Hi A777,

Sorry I don't agree with the conclusions you have reached there, but thank you for sharing, we are all entitled to our own opinion. I am just going to post an article which references what I mean about the church fathers and the real presence of Christ in the blessed sacrament.


THE REAL PRESENCE

The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as "unbiblical," but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71).

The early Church Fathers interpreted these passages literally. In summarizing the early Fathers’ teachings on Christ’s Real Presence, renowned Protestant historian of the early Church J. N. D. Kelly, writes: "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood" (Early Christian Doctrines, 440).

From the Church’s early days, the Fathers referred to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Kelly writes: "Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body. . . . Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood. His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity" (ibid., 197–98).

"Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally" (ibid., 211–12).


Ignatius of Antioch



"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).


Justin Martyr



"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).


Irenaeus



"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).


Clement of Alexandria



"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] 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" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).


Tertullian



"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).


Hippolytus



"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).


Origen



"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).


Cyprian of Carthage



"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).


Council of Nicaea I



"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [i.e., priests], whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]" (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).


Aphraahat the Persian Sage



"After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink" (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).


Cyril of Jerusalem



"The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ" (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).

"Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul" (ibid., 22:6, 9).


Ambrose of Milan



"Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ" (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).


Theodore of Mopsuestia



"When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).


Augustine



"Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands" (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).

"I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ" (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).

...

"What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction" (ibid., 272).


Council of Ephesus



"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving" (Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]).


NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

Andie, to use these ECFs to prove "the act of" transubstaniation is pushing things far beyond what they were ever trying to convey.

During "the mass" the priest says words over the wafer and the wine that aren't even Scriptural and in sort of an incantation type way "turns" the elements "into" The Body and Blood of Christ.

That is not what Jesus was saying at the Last Supper. That anyone else would have 'the power to change these elements INTO His Body & Blood'.

The "bread" is symbolic of HIS WORD - The Bread of Life and the wine, is symbolic of the new covenant bought by His Blood.
They ate together on The Passover. Jesus had already told them earlier in His ministry that they must "eat of His body and drink His blood" and many turned away from Him because they couldn't understand His Words. Canabalism? - some thought.
On Passover, they were to eat the 'whole' lamb.
We're to eat His Whole Word because He 'is' The Word of GOD.

Hippolytus said it very well in your quotes - "as a Memorial".

Also, the rebuke to the Corinthian was broader than just eating the bread "unworthily" but not "considering the Body". His Church is His Body and they were not considering one another, as some were eating too much and drinking too much as others went hungry, Paul wrote.

To eat "The Word of GOD" and remember that it was His blood that gained our right to FULL Salvation - as symbolised as the lamb's blood over the door in the Passover is how we should see Communion. The same way the Jews celebrate The Passover - we need to see that that is what "supper" they were eating and the symbolism is the same - except that now they were about to see Jesus as The LAMB of GOD.

There was never any mystical words spoken 'over the elements' to change them into what they already represent.

This practice did not even begin until the 13th Century.

This is from Keith Green's work on this topic.
The decrees followed by the dates - All after Constantine permitted Christianity that blended with the pagan practices and religions of Constantine's time in Rome ....


1. Presbyter (or elders) were first called priests by Lucian... 2nd century.

2. Prayers for the dead... AD 300.

3. The VENERATION of angels and dead saints and the use of images... 375.

4. The Mass as a daily celebration was adopted... 394.

5. The beginning of the exaltation of Mary, and the first use of the term "Mother of God" by the Council of Ephesus... 431.

6. Priests began to dress different from the laity and to wear special clothes... 500.

7. Extreme Unction... 526.

8. The doctrine of purgatory was first established by Gregory the Great... 593.

9. Prayers began to be offered to Mary, dead saints, and angels... 600.

10. The first man was proclaimed "Pope" (Boniface III)... 610.

11. Veneration of the cross, images, and relics authorized... 788.

12. Holy water, mixed with a pinch of salt and blessed by a priest was authorized in... 850.

13. Veneration of Saint Joseph... 890.

14. College of cardinals begun... 927.

15. Canonization of dead saints, first by Pope John XV... 995.

16. The Mass developed gradually as a sacrifice, attendance was made obligatory in ... 11th century.

17. The celibacy of the priesthood was decreed by Pope Hildebrand, Boniface VII ... 1079.

18. The rosary, or prayer beads copied from Hindus and Mohammedans) was introduced by Peter the Hermit ... 1090.

19. The Inquisition2 of "Heretics" was instituted by the Council of Verona ... 1184, and was legalized and promoted by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.

20. The sale of Indulgences ... 1190.

21. The seven sacraments defined by Peter Lombard ... 12th century.

22. The dogma of transubstantiation was decreed by Pope Innocent III ... 1215.

23. Confession of sins to the priest at least once a year was instituted by Pope Innocent III in the Lateran Council... 1215.

