Original Douay–Rheims Annotations1 Corinthians 11

My precepts.

Our Pastors and Prelates have authority to command, and we are bound to obey. And the Governers of the Church may take order and prescribe that which is comely in every state, as time and place require, though the things be not of the substance of our religion.

Every woman.

What gifts of God soever women have, though supernatural, as some had in the Primitive Church, yet they may not forget their womanly shamefastness, but shew themselves subject and modest, and cover their heads with a veil.

Custom.

^◦ If women or other, to defend their disorder & malapertness, dispute or allege Scriptures and reasons, or require causes of their preachers why & by what authority they should be thus restrained in things indifferent, make them no other answer but this: This is the custom of the Church, this is our custom. Which is a goodly rule to repress the sauciness of contentious janglers, which being out of all modesty and reason, never want words and replies against the Church. Which Church if it could then by prescription of twenty or thirty years, and by the authority of one or two of their first preachers, stop the mouths of the seditious: what should not the custom of fifteen hundred years, & the decrees of many hundred Pastors, gain of reasonable, modest, and humble men?

• ◦ The Custom of the Church, is a good answer against all wranglers.

There must be heresies

^[1] When the Apostle saith, Heresies must be: He sheweth the event, and not that God hath directly so appointed it as necessary. For, that they be, it cometh of man's malice and free-will: but that they be converted to the manifestation of the good and constant in faith & the Church's unity, that is God's special work of providence that worketh good of evil. And for that there should fall Heresies and Schisms, specially concerning the Article and use of the B. Sacrament of the Altar, whereof he now beginneth to treat, it may make us marvel the less, to see so great dissensions, Heresies, and Schisms of the wicked and weak in faith concerning the same. Such things then will be, but woe to him by whom scandals or Sects do come. ^[2] Let us use Heretics, saith S. Augustine, not to that end to approve their errors, but that by defending the Catholic doctrine against their deceits, we may be more watchful and wary: because it is most truly written, There must be heresies that the tried and approved may be manifested or discovered from the hollow hearts among you. Let us use this benefit of God's providence. For Heretics be made of such as would err or be naught, though they were in the Church: but being out, they profit us exceedingly, not by teaching the truth which they know not, but by stirring up the carnal in the Church to seek truth, and the spiritual Catholics, to clear the truth. For there be innumerable holy approved men in the Church, but they be not discerned from other among us, nor manifest, so long as we had rather sleep in darkness of ignorance, than behold the light of truth. Therefore many are raised out of their sleep by Heretics to see the day of God, and are glad thereof. August. c. 8. de vera relig.

• 1 That heresies shall come, and wherefore.
• 2 What commodity we may make of heresies.

Our Lord's supper.

The Christians at or about the time of the Church's only Sacrifice and their communicating thereof, kept great feasts: which continued long, for that the relief of the poor upon the common charges of the richer sort, and the charity and unity of all sorts were much preserved thereby, for which cause they were called ἀγάπαι ^{[1] [2]}, that is, Charities, of the ancient Fathers, and were kept commonly in Church houses or porches adjoining, or in the body of the Church ^[3] (whereof see Tertullian Apolog. c. 39. Clemens Alexand. S. Iustine, S. Augustine cont. Faust. li. 20. c. 20. ) after the Sacrifice and Communion was ended, as S. Chrysostom ho. 27. in 1. Cor. in initio judgeth. Those feasts S. Paul here calleth Coenas Dominicas, because they were made in the Churches which then were called Dominicæ, that is, Our Lord's houses. The disorder therefore kept among the Corinthians in these Church-feasts of Charity, the Apostle seeketh here to redress, from the foul abuses expressed here in the text. ^[4] And as S. Ambrose in hunc locum, and most good authors now think, this which he called Dominicam coenam, is not meant of the B. Sacrament, as the circumstances also of the text do give, namely, the rejecting of the poor, the rich men's private devouring of all, not expecting one another, gluttony and drunkenness in the same, which cannot agree to the holy Sacrament. And therefore the Heretics have small reason, upon this place, to name the said holy Sacrament, rather, the Supper of the Lord, than after the manner of the primitive Church, the Eucharist, Mass, or Liturgy. But by like they would bring it to the supper again or evening service, when men be not fasting, the rather to take away the old estimation of the holiness thereof.

