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131 A grain of wheat falls to the earth and decomposes, and is then raised with manifold increase by the spirit of God, who contains all things; by wisdom it is then used by human beings, receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, being nourished by it, will be deposited in the earth and decompose there, and then rise at their appointed time, as the Word of God grants them resurrection to the glory of God. —St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V 2, 3 (trans. E. Theokritoff) Here, in a statement that focuses on the work of God in the Eucharist, St. Irenaeus summarizes the essence of the Cosmology of the Eucharist in a seemingly simple yet profound statement. What I propose to do here is to approach this Cosmology from a different perspective, drawing on what we know of the workings of the Cosmos. We could usefully start by asking the questions “What is bread?” and “What is wine?” It needs hardly to be said that bread is made of flour, yeast (or leaven), and water, and wine by the fermentation of grape juice. What is produced by wheat (Irenaeus’s “grain of wheat”) and by the vine is transformed by human labor (“used by human beings”). But this is not the only intervention of human labor: the wheat is sown (“a grain of wheat falls to the earth”) and then germinates, grows, bears ears of wheat (“raised with manifold increase by the Spirit of God”), and finally reaped, threshed, and the grains ground to give flour. Similarly, vines have to be planted and grafted. They then grow and bear fruit (“raised with manifold increase by the Spirit of God”), and finally the grapes are gathered and pressed. In this, we see the synergy of the transformative power of God with human labor. The Cosmology of the Eucharist George Theokritoff 132 G E O RG E T H E O K R I TO F F We too should wonder and give thanks, that from the dry stalk of wheat there comes ample bread, that from the vine stalk there flows wine, that from each tree, all kinds of varied delights— this too is a great wonder, as great as the miracle at Cana. In the wheat and in the vine, and at Cana, there is the same key element in the transformation: water. The third question, then, is “What is water?” An essential constituent of all living things, water also has a vital role at every stage, every transformation, in the preparation of the elements of the Eucharist. Both the wheat in the fields and the vines on the hillsides utilize water and carbon dioxide as well as the energy of sunlight in photosynthesis. But it is important to be aware that plants also obtain nutrients from the soil. And so we come to the fourth question: “What is soil?” Most soils consist of two components. The first is minerals derived from weathering of the bedrock , which is broken down into smaller pieces by the action of frost, tree roots, and burrowing animals. Once in smaller pieces, the increased surface area enhances the chemical alteration of the bedrock. Here, naturally occurring acids (carbonic, nitric, nitrous, and those produced by plant roots) and the activity of microorganisms play important roles in the release, from the minerals that make up the bedrock, of nutrients, in a water-soluble form that can be utilized by plants. The second component is an organic material called humus. This is of great importance because it retains soil moisture, thereby binding the soil and inhibiting loss by erosion. It is made up mostly of plant debris, such as the leaf litter that accumulates in the woods. But in itself leaf litter is of little use to plants because the nutrients in it are locked up in complex molecules, which must be broken down into simple molecules that plants can utilize. This is done by decomposers: nonphotosynthetic microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. Thus, the decomposers obtain their own energy and nutrients. In the larger context, the working of the decomposers is of profound importance in the functioning of the biosphere because it completes the cycling of nutrients and energy. Up to this point, we have noted the contributions of the sun, the atmosphere (carbon dioxide, water, oxides of nitrogen), the hydrosphere (water), the solid earth (mineral nutrients such as...

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