The blood of our Divine Saviour. Jesus, at the Last Supper,
ascribes to it the same life-giving power that belongs to His
flesh (see EUCHARIST). The Apostles, St. Peter ( 1 Peter 1:2, 19
), St. John ( 1 John 1:7 ; Apocalypse 1:5 etc.), and above all
St. Paul ( Romans 3:25 ; Ephesians 1:7 ; Hebrews 9:10 ) regard
it as synonymous with Jesus's Passion and Death, the source of
redemption. The Precious Blood is therefore a part of the Sacred
Humanity and hypostatically united to the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity. In the fifteenth century some theologians, with
a view of determining whether the blood shed by the Saviour
during His Passion remained united to the Word or not, raised
the point as to whether the Precious Blood is an essential part
or only a concomitant of the Sacred Humanity. If an essential
part, they argued, it could never be detached from the Word; if
a concomitant only, it could. The Dominicans held the first
view, and the Franciscans the second. Pius II, in whose presence
the debate took pl