Posted on 05/30/2013 5:28:14 AM PDT by NYer
St Justin Martyr (June 1) began his career as a pagan philosopher
Justin Martyr (c 100-165) was one of the earliest Fathers of the Church. Yet he began his career as a pagan philosopher and did not convert to Christianity until he was about 30. Thenceforward he was much concerned with the relation between faith and reason, exploring the differences and similarities between his new religion and the speculative Hellenism in which he had been raised.
Justin was born to Greek parents at Shechem (modern Nablus) in Samaria, the hilly region to the north of Jerusalem. He studied philosophy at Alexandria and Ephesus, but found himself unsatisfied by pagan thinkers.
He discovered that the Stoics confused discipline with truth, that the Peripatetics (or Aristotelians) wanted to be paid, and therefore could hardly be classed as true philosophers, that the Pythagoreans relied overmuch on music and geometry, and that the Platonists talked of God but were unable to identify Him.
Then one day he met an old man by the sea who made him understand that the soul could never arrive at a proper idea of God through human knowledge, but needed to be instructed by teachers who had been inspired by the Holy Ghost. “Thou art a friend of discourse,” the old man told him, “but not of action, nor of truth.”
Justin was also greatly struck by the courage, even the joyfulness, with which Christians at Ephesus faced suffering and martyrdom. The disciples of the Greek philosophers, he noted, certainly would not die for their doctrines. By contrast, the Christians treated God as though He were a friend, not an abstract theory.
And so Justin abandoned the hopes of philosophy for Christian revelation. Once converted, he wrote copiously in defence of his new faith, although only three of his works remain. His two Apologies set forth the moral virtues of Christians, and defend them against ill-informed reproach. These treatises afford valuable information about early Christian practice.
In his other extant work, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin considers the proper relation between Christianity and Judaism. He allows that Jews may continue to observe the Law after conversion to Christianity, but insists that they should not compel other Christians to follow these traditions.
Justin finally fell foul of the state in Rome, under the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180). It did not help that he derided the Cynic Crescentius as “that friend of noise and ostentation”.
“If you do not obey,” the prefect Rusticus told Justin, “you will be tortured without mercy.”
“That is our desire,” came the reply, “to be tortured for Our Lord Jesus Christ, and so to be saved, for that will give salvation and firm confidence at the more terrible universal tribunal of Our Lord and Saviour.” He was beheaded, along with five companions.
“All that those quotes show is your ignorance of what the Catholic Church teaches on the Eucharist because none of it actually contradicts Church teaching.”
The Catholic church teaches transubstantiation, which is that the bread and the wine really do become the body of Christ. This is different from consubstantiation, and the symbolism of Augustine.
You’re free to demonstrate to me how “signifies” and “Is the body of Christ consumed?.. Perish the thought!” and “Believe, and thou has eaten already” support your “interpretation.”
In my Protestant world, words have meaning, context is important, etc.
::snort::
Except that when he was speaking of the Body of Christ there? He was talking about the People of God as the Body of Christ, not Christ’s literal Body. That’s why the next phrases are “Church of Christ”. So, yeah, the people of God are not consumed.
Funny.
“He was talking about the People of God as the Body of Christ, not Christ’s literal Body.”
He was talking about the Eucharist, which symbolizes Christ and His body (us). His entire discourse is on explaining what the Eucharist is, which from his point of view is a spiritual lesson in unity.
From Sermon 227:
“That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ.†2 That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive. You see, the apostle says, We, being many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor 10:17). That’s how he explained the sacrament of the Lord’s table; one loaf, one body, is what we all are, many though we be.
In this loaf of bread you are given clearly to understand how much you should love unity. I mean, was that loaf made from one grain? Weren’t there many grains of wheat? But before they came into the loaf they were all separate; they were joined together by means of water after a certain amount of pounding and crushing. Unless wheat is ground, after all, and moistened with water, it can’t possibly get into this shape which is called bread. In the same way you too were being ground and pounded, as it were, by the humiliation of fasting and the sacrament of exorcism. Then came baptism, and you were, in a manner of speaking, moistened with water in order to be shaped into bread. But it’s not yet bread without fire to bake it. So what does fire represent? That’s the chrism, the anointing. Oil, the fire-feeder, you see, is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit.”
