to him, The Master
saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy
house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had
appointed them; and _they_ made ready the passover."[313:5]

In this account, no pitcher, no water, no prophecy is mentioned.[313:6]

It was many centuries before the genuine heathen doctrine of
_Transubstantiation_--a change of the elements of the Eucharist into
the _real_ body and blood of Christ Jesus--became a tenet of the
Christian faith. This greatest of mysteries was developed gradually. As
early as the second century, however, the seeds were planted, when we
find Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus advancing the opinion, that
the mere bread and wine became, in the Eucharist, _something
higher_--the earthly, something heavenly--without, however, ceasing to
be bread and wine. Though these views were opposed by some eminent
individual Christian teachers, yet both among the people and in the
ritual of the Church, the miraculous or supernatural view of the Lord's
Supper gained ground. After the third century the office of presenting
the bread and wine came to be confined to the _ministers_ or _priests_.
This practice arose from, and in turn strengthened, the notion which was
gaining ground, that in this act of presentation by the priest, a
sacrifice, similar to that once offered up in the death of Christ Jesus,
though bloodless, was ever anew presented to God. This still deepened
the feeling of _mysterious_ significance and importance with which the
rite of the Lord's Supper was viewed, and led to that gradually
increasing splendor of celebration which took the form of the _Mass_. As
in Christ Jesus two distinct natures, the divine and the human, were
wonderfully combined, so in the Eucharist there was a corresponding
union of the earthly and the heavenly.

For a long time there was no formal declaration of the mind of the
Church on the _real presence_ of Christ Jesus in the Eucharist. At
length a _discussion_ on the point was raised, and the most
distinguished men of the time took part in it. One party maintained that
"the bread and wine are, in the act of consecration, transformed by the
omnipotence of God into the _very body_ of Christ which was once born of
Mary, nailed to the cross, and raised from the dead." According to this
conception, nothing remains of the bread and wine but the outward form,
the taste and the smell; while the other party would only all