Posted on 06/19/2015 12:01:57 PM PDT by RnMomof7
If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative.Here's our passage under discussion:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” John 6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share [communicandem] in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory [in memoria] of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.But he keeps on going, which helps us understand what he means by figure is exactly what we moderns call a metaphor
Scripture says: “If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink;” and this is beyond doubt a command to do a kindness. But in what follows, “for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head,” one would think a deed of malevolence was enjoined. Do not doubt, then, that the expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man's pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his assistance in distress.3) Losing one's life:
In the same way, when our Lord says, “He who loves his life shall lose it,” we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with which it is a man's duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative sense, “Let him lose his life”— that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal.4) Don't help a sinner:
It is written: “Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner.” The latter clause of this sentence seems to forbid benevolence; for it says, “help not a sinner.” Understand, therefore, that “sinner” is put figuratively for sin, so that it is his sin you are not to help.All of the above is available here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htmIt's a good rule he's giving. What sort of Protestant was he, BTW? If you think this is Protestant spin, then you must admit Augustine was, on this one point at least, a Protestant, so I was hoping you might tell me what variety. Oh wait, this was all written over a thousand years before young Luther was even a twinkle in his mother's eyes. Never mind.
Admit it that the Protestants don’t have the Real Presence of Jesus Body and Blood, so they protest.The physical properties of Christ are located in Heaven, where they will remain till His return. We are specifically warned by Jesus not to go looking for Him on earth before he returns in glory:
Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.But we do have the real presence of Jesus, every day in every way essential to our spiritual needs:
(Matthew 24:23-26)
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.See that? You can't even be a Christian without having the Spirit of Christ. Would you argue his spirit is unreal? If you admit it is real, and it is with all who believe, as spoken of all throughout Scripture, how then do we not have his real presence? We do. Really.
(Romans 8:9)
The Protestants are like the followers in the Bible (John) that didn’t believe the words of Jesus and stopped following Jesus.LOL. Nice try, but the crowd in John 6 that disbelieved Jesus were the literalists. Protestants/evangelicals are the ones actually following the example of Peter, who grasped what the metaphor was teaching about our utter dependence on Christ, our need to have faith in Him, to receive Him as Messiah and Son of God, if we would have eternal life, and all our spiritual hungers and thirsts satisfied.
Just because you and others say so, doesn’t make it the Truth.The first thing you've said that I totally agree with. We do not survive by feeding on the opinion of man, whether it be you, me or anybody else, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Kudos to you for the observation. Now apply it to the inventors of your transubstantive opinion, the 9th Century monk Radbertus, or Aquinas, or any of the other late-comers who have tried to convert a blessed memorial of Christ's love for us into neoplatonic magic that enhances the power of their priesthood at the expense of divine truth.
It must make you uncomfortable to say that you follow Jesus, except for God’s gift of His Body and Blood among other teachings.Be assured, we are already possessors of the gift of His body and blood, which He gave for us so long ago. So far from discomfort it is the supreme joy of every believer that we have forgiveness, acquittal from certain judgment, through His offering for our sin by the killing of His body and the shedding of His blood. This is something so critical that the literalists miss:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.This is an expression of the Hebraic exchange of life principle. Our old, sinful self has been crucified with Christ. He has taken our sin as if it were His own, and given us His own life, as if it were ours, an exchange of lives. This is what feeds us, according to the teaching of John 6, faith in Jesus who gives us His life, like life-sustaining bread, like thirst-quenching drink. All that we have, we have because He gave His body and His blood so that we could be made new creations in Him.
(Galatians 2:20)
I am simply pointing out that that Holy Spirit inspired the words of scripture, all of them.
I believe God caused the Gospel of Jesus to be published but if it was controlled word for word by the holy spirit
we would have nothing to argue about.
Peter called what Paul wrote scripture.
2 Peter 3:16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Your statement above contradicts what Peter was saying.
>>I believe God caused the Gospel of Jesus to be published but if it was controlled word for word by the holy spirit we would have nothing to argue about.<<
If you don't believe the entire New Testament is the words of the Holy Spirit you have nothing but speculation.