• 1 Agapæ or suppers of charity.
• 2 Conc. Gang. can. 11.
• 3 Con. Laodic. can. 27, 28.
• 4 Whether the Apostle mean by our Lord's supper, the B. Sacrament.

I have delivered.

^[1] As all other parts of religion were first delivered by preaching and word of mouth to every Nation converted, so this holy order and use of the B. Sacrament was by S. Paul first given unto the Corinthians by tradition. ^[2] Unto which as received of our Lord he revoketh them by this Epistle, not putting in writing particularly all things pertaining to the order, use, and institution, as he afterward saith: but repeating the sum and substance thereof, and leaving the residue to his return. But his words and narration here written we will particularly prosecute, because the Heretics make profession to follow the same in their pretended reformation of the Mass.

• 1 Tradition without writing.
• 2 Whether the Catholics or Protestants do more imitate Christ's institution of the B. Sacrament.

In the night.

First the Adversaries may be here convinced that all the circumstances of time, person, & place which in Christ's action are noted, need not to be imitated. As, that the Sacrament should be ministered at night, to men only, to only twelve, after or at supper, & such like: because (as S. Cyprian ep. 63. nu. 7. & S. Augustine ep. 118. c. 6. note) there were causes of those accidents in Christ that are not now to be alleged for us. ^[1] He instituted then this holy act: we do not. He made his Apostles Priests, that is to say, gave them commission to do and minister the same: we do not. He would have this the last act of his life & within the bounds of his Passion: it is not so with us. He would eat and make an end of the Paschal to accomplish the old Law: that cannot be in our action. Therefore he must needs do it after supper and at night: we may not do so. He excluded all women, all the rest of his Disciples, all lay men: we invite all faithful, men & women. In many circumstances then, neither we may imitate Christ's first action, nor the Heretics as yet do: though they seem to incline by abandoning other names saving this (calling it Supper) to have it at night and after meat. Though (as is before noted) they have no just cause to call it so upon Christ's fact, seeing the Evangelists do plainly shew ^[2] that the Sacrament was instituted after Supper, as the Apostle himself here recordeth of the later part in express speech. And most men think, a long sermon and the washing of the Apostles' feet came between, yea and that the supper was quite finished, & grace said. But in all these and such like things, the Catholic Church only, by Christ's Spirit can tell, which things are imitable, which not, in all his actions.

• 1 All circumstances in our Saviour's action about the B. Sacrament, need not be imitated.
• 2 Io. 13, 2.

Took.

^[1] Christ took bread into his hands, applying this ceremony, action, and benediction to it, and did bless the very element, used power and active words upon it, as he did over the bread and fishes which he multiplied: and so doth the Church of God: ^[2] and so do not the Protestants, if they follow their own book and doctrine; but they let the bread & cup stand aloof, and occupy Christ's words by way of report and narration, applying them not at all to the matter proposed to be occupied: and therefore howsoever the simple people be deluded by the rehearsal of the same words which Christ used, yet consecration, benediction, or sanctification of bread and wine they profess they make none at all. At the first alteration of religion, there was a figure of the Cross at this word, He blessed: and at the word, He took, there was a gloss or rubric that appointed the Minister to imitate Christ's action, and to take the bread into his hands: afterward that was reformed and Christ's action abolished, and his blessing of bread turned to thanks-giving to God.

• 1 The Protestants imitate not Christ in blessing the bread and wine.
• 2 Luc. 9, 16.

Bread.

^◦ Christ made the holy Sacrament of unleavened bread, and all the Latin Church imitateth him in the same, as a thing much more agreeable to the signification both in itself and in our lives, than the leaven. Yet our Adversaries neither follow Christ, S. Paul, nor the west Church, in the same: but rather purposely make choice of that kind that is in itself more unseemly, and to the first institution less agreeable. In the other part of the Sacrament they contemn Christ and his Church much more impudently and damnably. For Christ and all the Apostles and all Catholic Churches in the world have ever mixed their wine with water, for great mystery and signification, specially for that water gushed together with blood out of our Lord's side. This our Lord did (saith S. Cyprian Ep. 63. ad Cecilium. nu: 4. 7. ) and none rightly offereth, that followeth not him therein. Thus Irenæus (li. 5. c. 1.) Iustine (Apolog. 2. in fine.) and all the Fathers testify the Primitive Church did; and in this sort it is done in all the Masses of the Greeks, S. James, S. Basils, S. Chrysostoms. And yet our Protestants pretending to reduce all to Christ, will not do as he did, and all the Apostles and Churches that ever were.

