A19563:1414
An answerAn aunsvvere
An answer by the Reverend Father in God Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and metropolitan, unto a crafty and sophistical cavillation, devised by Stephen Gardiner Doctor of Law, late Bishop of Winchester against the true and godly doctrine of the most holy sacrament, of the body and blood of our saviour Jesus Christ Wherein is also, as occasion serveth, answered such places of the book of Doct. Richard Smith, as may seem any thing worthy the answering. Here is also the true copy of the book written, and in open court delivered, by D. Stephen Gardiner ...An aunsvvere by the Reuerend Father in God Thomas Archbyshop of Canterbury, primate of all England and metropolitane, vnto a craftie and sophisticall cauillation, deuised by Stephen Gardiner Doctour of Law, late Byshop of Winchester agaynst the true and godly doctrine of the most holy sacrament, of the body and bloud of our sauiour Iesu Christ Wherein is also, as occasion serueth, aunswered such places of the booke of Doct. Richard Smith, as may seeme any thyng worthy the aunsweryng. Here is also the true copy of the booke written, and in open court deliuered, by D. Stephen Gardiner ...
London: printed by John Daye, 1580London: printed by Iohn Daye, 1580
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1Now where you gather of the words of S. Augustine, De verbis Domini, §6that both the evil and good eat one body of Christ, the selfsame in substance,2 excluding all difference that devise of figure might imagine, to this I answer, that although you express the body of Christ, with what terms you can devise, calling it (as you do in deed) the flesh that was borne of the virgin Mary, the same flesh, the flesh it self, yet I confess that it is eaten in the sacrament. And to express it yet more plainly then peradventure you would have me, I say, that the same visible & palpable flesh that was for us crucified and appeared after his resurrection, and was seen, felt, and groped, and ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at his fathers right hand, and at the last day shall come to judge the quick & the dead, that self same body, having all the parts of a mans body, in good order and proportion, and being visible and tangible, I say is eaten of christen people at his holy supper, what will you now require more of me, concerning the truth of the body? I suppose you be sorry that I grant you so much, and yet what doth this help you? For the diversity is not in the body, but in the eating thereof, no man eating it carnally, but the good eating it both sacramentally and spiritually, and the evil only sacramentally, that is to say, figuratively. And therefore hath S. Augustine these words (Certo quodam modo, after a certain manner) because that the evil eat the sacrament, which after a certain manner, is called the very body of Christ: which manner S. Augustine himself declareth most truly and plainly in a pistle ad Bonifacium, 3saying: If sacraments had not some similitude or likeness of those things whereof they be sacraments, they could in no wise be sacraments. And for their similitude and likeness, they have commonly the name of the things whereof they be sacraments. Therefore after a certain manner the sacrament of Christs body is. Christs body the sacrament of Christs blood is Christs blood. This epistle is set out in my book the 64. leaf, which I pray the reader to look upon for a more full answer unto this place. And after that manner Judas and such like did eat the morsel of the lords bread, but not the bread that is the Lord, but a sacrament thereof which is called the Lord, as S. Augustine saith.