During the last couple of months, my personal studies have focused on the Eucharist and liturgy. After publishing three posts on the Eucharist, I have been pondering over what my next post should be. Last Wednesday, in the combox of the previous AF thread (link), Ian Miller suggested to me that I, "could look at his [Kauffman’s] claims about the tithe being the sacrifice, or how some Fathers (Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian for instance) use the word 'symbol.'"
There is no question that some of the Church Fathers spoke of the Eucharist as a sign/symbol. This fact has led some anti-Catholic apologists to conclude that the CFs who employed such terminology to describe the Eucharist believed the Eucharist was ONLY a sign/symbol; and as such, did not believe in the real, substantial presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. This understanding is an all too common misreading of the CFs by anti-Catholic polemicists.
Last year, this issue was competently addressed by Tim Staples (link to bio) in a contribution published by Catholic Answers (link)—from Tim’s “Is the Eucharist a Symbol, or Is It Real?” we read:
In the introduction to his classic Catholic Catechism, Fr. John Hardon describes well the perennial challenge of the Catholic Church to strike a balance between the manifold and false “either/or” propositions that constitute the great heresies and errors of Church history and what Fr. Hardon called the truth of “the eternal and.” For example, the pantheist says the universe consists of God alone. The material is mere illusion. The materialist says it is all and only matter. The truth is, it’s both. The Protestant says we are saved by “faith alone”; the various Pelagian sects say it is by “works alone.” The truth is, it’s both. The Monophysite says Jesus is God alone; the Arian (or the Jehovah’s Witness today) says he is man alone. The truth is, he’s both. The list could go on and on.
So it is with the Eucharist. For many, there are only two options. Either it is a symbol or it is Jesus. I know this was my thinking when I was Protestant. “When Jesus says, ‘This is my body,’ or ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man,’ it is obvious he is speaking symbolically,” I would say. “Bread and wine were to nature what Jesus Christ is to our super-nature. Bread and wine are obviously excellent symbols of Jesus Christ.” In my mind as a Protestant, if I could show communion to be symbolic, I had proved my point. The idea of “both/and” was never even a consideration.
In the rest of his treatment, Tim goes on to prove that the correct reading of the Church Fathers concerning the Eucharist is NOT an ‘either or proposition’, but a ‘both/and' one; the Eucharist is a sign/symbol and truly is what it symbolizes—i.e. the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
In an older online posting (link), Joe Heschmeyer focuses on Tertullian’s reflections concerning the Eucharist. Before delving into Tertullian’s affirmations of the real presence, Joe writes:
When Protestants talk about Sacraments being symbolic, they typically mean that they’re only symbols. And of course, as Catholics, we think that’s false. But we don’t deny that the Sacraments are symbols.
Joe proceeds to point out that all the sacraments are "efficacious signs of grace", and then writes:
So we can readily affirm that the Eucharist is both a symbol and the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus could have consecrated something else: say, a melon. But He didn’t. He chose bread and wine...
In section "II. Tertullian on the Real Presence", Joe provides selections from Tertullian's corpus that demonstrate he clearly believed in the Real Presence. He summarizes those quotes with the following:
1. Marcion denied that Christ had a true Body of Flesh and Blood. If that were true, then we would have to believe that the Eucharist was just bread, and that Christ on the Cross was just bread.
2. He says that Christ explained exactly what He meant by “Bread” when He described it as His Body. According to Tertullian, the question now is why Christ referred to His Body as “Bread,” rather than something else (like a melon). He answers this by saying that Christ’s Body is referred to throughout Scripture as Bread.
3. He quotes a passage from the Septuagint version of Jeremiah to show that Christ’s Crucified Body is rightly called “Bread.”
4. The Eucharistic Bread and Wine affirm the reality of Christ’s Flesh, since He couldn’t give us His Body or Blood if He didn’t have actual Flesh. Christ’s Flesh, in turn, proves that He had a true Body.
5. Christ consecrates the wine, fulfilling the Old Testament typology.
Tertullian’s understanding of the Eucharist is the same as
the official teaching of the RCC; the Eucharist truly is what it
symbolizes—i.e. the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Shall conclude this post with links to Joe Heschmeyer’s three compilations of quotes from the CFs on the Eucharist:
Very Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist - LINK
Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist (c. 200 – c. 300 A.D.) - LINK
Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist (c. 300 – 400 A.D.) – LINK
Grace and peace,
David
5 comments:
Hey, David!
