The Early Church Fathers Speak about the Eucharist: The Body and Blood of Christ
Development of Eucharistic Understanding (Continued)
St. Ambrose was probably the first to refer to the Eucharist mystery as the “Mass.” He too is a master of analogy, noting for example in his work De Mysteriis [390 A.D.] that the manna [a type of the Eucharist cited by Jesus in John 6], if preserved for a second day was subject to corruption [like meat], but “whoever piously tasted it [the Eucharist] will not be able to experience corruption. For the people of Israel, water flowed from the rock [Ex 17:6-7]; for you Blood flows from Christ. The water satisfied them for awhile; Blood washes you for eternity . . . . The former is given as an image; the latter is given as the reality.” In attempting to explain the mystery, he argues that “grace is more powerful than nature” and that if Moses could make bitter water sweet (Ex. 15) and Elisha could make an axe float on water from the blessing of a prophet:
will not the word of Christ have the power to change the nature of the elements. You have read about the creation of the whole world: ‘He spoke and they were made, he gave a command and they were created.’ (Ps 33: 9) Therefore can not the word of Christ, which was able to create out of nothing that which did not exist, change those things that do exist into that which they were not?
Than he makes it practical, saying, “And you say ‘Amen’, which means ‘it is true.’ What the mouth speaks, let the soul
confess internally; let the soul experience what speech proclaims.”
As early as the 170's Christians were being accused of participating in Thyestean feasts, wherein the mythical Atreus killed his brother’s children and motivated by revenge served them to his brother for dinner. Partly out of reverence for the Mysteries and partly to guard against these charges, early Christian communities used veiled language when speaking about the Eucharist, employing what is referred to as the disciplina arcani, a self-imposed discipline to conceal the Mysteries even from catechumens [those being prepared to enter the Church] until Easter vigil. St. Augustine frequently refers to this practice indicating that it lasted into the fifth century in some areas. Christianity need time to develop the vocabulary to better explain the Eucharist so that during the Middle Ages, for example, to keep them separate the bread and wine and the words of consecration were referred to as “the sign considered in itself,” while the Body and Blood of Christ were referred to as “the reality contained in the sign” and either the Body and Blood of the Lord or the unity of the Church could be spoken of as “the reality alone.”
St. John Chrysostom observed that the earthly liturgy is as a veil that covers the reality taking place in heaven. In his great tract On the Priesthood he observed that “the Paraclete himself” established the priestly ministry so that “men abiding in the flesh should imitate the ministry of angels.” He writes pointedly:
When you see the Lord immolated and lying upon the altar, and the priest bent over that sacrifice praying, and all the people empurpled by that precious Blood, can you think that you are still among men and on earth? Or are you not lifted up to heaven? Is not every carnal affection deposed? Do you not with pure mind and clean heart contemplate the things of heaven?
St. Augustine is perhaps the greatest of the Early Fathers and is unfortunately often misunderstood for his discussion of sign and sacrament. The word “sacrament” for him does not mean precisely what it would in later theology, but it was a sign that contained a divine reality. The sign was visible (bread and wine) but the “reality” and the “power” of the Sacrament were not. Commenting on John 6, he acknowledged that both Jews with their manna and Christians with the Eucharist had sacraments, although they were different in visible appearance or sign value. Thus, both represent Christ, but those who received the manna receive only a figure, while those who receive the Eucharist receive the Reality in truth. Hence, for Augustine sacrament is the term for “ the sign considered in itself.” But he testifies to the reality and power behind the sign telling the newly baptized:
... I promised you who have been baptized a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s table, which you now behold and which you became partakers of last night. You should understand what you have received, what you will receive, indeed what you should receive daily. The bread you see on the altar and that has been sanctified by the word of God is the Body of Christ. Through these things the Lord Christ wished to entrust to us his Body and his Blood which he shed for us unto the remission of sins. If you receive them well, you are that which you receive. The Apostle says, ‘One bread and we, the many, are one body.’ [1 Cor 10: 17]
St. Augustine also makes it clear that “. . . Christ was carried in his own hands when, entrusting us to his own Body, [for] he said: ‘This is my Body”[Mt. 26:26; Mk 14:22; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24]. Indeed he was carrying his own Body in his own hands.” St. Augustine also explains the reference in John 6 that Protestants love to bring up, namely, “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing” [Jn 6: 63]. The problem with their understanding is that they were thinking of flesh as when it is cut up in a meat market or cut from a corpse and not when it is animated by the spirit. To say that the “flesh profits nothing” he says, is the equivalent of saying “knowledge puffs one up.”