Your statement above contradicts what Peter was saying.
You are right, of course. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that one needs the host and wine to be saved. My question would be, how often does one need it? Every day? Twice a week? Once a week? Once a month? Does it wear off? A conundrum, no?
Why did you change the word from "wrote or written" to "did"?
He enjoys the 'priesthood' insistence that sincere humans seeking God must literally drink Christ's blood. satan knows the real reason for the shedding of blood, for the Life, God's Life, is in The Blood the most Precious blood ever upon the earth.
Of course the wine remains wine in the cup, but the soul on the unseen level cannibalizes instead of remembering. satan loves the mystery religion continuing the crucifixion, in contradiction to what Jesus said right before He gave up His Spirit to God. Tetelestai is far more meaningful than the catholic mind will ever know this side of the veil.
THE Church Christ has built is a spiritual entity also known as the Bride of Christ. Jesus is coming for His Bride soon. How ghastly are catholic mouths dripping imaginary 'literal blood'.
How far from His Spirit are people who contradict His commandments from all the way back to Genesis and across all the teaching He has offered throughout History.
Those imagining they drink His blood, literally, will perhaps get the chance to cry out to Him, 'Lord, Lord, did we not do charity in your name?' The saddest part is what He will say back to them.
Stop pretending to drink His blood and believe He has spread His blood, HIS LIFE, upon the Mercy Seat in Heaven, to cover the law of sin and death so that you may have His Spirit Life indwelling you when He returns for His Church.
THE LIFE is in the blood. Jesus was crucified and placed HIS BLOOD, HIS LIFE, upon the Mercy Seat in Heaven on behalf of any who will allow Him to be God in them, not in their bellies. There is no hocus pocus which can turn the wine into literally His blood, then back to wine in your gastric passage. That is satanic mumbo jumbo taught to herd people into committing a sacrilege. And to do it over and over and over again!
Jesus is in Heaven. Satan is the presence catholics serve with a sacrilegious blaspheming of God's commandment TO ALL THEIR GENERATIONS TO NOT DRINK THE BLOOD.
God's Grace in Christ is His Life spread upon the Mercy Seat on your behalf. When Catholics take a sip of wine believing they literally drink Christ's blood, satan is served in mocking God's Grace. The Life is in the blood.
No man by catholic magic holds God's literal blood as life in a cup, for He spread His life upon the Mercy Seat for your atonement. Accept His atonement. It is finished. Don't mock it by contradicting what He declared, it is finished. Do 'remembrance' not literal repetition or continuous participation in satanic mockery of what Jesus declared FINISHED on your behalf. No man can place God's Life in you. Only God can indwell a justified person who is covered by the Blood of the Most Holy Christ. By Faith in His Life for you, you live with His Life in you, not by a sacrilegious ritual.
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.
They claim that John 6 is to be taken literally. It looks to me then like they lie about being hungry and thirsty at times. Seems a waste of good food on Catholics unless John 6 isn't really to be taken literally.
Why did you change the word from “wrote or written” to “did”?
Selah, In Christ’s name, amen.
pingaling ... meant to ping you initially.
Preach it bro.
Again protest spin. I do believe that someone has sold you an incorrect understanding of the Word of God. I think that protestants do not realize that their protests of the Catholic Church does not change the Word of God entrusted to the Catholic Church until the end of time. I do hope that you gain a true understanding and gain salvation with God.
St Augustine believed in the Real Presence:
Actually, the Fathers of the Church were clearly unanimous when it comes to the Real Presence. As far as Tertullian is concerned, there is some question as to whether or not he should be categorized as a true Church Father because of the fact that he died a Montanist heretic. But that doesn’t really matter for our purpose here, because he clearly did believe in the Real Presence anyway.
When Tertullian and St. Augustine use the term “figurative,” they do not mean to deny the Real Presence. In the texts cited, St. Augustine, for example, is warning against falling into the trap of believing the Lord was going to cut off parts of his body and give them to us. This would be cannibalistic and that is a definite no-no.
