The Nature of the Mass and the need for Sacrifice

In the first place it is to be seen that the Natural Law requires us to sacrifice. Saint Thomas states in the first place that there are three main types of laws. There is first and foremost human laws (positive laws), there is the Natural Law, and lastly there is the Divine and Eternal laws. It is precisely the Natural Law that we will focus in for this specific article. The natural law is basically the “structure which God creates in man so that he inclines man to specific types of actions. He designs man to perform specific types of acts. He designs him in a specific way”¹

The Church states with Saint Thomas Aquinas that we are bound to follow the Natural Law. One of the aspects of the natural law is precisely that it commands all of the virtues. One of these virtues is precisely that of sacrifice. Saint Thomas further states that sacrifice is itself the highest act of religion. “Sacrifice is defined as an offering of some good thing back to God. This can include a merit or some sort of good work which we perform and offer back to God”²

Once we realize that sacrifice is necessary and that God obliges us to do it, the question that should come up is, how and what does God want us to sacrifice? It is after all only through Divine Revelation that we can know what sacrifices are pleasing to God. Fr. Chad Ripperger gives a very good analogy regarding the problems we would have regarding performing sacrifices, without the help of Divine Revelation. Without Divine Revelation we would not know what the nature of God is, and thus we would not be able to know what sort of sacrifices please him, as well as which sacrifices displease him. Fr Chad Ripperger states that without the help of Divine Revelation “this is tantamount to going to someone’s house for the first time and they don’t know you, but when you arrive, they presume to make all sorts of assumptions about you; for dinner we are going to have brain and squid intestines because they think that is what you like.”³ With these types of assumptions about God, we will surely offend God by offering false sacrifices, which he never liked or willed.

In the Old Testament God gave very precise and strict instructions on how sacrifices were to be done. This is true in regards to Exodus all the way through Deuteronomy. In the New Testament Jesus himself states “do this in commemoration of me”. (Lk 22:19)

A short history of sacrifice: The reality of the necessity of Divine Revelation

Cardinal Gibbons states “We find sacrifices existing not only among the Jews, who worshiped the true God, but also among pagan and idolatrous nations. No matter how confused, imperfect or erroneous was their knowledge of the Deity, the pagan nations retained sufficient vestiges of primitive tradition to admonish them of their obligation of appeasing the anger and involving the blessings of the Divinity by victims and sacrifices.”⁴

Throughout history man usually tends to have a desire to offer sacrifice to God. This is true of the Pagan world such as the Aztecs, the civilization of Carthage, and various tribes in the Middle East, yet they were not precisely what God wanted. God did not reveal himself to them. So many of these cultures for example practiced things such as human sacrifice, and various other types of sacrifice that failed in some way from what God really wanted. These sacrifices were displeasing to God. An example of such abominable practices of sacrifices is found in Jeremias:

Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place: and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Juda: and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents. And they have built the high places of Baal, to burn their children with fire for a holocaust to Baal: which I did not command, nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind. (Jeremiah 19:5)Sacrifices in Biblical Judaism

Throughout the Old Testament the chosen people of God are always offering sacrifice to Him. This is true as early as Cain and able. Able offered to the Lord the firstlings of his flock, while Cain offered of the fruits of the earth. Later “when Noe and his family are rescued from the deluge which had spread over the face of the earth, his first act on issuing from the ark, when the waters disappeared, is to offer holocausts to the Lord, in thanksgiving for his preservation (Gen 8). Abraham the great father of the Jewish himself offered victims to the Almighty at His request (Gen 15). We even read that Job was accustomed to offer holocaust and sacrifice to the Lord to propitiate His favor. God is very concrete and explicit in how he wants the Jewish to offer sacrifices in the book of Exodus.

It is precisely the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary which constitutes the perfect and eternal sacrifice which could ever be offered up. It is in this specific moment in which our redemption is brought about, and which the submit of Salvation History reaches its climax. It is this precise sacrifice that fulfilled all the Old Testament Sacrifices.

