The Early Church Fathers Speak about the Eucharist:
The Body and Blood of Christ, the Real Presence of Christ
Development of Eucharistic Understanding
There is mystery in the natural world around all around us as the great scientist Einstein once observed and this is certainly also the case with religion and especially Christianity, beginning with the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Christ’s gift to us of Himself in what we call the Eucharist [from the Greek word meaning "thanksgiving" and sometimes referred to as Holy Communion] is such a mystery of faith. To see them, we need as St. Paul says, eyes of faith, remembering that we must walk by faith, not by sight through God’s mysteries (Rom12: 6-7) but never fearing that faith and reason are brothers in God’s creation.
Like Father James T. O’Connor, from whose work The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist much of this manuscript is drawn, I would like to repeat with G. K. Chesterton that the theme of the Eucharist is so wonderful that we must take a risk in offering our praise. The first full treatise on the Holy Eucharist was not produced until 9th century, however, the writings of the Early Church Fathers have frequent mention of it. This essay will attempt to survey only a small measure of their content to give you some sense of the development of the doctrine of the Eucharist–that is, the Church’s understanding of this great mystery.
One of the earliest Christian documents is the Didache, known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which probably dates from the 1st century. Sections 9 and 10 deal with the Eucharist [Gk.Eucharistias] and prayers of thanks which allude to the Mass. It contains this warning, "... let noone eat or drink of this Eucharist unless he has been baptized in the name of the Lord [a shorthand way of alluding to the Trinity]; for concerning this the Lord also said: ‘Do not give to the dogs what is holy.’" Perhaps alluding to St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians, in part 14 it notes: "And on the Lord’s day, gather together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice might be pure. This is clearly an illusion to the prophecy of Malachi (Mal 1:11), which our next Father also addresses.
St. Clement of Rome was the third successor of Peter the Apostle as bishop of Rome, our fourth Pope. St. Irenaeus (Book III, iii) tells us that Clement "saw the blessed Apostles and conversed with them, and had yet ringing in his ears the preaching of the Apostles and had their tradition before his eyes, and not he only for many were then surviving who had been taught by the Apostles. " Similarly Epiphanius tells us that Clement was a contemporary of Peter and Paul. There is a tradition that he was ordained by St. Peter and acted as a kind of auxiliary bishop to Linus and Anacletus, his predecessors in the papal chair. His letter to the Corinthians was written between 70-96 A.D. in an effort to restore peace to the Church at Corinith, Greece, which has broken into factions and was intent upon firing some of their presbyters. The epistle, which is written in Greek, is important because of the distinction it makes between leaders of the community and the faithful. Clement refers to the leaders as presbyters or bishops, without making any further distinction, referring specifically to their ministry as the "offering of gifts." He says, "Our sin will not be light if we expel those who worthily and blamelessly have offered the gifts of the episcopacy." This is clearly liturgical language in light of Mt 5:23 and Lv.1: 2 and Lv 7:38, referring in this instance to the Eucharistic sacrifice offered by priests in the Mass.
St. Ignatius of Antioch was a pagan by birth and a Syrian. He became the third bishop of Antioch and may be considered an apostolic Father in the sense that he heard the Apostle John preach. About 110 A.D. he was sentenced to a martyr's death in the arena by the Emperor Trajan, who also put Pope Clement to death. On the almost 1000 mile journey to Rome from Antioch, Syria, the third largest city of the Empire, Ignatius wrote seven letters, which are his only surviving letters. They are addressed to Christian communities he presided over as bishop. He speaks of the Eucharistic mystery in mystical terms saying, "Therefore arm yourselves with gentleness, renew yourselves in faith, which is the Flesh of the Lord, and in charity, which is the Blood of Jesus Christ." His most famous passage says:
"I am God’s grain, and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts in order that I may be found [to be] pure bread for Christ. My love has been crucified, and there is in me no fire of material love, but rather a living water, speaking in me and saying within me, ‘Come to the Father.’ I take no pleasure in corruptible food or in the delights of this life. I want the bread of God,which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who is the seed of David; and for drink I want his Blood which is incorruptible love."
His reference to "bread of God" is an allusion to John 6: 33, where Jesus says, "It is not Moses who has given you bread from heaven [manna], but it is my Father who gives you the Bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." The Eucharist was a model for the Christ centered approach of Ignatius since he sees the it as an example of the "undying love of Christ as he feeds us with his Flesh and Blood." There is no mistaking his tone in his letter to the Church at Smyrna as he speaks of the Gnostics who had a disdain for material reality:
Charity is no concern to them, nor are widows and orphans or the oppressed . . .They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised . . .
Like St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10: 17, he saw the Eucharistic Body of our Lord as the unifying force in the Church. He wrote the Philadelphians:
Be careful to observe [only] one Eucharist; for there is only one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup of union with his Blood, one altar of sacrifice, as [there is] one bishop with the presbyters and my fellow-servants the deacons.
Another unforgettable reference is when he urges Christians to assemble in common and obey the bishop, "breaking one bread that is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against dying that offers life for all in Jesus Christ." These beautiful words sum up Jesus’ own teaching in John 6 and St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Notice also that he refers to the Eucharist as a sacrifice as did the authors of the Didache. Eucharistic theology seems almost complete in St. Ignatius.
St. Justin Martyr who also gave his life for Christ, as his name implies. His Apologies are considered the most important of the 2d century Christian writings of the Fathers of the Early Church. It is difficult not to identify his testimony with an early version of the Catholic Mass, the president or presider being a priest [presbyteros being the Greek root for our English word priest] as he speaks of the Eucharist about 155 A.D.:
For we do not receive these as common bread and common drink; but just as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have learned that the food over which thanks has been given by the prayer of the word which comes from him, [see 1 Cor 11: 23-26; Lk 22; 19] and by which are blood and flesh are nourished through a change, is the Flesh and Blood of the same incarnate Jesus.
In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, St. Justin Martyr writes about the pure sacrifice mentioned by the prophet Malachi once again. The message is that the Eucharist has "replaced the sacrifices of the Temple in Jerusalem" just as Malachi prophesied. The Fathers often used this text to demonstrate the sacrificial nature of the offering [of the Eucharist at Mass].
St. Irenaeus who heard the preaching of Bishop Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, writing a famous tract Against Heresies between 180 and 190 A.D. is the first to provide explicit mention of the change that takes place in the bread and wine when they become the Eucharist. The earthly creation (bread and wine) are raised to a heavenly dignity after they "receive the word of God" [at the epiclesis of the Mass or the invocation to the Holy Spirit] and become the food and drink of Christians. So how then can we doubt that, "Our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible but have the hope of resurrection to eternal life."
St. Hilary of Poitiers (died in 368 A.D.) in his his De Trinitate said that the Eucharist made the Church Christ’s Body and allows us to become one with the Father. St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Mystagogic Catechesis, a series of sermons dated to the late 4th century, is the first to make clear that the Real Presence is made possible by a changing of the substance of the elements, though the word "transubstantiation" was not yet used. He wrote:
In the Old Covenant there were loaves of proposition [the bread of the presence], but they being of the Old Covenant, have come to an end. In the New Covenant there is a heavenly bread and a cup of salvation that sanctify the body and soul. For as the bread exists for the body, so the Word is in harmony with the soul. Therefore, do not consider them as bare bread and wine; for according to the declaration of the Master, they are Body and Blood. If even the senses suggest this to you [viz. that they are only bread and wine], let faith reassure you. Do not judge the reality by taste but, having full assurance from faith, realize that you have been judged worthy of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Writing in 350 A.D. Theodore of Mospsuestia, in Homily XV wrote of communion in the hand, "do not approach with hands extended and fingers open wide. Rather make of your left hand a throne for your right as it is about to receive your King, and receive the Body of Christ in the fold of your hand, responding ‘Amen.’.... Take care that you do not even lose one piece of that which is more precious than gold or precious stones."
St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote The Great Catechism in the 370's and is important in our survey because he endeavors to explain the mystery of how Christ can remain whole while being distributed to thousands of Christians with an analogy. The union of the divine and the human in Christ sanctified his humanity. When he consumed bread and wine they to were united with His divine person. So now in the Eucharist, he assimilates the bread and the wine into Himself and then feed us what has become Himself through the Word. He said this occurred at the Consecration.
St. Augustine of Hippo said in a sermon, "You should understand what you have received, what you will receive, indeed what you should receive daily. That bread that you see on the altar and that has been sanctified by the word of God is the Body of Christ. That chalice–rather, that which the chalice contains–has been sanctified by the word of God and is the Blood 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 (1Corinthians 10:17). [Sermons CCXXVII: On Easter Sunday; PL, 38, 1099]
He also notes in his commentary on Psalm 33 that Christ held His own Body in His hands: “Christ was being carried in his own hands when he handed over his body, saying, ‘This is my body’; for he was holding that very body in his hands as he spoke.” In De Trinitate, he speaks similarly of the Mass as a sacrifice in which Christ is Priest and Victim: “And what could be so acceptably offered and received, as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our priest?”
