Devotion To the Sacred Heart: Part I
In discussing devotion to the Sacred Heart, it is necessary to study the foundations of this devotion in Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. 1 What follows is an attempt to pursue in detail the general advice given by Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical Haurietis aquas: "to study diligently the teachings of Scripture, the Fathers and theologians, the solid foundations on which devotion to the Sacred Heart rests." 2
With this end in view, there are two ways in which we may approach the pages of Holy Scripture. In the first place, we can find in them, as the Holy Father himself shows in the Encyclical, an abundance of passages which serve to illustrate devotion to the Sacred Heart, and which contain hidden within them the living sources of the Saviour. Indeed, the more we meditate upon these passages of Scripture, "pondering them in our hearts," the more clearly we come to recognize in them the central meaning of God's revelation.
When, however, we study the historical development of this devotion in the writings of the Fathers and theologians of the Church, we find our attention limited to a much smaller selection of passages--those, namely, which provided them with the material of their meditations. Moreover, in comparing these passages with their accompanying interpretation, we discover that there is really a central stream of development, proceeding from the major text of John 19:34 as its principal source.
The present study, therefore, begins with this text of St. John, and then follows the stream of its interpretation in the writings of the Fathers from the earliest ages of the Church, up to the point at which it flows out into the wide sea of mediaeval devotion. This method of investigation differs, indeed, from that of most modern exegetes, who attend to the sense of Scriptural texts either in themselves or in their Jewish setting; but it is no less legitimate to seek further light from the interpretation of the Fathers, especially where they express a living tradition. 3
Hence, after briefly considering the Scriptural text, which is the principal source of this tradition, we will proceed at once to the writings of the Fathers for its fuller exposition--remembering that in their work of interpretation they, too, enjoyed a certain guidance of the Holy Spirit. 4 Not that we pretend, however, to give an exhaustive treatment of a subject that reaches to the length and breadth, to the height and depth, of Patristic thought; it is sufficient for our purpose, however, to indicate the main lines of its development in a few representative passages.
The Pierced Side Of Christ
The text of John 19:34 narrates the piercing of the side of Christ and the consequent flow of blood and water; it has an important position in the whole context of the Gospel. This importance is emphasized by the Evangelist himself, for it is precisely at this place that he interposes his own witness for the first time, and confirms it by citing two prophecies from the Old Testament.
When we turn to the Fathers, we find in them also a similar recognition of the unique importance of this event, and of the divine mystery concealed in the darkness of Calvary. By attending to their words of wonder, we learn the proper disposition of mind in which to pursue this investigation, for "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord."
Thus, St. John Chrysostom exclaims in his Homily to the Newly Baptized Christians:
The soldier opened His side, broke through the wall of the holy Temple; and I have found a wondrous treasure, I delight in its gleaming riches. . .From the side came forth blood and water. I would not have you easily pass by the secrets of such a mystery; for I have deep and mystical words to utter. 5
A similar cry of wonder escapes the lips of St. Avitus of Vienne in his Sermon on the Passion a century later:
When the side of Christ was opened, there came forth, copious streams of water and blood. What deed more wonderful than this? What proof more clear? What mystery more charged with meaning? 6
Finally, on the threshold of the Age of Scholasticism in the XII Century, we hear the echo of these expressions in the famous Commentary on St. John's Gospel by Abbot Rupert of Deutz:
Let us contemplate this deed more attentively. For we must not pass over the mysterious significance of such an event, to which the Evangelist has so diligently interposed his witness and added apposite passages from the Scriptures. 7
In the spirit of these Fathers, then, we may proceed with our study of the text itself, as it has been expounded in the long tradition of the Church. From the beginning, it is of no small significance that the first commentator is none other than the Evangelist himself. At the end of his First Epistle there is a clear allusion to this text of his Gospel--an allusion, which is explicitly recognized by several of the Fathers. St. John declares:
This is He Who has come by water and blood; not by water alone, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit Who testifies that Christ is the Truth. 8
According to a common interpretation of this passage, St. John is here contrasting two kinds of baptism. The first is that of St. John the Baptist, in water alone, which Christ received in the Jordan at the beginning of His public life. The second is that proper to Christ Himself, in water and blood, which he poured forth over the world in the hour of His death on Calvary. And on both occasions the Holy Spirit appears, giving witness that Christ is indeed the Truth, the source of eternal life for men.
