Cyril also said the following: “Christ gave fragments or pieces of bread to his Disciples.” “Our Sacrament avoucheth not the eating of a man, leading the minds of the faithful in ungodly manner to gross cogitations.” ---------------- Justin, a few sentences prior to the passage quoted by Thomist Anglican, had something to say which puts the later statement into perspective: “...deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion. And this food is called among us eukaristia.” If it were no longer bread and wine, but had been physically changed, why did Justin call the elements "bread and wine"? Justin also wrote of “...the bread which our Christ gave us to eat, in remembrance of His being made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the cup which He gave us to drink, in remembrance of His own blood, with giving of thanks.” ----------------- Irenaeus had a few additional things to say on the subject (which might answer Thomist Anglican's question about spiritual Eucharist): “And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that the receivers of these may obtain remission of sins and life eternal. Those persons, then, who perform these oblations in remembrance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish views, but, performing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom. ” Notice that Irenaeus' statement about the body and blood of Christ are bracketed, before and after, with the clarifying statements that the Eucharist is not carnal but spiritual and that the oblation is performed in a spiritual (impliedly not physical) manner. In Against Heresies (Ch. 18), Irenaeus was countering Gnostic belief that Jesus was not resurrected bodily and that He did not have a human nature. He was saying, if Gnostics don’t believe that the body can be eternally saved because it is part of an evil physical world created by demons, then they should stop partaking of the communion elements which are part of that physical creation and which represent Christ’s physical body & blood. Irenaeus writes, “Then, again, how can they [Gnostics] say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with His blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. 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.” Notice what Irenaeus stated, that the Eucharist was believed to consist “of two realities, earthly and heavenly” For this to be true, the bread and wine must remain earthly bread and wine at the same time that they become for us spiritually (heavenly) the body and blood of Jesus. ----------------- One could also consider some of the other early fathers' statements. Hippolytus of Rome: “Then the deacons shall immediately bring the oblation. The bishop shall bless the bread, which is the symbol of the Body of Christ; and the bowl of mixed wine, which is the symbol of the Blood which has been shed for all who believe in him.” The noteworthy theologian, Augustine, made the following statements (I have grouped them to delete extraneous verbosity and enhance clarity): “Our Lord doubted not to say, This is my Body, when he gave a token of his body.” “Christ took Judas unto his table, whereat he gave unto his Disciples the figure of his body.” “Unless Sacraments had a certain likeness of the things of which they be sacraments, then indeed they were no Sacraments. And of this likeness oftentimes they bear the names of the things themselves that are represented by the sacraments.” “In sacraments we must consider, not what they be” (in substance and nature), “but what they signify.” “It is a dangerous matter, and a servitude of the soul, to take the sign instead of the thing that is signified.” “If it be a speech that commandeth, either by forbidding an horrible wickedness, or requiring that which is profitable, it is not figurative: but if it seem to require horrible wickedness, and to forbid that is good and profitable, it is spoken figuratively. Except ye eat (saith Christ) the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. He seemeth to require the doing of that which is horrible, or most wicked: it is a figure, therefore, commanding us to communicate with the passion of Christ, and comfortably and profitably to lay up in our remembrance, that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us.” “It is a more horrible thing to eat man’s flesh, than to kill it: and to drink man’s blood, than it is to shed it.”
It means precisely what the Fathers are saying; it is real, but it doesn't have material substance. Your objection seems to be, that the only substance which exists, is material. So by your logic, the soul, which is spiritual, doesn't have substance! And it also doesn't exist either. On the contrary, I would assert that the soul does exist, and does have substance, without being material. Matter doesn't add substance to a thing, it's just one form of substance. This is thomist realism 101, and I'm sure you know this already. Angels. Body is a very mundane thomistic and aristotelian term, so you should have no problems there. Angels, souls, many kinds of things have a spiritual body, and are substantial, without having matter. The only objectionable one might be Blood, why a spiritual body might have blood. One answer might be that blood is not a separate kind of thing, but is a part of the body. It is only mentioned separately, not that it is separate. And it is mentioned separately perhaps in reference to the Passion, how his blood poured out from his side in atonement for sins, as prefigured by the Scapegoat of the old Testament, whose blood was poured out at his sacrifice in the Temple, thereby atoning for the sins of the Hebrews. But since the blood is just part of the body, in a technical sense it is not two kinds of things, it is not "Body and Blood", but just "Body".