Understanding that Christ was really present in the Eucharist, he stated: "Nobody eats this flesh without previously adoring it." [Enarr. in Ps. 98, 9; on p.387]
There is mystery in the natural world around all around us as the great scientist Einstein once observed and this is certainly also the case with religion and especially Christianity, beginning with the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Christ’s gift to us of Himself in what we call the Eucharist [from the Greek word meaning "thanksgiving" and sometimes referred to as Holy Communion] is such a mystery of faith. To see them, we need as St. Paul says, eyes of faith, remembering that we must walk by faith, not by sight through God’s mysteries (Rom12: 6-7) but never fearing that faith and reason are brothers in God’s creation.
Like Father James T. O’Connor, from whose work The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist much of this manuscript is drawn, I would like to repeat with G. K. Chesterton that the theme of the Eucharist is so wonderful that we must take a risk in offering our praise. The first full treatise on the Holy Eucharist was not produced until 9th century, however, the writings of the Early Church Fathers have frequent mention of it. This essay will attempt to survey only a small measure of their content to give you some sense of the development of the doctrine of the Eucharist–that is, the Church’s understanding of this great mystery.
One of the earliest Christian documents is the Didache, known as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which probably dates from the 1st century. Sections 9 and 10 deal with the Eucharist [Gk.Eucharistias] and prayers of thanks which allude to the Mass. It contains this warning, "... let noone eat or drink of this Eucharist unless he has been baptized in the name of the Lord [a shorthand way of alluding to the Trinity]; for concerning this the Lord also said: ‘Do not give to the dogs what is holy.’" Perhaps alluding to St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians, in part 14 it notes: "And on the Lord’s day, gather together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice might be pure. This is clearly an illusion to the prophecy of Malachi (Mal 1:11), which our next Father also addresses.
St. Clement of Rome was the third successor of Peter the Apostle as bishop of Rome, our fourth Pope. St. Irenaeus (Book III, iii) tells us that Clement "saw the blessed Apostles and conversed with them, and had yet ringing in his ears the preaching of the Apostles and had their tradition before his eyes, and not he only for many were then surviving who had been taught by the Apostles. " Similarly Epiphanius tells us that Clement was a contemporary of Peter and Paul. There is a tradition that he was ordained by St. Peter and acted as a kind of auxiliary bishop to Linus and Anacletus, his predecessors in the papal chair. His letter to the Corinthians was written between 70-96 A.D. in an effort to restore peace to the Church at Corinith, Greece, which has broken into factions and was intent upon firing some of their presbyters. The epistle, which is written in Greek, is important because of the distinction it makes between leaders of the community and the faithful. Clement refers to the leaders as presbyters or bishops, without making any further distinction, referring specifically to their ministry as the "offering of gifts." He says, "Our sin will not be light if we expel those who worthily and blamelessly have offered the gifts of the episcopacy." This is clearly liturgical language in light of Mt 5:23 and Lv.1: 2 and Lv 7:38, referring in this instance to the Eucharistic sacrifice offered by priests in the Mass.
St. Ignatius of Antioch was a pagan by birth and a Syrian. He became the third bishop of Antioch and may be considered an apostolic Father in the sense that he heard the Apostle John preach. About 110 A.D. he was sentenced to a martyr's death in the arena by the Emperor Trajan, who also put Pope Clement to death. On the almost 1000 mile journey to Rome from Antioch, Syria, the third largest city of the Empire, Ignatius wrote seven letters, which are his only surviving letters. They are addressed to Christian communities he presided over as bishop. He speaks of the Eucharistic mystery in mystical terms saying, "Therefore arm yourselves with gentleness, renew yourselves in faith, which is the Flesh of the Lord, and in charity, which is the Blood of Jesus Christ." His most famous passage says:
"I am God’s grain, and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts in order that I may be found [to be] pure bread for Christ. My love has been crucified, and there is in me no fire of material love, but rather a living water, speaking in me and saying within me, ‘Come to the Father.’ I take no pleasure in corruptible food or in the delights of this life. I want the bread of God,which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who is the seed of David; and for drink I want his Blood which is incorruptible love."
His reference to "bread of God" is an allusion to John 6: 33, where Jesus says, "It is not Moses who has given you bread from heaven [manna], but it is my Father who gives you the Bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." The Eucharist was a model for the Christ centered approach of Ignatius since he sees the it as an example of the "undying love of Christ as he feeds us with his Flesh and Blood." There is no mistaking his tone in his letter to the Church at Smyrna as he speaks of the Gnostics who had a disdain for material reality:
Charity is no concern to them, nor are widows and orphans or the oppressed . . .They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised . . .
Like St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10: 17, he saw the Eucharistic Body of our Lord as the unifying force in the Church. He wrote the Philadelphians:
Be careful to observe [only] one Eucharist; for there is only one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup of union with his Blood, one altar of sacrifice, as [there is] one bishop with the presbyters and my fellow-servants the deacons.
Another unforgettable reference is when he urges Christians to assemble in common and obey the bishop, "breaking one bread that is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against dying that offers life for all in Jesus Christ." These beautiful words sum up Jesus’ own teaching in John 6 and St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Notice also that he refers to the Eucharist as a sacrifice as did the authors of the Didache. Eucharistic theology seems almost complete in St. Ignatius.
St. Justin Martyr who also gave his life for Christ, as his name implies. His Apologies are considered the most important of the 2d century Christian writings of the Fathers of the Early Church. It is difficult not to identify his testimony with an early version of the Catholic Mass, the president or presider being a priest [presbyteros being the Greek root for our English word priest] as he speaks of the Eucharist about 155 A.D.:
For we do not receive these as common bread and common drink; but just as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have learned that the food over which thanks has been given by the prayer of the word which comes from him, [see 1 Cor 11: 23-26; Lk 22; 19] and by which are blood and flesh are nourished through a change, is the Flesh and Blood of the same incarnate Jesus.
In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, St. Justin Martyr writes about the pure sacrifice mentioned by the prophet Malachi once again. The message is that the Eucharist has "replaced the sacrifices of the Temple in Jerusalem" just as Malachi prophesied. The Fathers often used this text to demonstrate the sacrificial nature of the offering [of the Eucharist at Mass].
St. Irenaeus who heard the preaching of Bishop Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, writing a famous tract Against Heresies between 180 and 190 A.D. is the first to provide explicit mention of the change that takes place in the bread and wine when they become the Eucharist. The earthly creation (bread and wine) are raised to a heavenly dignity after they "receive the word of God" [at the epiclesis of the Mass or the invocation to the Holy Spirit] and become the food and drink of Christians. So how then can we doubt that, "Our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible but have the hope of resurrection to eternal life."
St. Hilary of Poitiers (died in 368 A.D.) in his his De Trinitate said that the Eucharist made the Church Christ’s Body and allows us to become one with the Father. St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Mystagogic Catechesis, a series of sermons dated to the late 4th century, is the first to make clear that the Real Presence is made possible by a changing of the substance of the elements, though the word "transubstantiation" was not yet used. He wrote:
In the Old Covenant there were loaves of proposition [the bread of the presence], but they being of the Old Covenant, have come to an end. In the New Covenant there is a heavenly bread and a cup of salvation that sanctify the body and soul. For as the bread exists for the body, so the Word is in harmony with the soul. Therefore, do not consider them as bare bread and wine; for according to the declaration of the Master, they are Body and Blood. If even the senses suggest this to you [viz. that they are only bread and wine], let faith reassure you. Do not judge the reality by taste but, having full assurance from faith, realize that you have been judged worthy of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Writing in 350 A.D. Theodore of Mospsuestia, in Homily XV wrote of communion in the hand, "do not approach with hands extended and fingers open wide. Rather make of your left hand a throne for your right as it is about to receive your King, and receive the Body of Christ in the fold of your hand, responding ‘Amen.’.... Take care that you do not even lose one piece of that which is more precious than gold or precious stones."
St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote The Great Catechism in the 370's and is important in our survey because he endeavors to explain the mystery of how Christ can remain whole while being distributed to thousands of Christians with an analogy. The union of the divine and the human in Christ sanctified his humanity. When he consumed bread and wine they to were united with His divine person. So now in the Eucharist, he assimilates the bread and the wine into Himself and then feed us what has become Himself through the Word. He said this occurred at the Consecration.
St. Augustine of Hippo said in a sermon, "You should understand what you have received, what you will receive, indeed what you should receive daily. That bread that you see on the altar and that has been sanctified by the word of God is the Body of Christ. That chalice–rather, that which the chalice contains–has been sanctified by the word of God and is the Blood 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 (1Corinthians 10:17). [Sermons CCXXVII: On Easter Sunday; PL, 38, 1099]
He also notes in his commentary on Psalm 33 that Christ held His own Body in His hands: “Christ was being carried in his own hands when he handed over his body, saying, ‘This is my body’; for he was holding that very body in his hands as he spoke.” In De Trinitate, he speaks similarly of the Mass as a sacrifice in which Christ is Priest and Victim: “And what could be so acceptably offered and received, as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our priest?”
Understanding that Christ was really present in the Eucharist, he stated: "Nobody eats this flesh without previously adoring it." [Enarr. in Ps. 98, 9; on p.387]