On that account are we supposed to hate knowledge? Far from it. Then what does it mean to say “knowledge puffs one up’? It does that when it is alone, without charity. And so it is added, ‘charity indeed edifies.’ Therefore add charity to knowledge and knowledge is useful, but not of itself but through charity. And so in this case where it is said, ‘Flesh profits nothing’. It refers to flesh by itself. Let spirit be added to flesh–as charity is added to knowledge–and the flesh profits very much. For, if flesh profited nothing, the Word would not have become Flesh so that he might dwell among us. If Christ has been such profit to us through the flesh, how is it that flesh profits nothing? Rather, through the Flesh the Spirit has acted for our salvation.
Thus, the Holy Spirit when joined to the flesh profits much!
There have always been a plurality of legitimate approaches to Eucharistic theology. This was true with the Fathers and in the Middle Ages. Yet the Church has never sought to soften the shock value of Jesus’ words at the synagogue at Capernaum given to us in John 6. It was too much for most of his disciples who abandoned him as thoughts of Ezekiel 39: 17-19 came to mind, wherein it notes, “You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of princes of the earth as if they were rams ...” Such a man was not Berengarius of Tours, who grew up wealthy and was known to be very generous with the poor. Beregarius became Archdeacon of Angers in France about 1040 A.D. and began to teach that Eucharist was only a symbol, declaring the likes of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine as heretics. He was provisionally excommunicated after presenting his views at a synod before Pope Leo IX in 1050 and asked to appear at a similar gathering at Verceli, where his failure to appear facilitated his views being declared heretical. He wrote a pamphlet in his defense but he did not defend his views in person until the synod of Tours in 1054, presided over by Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII. Here he confessed that the consecrated Eucharist was really the Body and Blood of Christ, but one study by Jean de Montclos [Lanfranc et Berenger: la Controverse Eucharistique du 16e Siecle] claims he continued a clandestine fight against the doctrine for almost 30 years. He believed, in effect, that the bread and wine were still present after consecration, but that risen Christ is spiritually received by the communicant (sign not reality). In 1059 because of the confusion of some of the faithful at the continuing controversy, another synod met at Rome under Pope Nicholas II, wherein Berengarius was constrained to subscribe to a profession of faith. His writings were subsequently burned, but he remained defiant writing another pamphlet defending his equivocal views and condemning pope and synod. Berengarius’ views were not clear even to his followers and it could be speculated that he fluctuated between Protestant Reformer Zwingli’s view that the Eucharist was mere symbol and Calvin’s view that their was spiritual presence in power or virtue. Berengarius’ heresy inspired the theological work of a Benedictine monk, Bishop Guitmund of Aversa who is among the first to clearly distinguish between the substance (Body and Blood of Christ) and the accidents (bread and wine) of the Eucharist. His concept of the “substantial” presence of Christ Body, whole in the entire Host and in all fragments of the Host is considered another advance in the understanding of the Church. His description of the change is verbally close to the one produced at the Council of Trent though it comes five centuries earlier in the wake of Berengarius.
Berengarius’ equivocal statements again produced confusion when Pope Gregory VII approved his profession of faith in 1078, only to require another in 1079 after several bishops made its ambiguities clear to the Pope. But even though Berengarius confessed his errors in his Memoir, he nonetheless defended them to some extent and became a hero to most of the Reformers five centuries later.
Continued on Next Page, Click Here