Do some people take it too far? Eucharist

The Liturgist

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There are a lot of people who participate in the Eucharist that will not receive eternal life.

Mat 24:13 “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Rom 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

And of course, 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 also makes clear the particular dangers of partaking of the Eucharist in a hypocritical manner of unrepentant sin, hence the multiple confiteors and expiatory prayers in the traditional liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian and Roman Catholic Churches (for example, the repeated litanies, for instance, the Litany of Fervent Supplication, in the Eastern Orthodox liturgies, or in the Syriac Orthodox liturgy, the sequence of expiatory prayers known as Husoye, or in the Roman Rite, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar)*

* One could also classify the Anglican Prayer of Humble Access in this category, for even among those who ostensibly did not believe in the physical presence of our Lord, but rather took a Calvinist approach, believing in a spiritual presence, there still historically was a great awareness of the Scriptural promises of the spiritual benefits of the Eucharist, and the dangers of partaking while unworthy. Hence, the attempts by Calvin and Wesley to implement a weekly Eucharist, and the Confiteor at Morning Prayer, the Great Litany, the Confiteor in the Holy Communion Service and the Prayer of Humble Access, in the traditional Anglican Sunday Morning services (which, like a typical Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Sunday Morning, featured Morning Prayer connected to the Eucharistic synaxis, in this case by a long Litany which in part substituted for the shortness of the Anglican Holy Communion Service).
 
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prodromos

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I don't see why. Jesus said he's a gate. Not that he represents a gate. So he's either literally made of wood and iron or it's symbolic.
My response to when someone else brought up this argument is back in posts #37 & #39
 
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prodromos

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Right, not cannibalism.
Cannibalism is the eating of dead human flesh, requiring the death or dismemberment of the one being consumed. Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism.
 
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Not David

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Cannibalism is the eating of dead human flesh, requiring the death or dismemberment of the one being consumed. Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism.
It's sad that Christians use the same arguments Pagan Romans used to persecute the Church :(
 
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The Liturgist

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Cannibalism is the eating of dead human flesh, requiring the death or dismemberment of the one being consumed. Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism.

Indeed. The confusion with cannibalism is a stumbling block that must be overcome with faith, which we see with the alienation of all but the eleven faithful disciples (not counting Judas Iscariot) in John 6.

The important thing to bear in mind, however, is that the Seventy ultimately returned, and among their number were St. Luke the Evangelist, St. Mark the Evangelist, and St. James the Just, not to be confused with St. James Zebedee, the Great, the elder brother of St. John the Theologian, the Beloved Disciple and Evangelist; the former presided over the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and wrote the Epistle of James, while the latter was the first of the Twelve to be martyred (although the first martyr after Pentecost was of course St. Stephen the Deacon, the Illustrious Protomartyr, who was one of the seven deacons, all of whom turned out alright except for Nicolas the Deacon, not to be confused with the Confessor (tortured for his faith under Diocletian) St. Nicholas the Bishop of Myra, whose use of the church treasury to provide for impoverished children, together with St. Basil the Great, who again used the treasury of his diocese (Caesarea in Cappodacia) to establish the first institution we would recognize as a hospital, formed the inspiration for the composite, mythologized figure of Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as the British call him.
 
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It's sad that Christians use the same arguments Pagan Romans used to persecute the Church :(

Indeed, it is true that Roman Pagans accused the early Christians of cannibalism, based on a misunderstanding of the Eucharist. Pagan accusations of gross sexual immorality were probably the result of an encounter with one of the more perverse heretical cults, some of which were straight-up sex cults, such as the group St. Epiphanios the bishop of Salamis called “Gnostics”, not to be confused with the larger family of Gnostics referred to by St. Irenaeus in the portion of his book Against Heresies, entitled “Against the Gnosis (Knowledge) So Falsely Called,” and of course the Nicolaitans, founded by Nicolas the Deacon, who I mentioned in my previous post, who practiced and blasphemously dared to regard as something like a sacrament, the sharing of wives among members of the cult.

Some postmodern and liberal theologians, like Karen King of Harvard Divinity School, Elaine Pagels, and Bart Ehrman, in what one must charitably hope is naiveté (such as what I am convinced we see with the immensely polite and soft spoken Austrian leader of the Ecclesia Gnostica, Bishop Stephen Hoeller), regard the practitioners of early “Christianities”, which is to say, heretical sects as victims of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we confess in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds (the former part of the statement of faith for ChristianForums.com), from which all Christian churches, whether Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic, are descended.

