Prove Transubtantiation and I will convert

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Steadfast said:
All of those could just as easily be teaching the common Lutheran view or consubstantiation.

I was asking for evidence of Transubstantiation proper, where, when the priest says “hoc est corpus meum” the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine at all but are completely changed such that all that is left are the body and blood of Christ with only the appearance of bread and wine remaining.
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From the Didache:

Chapter 9. The Eucharist. Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup: We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy servant, which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever…
And concerning the broken bread:
We thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever…

But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs.”
Chapter 10. Prayer after Communion. But after you are filled, give thanks this way: We thank Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy name which You didst cause to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You modest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Thou, Master almighty, didst create all things for Thy name’s sake; You gavest food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to Thee; but to us You didst freely give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Thy Servant. Before all things we thank Thee that You are mighty; to Thee be the glory for ever. Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in Thy love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for Thy kingdom which Thou have prepared for it; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God (Son) of David! If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.
But permit the prophets to make Thanksgiving as much as they desire.

Clearly this early writing echos the Mass, the Holy Priesthood and the Eucharist … in the passage immediately above "prophets [presbyters - bishops] make Thanksgiving [Eucharist] …

While this may not be your latin quote; the context of the Mass is clearly noted in this work which was used to provide instruction to catechumens [and perhaps served as a rudimentary sacramentary]…
 
Steadfast said:
All of those could just as easily be teaching the common Lutheran view or consubstantiation.

I was asking for evidence of Transubstantiation proper, where, when the priest says “hoc est corpus meum” the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine at all but are completely changed such that all that is left are the body and blood of Christ with only the appearance of bread and wine remaining.
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I would think that these quotes in particular would be more supportive of Transubstantiation than Consubstantiation:

Augustine

“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (ibid., 272).

Theodore of Mopsuestia

“When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit” (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).

Cyril of Jerusalem

“Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul” (ibid., 22:6, 9).
 
There is still nothing there that would not admit any number of other theories of the Real Presence including that of my own communion.

Augustine comes close, but even there his point is not to detail the change so much as to impress upon his readers the reality of Jesus’ presence in the meal.

I find it a bit funny that you read all these and see transubstantiation, while, when I read them I see simple, but nonetheless firm statements of a clear belief in the Real Presence without much dilation on how that is brought about or how, exactly, it is constituted.

All we seem to be able to say with any certainty is that they pretty much unanimously believed in a real, not a symbolic or significatory presence in the Eucharist.

And that would be my point. Transubstantiation proper couldn’t have been a part of their thinking since the terms were alien to them until Avicenna restored Aristotle and Aquinas brought him into the church.
 
Mannyfit75 said:
Ireneaus said:

So then, if the **mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, that is to say, the Blood and Body of Christ, which fortify and build up the substance of our flesh, how can these people claim that the flesh is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life, when it is nourished by Christ’s Blood and Body and is His member? As the blessed apostle says in his letter to the Ephesians, ‘For we are members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones’ (Eph. 5:30). He is not talking about some kind of ‘spiritual’ and ‘invisible’ man, ‘for a spirit does not have flesh an bones’ (Lk. 24:39). No, he is talking of the organism possessed by a real human being, composed of flesh and nerves and bones. It is this which is nourished by the cup which is His Blood, and is fortified by the bread which is His Body. The stem of the vine takes root in the earth and eventually bears fruit, and ‘the grain of wheat falls into the earth’ (Jn. 12:24), dissolves, rises again, multiplied by the all-containing Spirit of God, and finally after skilled processing, is put to human use. These two then receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ." **

-"Five Books on the Unmasking and Refutation of the Falsely
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This is a wonderful exposition of Lutheran doctrine on the Lord’s Supper, which, for the record and for those of you who may not know, is NOT consubstantiation…
 
Steadfast said:
This is a wonderful exposition of Lutheran doctrine on the Lord’s Supper.
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Not really. Note, these two become the Body and Blood of the Lord.

No different than what the priest says in the Mass:

“God, may your spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become the Body and Blood of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
 
Mannyfit75 said:
Not really. Note, these two become the Body and Blood of the Lord.

