Protestants: Why a Symbolic Eucharist?

[Metaron]

Dear Protestant bretheren, I have searched high and low, and I cannot find any theologian promulgating a symbolic view of the Eucharist, before the humanist Zwingli and a few Gnostics.

Could you answer the following questions for me?

(1) Please explain why the early Church and the Church Fathers, including the early ones, all accept a literal Real Presence and none accepted a “symbolic view”.

(2) Explain the passage from Irenaeus which says that the Gnostics were heretical because they didn’t believe in the Real Presence.

(3) Explain why many evangelicals and other Protestants accept the anti-sacramental memorialist view of the humanist Zwingli, as opposed to what the early Church apparently believed.

And please be charitable, Catholics and Protestants alike.

 

[Metaron]

Dear Protestant bretheren, I have searched high and low, and I cannot find any theologian promulgating a symbolic view of the Eucharist, before the humanist Zwingli and a few Gnostics.

Could you answer the following questions for me?

(1) Please explain why the early Church and the Church Fathers, including the early ones, all accept a literal Real Presence and none accepted a “symbolic view”.

(2) Explain the passage from Irenaeus which says that the Gnostics were heretical because they didn’t believe in the Real Presence.

(4) Explain why, if the view of the early Church were different then the Real Presence, all the ancient Churches, some of which never had contact for a thousand years (Mar Thoma Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church had no contact with Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism for many years) hold the same exact view on the Real Presence and other things like apostolic succession.

(3) Explain why many evangelicals and other Protestants accept the anti-sacramental memorialist view of the humanist Zwingli, as opposed to what the early Church apparently believed.

And please be charitable, Catholics and Protestants alike.

 

[bengal_fan]

Dear Protestant bretheren, I have searched high and low, and I cannot find any theologian promulgating a symbolic view of the Eucharist, before the humanist Zwingli and a few Gnostics.

you should look a little higher and lower then. they were there. not necessarily symbolic but definitely not transubstantiation. Ratramnus is one glaring example.

 

[justasking4]

Dear Protestant bretheren, I have searched high and low, and I cannot find any theologian promulgating a symbolic view of the Eucharist, before the humanist Zwingli and a few Gnostics.

Could you answer the following questions for me?

(1) Please explain why the early Church and the Church Fathers, including the early ones, all accept a literal Real Presence and none accepted a “symbolic view”.

(2) Explain the passage from Irenaeus which says that the Gnostics were heretical because they didn’t believe in the Real Presence.

(3) Explain why many evangelicals and other Protestants accept the anti-sacramental memorialist view of the humanist Zwingli, as opposed to what the early Church apparently believed.

And please be charitable, Catholics and Protestants alike.

Have you studied Augustine on this? Here is one quote that he had in regards to a literal view:
Augustine (Faustus 6.5): "while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority."

 

[bengal_fan]

(1) Please explain why the early Church and the Church Fathers, including the early ones, all accept a literal Real Presence and none accepted a “symbolic view”.

no reason to explain it. it was their view. although it cannot be assumed they would go along with transubstantiation and opposed to consubstantiation.

(2) Explain the passage from Irenaeus which says that the Gnostics were heretical because they didn’t believe in the Real Presence.

Irenaeus was right!

(3) Explain why many evangelicals and other Protestants accept the anti-sacramental memorialist view of the humanist Zwingli, as opposed to what the early Church apparently believed.
.

this is a tough one to explain considering most protestants hold to the theological views of calvin and luther but part from them on this issue. i hold to the catholic view on the eucharist/communion/lLord’s supper. i think the zwingli view has really taken off within protestantism because luther and calvin sounded too “catholic” in their view. it also could be because of the fear of an “invalid” priesthood (which i don’t hold to… this is where i will part with the catholic church on this issue) and not wanting to “admit” they don’t have the same communion the early church had. these are theories.

 

[LutheranDK]

Have you studied Augustine on this? Here is one quote that he had in regards to a literal view:
Augustine (Faustus 6.5): "while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority."

And where do you get the idea that your “bolded” part of the quotation was about Holy Communion?
That is not what I read here. When Augustine said “sacrifice”, he MEANT “sacrifice”, and not the Communion.

 

[justasking4]

And where do you get the idea that your “bolded” part of the quotation was about Holy Communion?
That is not what I read here. When Augustine said “sacrifice”, he MEANT “sacrifice”, and not the Communion.

We would have to read what Augustine in this work to determine that. Right now i don’t have access to the complete work.
That aside here is what church historian Philip Schaff says about the issue of the Eucharist in among the fathers in the early centuries:

“In both cases the conflict was between a materialistic and a spiritualistic conception of the sacrament and its effect. The one was based on a literal, the other on a figurative interpretation of the words of institution, and of the mysterious discourse in the sixth chapter of St. John. The contending parties agreed in the belief that Christ is present in the eucharist as the bread of life to believers; but they differed widely in their conception of the mode of that presence: the one held that Christ was literally and corporeally present and communicated to all communicants through the mouth; the other, that he was spiritually present and spiritually communicated to believers through faith. The transubstantiationists (if we may coin this term) believed that the eucharistic body of Christ was identical with his historical body, and was miraculously created by the priestly consecration of the elements in every sacrifice of the mass; their opponents denied this identity, and regarded the eucharistic body as a symbolical exhibition of his real body once sacrificed on the cross and now glorified in heaven, yet present to the believer with its life-giving virtue and saving power.
We find both these views among the ancient fathers. The realistic and mystical view fell in more easily with the excessive supernaturalism and superstitious piety of the middle age, and triumphed at last both in the Greek and Latin churches; for there is no material difference between them on this dogma.703 The spiritual theory was backed by the all-powerful authority of St. Augustin in the West, and ably advocated by Ratramnus and Berengar…”

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Have you studied Augustine on this? Here is one quote that he had in regards to a literal view:
Augustine (Faustus 6.5): "while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority."

**My goodness if your gonna quote a Catholic theologian, to discredit his own belief, then nobody should believe your quotations, none of them. I wont ask you to recant your statement referring St. Augustine referring to the Eucharist as symbolic. because that is not what he indicates. I would only ask you to read it again.

Your next quote please reference your source as to confirm your truth.**

I say this with peace

 

[Metaron]

you should look a little higher and lower then. they were there. not necessarily symbolic but definitely not transubstantiation. Ratramnus is one glaring example.

I said nothing about Transubstantiation. I said Real Presence. Both Ratramus and Radbertus both believed in that. Transubstantiation is just one way of looking at the Real Presence.

I guess I need to clarify: By “Protestants” in the OP, I meant all Protestants who believe in the Real Absence, or memorialist view of Zwingli instead of the Real Presence.

 

[justasking4]

Gabriel_of_12:
I say this with peace

i did give you the quote where this could be found–Faustus 6.5

 

[Metaron]

Have you studied Augustine on this?9/QUOTE]

Um, yeah. He believed, odviously, in the Real Presence.

Here is one quote that he had in regards to a literal view:
Augustine (Faustus 6.5): "while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority."

 

[cfrancis]

Augustine (Faustus 6.5): "while we consider it no longer a duty to offer sacrifices, we recognize sacrifices as part of the mysteries of Revelation, by which the things prophesied were foreshadowed. For they were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate. Now that this sacrifice has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it retains its symbolical authority."

For my clarification, where in this excerpt do you understand St Augistine to be referring to the Eucharist?

 

[justasking4]

For my clarification, where in this excerpt do you understand St Augistine to be referring to the Eucharist?

Where is says–“to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate”. What is it that the church commenorates?

 

[Metaron]

Where is says–“to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate”. What is it that the church commenorates?

Saint Augustine odviously believed in the Real Presence. Did you not see the above posts and quotations?

 

[justasking4]

Saint Augustine odviously believed in the Real Presence. Did you not see the above posts and quotations?

Yes. Perhaps he had different views at different times.

 

[justasking4]

If the catholic view is the correct view then when and who was the the first one to change the bread and wine into Christ after the original supper?
There is no record of the apostles themselves doing it in the NT.

 

[Metaron]

… it also could be because of the fear of an “invalid” priesthood (which i don’t hold to… this is where i will part with the catholic church on this issue) and not wanting to “admit” they don’t have the same communion the early church had. these are theories.

Just wondering, Bengal Fan, but, if you don’t need a valid apostolic succession as the early church Fathers suggested, then can’t anyone (laymen, laywomen, or possibly seemingly heretical groups) have valid Communion? How do you deem what is a valid Eucharist and one is not?

Ignatius of Antioch
…Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8:1 A.D. 110]).

And how does one become a bishop?

Irenaeus

It is possible, then, for everyone in every Church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles, and their successors to our own times: men who neither knew nor taught anything like these heretics rave about. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same Churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed on their authority (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 180-199]).

It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received,** with the succession of the episcopate**, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion (ibid 4:26:2).

Tertullian

Moreover, if there be any [heresies] bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, so that they might seem to have been handed down by the Apostles because they were from the time of the Apostles, we can say to them:** let them show the origin of their Churches, let them unroll the order of their bishops, running down in succession from the beginning, so that their first bishop shall have for author and predecessor some one of the Apostles or of the apostolic men who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the apostolic Churches transmit their lists: like the Church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the Church of the Romans where Clement was ordained by Peter**. In just this same way the other Churches display those whom they have as sprouts from the apostolic seed, having been established in the episcopate by the Apostles. Let the heretics invent something like it. After their blasphemies, what could be unlawful for them? But even if they should contrive it, they will accomplish nothing; for their doctrine itself, when compared with that of the Apostles, will show by its own diversity and contrariety that it has for its author neither an Apostle nor an apostolic man. The Apostles would not have differed among themselves in teaching, nor would an apostolic man have taught contrary to the Apostles, unless those who were taught by the Apostles then preached otherwise.

Therefore, they will be challenged to meet this test even by those churches which are of much later date – for they are being established daily – [Hm, sounds like Protestants] and whose founder is not from among the Apostles nor from among the apostolic men; for those which agree in the same faith are reckoned as apostolic on account of the blood ties in their doctrine. Then let all heresies prove how they regard themselves as apostolic, when they are challenged by our Churches to meet either test. But in fact they are not apostolic, nor can they prove themselves to be what they are not. Neither are they received in peace and communion by the Churches which are in any way apostolic, since on account of their diverse belief they are in no way apostolic (The Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:1 [A.D. 200]).

Clement of Alexandria

After the death of the tyrant, the [Apostle John] came back again to Ephesus from the Island of Patmos; and, upon being invited, he went even to the neighboring cities of the pagans, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole Churches, and there to ordain to the clerical estate such as were designated by the Spirit (Who is the Rich Man that is Saved? 42:2 [inter 190-210 A.D.]).

Firmilion of Caesarea

But what is his error, and how great his blindness, who says that the remission of sins can be given in the synagogues of the heretics, and who does not remain on the foundation of the one Church which was founded upon the Rock by Christ can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter alone: “Whatever things you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven;” and by this, again in the gospel, when Christ breathed upon the Apostles alone, saying to them; “Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive any man his sins, they shall be forgiven; and if you retain any mans sins, they shall be retained.” Therefore, the power of forgiving sins was given to the Apostles and to the Churches which these men, sent by Christ, **established; and to the bishops who succeeded them by being ordained in their place **(Letter to Cyprian 75:16 [A.D. 255-256]).

 

[Metaron]

If the catholic view is the correct view then when and who was the the first one to change the bread and wine into Christ after the original supper?
There is no record of the apostles themselves doing it in the NT.

Did you ever read Acts or I Corinthians…? No record? Read them first.

 

[ricko]

you should look a little higher and lower then. they were there. not necessarily symbolic but definitely not transubstantiation. Ratramnus is one glaring example.

You have misunderstood what Ratramnus was saying:

A wrong interpretation of the words “figura” and “veritas”, and a few ambiguous passages have given rise to the opinion among a few Catholics and most Protestants that Ratramnus taught a merely symbolic presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Catholic Encyclopedia

 

[cfrancis]

Where is says–“to the one sacrifice which we now commemorate”. What is it that the church commenorates?

Thank you - that will teach me to read more carefully
The Church commemorates Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Reading the escerpted quote in context, we see St Augustine proclaiming this.

Here’s a link to St Augustine’s 6th Letter to Faustus from which the quote was excerpted.

He begins that paragraph with:

1. With all this, you venture to denounce the sacrifices of the Old Testament, and to call them idolatry, and to attribute to us the same impious notion. To answer for ourselves in the first place…,

When Augustine states

For they [OT sacrifices] were our examples, and in many and various ways they all pointed to the one sacrifice [Christ’s crucifixion] which we now commemorate [in the Mass]. Now that this sacrifice [Christ’s crucifixion] has been revealed, and has been offered in due time, sacrifice [OT sacrifice] is no longer binding as an act of worship, while it [OT sacrifice] retains its symbolical authority.

There is no reference here to the Eucharist being symbolic.