Posted on 11/30/2003 5:21:17 PM PST by drstevej
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Bruce Nolan: How do you make someone love you without changing free will?
God: Welcome to my world.
There is such bitter blood among som Orthodox, especially over the percevied "Western Captivity" of the Eastern Church after the fall of Constantinople New Rome that it is difficult to trust these sort of polemical "I define myself as not being like you" arguments. Please lend ears a moment while I dismantle this Priest's letter:
Since the time of Scholastics, the Western Church using Aristotelian logic, which stated that a thing can only be in one place at one time, did the false premise which divides reality and symbol come into existence. This is what started the debates concerning the eucharist, either it is symbol (stands in place of the reality) or it is real. Thus the controversy of Berangarius of Tours and the Scholastic answer of "Transubstantiation."
This simply doesn't make sense based on dating or wording. The controversy with Berengarius ended at the Roman Council of AD 1079, where he was forced to take a profession of faith stating:
"... the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are substantially changed into the true and proper and living flesh and blood of Jesus Christ ... not only through sign and power of the sacrament, but in its property of nature and in truth of substance ..." (Denzinger 355)
So rather than being a division of symbol and reality, the Profession of Berengarius in renunciation of his heresy upholds the union of both symbol (sign) and reality and the reality of the substantial change (important words meaning essentially transubstantiation).
AD 1079 is of interest because it is the year of the BIRTH of the first Scholastic - Peter Abelard. Aristotle and Aristotelean logic only begin to repenetrate the west after the regrettable sack of Constantinople in AD 1204.
Therefore, we can conclude that the Roman terminology of transubstantiation or substantial change springs out of the commonly held Christian faith of the 11th century and before (the most common Patristic terms for it were "changed", "transformed", "becomes", "confected", "made over", as used by St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyr, and St. John Damascene - the same terms used in the Divine Liturgy at the Epiklesis, etc.) and that it has nothing to do with scholasticism or Aristotlean logic.
St. Gregory of Nyssa in "The Great Catechism", 37, [post AD 383] actually uses the phrases "that Flesh, the substance of which is from bread and wine" and "the blessing which transforms the nature of the visible things to that [of the Immortal One]". Its difficult to not see the concept of substantial change/transubstantiation in such phrases.
In other words, this priest is blowing smoke.
To be more precise in the words of St. John of Damascus, "The bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ without ceasing to be bread and wine, just as He became man without ceasing to be God." (quotation is by memory, so it might not be precise).
No, it isn't precise. In fact, the quote is flat out wrong. He is the relevant excerpt from "The Orthodox Faith", Book 4, Chapter 13:
If then the Word of God is quick and energising, and the Lord did all that He willed; if He said, Let there be light and there was light, let there be a firmament and there was a firmament; if the heavens were established by the Word of the Lord and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth; if the heaven and the earth, water and fire and air and the whole glory of these, and, in sooth, this most noble creature, man, were perfected by the Word of the Lord; if God the Word of His own will became man and the pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever-virginal One made His flesh without the aid of seed, can He not then make the bread His body and the wine and water His blood? He said in the beginning, Let the earth bring forth grass, and even until this present day, when the rain comes it brings forth its proper fruits, urged on and strengthened by the divine command. God said, "This is My body", and "This is My blood, and this do ye in remembrance of Me." And so it is at His omnipotent command until He come: for it was in this sense that He said until He come: and the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit becomes through the invocation the rain to this new tillage. For just as God made all that He made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now the energy of the Spirit performs those things that are supernatural and which it is not possible to comprehend unless by faith alone. "How shall this be," said the holy Virgin, "seeing I know not a man?" And the archangel Gabriel answered her: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." And now you ask, how the bread became Christ's body and the wine and water Christ's blood. And I say unto thee, "The Holy Spirit is present and does those things which surpass reason and thought."Further, bread and wine are employed: for God knoweth man's infirmity: for in general man turns away discontentedly from what is not well-worn by custom: and so with His usual indulgence He performs His supernatural works through familiar objects: and just as, in the case of baptism, since it is man's custom to wash himself with water and anoint himself with oil, He connected the grace of the Spirit with the oil and the water and made it the water of regeneration, in like manner since it is man's custom to eat and to drink water and wine, He connected His divinity with these and made them His body and blood in order that we may rise to what is supernatural through what is familiar and natural.
The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God's body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as the Lord took on Himself flesh that subsisted in Him and was born of the holy Mother of God through the Spirit. And we know nothing further save that the Word of God is true and energises and is omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out. But one can put it well thus, that just as in nature the bread by the eating and the wine and the water by the drinking are changed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker, and do not become a different body from the former one, so the bread of the table and the wine and water are supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Christ, and are not two but one and the same.
