The never-ending editing of my document concerning communicatio in sacris continues. I have added the following quotes to it within the last week:
St. Basil the Great, Letter CCXXVI, To the ascetics under him: « If they communicate with them as orthodox, why do they attack them as heretical? If they hold them to be heretical, how is it that they do not shun communion with them? » – Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume VIII.
St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 4, Chapter 13: « It is also called communion, and truly is so, because of our having communion through it with Christ and partaking both of His flesh and His divinity, and because through it we have communion with and are united to one another. For, since we partake of one bread, we all become one body of Christ and one blood and members of one another and are accounted of the same body with Christ. Let us then make every effort to guard against receiving communion from heretics or giving it to them. ‘Give not that which is holy to dogs,’ says the Lord, ‘neither cast ye your pearls before swine,’[Matt. 7:6] lest we become sharers in their false teachings and their condemnation. If there really is such a union with Christ and with each other, then we really become united deliberately with all those with whom we communicate together, for this union comes from deliberate choice and not without the intervention of our judgment. “For we are all one body, because we partake of one bread,’[1 Cor. 10:17] as the divine Apostle says. » – The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation, Volume 37, Translated by Frederic H. Chase Jr, 1958, p. 361.
John Campbell MacNaught, The Celtic Church & the See of Peter (1927), p. 12: « He tells us that his brother Satyrus when wrecked in Sardinia, fearing to communicate with schismatics, “sent for the bishop, nor did he think any grace true save that of the true faith, so he asked whether he were in communion with the Catholic bishops, that is, with the Roman Church.” »
St. Thomas à Becket, Letter to King Henry II: « Let my lord, therefore, if it please him, listen to the counsels of his subject, to the warnings of his bishop, and to the chastisements of his father. And, first,let him for the future abstain from all communion with schismatics. » – Mrs. Anne Hope, The Life of S. Thomas à Becket, 1868, p. 179.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 82, a. 7: « And since the consecration of the Eucharist is an act which follows the power of order, such persons as are separated from the Church by heresy, schism, or excommunication, can indeed consecrate the Eucharist, which on being consecrated by them contains Christ’s true body and blood; but they act wrongly, and sin by doing so; and in consequence they do not receive the fruit of the sacrifice, which is a spiritual sacrifice.
Reply to Objection 1. Such and similar authorities are to be understood in this sense, that the sacrifice is offered wrongly outside the Church. Hence outside the Church there can be no spiritual sacrifice that is a true sacrifice with the truth of its fruit, although it be a true sacrifice with the truth of the sacrament; thus it was stated above (III:80:3), that the sinner receives Christ’s body sacramentally, but not spiritually.
Reply to Objection 2. Baptism alone is allowed to be conferred by heretics, and schismatics, because they can lawfully baptize in case of necessity; but in no case can they lawfully consecrate the Eucharist, or confer the other sacraments.
Reply to Objection 3. The priest, in reciting the prayers of the mass, speaks instead of the Church, in whose unity he remains; but in consecrating the sacrament he speaks as in the person of Christ, Whose place he holds by the power of his orders. Consequently, if a priest severed from the unity of the Church celebrates mass, not having lost the power of order, he consecrates Christ’s true body and blood; but because he is severed from the unity of the Church, his prayers have no efficacy. »
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 82, a. 9: « I answer that, As was said above (Articles 5 & 7), heretical, schismatical, excommunicate, or even sinful priests, although they have the power to consecrate the Eucharist, yet they do not make a proper use of it; on the contrary, they sin by using it. But whoever communicates with another who is in sin, becomes a sharer in his sin. Hence we read in John’s Second Canonical Epistle (11) that “He that saith unto him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works.” Consequently, it is not lawful to receive Communion from them, or to assist at their mass.
