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John 6:53-55
Then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,
and drink his blood,
ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29
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.
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.
First Apology of St. Justin Martyr, c. 155 AD
"We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving ("eucharistia").

All of these affirm that, while the Body and Blood surely have other layers of meaning --- sign, commemoration, and so forth --- these other meanings are part of the fundamental reality that this IS His Body and Blood.

All of the other meaningful facets --- that this is symbolic, metaphoric, refers to spiritual things,etc.--- are taken up in the incarnational/sacramental *fact* of Christ's Body and Blood (Eucharistic realism) without replacing or refuting it.

All the ancient churches ---- not only Latin and Byzantine, that is, those under the direct sway of Roman or Constantinople, but also Armenian, Assyrian, Coptic, Ethiopian, etc.--- would agree that the Eucharist is "also" a symbol and a commemoration, without saying it is "only" a symbol or a commemoration. They all affirm Eucharistic realism: this is His Body and Blood.

It's always been both/and.

This is the reason why elaborate explanations of the symbolic aspect, do not refute the realist. The sign is multivalent, and not exclusive.

Compare to the act of marital union. It surely has the symbolic meaning of spiritual union, but that does not deny, refute or replace bodily union.

Your anti-sacramental POV --- refuting the "real" and "true" description of what is "indeed" His Body and Blood ---can be sustained only be refuting the Gospel of John, the Epistles of Paul, and all Christendom. I doubt you can show me that anybody made your kind of arguments to "refute" or "deny" Eucharistic realism, for the first 1500 years of Christianity.

That's the novelty of the modern "anti-carne," anti-incarnational argument.

John 6:53-55...1 Corinthians 11:27-29...All of these affirm that, while the Body and Blood surely have other layers of meaning --- sign, commemoration, and so forth --- these other meanings are part of the fundamental reality that this IS His Body and Blood.

They do not such thing except in isolation (typical of Catholics), but to the contrary, rather than partaking of the Lord supper ever being the means of obtaining spiritual and eternal life, apart from which one does not have this, and with the substantiated bread and wine being spiritual food - all of which is what a literal reading of Jn. 6:53,54 requires this to mean - then as said and shown, it is believing the gospel message that one obtains life in oneself, and with the engrafted word being salvific and nourishing milk, meat, spiritual food to those who receive it.

And as said, the "real food" of Jn. 5:55 is not what the text says but that it is surely food, which Scripture clearly affirms the word of God is to those who believe/receive it.

You are just parroting Cath polemics which Scripture has refuted time and time again.

Would you like to go chapter by chapter through the book of Acts and what follows to see what is presented as the means by which one obtains spiritual life and grows in it?

It is hardly even conceivable that if the NT church was the Catholic church with its cardinal position and salvific importance of the Cath Eucharist, then the only possible mentions of the Lord's supper in Acts would not simply be that of 2 instances mentioning the breaking of bread together, and with the Lord's supper being completely absent from every other book after the gospels (and which are interpretive of them) except for 1 Cor, and the mention of the feast of charity in Jude 1:12. None of which teach that the Lord's supper or Cath Eucharist is the means by which spiritual life is obtained and eternal life, apart from which one does not have this, but instead it is be believing/ receiving the word of God.

While you can argue that this obedience would include taking part in the Lord's supper, and indeed it does, but we are taking about the importance of a specific act of obedience, and of a paramount "sacrament" after baptism. Yet do not even see NT pastors manifestly conducting the Lord's supper (let alone distinctive "priests" and unique so).

1 Corinthians 11:27-29 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. 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.

Which is another case of isolationist eisegesis, for in context the only "body" that was not being discerned/recognized was that of the church, because some were selfishly eating independently to the neglect and shunning of others which effect was to "shame them which have not," in utter contradiction of what they were supposed to be showing, that of the Lord's sacrificial death for them, so that they were bought with His sinless shed blood, (Acts 20:28) and were thus to show that unity and love to each by that communal meal.

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)

For as often as ye eat this bread , and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. (1 Corinthians 11:26)

And as Paul was guilty of persecuting Christ by how he treated his body the church, so "whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:27)

That this lack of recognition was the problem, versus some failure to believe in the "Real Presence" (which Caths can manifestly do while ignoring others or simply in a perfunctory manner), is further evidenced by 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)

You can actually hold to your belief in the Eucharist and still recognize that "not discerning the Lord's body" in the context of 1Cor. 11:27-34 is not referring to failure to believe in the Cath "Real Presence, and in favt the notes in your NAB bible state,

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://usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/11#54011028-1)

First Apology of St. Justin Martyr, c. 155 AD

What does such show except an example of the progressive accretion of errors among post-apostolic men, some of which errors perhaps existed among a few during the apostolic age, but later gained the ascendancy, though such could still be saved as being of poor and contrite hearts who yet trusted in Christ to save them on His account.

Simply bombast, as it is actually the Gospel of John, the Epistles of Paul, etc. which do not teach the Lord supper ever being the means of obtaining spiritual and eternal life, apart from which one does not have this spiritual life being obtained, but teach believing being the occasion of obtaining this life, and the word being believed/received as being spiritual food by which one is build up.

I doubt you can show me that anybody made your kind of arguments to "refute" or "deny" Eucharistic realism, for the first 1500 years of Christianity.

There are those argue that what certain early so-called "church fathers" (they were not) believed was not the Catholic position, but while some can be a Catholic and find salvation despite believing in Catholic Real Presence, yet what matters is what we see in Scripture, in which we nowhere see the metaphysical Catholic Christ being present as non-existent bread and wine, which must be read into the text,as well as the LS being a priestly paramount practice, after baptism, as said.

(Eucharistic realism)

Your argument steers towards making place for what I've seen referred to as immoderate realism -- in other words, there necessarily is included an "actual" [physical] realism along with and among whatever other (cough-cough) metaphysical considerations there are. Or else, the phrase "realism" should not be used in modern-day parlance due to it being inherently misleading.

What becomes displaced in the way you seem to be arguing for realism are realms of more moderate understanding, a type of conceptualization and way of explaining what the meaning of "is" is, that accepts the bread and the wine are still in their own actual, and "real", materially physical & earthly nature unchanged from being what they were in those senses prior to consecration.

For whatever reasons Protestants have been in the past been roundly condemned by Roman Catholics for holding such views, despite Pope Gelasius having shared that viewpoint. The bread and wine in their natural substance remain bread and wine.

At the following link; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxvi.html under footnote 1911 (at the page click on the number to open the footnote) there is;

...he expresses himself naturally as one who believes it is bread, but yet not “common bread.” So Gelasius, Bishop of Rome (a.d. 490),
“By the sacraments we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them,”

Did Bishop Gelasius (that would be "Pope" Gelasius, would it not?) subscribe to concept of Eucharistic realism according to the way you conceptualize/internalize such term as "realism" in this context?

I'm willing to accept that he did hold view there was type of realism, yet clearly not inclusive of Thomistic treatments of Aristotelian philosophical usage of the word "substance", for Gelasius apparently was using the term more naturally, as in directly stipulating the material reality of the consecrated bread and wine remained unchanged.

So much for Medieval Scholasticism, eh? Those guys convoluted most everything they touched upon. And so much for the claim of consistency for what you termed Eucharistic realism -- unless -- portions of Tridentine descriptive for transubstantiation can go under the bus-wheels where some particular, specific portions of it bloody well belongs.

In light of what Gelasius had to say (and others too, speaking similarly of the bread remaining bread, etc) leaves also those who reject transubstantiation -- in good standing -- it needing be understood here that those who reject the dogma do so for reason they understand transubstantiation to include the assertion the so-called "substance" (which term 'substance' absolutely must include consideration of the bread's purely physical reality & existence, or else the words lose all meaning) of the bread and wine are said to be annihilated standing right alongside Gelasius, and Augustine, and Tertullian (all of whom would have objected to this annihilation postulate) although with Tertullian one needs to read in-between-the-lines when he bent his writing quills towards critics who accused Christians of drinking actual (there's that word 'actual' again!) blood, referencing the accusers must be the ones who have a taste for (and preferred) human blood -- in order to see that he was speaking of Christians NOT partaking of actual corporeal flesh and blood when they partook of the Lord's Supper (Eucharist).

When it comes to inclusion of receptionism, the condemnation from Council of Trent was anathemization of those who held such viewpoint. I'll have to be staying anathematized, thank you guys very much (don't want to sit next to you folks all that much anyhow)...

How many times on FR threads have we seen Romanists point to John 6:66, where many turned away from Jesus -- those who turned away obviously having literalist interpretation in mind for Christ's own words pertaining to eating his flesh and "drinking blood" (of Christ)--- in order to justify literalist (immoderate realism) interpretations as being the only possible correct interpretation when attempting to justify doctrine of transubstantiation?

I doubt you can show me that anybody made your kind of arguments to "refute" or "deny" Eucharistic realism, for the first 1500 years of Christianity.

You mean "realism" like this;

What if one were to hold the view that the bread and wine after consecration remained in their own particular physical (material) realities -- still bread and wine? Would that be precluded under what you refer to as 'Eucharistic realism'?

I had asked you in previous comment to better define what you meant by 'Eucharist realism', and as usual you deflected questioning back upon the inquirer. You do not appear to me to subscribe an immoderate view regarding Eucharist, anyway.

Well guess what? Neither do Anglicans, and Methodists, and Lutherans, and Calvinists too, provided that latter understand and accept something along lines of Calvin's pneumatic presence view, rather than the apparently strict memorialism of Zwingli whom Calvin strongly opposed on this point.

As for that latter being strictly and entirely "memorialists" only, that was long ago corrected by a successor to Zwingli in what's called the Consensus Tigurinus.

None of those I listed above subscribe to transubstantiation. So what now? Will transubstantiation be re-described in order to preclude the RCC so-called 'Magesterium' from ever having to admit they were wrong?

"Oh, but you just did not understand us!"

seems to be what you may be including among your usual efforts on these pages...

Yet, there is plentiful dialogue from centuries preceding this century and the century previous (that would be the 20th century) establishing that among Roman Catholics there had long been consideration there was corporeality -- by which I mean actual (and it could be even said "physical") presence of the flesh and blood of Christ within consecrated eucharist wafer, and wine -- right were the bread and wine used to be, but which bread and wine had been "annihilated", ceasing to be bread and wine, at all.

That particular portion of overall view and understanding of Eucharist was NOT universally shared among earlier centuries Christian Church, including among the Latin church as the one example from Gelasius establishes. I haven't even gotten to Augustine yet, but I see that he was included in the listing you characterized as supporters of "Eucharistic realism".

Augustine was not a supporter of what came to be known as transubstantiation -- not if that includes annihilation of the species of the bread.

And yeah, I know, guys like Taylor Marshall try to represent Aristotelian philosophy as equating "definition" with the word "species" once the original philosophical Greek terminology was translated and employed by Latins. Where would that leave Council of Trent descriptives? The "actual" body (flesh and blood, no less) of Christ under the appearances of the definition (conceptual understanding) of what the bread is?

That's surely not how a great many Roman Catholics apparently enough understood the dogma of transubstantiation for many centuries preceding the 20th century. I smell a rat. It's as if there's been among Roman Catholicism slow and steady work to bring about change in perceptions of just what transubstantiation is, in order to better incorporate (or should it be said more accurately appropriate?) non-Roman Catholic theological considerations from both East (Orthodox) and West (Protestants) without ever having to say they're sorry? (sorry for Council of Trent, and the like).