In reality, they have it mostly backwards: while it is true that some, such as the Montanists, Novationists, Meletians and Donatists did experience persecution along with Christians, and the Manichaeans were later exterminated by Muslims along with all Christians to the East of Persia and Mesopotamia and the South of what would become Russia, with the exception of the St. Thomas Christians in Malankara, India, and many others*, it is equally true that Roman encounters with heretical sex cults nominally related to Christianity fueled the fires of the persecution of Christians, which was particularly severe in the third century, especially under Decius and Diocletian, but even under Nero and the great fire that he blamed on Christians; the woes of the Roman Empire, which reached the zenith of its political power under Trajan, began to increase dramatically under Marcus Aurelius, and after he died, Commodus and a succession of other incompetent emperors made a point of blaming the various natural disasters, political unrest, and military failures of the Roman Empire on the Gods being angered by the Christians, who were depicted as sexually immoral cannibals, and the failure of the virtuous (literally, manly), pious and honorable adherents of the syncretic pagan religions of the Empire to suppress their vile superstition by violent coercion or extermination.

In addition to very possibly being the cause of the Roman belief that Christians were licentious perverts (in reality, by modern standards, the opposite is true; Romans by our standards tended to be bisexual polygamous paedophiles who abused and prostituted slaves and girls who could not afford a dowry), many of the Gnostic sects also practiced dissimulation, that is to say, denied or renounced their faith in order to avoid persecution, and then later resumed it in secret, as they, believing in false gospels, denied the value of martyrdom.

Nor did this end with the conversion of St. Constantine, for, while the Council of Nicea did condemn Arius and his heresy, eventually, the Arians got to the Emperor, and more importantly, his son and heir Constantius, in the person of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who, possibly aided by the extremely flattering biography of St. Constantine authored by the more well known Eusebius of Caesarea, famed for his Ecclesiastical History, but who was, at least, an Arian sympathizer who resented the Council of Nicea despite signing its decree, albeit with the equivocation “with my hand, but not with my heart,” did baptize Constantine on his death bed, and even while St. Constantine was still alive, persuaded him to convene another council, in Ancyra, which exiled St. Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, who, as the protodeacon of his predecessor, St. Alexander, presented at Nicea with great rhetorical skill the case of the Church of Alexandria against Arius, who they had deposed and anathematized for heresy, an action confirmed by the Council of Nicea, so that the St. Athanasius eventually wound up Trier, in Germany, a dangerous outpost on the threatened northern border of the Empire, far removed in climate and distance and in all other respects from his native Egypt. Under Constantius, the Arians began a systematic persecution of Christians which lasted into the reign of the Christian Emperor St. Theodosius I, with St. Ambrose of Milan and his faithful laity forced to physically occupy a basilica in order to prevent it from being handed over to the local Arians in order to placate them, in 386, although violence against Christians had largely subsided when he came to power after a struggle following the death of the Arian Emperor Valens.

Eventually, Emperor St. Theodosius earned his sainthood by proscribing Paganism and Arianism, and smashing the Altar of Victory in the Roman Senate, but in subsequent decades, the Western Empire famously collapsed, and the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and related tribes who had been converted to Arianism pillaged or conquered the Western Empire, with the Visigoths also attacking the Eastern Empire, and in many cases, massacring Christians. Later, and unsurprisingly, given the similarities between Arianism and Islam, in that both religions denied the deity of Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of the Incarnation, and of the Holy Trinity, the Visigoths largely converted to Islam, and having conquered much of North Africa, this facilitated the extremely rapid expansion of the Ummayid Caliphate across this territory and into Spain. Separately, Rome itself was variously sacked and ruled by Ostrogothic Arians, notably King Odoacer.

Indeed, there exists a seventh century architectural relic of this period of enforced Arian-Christian coexistence in the town of Ravenna, which until the Ostrogoths seized it, was a Byzantine outpost in Italia, in the form of two baptistries, one used by Christians and one used by Arians.

The subtle differences in the iconography of the two baptistries, which architecturally are nearly identical, following the common octagonal layout of baptistries in Italy and parts of the Byzantine Empire (a famous and more recent baptistry following this design is the Baptistry in Sienna, which followed the standard architectural conventions of that city during the Renaissance, and is interesting, liturgically, in that the custom was that regardless of which parish one lived in, or if one attended the Dominican or Fransiscan churches or the Cathedral, one would be baptized in this central baptistry), should be evident on viewing them, and these differences have interesting potential theological implications.

Can you guess, just looking at the ceilings of the Christian and Arian baptistries in Ravenna, which was which? I will provide the answer below.

Baptistry no. 1

View attachment 307191

Baptistry no. 2

View attachment 307190

Following this footnote, the answer as to which baptistry was originally Christian and which was built in imitation of it by the Arian Emperor Theodoric some 50 years later will be provided.

