Posted on 01/21/2011 12:26:40 PM PST by marshmallow
The Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist is a real stumbling block to some Protestants who are seriously considering Catholicism. It was for me too, until I explored the subject, historically and scripturally. What follows is a summary of my deliberations.
Catholicism holds that bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ when they are consecrated by the priest celebrating the Mass. Oftentimes non-Catholics get hung up on the term transubstantiation, the name for the philosophical theory that the Church maintains best accounts for the change at consecration. The Church’s explanation of transubstantiation was influenced by Aristotle’s distinction between substance and accident.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), like most philosophers of his time, wanted to account for how things change and yet remain the same. So, for example, a “substance” like an oak tree remains the same while undergoing “accidental” changes. It begins as an acorn and eventually develops roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves. During all these changes, the oak tree remains identical to itself. Its leaves change from green to red and brown, and eventually fall off. But these accidental changes occur while the substance of the tree remains.
On the other hand, if we chopped down the tree and turned into a desk, that would be a substantial change, since the tree would literally cease to be and its parts would be turned into something else, a desk. According to the Church, when the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, the accidents of the bread and wine do not change, but the substance of each changes. So, it looks, tastes, feels, and smells like bread and wine, but it literally has been changed into the body and blood of Christ. That’s transubstantiation.
There are several reasons why it would be a mistake to dismiss transubstantiation simply because of the influence of Aristotle on its formulation. First, Eastern Churches in communion with the Catholic Church rarely employ this Aristotelian language, and yet the Church considers their celebration of the Eucharist perfectly valid. Second, the Catholic Church maintains that the divine liturgies celebrated in the Eastern Churches not in communion with Rome (commonly called “Eastern Orthodoxy”) are perfectly valid as well, even though the Eastern Orthodox rarely employ the term transubstantiation. Third, the belief that the bread and wine are literally transformed into Christ’s body and blood predates Aristotle’s influence on the Church’s theology by over 1000 years. For it was not until the thirteenth century, and the ascendancy of St. Thomas Aquinas’ thought, that Aristotle’s categories were employed by the Church in its account of the Eucharist. In fact, when the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) employed the language of substantial change, St. Thomas had not even been born!
It was that third point that I found so compelling and convinced me that the Catholic view of the Eucharist was correct. It did not take long for me to see that Eucharistic realism (as I like to call it) had been uncontroversially embraced deep in Christian history. This is why Protestant historian, J. N. D. Kelly, writes: “Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood.” I found it in many of the works of the Early Church Fathers, including St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110), St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 151), St. Cyprian of Carthage, (A. D. 251), First Council of Nicaea (A. D. 325), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (A. D. 350), and St. Augustine of Hippo (A. D. 411) . These are, of course, not the only Early Church writings that address the nature of the Eucharist. But they are representative.
This should, however, not surprise us, given what the Bible says about the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples (Mt. 26:17-30; Mk. 14:12-25; Lk. 22:7-23), which we commemorate at Holy Communion, he referred to it as a Passover meal. He called the bread and wine his body and blood. In several places, Jesus is called the Lamb of God (John 1: 29, 36; I Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:12). Remember, when the lamb is killed for Passover, the meal participants ingest the lamb. Consequently, St. Paul’s severe warnings about partaking in Holy Communion unworthily only make sense in light of Eucharistic realism (I Cor. 10:14-22; I Cor. 11:17-34). He writes: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? . . . Whoever, therefore eats and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.” (I Cor. 10:16; 11:27)
In light of all these passages and the fact that Jesus called himself the bread of life (John 6:41-51) and that he said that his followers must “eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood” (John 6:53), the Eucharistic realism of the Early Church, the Eastern Churches (both in and out of communion with Rome), and the pre-Reformation medieval Church (fifth to sixteenth centuries) seems almost unremarkable. So, what first appeared to be a stumbling block was transformed into a cornerstone.
Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University. He tells the story of his journey from Catholicism to Protestantism and back again in his book, Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic. He blogs at Return to Rome.
not really, read post #799, it purports to say what these great men of God believed regarding the Eucharist. Then read their own words in #810, 811, 812 and 815, and you will see they were Orthodox Catholics. In order for there to be a WAR OF THE CHURCH FATHERS, the other side would need to have CHURCH FATHERS before the 16th century, when “their” church was founded. THE CHURCH was founded in the 1st century, not the 16th!
Ahhhh
But the RCC didn’t exist until after 300AD.
LOL.
And . . . there’s plenty of disagreement with the folks in the first 300 years.
Not to worry. Never mind that little detail that Jesus never said that He was establishing the ROMAN CATHOLIC church and that almost the whole history of the Catholic church bears little resemblance to the NT church in the book of Acts.
