divine nature. This interpretation goes as far back as Cyril of Alexandria. The opening part of the fragment follows closely the beginning of chapter 6 of the treatise of ps.-Thomas where the sacrament is approached in its relation to the category of ‘action’ (actio – making changes in another object).¹² In order to demonstrate how close the borrowed text is to the original version, and to give a reader an overview of the contents of chapter 4 of the Homily, I will compare the passages¹³ and provide a translation of the text by Scholarios:

Let us concentrate now on the second part of the passage under consideration. It tells us that in the Eucharist the Lord communicates with communicants by substance (κατ’ οὐσίαν), and not by power (κατὰ δύναμιν), as in Baptism. The endings of the chapters differ such that one can find no parallels to this passage in the treatise of pseudo-Thomas. However, I have managed to establish that this place is a paraphrase of the third paragraph of chapter 61, book 4 of Aquinas’ Summa contra gentiles.¹⁶

Scholarios’ use of this paraphrase at the end of chapter 4 of the Homily was quite justified both in the aspects of composition and theology. Just as chapter 6 of the treatise by ps.-Thomas and chapter 4 of the Homily by Scholarios (see the extracts tabulated), chapter 61 On the Eucharist of SG deals mostly with this Sacrament interpreted as necessary spiritual nourishment — as corporal food is needed for physical life — for spiritual life after Baptism (wherein we are regenerated spiritually). But the treatise by pseudo-Thomas, unlike SG, did not compare the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist and did not explain where the main difference between the two lay.

It is well known that in November 1432 Scholarios encouraged the compilation of the manuscript Taurinensis XXIII (C-II-16),¹⁷ which contains the SG's translation in Greek by Demetrios Kydones (1354), and that Gennadios was its first owner.¹⁸ The Homily on the Eucharist was written probably after 1432 and before he attended the Council of Florence in 1438. So we might seek support for our findings in the manuscript Taur. XXIII (C-II-16), and I shall argue that we should.¹⁹ Let us compare the passage of the Homily with the Latin text of SG. Lib. 4, cap. 61, n. 3 and the corresponding Greek text of SG's translation by Kydones. In addition, we have included in the table below the evidence from the epitome of SG's translation by Kydones, which Scholarios produced some time between 1454 and 1464,²⁰ several decades after the Homily on the Eucharist was written. ²¹

The text of the Homily

Ὢ μυστηρίου πάντων μυστηρίων ἱερωτάτου καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ὑπερβαίνοντος· δι’ ἐκείνου μὲν γὰρ ἡμῖν ὁ δεσπότης κατὰ δύναμιν μόνην, διὰ δὲ τούτου κατ’ οὐσίαν ἡμῖν κοινωνεῖ.

Now the idea formulated by Scholarios in a more condensed form in comparison to his Latin source becomes clear: in the Eucharist Jesus Christ communicates with the faithful by substance of his body and by substance of blood because of their respective presence in the holy sacrament by substance as it follows from the Thomist doctrine of transubstantiation adopted by Gennadios. It is no coincidence that the passage in which we are interested is followed by a rhetorical exclamation that expresses admiration for the miracle of transubstantiatio: ‘O miracle that surpasses all miracles! O transubstantiation, miracle most wonderful and pleasing for those enlightened by faith!’²⁵

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Here I would like to take our research out of the narrow philological field and point out that in the homily not only does Scholarios adopt in the Homily the formula κατ’ οὐσίαν, he also relates in Greek the teaching which laid behind this formula in Thomism. What this teaching is we will briefly demonstrate in section 4 and examine certain synonyms of the formula, which are also used in the homily after SG and the treatise of ps.-Thomas. And in section 5 we will show that this reception did not remain exclusively in the manuscripts of Scholarios’ works but influenced post-Byzantine Orthodox teaching on the Eucharist: the formula κατ’ οὐσίαν and the associated doctrine were appealed to by the Orthodox Church from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and included in conciliar decrees.

