Catholics:

[donfish06]

What does Vicarius Filii Dei mean?

 

[Bill McEnaney]

"Vicarius Filii Dei" means "Vicar of the Son of God."

 

[donfish06]

"Vicarius Filii Dei" means "Vicar of the Son of God."

So the pope is taking the place of Jesus?

 

[Bill McEnaney]

So the pope is taking the place of Jesus?

It's hard to know what donfish06 means by "takes the place of Jesus." To use a corporate analogy, Christ is the President of the Catholic Church and the pope is its Vice President. Catholics don't say, "Jesus, you're fired. We've hired the pope instead." Our Lord might have told St. Peter, "Peter, since I'm going to Heaven, you'll be in charge while I'm away, but I'm still the boss." See Isaiah 22.

 

[Albion]

It's hard to know what donfish06 means by "takes the place of Jesus." To use a corporate analogy, Christ is the President of the Catholic Church and the pope is its Vice President. Catholics don't say, "Jesus, you're fired. We've hired the pope instead." Our Lord might have told St. Peter, "Peter, since I'm going to Heaven, you'll be in charge while I'm away, but I'm still the boss." See Isaiah 22.

Well, if we agree that the translation is "Vicar of the Son of God," it cannot logically mean only that this person is the CEO of some organization that Christ set up. It has to mean more like "Stand-in for the Son of God."

That, you recall, is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church believes about the priest as he stands before the altar consecrating the bread and wine (although in that case the term used is "Alter Christus" [Another Christ]).

 

[donfish06]

It's hard to know what donfish06 means by "takes the place of Jesus." To use a corporate analogy, Christ is the President of the Catholic Church and the pope is its Vice President. Catholics don't say, "Jesus, you're fired. We've hired the pope instead." Our Lord might have told St. Peter, "Peter, since I'm going to Heaven, you'll be in charge while I'm away, but I'm still the boss." See Isaiah 22.

That's one big, weighty "might." I don't see anywhere in the scriptures where Jesus says "Hey Peter, when I'm gone feel free to change my doctrine that I have taught you whenever you please. And whoever takes your place, he can change it again, if he wants. Its all up to you!"

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Well, if we agree that the translation is "Vicar of the Son of God," it cannot logically mean only that this person is the CEO of some organization that Christ set up. It has to mean more like "Stand-in for the Son of God."

That, you recall, is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church believes about the priest as he stands before the altar consecrating the bread and wine (although in that case the term used is "Alter Christus" [Another Christ]).

Catholics use the phrase to "alter Christus," literally "another Christ," to describe any priest, including the Pope, because Christ acts through priests, especially when they give the Sacraments. But we're not implying polytheism when we do that. During holy Mass, the bread and the wine change into Christ's body, blood soul, and divinity because He changes them when the priest consecrates them. He's doing what our Savior told the Apostles to do in memory of Him. In John 20, Christ tells the Apostles that a penitent's sins are forgiven when they forgive them and retained when they retain them. The priests act as His stand-ins when they give penitents Christ's forgiveness or withhold it from them. After all, "to bind" and "to loose" are rabbinic jargon that mean "to forbid" and "to allow." God ratifies a priest's judgment when something gets bound in heaven or loosed in it.

I wrote about the vice-president analogy because some believe that the Pope is the head of the Church when Christ is actually its head. We call the Pope its "visible head" because he rules it here on earth with authority he gets from Our Lord through St. Peter and through his successors. That's why I alluded to Isaiah 22:20-22, where Eliacim gets authority delegated to him. In the Bible, keys stand for authority, which explains why verse 22 says, "And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open." Shutting and opening are about ratification.

In Calvin College's online Christian Classics Etherial Library, you can find the documents that the Council Fathers wrote when the Council of Ephesus met in 431 A.D. to condemn the Nestorian heresy. That council's Historical Introduction says that those fathers thought their council taught infallibly and that St. Peter taught through Pope Celestine. Celestine used that Apostle's authority.

What other collections include those documents? You can look them up in Fordham University's online Medieval Sourcebook. Or how how about Protestant Historian Philip Schaff's 38-volume set of writings from the Early Church, where the Ephesene documents are in the volume about the first seven ecumenical councils? Maybe you'd like to look up those writings at NewAdvent.org instead?

 

[donfish06]

Ok, where does it say that the bread and wine turn into Jesus' literal body and blood in the scriptures?

How is the pope decided? I have heard some say the Holy Spirit decides through the cardinals or who ever it is that votes. If that is the case, how could it take the Holy Spirit 3 days of voting/deliberation to pick its pope? Remember when the 11 disciples casted lots to see who should be the 12th? Man chose the 12th and we have no evidence in the scriptures of God ever using him. INSTEAD, God HIMSELF chose Paul. God never set the grounds for man to choose whom God will use.

Where does Christ give the pope the authority to change his doctrine?

Where do we see a foundation for Mary worship in the scriptures?

Where do we see a foundation for praying to the dead? (Saints)

Where do we see a foundation for making the laity PAY for their sins to be forgiven?

Where do we see a foundation for the laity going to a priest to intercede for them?

Where do we see a foundation for keeping the Holy Word of God away from the laity for HUNDREDS of years, and killing people who tried to get it into their hands?

Where does Christ tell us to KILL over 70 million Christians over a 1500 yr span?

 

[ViaCrucis]

What does Vicarius Filii Dei mean?

This has been answered. But I think it's worth pointing out that this isn't an official papal title. There are two that are official, the first going back a very long time, variants of "Vicar of Peter", the other and more well known one today is Vicarius Christi, or "Vicar of Christ".

"Vicar of the Son of God" has never been an official papal title, but has been used in numerous anti-Roman Catholic propaganda and conspiracy literature as though it were in order to somehow legitimate claims that the papacy is the Antichrist.

It's a go nowhere argument, however; unless one is simply interested in espousing anti-Roman Catholic rhetoric for the sake of doing so.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Ok, where does it say that the bread and wine turn into Jesus' literal body and blood in the scriptures?

The Gospels where Jesus institutes His Supper by saying, "This is My body" and "This is My blood"; and also 1 Corinthians 10 where the Apostle says, explicitly, that we partake of the Lord's body and blood through the partaking of the bread and cup.

How is the pope decided?

The process has evolved over time. The current method, which has been around since medieval reforms to ensure that the abuses of papal nepotism would not continue, is that the College of Cardinals elect the Pope. While almost always choosing one from amongst their ranks, they are free to elect any faithful Roman Catholic. Since even, in theory, cardinals are not required to be ordained (though all cardinals have been, for a very long time, ordained bishops); that is there have been in the past lay cardinals, and in fact there's nothing saying that a layman can't be elected to the papal office, and go through the necessary holy orders to make him a bishop (since that is what the pope is, the bishop of Rome). But, as a matter of course the College of Cardinals are bishops and traditionally elect one of their own.

But, again, the process has changed and evolved to the present one; it's done so in order to avoid abuses, which were frequent around the turn of the first millennium, where nepotism ran amok and thus a series of reforms helped to safeguard the process so that the Pope can't choose his own successor.

Where does Christ give the pope the authority to change his doctrine?

That's a rather bizarre question to ask a Roman Catholic, since no Roman Catholic would believe Christ gave anyone the authority to change doctrine.

Where do we see a foundation for Mary worship in the scriptures?

We don't.

But we do see the reasons why one would show honor to the Blessed Virgin, as she is the mother of God. But that's not a Roman Catholic thing, that's just a generically Christian thing. To deny that Mary is Theotokos is to deny Christian teaching concerning the Hypostatic Union.

Where do we see a foundation for praying to the dead? (Saints)

That's a bit fuzzier. But there's a long and strong tradition of asking the dearly departed who are in heaven to keep praying for those of us who are still on earth.

Where do we see a foundation for making the laity PAY for their sins to be forgiven?

You mean the selling of indulgences? Even when this was quite popular (i.e. the 16th century) it was still contrary to the official teaching of Rome. Which is why Luther initially and formally protested the abuses of the indulgence peddlers such as Johann Tetzel. And, sure enough, Tetzel was ultimately disciplined by his superiors. But to really get into the meat of the Reformation would require its own thread--most of modern Protestantism is almost completely ignorant when it comes to the Reformation, imagining it was something else than what it was; as sure enough most of modern Protestantism has completely abandoned the basic theology of the Reformation, abandoned what the Reformation was about entirely and has instead gone the way of the Radicals.

Where do we see a foundation for the laity going to a priest to intercede for them?

It is Christ Jesus Himself who breathed on the Apostles and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit, whoever's sins you forgive are forgiven them..." this is connected to the giving of the Keys; and thus the Office of the Keys which belongs to the whole Church is exercised through the Apostolic-Pastoral ministry for the sake of the Church. Private Confession should be available to those who request it, but not to the exclusion of Public Confession. The Words of Absolution are Gospel, declaring to us the reality of our forgiveness by the work and merit of Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection.

Why anyone would want to do away with that, I have no idea. It is a beautiful thing to hear, "Your sins are forgiven", because it comes not from the pastor speaking, but from the Christ who saves.

Where do we see a foundation for keeping the Holy Word of God away from the laity for HUNDREDS of years, and killing people who tried to get it into their hands?

This is usually blown pretty out of proportion. Even if the Scriptures were readily available in the vulgar tongues of Western Europe (and in some cases they were), the average layman not only could not afford to buy a Bible (even after the advent of the moveable type printing press) but unless you were fortunate enough to receive a proper education you wouldn't be able to read it at all.

Luther sought to translate the Scriptures into German for the common German; primarily so that the translation could be used in the Mass so it could be heard in the vulgar tongue; there was also the desire to bring education to the laity, so they could read and write, and read the Scriptures.

But it wasn't the translation of Scripture to the vulgar tongue that was specifically the problem in Rome's opinion; it was that those who did the translation were seen as heretics operating outside the proper channels of the Church. And it was for heresy that Wycliffe and Tyndale (as examples) were executed by the State (England and the Holy Roman Empire respectively).

Where does Christ tell us to KILL over 70 million Christians over a 1500 yr span?

Those numbers seem strange to me. While ostensibly Christian governments--often with the support of the Church--did execute alleged heretics (and that is hardly excusable) this is hardly uniquely Roman Catholic (Protestant governments were no less willing to have heretics and Roman Catholics executed, just consider John Calvin's Geneva and the case of Michael Servetus). Perhaps a proper understanding of the complexities of the inter-relationship(s) between Church and State and the constant ideological battle being fought between the civil and ecclesiastical leaders would help bring some of this into its historical medieval context.

I find that the nuances of history are far more fascinating than the steamrolled dumbed down version that usually is offered in its place.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Bill McEnaney]

This has been answered. But I think it's worth pointing out that this isn't an official papal title. There are two that are official, the first going back a very long time, variants of "Vicar of Peter", the other and more well known one today is Vicarius Christi, or "Vicar of Christ".

"Vicar of the Son of God" has never been an official papal title, but has been used in numerous anti-Roman Catholic propaganda and conspiracy literature as though it were in order to somehow legitimate claims that the papacy is the Antichrist.

It's a go nowhere argument, however; unless one is simply interested in espousing anti-Roman Catholic rhetoric for the sake of doing so.

-CryptoLutheran

True enough, it's not an official papal title. Although I don't know what its anti-Roman users imply when they use it, "Vicar of Christ" is an official papal title, and Christ is the Son of God and God the Son. Whatever some people do imply with "Vicar of the Son of God," there's an orthodox Catholic way to interpret that phrase because it's a synonym, or almost a synonym, for "Vicar of Christ" when "Christ" stands for Jesus.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Please let me repeat a post I wrote for a thread about the Real Presence, because donfish asked where the Bible teaches that bread and wine change into Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity. Can His flesh be real food when a consecrated Host is merely symbolic? How can anyone discern Our Lord's body and His blood if they're not there? During the Last Supper, why didn't He reply, "Wait, my friends. Please stay. I used a metaphor just now."? They asked how He could give anyone His flesh to eat, complained that "This is my flesh" was a hard saying before they left the upper room. Then Christ asked others whether they would go, too.

For me, 1 Corinthians 11:24-29 is strong proof Transubstantiation. In my Douay-Rheims Bible, verses 26-29 say, "For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord until he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and eat of that chalice. For he that eateth and drink unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord."

How about John 6:53-57? "The Jews, therefore, disputed among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen I say to you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and shall drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh, is meat indeed: and my blood is, drink indeed: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him."

I wish I had already posted enough thoughts to post links to two pdf documents I've found on the "Miracles" page at TheRealPresence.org because those documents include photos of a transubstantiated Host and lab test results to prove that the blood and the flesh of it are human. Please, if you want to, read there about the the miracle that happened in Lanciano, Italy.

 

[ViaCrucis]

True enough, it's not an official papal title. Although I don't know what its anti-Roman users imply when they use it, "Vicar of Christ" is an official papal title, and Christ is the Son of God and God the Son. Whatever some people do imply with "Vicar of the Son of God," there's an orthodox Catholic way to interpret that phrase because it's a synonym, or almost a synonym, for "Vicar of Christ" when "Christ" stands for Jesus.

Vicarius Filii Dei is usually taken by anti-Roman Catholic polemicists to be used in order to calculate six hundred and sixty-six, the number of the Beast. It is used in this fashion, most usually in modern times, by Seventh Day Adventists; as it was rather popular among anti-Roman Catholic polemicists of the 19th century when Adventism sprang into existence. This use, however, goes back to the 17th century in the writing of Andreas Helwig, specifically his work Antichristus Romanus.

The work was a polemic to defend the Protestant view that the papacy was antichrist--a view that goes back to Luther and most of the other Reformers. Though what this meant to the early Protestant Reformers is a bit different than the way it tends to be used by more modern polemicists.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Vicarius Filii Dei is usually taken by anti-Roman Catholic polemicists to be used in order to calculate six hundred and sixty-six, the number of the Beast. It is used in this fashion, most usually in modern times, by Seventh Day Adventists; as it was rather popular among anti-Roman Catholic polemicists of the 19th century when Adventism sprang into existence. This use, however, goes back to the 17th century in the writing of Andreas Helwig, specifically his work Antichristus Romanus.

The work was a polemic to defend the Protestant view that the papacy was antichrist--a view that goes back to Luther and most of the other Reformers. Though what this meant to the early Protestant Reformers is a bit different than the way it tends to be used by more modern polemicists.

-CryptoLutheran

Thank you, ViaCrucis. You've just reminded me that Patrick Madrid points that out in his book Pope Fiction.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Here's tract from Catholic.com's online tract library.

The Real Presence
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The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as "unbiblical," but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71).

The early Church Fathers interpreted these passages literally. In summarizing the early Fathers’ teachings on Christ’s Real Presence, renowned Protestant historian of the early Church J. N. D. Kelly, writes: "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood" (Early Christian Doctrines, 440).

From the Church’s early days, the Fathers referred to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Kelly writes: "Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body. . . . Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood. His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity" (ibid., 197–98).

"Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally" (ibid., 211–12).



Ignatius of Antioch

"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).



Justin Martyr

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).



Irenaeus

"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).



Clement of Alexandria

"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).



Tertullian

"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).



Hippolytus

"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).



Origen

"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).



Cyprian of Carthage

"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).



Council of Nicaea I

"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [i.e., priests], whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]" (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).



Aphraahat the Persian Sage

"After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink" (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).



Cyril of Jerusalem

"The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ" (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).

"Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul" (ibid., 22:6, 9).



Ambrose of Milan

"Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ" (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).



Theodore of Mopsuestia

"When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).



Augustine

"Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands" (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).

"I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ" (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).

...

"What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction" (ibid., 272).



Council of Ephesus

"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving" (Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]).

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

 

[donfish06]

You have to understand that what men of the Catholic church has said about their beliefs is in no way vindication to me.

What about the other questions I had?

 

[Albion]

Please let me repeat a post I wrote for a thread about the Real Presence, because bonfish asked where the Bible teaches that bread and wine change into Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity. Can His flesh be real food when a consecrated Host is merely symbolic?

That's a good point.

However, it only separates Catholicism from the churches of the Baptistic/Anabaptist tradition, which represents only a minority of "non-Catholics." IOW, this certainly does not prove that there's anything distinctive or unique about the RCC's doctrine.

How can anyone discern Our Lord's body and His blood if they're not there? During the Last Supper, why didn't He reply, "Wait, my friends. Please stay. I used a metaphor just now."? They asked how He could give anyone His flesh to eat, complained that "This is my flesh" was a hard saying before they left the upper room. Then Christ asked others whether they would go, too.

Like it or not, Christ often spoke in parables or analogies that his listeners didn't comprehend, and yet he let them go away without understanding.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

You have to understand that what men of the Catholic church has said about their beliefs is in no way vindication to me.

What about the other questions I had?

Don, I doubt that I'll prove any Catholic doctrine to anyone. I share information that may interest others. What they do with it is up to Our Lord and to them. I still mean to answer your other questions. Many concise questions deserve detailed answers including theological distinctions potentially new to many non-Catholics.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Albion, I know that Our taught with parables and with figurative language. That's partly why I read what the Catholic Church's Early Fathers. Since they lived in or near Our Lord's day, they knew much more than I know about their culture, their history, their expression . . . St. Polycarp even knew St. John the Apostle personally. So he, St. Polycarp, knew much more than I'll ever know about what Holy Scripture means. Sometimes I don't understand expressions that my English friends use. Why would I trust my ahistorical, interpretation of the Bible? I don't, and I wouldn't.

 

[ViaCrucis]

You have to understand that what men of the Catholic church has said about their beliefs is in no way vindication to me.

What about the other questions I had?

Well, sure, if you actually cared about what Christians have always believed, confessed, and taught; then this wouldn't be much of a debate.

In order to recreate Christianity according to one's own personal tastes, and totally abandon biblical, apostolic teaching in the process means having to ignore just about everything any Christian has ever said ever and simply wing it.

So just because Christ said, "This is My body ... blood" and St. Paul writes, "Is participation in the body .... blood of Christ", and just because Christians have continued to confess and believe this from then onward (as the Ignatian epistles demonstrate, having been written by the honorable bishop of Antioch, learned and instructed by the Apostles themselves) is, of course superfluous.

Why? Because just because.

-CryptoLutheran