Indeed, both Tertullian and St. Augustine are emphasizing the fact that the Lord’s body and blood are communicated under the “appearances,” “signs,” or “symbols” of bread and wine. “Figure” is another synonym for “sign.” Even today the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the terms “sign” and “symbol” to describe the Eucharist in paragraphs 1148 and 1412.
In the case of Tertullian, all we have to do is go on reading in the very document quoted above to get a sense of how he is using the term “figure,” and it is entirely Catholic. Notice what he goes on to say:
Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body...
Tertullian’s point here is that Marcion’s “theory of a phantom body” fits with Christ “pretend[ing] the bread was His body,” because Marcion denied Jesus had a body in the first place. But the Christian believes Christ “made it His own body, by saying, This is my body.” The transformation does not take away the symbolic value of bread and wine, it confirms it.
Tertullian makes clear in multiple places that he believed that Jesus communicated his true body and blood under the “figures” or appearances of bread and wine:
From Catholic answers:http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/eucharist
I. THE REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST
In this section we shall consider, first, the fact of the Real Presence, which is, indeed, the central dogma; then the several allied dogmas grouped about it, namely, the Totality of Presence, Transubstantiation, Permanence of Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist; and, finally, the speculations of reason, so far as speculative investigation regarding the august mystery under its various aspects is permissible, and so far as it is desirable to illumine it by the light of philosophy.
(1) The Real Presence as a Fact
According to the teaching of theology a revealed fact can be proved solely by recurrence to the sources of faith, viz. Scripture and Tradition, with which is also bound up the infallible magisterium of the Church.
(a) Proof from Scripture
This may be adduced both from the words of promise (John, vi, 26 sqq.) and, especially, from the words of Institution as recorded in the Synoptics and St. Paul (I Cor., xi, 23 sqq.). By the miracles of the loaves and fishes and the walking upon the waters, on the previous day, Christ not only prepared His hearers for the sublime discourse containing the promise of the Eucharist, but also proved to them that He possessed, as Almighty God-man, a power superior to and independent of the laws of nature, and could, therefore, provide such a supernatural food, none other, in fact, than His own Flesh and Blood.
This discourse was delivered at Capharnaum (John, vi, 26-72), and is divided into two distinct parts, about the relation of which Catholic exegetes vary in opinion. Nothing hinders our interpreting the first part [John, vi, 26-48 (51)] metaphorically and understanding by “bread of heaven” Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a figurative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. Such a figurative explanation of the second part of the discourse (John, vi, 52-72), however, is not only unusual but absolutely impossible, as even Protestant exegetes (Delitzsch, Köstlin, Keil, Kahnis, and others) readily concede.
First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpretation of the words: “eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood”.
For Christ mentions a three-fold food in His address, the manna of the past (John, vi, 31, 32, 49, 59), the heavenly bread of the present (John, vi, 32 sq.), and the Bread of Life of the future (John, vi, 27, 52).
Corresponding to the three kinds of food and the three periods, there are as many dispensers—Moses dispensing the manna, the Father nourishing man’s faith in the Son of God made flesh, finally Christ giving His own Flesh and Blood.
Although the manna, a type of the Eucharist, was indeed eaten with the mouth, it could not, being a transitory food, ward off death.
The second food, that offered by the Heavenly Father, is the bread of heaven, which He dispenses hic et nunc to the Jews for their spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as by reason of the Incarnation He holds up His Son to them as the object of their faith.
If, however, the third kind of food, which Christ Himself promises to give only at a future time, is a new refection, differing from the last-named food of faith, it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion.
This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expression “to chew” (John, vi, 54, 56, 58: trogein) when speaking of this, His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, “to eat” (John, vi, 51, 53: phagein).
Cardinal Bellarmine (De Euchar., I, 3), moreover, calls attention to the fact, and rightly so, that if in Christ’s mind the manna was a figure of the Eucharist, the latter must have been something more than merely blessed bread, as otherwise the prototype would not substantially excel the type. The same holds true of the other figures of the Eucharist, as the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech, the loaves of proposition (panes propositionis), the paschal lamb.