I’ve really been enjoying your posts. Please, keep them coming!
Hi David,
The first reading for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time has some commentary that seems to correspond with some of what you are trying to here. Our reading for this Sunday is taken from 2 Kings (or fourth) 4:42-44. It is an episode where the prophet Elisha is approached by a man bringing twenty barley loaves to the prophet Elisha where he has been followed by the men who were at the Jordan River when he received Elijah's mantle. I think the inspired writer is showing us how Elisha also received a "double portion" of the spirit of Elijah, in recounting a variety of miracles.
"And he said: Give to the people, that they may eat. And his servant answered him: How much is this, that I should set it before a hundred men? He said again: Give to the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord: They shall eat, and there shall be left. So he set it before them: and they ate, and there was left according to the word of the Lord."
It seems interesting to me that rather than the fifty sons of the prophets that followed Elijah, it seems possible, that Elisha's followers have doubled. This is the context. Following is part of a commentary that you and your readers might find helpful:
"Miracles are rare, and meant to be rare. But their point is not material but spiritual. They are words, communications from God, designed to teach us something. One of the Greek words translated 'miracle' in the New Testament is semeion which means 'sign'. Miracles are signs. Signs are teaching devices. Like pointing fingers, they call attention to something more important than themselves. We are supposed to look along signs to the things they point to, not just sit and stare at the sign, like a dumb dog staring at the finger that's pointing to his food."
-Food For the Soul, Reflections on the Mass Readings, Cycle B, Peter Kreeft, published by Word on Fire (2023), p. 598
The commentator then speaks about how the material creation itself is a sign, or symbol, which we should not understand as an end in itself. The life-giving food for our bodies, if understood correctly as a sign, is pointing not to itself and the natural life it brings to the body, but to a higher order of food. Food that nourishes the body points to supernatural food that gives life life to the soul.
Continuing now with the commentary:
"...remember the passage in the Gospels when Jesus' disciples urge him to eat. and Jesus says, 'I have food to eat of which you do not know.' The disciples expect physical bread, but Jesus says, 'My food is to do the will of the one who sent me.' He brings them up short by telling them that it really is bread; it is bread indeed (see John 4:32-34). In other words, soul food is real food; its the stuff we eat with out bodies that is only a symbol of that, not vice versa. God created the physical world to symbolize and teach us about the spiritual world, not vice versa.
So Jesus is our true bread; the bread we eat is only a symbol of that. The bread of life, the Eucharist, is not symbolic; baker's bread is symbolic...The physical miracle, like the whole physical world, points beyond itself..."
---ibid pp. 600, 601 (italics are from the author in both quotations)
I was given this book by a friend at work who knew that I was new in attending the Novus Ordo liturgy. This was the first passage I read! The following morning I read your post, Dave. I hope the commentary sheds some light on the way we are to understand how early and modern Christians might be easily misunderstood when they are speaking of signs and symbols. Immediately above, when he says that the Eucharist is NOT symbolic, but the bread IS symbolic, he means that the Eucharist is not a sign pointing beyond Itself, but in the Mass the appearance (or accidents) of bread and wine are most fitting symbols of our super-substantial Bread of Life, the true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Rory
Hi Noah,
Thanks much for letting me know that you are finding some value in my posts.
On a side note, I really enjoy watching the Olympic games, and shall been spending too many hours over the next couple of weeks taking in the sports I like. (In my defense it is only every two years.)
Found the opening ceremonies to be a mixed bag, and greatly appreciated the reflections contained in the following post at:
Olympic Outrage and Toothless Christianity
Grace and peace,
David
Hi Rory,
Thanks for taking the time to write up your informative post; will be checking out the Peter Kreeft book you quoted from.
BTW, I have had a link in the AF side-bar to Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire website for a number of months now (HERE).
His July 23, 2024 article, “The Eucharistic Congress and the Primacy of the Supernatural” (LINK) is worth checking out.
Grace and peace,
David
Another excellent post concerning the Olympics opening ceremony:
The Catholic World Report - ‘Words cannot describe it’ Bishop urges ‘renewed zeal’ in face of ‘heinous’ Last Supper mockery at Olympics
Grace and peace,
David
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