The Lord's Supper

[dairygirl4u2c]

First. Does anyone know which churches we have writings from regarding the Lord's Supper in the early church?

Did Ignatius teach polycarp or others other than the writings they received from him that we are always throwing back and forth? If the writings are all Ignatius gave, then they may have misinterpreted his writings.


Now here's some "proof" that there was a heterogeny of beliefs regarding the Lord's Supper.


First. If this is in context as presented, doesn't this show that a pope taught error?

[quote]The sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take are a divine thing, inasmuch as through them we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine ceases not to be (Pope Gelasius, de Duabus Naturis).[/quote]

Is a pope free to teach error as long as the doctrine hasn't been taught officially yet? Like didn't some popes believed mary died? Why doesn't this count as a contradiction? I bet this was before the pope was considered infallible by most people.


Here's the rest.

[quote]It is simply not true that the church “always believed” the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Please study the following quotations which show that some Church Fathers considered the Eucharist as the figure, sign, symbol and likeness of the body and blood of Christ.

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 (Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4).

Bread and wine are offered, being the figure of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, spiritually, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii).

For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus)

For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before (Theodoret, Dialogue II, Eranistes and Orthodoxus)

For the Lord did not hesitate to say: “This is My Body”, when He wanted to give a sign of His body (Augustine, Against Adimant).

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. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man," says Christ, "and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, III).

He admitted him to the Supper in which He committed and delivered to His disciples the figure of His Body and Blood (Augustine, on Psalm 3).

To You we offer this bread, the likeness of the Body of the Only-begotten. This bread is the likeness of His holy Body because the Lord Jesus Christ, on the night on which He was betrayed, took bread and broke and gave to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat, this is My Body, which is broken for you, unto the remission of sins” (Anaphora, quoted in Jurgens W, The Faith of the Early Fathers, II, p 132).

The sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take are a divine thing, inasmuch as through them we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine ceases not to be (Pope Gelasius, de Duabus Naturis).

Of course, there were other Fathers whose beliefs were similar to, and later developed into, the doctrine of transubstantiation. However, the quotations above prove that some influential Church Fathers considered the bread and wine as sacred symbols of the body and blood of Jesus. Others did not. There wasn’t a unanimous understanding among the Fathers about the nature of the eucharistic elements.

It is tragic that the Supper which Christ instituted as a memorial for His people became the cause for bitter controversy, persecution and schisms. The focus is all wrong. Our preoccupation should not be on the bread and wine per se, but on what they signify, namely Christ, whose body was crucified for us and whose blood was shed for the forgiveness of sin.[/quote]


[quote]Some church fathers believed in the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist; others considered the elements as signs of the body and blood of Christ, and that His presence is spiritual. Paschasius Radbertus was the first to formulate the doctrine of transubstantiation in the ninth century. At that time he was opposed by Ratramnus, but the debate continued until the thirteenth century when the final decision was taken by the Lateran Council in 1215. The Doctor of the Church, Duns Scotus, admits that transubstantiation was not an article of faith before that time.

It is misleading to speak about “real presence” as if the term is equivalent to “transubstantiation.” Christians, who consider the bread and wine as strictly symbolical, also believe in the real presence of the Lord among them. Jesus said: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Surely Christ is present in the congregation of His people, as He promises, especially during the celebration of the Supper. His presence is real even though it is spiritual and not carnal.

The Roman Catholic doctrine is defined in the second canon of the thirteenth session of the Council of Trent:

If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood - the species only of the bread and wine remaining - which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema.

In other words, the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, and in the process the bread and wine cease to exist, except in appearance. The ‘substance’ of the bread and wine do not remain.

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).

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 is arguing against the Gnostic Docetists, who denied that Jesus had a true physical existence, or that that he actually died and rose again:

“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.”

Ignatius states that the Eucharist is the body of Christ without given any details about the nature of the change, if any, in the elements. 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 do not believe in what the Eucharist represents, namely the true, physical flesh of Jesus, who actually and really suffered on the cross, and which was really resurrected from the death.

Tertullian uses a similar argument from the Eucharist to combat Docetism:

“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).

Like Ignatius, he speaks of a change in the bread - it is made the body of Christ. But unlike Ignatius, Tertullian goes on to define the nature of the change. 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.