The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text:
“Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed” (John, vi, 54-56).
It is true that even among the Semites, and in Scripture itself, the phrase, “to eat some one’s flesh”, has a figurative meaning, namely, “to persecute, to bitterly hate some one”.
If, then, the words of Jesus are to be taken figuratively, it would appear that Christ had promised to His enemies eternal life and a glorious resurrection in recompense for the injuries and persecutions directed against Him.
The other phrase, “to drink some one’s blood”, in Scripture, especially, has no other figurative meaning than that of dire chastisement (cf. Is., xlix, 26; Apoc., xvi, 6); but, in the present text, this interpretation is just as impossible here as in the phrase, “to eat some one’s flesh”.
Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally.
I don’t know what you are trying here but it smacks of obfuscation.
Here is the error spelled out ... this is a sacrilege. I hope you have eyes to see it for what it is.
(b) Proof from Tradition
As for the cogency of the argument from tradition, this historical fact is of decided significance, namely, that the dogma of the Real Presence remained, properly speaking, unmolested down to the time of the heretic Berengarius of Tours (d. 1088), and so could claim even at that time the uninterrupted possession of ten centuries. In the course of the dogma’s history there arose in general three great Eucharistic controversies, the first of which, begun by Paschasius Radbertus, in the ninth century, scarcely extended beyond the limits of his audience and concerned itself solely with the philosophical question, whether the Eucharistic Body of Christ is identical with the natural Body He had in Palestine and now has in heaven. Such a numerical identity could well have been denied by Ratramnus, Rabanus Maurus, Ratherius, Lanfranc, and others, since even nowadays a true, though accidental, distinction between the sacramental and the natural condition of Christ’s Body must be rigorously maintained. The first occasion for an official procedure on the part of the Church was offered when Berengarius of Tours, influenced by the writings of Scotus Eriugena (d. about 884), the first opponent of the Real Presence, rejected both the latter truth and that of Transubstantiation. He repaired, however, the public scandal he had given by a sincere retractation made in the presence of Pope Gregory VII at a synod held in Rome in 1079, and died reconciled to the Church. The third and the sharpest controversy was that opened by the Reformation in the sixteenth century, in regard to which it must be remarked that Luther was the only one among the Reformers who still clung to the old Catholic doctrine, and, though subjecting it to manifold misrepresentations, defended it most tenaciously. He was diametrically opposed by Zwingli of Zurich, who, as was seen above, reduced the Eucharist to an empty, meaningless symbol. Having gained over to his views such friendly contemporary partisans as Carlstadt, Bucer, and Oecolampadius, he later on secured influential allies in the Arminians, Mennonites, Socinians, and Anglicans, and even today the rationalistic conception of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper does not differ substantially from that of the Zwinglians. In the meantime, at Geneva, Calvin was cleverly seeking to bring about a compromise between the extremes of the Lutheran literal and the Zwinglian figurative interpretations, by suggesting instead of the substantial presence in one case or the merely symbolical in the other, a certain mean, i.e. dynamic, presence, which consists essentially in this, that at the moment of reception, the efficacy of Christ’s Body and Blood is communicated from heaven to the souls of the predestined and spiritually nourishes them. Thanks to Melanchthon’s pernicious and dishonest double-dealing, this attractive intermediary position of Calvin made such an impression even in Lutheran circles that it was not until the Formula of Concord in 1577 that the “crypto-Calvinistic venom” was successfully rejected from the body of Lutheran doctrine. The Council of Trent met these widely divergent errors of the Reformation with the dogmatic definition, that the God-man is “truly, really, and substantially” present under the appearances of bread and wine, purposely intending thereby to oppose the expression vere to Zwingli’s signum, realiter to Oecolampadius’s figura, and essentialiter to Calvin’s virtus (Sess. XIII, can. i). And this teaching of the Council of Trent has ever been and is now the unwavering position of the whole of Catholic Christendom.
