All Churches were baptizing infants in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
This was evidenced in Paul's writings to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16)
| 6 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? |
and also 1 Cor 11:27-29
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. |
How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ" and "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.
Finally, the Earliest Christians also said any consideration of this as just a metaphor was false -- Ignature of Antioch (disciple of Apotle John) wrote in AD 110 wrote about heretics who
abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (Letter to the SMyrnaens). The earliest Christians beleived this to be the ACTUAL body of Christ. Why, they were also accused by pagans of being cannibals and Justin MArtyr had to write a defence to the Emperor saying
"Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" in view of this overwhelming evidence from scripture and supplemented by the practise and belief of the earliest Christians, we can only say that there IS a real presence in the Eucharist. Martin Luther too believed it -- he said that
Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men.