Augustine

Catholic authors often misuse Augustine’s figurative writings to support the doctrine of transubstantiation. The following example is a case in point:

“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).

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:

The Lord did not hesitate to say: “This is My Body”, when He wanted to give a sign of His body” (Augustine, Against Adimant).
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.

“Now, as to follow the letter, and to take signs (such as the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord) for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error. (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 3,9). To confuse the bread (the sign) for the body of Christ (the signified) is, according to Augustine, weakness, bondage and error.
[/quote]

And you can give your spiel about sign doesn't contradict reality. But a philosophy doesn't prove what they mean. These quotes can still mean what Mizzi interprets them as right?

Edited August 10, 2004 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

"The sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take are a divine thing, inasmuch as through them we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine ceases not to be"

I couldnt find that quote, but I found this similar one:


St. Gelasius I (Ep. 27, 3): "Certainly the image and likeness of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the Mysteries (the Eucharist). it is sufficiently evident that we have to admit in Christ God Himself what we confess, celebrate and accept in regard to His image (the eucharistic elements); as they are changed under the action of the Holy Spirit into the divine substance so that the two natures remain in their properties ("permanentes tamen in sua proprietate naturae"), so likewise do we have to understand the other principal mystery, whose efficacy and power these represent to us."


permanentes tamen in sua proprietate naturae is best translated that the two natures remain in their properties, which is correct. an erroneous translation exists which would say simply "the two natures remain" and that would be wrong, but the correct translation is that the two natures remain in their properties, and likewise if i can find your other quote I'm sure a better translation would include proprietate with naturae meaning he is merely saying the properties of the natures still remain.

[Aloysius]

this is the only place i can find the quote you're refering to
[url="http://www.justforcatholics.org/a179.htm"]http://www.justforcatholics.org/a179.htm[/url]

I would really like to see it in Latin. clearly the other quote is similar and it turns out to use proprietate naturae not naturae to describe what remains.

[Aloysius]

[quote]It is simply not true that the church “always believed” the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Please study the following quotations which show that some Church Fathers considered the Eucharist as the figure, sign, symbol and likeness of the body and blood of Christ.[/quote]
[color=blue]well, we'll just see about that now won't we...[/color]

[quote]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 (Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4).[/quote]
[color=blue]what do you suppose Tertullian meant by "figure"? [/color]
[quote][b][u]In Context:[/u][/b]
When He so earnestly expressed His desire to eat the passover, He considered it His own feast; for it would have been unworthy of God to desire to partake of what was not His own. 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, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: "I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread," which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed "in His blood," affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks, "Who is this that cometh from Edom, from Bosor with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel, in the greatness of his might? Why are thy garments red, and thy raiment as his who cometh from the treading of the full winepress?" The prophetic Spirit contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the labourers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood. Much more clearly still does the book of Genesis foretell this, when[/quote]
[color=blue]If you'll be so kind as to read that, you'll notice that Tertillian by elaborating to say "figure" of the body, is calling to mind the ancienct prophecies of the suffering of Christ. It is saying: this body being sacrificed was prefigured through the Old Covenant and prophets. Tertullian's "figure" is a common prophecy foretelling the coming of Christ through the Old Covenant.[/color]

[quote]Bread and wine are offered, being the figure of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, spiritually, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii).[/quote]
[color=blue]First off: Marcarius was a Monothelite. Second off: while he was a heretic in that regard, I think even he accepted the belief in transubstantiation. His Ecthesis is the first example of a creed including belief in the Eucharist as part of it. This also happens to be a quote which I can find no where other than [url="http://www.justforcatholics.org/a179.htm"]http://www.justforcatholics.org/a179.htm[/url]

But regardless: the word "figure" was not intended to mean "symbol". The Bread and Wine are figures of the Flesh and Blood, and they become the Real Flesh and Blood. Notice he says "they who participate in this [b]visible[/b] bread...-- at that point it is only bread in appearance[/color]

[quote]For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus)[/quote]
[color=blue]It is interesting, that all of these quotations are taken from people when they were arguing that the Lord truly had a body because some believed He didn't. Anyway, the Church Fathers used the word nature to speak of the physical properties, the appearance, of the bread and wine. He didn't want Eranistes comin back and sayin "well, they don't look or taste like a body to me, so Jesus didn't have a body" so he mentioned that the nature (physical properties) remained of bread and wine[/color]

