When did Protestants stop believing in the Eucharist

[Clare]

When was it that it stopped being taught that it was the Real Body and Blood?

 

[adamhovey1988]

Depends on what you mean. Lutherans believe in a type of real presence, but not the same as the Catholic transubstantiation.

 

[blackforest]

I believe Huldrich Zwingli (1484-1531) was the first to preach against any kind of True Presence in the Eucharist. Correct me if I’m wrong, fellow/sister Catholics.

 

[Clare]

Essentially, when did they stop teaching in what Catholics believe.

When did it become, just a symbol?

 

[blackforest]

Luther was a contemporary to Zwingli and rejected the notion of transubstantiation in favor of consubstantiation, the idea that the presence is with the bread and wine rather than being the bread and wine. It’s still a doctrine of True Presence, but not Catholic teaching.

Confused? Don’t worry. So are a lot of Catholics and Lutherans. My priest considers it hairsplitting.

 

[Vico]

When was it that it stopped being taught that it was the Real Body and Blood?

The first opponent to Real Presence in Transubstantiation was Berengarius of Tours (999-1088 A.D.) but he recanted in 1079 A.D.

As for the cogency of the argument from tradition, this historical fact is of decided significance, namely, that the dogma of the Real Presence remained, properly speaking, unmolested down to the time of the heretic Berengarius of Tours (d. 1088), and so could claim even at that time the uninterrupted possession of ten centuries. In the course of the dogma’s history there arose in general three great Eucharistic controversies, the first of which, begun by Paschasius Radbertus, in the ninth century, scarcely extended beyond the limits of his audience and concerned itself solely with the philosophical question, whether the Eucharistic Body of Christ is identical with the natural Body He had in Palestine and now has in heaven.
…
The third and the sharpest controversy was that opened by the Reformation in the sixteenth century, in regard to which it must be remarked that Luther was the only one among the Reformers who still clung to the old Catholic doctrine, and, though subjecting it to manifold misrepresentations, defended it most tenaciously.
…
the Council of Trent has ever been and is now the unwavering position of the whole of Catholic Christendom.

Pohle, J. (1909). The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

 

[TNMan]

Some of us never have stopped believing in it

Us Lutherans believe Christ is physically present in the elements, we just don’t go as far as transubstantiation to explain how it happens. Jesus says it’s His Body and Blood and we take Him at His word.

 

[TNMan]

I promise I’m not trying to nitpick here, but Lutherans, at least confessional ones, reject the term consubstantiation. We use the term Sacramental Union. Consubstantiation attempts a philosophical explanation. Sacramental Union just provides a description.

God bless, Happy Easter!

 

[Clare]

I believe Huldrich Zwingli (1484-1531) was the first to preach against any kind of True Presence in the Eucharist. Correct me if I’m wrong, fellow/sister Catholics.

Okay, so when did it become the norm for it to be preached within Protestant churches?

 

[OddBird]

As some others will likely point out too, one cannot generalize about what Protestants do or do not believe.

It varies from denomination to denomination, and sometimes inside a denomination or a particular church.

Luther firmly believed in the Real Presence. At the Marburg Colloquy, in 1529, this was actually the only (and grave) dissension point between him and Zwingli, Zwingli arguing that Jesus also said “I am the door” while we do not eat doors in His name, and Luther retorting “If Jesus gave me a rotten apple and told me “this is My body”, I’d eat it”.

Calvin presented himself as a “middle man”, with a position which he hoped could reconcile both – it didn’t happen–, but his way of defining the Real Presence in the Eucharist, while it was mainly (and I think, wrongly) interpreted as a symbolic description, is actually quite close to St Thomas Aquinas’ definition of the transsubstantiation.

Inside my own Reformed church, there are people like me who strongly assert Real Presence and read Calvin in an “Aquinasian” way, others who interpret it as a symbol.

One cannot really say that preaching against any kind of True Presence is a norm in the Protestant family at large.

 

[Bithynian]

One cannot really say that preaching against any kind of True Presence is a norm in the Protestant family at large.

