That all the ancients communicated under both kinds
Veteres omnes sub utraque specie communicasse
John Calvin49
Sed quid de re notissima disputo? Legantur omnes Græci & Latini scriptores: passim occurrent eiusmodi testimonia. Neque obsolevit haec consuetudo, dum aliqua integritatis gutta in Ecclesia superfuit. Gregorius, quem vltimum Romæ Episcopum fuisse iure dicere possis, sua ætate servatum fuisse docet, Quis sit sanguis agni, iam non audiendo, sed bibendo didicistis. Eius sanguis in fidelium ora profunditur. Imo quadringentis post eius mortem annis, quum iam omnia degenerassent, adhuc duravit. Neque enim id pro more duntaxat, sed pro Lege inuiolabili habebatur. Vigebat enim tunc diuinæ institutionis reuerentia: nec sacrilegium esse dubitabant, separare quæ essent a Domino coniuncta. Sic enim loquitur Gelasius, Comperimus quod quidam sumpta tantummodo corporis sacri portione, a calice abstineat: qui proculdubio, quoniam nescio qua superstitione videntur adstricti, aut integra sacramenta percipiant, aut ab integris arceantur. Diuisio enim istius mysterij sine grandi sacrilegio non admittitur. Audiebantur illæ Cypriani rationes, quæ sane Christianam mentem promouere debent. Quomodo, inquit, docemus aut prouocamus eos in confessione Christi sanguinem fundere, si militaturis sanguinem eius denegamus? Aut quomodo facimus ad martyrij poculum idoneos, si non eos ad bibendum Domini poculum prius in Ecclesia
clesia iure communionis admittimus? Quòd autem ad sacerdotes restringunt Canonistę illud Gelasij decretum, magis puerile est cauillum quàm ve refutari debeat.
49
But why do I contend about something so well attested? Read all the Greek and Latin writers: such testimonies occur everywhere. Nor did this custom fall into disuse so long as any drop of integrity remained in the Church. Gregorius — whom you may rightly call the last bishop of Rome — teaches that the practice was observed in his own age: “What the blood of the Lamb is, you have now learned not by hearing but by drinking. His blood is poured into the mouths of the faithful.” Indeed, even four hundred years after his death, when everything had already degenerated, the practice still endured. For it was held not merely as a custom but as an inviolable law. The reverence due to a divine ordinance was still vigorous then, and they did not doubt that it was sacrilege to separate what the Lord had joined together. Thus Gelasius declares: “We have learned that certain persons, having received only the portion of the sacred body, abstain from the cup: such persons, since they appear to be bound by some superstition I know not what, must either receive the complete sacraments or be excluded from the complete sacraments. For the division of this mystery is not permitted without grave sacrilege.” The arguments of Cyprianus were heeded — arguments that ought indeed to move a Christian mind: “How,” he says, “do we teach or encourage men to shed their blood in the confession of Christ, if we deny them his blood when they are about to fight? Or how do we make them fit for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them in the Church
the cup of the Lord by right of communion in the Church? But as to the canonists’ restriction of that decree of Gelasius to priests alone, that quibble is more childish than it deserves to be refuted.