4. The concept of the presence of Christ by substance (secundum substantiam) in Thomist Eucharistic doctrine

According to Thomistic doctrine,²⁶ in the Eucharist the substance of bread is transformed into the substance of the body of Christ, and the substance of wine into the substance of His blood. Simultaneously the accidents of bread and wine continue their individual being through divine power but without their subjects, i.e. the substances of bread and wine.²⁷ As a result of this transformation the body of Christ, His soul and divinity are present in the Eucharist in two ways.

First, by virtue of the sacrament (ex vi sacramenti) as it follows from its form — the words of the Saviour: ‘This is My body’ and ‘This is My blood’. After the consecration only the substances of the body and the blood without their accidents²⁸ (and without soul and divinity) are present under the accidents of bread and wine.

Second, by real concomitance (ex vi reali concomitantia) the Sacrament also contains what is really conjoined (illud quod realiter est coniunctum) with the substances of the body and the blood, i.e., the soul of Christ, His Divinity²⁹ and the accidents of His body and blood including the primary accident of ‘measurable quantity’ (quantitas dimensiva) that is responsible for a body's extension in space. Through this primary accident all other accidents have their individual being in a subject. Thus totus Christus is present in the Eucharist.

However, the body of Christ, according to Aquinas, is not present in the Sacrament as ‘in a place’ (in loco, localiter), with its own dimensions (dimensiones) and in the mode of its quantity (non per modum quantitatis), as in heaven; it is not present there physically, but rather mystically, namely — in the mode of its substance (per modum substantiae) or by substance (secundum substantiam).³⁰ In other words dimensions and accidents of the body of Christ are not present in the Sacrament in the mode of their own being, i.e., ‘as whole in whole and singular parts in singular parts’ (totum in toto et singulae partes in singulis partibus), but rather indirectly — in the mode of substance, by substance; its nature is to be whole in whole and whole in some of the parts (cuius natura est tota in toto et tota in qualibet parte).³¹

Thus the main conclusions of the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas are as follows: the body of Christ does not occupy more place in the Eucharist than the size of bread and wine under which it is present there in its substance; the breaking of the bread does not attain to the glorified and imperishable body of Christ³² but only applies to a measurable quantity of bread; totus Christus is present in every part of the Sacrament; the Eucharistic presence by substance makes it possible for the same true body of Christ which is in Heaven with its dimensions to be present in numerous churches at the same time.

It is noteworthy that the expression secundum substantiam — reflected in Scholarios’ κατ’ οὐσίαν — is used by Aquinas together with its synonym substantialiter only in the SG. Apart from the passage from chapter 61 cited above, it was also used in chapter 63 (n12) of book 4 of the SG. In the ST and Commentaries on the ‘Sentences’ by Peter Lombard, Aquinas discusses the presence of the Body of Christ with its accidents in the Sacrament using the expressions: per modum substantiae,³³ mediante substantia,³⁴ ratione substantiae.³⁵ In the treatise by pseudo-Thomas the expressions ‘ex substantia consequente et mediante’ (cap.8) and mediante substantia (cap.10) are used when its author deals with the presence of the quantity and the accidents of the body in the Sacrament. A parallel to this may be found in the Homily of Scholarios (ch.10):

5. The adoption of the formula and the Thomistic concept of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist κατ’ οὐσίαν in the post-Byzantine theology (XVI–XVII с.)

The source analysis of the collection of Scholarios’ homilies and the identification of all parallels with the Thomist corpus must be a task for the future. However, it may be proposed that the homilies were composed between 1432 and 1438 under the overwhelming influence of the Corpus Thomisticum. We may note borrowing from SG (Lib. 4, cap. 39) in the homily on the Annunciation.³⁷ Recently, the dependence on Aquinas’ Summa theologiae has been convincingly demonstrated by Demetracopoulos in Scholarios’ Homily on Almsgiving.³⁸

However, the case of borrowing from SG in the Homily on the Eucharist stands apart, because, as noted above, this borrowing came to be in great demand in post-Byzantine Orthodox theology. The Orthodox Church was drawn into the Catholic polemic with Protestantism, one of the main points of which was the doctrine of transubstantiation. As we will see below, the reception of Thomist doctrine took place in two stages:

1. 1) In the sixteenth century an abridged version of the Homily was composed;

2. 2) In the seventeenth century that abridged version was published and used as a source for the decrees of the council of Jerusalem (1672) and the council of Constantinople (1691) along with the authorization of the word μετουσίωσις.

