Posted on 11/22/2005 7:26:10 AM PST by NYer
"Not so. Pilate's authority was simply that ..."
So your contention Jesus was simply in the chain of authority, so to speak.
Here's why I don't buy that.
"Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?"
What are suggesting - that Pilate had some sort of legitimate authority over Jesus, would make Jesus be claiming rebellious and illegal authority to protect himself in the above passage - something that, according to Jesus, God was more than willing to do should he ask it.
"St. Paul would later recognise as legitimate when he notes, among other things, that Kings "do not wield the sword in vain"."
Yes. Paul recognizes duly constituted authority - but make no mistake, he also clearly teaches that the world is in the grip of devil. He is the prince of this age, or as John says...
"We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." - 1 John 5
As a body? Perhaps, but we don't assert that anyway. "Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place. ... in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament." (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, III q. 76 a. 5); "once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical 'reality,' corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place." (Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei, Sept. 3, 1965)
The "omnipresence" of the body of Christ was invented by some Lutherans. To speak frankly, it tends towards the Monophysite heresy.
a position that I understand from an intellectual perspective but have trouble finding a theological basis for.
Try these: "And taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake; and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. In like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you." (St. Luke 22:19-20) "The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" (1 Cor. 10:16) "Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord." (1 Cor. 11:27)
"As a body? Perhaps, but we don't assert that anyway. "Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place. ... in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament.""
Interesting.
"nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species"
This is problematic. To my knowlege, nowhere in the Bible does God perform a miracle in this fashion. What if a Cana, the wine had remained water - but the disciple insisted it be called wine? What if the dead were "raised" yet still laid lifeless on the bed? What if the leper was healed, yet still retained all the visible manifestations of his disease?
Does not the mind naturally revolt at such a proposition? Yet in each of these cases God provided a means of convincing both the eye and the heart of the reality of His miracle.
"To speak frankly, it tends towards the Monophysite heresy."
There you go! I could feel that it was some heresy - but couldn't put my finger on it.
"This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. "
I accept that. I believe that it is Christ Jesus we are accepting - but the mode by which that happens I can not discern. As Kolokotronis said recently elswhere,
"The real shame is that both Rome and Luther felt it necessary to define the miracle."
Because there is no other miracle of this importance. Incidentally, the Eucharist is not called a miracle, but a mystery. You agree, do you not, that faith in Christ is at the center of Christianity? When Christ grants us a miracle and shows unmistakenly that a miracle has happened -- as in giving us real wine or real human body walking on water -- He is doing so in order to teach us a lesson. The Eucharist is not a lesson, it is His ministry itself. It calls for faith. If the Host turned into a heart muscle every time I take it, I would be reduced to the doubting Thomas who needed to put his finger on what is there to ignite faith.
Well said, BlackElk!
There is a wide gulf between those who are Exposing Apostasy and bashing those in an apostate system.
Throughout the Bible the Prophets are warning, warning! the people of the impending doom due to their idolatry.
Please do continue your research for locating the origin of this river called religion
Knowledge is good, and fearing God is the beginning of knowledge
God Bless
It's a condescension on God's part to conceal the change from bread and wine into Christ's body and blood from our senses. He doesn't want us to be revolted. IOW, there are really two miracles: the first is to change bread and wine to living flesh and blood, and the second is to keep you from seeing it.
However, there have been a number of cases where God has not performed that second miracle, and the bread and wine have been turned to actual flesh and blood. The most celebrated example is the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, in which the host -- which still exists, incorrupt, today, many centuries later -- was partially turned into human cardiac muscle tissue. (Yes, it's been scientifically analyzed and shown to be such. The blood type is AB, same as on the Shroud of Turin.)
Thank you for yet another kindness. God bless you and yours.
Jesus Christ/Last Supper: This is My Body/This is My Blood. It was in all the Bibles.
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