“Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”
“Letter to the Smyrnaeans”, paragraph 6. circa 80-110 A
funny, Ignatius of Antioch quoted above learned the faith from the human author of John 6, the Apostle John.
I will leave it to the reader to decide if Ignatius believed the Eucharist to be the Body of Christ.
those following the 16th century tradition of men are merely recycling the unbelief of the Gnostics.
I fully believe Ignatius believes what he says ... I just don't believe the apostle John taught him that way.
No, actually what's funny is that Ignatius was disputing the Docetists and Gnostics who denied Jesus even HAD a physical body! He wasn't defending the Platonic concept of reality where the most “real” things were those grasped by the mind and the least “real” things were those things that were sensed. Seeing the bread and wine as a memorial - as Jesus SAID we should - is the true faith the early Christians were taught and believed. The term "transubstantiation" didn't even enjoy official Roman Catholic sanction until the thirteenth century at the Forth Lateran Council. To presume Ignatius, a second century Christian was referring to this is ludicrous.