# Patristic understanding of Eucharist



## steadfast7

I Couldn't find this question already asked in the PB, so here goes. 

It seems the consensus of the early church fathers point to their understanding the Lord's supper as the body and blood of Christ, but in what sense?

Which of the Reformation tradtions comes closest to the patristic understanding?

Is the Roman/Eastern view closer?


cheers.


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## au5t1n

I don't think they had a fully-formed view of exactly what does or does not happen. They just knew Jesus said to eat it and it was his body, so they repeated his words and left the debate over exactly how for later theologians.

-----Added 11/24/2009 at 06:07:18 EST-----

The initial list of fathers is given alphabetically

This site is a good reference. Click on the different archives and you'll find quotes of where various church fathers contradicted the Roman Catholic understanding of a given doctrine. The site exists to counter RCC apologetics, which relies heavily on misquoting the early fathers. There are some good quotes about communion there.

-----Added 11/24/2009 at 06:10:37 EST-----

Here's a relevant sample from that website. There are many more if you take the time to look:



> 6/30/02
> 
> Justin Martyr explains that the eucharist is a sacrifice only in the sense of Hebrews 13:15, only in the sense of offering prayers and thanksgiving:
> 
> "Accordingly, God, anticipating all the sacrifices which we offer through this name, and which Jesus the Christ enjoined us to offer, i.e., in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are presented by Christians in all places throughout the world, bears witness that they are well-pleasing to Him. But He utterly rejects those presented by you and by those priests of yours, saying, 'And I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles (He says); but ye profane it.' Yet even now, in your love of contention, you assert that God does not accept the sacrifices of those who dwelt then in Jerusalem, and were called Israelites; but says that He is pleased with the prayers of the individuals of that nation then dispersed, and calls their prayers sacrifices. Now, that prayers and giving of thanks, when offered by worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God, I also admit. For such alone Christians have undertaken to offer, and in the remembrance effected by their solid and liquid food, whereby the suffering of the Son of God which He endured is brought to mind, whose name the high priests of your nation and your teachers have caused to be profaned and blasphemed over all the earth. But these filthy garments, which have been put by you on all who have become Christians by the name of Jesus, God shows shall be taken away from us, when He shall raise all men from the dead, and appoint some to be incorruptible, immortal, and free from sorrow in the everlasting and imperishable kingdom; but shall send others away to the everlasting punishment of fire. But as to you and your teachers deceiving yourselves when you interpret what the Scripture says as referring to those of your nation then in dispersion, and maintain that their prayers and sacrifices offered in every place are pure and well-pleasing, learn that you are speaking falsely, and trying by all means to cheat yourselves: for, first of all, not even now does your nation extend from the rising to the setting of the sun, but there are nations among which none of your race ever dwelt. For there is not one single race of men, whether barbarians, or Greeks, or whatever they may be called, nomads, or vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents, among whom prayers and giving of thanks are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus. And then, as the Scriptures show, at the time when Malachi wrote this, your dispersion over all the earth, which now exists, had not taken place." (Dialogue with Trypho, 117)


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## steadfast7

Thanks for the link. The fathers listed under eucharist are a little obscure, however, and I expect that the texts are selective in favour for the non-romish interpretation. Whatever they meant, the words they used connoted the literal flesh and blood of Christ.

I agree that they probably did not have a fully formed theology of eucharist, but wouldn't you say that their literalness would most naturally evolve into what we find the Roman/Eastern understanding?


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## au5t1n

You could say that for Christ's own words too, couldn't you? In my reading it hasn't seemed to me that they thought about the exact meaning of Christ's words much. They just did what they were told to do. Those were simpler times.

It's worth noting that the Church doesn't usually get specific in what is meant by different doctrines until someone rises up and promotes a false view. That's why the first two centuries of Christianity emphasized the humanity of Christ - they were dealing with Gnostics. When the fourth century came around, they had Arians and other non-Trinitarians to deal with, so the Trinity was thoroughly discussed and explained during that period. No one ever accused us of not responding to our critics.


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## steadfast7

Very good points. Our culture and context will tend to determine what theology we need to focus on. And, it will also influence the way we read texts. Re. eucharist, we are less inclined in our day to conceive of the elements as the literal body and blood, but I don't think they were simpletons who merely repeated words without thinking of the theology and substance of what they were ingesting. I think there are indicators that quite a many fathers did view it in this literal way. for example, the liturgy and the seriousness with which they viewed the ceremony. They were certainly not Zwinglian in their understanding.

this brings up the question, with relevance to your thread on early christian worship,
Should we do things precisely the way the earliest Christians did them? Are there not large gaps in culture and time that should be considered?


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## au5t1n

steadfast7 said:


> this brings up the question, with relevance to your thread on early christian worship,
> Should we do things precisely the way the earliest Christians did them? Are there not large gaps in culture and time that should be considered?



Good question. The Regulative Principle would dictate that we practice whatever elements were instituted in Scripture. Patristic writings are helpful in that if we see something in their writings that contradicts our practice, it should spark us to go back to Scripture and see if our view and practice really comes from Scripture or from our own culture. One issue where this might be relevant would be instruments in church, which I've been thinking about lately. If we see that the early church didn't use them, it should prompt us to go back to Scripture and see if our own practice derives from Scripture or from our culture. So the early church forces us to examine ourselves, whether you end up concluding they were right or wrong on a given issue. (But let's not discuss that particular example here - PM me if you want to talk about it).

I'll see if I can find something from them on the Lord's supper that's definitively Catholic, Lutheran, Zwinglian, Reformed, or whatever it may be.

-----Added 11/24/2009 at 07:06:03 EST-----

Here's an exercise that might be profitable. See if you can find me an early church father quote that _contradicts_ the Reformed understanding. It might be harder than you think.

-----Added 11/24/2009 at 07:09:25 EST-----

This is definitely not transubstantiation:



> "Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, 'This is my body,' that is, the figure of my body."
> -Tertullian, _Against Marcion_


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## steadfast7

brother, you're making me do work? sigh..



> Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 6, 110 A.D.:
> 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.





> St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans, 7, 110 A.D.:
> I desire the Bread of God, the heavenly Bread, the Bread of Life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; I wish the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.





> Justin Martyr, Apology, I.66-67, 2nd century:
> Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ
> 
> It is allowed to no one else to participate in that food which we call Eucharist except the one who believes that the things taught by us are true, who has been cleansed in the washing unto rebirth and the forgiveness of sins and who is living according to the way Christ handed on to us. For we do not take these things as ordinary bread or ordinary drink. Just as our Savior Jesus Christ was made flesh by the word of God and took on flesh and blood for our salvation, so also were we taught that the food, for which thanksgiving has been made through the word of prayer instituted by him, and from which our blood and flesh are nourished after the change, is the flesh of that Jesus who was made flesh. Indeed, the Apostles, in the records left by them which are called gospels, handed on that it was commanded to them in this manner: Jesus, having taken bread and given thanks said, ``Do this in memory of me, this is my body.'' Likewise, having taken the cup and given thanks, he said, ``This is my blood'', and he gave it to them alone.



more examples here.Quotations on the Holy Eucharist


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## au5t1n

Quote 1: This is a reference to the gnostic heresy, which denies that Jesus took on real flesh. Those who deny his flesh are gnostics, not Zwinglians. You have to read it in context.

2 and 3 do not contradict the Reformed view. 2 is just echoing John 6.


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## DTK

One cannot assume by Ignatius' use of the words "flesh" and "blood" that he is speaking of a corporeal presence, for elsewhere he uses the same words in the following way...

*Ignatius (@ 110 AD): *You, therefore, must arm yourselves with gentleness and regain your strength in faith (which is the flesh of the Lord) and in love (which is the blood of Jesus Christ). See J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, eds. and trans., _The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their Writings_, 2nd. ed., _The Letters of Ignatius, To the Trallians_, Chapter 8 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 163.
*Greek text: *Ὑμεῖς οὖν τὴν πραϋπάθειαν ἀναλαβόντες ἀνακτίσασθε ἑαυτοὺς ἐν πίστει, ὅ ἐστιν σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ὅ ἐστιν αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. See J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, eds. and trans., _The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their Writings_, 2nd. ed., _The Letters of Ignatius, To the Trallians_, Chapter 8 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 162. Cf. also _Epistola ad Trallianos_, Caput VIII, PG 5:681. 


DTK


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## johnbugay

*Why Ignatius talks about "flesh and blood"*

James White has also given an examination of what Ignatius actually said.

1. YouTube - Ignatius of Antioch: Who Reads Him in Context?

2. YouTube - Ignatius of Antioch: Who Reads Him in Context? (#2)

3. YouTube - Ignatius of Antioch: Who Reads Him in Context? (#3)

4. YouTube - Ignatius of Antioch: Who Reads Him in Context? (#4)

5. YouTube - Ignatius of Antioch: Who Reads Him in Context? (Final)

There is probably about 30 minutes of instruction here, but it is very instructive. It's not the kind of thing you'd hear a Catholic talking about. And as you might imagine, it is more heavily dependent on both text and context.


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## Bengibor

Steadfast, check this out also. It contains patristic comments on St.John 6 which Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox often quote in support of their views. It is obvious to me that the understanding of the early church was pretty different compared to the current position of RCC and EOC . 


"If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,' says Christ, 'and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.' This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; *it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.*" - Augustine (On Christian Doctrine, 3:16:24)


"Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: 'Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood,' describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,--of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle." - Clement of Alexandria (The Instructor, 1:6)


"He says, it is true, that 'the flesh profiteth nothing;' but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, 'It is the spirit that quickeneth;' and then added, 'The flesh profiteth nothing,'--meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: 'The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' In a like sense He had previously said: 'He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.' Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith. Now, just before the passage in hand, He had declared His flesh to be 'the bread which cometh down from heaven,' impressing on His hearers constantly under the figure of necessary food the memory of their forefathers, who had preferred the bread and flesh of Egypt to their divine calling." - Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 37)


"'He that eateth me,' He says, 'he also shall live because of me;' for we eat His flesh, and drink His blood, being made through His incarnation and His visible life partakers of His Word and of His Wisdom. For all His mystic sojourn among us He called flesh and blood, and set forth the teaching consisting of practical science, of physics, and of theology, whereby our soul is nourished and is meanwhile trained for the contemplation of actual realities. This is perhaps the intended meaning of what He says." - Basil (Letter 8:4)

"You know that in ordinary parlance we often say, when Easter is approaching, 'Tomorrow or the day after is the Lord's Passion,' although He suffered so many years ago, and His passion was endured once for all time. In like manner, on Easter Sunday, we say, 'This day the Lord rose from the dead,' although so many years have passed since His resurrection. But no one is so foolish as to accuse us of falsehood when we use these phrases, for this reason, that we give such names to these days on the ground of a likeness between them and the days on which the events referred to actually transpired, the day being called the day of that event, although it is not the very day on which the event took place, but one corresponding to it by the revolution of the same time of the year, and the event itself being said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place long before, it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? and yet, is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true? For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ's body is Christ's body, and the sacrament of Christ's blood is Christ's blood,' in the same manner the sacrament of faith is faith." (Letter 98:9)


"But He instructed them, and saith unto them, 'It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth."-Augustine (Expositions on the Psalms, 99:8)


"It may be also understood in this way: 'The poor ye will have always with you, but me ye will not have always.' The good may take it also as addressed to themselves, but not so as to be any source of anxiety; for He was speaking of His bodily presence. For in respect of His majesty, His providence, His ineffable and invisible grace, His own words are fulfilled, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.' But in respect of the flesh He assumed as the Word, in respect of that which He was as the son of the Virgin, of that wherein He was seized by the Jews, nailed to the tree, let down from the cross, enveloped in a shroud, laid in the sepulchre, and manifested in His resurrection, 'ye will not have Him always.' And why? Because in respect of His bodily presence He associated for forty days with His disciples, and then, having brought them forth for the purpose of beholding and not of following Him, He ascended into heaven and is no longer here. He is there, indeed, sitting at the right hand of the Father; and He is here also, having never withdrawn the presence of His glory. In other words, in respect of His divine presence we always have Christ; in respect of His presence in the flesh it was rightly said to the disciples, 'Me ye will not have always.' In this respect the Church enjoyed His presence only for a few days: now it possesses Him by faith, without seeing Him with the eyes."-Augustine (Lectures on the Gospel of John, 50:13)

-----Added 11/25/2009 at 04:57:50 EST-----

Not all fathers were in consensus about the Eucharist though. Already with St.John Chrysostom we can find that he truly considers Eucharist as a true propitiatory sacrifice to be offered even for the dead to appease God. And as time passed by and as spirituality decreased and mysticism and ritualism prevailed you can find more and more leaning towards RCC and EOC position. 
Anyway, the fact is that the Church in the first 400 years was decisively (in large majority) in the favour of Anglican/Reformed view of the Eucharist.


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## steadfast7

The key to the Patristic understanding of eucharist lies in the widely accepted theory that the elements of the bread and wine were actually _transformed _into the flesh and blood of Christ, after the invocation of the epiclesis. Although they did not use the word 'transubstantiantion', they did employ words such as 'transform' (_metabebeitai_), 'transelement' (_metastoicheiosas_) and 'convert' (_metabellein_). This concept was the precursor to the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation which essentially held that the elements were being mysteriously, but substantively, changed into another composition.

Athanasius writes,


> You will see the levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers and invocations have not been made, it is mere bread and a mere cup. But when the great and wondrous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the body and the cup the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Catechism 22,1).



The later Eastern fathers took this view to the fullest. According to JND Kelly,


> "Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the priest calling down the divine Word and, using his voice as a knife, cleaving asunder the Saviour's body and blood."



John Chrysostom goes to the fullest extent when


> "he speaks of eating Christ, even of one burying one's teeth in His flesh. The wine in the chalice is identically that which flowed from His pierced side, the body which the communicant receives is identically that which was scourged and nailed to the cross"


(Kelly, citing from 1 Cor. hom. 24, 1-4)

This should be distinguished from the Reformed view of the eucharist. It is arguable who went further in their theology, Calvin or Luther. From my understanding, Luther held that the physical presence of Christ was somehow embedded in the elements, within and under the bread and wine, but the bread and wine did not change. Calvin envisioned the church being transported by the Spirit into heaven in order to spiritually partake of the risen Christ. Whatever the case, the Reformers resisted from attributing any change in the substance of the bread and wine, which they believed would lead to idolatry. 

Perhaps not all patristic references used the same words in the same way, certainly Tertullian, Clement, Cyril of Jerusalem and even Augustine at times could concede of a figurative sense of the flesh and blood. However, there was a variegatedness in the patristic understanding of the eurcharistic rite, and Kelly points out that there was much momentum behind the corporeal interpretation.


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## a mere housewife

Those are wonderful quotes, Mr. Martinovic. I especially loved the one by Tertullian. Thank you.


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