Transubstantiation. The meaning of the theological term transubstantiation is made apparent in the following canon of the Council of Trent: 'If any one shall say that, in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there remains the substance of bread and wine together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the species of bread and wine alone remaining—which conversion the Catholic Church most fittingly calls Transubstantiation—let him be anathema' (Conc. Trid. Sess. xiii. Can. 2). The canon just quoted was intended as a condemnation of the theories of impanation and consubstantiation. According to the theory of impanation, which was advocated chiefly by Osiander, in the sacrament of the Eucharist the bread and wine are hypostatically or personally assumed by the Divine Word. According to the theory of consubstantiation, which was favoured by the large majority of the Lutherans, the substance of the bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but without being hypostatically assumed.
The doctrine of transubstantiation is then an article of Roman Catholic faith. Furthermore, the Council of Trent in the same Session xiii. declares that this doctrine 'has always been the conviction in the church of God.' Protestant divines call in question the truth of this declaration, and assert that the doctrine was unknown before the middle ages. Roman Catholic theologians on the other hand, while admitting that the term transubstantiation is comparatively new, profess their ability to prove by a catena of witnesses, commencing with the earliest ages of the church, that the doctrine conveyed by the term has been believed from the first. That the term is comparatively new is unquestionable. Cardinal Franzelin, indeed (De Eucharistia, page 177), gives instances of its use by Catholic writers in the 11th and 12th centuries. Nevertheless it was not formally adopted into the doctrinal phraseology of the church before 1215, when it was employed in a profession of faith drawn up by the fourth Lateran Council. After this period we find the term again employed in a 'confession of faith' which was presented for subscription to Michael Palæologus, the Greek emperor, by Pope Clement IV. (1267), and was professed by the emperor in the second Ecumenical Council of Lyons held in 1274 under Pope Gregory X.
That the doctrine conveyed by the term transubstantiation is at least much older than the term all historians must admit. Berengarius of Tours, who had attacked the prevalent teaching on the Eucharist, was required by a council held in Rome under Pope Gregory VII. (1079) to make the following profession of faith: 'I, Berengarius, believe in my heart, and profess with my lips, that the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are substantially changed into the true and proper and life-giving flesh of our Lord Jesus.' And in the largely attended council held at Piacenza (1095), seven years after the death of Berengarius, it was once more declared that 'the bread and wine, when they are consecrated upon the altar, are truly and essentially changed into the body and blood of our Lord.' In a treatise On the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, written by Paschasius Radbertus (831), the author very plainly stated the doctrine of transubstantiation. Some of the views expressed in this treatise were traversed by Rabanus Maurus, Ratramnus, and other contemporary writers; but the author's teaching on transubstantiation was challenged by no one.
It is admitted, with more or less of unanimity, that from the days of Paschasius Radbertus down to the period of the Reformation the doctrine of transubstantiation was in general acceptance. But when the inquiry turns upon the belief of the early fathers this unanimity disappears. Catholic theologians assert that the expressions employed by the Greek and Latin fathers, when treating of the effect of the Eucharistic consecration on the substance of the bread and the wine, are irreconcilable with any theory but transubstantiation. Leibnitz is disposed to grant the truth of this contention. 'The records of pious antiquity,' he writes, 'plainly enough demonstrate that the bread is changed into the body, and the wine into the blood of Christ; the ancients, too, universally acknowledged therein a change of substance, which the Latins have aptly rendered transubstantiation' (System of Theology). But in making this concession Leibnitz parts company with the great majority of Protestant divines. The latter contend that the change indicated by the language of the fathers is not a change in the substance of the elements, but a change in their use, efficacy, and dignity.
Transubstantiation is a doctrine not only of the Roman Catholic, but also of the Greek Church. In 1643, as a protest against the Calvinist 'Confession of Faith,' which had been drawn up by Cyril Lucaris, and circulated amongst the Christians of the East, and with the view of preventing any further attempts to unite the Reformed and Greek churches, a 'Profession of Orthodox Faith' was formulated by Peter Mogilas, archbishop of Kieff and primate of all Russia, and was subscribed by Parthenius, patriarch of Constantinople, Joannicius, patriarch of Alexandria, Macarius, patriarch of Antioch, Paisius, patriarch of Jerusalem, and the other metropolitans and bishops of the Greek and Russian churches. This profession, which is divided into 'Questions,' treats from question 98 to question 119 of the seven sacraments, explaining the use, nature, sanctity, and efficacy of each. Under question 107 the doctrine of transubstantiation is distinctly enunciated as follows: 'When these words (of consecration) are pronounced, im- mediately transubstantiation (ἡ μεταυσίωσις) takes place; the bread is transubstantiated into the true body of Christ, and the wine into the true blood, the species alone remaining.' At the Synod of Jerusalem, held (1672) under the presidency of the patriarch Dositheus, this profession was solemnly confirmed as the expression of the faith of the entire Eastern Church.
Transubstantiation differs from all natural changes in this, that natural changes, even though they may be substantial changes, such as, e.g., the conversion of food by the processes of assimilation into the substance of the person nourished, or the conversion of wood into ash by the action of fire, are, at most, transformations. When, e.g., wood is converted into ash, the form or active principle which made the original substance to be wood gives place to a form that makes the substance, which is the term of the change, to be ash. But the matter or passive principle, which before the change was the subject or recipient of the substantial form of wood, remains after the change as the subject or recipient of the substantial form of ash. And thus in all natural changes, even though they be substantial, there is not an entire but only a partial change of substance. The active principle of the original substance is changed, but the passive principle remains. In transubstantiation, however, both the matter and the form of the bread and wine are changed, for, according to the Tridentine definition, there is a 'conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body (of Christ) and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood.' Another respect in which transubstantiation differs from all natural changes is indicated by those other words of the Tridentine definition, 'the species of bread and wine remaining.' By species is here meant accidents. As accidents have no existence of their own, but exist with the existence of the substance in which they inhere, it follows that when that substance is destroyed its accidents must in the ordinary course of things cease to be. Thus, e.g., the external manifestations and the active and passive qualities of wood do not exist after wood has been converted into ash. But in transubstantiation the external manifestations, such as shape, colour, flavour, odour, &c., the passive powers of corruption, &c., the active powers of nutrition, &c., and the other forces and characteristics of bread and wine, continue to exist and to operate after the destruction of the substances on which they naturally depend. To hold, as Magnan and other Cartesians have done, that these accidents remain as mere phenomena and subjective impressions, void of objective reality, is to hold what is in opposition not only to experience, but also to the common teaching of the Catholic Church, as expressed, e.g., in the 'Catechism of the Council of Trent,' part ii., chap. 4, q. 43. But though the accidents persist after the subject in which they naturally inhere is withdrawn, they do not acquire the mode of being which is proper to substance, for they exist not per se, but by the 'extraordinary concursus' of God, and, while not actually existing in substance, they still retain an essential relation to substance as their subject. S. Thomas Aquinas (Sum. Theol.: tertia pars, q. 77, art. 2), holding with Aristotle that extension is the 'first disposition' of matter, and that all other accidents in consequence are referable to material substance 'through the medium of extension,' is of opinion that the extension of the bread and wine receives from God the power to act as the 'quasi subject' and support of those other qualities of bread and wine which manifestly exist and operate after transubstantiation has been effected.