“”Schaff was too well trained not to know the difference””
You’re right! Philip Schaff is a fraud . Much of what he writes has been exposed already.
Here is an example
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num29.htm
Philip Schaff Says Cyprian “Symbolic”
What does historian Philip Schaff say about Cyprian on the Eucharist?
“Cyprian likewise appears to favor a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, yet not so clearly. The idea of the real presence would have much better suited his sacerdotal conception of the ministry. In the customary mixing of the wine with water he sees a type of the union of Christ with his church, and, on the authority of John 6:53, holds the communion of the Supper indispensable to salvation. The idea of a sacrifice comes out very boldly in Cyprian.” (Schaff, volume 2, page 243-244)
That’s it from Schaff on Cyprian. First, I ask — WHERE does Cyprian “appear to favor a symbolical interpretation” of “This is My Body... This is My Blood.” He then adds “yet not so clearly.” You better believe not so clearly! Schaff gives no evidence whatsoever for this “symbolical” view. The direct quotes from St. Cyprian above speak for themselves. Schaff is simply wrong characterizing this as “symbolical.” WHAT is symbolical? The Eucharist is in fact “the body and blood” of Christ and is offered in sacrifice says Cyprian! That is not symbolical! That is as Catholic and Orthodox as you can get!
Schaff is fudging here. While he admits that the idea of sacrifice in the Eucharist “comes out very boldly” in Cyprian, he later repeats —
“The African fathers, in the third century, who elsewhere incline to the symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, are the first to approach on this point the later Roman Catholic idea of a sin-offering; especially Cyprian, the steadfast advocate of priesthood and of episcopal authority.” (Schaff, vol 2, pg 246-7)
Again “...the symbolical view of Tertullian and Cyprian” (vol 3, pg 492).
NOWHERE does Cyprian incline to a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution. Give me the evidence from Cyprian, not Schaff! I’ve already dealt with “This is the figure (Latin figura) of My body” from Tertullian and showed that should not be understood in modern terms of “symbolic.” Much more from J.N.D. Kelly and Darwell Stone later.
Cyprian on Real Presence and Sacrifice
In a footnote Schaff gives the Latin for Cyprian Letters 63:14 above —
“Epist. 63 ad Coecil. c. 14: ‘Si Jesus Christus, Dominus et Deus noster, ipse est summus sacerdos Dei Patris et sacrificium Patri seipsum primus obtulit et hoc fieri in sui commemorationem proecepit: utique ille sacerdos vice Christi vere fungitur, gui id, quod Christus fecit, imitatur et sacrificium verum et plenum tunc offert’” (Schaff, footnote #1, page 247).
See translation of Letters 63:14 above. Nothing “symbolic” about that! Schaff ends his section on the Eucharist as sacrifice with this line —
“The ideas of priesthood, sacrifice, and altar, are intimately connected, and a Judaizing or paganizing conception of one must extend to all.” (Schaff, volume 2, page 247)
St. Cyprian was not a Jew nor a pagan. He was a Christian bishop and a Saint who took Jesus at His word (Luke 22:19f). This is CHRIST’S body and blood we are receiving in the Holy Eucharist to unite us to Himself and to His Body the Church (1 Cor 10:16-17). That is neither a Judaizing nor paganizing conception. That is the BIBLE conception and the unanimous testimony of the early Christians!
“The belief that the Eucharist is a SACRIFICE is found EVERYWHERE. This belief is coupled with strong repudiations of carnal sacrifices; and is SAVED from being JUDAIC by the recognition of the elements AS CHRIST’S BODY AND BLOOD, of the union of the action of the Church on earth with that of Christ in heaven, and of the spiritual character of that whole priestly life and service and action of the community as the body of Christ which is a distinguishing mark of the Christian system.” (Darwell Stone, conclusion of Ante-Nicene period, volume 1, page 54)
“...the eucharist was regarded as the distinctively Christian SACRIFICE from the closing decade of the first century, if not earlier.” “The eucharist was also, of course, the great act of worship of Christians, their SACRIFICE. The writers and liturgies of the period are UNANIMOUS in recognizing it as such.” (Kelly, page 196, 214)
Here’s more from Protestant church history scholar J.N.D. Kelly —
“Clearly his [Tertullian cited before] assumption is that the Savior’s BODY and BLOOD are as REAL as the baptismal WATER. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares [De laps 16; cf. Ep 15:1], ‘DO VIOLENCE TO HIS BODY AND BLOOD, and sin more heinously AGAINST THE LORD with their hands and mouths [from which they received Communion] than when they denied Him’” (Kelly, page 211-212).