Wherefore to those who partake worthily with faith, it is for the remission of sins and for life everlasting and for the safeguarding of soul and body; but to those who partake unworthily without faith, it is for chastisement and punishment, just as also the death of the Lord became to those who believe life and incorruption for the enjoyment of eternal blessedness, while to those who do not believe and to the murderers of the Lord it is for everlasting chastisement and punishment.
The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, "This is My body," not, this is a figure of My body: and "My blood," not, a figure of My blood. And on a previous occasion He had said to the Jews, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed." And again, "He that eateth Me, shall live."
Wherefore with all fear and a pure conscience and certain faith let us draw near and it will assuredly be to us as we believe, doubting nothing. Let us pay homage to it in all purity both of soul and body: for it is twofold. Let us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and with our hands held in the form of the cross let us receive the body of the Crucified One: and let us apply our eyes and lips and brows and partake of the divine coal, in order that the fire of the longing, that is in us, with the additional heat derived from the coal may utterly consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and that we may be inflamed and deified by the participation in the divine fire. Isaiah saw the coal. But coal is not plain wood but wood united with fire: in like manner also the bread of the communion is not plain bread but bread united with divinity. But a body which is united with divinity is not one nature, but has one nature belonging to the body and another belonging to the divinity that is united to it, so that the compound is not one nature but two.
Looks like the Priest took the last sentence and ran with it, unfortunately for him utterly out of context.
We should clarify at this point that although we hold that the symbol is united with its prototype we do not confuse or equate the two. (I hope this is now getting at the heart of your question). If an icon for instance, which is Holy, becomes damaged, it can reverently be burned for it is not the object (or better put the subject) of worship. In the same way the priest although he may manifest Christ to us in many ways is not Christ. The Divine Liturgy although it is heavenly worship and gives us a foretaste of what is to come, transporting us and connecting us to heaven is not heaven.
This is perhaps the most useless statement he makes, because one thing both the Church and the Fathers are perfectly clear about is that the symbols of bread and wine ARE really the Flesh and Blood of Christ after their consecration. No, an Icon is not the subject of worship, no the Priest is not Christ, but the Eucharistic elements really are the same Lord Jesus who hung on the Cross for our salvation, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven.
Otherwise, the Priest in the Divine Liturgy of St. John would not bless the people after Holy Communion with the Eucharistic elements and sing "Save your people O God and bless your inheritance." Nor would the people profess before Communion "I believe also that this is really your spotless body and that this is really your precious blood." Nor would adoration and worship be given the sacrament.
I should note, however, that I am unable to find the "John of Damascus" quotation which the priest is referencing; on the other hand, I don't have a full library of John Damascene, and priest Maxwell probably does.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers has most of the works of the Fathers in a readily accessible format.
To the extent, then, that the Eastern Orthodox may be generally closer to "transubstantiation" than I had thought -- I plead ignorance on the grounds that the Eastern Orthodox in the Oklahoma area (one of my old stomping grounds) are apparently less fond of the term "transubstantiation" than the Confession which you posted above.
If the Eastern Orthodox are rejecting the word transubstantiation, they are rejecting their own common heritage both with us Catholics and with their own ancestors since the 11th century, and they are creating a strange new heresy.
Google "Pahuanui"
Not to put too fine a point on your fine point, but there is an alternate reading of the Synod of Jerusalem which holds that it was the "Confession" of Cyril which was condemned in those points which were denounced by that Synod as heretical, not the man himself:
Obviously, as a Protestant, I am not personally pleased that the Synod of Jerusalem (aka Synod of Bethlehem) denounced the more "Lutheran-esque" of Cyril's confessions; but I believe it is over-stating things a bit to say that Patriarch Cyril himself was Anathematized to Hell.
At the very least, I certainly do not believe that it is correct to characterize the "general understanding" of Eastern Orthodoxy as being that Patriarch Cyril, the man himself, was decreed to be Anathema by the Synod of Jerusalem.
St. Augustine addresses all of this. He spent his life doing so. And he wasn't a Calvinist. Essentially, God foreknows man's free choices (Predestination) and sets up the circumstances in which they occur (Providence). God creates the playing field, man creates the results God foresaw. The Merciful and Loving Father gives sufficient grace to all, but the reprobate reject it and choose sin and death. They are not "elect" because God has not created a world in which they are saved, although He could have done so, but perhaps only at the expense of the salvation of others.
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will -http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints - http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1512.htm
Point well argued by you and granted. The Council condemned the doctrines of his supposed confession, not the man himself. Thus the epilogue of the Confession "Let us briefly suffice for the reputation of the falsehoods of the adversaries, which they have devised against the Eastern Church, alleging in support of their falsehoods the incoherent and impious Chapters of the said Cyril."
