Free English Translation
Fragment on the Eucharist
Fragmentum de Eucharistia
5 chapters · ~4 min read · by Macarius Magnes
About Fragment on the Eucharist
This brief fragment on the Eucharist is attributed to Macarius Magnes, a Greek Christian writer whose major work, the Apocriticus, was composed around 400 AD; it survives here in a Latin rendering placed among this volume's third-century materials, though the fragment's own date and origin remain uncertain. Answering those who called the Eucharist merely a figure, the text argues that Christ's body and blood are truly received, comparing this to an infant nourished on its mother's blood turned to milk and tracing bread, wine, and human flesh alike back to the earth, which it calls Christ's own creation. Because the consecrated bread carries the living Word united to it, the argument runs, it confers immortality on those who eat it, unlike ordinary bread, which offers only fleeting sustenance.
By Macarius Magnes. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 5.
In this work
Article II
1. Infant and Earth as Figures for the Body
"That this is not something unheard of and dreadful, one may consider the infant child, how unless he eats the flesh and blood of his mother, he does not live: for the nature of blood is in truth milk. But that I may speak more clearly, I will relate something natural, lest you think this a fable. We are born from the earth according to the body, and in a certain manner we are nourished by its flesh and blood, that is, by wheat and wine. Hear now attentively. In the beginning the Son of God created the earth: from the earth he formed man: from man he himself took flesh. If therefore the earth is predicated of the body by reason of ancient origin; and the earth was, by reason of creation, the proper creature of Christ; and from this earth bread and wine came forth; and from it likewise the body of man; and this body Christ put on: rightly, when he had taken bread and wine, he said: This is my Body."
2. Not a Figure but the True Body and Blood
Then he adds. That is: "For it is not a figure of the body or blood, as certain persons of stupid mind have trifled, but rather truly the body and blood of Christ." He continues further to philosophize: "Since indeed," he says, "the body exists from the earth, and from the earth bread and wine; how was no other bold enough to say: My flesh is truly food, my blood is truly drink? Surely, because there is no creator of the earth except this one: it is the creature of none other than the Son of God. Therefore he said: This is my body: for the creature of the earth is mine, and not another's. For all who were born after the earth received their body from me; but I, who am before the earth, receiving it from no one: from it I took a body, that is, from my own creature, taking flesh. From what is mine, therefore, I set before you a gift.
From the earth bread came forth for your nourishment: but the earth is my creature: from the earth likewise the body came forth, and this is my mass. From the union, therefore, by which I was united, holy with the earthly, I give bread and wine, commanding them to be my body and blood."
3. Why Christ Alone Could Give His Body as Food
"For if Abraham, or any other of the just and holy, had said: My flesh is food, and my blood is drink, he would have dared to lie greatly, or if he had said, this is my body, this is my blood: for that substance would not be his own but another's, nor would it, when eaten, provide life to those who eat it. Since that which does not have the living Word united with the body, which was earthly, would not lead those who eat to eternal life. Christ therefore gave his own body and blood to believers, infusing into them the life-giving medicine of divinity. Then he adds: when therefore he calls that which is flesh bread, and that which is blood wine; he taught us fittingly according to reason, that the body and bread are alike from the earth, and that there is a substance of one kind in the body and in the bread.
4. The Mystical Bread That Bestows Immortality
"But common bread, elaborated by the cultivation of the earth, even if it is a certain flesh of the earth, nevertheless does not promise to provide eternal life, but grants a brief comfort to those who partake of it, since it is quickly extinguished without the divine spirit. But the bread prepared in the blessed land of Christ by the power of united divinity, by taste alone brings immortality to man. For the mystical bread, having inseparably the blessing of the Father—that blessing, I mean, which was made in his body and blood—unites the one who eats to the body of Christ, and makes him a member of Christ.
For just as a document transmits to the disciple the force which it received through the letters of the master, and through it unites him with the master: so the body which is that mystical bread, and the blood which is that wine, bestow immortality of undefiled divinity upon the one who partakes, from themselves, or out of themselves; and through it they lead back to the incorruptible dwelling of the creator. For the flesh of the Saviour when eaten is not corrupted, nor is this blood when drunk consumed: but rather he who eats comes to an increase of strength; while he who is eaten cannot be consumed: because all consumption is in a certain manner akin to nature."
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