Justin emphasizing that the Eucharist is not mere bread and wine; rather, when consecrated by the priest through the words given by Christ, they become the flesh and blood of Christ. Thus, St. Irenaeus, from Smyrna, became bishop of Lyons in , and throughout his life wrote several works defending and explaining the beliefs of the Christian Faith.
Like Ignatius, Irenaeus had known Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna—in his youth he had been a student of this bishop of his hometown, who had been a student of the apostle John. Around A. This word confessed certainly has a definite sound to it—that Christ admitted, acknowledged, declared that this was His body, despite how shocking that might seem.
But Irenaeus spells this out even more clearly in the following passages:. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the 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.
Here, Irenaeus emphasizes, like Justin Martyr, that the Eucharist is no longer merely bread and wine. His use of almost the exact same wording also seems to indicate that they may have known and learned from each other. Irenaeus continues, denying the Gnostic idea that the flesh is separate from the spirit and explaining how the members of the Church become one with Christ in the Eucharist:.
When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made , from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they [the Gnostics] affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him? Finally, Irenaeus elaborates with an analogy. And nowhere in this explanation does he clarify that this bread and wine is a mere symbol.
Hence, the writings of these early Church Fathers, whose holy lives, martyrdom, and close association to the apostles validate their credibility, confirm that the Church has believed in the Real Presence of the Eucharist from apostolic times. Holy Bible. Benedict Press, New York: Robert Appleton Company, Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. Emphasis added.
Rather, Jesus provides his very much alive and glorified body and blood in a sacramental manner , not as a mere human corpse given in a grotesque, three-dimensional way. Indeed, the Eucharist is not the blood of a mere man but that of the God-man who became flesh John and who thus has related divine power in offering his body and blood as salvific food.
Yet, Justin affirms here both the symbolic nature of the Eucharist—its having the appearance of bread and wine and also its being the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus, as he goes on to say in chapters For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, 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.
And yet we partake of the real body and blood of Jesus, as various eucharistic miracles such as Lanciano illustrate. For as the 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.
But he is mistaken. 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?
Some early Christian writings suggest that other foods such as fish, milk, cheese, and vegetables may also have been part of the general Eucharist meal, underscoring that the Early Christians blessed both their common gathering and all the associated foods.
As the Eucharist grew into something ritualized and partially distinct from the common meal itself, these more substantial foods became largely part of the common meal alone. It was the bread and cup that were critical and significant. For many today, simple bread and wine are secondary to the meal, but for the average inhabitant of the Roman world, they were elemental — and central. For the Early Christians, they assumed added sacramental significance. The early Eucharist very much contained the symposion as part of its ritual.
Singing, in various forms, was part of the gathering. Various Christian sources combine both the deipnon and the symposion while others have the symposion preceding the deipnon. Regardless of the ordering, in the earliest Christian Eucharist, the symposion section of the meal was the place of song, readings, and discourse and likely the place where the ritual cup of wine was offered and shared. Initially indistinguishable from the agape or common meal, into the s, the Eucharist became more ritualized, separated from the weekly or more frequent gatherings of the community.
As the Christian communities grew, the intimacy of small house churches gave way to larger venues and with it, a change in the structure and form of the gatherings. While some groups maintained the evening meal and within it a Eucharistic celebration, other communities, such as those in Rome, abandoned the deipnon entirely.
Evening meals persisted in some places, but many communities adopted a separate Eucharistic celebration in the mornings where no meal was provided but consecrated bread only was distributed. By the fourth century and after the Edict of Milan, house churches and the common meal had given way to vast basilicas and a public cult.
The Eucharist retained its original elements but in modified ways, adapted the intimate Greco-Roman meal customs to new forms of liturgical expression. These forms largely aped the Imperial Court, to include innovations such as incense, ceremonial fans, and processions. Catholics view the Eucharist in a variety of ways. Underscoring the Real Presence, some may come to the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and adoration. Some may also see the gathering of the People of God in celebration on Sunday as a continuation of the Early Church assembly.
As Church structures become increasingly difficult to sustain financially and as parishes contract in size and scope, parishoners may find again an intimacy within smaller communities. Ignatius seemed to take a similar approach to Justin Martyr, tying the incarnation of Christ — the literalness of His human flesh, with the literalness of the flesh offered in the Eucharist.
Ignatius was writing to the Romans while on his journey to be martyred — devoured by beasts in the Colosseum — for his faith. I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.
While anticipating his heavenly union with God, Ignatius clearly testifies that the bread of God is the flesh of Jesus, and the drink of God is His blood. Who else wrote on this? Irenaeus was next. A student of Polycarp — who was a student under John the apostle — Irenaeus was a missionary in southern France who was later made bishop of Lyon. In A. He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh Luke but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones — that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body.
I paused, thinking deeply about this. In general, I was surprised at how blunt these writers seemed. I thought hard for a few more moments. After all, the Catholic Church claims that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist — but does it also claim that the Eucharist is also a symbol? I thought back to my reading, earlier on the dock. Paragraphs of the Catechism explain the Catholic conception of signs and symbols. Further, they fulfill the types and figures of the Old Covenant, signify and make actively present the salvation wrought by Christ, and prefigure and anticipate the glory of heaven.
But is this concept explicitly tied to the Eucharist? A quick search led me to a helpful summary by Catholic apologist Gary Michuta. It is a Sacrament, which is a visible sign symbol, type, figure that points to an invisible reality Christ Himself. Many non-Catholics are surprised that the Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is a symbol in regards to the Sacramental species or its outward appearances …When the early Fathers speak of the Eucharist in terms of its species the mode in which it is given to us , it is correct to use terms like symbols, figures, types, and the like.
However, when one is speaking about the invisible reality of the Eucharist Christ Himself , we cannot speak of it as symbolic. This was fascinating, not to mention concerning.
While I loved swimming deep in history and reading these original texts, I had no idea what to make of all of this. Clement of Alexandria, A. Origen, A. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop, A. Ambrose of Milan, Bishop, A. But yet all those who ate that food died in the wilderness, but that food which you receive, that living Bread which came down from heaven, furnishes the substance of eternal life; and whosoever shall eat of this Bread shall never die, and it is the Body of Christ.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, A. We ought. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople d.
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