Absolutely not. My question was what was a spiritual body? Not what is spiritual substance. Not correct. A body by definition is material. St. Thomas Aquinas would say that angels don't have bodies but are pure spirits, only form with no matter. A spiritual body is a contradiction. Again not true. Souls are not a body but are separate from the body. Spirits are not bodies but immaterial. For Thomas, given that angels are intellectual creatures, they must be pure spirit, i.e. self-subsistent forms. They are completely incorporeal; they are in no way material, and have no bodies of any kind.
Does the word literally carry a different meaning in the dictionary in the USA, like elevator, pavement and lift do in the UK? My English Dictionary says literally: using the literal , as opposed to the figurative, meaning of a word or phrase, often inappropriately used for mere emphasis. Surely we don't therefore (literally) eat with our heart, we (literally) eat with our mouth, unless we are using the word eat figuratively. We (figuratively) eat with our heart and metaphorically have faith, with our heart, not (literally or even metaphorically) with our mouth. The heart, not the mouth is the receptacle of faith. (Metaphorically speaking). Surely that is not too difficult for anyone to grasp. .
I have no need to quote the entire thing, since you know quite well the part you rely on. But it isn't the part that matters, since it is not dispositive of the issue. To elaborate, I will now quote enough to show the context of verse 27. 1Co 11:20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. 1Co 11:21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. 1Co 11:22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. 1Co 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 1Co 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 1Co 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1Co 11:26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. 1Co 11:27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 1Co 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 1Co 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 1Co 11:30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. 1Co 11:32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. 1Co 11:33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. 1Co 11:34 And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come. Now, what exactly was the problem here? The problem was that some people were pigging out on the Eucharistic elements as food for the belly. What is Paul's warning? Paul says, if you eat the Eucharist as mere food for the belly, you eat and drink unworthily and fail to discern the Lord's body. The issue was not whether a physical change takes place. Paul was not cautioning against failing to discern a physical transformation. This is a straw man; no one is claiming that the consecrated elements are not the actual (real Presence) body and blood of Jesus. What we are saying is that the consecrated bread and wine, while being changed, do not change physically (in physical composition); the elements are changed in Spirit and in Truth so that Christ is present spiritually and locally. When we then partake of the physical bread and wine, we also partake in the spirit of the body and blood of Jesus Christ by faith. Partaking of Holy Communion is an act of worship, is it not? As a bit of an 'aside,' let's recall what Jesus said (in John 4:24): God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. We don't worship Him in the physical ingestion of matter formed by human beings (baked bread and fermented grapes) per se; instead we worship Him in the spirit by partaking of Him spiritually. (I'm not claiming that my description meets absolute theological perfection, but hopefully I've conveyed the gist.) John Jewel wrote an excellent explanation in his treatise on the subject, and I'd like to reproduce a bit of it here: “We say, they are changed, that they have a dignity and preeminence which they had not before; that they are not now common bread or common wine, but the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; a holy mystery; a covenant between Christ and us; a testimony unto our conscience, that Christ is the Lamb of God; a perfect seal, and sufficient warrant of God's promises, whereby God bindeth Himself to us, and we stand likewise bounden unto God, so as God is our God, and we are His people. “In baptism, the nature and substance of water doth remain still: and yet it is not bare water. It is changed, and made the sacrament of our regeneration. It is water consecrated, and made holy by the blood of Christ. They which are washed therein are not washed with water, but in the blood of the unspotted Lamb. One thing is seen, and another understood. We see the water, but we understand the blood of Christ. Even so we see the bread and wine, but with the eyes of our understanding we look beyond these creatures: we reach our spiritual senses into heaven, and behold the ransom and price of our salvation. We do behold in the Sacrament, not what it is, but what it doth signify.” “A Sacrament is a figure or token : the body of Christ is figured or tokened. The Sacrament bread is bread, it is not the body of Christ. The body of Christ is flesh, it is no bread. The bread is beneath, the body is above : the bread is on the table, the body is in heaven : the bread is in the mouth, the body in the heart. The bread feedeth the outward man, the body feedeth the inward man. The bread feedeth the body, the body [of Christ] feedeth the soul. The bread shall come to nothing ; the body is immortal, and shall not perish. The bread is vile, the body of Christ glorious. Such a difference is there between the bread, which is a Sacrament of the body, and the body of Christ itself. The Sacrament is eaten as well of the wicked as of the faithful : the body is only eaten of the faithful. The Sacrament may be eaten unto judgment : the body cannot be eaten but unto salvation. Without the Sacrament we may be saved : but without the body of Christ we have no salvation, we cannot be saved.” Does that help at all?
