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This quote by Justin Martyr does not actually prove the RCC’s doctrine on the Eucharist or transubstantiation. We have other church fathers who use the SAME exact language, and yet define their own language as being used only symbolically.

Here are some Roman Catholic quotations of Augustine allegedly “proving” that Augustine believed in what the RCC holds to today.

“Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands” (Exp. of the Psalms 33:1:10)

“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Ser. 227)

“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (Ser. 272)

To the unsuspecting reader, you would think that Augustine really does support your theology. But WAIT, how does Augustine actually define his own views?

“For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ’s body is Christ’s body, and the sacrament of Christ’s blood is Christ’s blood. (Augustine, Letters, 98)

He speaks of the Eucharist as being “in a certain manner” the body of Christ, based on its bearing the name of the “reality” they resemble. Thus, when Augustine speaks of the Eucharist being the body of Christ, he means it from the standpoint of what it symbolizes, but not that it is actually a part of Christ’s real physical body placed on the altar. It is simply a manner of speaking. Here’s more support:

“What you can see passes away, but the invisible reality signified does not pass away, but remains. Look, it’s received, it’s eaten, it’s consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought! Here they are being purified, there they will be crowned with the victor’s laurels. So what is signified will remain eternally, although the thing that signifies it seems to pass away. So receive the sacrament in such a way that you think about yourselves, that you retain unity in your hearts, that you always fix your hearts up above. Don’t let your hope be placed on earth, but in heaven. Let your faith be firm in God, let it be acceptable to God. Because what you don’t see now, but believe, you are going to see there, where you will have joy without end.” (Augustine, Ser. 227)

Augustine is quite clear that the body of Christ is not consumed. In fact, his entire argument here is that the bread itself symbolizes the Christian directly. In other words, it is US who are offered on the table, though we are not literally transubstantiated into bread.

I would recommend, actually, reading the entire sermon, as it reveals a great deal into Augustine’s views on the various sacraments. By his definition, sacraments and symbolism is the same thing. Hence, he can have a “sacrament of the Holy Spirit” which is the oil, also mentioned in that same sermon.

“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.” (Same as above)

Another, the sacrament of the kiss of peace:

“After that comes Peace be with you; a great sacrament, the kiss of peace. So kiss in such a way as really meaning that you love. Don’t be Judas; Judas the traitor kissed Christ with his mouth, while setting a trap for him in his heart. But perhaps somebody has unfriendly feelings toward you, and you are unable to win him round, to show him he’s wrong; you’re obliged to tolerate him. Don’t pay him back evil for evil in your heart. He hates; just you love, and you can kiss him without anxiety.” (Same as above)

Where’s your sacrament of kissing by the way? And do you think that peace is transubstantiated into a kiss? Or is the Holy Spirit transubstantiated into the oil?

Here’s more quotes in general, interpreting the Eucharist as Protestants do today:

“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “œLabor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” 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. NPNF1: Vol. VII, Tractates on John, Tractate 25.

“Let them come to the church and hear where Christ is, and take Him. They may hear it from us, they may hear it from the gospel. He was slain by their forefathers, He was buried, He rose again, He was recognized by the disciples, He ascended before their eyes into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of the Father; and He who was judged is yet to come as Judge of all: let them hear, and hold fast. Do they reply, How shall I take hold of the absent? how shall I stretch up my hand into heaven, and take hold of one who is sitting there? Stretch up thy faith, and thou hast got hold. Thy forefathers held by the flesh, hold thou with the heart; for the absent Christ is also present. But for His presence, we ourselves were unable to hold Him.” NPNF1: Vol. VII, Tractates on John, Tractate 50, John 11:55-57, 12:1-11,

“It seemed unto them hard that He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:” they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, “This is a hard saying.” It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He saith not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learnt that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learnt. For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back. But He instructed them, and saith unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.” NPNF1: Vol. VIII, St. Augustin on the Psalms, Psalm 99 (98)

Augustine isn’t alone in this. Here’s from a Pope:

Gelasius, Bishop of Rome (492-496): 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. And certainly the image and similitude of Christ´s body and blood are celebrated in the action of the mysteries. (Tractatus de duabus naturis 14 [PL Sup.-III. 773]) See Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 Vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger and ed. James T. Dennison (Phillipsburg: reprinted by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1992), Vol. 3, p. 479 (XVIII.xxvi.xx).

And another Bishop:

Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393-466): Orth. “” You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped as being what they are believed to be. Compare then the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness, for the type must be like the reality. For that body preserves its former form, figure, and limitation and in a word the substance of the body; but after the resurrection it has become immortal and superior to corruption; it has become worthy of a seat on the right hand; it is adored by every creature as being called the natural body of the Lord. NPNF2: Vol. III, Theodoret, Dialogue II.””The Unconfounded. Orthodoxos and Eranistes.

The idea of a constant tradition on this matter is simply fiction. It stands only by reading into the Fathers the current theology of Rome today, and falsely claiming that all held the same view and meant the same things when they used certain phrases or words. It is not wise to assume that someone speaking in those days meant exactly the same thing the RCC means today, 2,000 years later, as the meaning and usage of words changes a great deal. Justin Martyr would not have been aware that the RCC would come along later and make the sacrament more than just something done for “remembrance,” as he asserts, but into something done for “salvation.” Had he have known, I bet his language would have been different.

It seems you are saying that all of Augustine's exceptionally clear, explicit statements about Christ's Real, Eucharistic Body (the first, second, and third paragraph-long quotes) are nullified because he used the four words "In a certain manner."

This is a huge, unwarranted jump, since every Catholic believes that the Eucharist is Jesus' Real Body "in a certain manner." That is, not in every manner.

How can this Eucharist be His Real Body and yet ""in a certain manner"? Well, think of this.

It is not an anatomical body. If it were, it would have teeth. And hair. And a pancreas. And a penis. But it doesn't.
It is not a physiological body. If it were, it would have respiratory movements, brain waves, and metabolic activity. But it doesn't.
It is not a space-time limited body. If it were, you'd only be receiving 1 gram of Him, a very small percentage of Him, assuming He was probably between 70 and 85 kg. But we are receiving the whole Christ, not a part.

So the Church has never assumed we were talking about Christ's Body as known by the carnal mind: His cells and organs, 6 liters of Blood in a sip, and so forth. This is carnal thinking, what the New Testament calls "the flesh" -- in other words, the limits of your flesh-oriented mind. Jesus says that this meat-box thinking (the fleshly mind) avails nothing.

But the Church --- and Augustine and Justin Martyr, believing in the words of Christ --- assents that we are receiving His real, entire Self, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

That's why this is not cannibalism. Cannibals eat dead body parts. We eat not parts, but the whole Christ --- all of us hundreds of millions who eat His Body and drink His Blood around the world --- and alive.

Maybe Petrosius or some other knowledgeable FReeper will explain the difference between substance and accidents.

For now, I just want to say: your misunderstanding of what Justin and Augustine and the Catholic Church believe about the Eucharist, is not surprising to me at all. The whole thing rests entirely on faith, and not in some supposed intellectual "grasp" of what we cannot grasp: of a visitation from the Supreme Being beyond time and space, Who presents His very Self to us under the appearance of Bread and Wine and says, "Eat and Drink".

Christ says "This is My Body."

I say "Amen."

That's it. You say "Amen" or you walk away.

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. To recap what St. Justin said:

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.
--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)

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.