The Jesuits had recovered their ascendancy in the East through the diplomatic skill of the French Embassies, and the Council of Bethlehem, 1672, under Dositheus, patriarch of Jerusalem, was convened in the Jesuit interest, much of its language being adopted under their inspiration. Cyril Lukaris' 'Eastern Confession of the Orthodox Faith' provoked the extreme ‘Latin’ formulations of the Councils of Constantinople (1638), Jassy (1642) and Bethlehem (1672), in all of which his teaching was condemned, though at Bethlehem his memory was vindicated.
This quotation tends towards the view of "Jesuit Puppet Masters" pulling the strings in the East, and implies that the Eastern Church could not (to this day since the Confession is endorsed as a major statement!) recognize its own faith without the Jesuits. I suspect most Easterners would both reject and resent the implication of such a statement.
Can this idea (the bolded portion) be cited in Augustine?
I'm not familiar with this idea in any of Augustine's works, certainly not his later works wherein he renounced many of his former errors concerning grace and free will.
Citation?
I would agree -- the posted article is from an Anglican source, and reflects on the "Non-Jurors" controversy from the Anglican viewpoint, not the Eastern Orthodox viewpoint. Mainly I wanted to point out (in the bolded portion) the author's understanding that it was the "lutheran-esque" elements of Cyril's Confession which were condemned, the Patriarch himself not being formally anathematized.
Nope.
Meantime, This is a wonderful writing which conveys the mind of the Orthodox church.
"We give precedence to those beliefs that were agreed to over the broadest geographic range, from the earliest times, and attested by the greatest number of writers. The summary test is "everywhere, always, and by all."
Do all early writers, and early communities, agree?
No. We look for broadest consensus.
Give an example.
These Christians came to agreement on which books should be considered part of the canon of the New Testament and which should not. The question was strongly debated, and some books (the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Revelation of St. John) required centuries to win full approval. Our older brothers and sisters in faith trusted in Jesus’ promise, "When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). Whenever we open the New Testament we demonstrate, in turn, our trust in their discernment and leadership. Whenever we read the New Testament, we affirm that they had authority to make decisions like this.
Give an example of another decision.
These Christians also wrote the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.), to correct a popular idea that Jesus was a mere human and not God from all eternity. Some questions, like this one, seemed unclearly addressed in Scripture and open to the interpretation of the individual Christian. Believers met in council to decide such questions, prayerfully seeking the Spirit’s guidance. This method of discernment was in use even before the New Testament was written, as shown by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. It became, in fact, an article of faith to believe that the community had discerned accurately when it was "in one accord" (Acts 15: 25). In the Nicene Creed we say that we believe in four things: God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church.
May any quotation from any early church writer be taken as Gospel?
No. We look for broadest consensus. Individual writers of the early church could be as flawed as they are today. Most have occasional trouble spots. Despite this, they may be called "saints." Even saints aren’t perfect on earth. Some whose writings are still treasured departed from the consensus at significant points--more likely to be points of theological speculation than points of devotion.
Give three examples.
Origen, most eloquent and intoxicated with the love of God, was censured for his assertion of universal salvation. Augustine, confessor of touching intimacy and humility, was criticized for his views of free will and Original Sin. Tertullian, acerbic Mark Twain of the early church, drifted from the faith community into a cult. Yet all may be read profitably today."
Looks like the Priest took the last sentence and ran with it, unfortunately for him utterly out of context.
You are not only confused but disrespectful. The priest was exactly correct and perfectly in line with Orthodox teachings.
It says, "is not plain bread but bread united with divinity." It is exactly what the priest said and what I have said as well, because it goes on to discuss the exact same concepts we both mentioned. Just as Christ did, the compound now has "not one nature but two".
I don't know what you think is missing from this summary but it is all there for me. Likewise it all matches the discussion on the OCA site I posted the link for.
When I read the post from the priest I felt like I had come home. It was that powerful for me and that true.
We are clearly from two very different churches with very different ways. BTW, just so you know and for future reference..... Your beloved patriarch is just that, a patriarch, while Khomiakov is a theologian and one who is considered to have contributed a great deal to the church.
In particulular Khomiakov characterized for us the definition of the church, which is the community, a union of souls.
This idea is so essential that we teach it every year in Sunday school to the kids, even the youngest ones.
The reason I am posting it for you Hermann is to counter your position on authority and your apparent disdain for Khomiakov.
"We both believe that defending and living the Faith is the province of the whole People of God and not merely the clergy. It is the whole People of God also who are ultimately responsible for the legitimacy of any ministry or teaching which is exercised in its midst."
"Orthodoxy's ecclesiastical polity is based on the Council and conciliarity. This is how the mind of the Church emerges as the Holy Spirit speaks to the assembled faithful."
To help you understand that Khomiakov's view is the view of the church. As I just recently posted, in the Orthodox church, we are all popes. One patriarch does not make a church nor have any authority to define anything other than his beliefs.
That would be Antidoron. It is a sharing of Christian love via bread with those who did not commune.
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