Still there is a difference among the above, because heretics, schismatics, and excommunicates, have been forbidden, by the Church’s sentence, to perform the Eucharistic rite. And therefore whoever hears their mass or receives the sacraments from them, commits sin. But not all who are sinners are debarred by the Church’s sentence from using this power: and so, although suspended by the Divine sentence, yet they are not suspended in regard to others by any ecclesiastical sentence: consequently, until the Church’s sentence is pronounced, it is lawful to receive Communion at their hands, and to hear their mass. Hence on 1 Corinthians 5:11, “with such a one not so much as to eat,” Augustine’s gloss runs thus: “In saying this he was unwilling for a man to be judged by his fellow man on arbitrary suspicion, or even by usurped extraordinary judgment, but rather by God’s law, according to the Church’s ordering, whether he confess of his own accord, or whether he be accused and convicted.” »
Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library, Socrates’ History of the Church, with notes selected from Valesius, 1853, p. 406, note 91 for p. 147: « That which Socrates relates here, namely, that the Catholics prayed in the churches of the Novatians, seems incredible. In this matter Socrates was probably imposed upon by Auxano, who fixed upon all the Catholics what was perhaps done by some few Christians who were less cautious. For there is nothing more contrary to ecclesiastical discipline, than to communicate with heretics either in the sacraments or in prayer. But it is a mistake to conclude from this story that Socrates was a Novatian; on the contrary, it is evident from this passage that he was a Catholic. For in this chapter he frequently terms the Catholics “those of the Church,” τούς τής έκκλησίας, and opposes them to the Novatians. Therefore it is clear that he looked upon the Novatians as external to the Church. »
Protestant Principles Examined by the Written Word (1868), Point XXXIII: « I grant that out of the true Church, among sectaries, many there are who are very constant in going to that worship which their conventicle prescribes, and these are what some call _good in their way_; but since _the way itself is bad_, and in their worship they communicate with heretics and schismatics in the very acts of heresy and schism, what opinion can those who know this have of such kind of devotion? »
Rev. Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder, A Critique upon Mr. Ffoulkes’ ‘Letter’ (1869), p. 45: « Hear how Pope Gelasius speaks of those who, holding the right faith themselves, communicate with heretics, or with those in communion with heretics, (Ep. 1, ad Euphem. Labbe, tom.v. p. 186), “But you say, it is not read anywhere that Acacius said aught against the faith, as did Eutyches and his successors; as though it were not worse to know the truth and yet to communicate with the enemies of the truth. . . Of such, indeed, it is well said—‘they go down alive into hell;’ who, whilst they seem to live with that true and Catholic life by which ‘the just man liveth,’ suddenly fall down the precipice into the hell of heretical communion.” »
Kenelm H. Digby, Mores Catholici, Volume III (1891), Book VII, Chapter VI: « The Church would do violence to no one, nor compel any one to embrace her doctrine; but she always wished, that her children should be separated from those who propagated errors against faith, lest, as St. Jerome says, “one infected animal should spread infection through the entire fold.”[1] Her pale was wide, indeed, so that St. Bernard says, “We must go out of the world, if we wish to fly from all the evil whom the Church tolerates.”[2] There was no danger in receiving any one whom the Church received; but in order that the minds of Catholics might not be perverted, she ordained that men who formally opposed her should be excluded from their society, and not allowed to instil their opinions into unguarded breasts.[3] In the first place, as Pope Victor III said of the schismatics of his time, “to believe even that such men could be priests, was altogether to err. Penance and communion should be received from no one but from a Catholic; but if there should be no Catholic priest, it was more fitting to remain without a visible communion, and to communicate invisibly from the Lord’s hand, rather than to receive communion from a heretic, and be separated from God; for although, in consequence of surrounded heretics,” says Victor, “the Catholic cannot have the sacred communion of Christ visibly and corporally, yet, whilst united in mind and body with Christ, they have the sacred communion of Christ invisibly.”[4] In a word, the maxim of ages of faith,in all cases was that of St. Augustin, “Non habemus partem cum iis qui faciunt partem.”[5] But this was not all: for the separation was not confined to the strict limits of religious worship. Clemens, the disciple of Peter, expressly says, “remove impenitent eclectics from the society of the faithful; for these pretenders to wisdom, who affect to be pious, corrupt the flock, and follow a way which, though it may seem right to some, leads in the end to death.”