Lateran Council and transubstantiation

[Diane_Windsor]

I posted this in OBOB, but I might as well ask here too

The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council:

"There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors."

Canon I

(All bold emphasis above mine.)

Why did the Lateran Council officially define transubstantiation as a dogmatic teaching?

Thanks,
DIANE

 

[PaladinValer]

It was to settle a problem of sacramentarianism, most likely.

While the other sacramental churches disagree with the definition, it does rather effectively trounce the anti-Real Presence argument.

 

[Diane_Windsor]

It was to settle a problem of sacramentarianism, most likely.

Can you be anymore specific?


Diane


http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=Sacramentarianism

 

[albertmc]

The belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist had been a teaching of the Church from the beginning but was never formally defined as it was never challenged by any but the gnostic heretics long before the Ecumenical Councils. Their condemnations of the various forms of gnosticism entails an implicit denunciation of non-belief in the Real Presence. All the patristic writers certainly held the belief and this was passed on throughout Church history. The doctrine was challenged in the late medieval West and the debate was carried on within the technical language of Aristoltelian philosophy just as the debate on the Trinity and the two natures of Christ were carried on in the technical philosophical language of its day.

I don't think the definition is objectionable and I believe it has an entirely different connotation than it did at Trent centuries later when the terms used were influenced by the nominalist philosophy that had become dominant since the time of Occam. The words were the same but not the meanings attached.

I posted this in OBOB, but I might as well ask here too

The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council:

"There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors."

Canon I

(All bold emphasis above mine.)

Why did the Lateran Council officially define transubstantiation as a dogmatic teaching?

Thanks,
DIANE

 

[IgnatiusOfAntioch]

I posted this in OBOB, but I might as well ask here too

The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council:

"There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiation) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors."

Canon I

(All bold emphasis above mine.)

Why did the Lateran Council officially define transubstantiation as a dogmatic teaching?

Thanks,
DIANE

Typically a something is officially declared as a doctrine or dogma only when some need to do so develops. If any part of the Deposit of Faith is properly understood by all, it does not need to be declared as doctrine unless some confusion develops about it. In this instance, since this was the belief of the Church since the beginning, I can only assume that the official teaching needed to be defended or clarified from some error that had developed.

Your brother in Christ