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earth of human flesh,' says St. Leo, which had been cursed in the first offender, in this only birth of a blessed Virgin, yielded a shoot of blessedness, separate from the fault of its stock.'

"This corn-seed, which He sowed, was His own Body, His Flesh, which He took to offer as a sacrifice, dying for us in It. And so it becomes the more impressive, as connected with the Holy Mysteries, how He elsewhere says, that He Himself is the Bread of Life, which cometh down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die;' that ‘the Bread which I will give is My Flesh which I will give for the life of the world.' Our Lord, by using these images, points out the connexion. The seedcorn, which is His Flesh, gives life by its death; as bread, again, His Body, it nourishes to Life eternal; and that Body unites together the various grains to which it gave birth; 'for we', being many, are one bread, one body, for we are all partakers of that one Bread.' So again, this one image pourtrays to us the mysterious connexion between the Body of

Serm. 4, in Nat. Dom. c. 3, quoting both places, as do interpreters quoted by S. Jerome, 1. 13 ad Is. init. "that they rain on the world the Righteous or Righteousness, and the earth open and bear (germinet) a Saviour." S. Cyril ad loc. 1. iv. Or. ii. "One may say that Mercy and Righteousness springing or shooting forth from the earth is our Lord Himself Jesus Christ. For He was made to us of God the Father, Mercy and Righteousness. But Christ brought not down to us from above or from heaven His flesh, but rather was born, according to the flesh, of a woman, which is one of the things upon the earth.” 1 Cor. x. 17.

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 '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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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

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

2 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. heart of him who

1. 1. fin. "Nothing so strengtheneth the eateth, as the Bread of Life, of which it is written, And bread strengtheneth man's heart." " Add in Matt. xxvi. 26.

3 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, 1); 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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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.