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690 - 750 AD
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 4, ch. 13.
St. John Damascene was born in Damascus in 690
AD. After spending some time as a Christian official in the court of the Muslim
khalif, he resigned that office, and went to be a monk in the monastery of St.
Sabbas near Jerusalem where he studied and wrote most of his life.
Translation by Rev. Salmon, the Post-Nicene Fathers, vol IX, Series
II, Aberdeen 1898. The full text is available on the
Internet.
Chapter 13. Concerning the holy and immaculate Mysteries
of the Lord.
[The eucharist is spiritual food]
“ . . . . Now seeing that this Adam is spiritual,
it was meet that both the birth and likewise the food should be spiritual too,
but since we are of a double and compound nature, it is meet that both the
birth should be double and likewise the food compound. We were therefore given
a birth by water and Spirit: I mean, by the holy baptism: and the food is the
very bread of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven. For when
he was about to take on himself a voluntary death for our sakes, on the night
on which he gave himself up, he laid a new covenant on his holy disciples and
apostles, and through them on all who believe on him. In the upper chamber,
then, of holy and illustrious Sion, after he had eaten the ancient Passover
with his disciples and had fulfilled the ancient covenant, he washed his
disciples' feet in token of the holy baptism. Then having broken bread he gave
it to them saying, Take, eat, this is my body broken for you for the remission
of sins. Likewise also he took the cup of wine and water and gave it to them
saying, Drink ye all of it: for this is my blood, the blood of the New
Testament which is shed for you for the remission of sins. This do ye in
remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do
shew the death of the Son of man and confess his resurrection until he come.
[The Eucharist comes about by the invisible work of the Spirit, just as
the Incarnation in Mary happened through the Spirit]
If then the Word of God is quick and energising, and the
Lord did all that he willed; if he said, Let there be light and there was
light, let there be a firmament and there was a firmament; if the heavens were
established by the Word of the Lord and all the host of them by the breath of
his mouth; if the heaven and the earth, water and fire and air and the whole
glory of these, and, in truth, this most noble creature, man, were perfected by
the Word of the Lord; if God the Word of his own will became man and the
pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever-virginal One made his flesh
without the aid of seed, can he not then make the bread his body and the wine
and water his blood? He said in the beginning, Let the earth bring forth
grass, and even until this present day, when the rain comes it brings forth its
proper fruits, urged on and strengthened by the divine command. God said, This
is my body, and This is my blood, and this do ye in remembrance of me. And so
it is at his omnipotent command until he come: for it was in this sense that he
said until he come: and the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit becomes
through the invocation the rain to this new tillage. For just as God made all
that he made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now the energy of the
Spirit performs those things that are supernatural and which it is not possible
to comprehend unless by faith alone. ‘How shall this be?’, said
the holy Virgin, ‘seeing I know not a man?’ And the archangel Gabriel
answered her: ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee.’ And now you ask, how the bread became
Christ's body and the wine and water Christ's blood. And I say unto thee,
‘The Holy Spirit is present and does those things which surpass reason and
thought.’
[The Eucharist uses ordinary symbols]
Further, bread and wine are employed: for God knoweth
man's infirmity: for in general man turns away discontentedly from what is not
well-worn by custom: and so with his usual indulgence he performs his
supernatural works through familiar objects: and just as, in the case of
baptism, since it is man's custom to wash himself with water and anoint himself
with oil, he connected the grace of the Spirit with the oil and the water and
made it the water of regeneration, in like manner since it is man's custom to
eat and to drink water and wine, he connected his divinity with these and made
them his body and blood in order that we may rise to what is supernatural
through what is familiar and natural.
[The mystery of the Eucharist, like that of the Incarnation, is the work
of the Spirit]
The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth
body united with divinity, not that the body which was received up into the
heavens descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God's
body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you to
learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as the Lord took on himself
flesh that subsisted in him and was born of the holy Mother of God through the
Spirit. And we know nothing further save that the Word of God is true and
energises and is omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out.
. . . .
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