This is why he concludes in saying “Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought!” Because the Eucharist “signifies” ALL of those things, and not just Christ Himself.
What is most disingenuous is the practice of presenting a few paragraphs, selected by and for the Protestant eye, as though it were all an Early Church Father wrote on a subject. The ensuing hostile incredulity that results when it completely falls apart when seen by those who have actually read and studied the body of work, or now by those who have witnessed its refutation on these threads dozens of times, is both predictable and at times humorous.
Peace be with you
Thanks for bumping the thread with your posts. I appreciate it more than you know.
I feel like I am dealing with a freshman (high school) theology class. The Church teaches that there is a difference between a substance and a property. The physical accidents of bread and wine do not change, but the substance of the bread and wine do. They change substance (transubstantiation).
It is not the properties of wood, or metal or plastic of a chair that make it a chair. It is an organization of those materials in a specific size and shape that make them a chair. It is not the collection of chemicals that make you a human, it is something greater, it is the properties of humaness that make you human.
Were you able to travel back in time and encounter Jesus, none of the modern forensic tools or the greatest physicians of our time could determine He is Divine from a physical examination of His body (properties). His substance was always divine and is the object of faith. It is the same with the Epiousious, the Eucharist.
“I feel like I am dealing with a freshman (high school) theology class.”
“Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation (CCC, 1376).
This change of substance makes it “really the body of Christ.” Therefore, the Eucharist cannot merely “signify” the body of Christ, it really IS, in reality, the body of Christ. Nor is this consubstantiation, where the the bread and wine remain substantially what they are in combination with being the body of Christ.
This strict definition, that the Eucharist is not merely signifying a higher reality, is incompatible with the quotes presented.
So when I said “[they] really do become the body of Christ.” I spoke accurately, so to avoid the temptation of any of the Catholics to pretend that transubstantiation can survive Augustine’s views on sacraments.
Further, there were accusations along the lines of that which you have just again insinuated were being committed by Rome's critics---which when fully examined --were NOT changing the meanings whatsoever, although yourself and more than a few others were making big noises about it.
Personally, though it is predictable that such will continue to be alleged by Rome's pom-pom wavers, the truth is that crowd is as much or more at fault --which I do not find humorous at all.
Thank God it was not done by Catholic apologists.
Peace and blessings
For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.This statement is plain and unambiguous. Let us look at some other statements from the early Church Fathers:
I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood, which love incorruptible.As for St. Augustine, as you have pointed out yourself, he clearly states that the Eucharist becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. Your other quotes only show how he expands, not contradicts, the significance of the Eucharist. With regards to understanding spiritually, Catholics clearly do not believe that in the Eucharist that we have hunks of flesh from the corporal body of our Lord from when he walk upon the Earth. His Body and Blood are indeed presented to us spiritually, i.e. sacramentally under the forms of bread and wine.
--St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans ( circa A.D. 110)Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. For love they have no care, nor for the widow, nor for the orphan, nor for the distressed, nor for those in prison or freed from prison, nor for the hungry and thirsty. They 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.
--St. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans (circa A.D. 110)But what consistency is there in those who hold that the bread over which thanks have been given is the Body of their Lord, and the cup His Blood, if they do not acknowledge that His is the son of the Creator of the world… They are vain in every respect, who despise the entire dispensation of God, and deny the salvation of the body and spurn its regeneration, saying that is is not capable of immortality. If the body be not saved, then, in fact, neither did the Lord redeem us with His Blood; and neither is the cup of the Eucharist the partaking of His Blood nor is the Bread which we break the partaking of His Body.
--St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies (between A.D. 180 - 199)You shall see the Levites [Deacons] bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ.
