No disrespect was taken…I was just having a bit of fun ( a lot of people here seem to be of the angry variety and so, when I come across a non-angry fellow I’ll tend to joke a bit). I am from an anabaptist tradition
I don’t know what Pelikan would say wrt Augustine’s belief regarding a RP. The Pelikan quote I produced indicated his conclusion that beliefs wrt the eucharist spanned a very wide spectrum in the early centuries and what the CC (and you) holds to today would be at one end of that spectrum. Further, if the likes of Tertullian, Augustine, Clement of Alexandria and Origen did not believe in a Real bodily Presence, why should I conclude that a RP view was held by the vast majority of the early church? Why shouldn’t I rather conclude that a) the matter had not been settled by the apostles, b) the matter had not been settled by the time of Augustine and that c) the validity of the RP view is only as good as the hierarchy’s ability to be free from any error.
Here are a couple to chew on:
Rev. Edward J. Kilmartin, a professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome
You can access Kilmartin’s
The Eucharist in the West at Googlebooks and the discussion of Augustine’s theology starts on page 23…at page 26 Kilmartin writes that a “careful analysis of Augustine’s treatment of John 6 clearly shows that he does not teach the eucharistic realism of Chrysostom or Hilary of Poitiers.”
There is also William Harmless, S.J. Professor of Theology at Creighton University. You can also access William Harmless’s
Augustine the Catechumenate at Googlebooks…at page 319 it reads, “Augustine did not conceive of real presence in strictly ritual terms. His thinking admitted no sharp fissure between the real presence of Christ in the bread and the real presence of Christ within the community.”
I think a look at the work of these two scholarly catholics should tell you that what Augustine believed and what the CC presently teaches are two different things.
Gabriel of 12;
When Augustine became Bishop of Hippo, he taught and believed in the Real Presence of the bread and wine (Eucharist), there is no conflict with Church teaching. If you are referring to Augustines early works before he converted to Catholicism, or was investigating the Catholic Church this is another topic all together outside his belief in the True presence.
You are incorrect in thinking that he believed differently than what the Church taught and believed. Once Augustine recieved his holy orders in the priesthood. Augustine became a Champion for the Catholic Faith. Even the heavy weight St. Jerome attested to Augustines strong faith. Here are some of Augustines personal recorded quotes on the true presence, not by third person.
For more ECF quotes in their Catholic faith of the Real True presence;
therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html#augustine
Augustine of Hippo
You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily.
That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. **The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ." **-“Sermons”, [227, 21]
“He who made you men, for your sakes was Himself made man; to ensure your adoption as many sons into an everlasting inheritance, the blood of the Only-Begotten has been shed for you. If in your own reckoning you have held yourselves cheap because of your earthly frailty, now assess yourselves by the price paid for you; **meditate, as you should, upon what you eat, what you drink, to what you answer ‘Amen’”. **-“Second Discourse on Psalm 32”. Ch. 4. circa
"For the whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prayers for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them on their behalf.
Source: St. Augustine, Sermons 172,2, circa 400 A.D.
"The fact that our fathers of old offered sacrifices with beasts for victims, which the present-day people of God read about but do not do, is to be understood in no way but this: that those things signified the things that we do in order to draw near to God and to recommend to our neighbor the same purpose.** A visible sacrifice, therefore, is the sacrament, that is to say, the sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice**… . Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him.
Source: St. Augustine, The City of God, 10, 5; 10,20, c. 426:
