The Physical Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

[Roymond]

As I said earlier, they would not have considered it docetism, because the Bread and the Wine are not analogous to the human nature of Christ, and in the Eucharist we partake of both the humanity and the divinity of our Lord.

Docetists believed, just to review, that our Lord was entirely divine, lacking a human nature. Nestorians believe that His divinity and humanity can be separated, whereas the Nicene Christology of the Oriental Orthodox and the Chalcedonians is that the humanity and divinity of our Lord are hypostatically united without change, separation, confusion or division. There is a subtle difference between the Oriental Orthodox and Chalcedonian positions but since the Oriental Orthodox position is exactly what was expressed by St. Cyril and enforced by the Council of Ephesus at which Nestorius was deposed, and since the Oriental Orthodox anathematized the Monophysite Eutyches, who taught that the humanity of our Lord dissolved into his Divinity “like a drop of water in the ocean”, which is a confusion of the divine and human natures, they cannot be accused of Monophysitism.

Moving on, if we say in Aristotelian terms, the bread and wine are only there in accidents and not substance, it is still a huge step to say that the human body of our Lord is illustory, because the two are completely unrelated.

What you are doing is connecting the bread and wine to his human nature, which is deeply problematic and is absolutely unprecedented in the theology of the Early Church. None of the ancient anaphoras (Eucharistic prayers), liturgical texts, or discussions of the theology of the Eucharist even come close to suggesting such a connection exists. Furthermore, I would argue that such a view is a departure from the norms of Lutheran theology; I know of no Lutheran text that links the bread and wine with the human body of our Lord, but rather, quite the contrary, this is why many Lutherans object to Lutheran Eucharistic theology being called consubstantiation, because they don’t wish to draw a parallel between the fact that our Lord is consubstantial with the Father and consubstantial with us, and the relationship of the bread and wine in the Eucharist to His body and blood.

Now perhaps you have read something written by an Early Church Father which I have not. For that matter, I assume you are unfamiliar with the unusual Eucharistic theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia?

Mar Theodore the Interpreter, as the Assyrians called him, advocated a view which was influential in the East, and which the Roman Catholics completely rejected (although the anathema Emperor Justinian pronounced against Theodore of Mopsuestia, later ratified at the Second Council of Constantinople, caused a schism in the Western Church known as the Three Chapters Controversy which lasted for several centuries as he was extremely popular in France, Spain and other parts of the Latin church) and was for a time the prevailing Eucharistic doctrine in the Church of the East, which is sometimes called the Nestorian church, and is probably why they call the baking of the Eucharistic bread Malka, and count it as one of the Seven Sacraments. It was his opinion that during the Prothesis, the bread and wine become the dead body and blood of our Lord, and at the Epiclesis, become the resurrected body and blood of our Lord.

This view, which is the most extreme and controversial to come from the early church, does not, like any of the other theologies of the Eucharist from the early church, actually connect the bread and wine to the human nature of our Lord specifically, although it comes closest.

I don't remember which church Fathers were the sources, but it was in a course in patristics that I encountered this. It isn't "connecting the bread and wine to his human nature", it's the idea that the mundane is always overwhelmed by the divine or that the divine can't be present in the material. Maybe I;m linking it to the wrong heresy, but according to the readings in that course denial of the Real Presence was considered denial of the Incarnation.

I don't recall hitting the Eucharistic ideas of Theodore of Mopsuestia; that part doesn't sound familiar (it sounds decidedly weird). I recall him in connection with fighting Arianism and briefly opposing the title "Theotokos" for the Virgin.

 

[Roymond]

That’s simply untrue because the theology of the early church depended on Plato as much as the theology of Thomas Aquinas depended on Aristotle. Furthermore, St. Gregory Palamas put Aristotle to good use in defending the Hesychasts on Mount Athos from the slander directed against them by Barlaam, who then having failed to get Hesychasm banned, left the Orthodox church for the Roman Catholic church, which ironically now also embraces Hesychasm.

There's a big difference between the two -- Plato's concepts were used to explain what the scriptures said; Aquinas forced the scriptures to fit in an Aristotelian straightjacket.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't remember which church Fathers were the sources, but it was in a course in patristics that I encountered this. It isn't "connecting the bread and wine to his human nature", it's the idea that the mundane is always overwhelmed by the divine or that the divine can't be present in the material. Maybe I;m linking it to the wrong heresy, but according to the readings in that course denial of the Real Presence was considered denial of the Incarnation.

A denial of the Real Presence is in some respects a denial of the Incarnation, however, the concept of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is satisfied by transsubstantiation or indeed by my own belief, which is based on what the Epiklesis of the ancient liturgical texts say, for example, in St. John Chrysostom “Send down Thy Holy Spirit, and Make this bread the precious body of Thy Christ, and Make that which is in this Chalice the precious blood of Thy Christ,” that the bread and wine simply become the body and blood of our Lord, except insofar as they are perceived by most as bread and wine for our comfort, but when we partake of the bread and wine we are partaking of the humanity and divinity of our Lord, which are inseparable according to the doctrine of St. Cyril in the rejection of Nestorianism.

Docetism denies that our Lord is incarnate as a human but rather claims He is entirely divine and immaterial, and as a heresy is usually comorbid with Gnosticism, which denied the material reality of Jesus Christ. So from a Docetic perspective, the Real Presence in the Eucharist cannot be, because our Lord they claim is immaterial and purely spiritual. Thus a Docetic Eucharist could only admit a spiritual presence,

 

[fide]

......

I have seen, many times, similar arguments as I see you positing above, if I may rephrase: If he (it, they, God, the author, etc) had meant it was only symbolic (or whatever the question is) he "would have said" (or "it would have been written thus") 'this is a symbol of', and not 'this is' (or whatever applies to the subject at hand). My favorite one like this is what I was told as a kid —the subject escapes me at the moment— but a Bible teacher told me that if such and such was true, (it being so important if true), that God would have said so outright.

But "this is" is often symbolic. The fact that it isn't written the way we would expect doesn't necessarily deny the validity of the notion. While I see reason to agree with you in this particular instance, I also see reason to disagree with you here. For example, some may say, "This is poetic language", and others would respond, "But it isn't a poetic scene, so why assume poetic language?"
........

The difficulty is not because of "style" of language (poetic vs. realistic), imho, but because of the radical difference between the fallen state of the initially "very good" creation, and the new creation yet to come in fullness. Jesus often points to the New Creation, the Kingdom of God to be opened to His own - and when He does, His language, His chosen words, His parables, must be received as windows to look through with eyes of faith. A key passage of St. Paul, I believe, that can become a helpful "translator" for us citizens of the fallen natural creation, to hear rightly the luminous supernatural reality of the new, is this one:

1Co 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

To speak of a "physical" resurrected body is confusing, because of the truth of this verse 44. The resurrected body is a spiritual body. Our minds have trouble putting those two words together. We find difference - even contradiction - between something "spiritual" and a "body" which we associate with "physical". Yet Paul (God!) asserts that the new Creation will include (resurrected, thus) spiritual bodies as our own.

Many mysteries become clearer, when we can receive / understand this. For example, Jn 6.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The difficulty is not because of "style" of language (poetic vs. realistic), imho, but because of the radical difference between the fallen state of the initially "very good" creation, and the new creation yet to come in fullness. Jesus often points to the New Creation, the Kingdom of God to be opened to His own - and when He does, His language, His chosen words, His parables, must be received as windows to look through with eyes of faith. A key passage of St. Paul, I believe, that can become a helpful "translator" for us citizens of the fallen natural creation, to hear rightly the luminous supernatural reality of the new, is this one:

To speak of a "physical" resurrected body is confusing, because of the truth of this verse 44. The resurrected body is a spiritual body. Our minds have trouble putting those two words together. We find difference - even contradiction - between something "spiritual" and a "body" which we associate with "physical". Yet Paul (God!) asserts that the new Creation will include (resurrected, thus) spiritual bodies as our own.

Many mysteries become clearer, when we can receive / understand this. For example, Jn 6.

It may be beyond our capability to absorb the facts during this temporal existence, but death is not just overcome, but "swallowed up". This, that we consider 'physical' now, we know by the Word is only a vapor by comparison with the reality to come. So, I think, this physical, is but a poor imitation of the Spiritual to come. I consider the spiritual body(s) to come —the glorified body— to be infinitely more 'physical' than we have now.

 

[GDL]

I was listening to some reproductions of old and thought this was an interesting approach to the transubstantiation matter:

QUEEN
[illustration] [depiction of Queen Elizabeth I]
ELIZABETH's Opinion concerning TRANSUBSTANTIATION, Or the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; with some Prayers and Thanksgivings composed by Her in Imminent Dangers.​

DURING the Reign of Q. Mary, the La∣dy Elizabeth being a Prisoner at Wood∣stock, a Popish Priest came to visit her, and after some Discourse, prest hard upon her to declare her Opinion of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, to whom she truly and warily answered in these following verses:

'Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.


The sense of which is more fully explained in the fol∣lowing POEM.

A MEDITATION how to discern the Lords Body in the Blessed Sacrament.​

AND if Mens Fingers cannot make the Wheat,
Which makes the Sacramental Bread we eat;
What Art of Transubstantiation can.
Make God of Wafere, who of Dust made Man?
When we are by th' Apostle truly told,
The God-head is not like Silver or Gold;
Or any thing Corruptions Power can waste,
For He to all Eternity must last:
And if the Art of Man can make his Maker,
The Smith may do as well as do's the Baker;
Bread was the substance which our Saviour gave,
And Bread it was the Apostles did receive;
His Real Body was but in the Sign,
He gave his Flesh, and Blood in Bread and Wine:
For if his Body he did then divide,
He must have eat himself before he dy'd.
His humane Body which for us was given,
Is given to us of Bread which came from Heaven;
The which if we unworthily Receive,
We eat our Judgments, and our selves deceive.
In not discerning what his Body is,
Our Souls are rob'd of everlasting Bliss.
We must believe the Words of him, who said,
This is my Body, when he gave the Bread:
And sure that Blood which curdl'd in each Vein,
Did in His Sacred Body still remain,
Till he was Crucify'd and Slain.
However, there's great Influence therein,
Which expiates and cleanseth us from Sin:
We are made One with him in Holy Union,
When we in Faith receive the Blest Communion.
In Commemoration of his bitter Passion,
Who shed his Blood to purchase our Salvation;
We on his Merits must depend alone,
Sufficient 'tis that Merit we have none:
Nor can there any other Name be given
To save us, but by him who sits in Heaven.
His Body here on Earth need not appear,
When Angels to the Women say, He is not here;
He's not i'th' Press or Cup-board, as some say;
For then the Mice might carry him away.
The Primitive Christians never were so blind,
To think he could be blown away with wind.
Or that some Thieves or Robbers might devour,
Him who created Heaven by his Power.
We are not sav'd by Sense, but by our Faith,
And ought to credit what our Master saith.
He call'd himself a Vine, and yet we see,
He was a perfect Man, and not a Tree.
He call'd himself a Door; 'tis understood,
We enter Heaven through Him, and not thro Wood.
He call'd himself a Way, the which doth lead
Our Steps to Heaven, yet none doth on him tread.
His blessed Words were oft-times Mystical,
And are not rightly understood by all:
Save such on whom he doth that Gift bestow,
Who to the Ignorant the Truth may shew.
His Blessed Body Heaven must contain,
Where He a King eternally doth Reign:
Until the Restitution of all,
Then we with him and Angels ever shall,
Sing Allelujahs in their Hierarchie;
For where He is, there must his Servants be.

 

[The Liturgist]

I was listening to some reproductions of old and thought this was an interesting approach to the transubstantiation matter:

QUEEN​

[illustration] [depiction of Queen Elizabeth I]​

ELIZABETH's Opinion concerning TRANSUBSTANTIATION, Or the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; with some Prayers and Thanksgivings composed by Her in Imminent Dangers.​

DURING the Reign of Q. Mary, the La∣dy Elizabeth being a Prisoner at Wood∣stock, a Popish Priest came to visit her, and after some Discourse, prest hard upon her to declare her Opinion of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, to whom she truly and warily answered in these following verses:

'Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.


The sense of which is more fully explained in the fol∣lowing POEM.

A MEDITATION how to discern the Lords Body in the Blessed Sacrament.​

AND if Mens Fingers cannot make the Wheat,
Which makes the Sacramental Bread we eat;
What Art of Transubstantiation can.
Make God of Wafere, who of Dust made Man?
When we are by th' Apostle truly told,
The God-head is not like Silver or Gold;
Or any thing Corruptions Power can waste,
For He to all Eternity must last:
And if the Art of Man can make his Maker,
The Smith may do as well as do's the Baker;
Bread was the substance which our Saviour gave,
And Bread it was the Apostles did receive;
His Real Body was but in the Sign,
He gave his Flesh, and Blood in Bread and Wine:
For if his Body he did then divide,
He must have eat himself before he dy'd.
His humane Body which for us was given,
Is given to us of Bread which came from Heaven;
The which if we unworthily Receive,
We eat our Judgments, and our selves deceive.
In not discerning what his Body is,
Our Souls are rob'd of everlasting Bliss.
We must believe the Words of him, who said,
This is my Body, when he gave the Bread:
And sure that Blood which curdl'd in each Vein,
Did in His Sacred Body still remain,
Till he was Crucify'd and Slain.
However, there's great Influence therein,
Which expiates and cleanseth us from Sin:
We are made One with him in Holy Union,
When we in Faith receive the Blest Communion.
In Commemoration of his bitter Passion,
Who shed his Blood to purchase our Salvation;
We on his Merits must depend alone,
Sufficient 'tis that Merit we have none:
Nor can there any other Name be given
To save us, but by him who sits in Heaven.
His Body here on Earth need not appear,
When Angels to the Women say, He is not here;
He's not i'th' Press or Cup-board, as some say;
For then the Mice might carry him away.
The Primitive Christians never were so blind,
To think he could be blown away with wind.
Or that some Thieves or Robbers might devour,
Him who created Heaven by his Power.
We are not sav'd by Sense, but by our Faith,
And ought to credit what our Master saith.
He call'd himself a Vine, and yet we see,
He was a perfect Man, and not a Tree.
He call'd himself a Door; 'tis understood,
We enter Heaven through Him, and not thro Wood.
He call'd himself a Way, the which doth lead
Our Steps to Heaven, yet none doth on him tread.
His blessed Words were oft-times Mystical,
And are not rightly understood by all:
Save such on whom he doth that Gift bestow,
Who to the Ignorant the Truth may shew.
His Blessed Body Heaven must contain,
Where He a King eternally doth Reign:
Until the Restitution of all,
Then we with him and Angels ever shall,
Sing Allelujahs in their Hierarchie;
For where He is, there must his Servants be.

Its this kind of material that prompted the great Anglican liturgiologist Dom Gregory Dix to suspect the early Anglican church of having a Eucharistic theology akin to tht of Zwinglianism.

From my extreme high church perspective, I am personally delighted by the fact that, since the Scottish Episcopalians embraced the Real Presence doctrine in the late 17th century, among a great many Anglicans, for example, among the Anglo Catholics, and most of the Continuing Anglican churches in the United States, the prevailing doctrine is that of the Real Presence, with some Anglicans following Roman transubstantiation, some following the Eastern Orthodox doctrine in which the Real Change is very real but a mystery, and others following the Lutheran Eucharistic theology.

English Anglicanism also started to move in this direction with Archbishop Laud in the 17th century, and later acts of toleration which allowed the Puritans and other non-conformists like the Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians to separate from the Established Church facilitated a move towards high frequency communion under John Wesley, and the embrace of Anglo Catholicism by those of High Churchmanship led by the Oxford Movement. However, there remain low church and Evangelical parishes and dioceses, with the C of E, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of North America, and most larger Anglican provinces tending to be “broad church” in that there tends to be a spectrum between the most High Church parishes, in London for example, the very Anglo Catholic St. Magnus the Martyr and All Saints Lambeth Street, to the High Church / somewhat Anglo Catholic St. Bartholomew the Great, to the more High Church or Broad Church liturgy one finds at St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen Walbrook, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and finally the low church and evangelical parishes, the most well known of which is Holy Trinity Brompton, which if I recall Archbishop Justin Welby has connections with.

 

[The Liturgist]

@GDL, I would note that the Queen’s approach is actually fairly complex, insofar as it seeks to maintain a rationale for pious reverence in the absence of belief in the New Testament, and it bears the hallmarks of in-depth and thoroughly anti-Roman Catholic catechesis, in which Queen Elisabeth was seeking to differentiate herself from Queen Mary her Catholic predecessor, and also Mary Queen of Scots, who she would later order beheaded.

 

[GDL]

@GDL, I would note that the Queen’s approach is actually fairly complex, insofar as it seeks to maintain a rationale for pious reverence in the absence of belief in the New Testament, and it bears the hallmarks of in-depth and thoroughly anti-Roman Catholic catechesis, in which Queen Elisabeth was seeking to differentiate herself from Queen Mary her Catholic predecessor, and also Mary Queen of Scots, who she would later order beheaded.

Thank you for the input. By simple I meant in format - a poem - verses the typical exegetical battles. But I do also see the complexity you speak of. By no means is the content simple and I am somewhat aware - I'm sure not anywhere near as aware as you - about her position at the time. The document actually goes on to discuss some off the things she was dealing with when she wrote what I copied.

As you've likely come to know by now, I am not a fan of Rome. I do however attempt to understand the battles exegetically to the extent this can be done, or has been done and continues to be done, seemingly endlessly.

 

[FireDragon76]

Its this kind of material that prompted the great Anglican liturgiologist Dom Gregory Dix to suspect the early Anglican church of having a Eucharistic theology akin to tht of Zwinglianism.

Yeah, well, lots of other scholars have pointed out there's plenty of evidence to the contrary, that receptionism was more common than memorialism. Dix was biased to see anything that didn't line up with his own perspective as being mere memorialism.

The rise of the modern High Church consecrationism in Anglicanism parallels the rise of the same in Lutheranism. Both occurred during the 19th century interest in romanticism and patristics. In both cases, consecrationism has always been one theological opinion among many, throughout most of history.

However, there remain low church and Evangelical parishes and dioceses, with the C of E, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of North America, and most larger Anglican provinces tending to be “broad church” in that there tends to be a spectrum between the most High Church parishes, in London for example, the very Anglo Catholic St. Magnus the Martyr and All Saints Lambeth Street, to the High Church / somewhat Anglo Catholic St. Bartholomew the Great, to the more High Church or Broad Church liturgy one finds at St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen Walbrook, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and finally the low church and evangelical parishes, the most well known of which is Holy Trinity Brompton, which if I recall Archbishop Justin Welby has connections with.

In the modern Episcopal church, frequency of communion has little to do with churchmanship. Plenty of Evangelical Anglicans in the US have weekly communion. Largely owing to the influence of the Charismatic movement within Episcopalian Evangelicalism more broadly.

 

[FireDragon76]

Just by the way, "the bread and wine are entirely replaced" is a statement that many in the early church would have considered Docetism and a denial of the Incarnation. That's something that always baffled me about the idea of transubstantiation; the early church followed Paul in continuing to call the breaad bread but they also called it the Body of Christ. It's one reason I don't regard Aquinas as much of a theologian; he was a philosopher who crammed theology into philosophical packets that had nothing to do with the scriptures and often little to do with the Fathers. In Aristotelian terms, if the bread and wine are mere appearances it is but a tiny step to maintaining that the body of Jesus was a mere appearance.

In his epistles, Paul calls the bread, bread, but he points out that it is also a partaking in the body of Christ.

That's why I think something like transignification is more of a realistic way to think about the sacrament, than Aristotle's categories.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yeah, well, lots of other scholars have pointed out there's plenty of evidence to the contrary, that receptionism was more common than memorialism

Note that Zwinglianism is neither receptionism nor memorialism, although receptionism is in my view just as bad, and worse than Calvinism, in many respects, except for some interpretations of receptionism which involve the real presence when the Eucharist is received, which are still in my view erroneous, but not as bad (I think some low church Lutherans who are not of the high church Evangelical Catholic variety like my friends @MarkRohfrietsch and @ViaCrucis hold to that view, for example), and memorialism is an odd case in that it represents a misunderstanding of what the Greek word anamnesis actually means, but in a sense I regard memorialism as less problematic than Zwinglianism, because like believers in the Real Presence such as Lutherans, Orthodox, Catholics, Assyrians and Anglo Catholics, and for that matter Calvinists who believe in a real spiritual presence, memorialists are at least trying to follow the literal text.

The specific problem with Zwinglianism (and perhaps why I feel a great affinity for our friend @Ain't Zwinglian ) is that Zwinglianism, in suggesting that the bread and wine and the waters of baptism are symbols signifying some soteriological process, is that our Lord did not say “This is a symbol of my body” or “This is a symbol of my blood, which was poured out for you and for many...”, and when we add to that Zwingli’s Iconoclasm, Nestorianism and militarism, its really the area of the Swiss Reformation that I think caused the most harm, and also just as the Oriental Orthodox became concerned (with some justification, due to crypto-Nestorians like Ibas) that Chalcedonians were Nestorian, a view you will still find among some Ethiopian monks, I think Zwinglianism by mere virtue of its existence increased tension between Lutherans and Calvinists, and this led to the tripartite disaster of the Wars of Religion.

Now, regarding Dom Gregory Dix, having read The Shape of the Liturgy, I am of the opinion that if he was in error concerning the sacramental theology of Cranmer in composing the 1552 BCP, it was only accidental; the problem is that, like with the 1549 BCP, there is a certain vagueness to the 1552 book, and one gets the sense that Cranmer would have pushed in a more low church direction if he felt empowered to do so. However, because of his skill at composing liturgical texts that could reconcile people into a broad church, which I believe Cranmer cultivated and was intentional, as the conditions under King Henry VIII were in a sense similiar to what happened after the Elizabethan Settlement, with a high church monarch and low church bishops, it is difficult to say what the Eucharistic theology of Cranmer actually was. What he was very good at was compiling liturgical texts from different sources, for example, reviving the proposed Cathedral Office of Cardinal Quinones for Morning and Evening Prayer, which the Roman Catholics had considered but rejected. It was with Mattins and Evensong that Anglicanism has had its greatest success, in that it along with some Lutheran provinces managed to revive and consistently attract a congregation for Vespers and other parts of the Divine Office, even today in large cities, while Rome even after the reform that led to the new Liturgy of the Hours post Vatican II has consistently had trouble getting people to attend the Divine Office, which has become, as Robert Taft SJ, memory eternal, put it, devotionalized, whereas devotions like the Rosary, Novena and so on have replaced the Divine Office / Liturgy of the Hours.

This is in contrast to the Eastern churches, which with some exceptions manage to do a very good job attracting people to Vespers and other Divine Office services, especially in Lent and Holy Week. Indeed I suspect their mutual success with the Divine Office was one reason why the Anglo Catholics and Russian Orthodox wanted to enter into communion at the turn of the 20th century, which did not happen because of the Low Church party, but it did lead to the emergence of Western Rite Orthodoxy, and more recently Eastern Rite Anglicanism.

 

[The Liturgist]

In his epistles, Paul calls the bread, bread, but he points out that it is also a partaking in the body of Christ.

That's why I think something like transignification is more of a realistic way to think about the sacrament, than Aristotle's categories.

The problem with transignification is that it is incompatible with the Words of Institution and 1 Corinthians 11:26-34, which was deleted from the Epistle for Maundy Thursday in the Novus Ordo Missae Revised Common Lectionary, but which was read with the rest of the institution narrative in 1 Corinthians in its entirety in the Roman Catholic Church and in the traditional editions of the Book of Common Prayer (and part of which could still optionally be read in the 1979 BCP lectionary which the Episcopal Church suppressed about ten years ago).

 

[FireDragon76]

The problem with transignification is that it is incompatible with the Words of Institution and 1 Corinthians 11:26-34, which was deleted from the Epistle for Maundy Thursday in the Novus Ordo Missae Revised Common Lectionary, but which was read with the rest of the institution narrative in 1 Corinthians in its entirety in the Roman Catholic Church and in the traditional editions of the Book of Common Prayer (and part of which could still optionally be read in the 1979 BCP lectionary which the Episcopal Church suppressed about ten years ago).

I don't see how. Paul is talking about the profanation of misuse of a sacrament. That doesn't say anything about metaphysics.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't see how. Paul is talking about the profanation of misuse of a sacrament. That doesn't say anything about metaphysics.

The profanation according to St. Paul entails not discerning the Lord’s body.

 

[FireDragon76]

The profanation according to St. Paul entails not discerning the Lord’s body.

I've seen other possible interpretations that are at least as plausible, such as the notion that the body referred to is the gathered congregation, and the sin is against the good order of the church in the use of the sacrament.

 

[The Liturgist]

such as the notion that the body referred to is the gathered congregation, and the sin is against the good order of the church in the use of the sacrament.

Their plausibility is diminshed by the fact that we don’t encounter them in the Patristic writings. In fact, contra a myth among some liturgiologists only really familiar with the Western church and not acquainted at all with the Oriental Orthodox, we can say based on the Eucharistic hymn Haw Nurone by St. Jacob of Sarugh and other Eastern, Oriental and Assyrian liturgical works and commentary on the liturgy (for example, the Eucharistic theology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, or St. Theodore the Interpreter as he is known in the Assyrian church, but preserved in Greek as well as Syriac, in which he expresses an unusual belief that the Prothesis results in a real change of the bread and wine into the crucified flesh and blood of our Lord, which is then resurrected in the Epiklesis before being consumed), that even the more extreme positions on the Eucharist, or those deemed heretical such as those of the Hydroparaste who substituted water for wine and the Collyridians who worshipped the Theotokos as a goddess as opposed to venerating her and believed her to be present in the Eucharist, a view recently revived by the dangerous heretical cult known as the Palmerian Catholic Church, that transignification as a concept was not significant, if you will forgive the pun, in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, when the material I am referring to was composed.