A treatise from a Bishop of the 5th century

[boughtwithaprice]

This was written by a Saint before the Church was in schism. We can notice that he speaks about every church. There is no mention of other denominations or disagreements. This is a treatis of how things were. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith, not the day we worship or the food we eat, rather the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died and gave himself for us
I thank Him for the healing he has given me. He fulfilled His promise; though my sins were as scarlet, I am made white as snow. His flesh and blood at weekly and even daily Mass cause me to be overwhelmed with tears of joy. God said let there be light, and there was light. Jesus says this is My body, and it is. Transubstantiation is just an attempt at explanation of that reality. The power of God and His word is that reality. I care not how God made light from nothing, but I enjoy its effects. The same way, I know not how God changes the bread and wine into His body and blood, but I know He does, and that takes place whether I imagine it or not
Taste as see the Lord is good


From a treatise by Saint Gaudentius of Brescia, bishop


The Eucharist is The Lord's passover


One man has died for all, and now in every church in the mystery of bread and wine he heals those for whom he is offered in sacrifice, giving life to those who believe and holiness to those who consecrate the offering. This is the flesh of the Lamb; this is his blood. The bread that came down from heaven declared: The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. It is significant, too, that his blood should be given to us in the form of wine, for his own words in the gospel, I am the true vine, imply clearly enough that whenever wine is offered as a representation of Christ’s passion, it is offered as his blood. This means that it was of Christ that the blessed patriarch Jacob prophesied when he said: He will wash his tunic in wine and his cloak in the blood of the grape. The tunic was our flesh, which Christ was to put on like a garment and which he was to wash in his own blood.


Creator and Lord of all things, whatever their nature, he brought forth bread from the earth and changed it into his own body. Not only had he the power to do this, but he had promised it; and, as he had changed water into wine, he also changed wine into his own blood. It is the Lord’s passover, Scripture tells us, that is, the Lord’s passing. We are no longer to look upon the bread and wine as earthly substances. They have become heavenly, because Christ has passed into them and changed them into his body and blood. What you receive is the body of him who is the heavenly bread, and the blood of him who is the sacred vine; for when he offered his disciples the consecrated bread and wine, he said: This is my body, this is my blood. We have put our trust in him. I urge you to have faith in him; truth can never deceive.


When Christ told the crowds that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, they were horrified and began to murmur among themselves: This teaching is too hard; who can be expected to listen to it? As I have already told you, thoughts such as these must be banished. The Lord himself used heavenly fire to drive them away by going on to declare: It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

 

[The Liturgist]

This was written by a Saint before the Church was in schism. We can notice that he speaks about every church. There is no mention of other denominations or disagreements. This is a treatis of how things were. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith, not the day we worship or the food we eat, rather the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died and gave himself for us
I thank Him for the healing he has given me. He fulfilled His promise; though my sins were as scarlet, I am made white as snow. His flesh and blood at weekly and even daily Mass cause me to be overwhelmed with tears of joy. God said let there be light, and there was light. Jesus says this is My body, and it is. Transubstantiation is just an attempt at explanation of that reality. The power of God and His word is that reality. I care not how God made light from nothing, but I enjoy its effects. The same way, I know not how God changes the bread and wine into His body and blood, but I know He does, and that takes place whether I imagine it or not
Taste as see the Lord is good


From a treatise by Saint Gaudentius of Brescia, bishop


The Eucharist is The Lord's passover


One man has died for all, and now in every church in the mystery of bread and wine he heals those for whom he is offered in sacrifice, giving life to those who believe and holiness to those who consecrate the offering. This is the flesh of the Lamb; this is his blood. The bread that came down from heaven declared: The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. It is significant, too, that his blood should be given to us in the form of wine, for his own words in the gospel, I am the true vine, imply clearly enough that whenever wine is offered as a representation of Christ’s passion, it is offered as his blood. This means that it was of Christ that the blessed patriarch Jacob prophesied when he said: He will wash his tunic in wine and his cloak in the blood of the grape. The tunic was our flesh, which Christ was to put on like a garment and which he was to wash in his own blood.


Creator and Lord of all things, whatever their nature, he brought forth bread from the earth and changed it into his own body. Not only had he the power to do this, but he had promised it; and, as he had changed water into wine, he also changed wine into his own blood. It is the Lord’s passover, Scripture tells us, that is, the Lord’s passing. We are no longer to look upon the bread and wine as earthly substances. They have become heavenly, because Christ has passed into them and changed them into his body and blood. What you receive is the body of him who is the heavenly bread, and the blood of him who is the sacred vine; for when he offered his disciples the consecrated bread and wine, he said: This is my body, this is my blood. We have put our trust in him. I urge you to have faith in him; truth can never deceive.