This interpretation of St. John is followed by many early Fathers, who see in the sacrament of blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Christ a representation of the two kinds of baptism, in water and in blood. Between the two there is an intimate connection. As St. Thomas points out, "the passion of Christ operates in baptism of water by a certain figurative representation . . . but in baptism of blood, by an imitation of the very reality." 9
There is a hint of this idea in Origen's Commentary on the Book of Judges:
Our probation extends not only to lashes, but even to the shedding of our blood; for Christ also, Whom we follow, shed His blood for our redemption, that we might go forth washed in our own blood. It is baptism of blood alone, which makes us purer than we were made by baptism of water. 10
Its clear expression, however, occurs in the classic treatise of Tertullian on Baptism:
We have also a second washing, that of blood, about which the Lord said: "I have a baptism to be baptized," after He had already been baptized. For He came by water and blood, as John has written, that by water He might be baptized, and by blood glorified. Then, to make us called by water and chosen by blood, He sent forth those two baptisms from the wound of His pierced side, that those who believe in His blood might first be washed by water and later by their own blood. This baptism realizes the baptism of water before its reception, and restores it when lost by sin. 11
Other witnesses to this interpretation among the Fathers are St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 12 St. Jerome, 13 and Rufinus of Aquileia. 14 It also finds beautiful expression in the sermon of St. Avitus of Vienne, from which we have already quoted:
Let us receive the water from the Lord's side, while the martyrs receive His blood; and while they are clothed with the precious purple of His blood, let us be sprinkled with the snowy water of baptism. 15
An alternative interpretation, however, is suggested by both St. Cyril and Rufinus: that the water from Christ's side is for the washing of Christians to make them a perfect people, but His blood calls down divine vengeance on the Jews who were responsible for the Saviour's death. This is what St. Cyril says in his Catechesis:
Another explanation may be given: the blood is for the Jews, the water for the Christians. On them, as on traitors, condemnation on account of the blood they shed; but for you who now believe, salvation by means of water. 16
But this is an interpretation, which reflects no constant tradition in the Church. Indeed, it only appears in these two Fathers as an alternative suggestion, in which they place no great confidence. For while it is true that the blood of Christ shed by the Jews has brought upon them their own condemnation, yet the central tradition of the Church has always associated the primary significance of the blood with the salvation of mankind.
A more common line of interpretation, which was destined to supersede that of the two kinds of baptism in mediaeval and Renaissance commentaries, 17 is that the blood represents the price of our redemption, which in turn gives efficacy to the baptismal water of regeneration. It seems to have arisen naturally after the age of persecutions and martyrs, and may have been influenced by the presentation of baptism in connection with the blood of Christ which we find in I Peter, 1:1.
This idea appears in the Sermon on the Cross of the Lord, which is ascribed to St. Athanasius:
He was pierced in no other part but His side, whence flowed blood and water; that just as deception had come through the woman formed from the side of Adam, so from the side of the second Adam might come the redemption and cleansing of the first--redemption by blood, and cleansing by water. 18
But what gave it such widespread currency in the Middle Ages and later was the combined authority of the two great Doctors of the West, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. There are two relevant passages in St. Ambrose, one from his Commentary on St. Luke, the other from his Treatise on the Sacraments, both of them well-known texts in the Middle Ages:
From that body, incorrupt but dead, flowed forth the life of all men; water and blood came forth, the one to wash, the other to redeem. Let us therefore drink our price, that by drinking we may be redeemed. From His side there flowed water and blood. Why water? Why blood? Water to cleanse, blood to redeem. 19
This is not unlike the interpretation given by St. Augustine in his Commentary on St. John:
The blood is shed for the remission of sins. The water tempers the cup of salvation; it affords washing and drink. 20
Two Eucharistic Interpretations
In the above passages from St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, there are also elements of a further interpretation, closely connected with but distinct from the former, and which becomes very common among the later Fathers. This is that the blood signifies not only the price of our redemption which gives efficacy to the water of baptism, but also the Eucharistic food with which the neophyte is nourished as the completion of the baptismal ceremony,
St. Ambrose himself, in fact, gives this interpretation in another passage of his Commentary on St. Luke--which proves that the two interpretations are not to be regarded as exclusive, but rather complementary to each other:
I also ask why we do not find Him wounded before His death, but only after His death; save that His departure was to be shown as voluntary rather than necessary, and that we might learn the mystical order --not the sacrament of the altar before baptism, but first baptism, and then the cup. 21
Similarly, St. Augustine, in his controversy with Faustus the Manichee, 22 interprets the blood flowing from the side of Christ in terms of the Eucharist:
. . . non adhuc in sacramento spei, quo in hoc tempore consociatur Ecclesia, quamdiu bibitur quod de Christi latere manavit.
