Does the Eucharist stop remaining bread?

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I am willing to stand corrected if you can produce your sources.

My small point is that there was no agreed, mainstream or particularly concerned teaching on this point until the age of the scholastics and the use of Aristotelian philosophy.
 
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Catholics know that they become the Body, Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus.

They are no symbol, they are the real thing.
 
I can’t find the article right now, but remember reading an excellent explanation of transubstantiation involving string theory, and entanglement through the laying on of hands. It explained how the laying on of hands causes a change in the bishops and thereby the priests, so they can confect the Eucharist, and also how the Eucharist changes us, what the Orthodox call Divinization. It all sounds pretty reasonable to me, though the details are over my head. But our notion of reality is pretty simplistic still; there are more things in heaven and earth . . .
 
I am not sure what you are saying “no” to.
What do you understand my argument to be?
 
BlackFriar said:
I am willing to stand corrected if you can produce your sources.

My small point is that there was no agreed, mainstream or particularly concerned teaching on this point until the age of the scholastics and the use of Aristotelian philosophy.
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Nonsense.

There is a 1,000+ year history, UNDISPUTED that the Church has understood that the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and ceases to be bread before the re-discovery of Aristotle (roughly 12th century AD)

The vocabulary of Artisotle (ie accidents & substance) was not used for the first 1,000 years. The “teaching” (to use the word you chose) was absolutely there. Your claim that it was not there is just nonsense.

As I said in my first post, read St Justin the Martyr who clearly tells us that the belief of the earliest Christians was that the bread is no longer bread but is only the Body of Christ. The entire history of Christianity from the Apostles until the time when Aristotelean vocabulary was adopted records this understanding of the Eucharist.

Your claim that the teaching was not there only expresses your own lack of any knowledge about the first ten to thirteen centuries of Christianity.

You are confusing the point that the vocabulary was not-yet-there with the point that the teaching was not-yet-there.

The doctrine pre-dates the vocabulary. You seem to think it the opposite.
 
I am simply asking you to provide a scholarly article/commentary on the text in question.
My history degree studies of many years ago, from memory, revealed much scholarly disagreement over the meaning of such texts.
 
FrDavid96 said:
There is a 1,000+ year history, UNDISPUTED that the Church has understood that the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and ceases to be bread before the re-discovery of Aristotle (roughly 12th century AD)

The vocabulary of Artisotle (ie accidents & substance) was not used for the first 1,000 years. The “teaching” (to use the word you chose) was absolutely there. Your claim that it was not there is just nonsense.
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Actually it is not nonsense. According to Historian Phillip Schaff “there were three distinct views on the Eucharist in the ante-Nicene period. The mystic view, the symbolic view, and the allegorical or spiritualistic view. In the Nicene period and post-Nicene period the first view (mystic view) preponderated, but the second view (symbolic) also was represented by considerable authorities”

He says that “the church fathers may be said to agree in the belief of the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But the kind and mode of this presence are not yet particularly defined, and admit very different views: Christ may be conceived as really present in and with the elements (con-substantiation, impanation), or under the illusive appearance of the changed elements (transubstantiation) or only dynamically and spiritually (Calvinistic)”.

He then goes on to explain the difference and tell which Church Fathers held which view.

You can read his text here. Starting with Article III You will have to scroll down a little.

Edit: Here is a better link

A quote this was shocking to me was from Pope Gelasius I.

“The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which we receive, is a divine thing, because by it we are made partakers of the divine-nature. Yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine does not cease. And assuredly the image and the similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the performance of the mysteries.”

The point of this post is that there were a variety of views on “How Christ is present” in the Eucharist from the earliest church fathers up until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215. It is also true that just because the church declared something as doctrine doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone agreed with the council. At any rate, the Calvinist view that the Bread and Wine Spiritually and Symbolically represent the Body and Blood of Christ was not a new or novel doctrine and the Lutheran view of Consubstantiation also was not a new or novel doctrine.
 
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lanman87 said:
He says that “the church fathers may be said to agree in the belief of the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But the kind and mode of this presence are not yet particularly defined, and admit very different views: Christ may be conceived as really present in and with the elements (con-substantiation, impanation), or under the illusive appearance of the changed elements (transubstantiation) or only dynamically and spiritually (Calvinistic)”.
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Wow! that is certainly looking at things through a Protestant lens.
 
  1. He called Himself the True Vine. As the branches dwell in the cine, and are one with the vine, So we dwell in Him, and He makes us one with Himself.
  2. Did he ever take a vine and say “This is me”?
  3. He also said “I am the Way the Truth and the Life.”
    Was that merely symbolic too?
 
