The Nature of the Mass and the need for Sacrifice

The court of last resort cannot be the Scripture. Because it is no court, as St. Francis de Sales brilliantly argued.

The Scripture is the infallible law. But the infallible law does not stand on its own without a judiciary to interpret and apply it. We don’t pass out copies of the Constitution and tell people “Here. Obey this.”

If it be objected that it is foolish to put an infallible law in the hands of a fallible judiciary, I can only agree.

And I would point to the decrees of the First Vatican Council for the resolution to this problem.

I am deluging you with replies, for which I apologize. But I did feel the need to respond to your query more completely.

1) Regarding the "I am the door" and "I am the vine" passages, look at the differences between the Greek words: My flesh is true (alethes) food, and I am the true (alethinos) vine. Those two words carry a rather different connotation of "true". Plus the sheer forcefulness with which Christ insists on this idea in John 6: "unless you *gnaw on* my flesh". There is ample ground for taking it in much more literal way than the other passages.

2) Let's suppose transubstantiation is a Roman innovation of the 9th century (though I dispute this). The Orthodox Church and all the Oriental Churches (whose schism is much older) hold to a change in the elements, even as they reject transubstantiation as a philosophical explanation. How to explain that, if the ancient Church was divided on this point?

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)

Well done! The twisting and corruption of scripture by the Catholic Church knows no bounds.

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The twisting and corruption of scripture by the Catholic Church knows no bounds.

Why should it, as an autocratic authority can declare Truth by fiat, and RC assurance rests upon the premise of the presumed veracity of Rome? Only being too in-credible and fear of being exposed by those pesky Prots would hinder such if it served her purpose.

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

Context does help here.

That said, today’s evangelical symbolic communion would be difficult to abuse in the same manner. It sounds a lot from the text like the Corinthians got a pretty substantial hunk of bread in their ceremony.

Knowledgeable evangelicals (there are shallow ones, like there are shallow Catholics) will invite Jesus into all their sufferings, knowing that He stands willing and able.

I adore Christ at communion. I adore Christ at many other places. He does do omnipresence well.

I apologize for the delay in replying. Sick kids and a busy schedule.

In this hypothetical dialog, Orthodoxos represents what was widely accepted as orthodox Christian belief at the time of this writing (5th Century, I believe).

That's the quote I was remembering, thank you! But see this from Book 2: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27032.htm

Eran.— As, then, the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after the invocation are changed and become another thing; so the Lord's body after the assumption is changed into the divine substance.
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 have 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.

Now I'll grant you that his use of "substance" here seems to mitigate against transubstantiation. However, I'm not sure what Greek terms he's using, and there could well be some translation issues there (remember the Orthodox don't particularly like our formulation of "transubstantiation" anyway). But let's suppose you're right. See what he nonetheless says next in bold?

Does your Sunday liturgy have a consecration? Do you regard the Eucharistic elements "as what they have become"? Do you "worship" the elements "as being what they are believed to be?"

As a plain, old school Baptist, I am not a sacramentalist at all, and neither are most Baptist fellowships. Grace comes to us Baptists not by sacerdotal mediation of rituals, but by the ministry of the Holy Spirit working in conjunction with the word of God. We observe baptism and the Lord's Supper for the purposes stated in Scripture, but not as means to secure more grace, as if God doled out saving grace on the installment plan. You could characterize us as Zwinglian and be right most of the time.

And I am well aware that Theodoret and many others of that period had drifted away from the simplicity of Scripture into sacramental realism. My point being, as you have already identified, that these views were not yet transubstantive, not even close. The Neoplatonism in Augustine and others in that middle period does seem to have led a sense of worship toward the Eucharistic elements, but not for what they are in themselves, but for what the archetype is that lies behind their type. That they "become" a different kind of type by consecration is a change in frame of reference, not substance. Before consecration, they are types only for mere food. After consecration, they are said to be in a new typological relationship, pointing to Christ. I still regard that as a serious departure from the pristine Scriptural model of memorial metaphor, but I understand it to be several steps behind the more serious error of transubstantiation.

Your point about the Greek for Theodoret is well taken. I am not sure where to find that but it certainly would be worth taking a look at. Something I can poke around at later.

BTW, I note your accomplishments in linguistic publishing. Kudos! No doubt good resources for authors writing localized fiction. I'm playing around with a children's story myself, and maybe you could give me a word of advice. Though as you might suspect, my purpose in writing is adverse to your views and if you declined to involve yourself it wouldn't offend me at all. But the question is this: What would be the common spoken language of a Roman individual living in Northern Italy late in the second Century? And what would be a good guide to what it would sound like audibly, what sort of expressions he might use, etc.? Again, this is, I admit, a bit of an unusual request, and if you're not interested, no harm no foul. But you seemed like a uniquely well qualified person to ask, so I'm asking. :)

Peace,

SR