Also transs-. [ad. med.L. tran(s)substāntiātio (in use in the 11th c.), n. of action fr. tran(s)substāntiāre: see prec. So F. transsubstantiation (14th c. in Godef., Compl.).
The L. form occurs as a current term. c. 1070 in St. Peter Damian, Expos. Canonis Missæ, § 7 ‘Quando profertur ipsum pronomen [‘Hoc’], nondum est transsubstantiatio.’ (Migne, Patrologia, CXLV. 883.)]
1. The changing of one substance into another.
(Often with allusion to sense 2.)
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. xxxi. (MS. Add. 27944), lf. 129. Þanne þe cene day is day of reconciliacioun, of transubstanciacioun, of consacracioun, and of sacringe, of halewinge of oynement.
1477. Norton, Ord. Alch., v., in Ashm. (1652), 86. Whereby of Mettalls is made transmutation, Not only in Colour, but transubstantiation.
1574. Newton, Health Mag., 23. Avicen sayeth that fleash is a meate comfortynge the body and of meere transubstantiation and conversion into bloud.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., III. 65. The Vintners practising … sometimes euen real transubstantiations, of white wine into Claret.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xlv. 361. The Gentiles … might excuse their Idolatry, by pretending … a transubstantiation of their Wood, and Stone into God Almighty.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 286. We look upon … the change of a substance from one species into another as a transubstantiation.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., xi. 362. It is no longer a wax doll for her, but has undergone a transubstantiation quite as real as that of the Eucharist.
2. The conversion in the Eucharist of the whole substance of the bread into the body and of the wine into the blood of Christ, only the appearances (and other ‘accidents’) of bread and wine remaining: according to the doctrine of the Roman Church.
Distinguished from consubstantiation, in which the elements of the bread and wine are held to coexist with the body and blood of Christ.
1533. Tindale, Supper of Lord, C iij b. S. Thomas theyr owne doctoure that made theyr transsubstanciacion confessethe that some there were that sayed that Christe dyd fyrste consecrate wyth other wordes, ere he nowe reachyng the bread to his disciple sayed, This is my bodie. Ibid. (a. 1536), Declar. Sacram., D iv. As concernyng the transsubstanciatyon I thinke that such a speche was among the olde doctours though they that came after vnderstode them amysse.
1558. Bp. Watson, Sev. Sacram., viii. 45. The … church … did … well … when it inuented the worde of Transubstantiation, to expresse the olde truthe,… that the former substaunces of breade and wine be conuerted and chaunged into the body and bloud of Chryste.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 73. Transubstantiation is not so olde as Damascene, neither was it receyued in the Greeke Church, neither is it at this daye.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., 55. The word Transubstantiation is … first mentioned by Roger Hovenden, who flourished An. 1204.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., xv. 52. That Mysterious conceit of Transsubstantiation and the Idolatry thereon depending.
1678. Act 30 Chas. II., Stat. II. § 3. Such Peer or Member shall … audibly repeat this Declaration following. ‘I A. B. do … testify and declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the Consecration thereof.’
1715. Bentley, Serm., x. 362. By slow degrees Transubstantiation was enacted into an Article of Faith.
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 83. As transubstantiation had not yet [11th c.] been established by the papal authority, it … formed no part of the public system of the Anglo Saxon church.
1901. Bp. Gore, Body of Christ, ii. § 3. 118. The use … of the distinction of substance and accidents for the purpose of assisting the doctrine of transubstantiation was already familiar to Berengar,… he combats the proposed use of it, denying that the accidents can exist apart from their substance or ‘subject,’ or apart from that of which they are attributes.
1901. B. J. Kidd, 39 Art., II. 230–1. It was a crude attempt to secure some real meaning to Our Lord’s Words of Institution by the doctrine of a physical transubstantiation or change in the material elements. But the Schoolmen now came forward with a subtler defence…. Hence the doctrine of a metaphysical transubstantiation was adopted [by the Realists].
Hence Transubstantiationist, one who holds the doctrine of transubstantiation. So Transubstantiationite, -ationalist.
a. 1834. Coleridge, in Lit. Rem. (1839), IV. 192. The Consubstantiationist, or the Transubstantiationist.
1839. J. Rogers, Antipopopr., VI. ii. 219. What Bedlam … contains madmen madder than the mad transubstantiationite?
1884. N. & Q., 23 Feb., 149/2. Dr. Samuel Pegge explained it [‘please the pigs’] by ‘An’t please the pyx,’… and so making it equivalent to Deo volente in the minds of transubstantiationalists.
