Session XXI
July 16, 1562
(E) THE DOCTRINE OF COMMUNION UNDER BOTH KINDS AND THE COMMUNION OF LITTLE CHILDREN
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CHAPTER I
LAYMEN AND CLERICS WHEN NOT OFFERING THE SACRIFICE ARE NOT BOUND BY DIVINE LAW TO COMMUNION UNDER BOTH SPECIES
This holy council instructed by the Holy Ghost, who is the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and godliness (71), and following the judgment and custom of the Church, declares and teaches that laymen and clerics when not offering the sacrifice are bound by no divine precept to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist under both forms, and that there can be no doubt at all, salva fide, that communion under either form is sufficient for them to salvation. For though Christ the Lord at the last supper instituted and delivered to the Apostles this venerable sacrament under the forms of bread and wine (72), yet that institution and administration do not signify that all the faithful are by an enactment of the Lord to receive under both forms. Neither is it rightly inferred from that discourse contained in the sixth chapter of John that communion under both forms was enjoined by the Lord, notwithstanding the various interpretations of it by the holy Fathers and Doctors. For He who said: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you (73), also said: He that eateth this bread shall live forever (74); and He who said: He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath life everlasting (75), also said: The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (76); and lastly, He who said: He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him (77), said, nevertheless: He that eateth this bread shall live forever (78).
CHAPTER II
THE POWER OF THE CHURCH CONCERNING THE DISPENSATION OF THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
It declares furthermore, that in the dispensation of the sacraments, salva illorum substantia, the Church may, according to circumstances, times and places, determine or change whatever she may judge most expedient for the benefit of those receiving them or for the veneration of the sacraments; and this power has always been hers. The Apostle seems to have clearly intimated this when he said: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God (79); and that he himself exercised this power, as in many other things so in this sacrament, is sufficiently manifest, for after having given some instructions regarding its use, he says: The rest I will set in order when I come (80). Wherefore, though from the beginning of the Christian religion the use of both forms has not been infrequent, yet since that custom has been already very widely changed, holy mother Church, cognizant of her authority in the administration of the sacraments, has, induced by just and weighty reasons, approved this custom of communicating under either species and has decreed that it be considered the law, which may not be repudiated or changed at pleasure without the authority of the Church.
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(71) Is. 11:2.
(72) Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19 f.; I Cor. 11:24 f.
(73) John 6:54.
(74) Ibid., 6:52.
(75) Ibid., 6:55.
(76) Ibid., 6:52.
(77) Ibid., 6:57.
(78) Ibid., 6:59.
(79) See I Cor. 4:1.
(80) Ibid., 11:34.
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