But without any doubt, the great exponent of this interpretation among the Fathers is St. John Chrysostom--to whom it is suggested by a variant reading of the text, which inverts the order of "sanguis et aqua" to make it conform with the order found in St. John's Epistle. Two passages, in particular, may serve to manifest his thought, one from the Homily to the Newly Baptized, already quoted, the other from his 85th Homily on St. John's Gospel:
From His side flowed water and blood: the one a symbol of baptism, the other, of the sacred mystery. Therefore, he does not say: There came forth blood and water, but: There came forth water first and then blood, since we are first washed by baptism, and afterwards consecrated by the mystery.
This the initiated know who are regenerated by water, and nourished by His flesh and blood. Here the mysteries have their beginning; so that when you approach the awesome cup, you should come as though to drink from His side. 23
This interpretation is also to be found in St. Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of St. John:
With the lance they pierced His side, from which blood mixed with water gushed out, as an image and first-fruits of the mystical "eulogia" and holy baptism. 24
In the West, it appears not long after in Pope St. Leo's Letter to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, on the subject of the Eutychian heresy--though further on in the same letter we also find indications of the previous interpretation:
Let him see which nature was pierced with nails and hung on the wood of the cross, and as he beholds the side of the Crucified opened by the soldier's lance, let him understand whence flowed blood and water, that the Church of God might be irrigated by baptism and the chalice.
The spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism; these three are one, yet remain distinct, and none of them may be severed from their connection. 25
Finally, we can see how fully this interpretation passed into the tradition of the West from a passage in one of St. Bede's homilies, which may be taken as representative of the sacramental teaching of the Middle Ages:
One of the soldiers opened His side with a lance, and at once there came forth blood and water. These are the sacraments by which the Church is born and nourished in Christ, namely the water of baptism by which she is washed from sins, and the blood of the Lord's chalice by which she is confirmed in gifts. 26
There yet remains a further interpretation to be considered, which has reference to the Eucharist alone, where water is mixed with wine in the chalice before the consecration. This ancient ceremony reminds certain of the Fathers, not only of the presumed action of Christ at the Last Supper, but also of the piercing of His side on Calvary.