[6] By the canons of the council of Epaone, in 517, priests are forbidden to assist at the repasts of obstinate heretics, and the prohibition extended to the laity, who were to keep aloof from the society of all persons who had personally been separated from the Church by a formal sentence. St. Gregory, of Tours, relates an anecdote, which will show the prevailing sentiments of his age in this respect. “Heresy,” saith he, “is always hostile to Catholics, and never loses an occasion of laying snares for them. . . .”[7] . . . . The zeal, the delicate honor, the deep sense of fidelity, which actuated so many men during ages of faith, demanded even more than what the Church required; so that when heresy was permitted to infect a whole country, multitudes of its Catholic inhabitants went into voluntary exile. St. Peter Nolasco, while a youth, having lost his parents, felt such horror for the heresy of the Albigenses, which then desolated part of France, that he left his country, after dividing his inheritance, and passed into Spain to Montserrat. In like manner, as we observed in a former book, many Catholic nobles and others abandoned these islands on the change of religion, and ended their days in France, Belgium, or Italy. . . . St. Athanasius says of St. Anthony, that “he never had any commerce with the Meletian schismatics, nor with the Manichæns, nor with any other heretics; for he believed and affirmed, that their friendship and familiarity involved the death of the soul.”[8] St. Irenæus, after relating how St. John,the evangelist, fled from Cerinthus, adds, “such fear had the apostles and their disciples to communicate, or even exchange a word with those who adulterated truth.”[9] Viewed with the eyes of faith, there was nothing in the spirit or letter of the ecclesiastical discipline opposed to mercy; for where was the intolerance or cruelty in withdrawing in humble silence, in the spirit of peace and self-renouncement, from the ranks of a gay and a scornful opposition to the society of the obedient, meek, and lowly of heart? To have been always conversant in domestic intercourse with religious innovators, or men not yet with faith endued, would have been thought to argue in a Christian, not the tolerance of the blessed merciful, but the assentand duplicity of a selfish parasite: it would have been considered a flagrant violation of the express command of the Gospel,[10] founded upon the strictest justice, which interfered with the discharge of no social duty, but rather tended to preserve a sense of all social duties, and also upon the result of wise experience, and exact observation of life; “for what doth not custom invert;” as St. Bernard exclaims: “What doth not yield to use?” Hear the lamentations of the just man: “Quæprius tangere nolebat anima mea, nunc præ angustia cibi mei sunt. First, it will seem insupportable: in process of time, you will judge it less grievous; soon after, you will feel it light; again, a little while and you will not even feel it in any degree: finally, it will delight you. So, by degrees, you contract hardness of heart, and then aversion.”[11] The importance of selecting persons of congenial views, with whom men were to associate, was recognized by the Gentiles. As the youth Lysiteles says in the old play, “The good seek for themselves faith, honor, glory, grace; cum probis potius quam cum improbis vivere vanidicis.”[12] The Catholic society of the ages of faith had indeed a more secure conscience, and a very different rule; but in yielding implicit obedience to the evangelic precept, which forbids a promiscuous association, without transgressing any counsel of mercy, it still acted upon the principle of self-defence, as its guides concur in admitting. “Believe me, my son,” says the wise man, “do not remain, but fly; the least delay may be fatal to you.”[13]—“Think not,” continues St. Chrysostom, after quoting these words, “that I exhort you to fly because I fear the force of the arguments of the impious: no, I fear only your own weakness. As for us who are founded in the faith, all that they can say appears but so much vain sophistry, easier to destroy than the fragile work of the spider; but I repeat it, I fear your weakness.”[14] Truly it was well to fear when such examples had been given to the Church, of the fatal effects of neglecting that counsel, after she had seen herself robbed of a Tertullian, a priest, a man of severe understanding, of great learning, illustrious for his victories over Jews andGentiles, over Apelles, Marcion, Praxea, and Hermogene, by the conversation of two fanatical dreaming women, Priscilla and Maximilla. With respect to the middle ages it is an historical fact, that it was by means of artful insinuations, made in the ordinary intercourse of life, that the Manichæans and other heretics of the South of France perverted so many Christians. We can form some idea of their policy by means of the light which has been thrown upon the proceedings of secret societies in latter times. “Simplicioribus singula non revelantur,” says Reinerus of the Cathari. St. Bernard tells us, that the monster of his age wore the semblance of a just man, so kind and gracious was its outward cheer; the rest was serpent all. The heretics were truly in sheep’s clothing; no men appeared more devout or more moral; nothing could sound better than their words at the commencement; for they imitated the policy of those spoken of in the Gospel, who at first produced good wine; but when men have drunk much, then that which is worse. Pope Innocent III says, that the Cathari promise with a context of heavenly words, and with the pictured adornment of eloquence, to prepare for their hearers a sound and wholesome couch, on which they may rest with a free heart from the tumult of vices; but that they rather construct a place of perdition, with the cords of sinners.