*Other exterminated all African Christians outside of Egypt, Sinai and modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea, and all Christians in what is now Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and also nearly all of the Christians of Caucasian Albania, now called Azerbaijan (not to be confused with Albania in the Balkans, where Enver Hoxha tried to exterminate Christians and all other religions in what is generally regarded as the second most brutal Communist dictatorship after North Korea). See the Lost History of Christianity by John Philip Jenkins.

Now, regarding the baptistries:

The first image, depicting a beardless, youthful Christ, with St. John the Baptist on the right hand side of our Lord and with the Apostles against a gold background, is in fact the Arian one, whereas the second image, depicting a more mature, bearded Christ, more recognizable from traditional Christian iconography, with St. John the Baptist on the left hand side of our Lord, and the Apostles against a dark blue background, is of course the earlier Christian baptistry.

I have penned an extended version of this reply, which explores the symbolism in the fresco on the ceiling of the Arian baptistry, versus the symbolism in its Christian counterpart, in my ChristianForums.com blog.
 
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childeye 2

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Cannibalism is the eating of dead human flesh, requiring the death or dismemberment of the one being consumed. Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism.
Respectfully, cannibalism is literally eating the flesh of your own kind, dead or alive, dismembered or not. I use the term not to be gruesome, as if that's what's actually happening in the communion, but because it cuts through the semantics. I apologize if it comes across as less than benign, but that's what it means when a person uses it.

I believe we eat his real flesh and blood spiritually, which is different than cannibalism even because I believe there is judgment at the cup with spiritual implications as a debtor to Christ. Without more detail, I don't know whether you intend a spiritual meaning or not when you say eating his living flesh. Because you before mentioned that those who were offended at cannibalism in John 6 were not mistaken in thinking Jesus was talking about cannibalism. "ergo they had the correct understanding, they just didn't understand how it could be possible." Now it's "Ergo, not cannibalism".

When Christ gave himself to eat at the last supper, yes of course he was alive in the flesh and his precious blood yet flowed in his veins, and there is the food unto eternal life in knowing him. But I consider, this is the last supper and Jesus was preparing to die the next day. It was a somber occasion filled with the purpose of what Jesus had come to do in obedience to God.

So when he handed each person a piece of himself in the bread, and he passed the cup to share amongst all who would become his body on earth, he knows and is therefore indicating that he is giving his flesh and blood as a sacrifice for all, on the cross. That is why I believe when the bread and wine are declared the body and blood of Jesus, as a member of his body, I need regard the bread and wine with the same holy reverence we all would have for his suffering for us unto death, because it's his real flesh and blood on the cross suffering and dying for me.
Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism.
Surely we're commemorating that he suffered harm and loss as he poured out his life. Otherwise how is one's heart sprinkled with his real blood which conveys a spiritual implication? That's why to me the bread and wine are symbolic of his death. Which is why scripture says that the lord's supper shows his death until he comes, and why we do it in memory of him. That's how I see it, The Eucharist, The Thanksgiving.
 
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The Liturgist

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Respectfully, cannibalism is literally eating the flesh of your own kind, dead or alive, dismembered or not. I use the term not to be gruesome, as if that's what's actually happening in the communion, but because it cuts through the semantics. I apologize if it comes across as less than benign.

I believe we eat his real flesh and blood spiritually, which is different than cannibalism even because I believe there is judgment at the cup as a debtor to Christ. Without more detail, I don't know whether you intend a spiritual meaning or not when you say eating his living flesh. Because you before mentioned that those who were offended at cannibalism in John 6 were not mistaken in thinking Jesus was talking about cannibalism. "ergo they had the correct understanding, they just didn't understand how it could be possible." Now it's "Ergo, not cannibalism".

When Christ gave himself to eat at the last supper, yes of course he was alive in the flesh and his precious blood yet flowed in his veins, and there is the food unto eternal life in knowing him. But I consider, this is the last supper and Jesus was preparing to die the next day. It was a somber occasion filled with the purpose of what Jesus had come to do in obedience to God.

So when he handed each person a piece of himself in the bread, and he passed the cup to share amongst all who would become his body on earth, he was indicating that he is giving his flesh and blood as a sacrifice for all, on the cross. That is why I believe when the bread and wine are declared the body and blood of Jesus, as a member of his body, I need regard the bread and wine with the same holy reverence we all would have for his suffering for us unto death, because it's his real flesh and blood on the cross suffering and dying for me.

Surely he suffered harm and loss when he poured out his life. Otherwise how is one's heart sprinkled with his real blood which conveys a spiritual implication? That's why to me the bread and wine are symbolic of his death. Which is why scripture says that the lord's supper shows his death until he comes, and why we do it in memory of him. That's how I see it, The Eucharist, The Thanksgiving.