Many Protestants thus while acknowledging both the reality regarding the perfection of the Sacrifice at Calvary, and also acknowledging the reality that Christ abolished the Old Testament sacrifices of the Jews, end up at a false conclusion. They conclude that because the Sacrifice of Calvary is perfect and because it is thus the fulfillment of all the Old Testament sacrifices, that Christ himself abolished the need for any more sacrifices. This is clearly not true. We should thus ask ourselves, did God in rejecting the Jewish oblations (sacrifices) or even in fulfilling them, deem or intend to abolish all sacrifices altogether? Rather Christ rejected and even fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifices, namely because they were simply types or prefigurements for the perfect sacrifice of God Himself, which we commemorate in a real way in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

This then leads us to one of the main aspects of the Mass, namely that it is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary.

In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross is made present, its memory is celebrated, and its saving power is applied. (De Fide)

We therefore confess that the Sacrifice of the Mass is and ought to be considered one and the same Sacrifice as that of the Cross, for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ Our Lord, who offered Himself, once only, a bloody Sacrifice on the altar of the Cross. The bloody and unbloody victim are not two, but one victim only, whose sacrifice is daily renewed in the Eucharist, in obedience to the command of Our Lord; Do this for a commemoration of me⁵ The same Catechism further states that just as Christ was the one offering himself up at Calvary, the same Christ offers Himself up at each Mass through the priest who acts in persona Christi:

The Priest is also one and the same, Christ the Lord; for the minister who offers Sacrifice, consecrate the holy mysteries, not in their person, but in that of Christ, as the words of Consecration itself show, for the priest does not say: This is the body of Christ, but, This is My Body, and thus acting in the Person of Christ the Lord, he changes the substance of the bread and wine into the true substance of His Body and Blood⁶

For this reason it is completely false to believe as many Protestants do, that we somehow "re-sacrifice" Christ at each Mass. Rather we simply offer up the same sacrifice at Calvary, which is re-presented in a real and literal way during the Mass. The Sacrifice at Calvary was so perfect, that it is Eternal and with no end. The Mass as the perfect prayer

Another aspect of the Mass is that just as it is the perfect sacrifice (since it is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary, which is perfect), the Mass is also the perfect prayer of the Church. This is why Pope Saint Pius X stated so explicitly:

The Holy Mass is a prayer itself, even the highest prayer that exists. It is the Sacrifice dedicated by our Redeemer at the Cross, and repeated every day on the Altar. If you wish to hear Mass as it should be heard, you must follow with eye, heart and mouth all that happens at the Altar. Further, you must pray with the Priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ and which Christ says by him. You have to associate your heart with the holy feelings which are contained in these words and in this manner you ought to follow all that happens on the Altar. When acting in this way you have prayed Holy Mass.”

“Don’t pray at Holy Mass, but pray the Holy Mass" This is why it is very reasonable that the “active participation” in the liturgy which the Council Fathers of Vatican II had in mind, did not necessarily involve what has come to be “the clericalization of the laity” in which in order to actively participate in the liturgy, you are almost obliged to do some type of Church ministry. This includes being an Extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, a lecturer, and various other things. Rather an active participation is nothing other than following along and uniting your prayers with that of the Priest who is celebrating the Mass. It involves uniting your prayers with the priest at the scene of Calvary which is what is being literally and really being made present. The Mass should thus be one of constant meditation and of interior participation in the Mass and not so much exterior activity. There is a due reverent silence that is given at Mass.

Fr. Chad Ripperger states “Because Mass is itself the same sacrifice at Calvary which is made presented to us in the Mass, it is the font of all graces. Redemption and the obliteration of sin was the result of the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary. The same thing happens during each Mass that we attend, it is as if Christ’s blood was being shed again and being offered up, but this time in an un-bloody way, yet the same graces are granted.”⁷

It is precisely because the Mass is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary, that it has many effects that come whenever a Mass is celebrated and whenever we ourselves attend it.

The Mass itself gives us the opportunity for Holy Communion. “each sacrament according to the Church has specific effects that are proper to that sacrament. This is what is known as sacramental graces. Each sacrament gives us specific graces which allows us to achieve the finality in which that sacrament is directed towards”⁸In the case of the Mass we receive Holy Communion. Just as we get nurtured and remain healthy when we receive natural food, Holy Communion we feed on the supernatural food that is Christ’s body, we are thus less vulnerable to fall into Mortal and Venial Sin.

