Our Traditional Family Meal

On Thursday I wrote a little bit about John 6 and the Eucharist in response to a conversation I had with Gerry, a non-Catholic. Today I would to take a very brief tour of the belief in the Eucharist in Early Church.

The problem with saying that Jesus is only symbolically present in the Eucharist is that apparently nobody told this to the Early Church. Below are a collection of quotations from Christian documents of the 1st and 2nd Century. These demonstrate without a doubt that Christians have, from the earliest times, understood the Eucharist to be a sacrifice performed by priests in which Jesus Christ is truly present:

1. The Didache (c AD 50-100)
This Early Church manual says in very clear terms that the Eucharist is a sacrifice.

“On the Lord’s own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure. However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled. For here we have the saying of the Lord: ‘In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice…'”

2. St. Clement of Rome ( ?- c. AD 99)
Clement wrote to the Church in Corinth after they ejected their clergy. In his letter Clement says that it is these ministers who offer the sacrifice to God.

“[The Master] commanded us to celebrate sacrifices and services, and that it should not be thoughtlessly or disorderly, but at fixed times and hours. He has Himself fixed by His supreme will the places and persons whom He desires for these celebrations…Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices.” – Epistle to the Corinthians

3. St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 103-107)
Ignatius was being taken in chains for martyrdom in Rome. On his way he wrote letters condemning a form of Gnosticism (“Docetism”) which asserted that Jesus didn’t really have a body. Their denial of the Incarnation and Passion naturally excluded them from the Eucharist since Christians confessed that it was indeed the flesh of Christ:

“They [the Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again” – Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Ignatius urged his readers again and again to remain with their bishop since that is where the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered:

“Take care, then who belong to God and to Jesus Christ – they are with the bishop… Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God… Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.” -Epistle to the Philadelphians

“Come together in common… so that with undivided mind you may obey the bishop and the priests, and break one Bread which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against death, enabling us to live forever in Jesus Christ.” – Epistle to the Ephesians

3. St. Justin Martyr (AD 150-155)
Justin was a philosopher who converted to Christianity and whose martyrdom inspired many in the Early Church. Prior to his death, Justin wrote letters to the Emperor and Senate defending the Christian faith and in these letters he naturally speaks about the Eucharist. Basing his theology on the incarnation, Justin then describes the transformation of the bread and wine in the liturgy:

“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh” – First Apology

 Because of this, not just anyone can receive the Eucharist:

“…no one is allowed to partake [of the Eucharist] but the man who believes [what we teach]…, …has been washed…for the remission of sins,…and who is living as Christ has enjoined” – First Apology

 The other work we have from Justin is his dialog he had with a Jew called Trypho, in which he demonstrates that the Christian faith is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. Part of this fulfillment is the promise in the Old Covenant of the Messianic Age when pleasing sacrifices would be offered to God among the Gentiles. Justin says that this sacrifice is the Eucharist:

“God…announced in advance that all the sacrifices offered in His name, which Jesus Christ offered, that is, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Chalice, which are offered by us Christians in every part of the world, are pleasing to Him.” – Dialogue with Trypho

…God speaks through Malachi… ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices from your hands; for from the rising of the sun until its setting, my name has been glorified among the gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name…’ It is of the sacrifices offered to Him in every place by us, the gentiles, that is, of the Bread of the Eucharist and likewise of the cup of the Eucharist, that He speaks at that time; and He says that we glorify His name, while you profane it.” – Dialogue with Trypho

4. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (? – c. AD 202)
Irenaeus was a disciple of St. Polycarp who was, in turn, a disciple of St. John. Irenaeus wrote a major work against the Gnostics called “Against Heresies”. The Gnostics were dualists, thinking the spirit good and the body bad. Irenaeus rejects this, pointing to the Eucharist which nourishes our bodies and gives us hope of the Resurrection:

Irenaeus links the reception of the Eucharist with the Resurrection:

“[I]f the…cup and …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 [Gnostics] claim that the flesh is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life, when it is nourished by Christ’s Blood and Body…” – Against Heresies

“[T]he bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity” – Against Heresies

5. St. Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150 – c. AD 215)
Clement was the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.

“The Word is everything to a child: both Father and Mother, both Instructor and Nurse. ‘Eat My Flesh,’ He says, ‘and drink My Blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients. He delivers over His Flesh, and pours out His Blood; and nothing is lacking for the growth of His children. O incredible mystery!” – The Instructor of the Children

6. Tertullian (c. AD 160 – AD 225)
Tertullian is not technically a “Church Father”, but an important “Ecclesial Writer” of the Early Church. Like the Fathers before him, he speaks of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. Like today, the Eucharist was offered (with profound reverence) for the dead:

The Sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Lord commanded to be taken at meal times and by all, we take even before daybreak in congregations… We offer sacrifices for the dead on their birthday anniversaries…. We take anxious care lest something of our Cup or Bread should fall upon the ground… – The Crown

This is probably my favourite quotation from him concerning the Eucharist:

The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ, so that the soul too may fatten on God – Resurrection of the Dead

(Tertullian is often cherry-picked in an attempt to disprove the idea the Early Church Father consensus regarding the Eucharist. For a thorough rebuttal, please see this post over at Shameless Popery. Augustine is also sometimes cherry-picked, but this is rebutted here)

7. St. Cyprian of Carthage (c. AD 200 – AD 258)
Cyrpian was born in North Africa and died a martyr. In his great work “The Unity of the Catholic Church” he shows how the Exodus of the Jews and the slaying of the Paschal lamb points to the Eucharist:

“[T]he sacred meaning of the Passover lies essentially in the fact, laid down in Exodus, that the lamb – slain as a type of Christ – should be eaten in one single home. God says the words: ‘In one house shall it be eaten, ye shall not cast its flesh outside.’ The flesh of Christ and the Lord’s sacred body cannot be cast outside, nor have believers any other home but the one Church.” – The Unity of the Catholic Church

Cyprian describes how the priest acts in persona Christi:

“The priest who imitates that which Christ did, truly takes the place of Christ, and offers there in the Church a true and perfect sacrifice to God the Father.”  – Letter to the the Ephesians

In his document on “The Lapsed”, Cyprian tells many stories of those who unworthily handle the Eucharist. In these descriptions he speaks about “the divine presence”, “Our Lord’s holy body”, the “sacrifice offered by the bishop”.

Finally, when teaching on the Lord’s Prayer, Cyrpian naturally turns again to the Eucharist:

…And as we say ‘Our Father,’ because He is the Father of those who understand and believe, so too we say ‘our Bread,’ because Christ is the bread of those of us who attain to His body. Moreover, we ask that this bread be given daily, lest we, who are in Christ and receive the Eucharist daily as food of salvation, with the intervention of some more grievous sin, while we are shut off and as non-communicants are kept from the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ as He Himself declares, saying: ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my bread he shall live forever. Moreover, the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.’ Since then He says that, if anyone eats of His bread, he lives forever, as it is manifest that they live who attain to His body and receive the Eucharist by right of communion, so on the other hand we must fear and pray lest anyone, while he is cut off and separated from the body of Christ, remain apart from salvation, as He Himself threatens, saying: ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you.’ And so we petition that our bread, that is Christ, be given us daily, so that we, who abide and live in Christ, may not withdraw from His sanctification and body.” – The Lord’s Prayer

If one were to suggest that the authors quoted above were not “real” Christians, then it begs the question: who were were the “real” Christians? Where were the people in the First and Second Century complaining about this “abomination”?

If the Apostles believed that Jesus was only symbolically present in the Eucharist then they did a pretty awful job of teaching their disciples and successors.

The article Our Traditional Family Meal first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net