-- St. Athanasius, Sermon to the Newly Baptized (before A.D. 373)[T]he bread and wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ. … This one teaching of the blessed Paul is enough to give you complete certainty about the Divine Mysteries, by your having been deemed worthy of which, you have become united in body and blood with Christ. For Paul proclaimed clearly that: "On the night in which He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ, taking bread and giving thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take, eat, This is My Body.' And taking the cup and giving thanks, He said, 'Take, drink, This is My Blood.' " He Himself, therefore, having declared and said of the Bread, "This is My Body," who will dare any longer to doubt? And when He Himself has affirmed and said, "This is My Blood," who can ever hesitate and say it is not His Blood?
--St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures (around A.D. 350)
Hello, E-S. can you explain to me what you mean by “remembrance”?
I can only encourage you to keep reading. Speaking the truth, but not the whole truth, is at best a half truth and at worst a whole lie.
Nothing anyone posts will change the truth and it will definitely not be decided in the Religion Forum or in a "debate". The Church had the first word and will have the last word. 2,000 years from now the reformation will be numbered among the defunct heresies of history and the thousands of doctrinally differing denominations will be a quantitative foot note. I know this because Jesus promised it (Matthew 16:18)
Peace be with you
There's not a dime's worth of difference around here, all too often. Though there are occasional exceptions...
QUIT making this about YOU.
It is never about me. I responded to a post about me and deferred to a greater truth. That is the rub with those who see God only through the subjective experience of self and perception.
Peace be to you
I mean the same thing that Yeshua meant when he said it.
To recall the suffering he endured to save us from our sins, and heal our bodies. The bread is for our healing, and the wine for our transgressions.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
WHatever
You can’t win today, can you?
As an aside, my friend - in the face of an onslaught of bullying and outright intimidation by many on this forum that would make a high school gym class proud, you have been a reasoned, calm apologist for the Christian faith. I don’t know why it fell upon you, but if it ever happens that I draw such attacks, I pray for the strength to handle it with the grace you have. Keep up the good fight.
St. Thomas More, pray for us!
“I find it interesting that you have to go to some ambiguous statements of St. Augustine in the 4th century to refute to plain words of St. Justin Martyr in the 2nd century.”
The quotes from Augustine, that are exactly the same as Justin Martyr’s, are ambiguous. His explanation for them, on the other hand, is not. There’s no reason to think that Augustine, a Pope and another Bishop all had heretical views on the Eucharist. If Augustine had no problem saying that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, yet say in the same sermon that it only signifies the body of Christ, I don’t think anyone else would either. The only thing ambiguous about them, and of the assertions by that Pope and other Bishop on the “substance” of the bread and wine remaining the same, exists in your own mind since you will not explain them.
On to Ignatius:
The Epistle to the Romans was Ignatius’s final letter before martydom. He expected, soon, to be eaten alive by lions. He uses metaphorical language such as desiring to be “the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.” Does Ignatius believe he will be transubstantiated into bread? How can Ignatius be desiring the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic sense, and even assert that he is gaining a victory in this, if he thinks of the Eucharist according to modern Roman Catholic teaching? Is someone going to give him communion in the arena? Or is he actually asking his brethren to let him be martyred, and that he eagerly seeks it out? If the latter, it does not follow that he expects to chew and digest with his stomach the body of Christ. He expects to confirm His membership in the body of Christ through his faithfulness unto death. I think we can easily conclude that Ignatius, like Augustine, considered “eating” Christ the same as believing:
“This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.” (Augustine, as quoted previously)
In the second epistle you quote from, Ignatius is not attacking people who don’t believe in transubstantiation. He is against people who deny that Christ even had a body or suffered with a body in the first place. That is the actual context:
“Now, He suffered all these things for our sakes, that we might be saved. And He suffered truly, even as also He truly raised up Himself, not, as certain unbelievers maintain, that He only seemed to suffer, as they themselves only seem to be [Christians]. And as they believe, so shall it happen unto them, when they shall be divested of their bodies, and be mere evil spirits. For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit. And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit.” (Same letter as quoted by you)
The Docetists did not believe Christ even had a body, and that is why they abstained from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. There’s no reason in any of this to believe that Augustine and Ignatius did not have the same view of the Eucharistic celebration. In fact, considering Ignatius’ letter to the Romans, wherein he declares his great desire to have the flesh of Christ, while in the context of his desire to be martyred, I think we can safely conclude that the two had the same position. Not the mechanical and ritual position of the RCC, but the spiritual position established by Christ Himself.