As regards the doctrine of the Fathers, it is not possible in the present article to multiply patristic texts, which are usually characterized by wonderful beauty and clearness. Suffice it to say that, besides the Didache (ix, x, xiv), the most ancient Fathers, as Ignatius (Ad. Smyrn., vii; Ad. Ephes., xx; Ad. Philad., iv), Justin (Apol., I, lxvi), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., IV, xvii, 5; IV, xviii, 4; V, ii, 2), Tertullian (De resurrect. earn., viii; De pudic., ix; De orat., xix; De bapt., xvi), and Cyprian (De orat. dom., xviii; De lapsis, xvi), attest without the slightest shadow of a misunderstanding what is the faith of the Church, while later patristic theology bears witness to the dogma in terms that approach exaggeration, as Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. catech., xxxvii), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. myst., iv, 2 sqq.), and especially the Doctor of the Eucharist, Chrysostom [Hom. lxxxii (lxxxiii), in Matt., 1 sqq.; Hom. xlvi, in Joan., 2 sqq.; Hom. xxiv, in I Cor., 1 sqq.; Hom. ix, de poenit., 1], to whom may be added the Latin Fathers, Hilary (De Trinit., VIII, iv, 13) and Ambrose (De myst., viii, 49; ix, 51 sq.). Concerning the Syriac Fathers, see Th. Lamy, “De Syrorum fide in re eucharisticae” (Louvain, 1859). The position held by St. Augustine is at present the subject of a spirited controversy, since the adversaries of the Church rather confidently maintain that he favored their side of the question in that he was an out-and-out “Symbolist”. In the opinion of Loofs (”Dogmengeschichte”, 4th ed., Halle, 1906, p. 409), St. Augustine never gives the “reception of the true Body and Blood of Christ” a thought; and this view Ad. Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, 3rd ed., Freiburg, 1897, III, 148) emphasizes when he declares that St. Augustine “undoubtedly was one in this respect with the so-called pre-Reformation and with Zwingli”. Against this rather hasty conclusion Catholics first of all advance the undoubted fact that Augustine demanded that Divine worship should be rendered to the Eucharistic Flesh (In Ps. xxxiii, enarr., i, 10), and declared that at the Last Supper “Christ held and carried Himself in His own hands” (In Ps. xcviii, n. 9). They insist, and rightly so, that it is not fair to separate this great Doctor’s teaching concerning the Eucharist from his doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice, since he clearly and unmistakably asserts that the true Body and Blood are offered in the Holy Mass. The variety of extreme views just mentioned requires that an attempt be made at a reasonable and unbiased explanation, whose verification is to be sought for and found in the acknowledged fact that a gradual process of development took place in the mind of St. Augustine. No one will deny that certain expressions occur in Augustine as forcibly realistic as those of Tertullian and Cyprian or of his intimate literary friends, Ambrose, Optatus of Mileve, Hilary, and Chrysostom. On the other hand, it is beyond question that, owing to the determining influence of Origen and the Platonic philosophy, which, as is well known, attached but slight value to visible matter and the sensible phenomena of the world, Augustine did not refer what was properly real (res) in the Blessed Sacrament to the Flesh of Christ (caro), but transferred it to the quickening principle (spiritus), i.e. to the effects produced by a worthy Communion. A logical consequence of this was that he allowed to caro, as the vehicle and antitype of res, not indeed a mere symbolical worth, but at best a transitory, intermediary, and subordinate worth (signum), and placed the Flesh and Blood of Christ, present under the appearances (figuroe) of bread and wine, in too decided an opposition to His natural, historical Body. Since Augustine was a strenuous defender of personal cooperation and effort in the work of salvation and an enemy to mere mechanical activity and superstitious routine, he omitted insisting upon a lively faith in the real personality of Jesus in the Eucharist, and called attention to the spiritual efficiency of the Flesh of Christ instead. His mental vision was fixed, not so much upon the saving caro, as upon the spiritus, which alone possessed worth. Nevertheless a turning-point occurred in his life. The conflict with Pelagianism and the diligent perusal of Chrysostom freed him from the bondage of Platonism, and he thenceforth attached to