And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Ver. 26. Jesus took bread] From bread and wine used by the Jews at the eating of the paschal lamb, without all command of Moses, but resting upon the common reason given by the Creator, Christ authorizeth a seal of his very flesh and blood. And as the householder, at the end of that solemn supper, blessed God, first, taking bread, and again, taking wine; so that we should not turn his seal into superstition, he followeth that plainness: ne miseri mortales, in istorum mysteriorum usu, in rebus terrestribus haereant et obstupescant, as Beza gives the reason. For which cause also, saith he, even in the old Liturgy they used to cry out to the people at the Lord's table, Sursum corda, Lift up your hearts; that is, Look not so much to the outward signs in the sacraments, but use them as ladders to mount you up to Christ in heaven. Ut in coelum usque ad Christum penetrarent. (Beza.)
This is my body] "This is" referred to bread by an anomaly of the gender (the like whereof we find, Eph 5:6), and so the apostle interpreteth it,1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:26. The sense then is, This bread is my true essential body, which is given for you: that is, by an ordinary metonymy, a b This bread is the sign of my body, as circumcision is called "the covenant," that is, the sign of the covenant, and seal of the righteousness of faith, Romans 4:11. And as Homer calls the sacrifices, covenants; c because thereby the covenants were confirmed. Virgil calleth it fallere dextras, to deceive the right hands, for to break the oath that was taken, by the taking of right hands, &c. Transubstantiation is a mere fiction; and the most learned Papists are not yet agreed whether the substance of the bread in this sacrament be turned into the substance of Christ's body productive, as one thing is made of another; or whether the bread goes away, and Christ's body comes into the room of it adductive, as one thing succeeds into the place of another, the first being voided. Suarez is for the first, Bellarmine for the latter sense. And yet because Luther and Calvin agree not upon the meaning of these words, "This is my body," the Jesuits cry out, Spiritus sanctus a seipso non discordat, Hoc interpretationes discordant, Ergo: for Luther interpreteth the words synecdochically, d Calvin metonymically, after Tertullian and Augustine; "This is my body," for this is a sign or figure of my body, a seal also to every faithful receiver, that Christ is his, with all his benefits.
a A figure of speech which consists in substituting for the name of a thing the name of an attribute of it or of something closely related. ŒD
b Τουτο refertur ad αρτος anomalia generis. Pasor.
c αυταρ κηρυκες αγαυοι ορκια πιστα θεων συναγον .
d A figure by which a more comprehensive term is used for a less comprehensive or vice versa; as whole for part or part for whole, genus for species or species for genus, etc. ŒD