That won't let it stop them from making something up to fill in the blanks with.
When you quote others material you should at the very least give the source.
INDEED.
Beg pardon, but you quote statements whose terms you obviously do not grasp because you don’t know the historical context. Much of Trent was simple restatement of what earlier councils —Florence in particular-—had said; others were in rebuttal of the Reformers, whom you seem not to have read. This is a bit like trying to read Dred Scott without knowing the background of the controversy. Or to give a more particular example, to talk about the 3/5 feature of the constitution without knowing that 3/5 was the “federal ratio,” already at use in the Confederation Congress. The devil is in the details.
You do realize your comment above is speaking about "Trent" and "Vatican 11"..catholic doctrine.... so your comment certainly attest you don't take them seriously if they're "a bunch of sound and flury'....you really are that blind...or perhaps you have just too many topics going on and your mixing up conversations. I posted what Trent and the Vatican say. Simple... End of story.
Well, the typical Baptist Church little resembles the New Testament Church. That is to say, that the Jews who made up the Church in Jerusalem would feel totally out of place in such a congrehation, because they belonged to a radically different culture. Fact is that the New Testament is little concerned about describing their congregational life. Recall that the Apostles continued to worship at the temple. Probably their relationship with other Jews was a bit like that of John Wesley and the Church of England. After all, they converted many priests. Superficially they would be just another Jewish sect, except more truculent.
Rome somehow thinks that whenever someone repeats the words of Scripture they are in agreement with Rome's cannibalism.
It doesn't work that way. None of your quotes say the bread and wine materialistically change their atomic structure and morph into a different molecular structure.
And even if they did, it was simply be proof that even "church fathers" can and did err.
From THE FOLLOWING LINK
It is wrong to interpret literal speech figuratively; it is equally wrong to interpret metaphorical speech literally. So, let’s see, did the early Fathers believe in transubstantiation, namely the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ? Ignatius Ignatius argued against the Gnostic Docetists. They denied the true physical existence of our Lord; thus they also denied his death and resurrection. Ignatius wrote:
We do not have to take the phrase "the Eucharist is the flesh" in a literalistic manner. As in everyday speech, as well as in the Bible, it could simply mean that the Eucharist represents the flesh of Christ. To illustrate, take a similar argument by Tertullian. He is also using the Eucharist to combat Docetism:
Tertullian is even more emphatic than Ignatius. He says that Jesus made the bread his own body. But unlike Ignatius, Tertullian goes on to clarify what he meant. Rather than saying that the bread ceases to exist, he calls it the “the figure” of the body of Christ and maintains a clear distinction between the figure and what it represents, namely the “veritable body” of our Lord. Justin Martyr Justin Martyr (A.D. 151) writes:
“The change of which our body and flesh are nourished” is not a reference to transubstantiation. According to Catholic author William A. Jurgenes, “The change referred to here is the change which takes place when the food we eat is assimilated and becomes part of our own body” (Jurgens W, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Volume I, p. 57). Justin Martyn calls the Eucharistic bread and wine "the flesh and the blood" of Jesus. Justin believed in the physical presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. However Justin also believed that the bread and wine do not cease to be bread and wine. He speaks of their partaking "of the bread and wine" over which thanksgiving was pronounced. Elsewhere Justin calls the consecrated elements “bread” and “the cup.” They are the flesh and blood of Christ insofar that they are given in remembrance of his incarnation and blood.
