It seems to me that the charge of withholding the cup comes with very bad grace from Protestant teachers, who destroy the whole intrinsic virtue of the Sacrament by giving to their followers nothing but bread and wine. The difference between them and us lies in this--that under one form we give the _substance_, while they under two forms confessedly give only the _shadow_.
In examining the history of the Church on the subject we find that up to the twelfth century communion was sometimes distributed in one form, sometimes in another, commonly in both.
First--St. Luke tells us that the converts of Jerusalem "were persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communion of bread (as the Eucharist was sometimes familiarly called), and in prayer."(383) Again he speaks of the Christian disciples assembled at Troas on the Lord's day, "to break bread."(384) We are led to conclude from these passages that the Apostles sometimes distributed the communion in the form of bread alone, as no reference is made to the cup.
It was certainly the custom to carry to the sick only the consecrated Host. Surely if there is any period of life when nothing should be neglected which conduces to salvation it is the time of approaching death. Eusebius tells us that the aged Serapion received only the Sacred Bread at the hands of the Priest. In the _Life_ of St. Ambrose we are told that in his last illness the consecrated Host alone was given to Him.
The Christians in time of persecution, confessors of the faith confined in prison, travellers on their journey, soldiers before engaging in battle and hermits living in the desert were permitted to keep with them and to fortify themselves with the consecrated Bread--as Tertullian, Cyprian, Basil, Ambrose and other Fathers of the Church testify.
Moreover, the Mass of the _Presanctified_, celebrated in the Latin church on Good Friday only, and in the Greek church on every day in Lent, except Saturdays and Sundays, the officiating Priest receives the consecrated Bread alone.(385)
In all these instances the communicants never doubted that they received the Lord's Supper in its integrity. Surely the conscientious guides of the faith would sooner withhold altogether the Sacred Host from their flocks than permit them to partake of a mutilated Sacrament.