You are missing two things, which render the issue of Cannibalism entirely moot, and indeed, absurd, when we think about it:

Firstly, Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, his human and divine natures united in one hypostasis without change, confusion, separation or division. This is the theology of the Chalcedonian Churches (the vast majority), the Miaphysite Oriental Orthodox churches (which consist of the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean, Indian and Syriac Orthodox churches, which became alienated over a difference in terminology at the Council of Chalcedon and also some crypto-Nestorian treachery, but which now are basically reconciled with the Chalcedonian churches, with a particularly close relationship between the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, and likewise a close relationship between the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Orthodox Church; this is also the view of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which are in the process of reuniting after a schism that began in 1968; scarcely the wink of an eye in the history of this church which dates back to the Apostle Thomas, who, with his disciples Addai and Mari, spread Christianity to Edessa, Mesopotamia, Persia and India, where there were communities of Syriac speaking Jews in Kerala since 200 BC; it was here where he received the crown of martyrdom by way of a spear thrown at him by a scandalized Hindu Rajah, in 53 AD), which people used to erroneously call Nestorian, but the Christology of the Church of the East is not the deeply flawed Christology of the fifth century heterodox bishop Nestorius, but rather was developed by an Assyrian, a native speaker of Syriac, Mar Babai the Great, in the early 6th century, who sought to translate the complex Greek concepts of physis, hypostasis and prosopon into Syriac terminology; the church is probably labelled Nestorius because they continued to venerate him and Theodore of Mopsuestia, after Nestorianism was rejected elsewhere at the Council of Ephesus in 453 AD.

So, all three Christological schools of thought, which, by the way, the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith determined were all mutually compatible and differed only in terminology in the 1990s, under the leadership of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, who regardless of how one feels about Roman Catholicism, is one of the leading theologians who is also a bishop in the current era, along with Dr. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and before that, the Archbishop of Wales, the Coptic Pope Shenouda, memory eternal, who reposed in the midst of the attempted Islamist takeover of Egypt after the downfall of the Mubarak regime, and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, the emeritus professor of Eastern Christianity at Oxford, who has written two of the definitive books for people seeking to learn about the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way, and also who translated into English with the assistance of a Greek Orthodox nun, Mother Mary, several important liturtical books and the Philokalia, a five volume anthology on prayer, monastic life, mystical theology, the virtues and, particularly, Hesychasm and the attainment of continuous prayer, compiled by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius of Corinth on Mount Athos in the 18th century.

So, with that established, since everyone agrees that our Lord is fully human and fully divine, without change, confusion, comingling, separation, or division of His humanity from His Divinity, the Christological principle of Communicatio Idiomatum comes into effect, whereby anything we can attribute to one nature of our Lord is communicated to the other nature. This is not some relic of ancient Christological debates, although it does originate in antiquity, probably with St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus, it was of crucial importance to the early Lutheran theologians in the Protestant Reformation. It is essential to our Salvation, in that our Lord glorifies and restores our fallen human nature by uniting it with the uncreated divine nature of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we can say that a man forgave sins and worked miracles, and that the Virgin Mary, impregnated by the miraculous action of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to God, and that God died on the cross for our sins, and that a man rose from the dead.

Secondly, focusing on the Resurrection, we see that our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ arose in a glorified, imperishable and incorruptible body, which is superior to that of Adam before the fall, and when we are resurrected, our flesh will likewise be glorified. And in the Gospels According to Luke and John, we can see our Lord doing things after His resurrection that we cannot do, such as passing effortlessly through closed doors, yet He was no ghost, for St. Thomas the Apostle felt his wounds, proving His material existence, and the Gospel According to Luke, he ate with the Disciples before His ascension, all attributes of corporeality.

So, when we consider these two things, that Jesus Christ is omnipotent and fully God as well as fully man, and that He rose in a glorified form, it becomes entirely possible for Him to make His body and blood available to us, really truly present, retaining, after the Institution Narrative and the Epiclesis in the Holy Communion service, the perceptual attributes of bread and wine, except in the case of a few miraculous incidents where people, for their salvation, needed to perceive his actual body and blood, for example, a Muslim official in the Ottoman Empire converted after perceiving the Eucharist as flesh and blood; he looked away, and then looked back and saw it in the form of bread and wine; given the Islamic death penalty for apostasy, his conversion earned him the crown of martyrdom.

Thus, the glorified body of our risen Lord possesses attributes beyond our knowledge or comprehension, and even before His resurrection, He has existed from the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary the Mother of God (a title confirmed by Martin Luther) as fully human and fully divine, without change, confusion, comingling, separation or division of His humanity and divinity, and thus, given the principle of Communicatio Idiomatum, when we partake of the Eucharist, we are partaking of the Divine Nature, as St. Peter the Apostle reminds us in his second epistle.