A hint of this idea appears as early as Clement of Alexandria, who speaks as follows in his Paedogogus:
Later on, a sacred vine put forth a cluster of grapes that was prophetic: it was a sign to those who had been led to a place of rest, for the great cluster of grapes signifies the Word pressed down for our sakes. The Word, then, desired that the blood of the grape be mixed with water, even as His own blood is mixed with our salvation. Hence just as wine with water, so too is the Spirit mixed with man. 27
Its first clear expression, however, is to be found in the well-known letter of St. Cyprian to Caecilius, and through him it became a traditional interpretation in the West, along with those, which we have already noticed:
Since Christ bore us all in bearing our sins, we see how by water is understood the people, and in wine is shown forth the blood of Christ. When, therefore, water is mixed with wine in the chalice, the people are united with Christ, and the assembly of believers is joined to Him in Whom they believe. 28
In this passage St. Cyprian does not explicitly relate the symbolism to the piercing of the side of Christ; it is St. Ambrose who makes this further important connection in his Treatise on the Sacraments, where he uses the catechetical form of question and answer:
On the altar chalice and bread are laid. What is put into the chalice? Wine. And what else? Water. But you may say to me: How then was it that Melchisedech offered wine and bread? What does this mixing of water mean? . . . At the time of the Lord's Passion, since the great Sabbath was at hand, and the Lord or the [two] robbers were still living, soldiers were dispatched to give the fatal blow. When they came, they found the Lord dead. Then one of the soldiers touched His side with a lance, and from His side flowed water and blood. 29
Even clearer is the connection made by St. Caesarius of Arles in a Paschal Homily, where he actually quotes from the letter of St. Cyprian:
That the wine of the Lord's blood was to be mixed with water, the Lord Himself showed us, not only by His example, but also by the manner of His Passion, when from His sacred side blood and water flowed forth at its piercing. 30
The Mystic Birth Of The Church
Further reflection on the varied significance of the sacrament of blood and water flowing from the side of Christ led many of the Fathers to draw a more general conclusion of considerable interest. This, apparently, was suggested to their minds less by St. John than by St. Paul, who speaks of Adam as the prototype of Christ in Romans, 5:14. It was a comparison of this passage with that concerning Christ and His Church in Ephesians 5:22-32 which indicated the parallel, that just as Eve was formed by God from the side of the sleeping Adam, so from the side of Christ sleeping in His Passion came forth the Church in the sacrament of blood and water.
An early instance of this interpretation is to be found in Tertullian's De Anima:
If Adam was a figure of Christ, the sleep of Adam was the death of Christ Who was to fall asleep in death; that in the injury of His side might be figured the Church, the true mother of the living. 31
In the same province of Africa, we find this thought echoed in a work entitled, De Montibus Sina et Sion, which has been ascribed to St. Cyprian:
Pierced in the midst of His side, from that side blood mixed with water flowed abundantly, wherewith He built up His holy Church. 32
About the same time in Rome, the idea again occurs in a certain Homily on the Pasch, whose authorship has recently been attributed to St. Hippolytus. The expressions used are highly poetic, but it is the more sober language of the African writers which was destined to endure in the tradition of the West:
Wishing to destroy the work of the woman and to raise an obstacle to her, who had previously issued from the side of Adam as bearer of death, behold, He opened His own sacred side from which there flowed blood and water, plenary signs of spiritual nuptials, of adoption and mystical regeneration. 33
The Fathers, however, are by no means unanimous in the details of their interpretation; and in several of them the comparison is either not fully developed, or developed along different lines. Thus in the Sermon on the Cross of the Lord, ascribed to St. Athanasius, we read:
Blood and water flowed forth, that just as deception had come through the woman formed from the side of Adam, so from the side of the second Adam might come the redemption and cleansing of the first. 34
Even further from the main line of this tradition are the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechesis:
The originator of sin was the woman who was formed from the side of Adam. But Jesus when He came, bringing the grace of pardon to women as well as to men, was pierced in His side for women, so as to absolve their sin. 35
Moreover, in the writings of St. Ambrose there appears a certain hesitation in his use of the parallel, for the interpretation, which he gives in his Commentary on St. Luke is not the same as the one he uses in the De Sacramentis:
There came forth water and blood, poured out for the life of the world. This life of the world is the rib of Christ, the rib of the second Adam. For the first Adam was made into a living soul, the last Adam into a life-giving spirit, the last Adam is Christ; the rib of Christ is the life of the Church. From His side water flowed and blood. . . Why from the side? Because whence came the fault, thence also comes grace, the fault came through woman, and grace through Our Lord Jesus Christ. 36
It is with St. John Chrysostom that we return to the main line of tradition, and at a deeper level than before, as in the above-quoted Homily to the Newly Baptized:
From these elements holy Church is established, through the regeneration of baptism and the renewal of the Holy Spirit; I say, through baptism and the mysteries, which are seen to have come forth from the side. From His side Christ built His Church, as from the side of Adam his wife Eve was brought forth. For just as from that side God caused woman to be procreated, so from His own side Christ gave us water and blood for the repairing of His Church. 37
