A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Translation of festivals. In the Roman Church, when two festivals of a certain class concur on the same day with other festivals of the same or similar class, the celebration of one or other of these festivals is transferred to some future day, according to rules which are given in the Breviary and Missal. This is called a translation.—Jebb.

TRANSOM. A horizontal mullion, or cross-bar, in a window or in panelling. The transom first occurs in late Decorated windows, and in Perpendicular windows of large size it is of universal occurrence.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The pretended miraculous conversion or change of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of our Lord, which the Romanists suppose to be wrought by the consecration of the priest. This false doctrine is condemned by the Church of England in her 28th Article. “The supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.”

Transubstantiation, (or the change of the substance of bread and wine,) in the supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy writ: but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

“The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper is faith.

“The sacrament of the Lord’s supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.”

Bishop Beveridge has the following remarks on this article, from Scripture and the Fathers:

“Scripture and Fathers holding forth so clearly, that whosoever worthily receives the sacrament of the Lord’s supper doth certainly partake of the body and blood of Christ, the devil thence took occasion to draw men into an opinion, that the bread which is used in that sacrament is the very body that was crucified upon the cross; and the wine after consecration the very blood that gushed out of his pierced side. The time when this opinion was first broached was in the days of Gregory III., pope of Rome. The persons that were the principal abettors of it were Damascen in the Eastern, and afterwards Amalarius in the Western Churches. It was no sooner started in the East, but it was opposed by a famous council at Constantinople, consisting of 338 bishops, the famous opposers of idol worship. But afterwards, in the second Council of Nice, it was again defended, and in particular by Epiphanius the deacon, who confidently affirmed that, ‘after the consecration, the bread and wine are called, are, and are believed to be, properly the body and blood of Christ.’ In the West also, Amalarius having broached this opinion, Paschasius Radbertus readily swallowed it down. But Rabanus Maurus, Ratramnus or Bertramnus, (of whom more presently,) as also Johannes Scotus Erigena, not only stuck at it, but refused it, and wrote against it as a poisonous error. And, after them, Berengarius too, who was not only written against by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, but condemned for it in a council held at Verceli, (where the book of Johannes Scotus of the eucharist was also condemned,) and at another council held at Rome about the same time. And though he did recant his opinion at a council held at Tours, and another at Rome, as some think, so as never to hold it more, yet his followers would never recant what they had learned of him. But in the Lateran Council, held A. D. 1215, the opinion of the real or carnal presence of Christ was not only confirmed, but the word transubstantiated was newly coined to express it by; that council determining that ‘there is one universal Church of the faithful, without which there is none saved; in which Jesus Christ himself is both priest and sacrifice, whose body and blood in the sacrament of the altar are truly contained under the shapes of bread and wine; the bread being transubstantiated, or substantially changed into his body, and the wine into his blood, by the power of God; that for the perfecting the mystery of our union, we might receive of him what he had received of us.’ And ever since this word was thus forged by this council, the abettors of this opinion have made use of it to declare their minds by concerning this great mystery; still holding with the Council of Trent, ‘that by the consecration of the bread and wine is made a change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood; which change is aptly and properly called by the holy Catholic Church transubstantiation.’ So that, according to this opinion, the bread and wine, which before are properly bread and wine only, and not the body and blood of Christ, are after consecration as properly the body and blood of Christ, only, and not bread and wine; the bread being changed by the words of consecration into the very body of Christ that hung upon the cross; and the wine into the very blood that ran in his veins, and afterwards issued forth out of his side.

“Now the doctrine delivered in the former part of this article being so much abused, that they should take occasion from that great truth to fall into this desperate error, so as to say the bread and wine are really changed into the body and blood of Christ, because he doth really partake of the body and blood of Christ, that rightly receives the bread and the wine; that truth is no sooner delivered but this error is presently opposed. It being no sooner declared that the bread we break is a partaking of the body, and the cup we bless a partaking of the blood, of Christ, but it is immediately subjoined, that, notwithstanding the truth of that assertion, yet transubstantiation, or the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is to be rejected upon a fourfold account. First, because it cannot be proved by the Scriptures. Secondly, it is repugnant to them. Thirdly, it overthroweth the nature of the sacrament. Fourthly, it hath given occasion to many superstitions. Of which in their order briefly.