24. The adoration of the wafer (host) decreed by Pope Honorius III... 1220.

25. The scapular invented by Simon Stock of England... 1251.

26. The doctrine of purgatory proclaimed a dogma by the Council of Florence... 1439.

27. Tradition is declared of equal authority with the Bible by the Council Trent... 1546.

28. The Apocryphal Books were added to the Bible by the Council of Trent... 1545.

29. The Immaculate Conception of Mary was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

30. Pope Pius IX condemns all scientific discoveries not approved by the Roman Church... 1864.

31. Infallibility of the pope in matters of faith and morals proclaimed by the First Vatican Council... 1870.

32. Pius XI condemned the public schools... 1930.

33. Pius XI reaffirmed the doctrine that Mary is "The Mother of God"... 1931.

34. The dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII... 1950.

35. Mary proclaimed the Mother of the Church by Pope Paul VI... 1965



Excerpt from Keith Green's "The Catholic Chronicles" - http://www.sohmer.net/media/KG-TCC.pdf

Andie, thanks for the posts.

I can only say that what you provided are just the words of men. You did not provide anything from the Word of God. The verses you provided, I dealt with.

In concluding the context surrounding His body and blood in John 6, Jesus, not wanting us to be confused, says, "It is the Spirit that giveth life, the flesh profiteth nothing".

I will go with what Jesus said because in this instance, Jesus is being conradicted by men and I told you that when men or their traditions contradict the Word, I am bound to go by the Word.

You can surround yourself with many "counselors" and "learned" and "respected" men, as many have done, providing for themselves temporal comfort and security.

On the other hand, even if you are opposed by thousands, you are in good stead if Christ is on your side and He will be if you are with Him.

Many are caught in Catholicism's "Tradition Trap".

More later...

Respectfully,
A777

andie,

While searching for material covering Traditions/the Jewish Church and Jesus I found this site:
http://www.thirdelijahmessage.info/JewishTradition.html

One of the points this fellow makes is right on target with what I wanted to point out.

_________________
Janice

A777,

I don't understand your no scripture statement. Please look at the first paragraph:

1 Cor 10:16-17
1 Cor 11:23-29
John 6:32-71


Yes I understand your statement about the church fathers being mere men. That is my point. I now believe in scripture and apostolic tradition. The rest of the church did too until the reformation.

My input on this thread is now over. I hope I have helped someone out there open their eyes, and at least look into things a little more carefully.

God bless you all.

And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
Mark 7:9

_________________
Janice

hi Nathan,
All been said,he has been annointed by God and is a powerful preacher and I hope God uses him for longer.He reminds me of Billy Graham in ways and I do hope God continues to use him.He could have taken a leaf out of methodists book who actually learned gaelic to preach in parts of Ireland.I think he was influenced by what he thought was going to happen to his country in the future but as it happened that view turned out to be incorrect.
Its so easy to be perfect though isnt it!May God bless him and all on sermonindex who listen to him,
Staff

I saw you weren't going to comment any further on this thread which is fine but I do hope you read more of the posts or at least read my post. I have been praying throughout the day about the post I am going to quote you from and I would have commented sooner but my internet was down all day long.

"If the church fathers through the ages believed in the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine, I believe it too. If the church fathers throughout the ages believed that we are born again during baptism and in baptizing infants, I believe it too."

The problem with this is IF the church fathers ie Peter, Paul, John and the Apostles held this tradition they would have written it IN the Bible. We have ZERO scriptural backing to either claims and we see Christ spoke symbolically of the Bread and Wine and there was never ONE recording of an infant being baptised in the Word of God.

Traditionally the Bread and Wine wasn't even taken in the fashion we see today but for the Apostles it was a time of remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ and their unity in His death, burial, and Resurrection, they celebrated these things. One a Sunday ie the Lord's Day they would literally have a feast and the Bread and Wine were the centeral theme of the entire event. What we see even in Protestant churches and Catholic Churches alike is far off from what the New Testament Church actually did historically.

The traditions of Christianity were recorded in the Bible and anything add to is simply man made tradition added to the Word of God.

I highly recommend reading a book called "the Pilgrim Church" by E.H. Broadbent, He spent the greater portion of his life recording and investigating the New Testament Church and the People God preserved from Pentecost to the 1900's. For Broadbent church history was no light thing and he went to great pains to acquire and record the Testimony of the New Testament Church.

Here is a link to an electronic version for Free:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks10/1000351h.html

Also will say E.H. Broadbent had access to documents that we no longer have available to us. I do hope you read this and will to the very least read the first 2-3 chapter of "The Pilgrim Church" if not the whole thing.

God Bless,
Matthew

_________________
Matthew Guldner