This thought he expresses with even greater detail in his Homily on the Choice of a Wife, where he shows its immediate derivation from the inspired Word of God:
Just as Eve came forth from the side of Adam, so do we also from the side of Christ. This is the meaning of "from His flesh and bones." But we all know that Eve was born from the side of Adam, and this is what we clearly read in Scripture, that God sent a sleep upon him, and taking out one of his ribs built the woman; but that the Church was born from the side of Christ, where can we learn? This also Scripture indicates. For after Christ had been raised up and fixed to the cross and so breathed forth His spirit, one of the soldiers came and pierced His side, and there came forth blood and water; and from that water and blood the whole Church proceeds. He Himself bears witness, saying: "Unless a man be reborn of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven"--where He substitutes "spirit" for "blood." And we are indeed born by the water of baptism, and nourished by blood. Do you not see, then, how we are of His flesh and bones, considering that from this blood and water we are both born and nourished? And just as while Adam was sleeping the woman was created, so when Christ was dead the Church was formed from His side. 38
It is also the same tradition which St. Jerome records in his Commentary on Ephesians, 5:31--where he adds a comment of considerable interest, though it does not seem to have been followed by later generations:
Adam prefigured Christ, and Eve the Church. For the last Adam was made into a life-giving spirit. And as from Adam and his wife the whole race of mankind is born; so from Christ and His Church is generated the whole multitude of believers, which, having become one body of the Church, is replaced in the side of Christ, filling the place of the rib, so as to form one body of a man. 39
The fullest and most frequent use of this comparison, however, is that made by St. Augustine, who recurs to it time and again in his writings, and through whom it passed definitely into the tradition of the West. In his words we recognize the influence of Tertullian, and perhaps also that of St. John Chrysostom, with whose baptismal homilies he was familiar.
There is a well-known passage at the beginning of his exposition of Psalm 138, where he develops his favorite theme of "totus Christus, caput et corpus" in conjunction with the two texts of Romans 5: 12 and Ephesians 5:32:
As the Apostle says, there will be two in one flesh; this is a great sacrament--I mean, in Christ and the Church. He also calls Adam a figure of the future; who is, he says, a figure of the future. If then Adam is a figure of the future, just as from his side in sleep Eve was formed, so from the side of the Lord sleeping, that is to say dying in His Passion and pierced with the lance on the cross, the sacraments flowed forth by which the Church might be formed. 40
Many other passages could be cited, especially from his Commentaries on the Psalms and on St. John's Gospel, 41 but it is sufficient if we add his words on the actual text of John 19:34:
For this reason the first woman was made from the side of the man in his sleep, and was called the life and mother of the living. This signified a great good before the great evil of prevarication. The second Adam inclined His head and slept on the cross, that so His spouse might be formed issuing from His side in sleep. 42
Turning to the subsequent tradition of the Western Church, it is interesting to notice how often this idea of St. Augustine is repeated by different writers, who in many cases adopt his exact words. This is what we find, for instance, in the Historia Francorum of St. Gregory of Tours, 43 in the De Cognitione Baptismi of St. Ildefonsus of Toledo, 44 and in St. Bede's Homily on the Ascension. 45 And the idea is finally incorporated by Walafrid Strabo in his authoritative Glossa Ordinaria under Romans 5:14:
Adam is a figure of Christ; for just as he is the father of all according to the flesh, so is Christ according to faith; and just as Eve was formed from his side, so from the side of Christ flowed the sacraments by which the Church is saved. 46
Here for a moment we may anticipate the course of our argument) and enter the Middle Ages proper, where we discover a noteworthy development of this idea in a sermon of St. Peter Damian, who makes an interesting connection with another idea of St. Augustine from the treatise De Sacra Virginitate, by comparing the Church with the person of Our Lady:
Mary is the mother of Christ; the Church is the mother of all Christian people. From Mary Christ took flesh, but the Church He produced from the flesh of His side. . . Great, therefore, is Mary, happy mother and blessed virgin, from whose womb came the flesh of Christ, whence in turn issued the Church through water and blood. In this way, then, the Church is seen to have come from Mary also. 47
Another interesting observation about the same time is that of the Abbot Rupert, who has the following comment on the piercing of the side of Christ in his Commentary on St. John's Gospel:
It was reasonable and fitting for so great a craftsman of salvation, and it enhanced the beauty of his work, that from His side in death He detached that from which the Church might be born; just as from the sleeping Adam he removed a rib for the formation of Eve. What comparison is more beautiful, more delicate, more tender than this? 48
Finally, mention should also be made of Peter Lombard, who not long after adapted the words of the Glossa Ordinaria for the purpose of his own Commentary on the Romans, 49 since it was partly through him that the interpretation reached St. Thomas, who quotes both the Master and the Glossa, as well as their common source in St. Augustine, in many passages of his writings. 50 It is, moreover, largely through the influence of the Angelic Doctor that this idea still remains current among theologians, even though it is sadly unfamiliar to most of the faithful today; and in recent years it has been cited in several Papal Encyclicals--the Divinum Illud of Leo XIII, 51 the Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, 52 and the present Encyclical Haurietis Aquas. 53
(To be continued)
Peter C. Milward, S.J.