[quote]For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before (Theodoret, Dialogue II, Eranistes and Orthodoxus)[/quote]
[color=blue]the point is: [b]"they remain in their former substance figure and form" [/b]which is true, figure and form of the former substance is what they retain. they do not retain the substance of bread and wine, but only the accidents or appearance of bread and wine.[/color]
[color=purple]*** This quote is important because it prooves that the Church Fathers used the word "nature" to talk about the physical attributes. He says they are not deprived of their own nature, then clarified what he meant by that was that they remain in their former substance figure and form[/color]


[quote]For the Lord did not hesitate to say: “This is My Body”, when He wanted to give a sign of His body (Augustine, Against Adimant).[/quote]
[color=blue]The word "sign" does not deny reality as well. The Eucharist is a sign of His Body, but it is also in essence the Body itself. The appearance is a sign, bread looks like flesh and wine looks like blood, the inner essence is the reality. In my next post where I will provide quotes from all of these same people supporting the Eucharist, I will show you that Augustine believed in Transubstantiation.[/color]

[quote]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. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man," says Christ, "and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, III).[/quote][color=blue]Amen. It is a figure that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord and retain sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us. Thus when He later gives us His Body and Blood, He is giving us the ability to have a sweet and profitable memory: all Christians through the ages can thus see Him and remember. Augustine here does not contradict the fact that Jesus is corporally present in the Eucharist, and in my next post I'm gonna proove that he believed He was![/color]

[quote]He admitted him to the Supper in which He committed and delivered to His disciples the figure of His Body and Blood (Augustine, on Psalm 3).[/quote]
[color=blue]again, I maintain that saying the figure of His Body and Blood does not contradict the teaching tha tis truly present as well.[/color]

[quote]To You we offer this bread, the likeness of the Body of the Only-begotten. This bread is the likeness of His holy Body because the Lord Jesus Christ, on the night on which He was betrayed, took bread and broke and gave to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat, this is My Body, which is broken for you, unto the remission of sins” (Anaphora, quoted in Jurgens W, The Faith of the Early Fathers, II, p 132).[/quote]
[color=blue]He does not intend by saying "the likeness" to contradict the reality of it. The bread is the likeness of His Body, and the Bread's substance becomes His body while the likeness of the bread remains, for that likeness of bread is likened to the Body of Christ of which it is. The appearance is the symbol of what is truly there but not there in appearance.[/color]

[quote]The sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take are a divine thing, inasmuch as through them we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine ceases not to be (Pope Gelasius, de Duabus Naturis).[/quote]
[color=blue]they retain the proprietate naturae, the properties of that nature, which is what the word "nature" meant to them back then, prooven by the quote above which I made a purple comment to[/color]

[quote]Of course, there were other Fathers whose beliefs were similar to, and later developed into, the doctrine of transubstantiation. However, the quotations above prove that some influential Church Fathers considered the bread and wine as sacred symbols of the body and blood of Jesus. Others did not. There wasn’t a unanimous understanding among the Fathers about the nature of the eucharistic elements.[/quote]
[color=blue]it doesn't proove it to me... not for Augustine or Tertillian... it doesn't even prove to me that the heretic Marcarius was against transubstantiation![/color]


[color=purple]stay tuned for my next post where I will provide quotations of those same exact Church Fathers DEFENDING transubstantiation.[/color]

Edited August 10, 2004 by Aloysius

[Aloysius]

[url="http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num30.htm"]Here's a good read, it uses :gasp: PROTESTANT sources[/url]

[url="http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ125.HTM"]St. Augustine's Belief in the Eucharist[/url]

Those two sites are very important, they debunk your Augustine Quotes and provide tons of Augustine quotes to the contrary of what yours say

[quote]"That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, IS THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. Through that bread and wine the Lord Christ willed to commend HIS BODY AND BLOOD, WHICH HE POURED OUT FOR US UNTO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS." (Sermons 227)[/quote]
[color=blue]sounds to me like Augustine believes in transubstantiation[/color]

[quote]"The Lord Jesus wanted those whose eyes were held lest they should recognize him, to recognize Him in the breaking of the bread [Luke 24:16,30-35]. The faithful know what I am saying. They know Christ in the breaking of the bread. For not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, BECOMES CHRIST'S BODY." (Sermons 234:2)[/quote]
[color=blue]hey, this fits in with your quote explaining Our Lord's reasons for doing the Eucharist, so the faithful could recognize Him! or as yours said "that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us." It clearly isn't contradictory[/color]