Clearly, while Justin believed in the physical presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, he also believed that the elements remained bread and wine given in remembrance of Christ. Therefore Justin Martyr's view on the Eucharist is dissimilar from the Roman Catholic transubstantiation, and as such he is anathemized by the Roman Church. Augustine Catholic authors often misuse Augustine’s figurative writings to support the doctrine of transubstantiation. The following example is a case in point:
Augustine believed that in a sense the elements are the body and blood of Jesus. “The bread…is the body of Christ…that cup…is the blood of Christ.” In what sense is he speaking? Is the substance of the bread changed into the body of Christ? Or is bread the body of Christ in a symbolic sense? We can readily discover the answer to this all important question. First, looking at the context, it is clear that Augustine is using figurative language. Just as he asserts that the bread is the body of Christ, he is equally emphatic that Christians are one loaf, one body. Clearly, he means that the one Eucharistic loaf represents the unity among believers. Similarly, “by means of these things” - the bread and the cup - the Lord presents his people with his body and blood. The Eucharistic elements are the figure or sign of Christ, as Augustine asserts explicitly elsewhere in his writings:
He [Christ] committed and delivered to His disciples the figure of His Body and Blood” (Augustine, on Psalm 3). [The sacraments] bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ's body is Christ's body, and the sacrament of Christ's blood is Christ's blood” (Augustine, Letter 98, From Augustine to Boniface). The Eucharist is the figure of the body and blood of Jesus. Since the bread and wine represent the body and blood of Christ, it is acceptable to call them His body and His blood. The bread resembles the body; therefore it is called the body even though it is not the reality it represents. That is perfectly normal in figurative language. Augustine believed that the bread and cup were signs, which he defines in this manner: “a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself” (On Christian Doctrine, 2, 1). Therefore, when we see the bread, something else comes to mind, namely, the body of Christ. The mistake of the modern Catholic Church is to confuse the sign with the reality it represents. Augustine rightly warns that "to take signs for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage" (On Christian Doctrine 3,9). Augustine is here referring to the sacrament of baptism and the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. Thus, to confuse the bread (the sign) for the body of Christ (the signified) is, according to Augustine a mark of weakness and bondage.Catholic websites list quotations from the Fathers which supposedly prove the Catholic doctrine. When read superficially and out of context they seem to give clear evidence in favour of transubstantiation. In fact, they do not! I suggest we take as second look at the three quotations above (which are representative of many similar quotations), while keeping in mind Augustine’s advice “to guard us against taking a metaphorical form of speech as if it were literal.” Augustine refers to the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist to illustrate this important principle:
“…our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many (Old Testament rites), 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” (On Christian Doctrine, Book 3).
They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again.
The problem with the Gnostics concerned the person of Christ and not the nature of the Eucharist. The heretics did not participate in the Eucharist because they did not believe in what the Eucharist represents, namely the true, physical flesh of Jesus, who actually and really suffered on the cross, and who was really resurrected from the dead. 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 (Against Marcion, Bk 4).
For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Saviour was make incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh are nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66).
Now it is evident, that in this prophecy [allusion is made] to the bread which our Christ gave us to eat, in remembrance of His being made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the cup which He gave us to drink, in remembrance of His own blood, with giving of thanks (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho).
That bread, which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive. You see, the apostle says, We, being many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor. 10.17). That's how he explained the sacrament of the Lord's Table; one loaf, one body, is what we all are, many though we be (Augustine, Sermons, 227).
The Lord did not hesitate to say: “This is My Body”, when He wanted to give a sign of His body” (Augustine, Against Adimant).
As we see from the above teaching, Rome plucks a line here and there from the "church fathers'" writings and labels it doctrine when it is clearly anti-Scriptural paganism.
ping to 829
ping to 829
ping to 829
More often than not, Rome takes a line or two out of context from some “church father” and then misconstrues what is being written.
Rome ALWAYS has an answer for everything.
It’s just the wrong answer.
The author says he was born and raised RC, and he now attends a reformed Baptist church. His links are very informative and pertinent to these discussions.
Isn't the net amazing?
It's pretty amazing that RCs can't see how Rome hopes to keep its members in tethers by telling them only "another Christ" can perform the alchemy required for salvation.
Read your Bible. Learn the truth.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
Pardon NOT accepted.... for as is customary it’s well known catholics enjoy reverting to peoples lack of understanding, or inability to grasp what’s written, or unfamilarity with History....and the lists goes on of every excuse and distraction to deter from the truth of what’s being presented from their church leadership.
So let’s just add some more to Trent, Vatican 11...with a bit of your catechism as well...all of which continue to say the same thing....Christ is sacrificed AGAIN!
A Catholic mass is by definition the sacrifice of Christ.... Catechism 1322, 1338.
The Baltimore Catechism Cofradía edition 1949 says,.......
“Christ gives us his own body and blood in the holy Eucharist, first, to be offered as a sacrifice in commemoration of all time TO RENEW THE SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS”......... Catechism 356.
While the Catholic catechisms cite the passages that speak of Christ to die once, but they ALSO teach that the priest miraculously transforms the bread and wine into the body of Christ and that JESUS IS SACRIFICED AGAIN ,The blood is real blood.... (that seems to know wine and wine of the Mass, but is actually the blood of Christ.”
Yep. The trajectory of Rome is pagan error upon error. Centuries of them. It's no coincidence we've come to the point where Rome now tries to tell people that Mary is a co-redeemer and its deviant priestcraft is innocent, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
You have to remove your papist glasses to understand God’s word.
Yep. They need to pray that God replaces those specs with with lens of the Holy Spirit so they can read and understand the word of God.
Well I’ve been posting more than a line or two of their doctrines and still makes no difference to them what their own stuff is saying. Astounding denial! Most recently I’m being told I ‘do not grasp their History’, which I suspect is yet again a denial and avoidance to see what’s so clearly presented by their own doctrines.
It was somewhat a rhetorical question in response to the quote.
Judas learnt from Jesus Himself.
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