“Who said that Augustine is wrong?”
I settled this in another post with the words “signified,” “likeness,” “resemblance,” and the phrase “Believe and you have already eaten.”
So, you’re wrong about Augustine.
“Your quibble here would be with the Lord Himself and not me, for it was He that said one must eat and drink in order to have eternal life”
Jesus Christ said to celebrate the Lord’s supper as a remembrance. He did not say one had to eat bread and wine prayed over to get saved. As Augustine says, “Believe and you have eaten already.”
That view is scripturally consistent:
Rom_10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Rom 3:26-28 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (27) Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. (28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
“I won’t cut and paste in the arguments for the actual Greek word used which does not translate into the simple use of the word remembrance.”
The word means remembrance:
“anamnesis”
—Greek Word Study (Transliteration-Pronunciation Etymology & Grammar)
1) a remembering, recollection
—Thayer’s (New Testament Greek-English Lexicon)
From G0363; recollection:—remembrance (again).
*****I settled this in another post with the words “signified,” “likeness,” “resemblance,” and the phrase “Believe and you have already eaten.”*****
Settled for whom? In the same way it is said that the science of global warming is settled?
The archaic use of some words are very different than they are now; so much so that in some cases the word can now mean the opposite of what it once meant.
Also,this use of Augustine puts me in mind of how many non Catholics use Scripture when debating a Catholic.
When given quotes/verses in support of Catholic doctrine, the non Catholic is quick to throw ones that seemingly refute said doctrine and then pompously declare the argument is settled and the Catholic is wrong and that is that. Not so fast....
After all, I believe it is settled in support of the Catholic Church.
St. Augustine was a Catholic bishop for more than thirty years. He is a Doctor of the Church whose writings and theology is upheld as orthodox in line with Catholic teaching.
That non Catholics can pick out phrases within his hundreds of writings that they think contradicts Catholic teachings is no surprise. After all, he certainly could have ventured down a wrong path in his theology.
In saying that, I must stress that I don’t believe that is what he has done, I believe that the reader is reading into his words what the reader desires to see.
But, to ignore the fact that he was Catholic, subject to the very same authority as all Catholics are, and was so because he found her doctrine to be not just reasonable, not just philosophically sound, but Truth itself, is to deny something that is of paramount importance to knowing and understanding him.
Non Catholics would truly like to claim him for themselves, but alas, he was Catholic through and through and as such, fully believed and followed and was obedient to the Catholic faith.
****Jesus Christ said to celebrate the Lord’s supper as a remembrance. He did not say one had to eat bread and wine prayed over to get saved. As Augustine says, “Believe and you have eaten already.”****
Well, our Lord felt it was so important that when He called Paul and revealed to him the gospel, Jesus gave him the same words as He prayed them at the Last Supper.
Again, I must go back to how Christ revealed Himself and His mission over a three year period. He didn’t call the Apostles and say immediately, “I am the Son of God, I have come to die for your sins, I will then rise from the dead and return to heaven. I will then send the Holy Spirit to remain with you always.”
No, He drew them in and revealed all of this a bit at a time. In the same way He revealed the Eucharist. I won’t go into the sequence again, but there is no doubt that He only gave to them what He wanted when He was ready to reveal it.
Jesus said as much, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” John 16:12
So, on the night before He died, He revealed them how they could eat His flesh and drink His blood. He gave them the words and He commanded that this be done and we know that that is what they did. Paul tells us that when he recounts the Last Supper, as if he were there, using nearly the exact words, reminding the new Church the sacrificial nature of the breaking of the bread which they shared.
Yes, faith is the way to salvation and those who share the faith that was handed on to the Apostles join in the Eucharist and become one body in the one loaf that is Christ. One lone phrase by Augustine in a sermon does not change that, even if Augustine meant what you want to believe he meant.
anamnesis”
—Greek Word Study (Transliteration-Pronunciation Etymology & Grammar)
1) a remembering, recollection
Again, not just the simple remembering or recollection as it is used in context in Scriptures, first in the Jewish act of re-calling the Passover, the sacrificial nature of their celebration of that event. The Last Supper is tied to that re-calling in that the meal they were eating was the Passover meal. The fact that it is bread and wine which Jesus offers is tied to the Psalms which speaks of a clean offering in the order of Melchizadek whose sacrifice was of bread and wine. The only such sacrifice in the OT.