[15] The danger of debate with such persons may be collected from the disputation published by Martene.[16] But even where there was no disguise from the beginning, or where the errors were merely such as later times have developed, the danger of associating with men leagued in such a confederacy, was not such as any wise man could despise. [Notes 1. Comment. in Epist. ad. Galat. cap. 5. 9. 2. Epist. cccliii. 3. Joan. Devoti Institu. Canonic. Lib. iv. tit. 6. 4. Chronic. S. Monast. Casinens, Lib. iii. c. 72. 5. C. Schisma. 27. 6. Apost. Const. vi. 18. 7. S. Greg. Turonens. Miracul. Lib. 1. c. 80. 8. Life of St. Anthony, n. 68. 9. Cont. Hæres. Lib. iii. 3. 10. Matt. xviii. 17; 1. ad Corinth. v. 11. 11. De Consideratione, 1, 2. 12. Plaut. Trinum. i. 1. 13. Prov. i. 15. 14. Homily 11. 15. Innocent. Epist. X. 149. 16. Disputat. inter Catholic. &c. Thesaur. tom. V.] »
Roads to Rome (1901), H. G. Worth, p. 332: « We must not, however, forget that, according to the teaching of the ancient Fathers, those who communicate with schismatics are guilty of schism. »
The Catholic Record Society, Volume IV, Miscellanea, IV, 1907, Notes Concerning the English Mission, the Year 1581, p. 3: « [T]he Fathers of the Society [of Jesus] with other good priests were labouring to confirm Catholics in their determination not to communicate with heretics or go to their churches. »
Anne Fremantle, The Papal Encyclicals in their Historical Context (1956), p. 22: « The communion was understood by the early Christians to be the community of the faithful, that is, of the laity with their bishops, of the bishops among themselves, and of all with Christ. The outward and visible sign through which this community was, and is still today, constantly nourished and renewed, is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Communion, the reception by all Christians of the sacramental species of bread and wine, transubstantiated by the priest in the sacrifice of the Mass, into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, by saying over the bread and wine the same words used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper on the evening before the Crucifixion. In the early Church, the sinner was excluded from the Eucharistic Communion, and therefore from the community of the Church. He was “excommunicated.” If he repented, and did penance, he was readmitted into the communion of the faithful. The guest who came from a foreign church was admitted to the communion if he carried a certificate from his bishop that he belonged to the community of Christians. If he had no such “certificate,” then the Eucharist and hospitality were both denied him. . . . In Christian antiquity, to communicate with heretics meant to receive the Eucharist in their church. This was the reason why laymen who had to travel through places where there was no Catholic church, carried the Eucharist with them in order not to be forced to receive it in a heretical church, as this would have made them heretics, i.e., members of a heretical communion. Sometimes heretical bishops actually had Catholics who refused their Communion carried by force to the altar. This happened in the case of a heretical bishop of Constantinople, who forced the mouths of the Catholics open and obliged them to receive Communion, thinking they would thus be members of his communion, even though it was against their will. »
Rev. Bernard Leeming, S.J., Principles of Sacramental Theology (1956), Section III, Chapter XI, no. 387: « Herein, too, is the reason why those disunited in faith cannot rightly communicate at the same altar. For the significance of Holy Communion is that of complete unity of mind and heart, and if unity of mind is lacking, even though there may be a certain unity through good will and desire of unity of mind, nevertheless the symbolism is falsified, since there is lacking the complete unity which the Eucharist signifies and, of itself, causes. This is why the expression ‘in communion with’, or ‘not in communion with’, came to be commonly used by Christians; heretics were not in communion with the Church, both because of dissonance of conviction about the faith, and because that dissonance was reflected in the refusal to participate in the sacrament of unity, the Eucharist. »
Fr. Bernard Leeming, S.J., The Churches and the Church (1960), Chapter Four, pp. 102, 104-106: « The Report of the Lund Commission showed appreciation of the gravity of the question of intercommunion; and one sign of this is the invitation to a Roman Catholic to write in the volume. Père Yves M. J. Congar explained the Roman Catholic position in such gentle terms that his intransigence may not be appreciated unless his paper is read with care. He ends: ‘The aim of the ecumenical movement is precisely to pass, if God wills it and grants us to do it, from an invisible unity in Christ to a visible unity in the Church. Then, we would celebrate and communicate together. Until then, intercommunion is, alas, impossible.’[Report, p. 151] [….] The ‘Catholic-Orthodox’ tradition and conviction has always been that Holy Communion is a sign of full union with the Body of Christ, as that Body is manifest on earth in the visible Church. From earliest days those who held unorthodox beliefs, or refused obedience to the bishop, were cut off from Communion, for Communion was a sign, and an infinitely sacred sign, of agreement in faith and concord in government. Arians, Nestorians, Donatists and all heretics held this conviction with the same firmness as did the ‘Orthodox’; and ‘ex-communication’ was mutual and was the outward sign of lack of concord. The general conviction was that disagreement in doctrine made ‘intercommunion’ simply unthinkable. This conviction many of our separated brethren share and I have misgivings lest appeals to ‘charity’ may sometimes be made a means of undue pressure upon them to surrender their convictions. I feel obliged,—even though I recognize with pain that my words may offend some separated brethren for whom I have a genuine esteem and regard—to record here my feeling of shock and distress at some views held about ‘intercommunion’. I do not mean to reflect in any way whatever upon the sincerity with which these views are held; but to me ‘intercommunion’ without doctrinal agreement is practically acting a lie. It is a declaration that there is agreement when in fact there is not. Many Lutherans hold that no one should communicate at the Eucharist who does not believe in the true bodily presence of Christ. The Orthodox and the Roman Catholics believe that would be sacrilege to give the true body of Christ to those who believe that they receive no more than a wafer of bread, however symbolic it may be and however vivid may be the perception of Christ’s spiritual presence. But beliefs other than those about the Eucharist itself enter into the matter. For example: some believe that bishops are necessary for Orders and for preservation of true doctrine, and others believe that bishops are needless either for Orders or for true doctrine. If both communicate together at the same altar, or ‘table’, both equivalently declare that it does not matter what one believes about bishops, since together they have full union with Christ in spite of contradictory beliefs about bishops. After Communion, then, why should they continue to differ about bishops? One or the other ought to surrender his stand on episcopacy, since both have declared that episcopacy bears no relation to their union with Christ. It is said—and I have heard it said with the most obvious sincerity and even piety—that ‘it is the table of the Lord and no man can exclude any baptized person from it’. But on that principle, why should the unbaptized be excluded? Why exclude Buddhists or Hindus who have good will, a willingness to learn about Christ and have already a certain love for him? Yet their exclusion—even supposing that they wished to come—shows that the fundamental question is: ‘What makes a table, or an altar, to be the table or the altar of the Lord?’ Can any group of baptized Christians set up a table or an altar and declare it the table and the altar of the Lord? That would be a hard admission to make among the multitudinous split-up Christians of Africa. A table, or an altar, is a visible tangible thing, and it corresponds to the visible tangible body of the Church. Consequently, what one holds about the Church one ought to hold about the ‘table’ or the ‘altar’. If there is division in the one, there must in honesty be division in the other. To appeal to a valid baptism is to deny the need of right faith, or else to declare, as the Disciples of Christ declare, that there should be no definition of doctrine. ‘Intercommunion’ might be a practical acceptance of the view that doctrinal definitions are needless, if not positively harmful; and so ‘intercommunion’ might well imply an acceptance of the belief of one group in the World Council and a rejection of the others. Many of our separated brethren are opposed to ‘intercommunion’, because they judge it an impediment to real unity. It effectively declares that divisions at present existing are of small or no consequence and thus it undermines the very foundation of the effort to attain visible unity. If people can communicate together, there seems no reason to be disturbed about anything further, since their union with one another in Christ is visibly made manifest and all the rest assumes a very secondary or negligible proportion. »
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