5.1. An abridged and revised version of the Homily (XVI c.)

This abridged and revised version was first published in 1690 under the name of Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople.³⁹ It appeared in print by the efforts of Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem within a volume which contains two separate works: Refutation of Calvinist chapters and questions of Cyril Lucaris, composed by a major post-Byzantine Greek theologian Meletiοs Syrigos (1585–1663), and Enchiridion against Calvinist insanity by Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem.⁴⁰ The Meletios’ treatise is the largest one in the volume. Therefore, Eusèbe Renaudot made the erroneous assumption that the abridged version of Scholarios’ Homily was derived from Meletios Syrigos.⁴¹

In reality, this version was a part of Dositheos’ Enchiridion against Calvinist Insanity and was included by him as evidence for the use of the word μετουσίωσις by Church Fathers and writers. In Syrigos’ work there is no mention of Scholarios at all. Moreover, the earliest manuscript of this version of the Homily Vat. gr. 1724 dates to the sixteenth century. Another manuscript Jerusalem. Patriarchikê bibliothêkê. Panagiou Taphou. 111, can be dated according the colophons to 1588–1603, and the piece of the codex, which contains an abridged version, to 1603 specifically. The Vatican and Panagiou Taphou manuscripts are closely related: in both of them an abridged version of the Homily is accompanied by an excerpt from De ecclesiastica hierarchia of ps.-Dionysios the Areopagite. We must note here that this version of the Homily appears to be not just an abridgement of Scholarios’ original work, but contains some new material specific to anti-Protestant polemic in the sixteenth century.

The abridged version sets out to retell ‘briefly and clearly’ (σύντομον καὶ σαφές) Scholarios’ Homily on his behalf. Having said that the sacrament of the Eucharist surpasses all other God's miracles, including the Incarnation, the unknown author then proceeds to the question that perplexes heretics and the ignorant, namely: how the instant transformation of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of the body of the Lord (εἰς τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ σώματος) takes place; why after the transformation of the substance of bread into the substance of the Body the accidents of bread remain,⁴² so that the accidents of bread have their being without the substance of bread, while the true substance of the body is hidden behind accidents of another substance; how it is possible that whole Christ is present in a small amount of visible bread; how the mystical body of Christ remains undamaged although it is divided, and each of the parts [of the bread] is the whole and perfect body of Christ; and finally, the ultimate problem — how the same body of Christ can be in heaven and on numerous altars on earth at the same time.⁴³

Referring the readers to the full version of the Homily in order to learn about those questions in more detail, the unknown author then addresses them:

As we can see, the passage from Scholarios’ Homily is interpreted as stating that Christ is present in the Eucharist by substance (κατ’ οὐσίαν) of His body and blood and adds the rejection of Christ's presence in the Sacrament by grace or by power (κατὰ χάριν ἢ δύναμιν) in the context of anti-Calvinist polemic.

5.2. The formula κατ’ οὐσίαν in the decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) and the Synod of Constantinople (1691)

In the seventeenth century the doctrine of the Eucharist stood at the centre of theological debate linked with polemics against Protestants and pro-Protestant Orthodox authors. The most famous of the latter was Cyril I Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople (1570/72–1638), the author of the Eastern Confession of Christian Faith published in 1629 in Latin and in 1633 in Greek. The ideas of Lucaris — who rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and believed in the true presence of Christ in a ‘spiritual’ sense, ‘according to faith’⁴⁷ — were condemned by several Synods of Orthodox Churches in the seventeenth century, whose activity was not only determined by the struggle for dogmatic purity, but also had political reasons. Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem, the editor of the abridged version of Scholarios’ Homily on the Eucharist, was an organizer of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) and the Synod of Constantinople (1691).

