*****I settled this in another post with the words “signified,” “likeness,” “resemblance,” and the phrase “Believe and you have already eaten.”*****
Settled for whom? In the same way it is said that the science of global warming is settled?
The archaic use of some words are very different than they are now; so much so that in some cases the word can now mean the opposite of what it once meant.
Also,this use of Augustine puts me in mind of how many non Catholics use Scripture when debating a Catholic.
When given quotes/verses in support of Catholic doctrine, the non Catholic is quick to throw ones that seemingly refute said doctrine and then pompously declare the argument is settled and the Catholic is wrong and that is that. Not so fast....
After all, I believe it is settled in support of the Catholic Church.
St. Augustine was a Catholic bishop for more than thirty years. He is a Doctor of the Church whose writings and theology is upheld as orthodox in line with Catholic teaching.
That non Catholics can pick out phrases within his hundreds of writings that they think contradicts Catholic teachings is no surprise. After all, he certainly could have ventured down a wrong path in his theology.
In saying that, I must stress that I don’t believe that is what he has done, I believe that the reader is reading into his words what the reader desires to see.
But, to ignore the fact that he was Catholic, subject to the very same authority as all Catholics are, and was so because he found her doctrine to be not just reasonable, not just philosophically sound, but Truth itself, is to deny something that is of paramount importance to knowing and understanding him.
Non Catholics would truly like to claim him for themselves, but alas, he was Catholic through and through and as such, fully believed and followed and was obedient to the Catholic faith.
****Jesus Christ said to celebrate the Lord’s supper as a remembrance. He did not say one had to eat bread and wine prayed over to get saved. As Augustine says, “Believe and you have eaten already.”****
Well, our Lord felt it was so important that when He called Paul and revealed to him the gospel, Jesus gave him the same words as He prayed them at the Last Supper.
Again, I must go back to how Christ revealed Himself and His mission over a three year period. He didn’t call the Apostles and say immediately, “I am the Son of God, I have come to die for your sins, I will then rise from the dead and return to heaven. I will then send the Holy Spirit to remain with you always.”
No, He drew them in and revealed all of this a bit at a time. In the same way He revealed the Eucharist. I won’t go into the sequence again, but there is no doubt that He only gave to them what He wanted when He was ready to reveal it.
Jesus said as much, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” John 16:12
So, on the night before He died, He revealed them how they could eat His flesh and drink His blood. He gave them the words and He commanded that this be done and we know that that is what they did. Paul tells us that when he recounts the Last Supper, as if he were there, using nearly the exact words, reminding the new Church the sacrificial nature of the breaking of the bread which they shared.
Yes, faith is the way to salvation and those who share the faith that was handed on to the Apostles join in the Eucharist and become one body in the one loaf that is Christ. One lone phrase by Augustine in a sermon does not change that, even if Augustine meant what you want to believe he meant.
anamnesis”
—Greek Word Study (Transliteration-Pronunciation Etymology & Grammar)
1) a remembering, recollection
Again, not just the simple remembering or recollection as it is used in context in Scriptures, first in the Jewish act of re-calling the Passover, the sacrificial nature of their celebration of that event. The Last Supper is tied to that re-calling in that the meal they were eating was the Passover meal. The fact that it is bread and wine which Jesus offers is tied to the Psalms which speaks of a clean offering in the order of Melchizadek whose sacrifice was of bread and wine. The only such sacrifice in the OT.
“The archaic use of some words are very different than they are now; so much so that in some cases the word can now mean the opposite of what it once meant.”
That’s exactly the foundation of my argument. This statement helps my cause, not yours, since you propose that the same word always meant what Rome currently believes.
“St. Augustine was a Catholic bishop for more than thirty years. He is a Doctor of the Church whose writings and theology is upheld as orthodox in line with Catholic teaching.”
Not on salvation, and not on the sacraments. The RCC today rejects Augustine’s views on grace and predestination, which actually are the origins of the reformation in the first place. (That is, that God Himself is the author of our faith, and chose us and ordained us before the foundation of the world, not because He foresaw that we would be good, but so that we would be good.) Though, Augustine was only reading it from the scripture... so, really, it’s more correct to say that it was the scripture which informed Augustine, which then informed Luther an Augustinian monk, and so forth.
“How have you come? By believing. Fear lest while you are claiming for yourself that you have found the just way, you perish from the just way. I have come, you say, of my own free choice; I have come of my own will. Why are you puffed up? Do you wish to know that this also has been given you? Hear Him calling, ‘No one comes to me unless my Father draws him’ [John 6: 44 p.].” - Augustine, Sermons xxvi. 3, 12, 4, 7 (MPL 28.172, 177, 172f., 174)
Augustine, Aurelius (2012-02-08). Augustine’s Writings on Grace and Free WIll (Kindle Locations 33-36). Monergism Books. Kindle Edition.