When we go to Mass we receive the same effects as that of Calvary. That means that we receive redemption, but we also grow in virtue. When we are attending Mass, we have the freedom for praying and petitioning God for the various virtues which we lack in. The prayers of Mass also help cleanse us from all venial sin.

Mass itself also provides an orientation for the rest of the day. It helps organize the rest of the day, reminding us what saint Ignatius of Loyola would call “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” which is Latin for “For the Greater Glory of God”. The reason why the Mass helps orientate our day towards God Himself is precisely that the Mass is Christ/God centered (or at least it should be). For it is God who we are offering sacrifice to. This is why I love the action that is done in several parishes, such as those which offer the Tridentine Mass or “Extraordinary Form” of the Mass. They practice what is known as Ad Orientem worship. The priest faces the East. The priest faces the altar, the same direction as the congregation. This is a sign that the whole ecclesiastical community (The Church) is offering the same sacrifice to the same and Almighty God. It is one of syncretism and orientation towards the True God who is being offered sacrifice.

One main reason why modern society rejects a notion of sacrifice is describe by the fact that the reality of suffering is almost forgotten. "technology has made our lives so simple and easy, and thus hard to ignore the difficult things. Similarly people say “well if we are to offer a good thing back to God, then why should I offer something such as my suffering. The fact of the matter is that by offering it, it is a call to the virtue of sacrifice. It is not so much that the person suffers aimlessly. One of the virtues of Christ dying on the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary, is that it adds merits to our sufferings, which without it, our sufferings are vain."⁸ Sacrifice is itself as Saint Thomas Aquinas calls “the highest act of religion”. This is why the modern rejection of sacrifice is a sad reality. If we do not offer proper and due sacrifice to God, then we have nothing to show for ourselves. In our own particular judgement would priests be able to present God the various Masses they celebrated and offered up? Or would laypersons be able to present to God the various means which we could have offered up as sacrifice? This could include the various Masses we attended, or it could simply be the daily struggles and sufferings we encountered. Whatever the case may be, the reality is that God Himself desires sacrifice, and the perfect of these is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is this sacrifice alone, that is perfect, just as the Crucifixion at Calvary was perfect.

1)Fr. Chad Ripperger "Talk given on Sacrifice in the Mass" 2) ibid 3)ibid 4)James Cardinal Gibbons "The Faith of Our Fathers, Tan Books 1876, pg. 266" 5)The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent pg. 275 6)ibid 7)Fr. Chad Ripperger "Talk given on "Frequent Mass and Confession" 8)ibid 9)Ripperger "op cit. Sacrifice in the Mass"

Ah yes Corinthians. "Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink [this] cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." Yet again, another passage that doesn't mean what it says it means.. Not discerning the Lord's body. Not discerning the Lord's body."

Indeed, it is so manifest on context that the "body" they failed to recognized as being so was not the nature of the elements, which never is the issue, but failing to recognize the nature of the church as the body of Christ, despising the church of God by failing to treat others as being part that body, which is the theme of the next chapter.

From the top,

Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. (1 Corinthians 11:17)

According to you and the fallible interpretation of others (as I know not of any "infallible" interpretation of this chapter), this "worse" must mean they did not recognize the elements were actually the body and blood of the Lord, versus not recognizing what the church is by treating others as if they were not part of that body. But what saith the Scripture?

For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. (1 Corinthians 11:18-19)

Thus the issue is divisions within the body, which the RC must insist refers to division due to views on what the elements consist of. But what saith the Scripture?

When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God , and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. (1 Corinthians 11:20-22)

Thus the reality is that the issue was that by going ahead and eating this meal ahead of others, and shaming others who were hungry, some of the Corinthians treated others contrary to being part of the body which Christ purchased with His own sinless shed blood, (Acts 20:28) despising the church of God, which was the body they manifestly failed to see as being such.