So, if our Lord were, as the Unitarian Universalist heretics believe, and as the Muslims believe, and as most other cults believe, just a man, yes, the Eucharist would have a disturbing and indeed unshakeable cannibalistic connotation, even if one accepted a memorialist or Zwinglian (symbolic) interpretation, which explains why within 200 years of their schism from my denomination, the Congregationalist church, most UUA parishes in the Us, and Unitarian parishes in Great Britain, no longer celebrate the Eucharist, having replaced it with alternative rituals like “lighting the chalice” and “flower communion.”

However, He is not just a man; he is fully human, but He is also fully God, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, begotten of the Father before all Ages, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, and His humanity and divinity are in a state of hypostatic union as described above. And, He lives having trampled down death by death in the glorified form we will receive when we are resurrected at the Last Trumpet. Thus, God the Son can absolutely give us His body and blood in infinite quantities, in order to connect us to His sacrifice on the Cross, remitting our sins and granting us everlasting life, and we can partake, knowing that it is the very opposite of cannibalism, in that we are, based on 2 Peter, partakers of the divine nature.

I believe this post accurately reflects Assyrian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox sacramental theology and Christology, and I would encourage @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @prodromos @Greek Orthodox @concretecamper @Abaxvahl @Pavel Mosko and @dzheremi , all of whom I regard as theologically well versed, to review it and comment if I have made any errors.
 
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childeye 2

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You are missing two things, which render the issue of Cannibalism entirely moot, and indeed, absurd, when we think about it:

Firstly, Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, his human and divine natures united in one hypostasis without change, confusion, separation or division. This is the theology of the Chalcedonian Churches (the vast majority), the Miaphysite Oriental Orthodox churches (which consist of the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean, Indian and Syriac Orthodox churches, which became alienated over a difference in terminology at the Council of Chalcedon and also some crypto-Nestorian treachery, but which now are basically reconciled with the Chalcedonian churches, with a particularly close relationship between the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, and likewise a close relationship between the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Orthodox Church; this is also the view of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which are in the process of reuniting after a schism that began in 1968; scarcely the wink of an eye in the history of this church which dates back to the Apostle Thomas, who, with his disciples Addai and Mari, spread Christianity to Edessa, Mesopotamia, Persia and India, where there were communities of Syriac speaking Jews in Kerala since 200 BC; it was here where he received the crown of martyrdom by way of a spear thrown at him by a scandalized Hindu Rajah, in 53 AD), which people used to erroneously call Nestorian, but the Christology of the Church of the East is not the deeply flawed Christology of the fifth century heterodox bishop Nestorius, but rather was developed by an Assyrian, a native speaker of Syriac, Mar Babai the Great, in the early 6th century, who sought to translate the complex Greek concepts of physis, hypostasis and prosopon into Syriac terminology; the church is probably labelled Nestorius because they continued to venerate him and Theodore of Mopsuestia, after Nestorianism was rejected elsewhere at the Council of Ephesus in 453 AD.

So, all three Christological schools of thought, which, by the way, the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith determined were all mutually compatible and differed only in terminology in the 1990s, under the leadership of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, who regardless of how one feels about Roman Catholicism, is one of the leading theologians who is also a bishop in the current era, along with Dr. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and before that, the Archbishop of Wales, the Coptic Pope Shenouda, memory eternal, who reposed in the midst of the attempted Islamist takeover of Egypt after the downfall of the Mubarak regime, and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, the emeritus professor of Eastern Christianity at Oxford, who has written two of the definitive books for people seeking to learn about the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way, and also who translated into English with the assistance of a Greek Orthodox nun, Mother Mary, several important liturtical books and the Philokalia, a five volume anthology on prayer, monastic life, mystical theology, the virtues and, particularly, Hesychasm and the attainment of continuous prayer, compiled by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius of Corinth on Mount Athos in the 18th century.

So, with that established, since everyone agrees that our Lord is fully human and fully divine, without change, confusion, comingling, separation, or division of His humanity from His Divinity, the Christological principle of Communicatio Idiomatum comes into effect, whereby anything we can attribute to one nature of our Lord is communicated to the other nature. This is not some relic of ancient Christological debates, although it does originate in antiquity, probably with St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus, it was of crucial importance to the early Lutheran theologians in the Protestant Reformation. It is essential to our Salvation, in that our Lord glorifies and restores our fallen human nature by uniting it with the uncreated divine nature of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we can say that a man forgave sins and worked miracles, and that the Virgin Mary, impregnated by the miraculous action of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to God, and that God died on the cross for our sins, and that a man rose from the dead.

