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To: ealgeone
So typical: taking a few snippets from someone who wrote extensively, and then "Check" as if this were a game in which one or two lines sums up the thought of a man or a century.

It's superficial.

The canons of the Church teach that the Eucharist is the whole Christ: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity: not dead, but the whole Living Christ. Please note that Clement (150 - 215 AD) calls the wine of the Eucharist the "blood of Christ," and condemns those who attempt to understand or celebrate the Eucharist in any manner except according to the canons of the Church.

Clement of Alexandria returns often to his theme that the Eucharist is multifold, symbol/mystery, matter/spirit, metaphor/reality, because it works on many levels at once:

"The blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh.

"Accordingly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith; while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality. And the mixture of both— of the water and of the Word— is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace; and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and soul. For the divine mixture, man, the Father’s will has mystically compounded by the Spirit and the Word. For, in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul, which is inspired by it; and the flesh, by reason of which the Word became flesh, to the Word.

So Catholic! We drink the Blood of Jesus.

It happens that, on a natural level, Clement writes at great length against wine, saying,

“I therefore admire those who have adopted an austere life, and who are fond of water, the medicine of temperance, and flee as far as possible from wine, shunning it as they would the danger of fire.”

What a contrast: between the Eucharist, which he praises (and calls “the Blood of Jesus” and promises will lead us to eternal life if taken faithfully), and wine, which he calls us to flee from completely. Because, after the Consecration, Clement doesn’t think that the Eucharist is wine! You can’t abstain from wine and still receive the Eucharist, unless the Eucharist isn’t wine.

Finally, we also see Clement condemning as heretical those “employ bread and water in the oblation,not according to the canon of the Church. For there are those who celebrate the Eucharist with mere water.

So: Clement viewed wine as bad, and encouraged Christians to flee from it completely. But he also condemned as heretics those who attempted to consecrate water without wine at the Eucharist. Rather, wine must be used in the Eucharist, because (a) the Church requires it, and (b) it becomes the Blood of Christ (i.e., no longer wine, and no longer something to flee from).

Finally, note that Clement calls the Eucharist an Oblation, that is, a Sacrifice to God.

I see here a lot which differs from your Protestant view, and everything here that is in accord with the Catholic.


One more thought: Clement of Alexandria was honored as a canonized saint and a Father of the Church for over a millennium by the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. No Church would say that Clement of Alexandria was infallible, and some took exception to his neo-Platonism.

However, what's striking is that his Eucharistic beliefs, specifically, were not controversial with either his Catholic contemporaries or with later Churchmen: and his Eucharistic teaching show his break with Platonism.

For Clement, the way to this union with God was only the Church's way. By the Eucharist, the believer was united with the Logos and the Spirit and made partaker of incorruptibility.

Later in his career, Clement debated with the Gnostics. They were very much opposed to Christ as God and Man --- they'd say "Spirit good, Matter bad! Down with the Incarnation!" This Clement saw as a distorted hyperspiritualism, and it made him put more stress both an the Eucharist as a real banquet of the Flesh and Blood, and on the Church as a visible institution.

829 posted on 06/06/2019 12:38:02 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("For peace within your gates, speak truth and judge with sound judgment." - Zechariah 8:16)
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To: Mrs. Don-o; aMorePerfectUnion; MHGinTN; metmom; boatbums; Mom MD
And but what have you done but offer snippets...and out of context.

Your comments comes before the part where he clearly indicates the bread and wine are symbols.

Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, “the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;” the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed (γαλακτοφάγοι). So also may we take the Scripture: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;”7 so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal; whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the heathen the things of the flesh: “For whereas there is among you envy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” “Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink,” he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression, “I have given you to drink” (ἐπότισα), is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. “For my blood,” says the Lord, “is true drink.” In saying, therefore, “I have given you milk to drink,” has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next, “not meat, for ye were not able,” may indicate the clear revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. “For now we see as through a glass,” the same apostle says, “but then face to face.”10 Wherefore also he has added, “neither yet are ye now able, for ye are still carnal,” minding the things of the flesh,—desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath, envy. “For we are no more in the flesh,” as some suppose. For with it [they say], having the face which is like an angel’s, we shall see the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise after our departure hence, say they that they know “what eye hath not known, nor hath entered into the mind of man,” who have not perceived by the Spirit, but received from instruction “what ear hath not heard,”12 or that ear alone which “was rapt up into the third heaven?” But it even then was commanded to preserve it unspoken.

But if human wisdom, as it remains to understand, is the glorying in knowledge, hear the law of Scripture: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.” But we are God-taught, and glory in the name of Christ. How then are we not to regard the apostle as attaching this sense to the milk of the babes? And if we who preside over the Churches are shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you the sheep, are we not to regard the Lord as preserving consistency in the use of figurative speech, when He speaks also of the milk of the flock? And to this meaning we may secondly accommodate the expression, “I have given you milk to drink, and not given you food, for ye are not yet able,” regarding the meat not as something different from the milk, but the same in substance. For the very same Word is fluid and mild as milk, or solid and compact as meat. And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind.

Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;”2 describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood.

Clement of Alexandria. (1885). The Instructor. In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. C. Coxe (Eds.), Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire) (Vol. 2, pp. 218–219). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

Your conclusions of what Clement believed seem to be at odds with what he actually wrote.

840 posted on 06/06/2019 2:05:23 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Mrs. Don-o; aMorePerfectUnion; MHGinTN; metmom; boatbums; Mom MD
It happens that, on a natural level, Clement writes at great length against wine, saying,

“I therefore admire those who have adopted an austere life, and who are fond of water, the medicine of temperance, and flee as far as possible from wine, shunning it as they would the danger of fire.”

What a contrast: between the Eucharist, which he praises (and calls “the Blood of Jesus” and promises will lead us to eternal life if taken faithfully), and wine, which he calls us to flee from completely. Because, after the Consecration, Clement doesn’t think that the Eucharist is wine! You can’t abstain from wine and still receive the Eucharist, unless the Eucharist isn’t wine.

Have you actually read the whole section??

Do you understand the context??

It's from CHAP. II.—ON DRINKING.

I really don't think you want to use this as an example.

btw....IF Clement is as against wine/alcohol as you suggest...a LOT of Roman Catholics are in a world of hurt!

*******

Giving you a chance to honorably withdraw from the game.

841 posted on 06/06/2019 2:18:56 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Mrs. Don-o; ealgeone
So typical: taking a few snippets from someone who wrote extensively, and then "Check" as if this were a game in which one or two lines sums up the thought of a man or a century.

It's superficial.

Just like Catholics do with Scripture.

844 posted on 06/06/2019 2:55:20 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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