Orth. -You know how God called His own body bread?
Eran. -Yes.
Orth. -And how in another place he called His flesh corn?
Eran. -Yes, I know. For I have heard Him saying "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified," and "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."
Orth. -Yes; and in the giving of the mysteries He called the bread, body, and what had been mixed, blood.
Eran. -He so did.
Orth. -Yet naturally the body would properly be called body, and the blood, blood.
Eran. -Agreed.
Orth. -But our Saviour changed the names, and to His body gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol that of his body. So, after calling himself a vine, he spoke of the symbol as blood.
Eran. -True. But I am desirous of knowing the reason of the change of names.
Orth. -To them that are initiated in divine things the intention is plain. For he wished the partakers in the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but, by means of the variation of the names, to believe the change wrought of grace. For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace?
Eran. -The mysteries are spoken of in mystic language, and there is a clear declaration of that which is not known to all.
Orth. -Since then it is agreed that the body of the Lord is called by the patriarch "robe" and "mantle" and we have reached the discussion of the divine mysteries, tell me truly, of what do you understand the Holy Food to be a symbol and type? Of the godhead of the Lord Christ, or of His body and His blood?
Eran. -Plainly of those things of which they received the names.
Orth. -You mean of the body and of the blood?
Eran. -I do.
Orth. -You have spoken as a lover of truth should speak, for when the Lord had taken the symbol, He did not say "this is my godhead," but "this is my body;" and again "this is my blood" and in another place "the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world."
Eran. -These words are true, for they are the divine oracles.
Orth. -If then they are true, I suppose the Lord had a body.
Eran. -No; for I maintain him to be bodiless.
Orth. -But you confess that He had a body?
Eran. -I say that the Word was made flesh, for so I have been taught.
Orth. -It seems, as the proverb has it, as if we are drawing water in a pail with a hole in it. For after all our demonstrations and solutions of difficulties, you are bringing the same arguments round again.
Eran. -I am not giving you my arguments, but those of the gospels.
Orth. -And have I not given you the interpretation of the words of the gospels from those of prophets and apostles?