Posted on 01/05/2014 1:56:06 PM PST by Steelfish
The Early Christians Believed in the Real Presence
"So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." (2 Thes. 2:15)
"And what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)
INTRODUCTION
Many Catholics and non-Catholics alike think that the Roman Catholic Church invented the doctrine of transubstantiation. Transubstantiation means that the bread and wine presented on the altar at the Mass become the the Body and Blood of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit at the consecration.
The consecration is the time when the priest calls upon the Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into Christ's Body and Blood. However, the Body and Blood retain the appearance of bread and wine. The Roman Catholic Church, that is, the Latin Rite Catholic Church, and other Catholic Churches in communion with Rome believe that the Eucharist is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity. The Orthodox Churches and most other Churches of the East do so as well.
Anglican [Episcopalian] and other Protestant denominations have interpreted Christ's presence at the celebration of the Lord's Supper or Eucharist to be either only spiritual, or symbolic, or non-existent.
The Early Christians actually took the Real Presence for granted. It doesn't even seem as if there was much debate. I could not find anyone who denied the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament before the year 500 A.D. Following are the results of my search.
(Excerpt) Read more at therealpresence.org ...
“Here’s a sample but clear refutation of the what you have cut and pasted.”
No it’s not. It mentions Augustine just 5 times, with only two quotes, without any reference to what you claim was refuted, or to any of my arguments.
Also, I did not “copy and paste” my material from a website. I copied it from the actual writings themselves, after reading them personally.
Have you ever actually read even just ONE book of Augustine?
Probably not.
"Forgive them father they know not what they do."
The gotcha Lawyerism nonsense.
I have not only read Augustine, I had a graduate school class on his writings.
You don’t compare authoritativeness by the “number of times” a person is cited.
Besides, have you read Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, which is placed next to the Bible in Oxford’s Bordlein Library for its profound interpretations of Scripture?
Have you also read Cardinal Henry Newsman’s writing who as a lead Anglican scholar converted to the Church and founded the renowned Oxford Movement? Or, why not simply review the writings of the foremost American Lutheran theologian Richard Neuhaus, who after many years of teaching in established universities converted to Catholicism. These individuals after a lifetime of scholarship and theological training and instruction had the humility to acknowledge they were hopeless wrong. Even better, consult the great English Essayist, Hillaire Belloc, in his book, “The Great Heresies” for a superb rendition on why all of Protestantism is nothing more than a “cluster of heresies” peddled by mediocre men. I wish this book were made mandatory reading in all high schools.
At least these were consistent.
That, in context, and consistent with the next chapter, is simply NOT referring to the nature of the elements of the Lord's Supper, which are not even the focus, but that which is censured, that of not recognizing the Lord's body as the church for whom Christ died, by ignoring others while they filled their faces, "shaming them that have not," as if these were not not part of the body.
Thus they actually were not having the Lord's supper:
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)
And "for as 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) thus they are to examine themselves whether they are acting consistent with what they are supposedly showing, proclaiming, that of Christ's death for them.
To not do so, would be render them "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord," who died not just for individuals, but the church "which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. (1 Corinthians 11:29)
The church as the body of Christ, which as Paul proceeds to say in the next chapter, "is not one member by many," in continuing this theme, is clearly what is referred to as not being recognized, thus the concluding corrective,
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 (1 Corinthians 11:33,34)
Even the RC notes in the RC NAB 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 More here .
Now before you or anyone else tries to deny this, or otherwise begins telling us what it means, tell me,
Is what Scripture says or what Rome says (Scripture, tradition or history) says determinative of Truth for you?
Where does Rome indisputably interpret 1Cor. 11:29 (not discerning the Lord's body)?
Do you take Jn. 53,54 literally, so that one must believe and receive the Eucharist in order to have life in them, and eternal life? If not, explain.
I think Christ has answered the query to your last question.
Endocannibalism is most often an expression of veneration of the dead, or the pursuit of consuming some esoteric aspect of the person, like the deceased's wisdom.
