clothes, and chattels, no one of them ever by his blood; yet Christ gave us even this proof of His solicitude and His burning love for us. Thus, in the old Law, as men were in an imperfect state and offered blood to idols, it remained for Him to receive this (the chalice of the Pasch) that He might turn them away from idols, which, again, was an ineffable tenderness. But here He led them up to a far more awful and magnificent worship of God, and changed the sacrifice itself, and instead of the slaughtering of unreasoning animals, He commanded them to offer up Himself. _Is not the bread which we break the communion of the Body of Christ?_ Why did he not say a participation? Because he wished to set forth something more and to show the closeness of that union. For we communicate not only by receiving and participating, but by being made one with Him. For just as that body is united to Christ, so are we made one with Him through this bread. Why did he add, _which we break_? This is seen to take place in the case of the Eucharist, though not at the Cross, but the contrary. _Not a bone of Him shall be broken_, the Scripture says. That which He did not suffer on the cross He suffers in the Eucharist for your sake, and He endures being broken that He may fill all. Then after saying _the communion of the body_—for that which communicates is something distinct from the thing communicated—he removed even this seemingly slight difference. For in the words _communion of the body_ he sought to say something closer, and therefore added, _That we, being many, are one bread and one body_. ‘Why do I speak of communion?’ he says; ‘we are that very Body itself. For what is the bread? The Body of Christ. What do partakers of it become? The Body of Christ: not many bodies, but one body.’ Just as bread is composed of many grains of wheat which are nowhere apparent in it, but still there, presenting no difference by reason of the kneading, so are we joined together with each other and with Christ. You are not nourished by one body and another man by another, but all by the same; therefore he added, ‘We are all participators of the same bread’. But if we _are_ of the same, and become the same, why do we not all show forth the same charity and become one in this respect also? For this was so formerly in our progenitors. _There was one heart and one mind in the gathering of the faithful._ This is not the case now, but very much the reverse. Dissensions are many and various and well-nigh everywhere, and we show ourselves fiercer than wild beasts towards our members. Christ united you to Himself when you were so distant, and you will not deign to be united with your brother as you ought to be, but thrust yourself away from him, whilst enjoying so great a love and life from your Master. It was not for no purpose that He gave His Body, but as the first human nature, which was made from the earth, became by sin subject to death