When Christ told the crowds that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, they were horrified and began to murmur among themselves: This teaching is too hard; who can be expected to listen to it? As I have already told you, thoughts such as these must be banished. The Lord himself used heavenly fire to drive them away by going on to declare: It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Thank you for sharing this! To my chagrin I am not familiar with St. Gaudentius, but clearly he is a Latin saint worth further study. However, the fact that he teaches the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is hardly surprising, for as our friends @ViaCrucis @MarkRohfrietsch @chevyontheriver @Valletta @concretecamper @prodromos @PsaltiChrysostom @HTacianas @dzheremi @coorilose and @Pavel Mosko will agree, the early church fathers, from St. Justin Martyr to St. John Chrysostom, and from St. Basil the Great to St. Severus of Antioch, and from St. Jacob of Sarugh to St. John of Damascus, and from St. Cyril of Jerusalem to St. Gregory the Great, and from St. Ambrose of Milan to Theodore of Mopsuestia, all agreed on the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Indeed off the top of my head I can’t think of any heretical sects who were anathematized specifically because denied the Real Presence, however, there were groups like the Hydroparaste, who were regarded as heretical because like the Mormons, they used bread and water in the Eucharist rather than bread and wine (which was mixed with water in all ancient churches except for the Armenian church, which also along with the Roman church uses unleavened bread, the other Oriental Orthodox churches as well as the Eastern Orthodox and the Assyrians using leavened bread. Indeed, because the Eucharistic bread when consecrated becomes the actual Body of Christ, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East number the baking of the bread as one of the Seven Sacraments, Malka, which of course means King in Aramaic.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Interesting topic. Personally, I find things compelling from the opposite end of things. When I was first beginning to learn about Eastern Christianity, which happened about 2 months before I turned 30 around May of 1997, I bought a book on Sola Scriptura written by a priest convert that addressed and answered my various questions and concerns, as a part time Seminary Student, the stuff I had been really pondering the previous 2-3 years or so as a Protestant that was raised Lutheran and was currently trying to be a serious and professional version of a minister in the nondenominational Charismatic movement.

Anyway, after addressing the different Sola Scriptura approaches and pitfalls in the first half/section of the book, the second section was spent on how the Orthodox deal with that sort of problem, and the pamphlet introduced me to Saint Vincent of Lerin's book the Comminatory, and its canon / formula on dogmatic teaching that it gave the prerequisites of 1) Antiquity (scripture), 2) Universality, and 3) Consensus. And years later I saw the Coptic Orthodox Church also use the same writing to explain their approach to the Bible, and yes even the Assyrian Church of the East, groups that were out of communion with saint Vincent when he wrote the work, but nevertheless agree with his basic grand unifying theory of Holy Tradition / Dogmatic teaching.

 

[The Liturgist]

Interesting topic. Personally, I find things compelling from the opposite end of things. When I was first beginning to learn about Eastern Christianity, which happened about 2 months before I turned 30 around May of 1997, I bought a book on Sola Scriptura written by a priest convert that addressed and answered my various questions and concerns, as a part time Seminary Student, the stuff I had been really pondering the previous 2-3 years or so as a Protestant that was raised Lutheran and was currently trying to be a serious and professional version of a minister in the nondenominational Charismatic movement.

Anyway, after addressing the different Sola Scriptura approaches and pitfalls in the first half/section of the book, the second section was spent on how the Orthodox deal with that sort of problem, and the pamphlet introduced me to Saint Vincent of Lerin's book the Comminatory, and its canon / formula on dogmatic teaching that it gave the prerequisites of 1) Antiquity (scripture), 2) Universality, and 3) Consensus. And years later I saw the Coptic Orthodox Church also use the same writing to explain their approach to the Bible, and yes even the Assyrian Church of the East, groups that were out of communion with saint Vincent when he wrote the work, but nevertheless agree with his basic grand unifying theory of Holy Tradition / Dogmatic teaching.

Its not quite the case that the Assyrian Church of the East severed communion with the West when the Council of Ephesus happened. Rather, because it was the outside the Roman Empire, and inside the frontiers of the Sassanian Empire, the main rival of the Roman Empire at that time, which viewed Christianity with suspicion, and since Nestorius was exiled, and many theologians in his camp from the School of Antioch emigrated to Nisibis after the Council of Ephesus, as they were supporters of Nestorius, this group gained in influence, since they were obviously not on good terms with Rome, but the process by which communion was actually broken with the Chalcedonian church took much longer, and the situation on the ground was highly obscure, which is why, for example, all four ancient churches, the Assyrians, the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics claimed St. Isaac the Syrian as one of their own, although we can now be highly confident, thanks to the work of Sebastian Brock, that St. Isaac was a member of the Church of the East.

There were also periods of reconciliation between the Assyrians and the Syriac Orthodox. For example, when the beloved Maphrian Mar Gregorios bar Hebraeus reposed in an Assyrian village while traveling from the Syriac stronghold of Tikrit back to his monastery, that of St. Matthew in the hills above Mosul, that miraculously survived ISIS, the Assyrian Catholicos of the East organized a funeral for him and there were upwards of four thousand Assyrians in attendance.

Also, that there would be some overlap between Western and Assyrian Patristic thought is further demonstrated by the fact that Theodore of Mopsuestia was extremely popular in Gaul and Spain, so much so that in the sixth century some diocese broke communion with Rome after the ratification of Emperor Justinian’s anathema against him, in a short lived schism known as the Three Chapters Controversy.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

ts not quite the case that the Assyrian Church of the East severed communion with the West when the Council of Ephesus happened.

Yeah, that true what I said was more idiomatic, If I were to be more exact as far as sayings go I would probably mention it more as far as "being out or radio contact" or something like that, seeing how they received the canons of the first counsels' years after the fact and did not really have the chance to attend the actual meetings.