This passage from Jurgens FAITH OF THE EARLY FATHERS reads in context —
“The Apostle likewise bears witness and says; ‘You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be a communicant of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils’ [1 Cor 10:21]. And again he threatens the stubborn and perverse and denounces them, saying: ‘Whoever eats the bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor 11:27]. But they spurn and despise all these warnings; and before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest [sacrificio et manu sacerdotis], before the offense against an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, they do VIOLENCE TO HIS BODY AND BLOOD; and with their hands and mouth they SIN AGAINST THE LORD more than when they denied Him.” (Cyprian, The Lapsed 15,16)
Again, how in the world does Schaff get “symbolical” out of that!
I wanted also to quote this line from the NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA —
“St. Cyprian (d. 258) deplored the denial of Christ by those who apostatized in the persecution of Decius. But even worse was their reception of the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ before their sins had been expiated. (This would not be so if Christ were only symbolically present.) ‘Greater is the crime they now commit by hand and mouth [the priest used to put the Host into the hand of the Christian, who in turn put it upon his own tongue] against the Lord than when they denied the Lord’ (De lapsis 15.16; CSEL 3.1:248).” (NCE [1967], volume 5, page 604)
BTW, the NCE and JND Kelly list Darwell Stone as a reference in their bibliography but Schaff is nowhere to be found! I wonder why?
“Later he [St. Cyprian] expatiates [De laps 25f] on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the REAL PRESENCE LITERALLY.” (Kelly, pg 212)
And it just so happens I have this extended passage from Jurgens as well!
“Hear what took place in my presence and with myself as witness. It happened that some parents were fleeing; and acting imprudently because of their fear, they left an infant daughter in the care of a nurse. The nurse turned the abandoned child over to the magistrates. In the presence of the idol where the people were gathering, and because she was not, on account of her age, able to eat meat, they gave her bread mixed with wine, which was itself left over after the sacrifice offered by those who are perishing [i.e. pagans]. Afterwards the mother recovered her daughter. But the girl was no more able to speak and point out the crime that had been committed than she had before been able to understand and prevent it.
“It came about through ignorance, therefore, that the mother brought the child into our presence when we were offering the Sacrifice. The girl mingled with the saints [Jurgens: the term -cum sanctis- applies to the Christian congregation]; and then, growing impatient of our prayers and petitions, was at one moment shaken with weeping and at another began to be tossed about by the violent excitement of her mind. As if by the compulsion of a torturer, the soul of that child of still tender years confessed the awareness of the deed by such signs as it could.
“When the solemnities were completed, however, and the deacon began to offer the chalice to those present, and when her turn came among the rest of those receiving, the little girl, with an instinct of the divine majesty, turned her face away, compressed her mouth with resisting lips, and refused the cup. The deacon persisted, however; and although she was resisting, he poured some into her mouth from the Sacrament in the cup. The result was that she began to choke and to vomit. The Eucharist was not able to remain in that violated body and mouth. The drink sanctified in the Blood of the Lord [santificatus in Domini sanguine potus] burst forth from her polluted stomach. So great is the power of the Lord, and so great his majesty!” (Cyprian, The Lapsed 25)
DG> Tertullian’s and Cyprian’s views were “symbolic”
Symbolic? Symbolic? Symbolic my left ear lobe as Joe Didde says!
More from J.N.D. Kelly on St. Cyprian and the Eucharist —
“So, when he comments on the Lord’s Prayer, he states [De orat dom 18] that Christ is our bread ‘because He is the bread of us who TOUCH HIS BODY’; and elsewhere he argues [Ep 57:2] that prospective martyrs should be fortified ‘with the protection of CHRIST’S BODY AND BLOOD....For how can we teach or incite them to shed their OWN blood in confessing the Name if, as they set out on their service, we refuse them THE BLOOD OF CHRIST?’.....
“....when Cyprian states [Ep 63:13; cf. ib 63:2] that ‘in the wine CHRIST’S BLOOD IS SHOWN’ (in vino vero ostendi sanguinem Christi), we should recall that in the context he is arguing against heretics who wilfully use water instead of wine at the eucharist. In choosing the term ‘is shown’, therefore, he is NOT hinting that the wine merely symbolizes the sacred blood. His point is simply that wine is an essential ingredient of the eucharist, since numerous Old Testament texts point to it as a type of the precious blood. It is significant that only a few lines above [Ep 63:11] he had spoken of ‘DRINKING THE LORD’S BLOOD’” (Kelly, page 212-213).
And now Darwell Stone A HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST —
“The writings of St. Cyprian contain very many incidental references to the Eucharist. It is always mentioned with profound reverence. The Eucharistic food is described as ‘sanctified’ [De laps 25] — a phrase applied also, it must be noticed, to a person who has been made holy by being baptised [E.g. Ep 69:2,8,10,11,15; 70:2; 73:18], and to the water and the oil made holy for use in the administration of Baptism [Ep 70:1,2].
