Was the
doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which was eventually
defined by the Catholic Church as transubstantiation, always taught by the
Church?
I won’t spend any time at all on the Calvinistic
accusations as I believe that discussing those any further will only take us
way off of our current topic. I do wish
to say that I only brought that up to refute the earlier point that Christ
wanted his audience to understand him. My point was that He didn’t and so he
sought to offend them by his teaching and furthered the metaphorical language
that they were already having a hard time with.
In regards to quoting “Protestant
theologians”, I don’t quote them because they are Protestant but because they
have studied these topics in depth. I think J.N.D. Kelly was misread as it was
asserted that he “settled the issue” by saying that they were “unquestioningly”
realist. The problem here is that Roman Catholics seem to think that the only
form of “real presence” is a physical one.
What Kelly is trying to bring out is that the views of the early fathers
were “realist” in that they did believe that Christ was somehow really present. Kelly further states that there were two
views of the mode of Christ’s
presence in the Eucharist (Schaff brings this out as well); one was physical
and the other was spiritual.
There is nothing that logically or
reasonably binds Christ’s “real presence” anywhere as a physical one. If that is so, then the Bible is clear that
Christ is in heaven and only upon His second return will his physical presence
be with us forever. It is an error to think that Christ’s spiritual presence is
not a “real presence”. Christ is with us through His Holy Spirit as well.
It was also asserted that later “protestant” theologians
were the ones who developed the later interpretations. This statement is filled with so much
ignorance that even Catholic Scholar, Dr. Ludwig Ott,
can easily refute. In “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” (pg.
371-372) he notes John Scotus Eriugena
(about 870) as teaching the symbolic character of the Eucharist; a monk named Ratramnus (after 686); Berengarius
of Tours (11th century); Rabanus Maurus, Gottschalk, John Wycliffe (1384). These and others CLEARLY PRECEDED THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. This, along with Schaff’s
assertions and Augustine’s own words from his words explicitly dealing with the
nature of the Eucharist, demonstrate that the spiritual or symbolic view
existed in the early Church along with a physical view of the presence of
Christ.
For instance, listen to Augustine’s statements regarding
rules for interpreting commands and prohibitions in the Scriptures:
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, you have no life in you. John 6:53. 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. (On Christian Doctrine, Book III. Chp.16, Italics mine)
Here, Augustine himself – by his offered rules of interpretation – says that John 6:53 is to be understood figuratively to signify that Christ was put to death on our behalf. Earlier in the same work, chap 9, He again appeals to the symbolic nature of the Eucharist. He says,
Now he is in bondage to a sign who uses, or pays homage to, any significant object without knowing what it signifies: he, on the other hand, who either uses or honors a useful sign divinely appointed, whose force and significance he understands, does not honor the sign which is seen and temporal, but that to which all such signs refer. Now such a man is spiritual and free even at the time of his bondage, when it is not yet expedient to reveal to carnal minds those signs by subjection to which their carnality is to be overcome. To this class of spiritual persons belonged the patriarchs and the prophets, and all those among the people of Israel through whose instrumentality the Holy Spirit ministered unto us the aids and consolations of the Scriptures. But at the present time, after that the proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the resurrection of our Lord, we are not oppressed with the heavy burden of attending even to those signs which we now understand, but our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many, 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; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error. He, however, who does not understand what a sign signifies, but yet knows that it is a sign, is not in bondage. And it is better even to be in bondage to unknown but useful signs than, by interpreting them wrongly, to draw the neck from under the yoke of bondage only to insert it in the coils of error. (Italics mine)
Augustine is here teaching that the one who does not see past the sign to the thing symbolized, but rather mistakes the sign for the thing symbolized is in error. Augustine is also saying clearly that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are signs that point us to greater realities and that to confuse the signs for the thing they signify is an error on the part of the interpreter. These are explicit teachings by Augustine on interpreting the Eucharist.
The problem with the quotations offered in the last rebuttal is that they mention the Eucharist in passing but don’t specifically deal with how Christ is present as Augustine does in these passages from his work “On Christian Doctrine”. For instance, Sermon 227 was quoted:
"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."
But there is nowhere in here an explicit statement that says how Christ is present at all or in what sense the elements are the body and blood of Christ. If we read ALL of Augustine consistently, isn’t Augustine saying that when the Bread and Wine have become consecrated as signs of Christ’s body, that we are to no longer look at the elements as common, but as holy, or set apart? That how we would treat the reality to which the symbols point to is how we should treat the signs. This same thought comes out in Sermon 234:2 that was quoted. This brings out the fact that only that bread which is consecrated is holy. The thought being, that every time one eats bread, they are not partaking of the Lord’s body. Rather, only when the bread has been consecrated does it come to signify that which it was consecrated too! In Sermon 272, Augustine even notes that it is our “faith” that obliges us to see the elements as not common, but as signifiers of a greater reality that they point to. If faith is the “substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:6), how does one use “faith” if what is present doesn’t have to be “hoped for” since it is there? If what we are really looking at is Christ’s physical body, how do I use faith if it is for “things not seen”?
It is quite a leap of logic to use Augustine’s words as teaching transubstantiation when his own clear rules for interpretation of the Scriptures explicitly teach that John 6 was to be understood figuratively and that the sacraments were signs pointing to greater realities and not the things in themselves. There is no demonstration that Augustine explicitly taught transubstantiation at all. This is what must be demonstrated, not only from Augustine, but from all other early Fathers, and even the Scriptures themselves if this was the ancient doctrine of the Church passed on from Christ Himself to the apostles.
Finally, concerning John 6 and the use of “esthio” and “trogo”. Reference was made to a Greek Lexicon. It must be pointed out that a Lexicon does not point out “senses” in which a word is used. Rather, a Lexicon is used for translational purposes; that is, it tells us how a word can be translated. An expository dictionary is better suited for that. The word “trogo” and its various conjugations are used some 6 times in the NT without the “gnawing” or “munching” sense. For instance, in Matthew 24:38 and John 13:18 (the only other usages of “trogos” outside of John 6), there is no sense of “munching” or “gnawing” here. In fact, Vine’s Expository Dictionary suggests that while this was part of the ancient meaning of the word, it had “largely lost this sense in its common usage” (see “eat” in Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words).
Also, I should add that nothing has been proved by appealing to the Lexicon itself. Again, since the lexicon demonstrates how a word may be translated, it rest upon the context of the way in which the word is used to determine how and in what sense the word must be understood. From the NT, it is nowhere demonstrated that the word “trogos” is used to show the sense of “chewing” or “gnawing”. Hence, while the word MAY mean gnawing or chewing in the ancient usage, no where does the NT use it in that sense.
But if one wants to press the point that it means “to gnaw” or “to crunch”, then this could only further demonstrate my exegetical point that as the unbelief of the crowd persisted, Jesus only sought to further offend them and thus, used much stronger language to willfully drive them away.