“1. As for the first, that this doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be proved from the Holy Scriptures, is plain from the insufficiency of those places which are usually and principally alleged to prove it; and they are the sixth of St. John’s Gospel, and the words of institution. In the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, we find our Saviour saying, ‘My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.’ (John vi. 55.) And many such like expressions hath he there concerning our eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood. From whence they gather, that the bread and wine are really turned into the body and blood of Christ; not considering, first, that our Saviour said these words at the least a year before the sacrament of the Lord’s supper was instituted. For when Christ spake these words, it is said, that ‘the passover was nigh,’ (ver. 4,) whereas the institution of the sacrament was not until the passover following; and it is very unlikely that he should preach concerning that sacrament before it was instituted. To which we may also add, that our Saviour here saith concerning the flesh and blood here spoken of, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you’ (ver. 53); whereas it is manifest that a man may be deprived of the sacramental bread and wine, and yet have life in him; for otherwise all that die before they receive the sacrament must of necessity be damned. And, therefore, though the thing signified, even the flesh and blood of Christ, is here to be understood, yet the signs themselves of the sacrament cannot. And so this place, not intending the bread and wine in the sacrament, cannot be a sufficient foundation to ground the transubstantiation of that bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. And, secondly, suppose this place was to be understood of the sacrament, when our Saviour saith, ‘My flesh is bread indeed, and my blood is drink indeed:’ this might prove indeed that Christ’s body and blood were turned into bread and drink, but not at all that [that] bread and drink are turned into his body and blood. Thirdly, it is plain that in these words our Saviour doth not mean any external or bodily, but internal and spiritual, feeding upon him. So that whosoever thus feedeth upon him shall never die, (ver. 50,) but live for ever (ver. 51). Yea, ‘He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him’ (ver. 56). So that, as Origen observeth, ‘No wicked man can eat of this bread here spoken of; whereas it is as clear as the noonday sun, that sinners, as well as saints, the worst as well as the best of men, may eat the bread and drink the wine in the sacrament.’ And as the sixth of St. John’s Gospel doth not, so neither do the words of institution, ‘This is my body,’ prove the transubstantiation of the bread into the very body of Christ. For he that saith, because our Saviour said, ‘This is my body,’ the bread is therefore changed into his body, may as well say that, because Joseph said, ‘The seven good kine are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years,’ (Gen. xli. 26,) therefore the seven good kine, and the seven good ears, were all changed into seven years. And because Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, ‘Thou art this head of gold,’ (Dan. ii. 38,) therefore Nebuchadnezzar must needs be changed into a head of gold; whereas it is plain that in Scripture that is often said to be a thing which is only the sign of it: as God is pleased to explain himself when he said of circumcision, ‘This is my covenant,’ (Gen. xvii. 10,) and in the next verse, ‘And it shall be a sign or token of the covenant betwixt me and you’ (ver. 11). And what sense the Most High explains himself by in that sacrament we may well understand him in this. When he said, ‘This is my covenant,’ he tells us what he meant by that phrase, even ‘This is the sign of my covenant:’ and so here, when Christ said, ‘This is my body,’ according to his own explication of himself before, it is no more than if he should have said, ‘This is the sign or token of my body.’ And therefore saith Augustine, ‘For if sacraments should not have a certain resemblance of the things whereof they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; but from this resemblance they often receive the names of the things themselves. Therefore, as after a certain manner the sacrament of Christ’s body is the body of Christ, and the sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of Christ; so the sacrament of faith (baptism) is faith.’ So that the words, ‘This is my body,’ prove no more than that the bread was the sign or sacrament of his body; not at all that it is really changed into his body. But that this doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be proved from the Scriptures, is further evident in that it is contrary to them.