OH Geez.
Can you see, I'm not asking for agreement, how that reads like, well, like saying Sola Scriptura took 1,500 years (say, until the Articles of Religion about "nothing that is not read therein nor may be proved thereby...") give or take -- or the idea that Jesus was man and God took until around 450?
Rightly or wrongly, we think that Justin Martyr was already talking like "Everybody in the Church 'knows' that it's the body and blood of Christ." Then we think that over subsequent centuries there was a process of refinement of that assertion. A major step in that process was the adoption of Transubstantiation (hereinafter: Trnsbtttn)as authoritative.
But that doesn't mean it's all wrapped up. Further development will be confined within the bounds of that explanation. So somebody (like me) who had a fatal attraction to Heidegger and wanted to try to discuss the Eucharist within the Heideggerian "scheme" would deserve everything that happened to him no, I mean: would have to show how his attempt was a re-casting or another way of looking at Trnsbtttn.
I mean, we start with something like "the desires of man's heart are wicked from his youth" and then think about how much the evil of a deed is intrinsic to the deed and how much is involved with the intention of the person doing the deed. Then somebody says "The object specifies (that is, says what 'kind' it is) the act." That's nice but there's still doctoral work to be done on what buzzackly an 'object' is.
And, while any of this may have great evangelical or moral use someday, the average Xtian putz doesn't need to worry about it, anymore than he has to know what Aristotle, Thomas, and a cast of thousands mean by "substance" to make a good and pious communion.
The problem with transubstantiation is quite a bit more than a late date for the word, or even the concept - it is the Catholic Encyclopedia that says “Regarding tradition, the earliest witnesses, as Tertullian and Cyprian, could hardly have given any particular consideration to the genetic relation of the natural elements of bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ, or to the manner in which the former were converted into the latter; for even Augustine was deprived of a clear conception of Transubstantiation, so long as he was held in the bonds of Platonism.”
First, the idea that Jesus is continually being sacrificed in some sort of out of time experience is contrary to scripture. According to John 6, which Catholics apply to Eucharist, “54Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”
Taken literally, then once the priest has done whatever it is he is supposed to do, and the wine and bread literally (substantially) become the flesh and blood of Jesus, then a non-believer who partakes “has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day”. Perhaps Teddy Kennedy is saved after all...
It also contradicts the one time nature of Christ’s sacrifice. “27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.” - Hebrews 7
Notice, it doesn’t say he continually offers himself in sacrifice, but that “he did this once for all”.
“24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” - Hebrews 9
Again, once for all. Not one time that exists forever as an ongoing sacrifice, but once for all. As He said on the cross, “It is FINISHED!”
” 11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” - Hebrews 10
Again, the writer COULD have said the sacrifice continues forever since God is outside time, but that is contrary to what the text reads.
“Had offered” - past tense. He then “sat down” - a subsequent act still in the past. “Waiting until his enemies” - future tense, which doesn’t make sense if God is outside time, and both Christ’s sacrifice and future victory are continuous events to God.
“by a single offering he has perfected for all time” - past tense. Has perfected. How long? “for all time”. The NIV translates it “has made perfect forever”.
When you have been born again, you have been (past tense) made (past tense) perfect (as good as it is possible to be) forever (ongoing with no end).
And why is all this true? Jesus said, “18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” - John 3
Whoever believes (’eats his flesh’ in John 6) IS NOT CONDEMNED. The one who does NOT believe “is condemned already”.
As a matter of sanctification, “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
As a matter of justification, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned”, having been “perfected for all time”.
The real problem with the Catholic approach to the Eucharist (thanksgiving) isn’t transubstantiation, it is the belief that the one sacrifice is offered repeatedly...
“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner . . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”190”
You can say re-presents, but the Catechism says, “the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner”. Christ is offered again, only in an unbloody manner.
There are words the writers of scripture could have used to convey what the Catholic Church teaches...but they did not. Instead, they made it extremely clear “once of all”! And we are justified forever. Truly, “It is finished!”