Secondly, focusing on the Resurrection, we see that our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ arose in a glorified, imperishable and incorruptible body, which is superior to that of Adam before the fall, and when we are resurrected, our flesh will likewise be glorified. And in the Gospels According to Luke and John, we can see our Lord doing things after His resurrection that we cannot do, such as passing effortlessly through closed doors, yet He was no ghost, for St. Thomas the Apostle felt his wounds, proving His material existence, and the Gospel According to Luke, he ate with the Disciples before His ascension, all attributes of corporeality.

So, when we consider these two things, that Jesus Christ is omnipotent and fully God as well as fully man, and that He rose in a glorified form, it becomes entirely possible for Him to make His body and blood available to us, really truly present, retaining, after the Institution Narrative and the Epiclesis in the Holy Communion service, the perceptual attributes of bread and wine, except in the case of a few miraculous incidents where people, for their salvation, needed to perceive his actual body and blood, for example, a Muslim official in the Ottoman Empire converted after perceiving the Eucharist as flesh and blood; he looked away, and then looked back and saw it in the form of bread and wine; given the Islamic death penalty for apostasy, his conversion earned him the crown of martyrdom.

Thus, the glorified body of our risen Lord possesses attributes beyond our knowledge or comprehension, and even before His resurrection, He has existed from the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary the Mother of God (a title confirmed by Martin Luther) as fully human and fully divine, without change, confusion, comingling, separation or division of His humanity and divinity, and thus, given the principle of Communicatio Idiomatum, when we partake of the Eucharist, we are partaking of the Divine Nature, as St. Peter the Apostle reminds us in his second epistle.

So, if our Lord were, as the Unitarian Universalist heretics believe, and as the Muslims believe, and as most other cults believe, just a man, yes, the Eucharist would have a disturbing and indeed unshakeable cannibalistic connotation, even if one accepted a memorialist or Zwinglian (symbolic) interpretation, which explains why within 200 years of their schism from my denomination, the Congregationalist church, most UUA parishes in the Us, and Unitarian parishes in Great Britain, no longer celebrate the Eucharist, having replaced it with alternative rituals like “lighting the chalice” and “flower communion.”

However, He is not just a man; he is fully human, but He is also fully God, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God, begotten of the Father before all Ages, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, and His humanity and divinity are in a state of hypostatic union as described above. And, He lives having trampled down death by death in the glorified form we will receive when we are resurrected at the Last Trumpet. Thus, God the Son can absolutely give us His body and blood in infinite quantities, in order to connect us to His sacrifice on the Cross, remitting our sins and granting us everlasting life, and we can partake, knowing that it is the very opposite of cannibalism, in that we are, based on 2 Peter, partakers of the divine nature.

I believe this post accurately reflects Assyrian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox sacramental theology and Christology, and I would encourage @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @prodromos @Greek Orthodox @concretecamper @Abaxvahl @Pavel Mosko and @dzheremi , all of whom I regard as theologically well versed, to review it and comment if I have made any errors.

Concerning the first thing. I've read that Jesus was both God and man and I believe it's true. For scripture says that the Christ is the Word of creation made flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit.

However concerning the second thing, I don't know exactly what a glorified body is. Scripture says that Jesus could manipulate the elements, such as walking on water, turning water into wine, etc. So I can't know that Jesus couldn't even pass through walls before he was crucified. In view of his being the Word of creation made flesh, it would seem silly to argue against him being able to turn bread and wine into his flesh and blood. That's not the issue for me.

I believe the Eucharist is pointing to his suffering and death on the cross the next day after the last supper where his flesh was given and his blood was shed for the life of the world because that's what the semantics show. Wherefore Paul says it shows his death and we eat and drink in memory of him. So what does the "Real Presence" mean to me? For Jesus said where two or more are gathered in my Name there am I in their midst. So he's there.
 
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chad kincham

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Hebrews tells us that Christ did away with mortal priests taking the sacrifice to the altar daily, by the once for all time sacrifice of Himself - which is what the Catholic Church claims their priests do at Mass - they bring the wafer and wine to the altar, then say some words to transform them literally into the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Secondly, partaking of the blood of the sacrifice was strictly forbidden in the law of Moses, and those sacrifices symbolized Jesus’ future sacrifice of Himself - And in Acts 15:29, Peter states that we must continue to abstain from blood in the new covenant.

Those two facts preclude the literal drinking of the blood of Jesus, making that ceremony purely symbolic.

And missing from Paul’s instructions on taking communion is the ceremony to convert the wine and wafer to the literal flesh and blood of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11.

Finally, at the actual last supper/first communion, Jesus states that as often as we eat the bread and drink the wine, we do it in REMEMBRANCE of Him.

Communion is the solemn remembrance of the sacrifice of His flesh and blood for our sins, and not a pagan cannibal/vampire ceremony.

PS: if the wine and bread are literally the flesh and blood of Jesus, since He too ate the bread and drank the wine, that means He literally ate His own flesh
and drank His own blood.