I agree: the real presence is most definitely the norm in most confessional Lutheran and Reformed churches.

I think the hyper nominalist/memorialist/Zwinglian (that is, “it’s just a symbol/sign and nothing more or less”) is mostly a post-19th century evangelical phenomenon that is significantly restricted to the US.

It’s interesting to note that the early New England Puritans took very seriously the real presence (within their own sacramental theology) and there was an abundance of prepatory manuals to ensure worthy reception.

I’m not sure why the non-confessional Reformed perspective changed over time. I was having a gander through D.A. Carson’s (American Reformed Baptist) commentary on John’s Gospel - one of the more robust Reformed commentaries - and I chuckled at the consistent attempts to downplay the real presence implications of John 6:48-58.

 

[OddBird]

I think the hyper nominalist/memorialist/Zwinglian (that is, “it’s just a symbol/sign and nothing more or less”) is mostly a post-19th century evangelical phenomenon that is significantly restricted to the US.

Yes, probably – although we do have historical Zwinglians here in Switzerland !

It’s interesting to note that the early New England Puritans took very seriously the real presence (within their own sacramental theology) and there was an abundance of prepatory manuals to ensure worthy reception.

And similarly, in Calvin’s Geneva, preparing to receive was no walk in the park.

I’m not sure why the non-confessional Reformed perspective changed over time.

If I had to hazard a guess (I didn’t check that one ), I’d say that the influence of 19th-century Pentecostal revivals may have played a part. When you think that the primary way God gives Himself is the experience of a direct indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it tends to undermine the centrality of the Eucharist.

Calvin was often misread also on the frequency of the Eucharist. He first proposed it four times a year, but with mandatory communing for every confirmed member, which he saw as an “upgrade” from the Easter duty. He explicitly proposed it as a temporary measure, on pedagogical grounds, which was to gradually lead to weekly celebration and reception. Yet today, there are Reformed churches which still commune four times a year only, and some deduce from it that the Eucharist must be somehow less important (and a lesser means of Presence) than the Liturgy of the Word.

 

[Clare]

I think the hyper nominalist/memorialist/Zwinglian (that is, “it’s just a symbol/sign and nothing more or less”) is mostly a post-19th century evangelical phenomenon that is significantly restricted to the US.

I’m not in the US! Actually it’s because I was telling a non Catholic friend about how I miss the Eucharist that this came about as she was saying how much a lovely symbol it is.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

That’s the best explanation I’ve read. Simple and understandable. I was middle-aged and non-practicing when I first heard the word consubstantiation. It’s not part of the catechism. This is most certainly true.

 

[Wesrock]

To me it seems Lutherans and some Orthodox exaggerate how much Catholics are describing the “how.” All transubstantation means is that it once was bread and wine and then changes to being Jesus under the appearance of bread and wine. Even if we accept the terms accidents to refer to said appearance I don’t think anyone’s obligated to adopt Aristotlean metaphysics. Transubstantiation isn’t an Aristotlean term. It’s just Latin for “change in what it is.”

 

[ltwin]

It’s interesting to note that the early New England Puritans took very seriously the real presence (within their own sacramental theology) and there was an abundance of prepatory manuals to ensure worthy reception.

The Puritans were Calvinist, so they took seriously that Christ was spiritually present in Communion even though no physical transformation took place.

They took it so seriously that only church members who testified to having a conversion experience were allowed to take it.

If I had to hazard a guess (I didn’t check that one ), I’d say that the influence of 19th-century Pentecostal revivals may have played a part. When you think that the primary way God gives Himself is the experience of a direct indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it tends to undermine the centrality of the Eucharist.

I’ll think you’ll find early Pentecostals had interesting views on the Lord’s Supper. Because they believed so strongly in the Spirit’s activity in the life of believers and the church, ordinary objects easily took on the characteristics of conduits or “points of contact” between believers and God. You see this today with the practice of anointing prayer cloths for people to carry around on their bodies. The Lord’s Supper has been understood in such away, particularly as a powerful means of healing. It’s not uncommon to hear “there is healing at the table.”