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Christ, which is His Flesh, and the Body of Christ, which is the Church, and how, by partaking of that Body, we ourselves become what we partake of. Having said,' says St. Chrysostom', 'the Communion of the Body, He sought again to express something nearer; For we, being many, are one bread, one body.' 'For why speak I of communion?' saith he; we are that self-same body'. For what is the bread? the Body of Christ: and what do they become who partake of it? the Body of Christ: not many bodies, but one body. For as the bread, consisting of many grains, is made one, so that the grains no where appear; they exist indeed, but their difference is not seen, by reason of their conjunction; so are we conjoined, both with each other and with Christ; there not being one Body for thee and another for thy neighbour to be nourished by, but the very same for all.'

"But what light does this reality of correspondence between the process in nature and the Gift of Grace cast on the sacramental character of the Old Testament! The very frequency of the mention of bread and wine as the chief gifts of God for 'gladdening man's heart,' either by themselves, or together with that other symbolic gift, oil, prepares us to look

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"Eat

7 Hom. 24. in 1 Cor. ad loc. p. 327, 328, Oxf. Tr. Of this joy, doubtless, that also is to be understood, thy Bread with joy, and drink thy Wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head lack no ointment."-Eccl. ix. 7. S. Jer. ad loc.

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for some meaning beyond our earthly nourishment. Why this food, and this alone, so selected, unless as a hidden prophecy of the Bread of Life everlasting? The lower sense is not, indeed, excluded by the higher; for the type containeth the original in itself, although in outline only, in that bread and wine and oil are gifts of God, and from Him derive their powers to strengthen and refresh. Yet this connexion teaches us how we ought in the type to recognize the original; take our daily bodily bread as the image of that 'Bread which endureth to everlasting life;' and, in the thanksgiving of the Psalms, thank God for that Bread' also 'which came down from Heaven.' This mystical meaning of 'bread' is further pointed out in the Psalms themselves, in that the Manna, whose spiritual character was so pointed out, is called 'Angels' bread,' 'the corn of heaven.' (Ps. lxxviii. 24, 25.) What a richness of meaning then do the Psalms shed around us, when we understand the 'Bread brought forth out of the earth' to be the 'grain of Corn' of which Himself spake ̊, and 'the wine that gladdeneth man's heart, the oil which maketh his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart,' to be that highest strengthening and gladdening of the heart of man,-strength which abideth, joy when He seeth us again and our heart shall rejoice, and our joy no man taketh from us, and the oil of the Comforter which maketh the

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"What Bread? Christ." S. Aug. in loc.

face' of the soul to shine''. And this meaning, when we see it, is the more literal too. For although to 'strengthen the heart' may, by a figure, mean to 'refresh and comfort the frame,' and is so used, yet most exactly, as well as fully, it bespeaks spiritual refreshment. 'He forceth us in a measure,' says St. Augustine', 'to understand of what Bread He speaketh. For that visible bread strengtheneth the stomach and belly; it is another Bread which strengtheneth the heart, because It is the Bread of the heart.' As, in another Psalm, amid the mention of the light of God's countenance' and the sleep in Him, it says, 'Thou hast put gladness in my heart from the time their corn, and wine, and oil increased;' in such a context, not surely mere earthly gifts, but, as has been said, 'Now do we abound with blessed fruits, which the Sacrament of the Church and the unity of peace minister to us as the image of everlasting fruits. For this Sacrament of our common hope is pointed out under the names of bodily and common things, which they who know [It] will understand. Of which abundance the same prophet speaketh in another Psalm. Thou hast put gladness

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1 S. Cyril. Lect. 22. fin, p. 272. Oxf. Tr.

Ad loc. See S. Ambr. de fide iii. 15. § 127. de Cain. i. 5. § 19 et al. S. Cyr. Al. in Os. 14. 7 et al. S. Jerome ad Ezek. 1. 1. fin. "Nothing so strengtheneth the heart of him who eateth, as the Bread of Life, of which it is written, And bread strengtheneth man's heart.' Add in Matt. xxvi. 26.

S. Hilar. in Ps. cxxi. [cxxii.] 6. "Rogate quæ ad pacem sunt Jerusalem et abundantia diligentibus Te."

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in &c.' By this abundance of peace and of the Sacrament, is that blessed peace prepared for, and that unfailing and eternal abundance of heavenly goods.' So when Wisdom inviteth to her feast, 'Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled,' it is an anticipation of the parable of the Marriage-Feast, to which He, Who is the Wisdom of God, inviteth, not merely to the blessings of the Gospel generally, but to His Bread, the Bread which He giveth. What more excellent than Christ, Who in the Feast of the Church both ministers and is ministered?' No other is the 'corn and wine' wherewith Isaac 'sustained' Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 37), and gave him therewith the blessing of Abraham. No other is 'the corn, wine, and oil' promised, when God should have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy (Hos. ii. 22, 23, and Joel ii. 19, 24, 26), or the corn and new wine,' whereby, when the King of the daughter of Zion should come, her 'young men and her maidens' should grow' (Zech. ix. 17, 2); no other the Bread of which the Psalm which delineates to us His Passion, and opens with His Cry on the Cross, and foretells that He should draw all men unto Him, tells us the poor shall eat and be satisfied,' with which God shall

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4 S. Ambr. de Cain i. 5. § 19. Add in Luc. 1. vi. § 53. "The Heavenly Bread is the Word of God. Thence also that Wisdom which hath filled the all-holy altars with the food of the Divine Body and Blood, saith 'Come,' &c., &c."

5 Ps. 22, 26.

'satisfy the poor' of the Church', yea, 'rich and poor together;' as the same Psalm says, 'all the mighty of the earth have eaten and worshipped; before Him bend all the dwellers of the dust, and no man hath quickened his own soul;' living and dead are alive in His sight and own His Kingdom; the living worship, those in the dust are bowed'; yet the living live not of themselves, but by that Bread of which men eat, and worship' the Lord; of which 'they' who have eaten and been filled, confess the mercy of that immortal food, and worship as God Him Who supplies it,' 'that Bread which He giveth for the life of the world, whereof a man shall eat and not die.' No other is 'the fat of the wheat' wherewith He feeds His people'; no other 'the

Ps. cxxxii. 15. S. Aug. ad loc. "God Himself is the Bread. The Bread, that it might become infant nourishment, milk to us, came down to the earth and said, 'I am the living Bread.'

In this clause is used (as Stier has observed ad loc. i. 254) which, (although not exclusively, as Ps. xcv. 6, where words expressive of worship are accumulated) occurs rather of "constrained obedience," Ps. lxxii. 9., Is. xlv. 23, which is so quoted Rom. xiv. 11; and referred to Phil. ii. 10, where unwilling submission of things under the earth is included, as it is here. like " (Is. xxxviii. 18. Ez. xxvi. 20. xxxi. 14. xxxii. 18. Ps. i. 12. Ps. xxviii. 1. xxx. 4. lxxxv. 5. cxliii. 7) is not merely "they that go down into the dust," but rather " they that are gone down," the actually dead, lit. "the descenders of the pit," i. e. those who have so descended.

Theod. ad loc.

9 Ps. lxxx. 16. S. Aug. ad loc. "Ye know the 'fat of wheat,' wherewith many of His enemies who have lied unto