In reaction to the disciples who thought He literally meant for them to take a bite out of His body:
Joh 6:62-63 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? (63) It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
On Irenaeus, 3 quotes in response to yours:
“For when the Greeks, having arrested the slaves of Christian catechumens, then used force against them, in order to learn from them some secret thing [practised] among Christians, these slaves, having nothing to say that would meet the wishes of their tormentors, except that they had heard from their masters that the divine communion was the body and blood of Christ, and imagining that it was actually flesh and blood, gave their inquisitors answer to that effect. Then these latter, assuming such to be the case with regard to the practices of Christians, gave information regarding it to other Greeks, and sought to compel the martyrs Sanctus and Blandina to confess, under the influence of torture, [that the allegation was correct].” (Irenaeus, Fragment 13)
” But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.” (Against Heresies, Book IV, Chapter 18)
“Thus, then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of the earth, and will re-organize the mystery of the glory of [His] sons; as David says, He who has renewed the face of the earth. He [Christ] promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples, thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also received the new cup. And He cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his [disciples] above in a super-celestial place; nor, again, are they who drink it devoid of flesh, for to drink of that which flows from the vine pertains to flesh, and not spirit.” (Against Heresies, 5:33:1)
These three quotes better lend themselves to a view of consubstantiation. As he writes in the first one, as if it was absurd to think that the communion bread and wine were “really” flesh and blood. In the second, Irenaeus tells us that the bread and wine, once blessed, “[consists] of two realities, earthly and heavenly.”
This is the same position as Pope Gelasius when he writes: “Surely the sacrament we take of the Lord´s body and blood is a divine thing, on account of which, and by the same we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance of the bread and wine does not cease to be.”
The existence of “two realities” or a continuation of the same “substance” in the bread and wine directly contradicts the Roman view of transubstantiation, because only the form is bread and wine, but the substance is really the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
The last quote from Irenaeus refers to the communion wine as the “fruit of the vine.” Which, it most certainly isn’t, it is, according to the RCC, really the blood of Christ.
Therefore, you have no defense of transubstantiation with Irenaeus.
On Athanasius:
“I saw an example of this in the Gospel of John, where treating concerning the eating of his body, and seeing many offended there by, he said, “Does this offend you, what if ye shall see the Son of man ascend where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and life.” He spake both of the spirit and the flesh, and made a distinction between his spirit and flesh, that not only believing in what was visible to their eyes, but also in his invisible nature, they might learn that the things which he said were not carnal, but spiritual : for, for haw many would his body have sufficed for meat that it should become the nourishment of the whole world? For this reason, therefore, he mentions the Son of man’s ascension into heaven that he might draw them from the corporeal sense, and that they might understand, that the flesh he spoke of was heavenly nourishment and spiritual food given to them from above. For the words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and life. As if he had said, This my body which is shown to you and is given for the world, shall be given as food, so as to be imparted spiritually within each, and to become to each a safe guard against the resurrection of eternal life.” (Festal Letter, 4.19)
Athanasius prefers the spiritual interpretation of John 6, virtually identical to Augustine’s own commentary. No defense for transubstantiation here.
On Cyril of Jerusalem:
“Therefore with fullest assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood; that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mightest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are diffused through our members; thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, (we become partaker of the divine nature.)” - Catechetical Lectures [22 (Mystagogic 4), 3]
Here Cyril calls it the “figure” of the body of Christ, which cannot be if he believes in transubstantiation. No defense for your theology here.
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