Susanlo,
You are confusing Augustine’s reference to the action of eating, which action is figurative in its physical nature, with a notion, that he does not ascribe to, that is, that the elements of the Eucharist are themselves figurative.
The vice is the physical eating of a body. However, we eat sacramentally, not physically. But that doesn’t preclude the fact that the elements are substantially (although not physical, ie, with characteristics that can be measured physically) our Lord’s Body and Blood.
The sign is bread and wine. The reality behind it is our Lord’s Body and Bood.
From Augustine’s Tractate 27, paragraph 11, on John6, v60-72 below, we can clearly see Augustine believed that indeed the Bread and Wine become our Lord’s Body and Blood.
peace
steve
I had not read these tractates before. They are interesting and I think that they confirm Augustine’s belief in a spiritual presence with the Eucharist. Here is the paragraph that quote is from:
“11. All this that the Lord spoke concerning His flesh and blood;— and in the grace of that distribution He promised us eternal life, and that** He meant those that eat His flesh and drink His blood to be understood, from the fact of their abiding in Him and He in them**; and that they understood not who believed not; and that they were offended through their understanding spiritual things in a carnal sense; and that, while these were offended and perished, the Lord was present for the consolation of the disciples who remained, for proving whom He asked, “Will ye also go away?” that the reply of their steadfastness might be known to us, for He knew that they remained with Him—let all this, then, avail us to this end, most beloved, that we eat not the flesh and blood of Christ merely in the sacrament, as many evil men do, but that we eat and drink to the participation of the Spirit, that we abide as members in the Lord’s body, to be quickened by His Spirit, and that we be not offended, even if many do now with us eat and drink the sacraments in a temporal manner, who shall in the end have eternal torments. For at present Christ’s body is as it were mixed on the threshing-floor: “But the Lord knows them that are His.” 2 Timothy 2:19 If you know what you thresh, that the substance is there hidden, that the threshing has not consumed what the winnowing has purged; certain are we, brethren, that all of us who are in the Lord’s body, and abide in Him, that He also may abide in us, have of necessity to live among evil men in this world even unto the end. I do not say among those evil men who blaspheme Christ; for there are now few found who blaspheme with the tongue, but many who do so by their life. Among those, then, we must necessarily live even unto the end.”
newadvent.org/fathers/1701027.htm
I don’t see anything that clearly depicts a physical transformation at all. I don’t see anything to show that his use of the term ‘flesh and blood of Christ’ was anything beyond a metaphor.
The tractate before this one is about John 6:41-59. It is very relevant to this topic.
newadvent.org/fathers/1701026.htm
He explains more about his belief in the spiritual significance of the Eucharist. This section offers a good summary:
“18. In a word, He now explains how that which He speaks of comes to pass, and what it is to eat His body and to drink His blood. “He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him.”
This it is, therefore, for a man to eat that meat and to drink that drink, to dwell in Christ, and to have Christ dwelling in him. Consequently, he that dwells not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwells not, doubtless neither eats His flesh [spiritually] nor drinks His blood [although he may press the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ carnally and visibly with his teeth], but rather does he eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing to his own judgment, because he, being unclean, has presumed to come to the sacraments of Christ, which no man takes worthily except he that is pure: of such it is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8”
He seems to put the significance of the Eucharist not in a physical transformation of the elements or in eating some sacrament in a carnal way, but by dwelling in Christ. I think it is a much deeper understanding than just something physical.
The New Advent article contains some explanation of Augustine’s understanding of the elements of the Eucharist. They try to retroactively weave transubstantiation into Augustine’s belief, but state that “for even Augustine was deprived of a clear conception of Transubstantiation, so long as he was held in the bonds of Platonism.”
newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm I am not aware of many (if any) scholars who claim that Augustine believed in the concepts that came to be part of the doctrine of transubstantiation. If a “Saint” in the church was not able to fully understand and believe in transubstantiation, I don’t know why it is necessary for a Christian today to believe in transubstantiation.
) they haven’t got the insights of those who were discipled by the apostles. It just doesn’t work very well…