“But these brethren of ours, about whom and on whose behalf we are now discoursing, say, perhaps, that the Pelagians are refuted by this apostolical testimony in which it is said that we are chosen in Christ and predestinated before the foundation of the world, in order that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight in love. For they think that “having received God’s commands we are of ourselves by the choice of our free will made holy and immaculate in His sight in love; and since God foresaw that this would be the case,” they say, “He therefore chose and predestinated us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Although the apostle says that it was not because He foreknew that we should be such, but in order that we might be such by the same election of His grace, by which He showed us favour in His beloved Son. When, therefore, He predestinated us, He foreknew His own work by which He makes us holy and immaculate. Whence the Pelagian error is rightly refuted by this testimony. “But we say,” say they, “that God did not foreknow anything as ours except that faith by which we begin to believe, and that He chose and predestinated us before the foundation of the world, in order that we might be holy and immaculate by His grace and by His work.” But let them also hear in this testimony the words where he says, “We have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who worketh all things.” [Eph. 1.11.] He, therefore, work-eth the beginning of our belief who worketh all things; because faith itself does not precede that calling of which it is said: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance;” [Rom. 11.29.] and of which it is said: “Not of works, but of Him that calleth” [Rom. 9.12.] (although He might have said, “of Him that believeth”); and the election which the Lord signified when He said: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” [John 15.16.] For He chose us, not because we believed, but that we might believe, lest we should be said first to have chosen Him, and so His word be false (which be it far from us to think possible), “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Neither are we called because we believed, but that we may believe; and by that calling which is without repentance it is effected and carried through that we should believe. But all the many things which we have said concerning this matter need not be repeated.” (Augustine, A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Chapt. 38.)
“But, to ignore the fact that he was Catholic, subject to the very same authority as all Catholics are,”
You’re assuming that the Primacy of Rome has always existed, which it hasn’t. Even RCC scholars admit it is not a 2,000 year old institution, but rather one that went through development.
“It is clear that the Roman primacy was not a given from the outset; it underwent a long process of development whose initial phases extended well into the fifth century.” (Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy, From its Origins to the Present, the Order of St. Benedict, Inc, Collegeville, MN: A Michael Glazier Book published by The Liturgical Press, 1996, pg 36).
Even when the Primacy of Peter came into vogue, it still wasn’t applied to one particular Bishop, but rather to three Bishops.
Here is “Pope” Gregory the First asserting that the throne of Peter is held by three separate Bishops, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome.
“Whereas there were many apostles, yet for the principality itself, one only see of the apostles prevailed, in authority, which is of one, but in three places. For he elevated the see in which he condescended to rest, and to finish his present life. He decorated the see, to which he sent his disciple the evangelist, and he established the see, in which, although he intended to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since there fore the see is of one and is one, over which three bishops preside by divine authority, whatsoever good I hear of you, I ascribe to myself. And if you hear any good of me, number it among your merits, be- cause we are all one in him who says, that all should be one, as thou, O Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us. — To Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria Book VII, Epistle XL
Theodoret references the same belief when he places the “throne of Peter” under the Bishop of Antioch:
“Dioscorus, however, refuses to abide by these decisions; he is turning the See of the blessed Mark upside down; and these things he does though he perfectly well knows that the Antiochene (of Antioch) metropolis possesses the throne of the great Peter, who was teacher of the blessed Mark, and first and coryphæus (head of the choir) of the chorus of the apostles.” Theodoret - Letter LXXXVI - To Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople.
I actually became privy to these quotes and their context from the Eastern Orthodox, the OTHER guys who claim to be the One, True, Holy and Apostolic Church (and you guys are the schismatics and heretics. But don’t feel bad, so am I!).
Who do we believe in all these different traditions? The EO claim to be THE inheritors of sacred tradition, and so do YOU.
Why, I think I’ll stick with the scripture. It is not so fickle as you guys.
“Again, not just the simple remembering or recollection as it is used in context in Scriptures, first in the Jewish act of re-calling the Passover, the sacrificial nature of their celebration of that event. The Last Supper is tied to that re-calling in that the meal they were eating was the Passover meal. The fact that it is bread and wine which Jesus offers is tied to the Psalms which speaks of a clean offering in the order of Melchizadek whose sacrifice was of bread and wine. The only such sacrifice in the OT.”
I actually agree, though probably in a different way than you do. The Jews celebrated the Passover as ‘The Passover of the Lord,’ even though it was only signifying the passover. It wasn’t literally the Lord passing over all over again. This is a common way of speaking the Jews have always used, that is, of speaking of symbols by giving them the name of the realities they resemble. Since it is for “remembrance,” it cannot be for salvation.