Shalom Aleichem
 
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Albion

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Concerning the first thing. I've read that Jesus was both God and man and I believe it's true. For scripture says that the Christ is the Word of creation made flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit.
However concerning the second thing, I don't know exactly what a glorified body is. Scripture says that Jesus could manipulate the elements, such as walking on water, turning water into wine, etc. So I can't know that Jesus couldn't even pass through walls before he was crucified.
That's an interesting point, but we know from Scripture that upon his resurrection from the grave, even his closest associates did not so much as recognize whom them were speaking with when they met the risen Christ. Therefore, it appears that his glorified body was more than simply the "man from Nazareth" who was capable of performing miracles like walking on water.

So what does the "Real Presence" mean to me? For Jesus said where two or more are gathered in my Name there am I in their midst. So he's there.
That would mean that he's there only in the same sense as him being with his followers in spirit whenever they gather in his name. In other words, it would say nothing about the Eucharist other than that it's a special, deeply meaningful event (which any of the denominations that reject the belief called "Real Presence" could easily affirm).
 
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childeye 2

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That's an interesting point, but we know from Scripture that upon his resurrection from the grave, even his closest associates did not so much as recognize whom them were speaking with when they met the risen Christ. Therefore, it appears that his glorified body was more than simply the "man from Nazareth" who was capable of performing miracles like walking on water.

That would mean that he's there only in the same sense as him being with his followers in spirit whenever they gather in his name. In other words, it would say nothing about the Eucharist other than that it's a special, deeply meaningful event (which any of the denominations that reject the belief called "Real Presence" could easily affirm).
Okay, so these are two different aspects of a 'real presence', and as I understand it, one is eating his glorified body and the other is eating the same body he dies in. But the semantics can cause misunderstandings.

Paul specifically says the Eucharist shows his death. And it seems clear to me that the semantics show that at the last supper Jesus is referring to his body he sacrificed, because it matches with what Jesus taught us about how to partake of the Eucharist: "this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me". And it also matches his referencing the body and blood he came down in as the bread of life, not the glorified body he went up in.

And we can qualify this meaningfulness further as to the Eucharist being about his suffering and death, by parsing the semantics a bit deeper in regards to his blood.

1) Regarding his blood as precious when I'm expressing his value from God's perspective of sacrificing His only begotten son. As is expressed here: For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

2) Regarding his blood as precious when I'm expressing his value from my perspective as a sinner and his sacrifice for my salvation. As is expressed here: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ,...

So what happens to the meaningfulness of how precious his blood is, if the 'real presence' denotes that we eat and drink a glorified body that can bleed infinite quantities without any loss or suffering?
 
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Albion

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As pertains to this topic of the Eucharist and whether Christ is in heaven bleeding infinite quantities of blood I don't see what relevance it has to his having a glorified body.
Well, it was you who brought that up as though it settled something. But in any case, Christ bleeding in heaven doesn't really describe the belief of any Christian denomination I can think of.

Possibly, the doctrine of Transubstantiation as taught only by Roman Catholics, but even they would say that this description doesn't correctly reflect the teaching of their church.

Okay, so these are two different aspects of a 'real presence', and as I understand it, one is eating his glorified body and the other is eating the same body he dies in.
No, neither of them makes his glorified body (as opposed to what it was previously) be part of the definition.

Paul specifically says the Eucharist shows his death.
Well, Christ himself made the same point.

And it seems clear to me that the semantics show that at the last supper Jesus is referring to his body he sacrificed, because it matches with what Jesus taught us about how to partake of the Eucharist: "this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me". And it also matches his referencing the body and blood he came down in as the bread of life, not the glorified body he went up in.
Okay. So why are you stuck on the "glorified body" business?

Which is why the meaningfulness of his self sacrifice matches the real presence when Jesus says, "Where two or more are gathered in my Name there am I in their midst". Otherwise, he's omnipresent and it's meaningless, since where is he not?
What you are quoting there is not taken from the words of institution at the Last Supper but refers to a different idea--basically, he is speaking of the rightful functions of his church and of his abiding presence whenever his disciples assemble in his name.
And we can qualify this meaningfulness further as to the Eucharist being about his suffering and death, by parsing the semantics a bit deeper in regards to his blood.

1) Regarding his blood as precious when I'm expressing his value from God's perspective of sacrificing His only begotten son. As is expressed here: For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

2) Regarding his blood as precious when I'm expressing his value from my perspective as a sinner and his sacrifice for my salvation. As is expressed here: Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
So what happens to denoting how precious his blood is, when the real presence means we eat and drink a glorified body that can bleed infinite quantities without any pain of suffering?
I have no idea where you've gotten some of these theories from. They're not about the Eucharist.
 