Endnotes
1 Bibliographical Note: Early discussions of the Patristic doctrine are to be found in F. Suarez, De Mysteriis Vitae Christi, Disp. 39, sec. 10, and Disp. 41, sec. 1; R. Bellarmine, De Sacramentis, Lib. 11, ch. 27; C. a Lapide, Comm. in Joannem, XIX, 34. In more recent times, a fuller and more historical treatment has been given by A. Hamon, Histoire de la Devotion au S-Coeur (Paris, 1924), II, 59-188. Many Patristic texts have been assembled by S. Tromp, "De Nativitate Ecclesiae ex Corde Jesu in Cruce," in Gregorianum, XIII (1932), 489 ff.; and by H. de Lubac, Splendour of the Church (New York, 1956), p. 31. They also appear in a recent anthology by Margaret Williams, The Sacred Heart in the Life of the Church (New York, 1957). Particular aspects are treated by J. Danielou, Sacramentum Futuri (Paris, 1951), pp. 37-44; H. Rahner, "Die Anfange der Herz-Jesu-Verehrung in der Vaterzeit," in Cor Salvatoris (Freiburg, 1954), pp. 46-72; F. M. Braun, "L'Evangile de S. Jean et l'Ancienne Catechese Romaine," in Revue Thomiste, LVI (1956), 643 ff.
2 AAS 48 (1956), 315.
3 The need of this method is emphasized by Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu (AAS 35 [1943], 310): "Sacrarum litterarum exegetae, memores de verbo divinitus inspirato heic agi, cujus custodia et interpretatio ab ipso Deo Ecclesiae commissa est, non minus diligenter rationem habeant explicationum et declarationum magisterii Ecclesiae, itemque explicationis a Sanctis Patribus datae."
4 The Holy Father continues (p, 312): "Illi enim, etsi interdum eruditione profana et linguarum scientia minus instructi erant quam nostrae aetatis interpretes, pro eo tamen quod Deus in Ecclesia eis attribuit munere, suavi quadam eminent caelestium rerum perspicientia miroque mentis acumine, quibus divini eloquii profunda intime penetrant."