caro a separate, individual value independent of that of spiritus, going so far, in fact, as to maintain too strongly that the Communion of children was absolutely necessary to salvation. If, moreover, the reader finds in some of the other Fathers difficulties, obscurities, and a certain inaccuracy of expression, this may be explained on three general grounds: (I) because of the peace and security there is in their possession of the Church’s truth, whence resulted a certain want of accuracy in their terminology; (2) because of the strictness with which the Discipline of the Secret, expressly concerned with the Holy Eucharist, was maintained in the East until the end of the fifth, in the West down to the middle of the sixth, century; (3) because of the preference of many Fathers for the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, which was especially in vogue in the Alexandrian School (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril), but which found a salutary counterpoise in the emphasis laid on the literal interpretation by the School of Antioch (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret). Since, however, the allegorical sense of the Alexandrians did not exclude the literal, but rather supposed it as a working basis, the realistic phraseology of Clement (Paed., I, vi), of Origen (Contra Celsum, VIII, xiii, 32; Hom. ix, in Levit., x), and of Cyril (In Matt., xxvi, xxvii; Contra Nestor., IV, 5) concerning the Real Presence is readily accounted for. (For the solution of patristic difficulties, see Pohle, “Dogmatik”, 3rd ed., Paderborn, 1908, III, 209 sqq.)
The argument from tradition is supplemented and completed by the argument from prescription, which traces the constant belief in the dogma of the Real Presence through the Middle Ages back to the early Apostolic Church, and thus proves the anti-Eucharistic heresies to have been capricious novelties and violent ruptures of the true faith as handed down from the beginning. Passing over the interval that has elapsed since the Reformation, as this period receives its entire character from the Council of Trent, we have for the time of the Reformation the important testimony of Luther (Wider etliche Rottengeister, 1532) for the fact that the whole of Christendom then believed in the Real Presence. And this firm, universal belief can be traced back uninterruptedly to Berengarius of Tours (d. 1088), in fact—omitting the sole exception of Scotus Eriugena—to Paschasius Radbertus (831). On these grounds, therefore, we may proudly maintain that the Church has been in legitimate possession of this dogma for fully eleven centuries. When Photius started the Greek Schism in 869, he took over to his Church the inalienable treasure of the Catholic Eucharist, a treasure which the Greeks, in the negotiations for reunion at Lyons in 1274 and at Florence in 1439, could show to be still intact, and which they vigorously defended in the schismatical Synod of Jerusalem (1672) against the sordid machinations of the Calvinistic-minded Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople (1629). From this it follows conclusively that the Catholic dogma must be much older than the Eastern Schism under Photius. In fact, even the Nestorians and Monophysites, who broke away from Rome in the fifth century, have, as is evident from their literature and liturgical books, preserved their faith in the Eucharist as unwaveringly as the Greeks, and this in spite of the dogmatic difficulties which, on account of their denial of the hypostatic union, stood in the way of a clear and correct notion of the Real Presence. Therefore the Catholic dogma is at least as old as Nestorianism (431 A.D.). But is it not of even greater antiquity? To decide this question one has only to examine the oldest Liturgies of the Mass, whose essential elements date back to the time of the Apostles (see articles on the various liturgies), to visit the Roman Catacombs (see Roman Catacombs), where Christ is shown as present in the Eucharistic food under the symbol of a fish (see Early Symbols of the Eucharist), to decipher the famous Inscription of Abercius of the second century, which, though composed under the influence of the Discipline of the Secret, plainly attests the faith of that age. And thus the argument from prescription carries us back to the dim and distant past and thence to the time of the Apostles, who in turn could have received their faith in the Real Presence from no one but Christ Himself.