The Synod of Jerusalem approved Dositheos’ Confession of Orthodox Faith.⁴⁸ The central chapter 17 of the Confession was dedicated to the Eucharist and the defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Here the Synod officially supported the Catholic Church and adopted the doctrine of transubstantiation. Scholarios’ Homily in its abridged version evidently was among this chapter's sources: the statement of the real presence of the whole Christ by substance (κατ’ οὐσίαν) was included, a correct Thomistic interpretation of which is possible thanks to the material presented in this paper:

Also [we believe] that every part and particle of consecrated bread and wine contain not a part of the Body and Blood of the Lord but by substance the entire whole Lord Christ, that is, with Soul and Divinity (ἀλλ’ ὅλον ὁλικῶς τὸν δεσπότην Χριστὸν κατ’ οὐσίαν, μετὰ ψυχῆς δηλονότι καὶ θεότητος), or perfect God and perfect man.⁴⁹

In due course the Synod of Constantinople was formally convoked in 1691 by Kallinikos II Akarnan, Patriarch of Constantinople (1630–1702), but in reality Dositheos was behind it. This Synod condemned the Great Logothete Ioannes Karyophilles (ca. 1600 — after 1693), who adhered to Calvinist views and rejected the word ‘transubstantiation’ (μετουσίωσις) in the Orthodox teaching on the Eucharist, as a Latin novelty alien to the Church Fathers. The dogmatic part of the decree was a verbatim quotation of the Confession of Orthodox Faith by Dositheos.

Moreover, in every part and particle of consecrated bread and wine is contained not a part of the Body and Blood of the Lord but by substance the entire whole Lord Christ, that is, with Soul and Divinity (ἀλλ’ ὅλον ὁλικῶς τὸν δεσπότην Χριστὸν κατ’ οὐσίαν, μετὰ ψυχῆς δηλονότι καὶ θεότητος), or perfect God and perfect man…

The Church has taken advantage of this [word μετουσίωσις], since it differs from ambiguous words and surpasses all the sophisms of heretics against the sacrament [Eucharist], having borrowed it not from the Latins, but many years before that (πρὸ χρόνων πολυαριθμήτων) from their own and true Orthodox teachers enriched by this word], as can be seen from the writings of the defender of piety, the Lord Gennadios, patriarch of Constantinople, who in the face of the Orthodox emperors, pious patriarchs, the holy Senate and the teachers of our Orthodoxy came out in defense of the sacred sacrament by means of the same word [μετουσίωσις], already known and recognized by the Church [by his time].⁵⁰

However, this time Dositheos, who was obviously the author of the decree, directly points to Scholarios as an Orthodox source for the dogmatic doctrine of transubstantiation and real concomitance. This was an anti-historical trick on the part of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and he sought here to take advantage of Scholarios’ fame as the leader of the anti-Uniate party after the death of Mark of Ephesus in 1444. In 1690 Dositheos published the abridged version of the Scholarios’ Homily and in 1691 could refer to it in the decree.

In this way the result of Scholarios’ fascination with Thomism in 1430s played a key role in the later development of the Eucharistic doctrine of the Orthodox Church in the post-Byzantine period and was acceptable to local Orthodox Councils in the seventeenth century.

* * *

Let me sum up. In this paper I have established Aquinas’ Summa contra gentiles as a source for Scholarios’ Homily on the Eucharist and outlined the history of the meaning of the term κατ’ οὐσίαν, derived from the Latin secundum substantiam in Eastern Orthodox theology. The results of this study once again show the need for a new critical edition of Scholarios’ works, accompanied by the parallels from Latin sources.⁵¹ The historical and theological analysis of his works in the context of events relating, in particular, to the Council of Florence will allow us in the future to clarify the dating of works and the evolution of George Gennadios II Scholarios as a theologian.