• ◦ They imitate him not in unleavened bread, and mingling water with wine.

This is.

^[1] These words being set down, not in the person of the Evangelists or Apostles, but expressed as in Christ's own person, to be said over the bread, and the like over the wine, are the forms of the Sacrament and words of consecration: neither is it a Sacrament but (as S. Augustine saith ^[2] ) when the words come, that is to say, actively and presently be applied to the elements of the same. Therefore the Protestants never applying these words more than the whole narration of the institution, nor reciting the whole (as is said) otherwise then in historical manner, (as if one would minister Baptism & never apply the words of the Sacrament to the child, but only read Christ's speeches of the same) make no Sacrament at all. And that these proper words be the only form of this Sacrament, and so to be spoken over or upon the bread and wine, S. Ambrose plainly and precisely writeth, recording how far the Evangelists' narrative words do go, and where Christ's own peculiar mystical words of consecration begin: and so the rest of the Fathers. Ambro. li. 4. de Sacr. c. 4. & c. 9. de init. Myster. Iusti. Apolog. 2. in fine. Cypr. de Cæn. Do. nu. 1. 2. Aug. Ser. 28. de verb. Do. sec. Mat. Tertul. li. 4. cont. Marc. Chrys. ho. 2. in 2. ad Tim. in fine. & ho. de prodit. Judæ. to. 3. Grego. Nyss. in orat. Catech. Damasc. li. 4. c. 14.

• 1 The words of consecration, to be said over the bread and wine, the which the Protestants do not.
• 2 tract. 80. in Io.

My body.

^◦ When the words of Consecration be by the said impiety of the Protestants, thus removed from the elements, no marvel if Christ's holy body and blood be not there, or that it is now no more a Sacrament, but common bread and wine. So they that unjustly charge the Cath. Church with defrauding the people of one piece of the Sacrament, have in very deed left no part nor spice of Sacrament, neither following Christ, as they pretend, nor S. Paul, nor any Evangelist, but their own detestable Sect, having boldly defaced the whole institution, not in any accidental indifferent circumstances, but in the very substance and all. The right name is gone, the due elements both gone, no blessing or consecration, or other action over them, the forms be gone: and consequently the body and blood, the Sacrament and the Sacrifice.

• ◦ The Protestants have taken away the B. Sacrament altogether.

This do.

^◦ By these words, authority and power is given to the Apostles, and by the like, in the Sacrament of Orders, to all lawful Priests only. No marvel then that the new heretical Ministers being lay men, give the people nothing but bare bread and wine, profane, naked, and natural elements void of Sacrament and all grace. See the Annotation upon S. Luke chap. 22, 19.

• ◦ The power to consecrate given to Priests only.

Take and eat.

This pertaineth to the receiving of those things which by consecration are present and sacrificed before: as when the people or Priests in the old Law did eat the hosts offered or part thereof, they were made partakers of the sacrifice done to God before. ^[1] And this is not the substance, or being, or making of the Sacrament or Sacrifice of Christ's body and blood: but it is the use and application to the receiver, of the things which were made and offered to God before. There is a difference betwixt the making of a medicine or the substance and ingredients of it, and the taking of it. Now the receiving being but a consequence or one of the ends why the Sacrament was made, & the mean to apply it unto us: ^[2] the Adversaries unlearnedly make it all and some, and therefore improperly name the whole Sacrament and ministration thereof, by calling it the Communion. Which name they give also rather than any other, to make the ignorant believe that many must communicate together: as though it were so called for that it is common to many. By which collusion they take away the receiving of the Priest alone, of the sick alone, of reserving the consecrated Host and the whole Sacrament. ^[3] Against which deceit, know that this part of the Mass is not called Communion, for that many should concur together always in the external Sacrament: but for that we do communicate or join in unity and perfect fellowship of one body, with all Christian men in the world, with all (we say) that eat it through the whole Church, and not with them only which eat with us at one time. And this fellowship riseth of that, that we be, every time we receive either alone or with company, partakers of that one body which is received throughout all the world. It is called communion (saith S. Damascene ^[4] ) & so indeed it is, for that by it we communicate with Christ, & be partakers of his flesh & divinity, & by it do communicate and are united one with another. Only let us take heed that we do not participate with heretics. And when the Apostle saith, that all be one bread and one body that are partakers of one Bread, he meaneth not of them only that communicate at one time and place: but that all be so, that communicate in unity through the whole Church. Then the name Communion is as ignorantly used of them, as the name of Supper.