No different than what the priest says in the Mass:

“God, may your spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become the Body and Blood of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
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But that’s what we say, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. We just don’t say that they stop being bread and wine and neither does Irenaeus.
 
In fact, have a look at that passage from Irenaeus and see how many times he puts the earthly and the heavenly elements together in the same construction.

Wonderful.

Irenaeus was Lutheran!
 
Steadfast said:
In fact, have a look at that passage from Irenaeus and see how many times he puts the earthly and the heavenly elements together in the same construction.

Wonderful.

Irenaeus was Lutheran!
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Irenaeus lived before Martin Luther. Martin Luther was born in 1483 and died in 1546.

Irenaeus was born in the first half of the Second Century.

Irenaeus is Catholic.
 
You’re also missing a very important point, which is that Catholic doctrine can develop more fully over time. The actual term “transubstantiation”, as a theological concept and an expression of how this change occurred, didn’t arise until later. For example, the Orthodox do not use the term “transubstantiation”, leaving the exact details somewhat of a mystery. Nevertheless, they don’t have a theological problem with transubstantiation as a concept. You also won’t find the words “transubstantiation”, “consubstantiation”, or anything else among the writings of the Early Church Fathers. However, the further out in time you go, the more unanimous they become, and the more they theologically express transubstantiation. As they debated the topic, agreement began to arise and writers began to express this point more clearly in their writings.

At least we can agree on the fact that there does seem to be overwhelming evidence among the Early Church Fathers against a metaphorical interpretation of Communion.
 
But “transubstantiation” is not a “development” even Newman, if he were honest, would recognize. It represents the importation of entirely alien ideas into what is a very simple thing.

The idea that one thing is there and then it’s not except it still looks like it is, even though something else is really now there is not a “development” of the simple idea that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, it’s magical mumbo jumbo.

Or, if you prefer, “hocus pocus”
 
Steadfast said:
But “transubstantiation” is not a “development” even Newman, if he were honest, would recognize. It represents the importation of entirely alien ideas into what is a very simple thing.

The idea that one thing is there and then it’s not except it still looks like it is, even though something else is really now there is not a “development” of the simple idea that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, it’s magical mumbo jumbo.

Or, if you prefer, “hocus pocus”
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No, it’s not at all. By your own admission earlier in the thread, the extensive list of quotes I supplied can be used to support transubstantiation. Now, you argue that they could also support consubstantiation, but that’s beside the point. It’s not magical mumbo jumbo if all of the sources agree that transubstantiation is a possibility.

Also, would a better term for “magical mumbo jumbo” perhaps be “miracle”? :rolleyes:
 
All I can say is, the Lord said “Do this in memory of me.” This is the real deal. It changes! May not look like it, but it does. No lutheran symbolic thing there. Jesus’ body and blood feeds our soul.
 
Rolltide said:
No, it’s not at all. By your own admission earlier in the thread, the extensive list of quotes I supplied can be used to support transubstantiation. Now, you argue that they could also support consubstantiation, but that’s beside the point. It’s not magical mumbo jumbo if all of the sources agree that transubstantiation is a possibility.

Also, would a better term for “magical mumbo jumbo” perhaps be “miracle”? :rolleyes:
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No, they cannot be used to support Transubstantiation and I did not say they could.

They can be used to support the doctrine of the Real Presence.

The point is that no one, unless he were already convinced of transubstantiation, would read those passages and quotes from the fathers and come to that belief about the Eucharist.

The best that can be said is that such a hypothetical, unbaised person would come to the conclusion that these fathers were very serious in their belief in a Real Presence.
 
stringbeanduck said:
All I can say is, the Lord said “Do this in memory of me.” This is the real deal. It changes! May not look like it, but it does. No lutheran symbolic thing there. Jesus’ body and blood feeds our soul.
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The Lutheran doctrine is not that it’s symbolic.

Lutherans believe that we receive in, with and under the bread and wine of the Sacrament, the true and real Body and Blood of our Lord broken and shed for us.
 
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