The Fore peoples of Papua New Guinea had a strongly codified type of endocannibalism as part of funerary rites. In this tribe, women and children played the largest role in cannibalism among deceased Fore males. - http://people.howstuffworks.com/cannibalism2.htm
Alpers and Lindenbaum's research conclusively demonstrated that kuru [neurological disorder] spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29#Transmission
As you know, eating human flesh is always presented negatively in Scripture, as animals and plants are man's literal food, (Gn. 9) and even the idea that the kosher apostles would simply consume human flesh and blood, esp. Peter who protested foot washing and eating non-kosher food, is absurd.
What is consistent is the figurative use of eating and drinking, and gaining spiritual life by believing the Word. (Eph. 1:13)
“I have not only read Augustine, I had a graduate school class on his writings.”
So are you a Lutheran or a Reformed Presbyterian?
Augustine on irresistible grace, final perseverance, limited atonement, and whatever else I missed which he touches on here:
“But of such as these [the Elect] none perishes, because of all that the Father has given Him, He will lose none. John 6:39 Whoever, therefore, is of these does not perish at all; nor was any who perishes ever of these. For which reason it is said, They went out from among us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would certainly have continued with us. John 2:19”. (Augustine, Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints)
“I assert, therefore, that the perseverance by which we persevere in Christ even to the end is the gift of God; and I call that the end by which is finished that life wherein alone there is peril of falling.” (Augustine, On the Perseverance of the Saints)
“And, moreover, who will be so foolish and blasphemous as to say that God cannot change the evil wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever He chooses, and direct them to what is good? But when He does this He does it of mercy; when He does it not, it is of justice that He does it not for “He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.” And when the apostle said this, he was illustrating the grace of God, in connection with which he had just spoken of the twins in the womb of Rebecca, who “being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.” And in reference to this matter he quotes another prophetic testimony: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” But perceiving how what he had said might affect those who could not penetrate by their understanding the depth of this grace: “What shall we say then?” he says: “Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” For it seems unjust that, in the absence of any merit or demerit, from good or evil works, God should love the one and hate the other. Now, if the apostle had wished us to understand that there were future good works of the one, and evil works of the other, which of course God foreknew, he would never have said, not of works, but, of future works, and in that way would have solved the difficulty, or rather there would then have been no difficulty to solve. As it is, however, after answering, God forbid; that is, God forbid that there should be unrighteousness with God; he goes on to prove that there is no unrighteousness in God’s doing this, and says: “For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” “ (Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love, Chapter 98. Predestination to Eternal Life is Wholly of God’s Free Grace.)
“But that world which God is in Christ reconciling unto Himself, which is saved by Christ, and has all its sins freely pardoned by Christ, has been chosen out of the world that is hostile, condemned, and defiled. For out of that mass, which has all perished in Adam, are formed the vessels of mercy, whereof that world of reconciliation is composed, that is hated by the world which belongeth to the vessels of wrath that are formed out of the same mass and fitted to destruction. Finally, after saying, “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own,” He immediately added, “But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” And so these men were themselves also of that world, and, that they might no longer be of it, were chosen out of it, through no merit of their own, for no good works of theirs had preceded; and not by nature, which through free-will had become totally corrupted at its source: but gratuitously, that is, of actual grace. For He who chose the world out of the world, effected for Himself, instead of finding, what He should choose: for “there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. And if by grace,” he adds, “then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.”” (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 15:17-19)
“These individuals after a lifetime of scholarship and theological training and instruction “
None of which has evidently benefited you anything, since you can’t ‘scholar” your way out of simple sentences like “Why ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.”
Then why don't you plainly answer the question, which not one among many RCs asked before have yet to do? Do you hold that one must believe (in the Real Presence) and receive the Eucharist in order to have life in them, and eternal life? Affirm or deny.
Its Newman.
had the humility to acknowledge they were hopeless wrong.
And so he is, as contrary to how the church began, as said, following an itinerant Preacher who was rejected by those who were the steward of Scripture sitting in Moses seat, Newman subscribes to the cultic trust in men, in which, as said, objective examination of evidence is discouraged in seeking to determine the veracity of official RC teachings,
"in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )]
Thus even if not taught in Scripture, if Rome says it, then it true. Cultic, not Scriptural.