Bootsy said:
I am sorry but Jesus did not want us to be Cannabals. You are welcome to think it’s ok to eat flesh and drink blood, but I never believed that as a Catholic. Obviously it is a symbol.
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John 6:51-57
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.
53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
57 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
[57 – eateth = trogon = chewing or gnawing]
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If Jesus didn’t mean it or it was misunderstood, or it was a symbol he would have corrected the misunderstanding when they said “This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?”
Instead, he continues to further reiterate the “hard saying”:
John 6:58-71
58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."
59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caperna-um.
60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
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At this point, people are so outraged that they are leaving. If Jesus just meant this as a symbol, why would he let them leave over a simple misunderstanding?
67 Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
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Jesus was willing to let everyone walk away, including the 12, over this one teaching because it is truth. Many could not accept it, but we as Christians are called to believe just as the the few who stayed with Him did, for He “has the words of eternal life.”
 
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If it was just a symbol, than why would St. Paul write:
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
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Why would you “eat and drink judgment/condemnation upon himself” if it was just a symbolic piece of bread and sip of wine? Didn’t Jesus say:
Matthew 12:3-6
3 He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him:
4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5 Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless?
6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.
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Matthew 15:17-20
17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on?
18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
20 These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."
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So what makes this “symbolic” bread so special that the unworthy partaking of it results in judgement?

If this is not the teaching handed down by the Apostles, then why were early martyrs willing to die for it? Why would Roman citizens be willing to be associated with a persecuted sect that was accused of cannibalism, poor citizenship, disrespecting pagan gods, and who were routinely tortured and executed?

Why do we have saints like St. Tarcisius who would allow themselves to be beat to death over a piece of “symbolic” bread?
 
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Why would Justin Martyr, who would eventually be beheaded, write:
"And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined.

For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." - (First Apology, 66) [155-157AD]
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Why would a piece of “symbolic” bread be limited to only those deemed worthy? Because once it is blessed by the prayer of His word, it “is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”

The blood of the martyrs cries out to us to profess the truth of the Real Presence.
 
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so as Catholics the belief is that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, yet there is no material transformation, bread doesn’t turn into human flesh, wine doesn’t turn into human blood , that a scientist can take an put under a microscope examine and confirm that what one is seeing and tasting is indeed human flesh and human blood.

Plenty of convoluted theological books have been written on transubstantiation, it is probably better to purchase and study said books than to just get the glossy eyed isn’t it wonderful answers you will find here.

Only thing I can actually figure out is if bread and wine do not actually become human flesh and human blood under the microscope, then it only makes sense that Jesus turned his physical flesh and blood into bread and wine into which could become some kind of true spiritual interpretation of the physical form and then knowing people are not going to want to actually consume human flesh and blood it only makes sense to have it be actual bread and wine .

An then one has to figure out what the physical benefits are when the digestive process is about 15 minutes, well, there are no physical benefits, it isn’t like humanity is given something like regenative powers or the ability to stop baldness or some kind of super human powers. The benefits are only spiritual while the physical benefits are really only a moral booster.

If this helps anyone not lose their cookies, I am not coming back to this thread , i was just responding to the poster, the real point being to go buy a book an study, if it makes whom ever to declare i am so sort of unbeliever, blaspheming, heretic, do so to your hearts content. An I only hope it makes one feel better after doing so. An don’t pretend to know me cause ya don’t.
 
It will retain the accidents (appearance, taste, etc.) of bread and wine, but its entire substance will be Jesus.
 
lanman87 said:
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The point of this post is that there were a variety of views on “How Christ is present” in the Eucharist from the earliest church fathers up until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215. It is also true that just because the church declared something as doctrine doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone agreed with the council. At any rate, the Calvinist view that the Bread and Wine Spiritually and Symbolically represent the Body and Blood of Christ was not a new or novel doctrine and the Lutheran view of Consubstantiation also was not a new or novel doctrine.
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The article is a Protestant attempt to justify their own diversity of opinions.

That particular way of translating Pope Gelasius words specifically uses the Thomistic vocabulary (as we now use it in modern English—substance) yet reverses their meaning. It is a Protestant translation

A more accurate translation would be that Pope Gelasius said “the accidents do not cease…” because when he used the word “substance” (Greek “ousia” or “ousios”) he actually meant “how it appears to the senses”

Yes, the Latin word can be legitimately translated as “substance” (substantia) HOWEVER that does not mean that Gelasius in the 5th century was using the word the same way that Aquinas was using it in the 13th century (the classic Thomistic “accidents & substance”)

Also, Pope Gelasius was not writing about the Eucharist. He was writing about the Incarnation (against Eutyches and Nestorius).

In brief: the quote from Pope Gelasius is not what it might seem to be at first glance.
 
Unfortunately most English speakers don’t know what you just said actually means - apart from being an endlessly repeated mantra.

In English it simply does not make sense to say the bread is no longer present.
It clearly is still present just as it always was and as it always will be.

As was my original small observation. English speakers unconsciously define “present” and “real” by abiding sensible and functional capabilities. These sensible functional capabilities of the bread obviously still remain.

Therefore, for such an Englishman, the bread is still “present”.
Noone’s denying the Catholic teaching here (at least not Catholics).
What I do observe is the way it is presented in English is illogical given the above understanding of the words “real” and “present” for most English speakers.

Trent’s theology was declared in a Latin, not English.

Catholics of past times did not have to accept both a mystery and an illogicality on pure faith.
They only had to accept a mystery.
 
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