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childeye 2

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Well, it was you who brought that up as though it settled something. But in any case, Christ bleeding in heaven doesn't really describe the belief of any Christian denomination I can think of.

Possibly, the doctrine of Transubstantiation as taught only by Roman Catholics, but even they would say that this description doesn't correctly reflect the teaching of their church.


No, neither of them makes his glorified body (as opposed to what it was previously) be part of the definition.


Well, Christ himself made the same point.


Okay. So why are you stuck on the "glorified body" business?


What you are quoting there is not taken from the words of institution at the Last Supper but refers to a different idea--basically, he is speaking of the rightful functions of his church and of his abiding presence whenever his disciples assemble in his name.

I have no idea where you've gotten some of these theories from. They're not about the Eucharist.
I think you'd have to read the posts about eating his glorified body, or in other words eating his living flesh, which is what I was originally responding to. And I reiterate that this is my understanding of what others were trying to explain as to what 'real presence' means, and I may be misunderstanding them and misrepresenting what they meant. For example a poster said this, Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism. Post#165.

And another said this: Thus, God the Son can absolutely give us His body and blood in infinite quantities, in order to connect us to His sacrifice on the Cross, remitting our sins and granting us everlasting life, and we can partake, knowing that it is the very opposite of cannibalism, in that we are, based on 2 Peter, partakers of the divine nature. Post #170.
 
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Albion

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I think you'd have to read the posts about eating his glorified body, or in other words eating his living flesh, which is what I was originally responding to.
Fair enough.

And I reiterate that this is my understanding of what others were trying to explain as to what 'real presence' means, and I may be misunderstanding them and misrepresenting what they meant.
Aha! Thanks for that clarification.

For example a poster said this, Christ gives us His living flesh to eat for which He suffers no loss or harm. Ergo, not cannibalism. Post#165.

Sure.

And another said this: Thus, God the Son can absolutely give us His body and blood in infinite quantities, in order to connect us to His sacrifice on the Cross, remitting our sins and granting us everlasting life, and we can partake, knowing that it is the very opposite of cannibalism, in that we are, based on 2 Peter, partakers of the divine nature. Post #170.
That's the usual explanation of that belief, yes.

So now I know better where your comments originated, but most of it--whoever was saying it--doesn't really get at what the belief of those churches is. I don't know what else to say at this juncture.
 
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childeye 2

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Fair enough.


Aha! Thanks for that clarification.


Sure.


That's the usual explanation of that belief, yes.

So now I know better where your comments originated, but most of it--whoever was saying it--doesn't really get at what the belief of those churches is. I don't know what else to say at this juncture.
Well I've appreciated your comments on what I've shared concerning my personal participation in the Eucharist. To me, seeing his suffering and death is the food that renews my strength everyday, in a dog eat dog world, to carry my own cross in perseverance of loving others. It also becomes the means of my conviction when and where I've fallen short. In this way I live in him and he in me. Any description of the Eucharist that implies that's not what it's about, is obviously going to get my attention. I have yet to know what it means to you, and I don't know if it's impolite to ask or not ask.
 
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Albion

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Hi. To me, participation in the Eucharist means being put into an especially intimate connection with the Lord. It strengthens one's faith and reassures the communicant of the truth of the Lord's promises. Of course also, it puts us in mind, in a special way, of his suffering and death, of the price was paid by God himself so that an ordinary person like myself could be saved eternally.
 
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ralliann

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It was metaphorical as Jews were forbidden to eat human flesh or drink human blood.
Jews were also forbidden from eating of the sin offerings. Only those of the priesthood could eat the sin offerings. They were holy. Is Jesus an high priest? Or is it just a metaphor? Which one is more the reality? The shadow and pattern or his work as high priest in the true tabernacle?
Heb 7:27 Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
Heb 8:3 For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. {are: or, be ye }
 
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Zachm531

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I believe that the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. I don't see any shame in it. Some will go as far to say we are bringing shame to God for thinking it is his body and blood.

Jesus did not say it was symbolic. Are they adding to the word?
It is completely Orthodox for a Catholic to say that the Eucharist is a sign.
In fact, it is a perfect sign.

for example,
As stop sign signifies that people should stop
A perfect stop sign wouldn’t just say “stop” it would also make people stop.

just as the eucharist signifies Christ’s body and blood while at the same time, makes Christ’s broken body and blood present again.
 
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Jews were also forbidden from eating of the sin offerings. Only those of the priesthood could eat the sin offerings. They were holy. Is Jesus an high priest? Or is it just a metaphor? Which one is more the reality? The shadow and pattern or his work as high priest in the true tabernacle?
Heb 7:27 Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
Heb 8:3 For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. {are: or, be ye }
In fact, the Passover was not complete until the Jews ate the lamb.
 
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