[quote]"What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that THE BREAD IS THE BODY OF CHRIST AND THE CHALICE [WINE] THE BLOOD OF CHRIST." (Sermons 272)[/quote]
[color=blue]WOW! Isn't that perfect, here I was telling you Augustine understood that the appearance looks like bread and wine but it is really Body and Blood, and Augustine himself explains the exact same thing! [/color]

[quote]"How this ['And he was carried in his own hands'] should be understood literally of David, we cannot discover; but we can discover how it is meant of Christ. FOR CHRIST WAS CARRIED IN HIS OWN HANDS, WHEN, REFERRING TO HIS OWN BODY, HE SAID: 'THIS IS MY BODY.' FOR HE CARRIED THAT BODY IN HIS HANDS." (Psalms 33:1:10)[/quote]
[color=blue]what an amazing argument made by Saint Augustine!!![/color]

[quote]"Was not Christ IMMOLATED only once in His very Person? In the Sacrament, nevertheless, He is IMMOLATED for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being IMMOLATED." (Letters 98:9)[/quote]
[color=blue]aha! daily mass [/color]

[quote]"Christ is both the Priest, OFFERING Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the SACRAMENTAL SIGN of this should be the daily Sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to OFFER herself through Him." (City of God 10:20) [/quote]
[color=blue](excellent book BTW, i read it this summer )[/color]

[quote]"By those sacrifices of the Old Law, this one Sacrifice is signified, in which there is a true remission of sins; but not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof." (Questions on the Heptateuch 3:57)[/quote]

[quote]"Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead find relief through the piety of their friends and relatives who are still alive, when the Sacrifice of the Mediator is OFFERED for them, or when alms are given in the church." (Ench Faith, Hope, Love 29:110)[/quote]
[color=blue]what?! mass offered for souls in purgatory? Augustine is DEFINITELY Roman Catholic yo[/color]

[quote]"But by the prayers of the Holy Church, and by the SALVIFIC SACRIFICE, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH OBSERVES THIS PRACTICE WHICH WAS HANDED DOWN BY THE FATHERS that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the Sacrifice itself; and the Sacrifice is OFFERED also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, the works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death." (Sermons 172:2)[/quote]

[quote]"...I turn to Christ, because it is He whom I seek here; and I discover how the earth is adored without impiety, how without impiety the footstool of His feet is adored. For He received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord's feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING." (Psalms 98:9)[/quote] [color=blue]Only God may be adored... the Eucharist then must be GOD to St. Augustine[/color]

Edited August 10, 2004 by Aloysius

[Aloysius]

[quote]And you can give your spiel about sign doesn't contradict reality. But a philosophy doesn't prove what they mean. These quotes can still mean what Mizzi interprets them as right? [/quote]

[color=blue]No, they cannot be interpretted that way if we want to be true to Augustine's INTENTION.

one very important thing to completely discredit Augustine speaking literally was the last quote I provided:[/color]

[quote]AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING[/quote]

[color=blue]If St. Augustine did not believe this to be truly and only the Body and Blood of Christ, I would call him an idolater.[/color]

Edited August 10, 2004 by Aloysius

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

For a full listing of ECF quotes in defense of transubstantiation:
[url="http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_the_real_presence.htm"]http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_the_real_presence.htm[/url]

My personal favorite:
[quote][b]Theodore[/b]
When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, "This is the symbol of my body" but, "This is my body." In the same way when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say. "This is the symbol of my blood," but, "This is my blood," for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup) but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).[/quote]

And the man ordained a bishop by Peter:
[quote][b]Ignatius of Antioch[/b]
Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that [b]the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ[/b], flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2-7:1 [A.D. 110]).[/quote]

[Chucho]

[quote]Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4

"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, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: 'I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, [u]Let us cast the tree upon His bread,' which means, of course, the cross upon His body. [/u]And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, [u]He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body.[/u] He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed 'in His blood,' affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood.[/quote]

It is clear to me that what Tertullian means when he says “figure,” he is talking about the reality of the body Christ had on the cross, not a symbol.

[quote]Macarius, Homily xxvii[/quote]

I can’t find a copy of this homily other than the fragment piece on the site you got it from.

[quote]For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus)[/quote]

I’m still trying but I can’t find this quote yet.

[quote]Theodoret, Diologue II, Eranistes and Orthodoxus[/quote]


Orth.--Tell me now; the mystic symbols which are offered to God by them who perform priestly rites, of what are they symbols?
Eran.--Of the body and blood of the Lord.
Orth.--Of the real body or not?
Eran.--The real.
Orth.--Good. For there must be the archetype of the image. So painters imitate nature and paint the images of visible objects.
Eran.--True.
Orth.--If, then, the divine mysteries are antitypes of the real body,[2] therefore even now the body of the Lord is a body, not changed into nature of Godhead, but filled with divine glory.
Eran.--You have opportunely introduced the subject of the divine mysteries for from it I shall be able to show you the change of the Lord's body into another nature. Answer now to my questions.
Orth.--I will answer.
Eran.--What do you call the gift which is offered before the priestly invocation?
Orth.--It were wrong to say openly; perhaps some uninitiated are present.
Eran.--Let your answer be put enigmatically.
Orth.--Food of grain of such a sort.
Eran.--And how name we the other symbol?
Orth.--This name too is common, signifying species of drink.
Eran.--And after the consecration how do you name these?
Orth.--Christ's body and Christ's blood.
Eran.--And do yon believe that you partake of Christ's body and blood?
Orth.--I do.
Eran.--As, then, the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after the invocation are changed and become another thing; so the Lord's body after the assumption is changed into the divine substance.
Orth.--You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped[1] as being what they are believed to be. Compare then the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness, for the type must be like the reality. For that body preserves its former form, figure, and limitation and in a word the substance of the body; but after the resurrection it has become immortal and superior to corruption; it has become worthy of a seat on the right hand; it is adored by every creature as being called the natural body of the Lord.
Eran.--Yes; and the mystic symbol changes its former appellation; it is no longer called by the name it went by before, but is styled body. So must the reality be called God, and not body.
Orth.--You seem to me to be ignorant--for He is called not only body but even bread of life. So the Lord Himself used this name' and that very body we call divine body, and giver of life, and of the Master and of the Lord, teaching that it is not common to every man but belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ Who is God and Man. "For Jesus Christ" is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."[3]
Eran.--You have said a great deal about this, but I follow the saints who have shone of old in the Chruch; show me then, if you can, these in their writings dividing the natures after the union.
Orth.--I will read you their works, and I am sure you will be astonished at the countless mentions of the distinction which in their struggle against impious heretics they have inserted in their writings. Hear now those whose testimony I have already adduced speaking openly and distinctly on these points.
Testimony of the holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and martyr:--
From the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans:[4] "I acknowledge and believe Him after His resurrection to be existent in the flesh: and when He came to hem that were with Peter He said to them 'Take; handle me and see, for I am not a bodiless daemon .'[5] And straightway they took hold of him and believed."
Of the same from the same epistle:--
"And after His Resurrection He ate with them, and drank with them, as being of the flesh, although He was spiritually one with the Father."
Testimony of Irenaeus, the ancient bishop of Lyons; --
From the third Book of his work "Against Heresies." (Chap. XX.)
"As we have said before, He united man to God. For had not a man vanquished man's adversary, the enemy would not have been vanquished a right; and again, had not God granted the boon of salvation we should not have possessed it in security. And had not man been united to God, he could not have shared in the incorruption. For it behoved the mediator of God and men, by means of His close kinship to either, to bring them both into friendship and unanimity, and to set man close to God and to make God known to men."
Of the same from the third book of the same treatise (Chapter XVIII) :--
"So again in his Epistle he says 'Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,'[1] recognising one and the same Jesus Christ to whom the gates of heaven were opened, on account of His assumption in the flesh. Who in the same flesh in which He also suffered shall come revealing the glory of the Father."

