FORM OF THE HOST

From time immemorial it has been customary to have the Host, or altar-bread, of a circular form. This can be traced as far back at least as the third century, for Pope Zephyrinus, who died A.D. 217, calls the bread a “crown of a spherical figure”—Corona sive oblata sphericæ figuræ (Benedict XIV., c. 5). Severus of Alexandria, styled the “Christian Sallust,” who flourished in the fourth century, calls it simply the “circle” (Martène, De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus, 14). According to Durandus, who is never at a loss for a mystical meaning, the bread is circular, in the shape of a coin, to remind us that the true Bread of Life, our Divine Redeemer, was sold by Judas for thirty pieces of silver (Rationale Divinorum, p. 256).