5 Catechetical Homily, III, 17: Sources Chretiennes 50, 161.
6 Sermo de Passione Domini (frag): PL 59, 312.
7 Comm. in Joannem, Lib. XIII: PL 169, 794.
8 I John, 5:6; cf. St. Eucherius of Lyons: Instructionum Liber, Lib. I de Epistola Joannis: CSEL 31, 137.
9 II, q. 66, art. 12.
10 In Libro Judicum, Hom. VII: PG 12, 980.
11 De Baptismo, IX, 3: CSEL 20, 208.
12 Catechesis, III, 10; PG 33, 439.
13 Ep. LXIX (ad Oceanum), 6: CSEL 54, 691.
14 Comm. in Symbolum XXIII: PL 21, 361.
15 Cf. note 6.
16 Catechesis, XIII, 21: PG 33, 798.
17 Cf. Peter Lombard: "aqua ablutionis et sanguis redemptionis" (in Rom. 5:14: PL 191, 1392); St. Albert: "iste sanguis est quo portamur ad vitam, et aqua expiationis qua regeneramur ad gratiam et salutem" (in Jn. 19:34: Opera t.XXIV); St. Thomas: "ex latere Christi fluxit aqua ad abluendum, sanguis autem ad redimendum" (III, q. 66, art. 3, ad 3), and "effectus Passionis Christi est duplex, abluere et redimere: redemit nos per sanguinem suum, item abluit sordes" (Comm. in Mt., 26:27); St. Bernardine of Sienna: "sanguis exivit et aqua: sanguis in redemptionem, sed etiam in ablutionem aqua defluxit" (Sermo Quadr. V); St. Robert Bellarmine: "haec videtur maxime literalis expositio, ut nimirum intelligamus ex Christi latere fluxisse baptismum qui omnem vim suam habet ex Christi sanguine" (De Sacr., II, XXVII).
18 De Cruce et Passione, XXV: PG 28, 227.
19 Expos. in Lucam, X, 135: CSEL 32, 506; De Sacramentis, V, 1: CSEL 73, 60.
20 Comm. in Joannem, tr. CXX, 2: PL 35, 1953.
21 Cf. note 19.
22 Contra Faustum, XII, 20: PL 42, 264.
23 Catechetical Homily, III, 16: Sources Chretiennes 50, 160; Hom. in Joannem, LXXX, 3: PG 32, 463.
24 Comm. in Joannem, XII, 19: PG 74, 678.
25 Ep. XXVIII (Ad Flavianum), 5: PL 54, 775.
26 Hom. II, 15 (in Ascensione Domini): PL 94, 177.
27 Paedagogus, II, 2: PG 8, 410.
28 Ep. LXIII (ad Caecilium), 13: PL 4, 383.
29 De Sacramentis, V, 1: CSEL 73, 60.
30 Hom. V in Paschate: PL 67, 1055.
31 De Anima, XLIII, 10: CSEL 20, 372.
32 de Montibus Sina et Sion, IX: CSEL 33, 115.
33 De Paschate, 53: Sources Chretiennes 27, 181.
34 Cf. note 18.
35 Cf. note 16.
36 Expos. in Lucam, II, 86: CSEL 32, 90; De Sacramentis, V, 1: CSEL 73, 60.
37 Cf. note 5.
38 Quales Ducendae Sint Uxores, III (inter Homiliae XXV in quaedam loca N.T.): PG 21, 229.
39 Comm. in Eph. 5:32: PL 26, 535.
40 Enarr. in Ps. 138, 2: PL 37, 1785.
41 Enarr. in Ps. 103, IV, 6: PL 37, 1381; Comm. in Joannem, IX, 10 and XV, 8: PL 35, 1463 and 1513; Contra Faustum, XII, 8: PL 42, 257.
42 Comm. in Joannem, tr. CXX, 2: PL 35, 1953.
43 Historia Franconum I, Prol. i: PL 71, 163.
44 De Cognitione Baptismi, VII: PL 96, 114.
45 Hom. II, 15 in Ascensione: PL 94, 177.
46 Glossa in Rom. 5:14: PL 114, 486.
47 Sermo 63 (de S. Joanne Apostolo): PL 144, 861.
48 Cf. note 7.
49 Comm. in Rom. 5:14: PL 191, 1392.
50 I, q. 92, art. 3; III, q. 62, art, 5; III, q. 64, art. 2, ad 3; Suppl., q. 17, art. 1; Comm. in Joannem, 19, 34.
51 Divinum Illud Munus (May 9, 1897); Lettres Apostoliques de Leon XIII, V, 149.
52 Mystici Corporis Christi. AAS 35 (1943), 204-207.
53 Haurietis Aquas. AAS
Related articles:
Devotion to the Sacred Heart -- Part II
Haurietis Aquas--Devotion to the Sacred Heart
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