(2) The Totality of the Real Presence
In order to forestall at the very outset the unworthy notion, that in the Eucharist we receive merely the Body and merely the Blood of Christ but not Christ in His entirety, the Council of Trent defined the Real Presence to be such as to include with Christ’s Body and Blood His Soul and Divinity as well. A strictly logical conclusion from the words of promise: “he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me”, this Totality of Presence was also the constant property of tradition, which characterized the partaking of separated parts of the Savior as a sarcophagy (flesh-eating) altogether derogatory to God. Although the separation of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Logos, is, absolutely speaking, within the almighty power of God, yet their actual inseparability is firmly established by the dogma of the indissolubility of the hypostatic union of Christ’s Divinity and Humanity. In case the Apostles had celebrated the Lord’s Supper during the triduum mortis (the time during which Christ’s Body was in the tomb), when a real separation took place between the constitutive elements of Christ, there would have been really present in the Sacred Host only the bloodless, inanimate Body of Christ as it lay in the tomb, and in the Chalice only the Blood separated from His Body and absorbed by the earth as it was shed, both the Body and the Blood, however, remaining hypostatically united to His Divinity, while His Soul, which sojourned in Limbo, would have remained entirely excluded from the Eucharistic presence. This unreal, though not impossible, hypothesis, is well calculated to throw light upon the essential difference designated by the Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, c. iii), between the meanings of the words ex vi verborum and per concomitantiam. By virtue of the words of Consecration, or ex vi verborum, that only is made present which is expressed by the words of Institution, namely the Body and the Blood of Christ. But by reason of a natural concomitance (per concomitantiam), there becomes simultaneously present all that which is physically inseparable from the parts just named, and which must, from a natural connection with them, always be their accompaniment. Now, the glorified Christ, Who “dieth now no more” (Rom., vi, 9), has an animate Body through whose veins courses His life’s Blood under the vivifying influence of the soul. Consequently, together with His Body and Blood and Soul, His whole Humanity also, and, by virtue of the hypostatic union, His Divinity, i.e. Christ whole and entire, must be present. Hence Christ is present in the sacrament with His Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity.
This general and fundamental principle, which entirely abstracts from the duality of the species, must, nevertheless, be extended to each of the species of bread and wine. For we do not receive in the Sacred Host one part of Christ and in the Chalice the other, as though our reception of the totality depended upon our partaking of both forms; on the contrary, under the appearance of bread alone, as well as under the appearance of wine alone, we receive Christ whole and entire (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. iii). This, the only reasonable conception, finds its Scriptural verification in the fact, that St. Paul (I Cor., xi, 27, 29) attaches the same guilt “of the body and the blood of the Lord” to the unworthy “eating or drinking”, understood in a disjunctive sense, as he does to “eating and drinking”, understood in a copulative sense. The traditional foundation for this is to be found in the testimony of the Fathers and of the Church’s liturgy, according to which the glorified Savior can be present on our altars only in His totality and integrity, and not divided into parts or distorted to the form of a monstrosity. It follows, therefore, that supreme adoration is separately due to the Sacred Host and to the consecrated contents of the Chalice. On this last truth are based especially the permissibility and intrinsic propriety of Communion only under one kind for the laity and for priests not celebrating Mass (see Communion under Both Kinds). But in particularizing upon the dogma, we are naturally led to the further truth, that, at least after the actual division of either Species into parts, Christ is present in each part in His full and entire essence. If the Sacred Host be broken into pieces or if the consecrated Chalice be drunk in small quantities, Christ in His entirety is present in each particle and in each drop. By the restrictive clause, separatione factae, the Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, can. iii) rightly raised this truth to the dignity of a dogma. While from Scripture we may only judge it improbable that Christ consecrated separately each particle of the bread He had broken, we know with certainty, on the other hand, that He blessed the entire contents of the Chalice and then gave it to His disciples to be partaken of distributively (cf. Matt., xxvi, 27 sq.; Mark, xiv, 23). It is only on the basis of the Tridentine dogma that we can understand how Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. myst. v, n. 21) obliged communicants to observe the most scrupulous care in conveying the Sacred Host to their mouths, so that not even “a crumb, more precious than gold or jewels”, might fall from their hands to the ground; how Caesarius of Arles taught that there is “just as much in the small fragment as in the whole”; how the different liturgies assert the abiding integrity of the “indivisible Lamb”, in spite of the “division of the Host”; and, finally, how in actual practice the faithful partook of the broken particles of the Sacred Host and drank in common from the same cup.