• 1 The Sacrament consisteth not in the receiving.
• 2 Why the Protestants call it the Communion.
• 3 Communion, which is a part of the MASS what it signifieth.
• 4 li. 4. c. 14. de orthod. fide.

You shall shew.

^◦ Upon this word the Heretics fondly ground their false supposition, that this Sacrament cannot rightly be ministered or made without a sermon of the death of Christ: and that this and other Sacraments in the Church, be not profitable, when they be ministered in a strange language. As though the grace, force, operation, & activity, together with the instruction and representation of the things which they signify, were not in the very substance, matter, form, use, and work itself of every of the Sacraments: and as though preaching were not one way to shew Christ's Passion, and the Sacraments another way: namely this Sacrament, containing in the very kinds of the elements and the action, a most lively representation of Christ's death. As wisely might they say that neither Abel's sacrifice nor the Paschal lamb could signify Christ's death without a Sermon.

• ◦ How Christ's death is shewed by the B. Sacrament itself, without sermon or otherwise.

Guilty of the body.

^◦ First hereupon mark well, that ill men receive the body and blood of Christ, be they infidels or ill livers. For in this case they could not be guilty of that which they receive not. Secondly, that it could not be so heinous an offence for any man to receive a piece of bread or a cup of wine, though they were a true Sacrament. For it is a deadly sin to receive any Sacrament with will & intention to continue in sin, or without repentance of former sins: but yet by the unworthy receiving of no other Sacrament is man guilty of Christ's body and blood, but here, where the unworthy (as S. Chrysostom saith) doth villainy to Christ's own person, as the Jews or Gentiles did, that crucified it. Chrys. ho. de non contemn. Ec. &c. Ho. 60. & 61. ad po. Antioch. Which invincibly proveth against the Heretics that Christ is really present.

• ◦ The wicked receive the body & blood. The real presence is proved by the heinous offence of unworthy receiving.

Let him prove.

^◦ A man must examine his life diligently whether he be in any mortal sin, and must confess himself of every offence which he knoweth or feareth to be deadly, before he presume to come to the holy Sacrament. For so the Apostle's doctrine here, with the continual custom of the Cath. Church and the Fathers' example, bind him to do. Cypr. de laps. nu. 7. Aug. Eccl. dog. c. 53.

• ◦ Confession before receiving the B. Sacrament.

Not discerning the body.

^[1] That is, because he putteth no difference nor distinction betwixt this high meat and others. And therefore S. Augustine saith ep. 118. c. 3. that it is he that the Apostle saith shall be damned, that doth not by singular veneration or adoration make a difference between this meat and all others. And again in Psal. 98. No man eateth it before he adore it. And S. Ambrose li. 3. c. 12. de Sp. San. We adore the flesh of Christ in the Mysteries. S. Chrysostome ho. 24 in 1. Cor. We adore him on the altar, as the Sages did in the manger. S. Nazianzene in Epitaph. Gorgoniæ. My sister called on him which is worshipped upon the altar. Theodorete Dial. 2. Inconf. The Mystical tokens be adored. S. Denys, this Apostle's scholar, made solemn invocation of the Sacrament after Consecration. Ecclesiast. Hier. c. 3. part. 3. in princip. and before the receiving, the whole Church of God cryeth upon it, ^[2] Domine non sum dignus, Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori. Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. ^[3] And for better discerning of this divine meat, we are called from common profane houses to God's Church: for this, we are forbidden to make it in vulgar apparel, and are appointed sacred solemn vestiments. Hiero. in Epitaph. Nepot. & li. 2. adv. Pelag. c. 9. Paulinus ep. 12. ad Sever. Io. Diaco. in vit. D. Greg. li. 3. c. 59. For this, is the hallowing of Corporals and Chalices, Ambr. 2. Off. c. 28. Nazianz. Orat. ad Arianos. Optatus li. 6. in initio. For this, profane tables are removed and altars consecrated: August. Ser. de temp. 255. For this, the very Priests themselves are honorable, chaste, sacred, Hiero. ep. 1. ad Heliodorum c. 7. Li. 1. adv. Iovin. c. 19. Ambros. in 1. Tim. 3. For this, the people is forbidden to touch it with common hands. Nazianz. orat. ad Arianos in initio. For this, great care and solicitude is taken that no part of either kind fall to the ground, Cyril. Hieros. mystag. 5. in fine. Orig. ho. 13. in c. 25. Exod. For this, sacred provision is made that if any hosts or parts of the Sacrament do remain unreceived, they be most religiously reserved with all honour and diligence possible. And for this, examination of consciences, confession, continency, & (as S. Augustine saith ^[4] ) receiving it fasting. Thus do we Catholics and the Church of God discern the holy Body and blood by S. Paul's rule, ^[5] not only from your profane bread and wine (which not by any secret abuse of your Curates or Clerks, but by the very order of your book, the Minister, if any remain after your Communion, may take home with him to his own use, and therefore is no more holy by your own judgement than the rest of his meats) but from all other either vulgar or sanctified meats, as ^[6] the Catechumens' bread, and our usual holy bread ^[7]. If all this be plain and true, and you have nothing agreeable to the Apostles' nor Christ's institution, but all clean contrary: then imperet vobis Deus and confound you for not discerning his holy Body, and for conculcating the blood of the new Testament.