They thus were being inconsistent with what they were to show by this communal meal, that of Christ's selfless giving of Himself for them. Which was hypocrisy for a professing Christian, akin to Peter withdrawing himself from the Gentiles when the Judaizers showed up. (Gal. 2:11ff)

Next, Paul reiterates Luke's account of the original Lord's supper:

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come

This is what RCs look at in order to assert that "not discerning the Lord's body" refers to the nature of the elements, but which is based upon his prior erroneous, unScriptural, endocannibalistic interpretation of Lord's body and blood. [Which ignores the clear use of metaphor in the OT, in which men are referred to being bread for Israel, and water is referred as their blood, etc. And instead has kosher Peter and co. silently eating human flesh and blood, so that Christ is being digested their stomach, and His own, while yet before them, and even though Peter protested even eating unclean animals!]

However, in this chapter, even if one holds the RC view, what is being taught is that "as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew [kataggellō=preach, proclaim, declare] the Lord's death till he come. (1 Corinthians 11:26) Which they were not doing by treating some as if they were not part of the Lord's body, the church, and thus Paul said at the outset that when they come together therefore into one place it actually was not to eat the Lord's supper, as they some filled their face and others went hungry, rather than sharing what was supposed to be a simple communal meal, a "feast of charity" as Jude 1:12 terms it.

Therefore as they were acting contrary to that, Paul next adds,

Wherefore [since you were not showing the Lord's death by your actions] whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. (1 Corinthians 11:27-29)

Thus in context what is plain and obvious is that the issue was never that of a dispute over the nature of the elements, and with the focus being on that, but that by selfishly eating independently and leaving others out then they were were acting contrary to what they were supposed to be showing, that of the Lord's sacrificial death for the body, effectively treating others as unbelievers instead, and thus were not recognizing the unity of that body,

Thus, after revealing that this violation was why "many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep," the apostle provides the remedy:

Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come. (1 Corinthians 11:33-34)

The "tarry one for another" and not coming to fill their face is exactly what they did not do, "For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God , and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. (1 Corinthians 11:21,22)"

Thus it remains that the "praise you not" censure, the "not discerning the Lord's body" was that of going ahead and eating this meal ahead of others, shaming others as if they were not part of this body which Christ purchased with His own shed blood, when this very meal was supposed to show the Lord's unselfish death for them, and thus they showed contempt for ("despise ye") the church of God. Which is the "body" in focus, and thus the next chapter continues that theme.

This is certainly contrary to focusing on eating the elements of bread and wine and rushing out the door, or even remembering Lord death in the Lord's supper but not as showing it by the caring and sharing manner in which it is done, and it seems rather evident this "feast of charity" was not that of just eating a piece of bread dispensed by the pastor, and which were never distinctively titled "priests, nor was it treated as an atonement for sin.

And as said, though the Catholics insist upon their imaginative view of the "Real Presence," 1Cor. 11:17-34 simply is not referring to not discerning the elements as being actually the Lord's body, as even the notes on the RC NAB Bible has said for decades:

[11:27] It follows that the only proper way to celebrate the Eucharist is one that corresponds to Jesus’ intention, which fits with the meaning of his command to reproduce his action in the proper spirit. If the Corinthians eat and drink unworthily, i.e., without having grasped and internalized the meaning of his death for them, they will have to answer for the body and blood, i.e., will be guilty of a sin against the Lord himself (cf. 1 Cor 8:12). .

* [11:28] Examine himself: the Greek word is similar to that for “approved” in 1 Cor 11:19, which means “having been tested and found true.” The self-testing required for proper eating involves discerning the body (1 Cor 11:29), which, from the context, must mean understanding the sense of Jesus’ death (1 Cor 11:26), perceiving the imperative to unity that follows from the fact that Jesus gives himself to all and requires us to repeat his sacrifice in the same spirit (1 Cor 11:18–25) - http://www.usccb.org/bible/1cor/11:28#54011028-1

But other RCs have their own fallible interpretation, regardless of what Scripture manifestly teaches.

