SirShaun:
Regardless of what they thought, whether they thought it became truly human flesh and blood or was entirely a symbol, I doubt I’ll find a statement to the extreme among the Church fathers, because which ever they thought, they thought the other extreme was foolish to the point of not being worth mentioning.
Looks like I was wrong. I did find statements to the extreem. Part of what took me so long on this one was I’d been sure I’d read somewhere where Augustine defended a more literal interpretation of communion, and expected that to put him amongst the non-secure sources on this. But, alas, I couldn’t find whatever I thought I read before (though, I’ll admit, I haven’t re-read all of his sermons or all of his books and letters, just those places I thought he’d delt with this.)
I was also a little put off by the fact that my sources go so far to the extreem opposite, making it figurative and not literal at all. As someone who’s undecided, and trying to stay that way, something that extreem to the other end and from such reliable sources is a little unnerving. For reference, both of these quotes go much further than I would.
And Augustine, beside the quote mentioned before, Chapter 9 of the same work (Chritian Doctrine) reads as follows:
Now he is in bondage to a sign who uses, or pays homage to, any significant object without knowing what it signifies: he, on the other hand, who either uses or honors a useful sign divinely appointed, whose force and significance he understands, does not honor the sign which is seen and temporal, but that to which all such signs refer. Now such a man is spiritual and free even at the time of his bondage, when it is not yet expedient to reveal to carnal minds those signs by subjection to which their carnality is to be overcome. To this class of spiritual persons belonged the patriarchs and the prophets, and all those among the people of Israel through whose instrumentality the Holy Spirit ministered unto us the aids and consolations of the Scriptures. But at the present time, after that the proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the resurrection of our Lord, we are not oppressed with the heavy burden of attending even to those signs which we now understand, but our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many, and these at once very easy to perform, most majestic in their significance, and most sacred in the observance; such, for example, as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. And as soon as any one looks upon these observances he knows to what they refer, and so reveres them not in carnal bondage, but in spiritual freedom. Now, as to follow the letter, and to take signs for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error. He, however, who does not understand what a sign signifies, but yet knows that it is a sign, is not in bondage. And it is better even to be in bondage to unknown but useful signs than, by interpreting them wrongly, to draw the neck from under the yoke of bondage only to insert it in the coils of error.
Tertullian said in Against Marcion Book IV, “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. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body.”
Now, the substance of the challenge was, I believe, to find evedence in the Early Church that my beliefs were around then. I think that to disprove me on these points would take a bit at this point: you would not only have to show that there were people who held to the oposite of my beliefs (That Mary was concieved without sin, that the Bishop of Rome was infallible, and that the concicrated bread was no longer bread) but also that the authors I cited were condemned for teaching otherwise by their contemporaries. Showing only that the oposing view was taught becomes a game of Your Father vs. My Father, and since we all agree none of them were infallible, that’s a pointless debate. But for now, I leave the ball in your court, and anticipate an answer. As I think I stated before, I’m not here to correct, I’m here to learn.