• 1 Adoration of the B. Sacrament.
• 2 * See the Annot. Mat. 8, 8.
• 3 The manifold honour and discerning of Christ's body in the Cath. Church.
• 4 ep. 118, c. 6.
• 5 The profane bread of the Protestants.
• 6 * Aug. de pec. merit. li. 2. c. 26. Ep. Iude.
• 7 Holy bread.

Many sleep.

^◦ We see here by this, it is a fearful case and crime to defile by sin (as much as in us lieth) the body of Christ in the Sacrament. Seeing God strook many to death for it in the Primitive Church, and punished others by grievous sickness. No marvel that so many strange diseases and deaths fall upon us now in the world.

• ◦ Unworthy receiving.

Judge your-selves.

^◦ We may note here that it is not enough, only to sin no more, or to repent lightly of that which is past: but that we should punish ourselves according to the weight of the faults past and forgiven: and also that God will punish us by temporal scourges in this life or the next, if we do not make our-selves very clean before we come to receive his holy Sacrament. Whose heavy hands we may escape by punishing our-selves by fasting and other penance.

• ◦ Penance and satisfaction.

Expect one another.

Returning now to their former fault and disorder for the which he took this occasion to talk of the holy Sacrament, and how great a fault it is to come unworthily to it: he exhorteth them to keep their said suppers or feasts in unity, peace, and sobriety, the rich expecting the poor, &c.

I will dispose.

^[1] Many particular orders & decrees, more than be here or in any other book of the new Testament expressly written, did the Apostles, as we see here, and namely S. Paul to the Corinthians, set down by tradition, which our whole ministration of the Mass is agreeable unto, as the substance of the Sacrifice and Sacrament is by the premises proved to be most consonant: Calvin's supper and Communion in all points wholly repugnant to the same. And that it agreeth not to these other not written traditions, they easily confess. The ^[2] Apostles delivered unto the Church to take it only fasting: they care not for it. The Apostles taught the Church to consecrate by the words and the sign of the Cross, without which (saith S. Augustine tract. in Io. 118. Ser. 75.

in append. Chrys. ho. 55. in 16. Mat.) no Sacrament is rightly perfited: the Protestants have taken it away. The Apostles taught the Church to keep ^[3] a Memory or invocation of Saints in this Sacrifice: the Calvinists have none. The Apostles decreed that in this Sacrifice there should be special prayers for the dead, Chrys. ho. 3. in ep. ad Philip. Aug. de cur. pro mort. c. 1: they have none. Likewise that water should be mixed with the wine, and so forth. See Annot. in c. 11. v. 23. Bread. Therefore if Calvin had made his new administration according to all the Apostle's written words, yet not knowing how many things beside, the Apostle had to prescribe in these words, Cætera cum venero disponam. (the rest I will dispose, when I come) he could not have satisfied any wise man in his new change. But now seeing they are fallen to so palpable blindness, that their doing is directly opposite to the very Scripture also, which they pretend to follow only, and have quite destroyed both the name, substance, and all good accidents of Christ's principal Sacrament, we trust all the world will see their folly and impudency.

• 1 The Mass is agreeable to the Apostles' use and tradition: the Communion is not.
• 2 Aug. ep. 118. c. 6.
• 3 Aug. tract 84. in Io. & Chrys. ho. 21. in Act.