Moreover, that's what the early Christians believed. You are consoling yourself and papering over this monstrous heresy..ny review of the earliest Christian writers would demonstrate otherwise

Wrong, it manifestly was not was not what the early Christians believed, as rather than being the "source and summit of the Christian life," in which "redemption is accomplished," by its separate class of priests offering Christ as atonement as he did upon the Cross, and by which believers obtain spiritual life in themselves," around which all revolved, it is not only described in 1Cor. in the life of the church, and in which it manifestly teaches as i explained above.

Nor as said is their any priesthood apart from that of all believers, nor are NT pastors ever shown dispensing food as part of their primary ordained duty, much less human flesh and blood, as instead their ordained duty was that of prayer, preaching the word. (cf. Acts 6:4)

Which alone is what is said to spiritually nourish souls, (Acts 20:32; 1Tim. 4:6) with doing God's will and work being "meat" and how to live, (Mt. 44; Jn. 4:34) while the Lord's supper is only manifestly described once in the life of the church with any detail, in which the church is the body of Christ which shows, declares, His death by how they partake of the communal meal.

Nor is spiritual life ever obtained by literally consuming anything physical: and in fact the metaphorical view is the only one which is consistent with the rest of the writings of John, and the rest of Scripture, and the use of figurative eating and drinking. As has been shown before here, by the grace of God.

Only in paganism is spiritual life obtained by consuming human flesh, as shown , and like them RC essentially insist,

But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. (Jeremiah 44:17)

A Consolidated Response:

1. On Scripture as the Final Court of Appeal:

Contrary to your assessment, Scripture is more than law. Perhaps this is one of the unstated difficulties in crossing the divide between Sola Scriptura and Sola Ecclesia. At any given moment in time, law is static, simply a set of words that require a human interpreter to explain and render decisions from. If someone thought this is all the word of God was, I could see how they might regard it as subject to the whim of it's interpreters. But the word of God has its own voice, and if we listen it will tell us that it is not mere law, but the living manifestation of the power of God speaking with us. As you already surely know:

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

"Quick" here means "alive." (Greek "zon") So the enscripturated communication of God to man is a living thing. How does it live? Why should we not simply think of it as mere words on paper? Because God always sends it to a purpose, and that purpose is always accomplished, because it is carried forward by the intervention of God Himself through His Holy Spirit to its intended recipients, and will not fail to reach us. Nothing can be more alive, nor more suitable to serve as both the measure and the adjudicator of truth for Christian faith and practice, than the epistle of the living God, the living expression of His own mind, written for and to His children, the sheep of His pasture, whom He has personally guaranteed will hear His voice, and will not follow another.

But this is a topic which for apologetic purposes we actually are in practical agreement, sort of, and so should probably not invest too much time going over the same old arguments. If you bring your testimony to one who adheres to Sola Scriptura, you must either undermine the authority of Scripture for that person, in order to offer your own source of authority, i.e., the theories of the Roman schism. Or you must attempt to build your case from Scripture, in which you at least temporarily consent to use Scripture as a "common ground" authority. Inasmuch as it is completely incoherent to try and undermine Scripture with Scripture, the more typical approach is to try and build a case from Scripture for the unique features of Roman Catholicism versus a more generic Christianity. The problem with that theory is that those unique distinctives do not emerge from the Biblical text, but surface later, in post-apostolic history, which lacks the presumption of God-breathed divine communication. Let God be true, but every man a liar. Thus, at every turn, you are compelled to attempt to advance your case from Scripture, and that's fine with me, as it is the only starting point I would accept anyway.

2. On Signs and Eucharistic History:

Because we have a provisional agreement that the patristic testimony on the Eucharist is mixed, I will not inundate you with a wall post full of quotes favorable to the symbolic view. That has been done and is available for those who wish to find it. Instead, you seemed to be saying no single passage could be found which directly conflicts with transubstantiation (and if I have misunderstood you in this, please feel free to correct me). I offer you this passage in Augustine as evidence of direct conflict with Aquinian transubstantiation:

13. Now he is in bondage to a sign who uses, or pays homage to, any significant object without knowing what it signifies: he, on the other hand, who either uses or honors a useful sign divinely appointed, whose force and significance he understands, does not honor the sign which is seen and temporal, but that to which all such signs refer. Now such a man is spiritual and free even at the time of his bondage, when it is not yet expedient to reveal to carnal minds those signs by subjection to which their carnality is to be overcome. To this class of spiritual persons belonged the patriarchs and the prophets, and all those among the people of Israel through whose instrumentality the Holy Spirit ministered unto us the aids and consolations of the Scriptures. But at the present time, after that the proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the resurrection of our Lord, we are not oppressed with the heavy burden of attending even to those signs which we now understand, but our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many, and these at once very easy to perform, most majestic in their significance, and most sacred in the observance; such, for example, as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. And as soon as any one looks upon these observances he knows to what they refer, and so reveres them not in carnal bondage, but in spiritual freedom. Now, as to follow the letter, and to take signs for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error. He, however, who does not understand what a sign signifies, but yet knows that it is a sign, is not in bondage. And it is better even to be in bondage to unknown but useful signs than, by interpreting them wrongly, to draw the neck from under the yoke of bondage only to insert it in the coils of error.

Available at: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm

In the above passage Augustine is drawing a contrast between being in carnal bondage to a wrongly interpreted sign, versus the spiritual freedom of recognizing that to which the sign refers, and giving honor to that "truth behind," and not the sign itself, as if it were anything in itself. So as the patriarchs and prophets labored under various signs before Christ came to fulfill them, yet those signs were ordained for their good, providing they did not do so in weakness, confusing the temporal sign with the divine reality it expressed. So too in the New Covenant, we have signs in the form of rites, including the celebration of the body and blood of Jesus, and we also have the reality, the living Christ, to which the signs refer. Thus, Augustine's analysis is reduced to a pile of nonsense IF the sign and the thing to which it refers are the same thing, for then there is no distinction in honor, honoring the reality by means of the sign, but not the sign itself, which is the focal point of this paragraph.

Notice here Augustine is not making fine ontological distinctions. A modern Roman theorist might try to rehabilitate Augustine by suggesting he is only discussing the accidence of the bread and wine, the superficial appearance, but that the essence or substance might be the same, and so you could preserve both sameness and difference (a masterful use of doublespeak, I might add). The problem with that creative theory is that Augustine simply doesn't make those fine distinctions. Like a bull in a china shop he just goes crashing through to his point that these two things are really different, and that recognizing the difference in them is essential to using them rightly in support of Christian faith. In this he is making a statement that is irreconcilable with the ontological identity transubstantiation proposes between the signs and the thing they represent.

Therefore, by Aristotle's Law of Non-contradiction, this is a real contradiction. X cannot also be Not X in the same way at the same time. If Aquinas is right, the sign and the reality are the same, not just in name, or in descriptive attributes, but in absolute essence, substance. If Augustine is right, the sign is a figure precisely because it does NOT share the same essence/substance with the underlying reality, but exists only to point to that reality, i.e., a metaphor, which by its name and descriptive attributes, teaches us what we need to know about the truth behind it, the living Christ:

One more offering in this regard:

Orth.— Although what has been said is enough for your faith, I will, for confirmation of the faith, give you yet another proof.
Eran.— I shall be grateful to you for so doing, for you will increase the favour done me.
Orth.— You know how God called His own body bread?
Eran.— Yes.
Orth.— And how in another place he called His flesh grain?
Eran.— Yes, I know. For I have heard Him saying “The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified,” and “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings forth much fruit.”
Orth.— Yes; and in the giving of the mysteries He called the bread, body, and what had been mixed, blood.
Eran.— He so did.
Orth.— Yet naturally the body would properly be called body, and the blood, blood.
Eran.— Agreed.
Orth.— But our Saviour changed the names, and to His body gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol that of his body. So, after calling himself a vine, he spoke of the symbol as blood.
Eran.— True. But I am desirous of knowing the reason of the change of names.
Orth.— To them that are initiated in divine things the intention is plain. For he wished the partakers in the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but, by means of the variation of the names, to believe the change wrought of grace. For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as grain and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace.