In a fuller view, it seems to me that both Eranistes and Orthodoxus believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist in that it is Jesus Christ, not like Him or Him with the bread, but yet do not have the same understanding of “substance” as we do. It seems to me that when they say substance, they are talking about what we call the accidents, meaning the grain that was used to make the bread because they say, “For that body preserves its former form, figure, and limitation and in a word the substance of the body; but after the resurrection it has become immortal and superior to corruption; it has become worthy of a seat on the right hand; it is adored by every creature as being called the natural body of the Lord.” So the point is that we will still have a fleshly body in heaven, but that it will be incorrupt. After this Eranistes says, “Yes; and the mystic symbol changes its former appellation; it is no longer called by the name it went by before, (as in bread and wine) but is styled body. So must the reality be called God, and not body.” So what is being said is that the mystical symbols (as in, before the consecration) are simply bread and wine but after the consecration, they are to be called God. Because of this, Eranistes says that the Eucharist should not be called body but God. Orthodoxus respondes saying that the Eucharist should still be called a body even though it is Jesus, who is God, and gives his reasons why.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Aug 10 2004, 01:44 PM'][color=blue]what do you suppose Tertullian meant by "figure"?  [/color][/quote]
It must be remembered that the words; figure, symbol, sign, type, antitype, etc., had a different meaning for ancient peoples than they do for us today. Since the Cartesian revolution in philosophy in the 17th century, these terms have been emptied of their objective content; but for the ancients these terms indicate a unity with the thing signified. Thus, when Tertullian used the term "figure" in connection with the Eucharist, he was not saying that the Eucharist is just bread and wine, quite the contrary, he was indicating that the bread and wine have become the very body and blood of Christ. To say that Tertullian meant otherwise, is ultimately to accuse him of denying the reality of the incarnation itself, because Tertullian also used the term "figure" in connection with the incarnation of the Word, saying that Christ had assumed the "figure" of a man. For Tertullian the soul is also the "figure" of the body, and to try and make Tertullian's use of the word "figure" into some kind of phantasm, would involve making him deny the reality of the soul. The "figure," and the thing depicted by the "figure," [i]form a single reality[/i], and so to come into contact with the "figure" is to experience that which the "figure" depicts and manifests. In other words, the "figure" is the means for conveying what is signified by it. The same holds with the use of the word "symbol," for as the Protestant scholar Adolph von Harnack said, "What we now-a-days understand by symbol is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time [i.e., the period of the Fathers of the Church] symbol denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, [b][i]really is what it signifies.[/i][/b]" [Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. 2, p. 144] Harnack's views on this are confirmed by the work of the Protestant scholars Darwell Stone and J.D.N. Kelly, who both explained that in order to properly understand the use of these terms by the ancient Catholic Fathers, one must divorce himself from the metaphysics of the modern world. [cf. J.D.N. Kelly, [u]Early Christian Doctrines[/u], p. 211-213; cf. Darwell Stone, [u]A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist[/u], volume 1]

God bless,
Todd

Edited August 11, 2004 by Apotheoun

[dairygirl4u2c]

Clement, Dionisius and Cyril of Alexandria; Macarius and Cyril of Jerusalem; John Chrysostom, Gregory, Basil

still searching, hold on

[Aloysius]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/"]Writings of those people except for Marcarius and Cyril of Alexandria, Marcarius is a heretic and you might mean Clement of Alexandria[/url]

[Aloysius]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04592b.htm"]Nevermind, this is Cyril of Alexandria, you could be talking about him[/url]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/"]or maybe:[/url]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04595b.htm"]Cyril of Jerusalem[/url]

[Guest JeffCR07]

Dairygirl, not to beat a dead horse, but I thought you and I had previously debated with regards to Tertullian's quote, and, even more specifically, with regards to the term "figure." In case it was not you, or you do not remember, the following would be important to note:

[quote]figure (n.) - c.1225, from O.Fr. figure, from L. figura "a shape, form, figure," from PIE *fig-, originally in Eng. with meaning "numeral," but sense of "form, likeness" is almost as old (c.1250). The verb meaning "to picture in the mind" is from 1603.[/quote]


So lets look at this chronologically, working backwords:

1603: "figure" aquires the additional meaning of "to picture in the mind"

1250: "figure" aquires the additional meaning of "likeness"

1225: "figure" in english aquires the additional meaning of "numeral"

Latin: "figura" means "a shape, form, figure"


Thus, when the word was used by Tertullian, it could not have meant anything other than "a shape" "a form" or "a figure" - all connotating a physical reality

The idea that "figure" could be a mental representation didnt come around until 1603.

Tertullian could only have meant that Christ's physical reality was present in the eucharist.

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff