Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
How many of those that you copied and pasted in your post actually described an ontological change in the elements?I can and I do.
They have and they did from the ear;y centuries until now.
The earliest Church Fathers interpreted John 6 as a direct reference to the Holy Eucharist from the very beginning of post-apostolic Christianity. Their writings reflect a robust, literal understanding of Christ’s words—“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”—as referring to the sacramental reality of the Eucharist.
Here are some of the earliest and most explicit examples:
️ Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 107)
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 180)
- In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Ignatius condemns the Docetists for refusing the Eucharist “because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
- This shows a clear link between John 6 and the Eucharistic realism he defends.
️ Tertullian (c. AD 200)
- In Against Heresies, Irenaeus affirms that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, and he uses this to argue against Gnostic denial of Christ’s true humanity.
- His incidental references to John 6 reinforce the Eucharist as both sacrament and doctrinal safeguard.
️ Hippolytus of Rome (early 3rd century)
- Tertullian refers to the Eucharist as “the Lord’s body” and insists that the flesh “feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.”
- His theology of sacramental realism is grounded in the same Johannine logic.
⛪ Cyprian of Carthage (mid-3rd century)
- He speaks of salvation coming “through the body and blood,” again echoing the language of John 6 in a sacramental context.
These Fathers did not treat John 6 as mere metaphor or moral exhortation. Rather, they saw it as the theological foundation for the Eucharist’s sacramental reality—body, blood, soul, and divinity. Their witness is unanimous and early, predating later doctrinal formulations by centuries.
- Cyprian warns that those who receive the Eucharist unworthily “do violence to his body and blood,” clearly affirming the Real Presence and its moral implications.
Do more research.
The linkage between John 6 and the Last Supper dialogues emerged organically in early patristic theology, though not always with explicit textual cross-referencing. The Fathers understood both passages as part of a unified Eucharistic theology, even if they did not always cite them side by side. Here's a chronological synthesis of how this connection developed:
️ Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 107)
- While Ignatius does not explicitly quote John 6 alongside the Last Supper accounts, he affirms that the Eucharist is “the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” echoing both Johannine and Synoptic language.
- His emphasis on Eucharistic realism presupposes a theological unity between Christ’s discourse in John 6 and His institution at the Last Supper.
Justin Martyr (c. AD 150)
- In First Apology (ch. 66–67), Justin describes the Eucharist as “not as common bread and common drink,” but as the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.
- Though he doesn’t cite John 6 directly, his sacramental theology clearly reflects its influence, especially in tandem with the Synoptic institution narratives.
️ Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 180)
- Irenaeus links the Eucharist to both the Incarnation and the Passion, drawing from John 6’s “flesh for the life of the world” and the Last Supper’s “this is my body.”
- He uses both traditions to argue against Gnostic denial of the real humanity of Christ (Against Heresies, Book IV).
️ Clement of Alexandria (late 2nd century)
- Clement’s Paedagogus speaks of Christ as “the bread of life,” and while he leans allegorical, he still affirms the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment grounded in both John 6 and the Last Supper.
⛪ Origen (early 3rd century)
- Origen offers a more mystical reading of John 6, but he does connect it to the Eucharist, especially in his Commentary on Matthew.
- He sees the Last Supper as the sacramental fulfilment of the promise in John 6.
️ Cyprian of Carthage (mid-3rd century)
- Cyprian’s Eucharistic theology is deeply sacramental and moral. He warns against receiving the Eucharist unworthily, echoing John 6:53 and the Pauline Last Supper warnings (1 Cor 11).
- His synthesis implies a theological unity between the two passages.
Augustine of Hippo (late 4th–early 5th century)
- Augustine explicitly links John 6 to the Eucharist and interprets it in light of the Last Supper.
- In Tractates on the Gospel of John, he writes: “This bread which you 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.”
- He sees John 6 as a prefiguration and theological exposition of the sacrament instituted at the Last Supper.
Summary Table
Church Father Date Linkage Type Notes Ignatius of Antioch c. 107 Implicit Eucharistic realism No direct citation Justin Martyr c. 150 Theological synthesis No textual cross-reference Irenaeus of Lyons c. 180 Doctrinal defence Uses both traditions Clement of Alexandria c. 190 Allegorical Eucharistic reading Symbolic emphasis Origen c. 220 Mystical and sacramental Connects promise to fulfilment Cyprian of Carthage c. 250 Moral and sacramental unity Echoes both traditions Augustine of Hippo c. 400 Explicit textual linkage Directly connects John 6 and Last Supper
In short, while the earliest Fathers did not always cite John 6 and the Last Supper narratives together, they consistently treated them as part of a unified Eucharistic theology. Augustine marks the point where explicit textual linkage becomes standard.