Available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27031.htm

In this hypothetical dialog, Orthodoxos represents what was widely accepted as orthodox Christian belief at the time of this writing (5th Century, I believe). This also represents a direct, irreconcilable conflict with the central premise of transubstantiation. A transformation of the Eucharist is admitted, but not one that vacates the nature of the visible objects, but rather adds to that nature grace. Thus, if the nature of bread remains, the bread is bread both in substance and accidence. As with the wine. This still represents an evolution from the simpler sense of the paschal meal in Scripture, but clearly cuts against the grain of the sense conveyed in Aquinas and later Trent, and would doubtless be subject to the anathemas of Trent. And yet it was obviously widely and uncontroversially accepted before Radbertus appeared to propose his novel and alien hyper-literalism.

3. On Truth versus Really True Truth:

I recommend you read the following essay in it's entirety: http://www.the-highway.com/trueandtruth_Vos.html. It is by Reformed theologian Gerhardus Vos, and I found it very helpful and quite edifying. I will be drawing on it somewhat to respond to your claim of support from the difference between alethes versus althinos as two distinct senses of "true," as if this could help you avoid the clear use of metaphor in John 6.

From both Trench and Vos, who appear to be in general agreement, the adjective "alethes" means "true" in a generic sense, whereas "alethinos" is the intensified form, "true" on steroids. By patterns of usage we further discern that alethinos is not a strict contrast with false, but often is used to point out a typological relationship, a lower truth versus a higher truth. For example:

John 6:32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

Here, alethinos does not deny the corporeal reality of the manna that fed the children of Israel in the wilderness, but instead points to the underlying truth for which the manna was simply a type or figure, which Jesus then clarifies as being Himself. He is the antitype to which the type of the manna pointed.

Similarly, as you have pointed out, Jesus presents Himself as the True ("alethine") Vine, again, as with the bread, not that other, physical vines are false, but that we may learn from the analogy about how we as dependent branches are to rely on Him as the true source of our nutrition. It is very clear that in both passages, the headline metaphor (Vine, Bread) draws an analogy between Jesus and some well-known means of providing nutrition. Yet no one is arguing that Jesus should be thought of as a literal vine, or that there is any literal vine that becomes Jesus on command of a priest.

Whereas John 6:55 uses "alethes,' which is the more generic, unintensified form:

John 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

However, it is important to observe, as Vos does, that what we are seeing here are not two absolutely distinct terms, but the same term at different levels of intensity. This means that you can sometimes get semantic overlap, where the sense of alethinos is not appreciably different from alethes, which connotes more of a binary true/false relationship to the subject under discussion:

John 4:37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.

What this means for John 6:55 is that when He says "true food" and "true drink," we are looking at the unintensified, generic "true/false" assertion. In that lesser sense, the manna was "true food," in that it met the physical hunger for which it was designed. But Jesus has raised the stakes, and is confronting the confusion in his audience. They know the bread He fed them with from the loaves and fishes was true food, in that it met their physical hunger. But now they are hearing Him speak of His body and blood as food, something they know, under the law, and by natural law, they have neither right nor inclination to eat, and they are challenged about whether this offer of food is sincere. How can it be true food, if the thing being offered cannot be eaten, at least not under the rules as they understood them?

Jesus addresses this by pressing the metaphor. He has already given them the breakout clue in verse 35, that coming to Him will cure their hunger, permanently, and believing in Him will quench their thirst, permanently. Thus, under the rules of the metaphor, belief in Him and coming to Him are the same, and both of those things stand in the place of feeding on Him. But they are blocked from accepting that very easy and natural conclusion, because they not at all ready to believe in Him, or feed on Him spiritually. So they grope about in spiritual darkness, coming up, just like Nicodemas, with an unresolvable conundrum, "We can't eat you physically? How is that supposed to work? That's no kind of food?" Yet He lays it on the line, Oh yes it is real food, alethes, verifiable as real sustenance. But, as He hints in verse 63, you have to be thinking about the spirit to get this. If you stay stuck on the flesh, you're going to miss it. And most of them stayed stuck on trying to solve the "true food" problem as a physical question. They literally did not believe Him when He told them His words are spirit. Except of course for the apostles. They got it.