“With obvious or expressed reference to our Lord’s words, ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine’ [Matt 7:6], it is spoken of as ‘the holy thing’ [De laps 26], or ‘the holy thing of the Lord’ [De unit 8; De laps 15,26; Ep 31:6], or ‘the pearls of the Lord’ [Ep 31:6]. ‘THE BLOOD OF CHRIST’ is said to be ‘shown’ or ‘set forth’ by the wine in the cup; the bread and wine which the Lord offered to the Father are called ‘HIS BODY AND BLOOD’; the ‘wine of the cup of the Lord’ is spoken of as ‘BLOOD’. (Stone, volume 1, page 40)
[in a footnote Stone has the following from Cyprian Epistle 63] :
2, ‘nor can His blood, by which we have been redeemed and quickened, be seen to be in the cup, when wine, which is shown (ostenditur) to be the blood of Christ, is absent from the cup’;
4, ‘our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered sacrifice to God the Father, and offered the very same thing as Melchizedek, that is bread and wine, namely His body and blood’;
6, ‘when the blood of the grape is spoken of, what else is shown than the wine of the cup of the Lord which is blood?’;
7, ‘mention is made of wine that by wine may be understood the blood of the Lord, and that what was afterwards manifested in the Lord’s cup might be foretold in the predictions of the prophets.’ (Cyprian, from Stone, volume 1, page 40, footnote)
“Communicants are said to receive and to be sustained and protected by the BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST [De laps 2; De dom orat 18; Ep 11:5; 57:2; 58:1,9; 63:7]. When any communicate unworthily the BODY AND BLOOD OF THE LORD are taken and drunk with defiled hands and polluted mouth, and are outraged and profaned [De laps 16,22,25; Ep 15:1; 75:21].
“To complete what may be gathered as to St. Cyprian’s thought of the Eucharistic presence, there are two passages which need to be correlated to those already in view. In the first of these passages St. Cyprian says of one who took part in the Eucharistic rite after an act of apostacy —
‘He could not eat and handle the holy thing of the Lord, but found that he was carrying a cinder in his open hands. By this single instance it was shown that the Lord departs when he is denied, and that what is received does not benefit unto salvation one who is unworthy, since the saving grace is changed into a cinder on the departure of the holy thing’ [De laps 26 we shall cover this later].
“In the other passage St. Cyprian is speaking of an opposite instance, where the faith of Christ is victoriously maintained in time of persecution — ‘Let us arm,’ he says, ‘the right hand also with the sword of the Spirit, so that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices of the heathen, and that the hand which mindful of the Eucharist RECEIVES THE BODY OF THE LORD may embrace the Lord Himself, hereafter to obtain the reward of the heavenly crowns of the Lord’ [Ep 58:9].
“In the first of these passages, in distinction from those in which the body and blood of the Lord is said to be taken and drunk and outraged and profaned in unworthy Communions, the possibility is contemplated of a withdrawal of the sacred presence in such cases; in the second of them the embrace of the Lord Himself seems to be regarded as a special gift over and above what is in every good Communion.” (Stone, volume 1, page 40-41)
You write:
“The African fathers, in the third century, who elsewhere incline to the symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, are the first to approach on this point the later Roman Catholic idea of a sin-offering; especially Cyprian, the steadfast advocate of priesthood and of episcopal authority.” (Schaff, vol 2, pg 246-7)
Again “...the symbolical view of Tertullian and Cyprian” (vol 3, pg 492).
NOWHERE does Cyprian incline to a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution. Give me the evidence from Cyprian, not Schaff!”
You miss Schaff’s point ENTIRELY!
He wrote: “The African fathers, in the third century, who elsewhere [yes, ELSEWHERE they incline to symbolic] incline to the symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, are the first to approach on this point [but HERE they do not!] the later Roman Catholic idea of a sin-offering; especially Cyprian [who is strongly against the symbolic].
Attack him for being wrong, if and where he is, but it makes no sense whatsoever to attack him for agreeing with you!
And Schaff’s point on sacrifice is that it starts out as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (the meaning of Eucharist) and NOT atonement. Atonement conflicts with Romans, and all those passages that litter the New Testament about how we HAVE BEEN forgiven, and HAVE BEEN saved.
Protestantism begins with a rejection of transubstantiation and the sacerdotal priesthood. I find it interesting, though, that both Luther and Calvin come closer to the Catholic position than the more radical reformers, who don’t even require a learned ministry. And I wonder what Schaff says about the Arian controversy that results in the Council in 325. There the term “substance,” hitherto a philosophical term rejected by it (in another context) was “baptized” by the Church. No Father before that is likely to have used a term that was not defined until the Council used it to define the relation of the Son to the Father. I am pretty sure of this: that Cyprian would never have looked at the whole issue the same way as the Reformers since they began their argument by dismissing out of hand a doctrine that had developed for 1500 years.