While the three foregoing theses contain dogmas of faith, there is a fourth proposition which is merely a theological conclusion, namely, that even before the actual division of the Species, Christ is present wholly and entirely in each particle of the still unbroken Host and in each drop of the collective contents of the Chalice. For were not Christ present in His entire Personality in every single particle of the Eucharistic Species even before their division took place, we should be forced to conclude that it is the process of dividing which brings about the Totality of Presence, whereas according to the teaching of the Church the operative cause of the Real and Total Presence is to be found in Transubstantiation alone. No doubt this last conclusion directs the attention of philosophical and scientific inquiry to a mode of existence peculiar to the Eucharistic Body, which is contrary to the ordinary laws of experience. It is, indeed, one of those sublime mysteries, concerning which speculative theology attempts to offer various solutions [see below under (5)].
From Catholic answers: http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/eucharist
You never will if you don't even trust that the New Testament was inspired in full by the Holy Spirit. Like I said, you have nothing.
Such a "pope" we could use, as the veracity of his teachings was based upon the weight of Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, not the premise of ensured personal infallibility.
But simply because Rome can take things out of context does not mean "be ye followers of me" which is clarified as meaning "as I follow Christ," which following is defined by Scripture, supports the papacy.
That comes more from Caesar and not from Scripture.
• Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian, finds,
The Church was now a great and numerous force in the empire, attracting men of wealth and high education, inevitably, then, there occurred a change of emphasis from purely practical development in response to need, to the deliberate thinking out of policy. This expressed itself in two ways: the attempt to turn Christianity into a philosophical and political system, and the development of controlling devices to prevent this intellectualization of the faith from destroying it. The twin process began to operate in the early and middle decades of the third century, with Origen epitomizing the first element and Cyprian the second.
The effect of Origen’s work was to create a new science, biblical theology, whereby every sentence in the scriptures was systematically explored for hidden [much prone to metaphorical] meanings, different layers of meanings, allegory and so forth.....
Cyprian [c. 200 – September 14, 258] came from a wealthy family with a tradition of public service to the empire; within two years of his conversion he was made a bishop. He had to face the practical problems of persecution, survival and defence against attack. His solution was to gather together the developing threads of ecclesiastical order and authority and weave them into a tight system of absolute control...the confession of faith, even the Bible itself lost their meaning if used outside the Church.
With Cyprian, then, the freedom preached by Paul and based on the power of Christian truth was removed from the ordinary members of the Church, it was retained only by the bishops, through whom the Holy Spirit still worked, who were collectively delegated to represent the totality of Church members...With Bishop Cyprian, the analogy with secular government came to seem very close. But of course it lacked one element: the ‘emperor figure’ or supreme priest...
[Peter according to Cyprian was] the beneficiary of the famous ‘rock and keys’ text in Matthew. There is no evidence that Rome exploited this text to assert its primacy before about 250 - and then...Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone...
...There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or, as Paul would have put it, of freedom... -(A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, pp. 51 -61,63. transcribed using OCR software)
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt], finds,
Cyprian regarded every bishop as the successor of Peter, holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and possessor of the power to bind and loose. For him, Peter embodied the original unity of the Church and the episcopal office, but in principle these were also present in every bishop. For Cyprian, responsibility for the whole Church and the solidarity of all bishops could also, if necessary, be turned against Rome." — Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20)
• Klaus Schatz also writes in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4:
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
“....that does not mean that the figure and the commission of the Peter of the New Testament did not encompass the possibility, if it is projected into a Church enduring for centuries and concerned in some way to to secure its ties to its apostolic origins and to Jesus himself.
If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2)
[Schatz goes on to express that he does not doubt Peter was martyred in Rome, and that Christians in the 2nd century were convinced that Vatican Hill had something to do with Peter's grave.]
"Nevertheless, concrete claims of a primacy over the whole church cannot be inferred from this conviction. If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." — Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20
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