Refusing The Eucharist

Auxit autem procellam huiusce perturbationis etiam mors Sabercti regis Orientalium Saxonum, qui ubi regna perennia petens tres suos filios, qui pagani perduraverant, regni temporalis heredes reliquit, coeperunt illi mox idolatriae, quam, vivente eo, aliquantulum intermisisse videbantur, palam servire, subiectisque populis idola colendi liberam dare licentiam. Cumque viderent pontificem, celebratis in ecclesia missarum sollemniis, eucharistiam populo dare, dicebant, ut vulgo fertur, ad eum barbara inflati stultitia: Quare non et nobis porrigis panem nitidum, quem et patri nostro Saba, sic namque eum appellare consuerant, dabas, et populo adhuc dare in ecclesia non desistis? Quibus ille respondebat: Si vultis ablui fonte illo salutari, quo pater vester ablutus est, potestis etiam panis sancti, cui ille participabat, esse participes; sin autem lavacrum vitae contemnitis, nullatenus valetis panem vitae percipere. At illi: Nolumus, inquiunt, fontem illum intrare, quia nec opus illo nos habere novimus, sed tamen pane illo refici volumus. Cumque diligenter ac saepe ab illo essent admoniti nequaquam ita fieri posse, ut absque purgatione sacrosancta quis oblationi sacrosanctae communicaret, ad ultimum furore commoti aiebant: Si non vis adsentire nobis in tam facili causa, quam petimus, non poteris iam in nostra provincia demorari. Et expulerunt eum, ac de suo regno cum suis abire iusserunt. Sancta Beda, Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum, Liber II, Cap V Source: Migne PL 95.90b-c

The storm of this disturbance grew with the death of Sabert, king of the East Saxons, who seeking the eternal kingdom left to his three sons, still pagans, the inheritance of his temporal kingdom, and they immediately began openly to give themselves up to idolatry, which while he lived they had seemed somewhat to abandon, and they granted free licence to their subjects to serve idols. And when they saw the bishop, while he was celebrating Mass in the church, give the Eucharist to the people, puffed up with barbarous folly as they were, they said to him, as it is commonly reported, 'Why do you not give to us also that white bread, which you used to give to our father Saba,' for so they were accustomed to call him, 'and which you do not stop giving to the people in the church?' To which he answered, 'If you will be washed in that font of salvation, in which your father was washed, you may also have the holy Bread of which he partook; but if you scorn the water of life, you can in no way receive the bread of life.' They said to him, 'We will not enter into that font, because we know that we have no need of it, and yet we wish to be refreshed by that bread.' And when they were earnestly and frequently admonished by him that this could by no means be done, that no one without holy cleansing could receive the sacred oblation, at last, shaking with rage they said, 'If you will not agree with us in so trivial a matter concerning what we want, you shall not stay in our province any longer.' And they drove him out and commanded him and his associates to leave their kingdom. Saint Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book 2, Chap 5