Up to you.I can and I do.
POST Apostolic Christianity. Did the 12 disciples at the time understand Jesus to be saying, "you must literally eat my flesh"?The earliest Church Fathers interpreted John 6 as a direct reference to the Holy Eucharist from the very beginning of post-apostolic Christianity. Their writings reflect a robust, literal understanding of Christ’s words—“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”—as referring to the sacramental reality of the Eucharist.
ne marks the point where explicit textual linkage becomes standard.
I don't care how many examples you find of what other people believed years later. I'm talking about the text and what people would have understood at the time.Here are some of the earliest and most explicit examples:
Catholics are bound to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation: that in the Most Holy Eucharist, the entire substance of bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine becomes His Blood, while the appearances (or “accidents”) of bread and wine remain. This doctrine was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent (Session XIII, Chapter IV), which declared: “By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood. Which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called transubstantiation”. You are not permitted to interpret this change as merely symbolic or spiritual; the Church insists on a real, substantial presence.Let me qualify my argument because you are misinterpreting it. My argument is against transubstantiation not against real presence. Your argument above centers on real presence, which is your church’s belief. Scripture teaches that where 2 or 3 are gathered in His name He is there.
Naturally.Catholics are bound to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation:
I was at Mass, several years ago, when I had a vision. God started pointing out individuals and said, "This person cannot be one with God, and person person cannot be one with God,...and you cannot be one with God, without each being one with each other. Whether they understand it or not."What an individual truly believes is irrelevant.
Objectively speaking, there is One Church, One Baptism, One Faith. All the others are false.
IrrelevantIn John 6, I don't think any of the disciples could perceive that Jesus was talking about the cross where he would give his flesh and blood as food and drink.
Catholics are bound to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation: that in the Most Holy Eucharist, the entire substance of bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine becomes His Blood, while the appearances (or “accidents”) of bread and wine remain. This doctrine was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent (Session XIII, Chapter IV), which declared: “By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood. Which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called transubstantiation”. You are not permitted to interpret this change as merely symbolic or spiritual; the Church insists on a real, substantial presence.
Catholics must also hold that this mystery is not subject to empirical verification, nor reducible to philosophical metaphor. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC §1376) reiterates Trent’s teaching: “The Council of Trent summarises the Catholic faith by declaring: ‘Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly His body that He was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God… that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance… This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.’” This is not a matter of theological opinion but of divinely revealed truth, to be accepted with the obedience of faith. Pope Paul VI, in Mysterium Fidei (1965), reaffirmed this: “Christ is really, truly, and substantially contained in the blessed sacrament under the outward appearance of material things”.
Catholics are therefore required to approach the Eucharist with reverence, recognising it as the “source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC §1324). The Church teaches that Christ is present “whole and entire” in each species and in each fragment thereof (CCC §1377), and that this presence endures as long as the appearances remain. St Thomas Aquinas, whose Eucharistic theology underpins the Church’s dogmatic formulations, writes in Summa Theologiae III, q.75, a.2: “The presence of Christ’s true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone, which rests upon Divine authority.” You are not expected to comprehend the metaphysical mechanics of this change, but you are obliged to believe it, as a revealed mystery that transcends human reason yet is fully consistent with it.
So, my takeaway from your discussion here is that the RCC view on Unity is contingent upon full comprehension and subscription to the RCC magisterial pronouncements.
Alright then. That was an interesting discussion.
Catholics are bound to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation: that in the Most Holy Eucharist, the entire substance of bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine becomes His Blood, while the appearances (or “accidents”) of bread and wine remain. This doctrine was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent (Session XIII, Chapter IV), which declared: “By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood. Which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called transubstantiation”. You are not permitted to interpret this change as merely symbolic or spiritual; the Church insists on a real, substantial presence.
Catholics must also hold that this mystery is not subject to empirical verification, nor reducible to philosophical metaphor. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC §1376) reiterates Trent’s teaching: “The Council of Trent summarises the Catholic faith by declaring: ‘Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly His body that He was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God… that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance… This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.’” This is not a matter of theological opinion but of divinely revealed truth, to be accepted with the obedience of faith. Pope Paul VI, in Mysterium Fidei (1965), reaffirmed this: “Christ is really, truly, and substantially contained in the blessed sacrament under the outward appearance of material things”.