So regardless of the semantic subtleties of alethes versus alethinos, we see in the end the problem is with the false assumption that "true" or "real" must mean physical. God is real, but He is a spirit, and not corporeal at all. And what does Jesus say when Satan is goading Him to create physical bread to satisfy His physical hunger? Man does not live (satisfy his hunger) by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. An entirely spiritual food for an entirely spiritual hunger. And in John 4:34 we hear Jesus say His food is to do God's will and accomplish the work God. We could not say such food is unreal or untrue. But it is clearly not physical.

Therefore, the simple assertion that Jesus' body and blood are true food or true drink does NOT imply they are physical food or drink. They are physical by nature, but their power to give life is bound up in the substitutionary offering of the atonement. The life-giving forgiveness of God that flows from the death of Christ is taken into the soul, not the stomach, by faith, and not by physical eating. Believe on Jesus, and you have your spiritual hunger met, and being filled with the life of Christ, you will have eternal life, because He is eternal, and it is His life within you. If you believe.

4. On the Question of Gnawing versus Merely Eating:

Some have thought it significant that John's uses "trogo" (eat, munch, gnaw) in verse 56, as though it were proof that the eating must be literal, because the other two Scriptural instances of that word, occurring outside of John 6, describe literal eating. However, this entirely misses the point of what a metaphor is. Metaphor is not bound up in specific words, as though there were a class of things that can be metaphor, and a class that cannot. This is simply false. Any two objects and/or actions can be set in a metaphorical relationship to each other. In fact, if the complaint is that the term "trogo" seems too vivid, that is exactly what makes it a great candidate for a dramatic metaphor. The more vivid the better. A good teacher always goes for what is most memorable, and this word would certainly be memorable if Jesus used it to describe intense spiritual eating as a metaphor for faith in Him.

And indeed that very vivid mode of eating is exactly how Tertullian decribes eating Christ by faith. Speaking of John 6, he says:

He says, it is true, that “the flesh profiteth nothing;” 7525 but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, “It is the spirit that quickeneth;” and then added, “The flesh profiteth nothing,”—meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In a like sense He had previously said: “He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.” 7526 Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, 7527 we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.

So we have at least one patristic writer who would take no offense at the word "trogo" being used as an intense metaphor for spiritually feeding on Christ.

However, all of this may be moot. The evidence is starting to trickle in that "trogo" may have lost the vividness it had in classical Greek and by New Testament times become more like a synonym to "phago." This helps us understand why John may be using it as the term of choice for describing eating in the present as opposed to the aorist tense. It simply meant "to eat," but had acquired a grammatical attachment to present tense expressions. This is borne out by the recent and quite excellent semantic range lexicon by Louw-Nida, in which it is lumped together as a synonym to a number of other terms for eating which have no special claim to vividness:

23.3 τρώγω; γεύομαιb; βιβρώσκω; βρῶσιςa, εως f: to consume solid food—‘to eat, eating.’
τρώγω: ἦσαν … τρώγοντες καὶ πίνοντες ‘people ate and drank’ Mt 24:38.
γεύομαιb: ἐγένετο δὲ πρόσπεινος καὶ ἤθελεν γεύσασθαι ‘he became hungry and wanted to eat’ Ac 10:10.
βιβρώσκω: ἐκ τῶν πέντε ἄρτων τῶν κριθίνων ἃ ἐπερίσσευσαν τοῖς βεβρωκόσιν ‘from the five barley loaves of bread which the people had eaten’ Jn 6:13.
βρῶσιςa: περὶ τῆς βρώσεως οὖν τῶν εἰδωλοθύτων ‘concerning the eating of meat sacrificed to idols’ 1 Cor 8:4.

Either way, the impetus to arrive at a literal meaning is not compelled by the text itself, but by the need to retroactively justify the later speculations of transubstantiation, which in reality have no bearing on this passage whatsoever. Jesus is doing what He always does in the Gospels, inviting lost, hunger sinners to find everything they need in Him, by coming to Him in faith, and feeding on the grace of God that flows from the cross of Jesus.

Peace,

SR

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