Then why don't you plainly answer the question, which not one among many RCs asked before have yet to do? Do you hold that one must believe (in the Real Presence) and receive the Eucharist in order to have life in them, and eternal life? Affirm or deny.Any Catholic who would answer your question is overstepping his boundaries as a faith-filled servant of Jesus Christ. Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, and/or Margaret Sanger, could all be in heaven. This is the beauty of the Catholic faith. It's not our call, it's His.
There is no compelling indication that Jesus was not speaking metaphorically in these passages regarding the body and the blood used to “remember” the sacrifice df our Lord on our behalf. The focus of the Lord’s Supper is to remember what He endured for us, what He gave willingly for us - His body and His blood to pay the price for our sins. Seeing the elements as symbols in no way takes away from the meaning.
Taking it literally turns us into cannibals
Apparently Jesus’ own followers struggled with this question because in John 6: 60 we see them saying, “...this is hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Why would they say this if Jesus was speaking symbolically? Yes, it is hard teaching, but it is true, and I don’t know how he could have been more more emphatic.
Yours is the best reply I have seen to this false doctrine.
I would add that Paul distinguishes between a spiritual body and a body of flesh. The discerning of Christ’s body in 1 Corinthians 11 is a reference to not merely contemplating and remembering the body of Christ crucified but also an acknowledgement that we who believe have become the spiritual body of Christ. We see this in 1 Corinthians 10 where we are told in verse 17 that we are the bread.
The thought is throughout the letter as in 1 Corinthians 6:15 where Paul elaborates that our bodies are members (parts) of Christ’s body.
The physical body of Christ and the blood of His physical body could not undergo corruption (decay). However, the “members” of His spiritual body (us) do undergo decay. So our physical bodies decay when we die. If it were possible for our corruptible bodies to partake of His incorruptible body and blood then our bodies would never decay, being transformed into the physical and incorruptible body of Christ.
But we know that the corruptible (our physical bodies) cannot partake of the incorruptible (Christ’s physical body and blood). We must first be transformed at the resurrection before we will literally partake of this quality according to 1 Corinthians 15.
In a sense, all food that a believer eats is potentially transformed into the body of Christ because that food is transformed by digestion and assimilation into tissue of our various body parts; and these bodies are part of Christ’s SPIRITUAL body. To call this transubstantiation would be a stretch. The difference in communion is the spiritual aspect of remembering Christ’s death, discerning our being made parts of His body through the work of the Holy Spirit, and a renewing of our commitment to His new covenant.
I am left alone in a world where so many lament their loneliness.Fr Mark Kirby is a Benedictine Monk of Perpetual Adoration. He spends more time before the Blessed Sacrament than most protesting Protestants do on Free Republic. And it shows in his "body" of work. Sometimes you have to scrutinize the works of those who believe in Him, to see His presence is overwhelmingly effective.
If only souls would come to Me and would tarry in My presence,
they would discover a Love that fills the heart so completely that it dispels every loneliness
and becomes wondrously fruitful in the lives of those who accept it. -from Fr Mark Kirby
A quick break for all to sober us on how blessed we are: Reflections in the midst of extreme poverty and filth... trip in India [Warning: Graphic] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3108723/posts?page=1
“Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”
He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.” [John 6: 49-71]
Any Catholic who would answer your question is overstepping his boundaries as a faith-filled servant of Jesus Christ. Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, and/or Margaret Sanger, could all be in heaven. This is the beauty of the Catholic faith. It's not our call, it's His.
That is really quite an escape. I began asking it because RCs regularly post those texts in asserting Jn 6. is speaking literal, but you come along and deny the certitude of of what must be the conclusion of such literalism, thus negating their argument.
So thank you for accomplishing what they are afraid of doing. .
What believing in the Real Presence and receiving the Eucharist WILL do for a person, is fill them with His strength and His power. Who wouldn't what that?
However, it manifestly does not. I am a former weekly serving RC, and have lived in a heavily RC area for over 60 years, and in addition have abundance of statistics , and the reality is that it is evangelical faith that effects manifest regeneration, while deadness and liberalism reigns where Rome does. Or blind zeal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.