Catholics are therefore required to approach the Eucharist with reverence, recognising it as the “source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC §1324). The Church teaches that Christ is present “whole and entire” in each species and in each fragment thereof (CCC §1377), and that this presence endures as long as the appearances remain. St Thomas Aquinas, whose Eucharistic theology underpins the Church’s dogmatic formulations, writes in Summa Theologiae III, q.75, a.2: “The presence of Christ’s true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone, which rests upon Divine authority.” You are not expected to comprehend the metaphysical mechanics of this change, but you are obliged to believe it, as a revealed mystery that transcends human reason yet is fully consistent with it.
My argument is against transubstantiation not against real presence. Your argument above centers on real presence, which is your church’s belief.
...Common Worship, still in use today, the traditional language services of which including Holy Communion owe more to the 1928 Deposited Book than to the 1662 BCP which still remains nominally official but which contains some material offensive to most Anglicans at present...
doctrine of transubstantiation was not clearly established until Lateran IV in 1215
It is though a travesty that professed Christians washed by the same blood of Christ are outsiders from your church. I hold the hope that our Lord Jesus will one day rectify this since all saved Christians are going to the same heaven.Also far be it from me as a clergyman to correct what an outsider believes….
I got a bit lost in this sentence; can you clarify? Is it Common Worship, or the 1928 book, or the 1662 book that contains material offensive to current Anglicans? Can you say in a sentence what material you're referring to? I don't recall seeing anything offensive in Common Worship, but maybe you have one of the older books in mind.
The specific model, yes. But there were older models such as that of Theodore of Mopsuestia that were even more specific, and the Eastern churche (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Church of the East) have not only always believed that the bread and wine are the true Body and Blood of Christ our God, as evinced by the Eucharistic text, but we also originated the Presanctified Liturgy and the reservation of the sacrament (actually most likely the first Presanctified Liturgy was the Signing of the Chalice written by St. Severus of Antioch, which the Eastern Orthodox refined as the Presanctified Liturgy of St. James and which was then adopted by the Armenians, Assyrians and the Copts (the Coptic version is lost but the Armenian text survives and the Assyrians recently resumed celebrating this liturgy), and then Pope St. Gregory I, the Dialogist as we venerate him in the Eastern Orthodox church, composed the definitive version still in use in the Orthodox Church at present and used in all Roman Rite parishes until it was rewritten by Pope Pius XII in his spectacularly ill advised changes to the Paschal Triduum in 1955, which I would argue were more destructive of cultural heritage than the Novus Ordo Missae, since the Triduum is the apex of the liturgical year and no entirely licit way exists for RCC or SSPX priests to celebrate the ancient pre-1955 version with all of its manifold parallels to the Byzantine Rite services of the Tridion.
At any rate, when I see people criticizing transubstantiation, unless they are Lutherans or Orthodox or others who I know are specifically criticizing the Aristotelian philosophical technicalities of the Thomistic explanation, it is usually a safe bet their objection is actually to the Real Presence (as differentiated to Calvinist spiritual presence or Receptionism, essentially any Eucharistic doctrine that would oppose the Reservation of the Sacrament or the Presanctified Liturgy).
If this is not the case in your post, and you are only criticizing the Thomistic doctrine, do forgive me.
If we consider the semantics at play, there is a time during the ceremony where the bread and wine are consecrated. The term consecrate implies the bread and wine is "made sacred" which is the same as saying it ---> "becomes revered as his flesh and his body which was sacrificed" inferring his real actual physical flesh and blood on the cross. I believe the self-sacrificing Love is the Spiritual food and the incarnate quickening Spirit. The consecration lasts for a short time wherein the bread and wine are revered as his flesh and blood, wherein he suffered for our sake.How many of those that you copied and pasted in your post actually described an ontological change in the elements?
I must have misunderstood you.Irrelevant
You didn’t.I must have misunderstood you.
I was referring to the 1662 book, forgive me. I love Common Worship.
Of course these councils didn't start until Catholics were free to worship, until the 300s. Thus you could just as well say everything brought up by any of the Councils was "late in the game." Because the Catholic Church comes up with a word or specific words for a mystery or anything else, for example the mysteries of "transubstantiation" or "Trinity," in no way means the Church previously believed in no such thing. Rather than "establishing" a doctrine it is better thought of as a statement of what the Church knows.Perhaps it helps to add that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not clearly established until Lateran IV in 1215 (along with the requirement for annual confession). That's pretty late in the game to then argue that it represents Jesus' teaching. But to be fair, many think their flavor of Christianity represents the true faith.
There wouldn't have been a Council of Trent if it hadn't been for Protestants. So it was clearly reactionary, which is fine since most councils are reactionary. But it undercuts the idea that what the RCC believes goes back to Jesus. It just simply does not.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?