Paul says that what he told the Corinthian Church is what he was told by Jesus, personally. Obviously Jesus didn’t connect John 6, and the bread of life discourse to the Eucharist when He revealed it to Paul (cf 1 Cor 11:23-26).
I stated the criterion: an expectation.
Why should Justin, writing to pagans in the 2nd Century, cater to the expectations of a Christian of the 21st Century who rejects the Doctrine of the Real Presence despite the fact that it was and is the constant teaching of the Church for over 2000 years? You cannot say what Jesus did or did not tell Paul. Paul told the Corinthians what they needed to hear to correct their improper practice of the celebration of the Eucharist. And, he did so,
by stressing that it was a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ on the Cross. That says to me, and to every Christian throughout history (with the minimal except of Protestants in the last 3-5 centuries who make up the minority of Christendom and who have no Apostolic Succession), exactly the same thing that the Church says and that Christ said in John 6.
You said earlier that you thought Justin should’ve been more explicit and trusted God to protect him from the authorities. I say,
who are you to doubt the courage of a martyr!!! Have you offered your body to be scourged brutally for Christ to the point of death? I don’t think so. Justin said exactly as he needed to for the audience that he was appealing to - pagans who already believed that Christians were cannibals.
You are not his intended audience. You come at his writing with the exact opposite presupposition. He did not cater to you, and he need not. He knew that they assumed that we ate flesh and drank blood, so he explained that we do believe exactly that, but that what we eat and drink still
appears as bread and wine. You, on the other hand, assume that we eat bread and wine and that it’s merely something Christ gave us to “remember” Him, vaguely, despite eating and drinking having no connection, in your mind, with His Passion and Death. Justin has
far more courage and faith in God than you do, since you do not even have the faith to say with Peter, “Where shall we go, Lord? You have the words of everlasting life.” You, rather, leave disgusted by the discourse in John 6 because you cannot believe Christ’s clear words to be True.
Tiberius1701 says Justin had John’s Gospel in post #34 above.
I said no such thing. I said his mention of the Gospels being read in Mass could be understood as including John’s, since it is, obviously, a Gospel. I stating nothing definitive about whether or not Justin had access to it specifically. You
assume that I said he had it because you likewise wrongly assume that that would somehow help you to deny the Real Presence, just as you assume that the Eucharist is nothing more than a snack with no metaphysical relevance to salvation, despite the fact that Christ Himself said, “Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you have no life in you.” If it’s not His Flesh or His Blood, how can you claim to have life in you, WHC?
I’m not assuming anything about Paul. I’m pointing out that Paul delivered to the Corinthians what the Lord delivered to him. It’s all there in 1 Cor 11:23ff.
Actually, yes you are. See above. You assume, because, as an English speaking Protestant, you read “Do this in memory of Me,” thinking, “He just wants us to think of Him fondly when we eat and drink this ordinary food.” That is an assumption, and a horribly wrong one at that. The Greek there is,
anamnesis. This means something far, far more real, and more supernatural than mere memory, and something far deeper, even, than participation, though that, at least,
begins to suggest what it means, unlike “memory.”
Anamnesis the Greek word used by the 1st Century Jews to describe their understanding of what happens during every Passover meal each year (the meal, providentially, at which Christ initiated the Eucharist). When they celebrate the Passover - even to this day - they believe that they are truly, really, substantially present at all the major events throughout salvation history. To borrow terminology from Star Trek, God creates a space-time wormhole connecting the Passover Sader with the First Passover in Egypt, when a perfect lamb was slain and his blood was splashed on the doorposts of every Israelite household to save them from the angel of death, as well as to the wandering in the desert when manna was sent down from heaven to feed them and give them life for the journey to the promised land. When Christ said, “This is My Body,” and, “This is My Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant,” He meant exactly that. This
is His Body and His Blood, because He was adding another wormhole to the
anamnesis of the Passover. A link
forward to the very next night, when His Flesh would be given up for the life of the world. When they ate that bread and drank that cup, they
literally ate and drank the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb that was Slain, because even those who would desert Him that night were there at the foot of the cross through the power of God Almighty acting in the
anamnesis of the Passover Supper in the Upper Room. And from thence forth, after the Passion was complete, the Mass became the new Passover Supper, maintaining those same wormholes to the same points in salvation history, as well as to the Eternal Worship in the Throne Room of God in Heaven.
That is what Paul means when he says “the cup that we drink, is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ?”
The New Covenant is not an abolishment of the Old, it is the fulfillment of it. So if you wish to understand it as Christ intends, you must first understand the Old from the lens of Judaism.