Okay, so we're drilling further into the issue then. I would accept your claim that a spiritual being does not have body, if you follow Thomas in stating that a body is defined as something pertaining to a corporeal being. But if you are importing Thomistic metaphysics into your exegesis, you'll run into 2 incontrovertible problems. 1. Translation You are using an English translation of Thomas, and therefore are prey to his 19th century (Romanist) English translators, who drew a false equivalence between the Thomistic 'body', and the 'body' used in Scripture, the fathers, or the BCP prayer of humble access. I'm not even contending with Thomas here, merely with the English translation. When Christ, in the Last Supper, said, "This is my body" / "Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου" Your translation of Thomas draws a false equivalence between the word 'body' there, with the 'body' in Thomas, such as in IaIIae q.51: "Whether the angels have bodies" / "Utrum angeli habeant corpora" You are saying that Christ could've said 'body', or 'substance', or 'member' or 'essence'. He would've used Thomistic medieval language right? And having all the Thomistic options, he purposefully chose 'body', thereby indicating a specifically physical presence. Yes? Ughhhh. I won't even get into the fact that in Koine greek, the word for flesh is "σάρξ" rather than "σῶμά". 2. Thomistic metaphysics You seem to be using Thomas to interpret the New Testament. But everyone else who doesn't use the Thomistic metaphysics (and that means all of the church fathers, together with the new testament) does not draw the correlations you seem to be making. In the quotes you cited, the Fathers are very comfortable in saying, at once, 1) that in the Sacrament we consume the Body, 2) without it ceasing to be materially bread and wine. That language would've been incomprehensible to Thomas. By using him, you're cutting yourself off from the entire Patristic theology. Anglican theology is 100% tied to the Church Fathers, and therefore with Thomas you'd be hard pressed to understand the precise meaning in the Book of Common Prayer as well. The prayer of humble access most definitely does not mean "body" in your sense.
Very much so. If I could award your post 100 likes instead of just one, I would have done, rejoicingly. Discerning Christ aright through faith, in the heart, is a change that some have not yet fully been able to figuratively grasp, it seems. 2 Cor.5:16-18. "From now on, therefore, we regard no one, [especially Christ], according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; This is another example of the wonderfully profound biblical aphorism: "When you see a therefore, ALWAYS ask yourself what the therefore's there for."
I think Anglo-Catholics would describe it, not as physically, but substantially, corporeally. We don't say that the breads accidents become the body and blood, but through the Spirit they become substantially and corporeally the body and blood. But I can see your reasoning. While I may disagree with the end result, I respect your position.
No I never said that. All I was saying was that the word body means something material. A spirit doesn't have a body and scripturally you can't see that and through the Church Fathers you can't find that. Even to just use logic, a spirit isn't immaterial, and a body is material. We have to be able to agree on terms and definitions to have a discussion. If you won't agree that a body is as it is defined, then this conversation won't go anywhere. Again, I'd disagree. While I may be using Thomistic Metaphysics to aide in understanding scripture, just because the Church Fathers don't use that metaphysic, I'd say they still come to the same agreement as I do. Hence why the ancient churches all agreed on the Eucharist being the real body and blood of Christ corporeally. It wasn't until later that people tried to go back and reinterpret them to mean what those people meant at that time, which is wrong. Just a plain reading of Scripture and the Church Fathers leads one to believe that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of our Lord. Not spiritually, because even to them, a spirit does not have a body or blood, but is immaterial. Here is a quote by St. 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]). To me and to the ancient churches it was clear, the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ! But I can respect your view even if I don't agree.
No it doesn’t. Only to Aquinas it does, and only in his english translation it does (he himself never uttered the English word “body”). Outside of the theology of Aquinas, the word does not mean “something material”. To the fathers who said that we truly receive the body, but the elements remain bread & wine, it meant something else. And in the Book of Common Prayer, “Grant us ... so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son”, it means something else. By using Aquinas, I don’t see how you can understand the Fathers, the Anglicans, or the Scriptures themselves.
I suspect we would have a few fewer problems if we had some better translations of the Greek ἀνάμνησιν. σῶμά in the Greek is understood to be that which casts a shadow distinguished from the shadow itself.
I suspect there would be less disagreement on issues such as this if everyone had attained the same level of formal thinking maturity too. Even some adults never reach the higher stages of cognitive ability so are still trapped in concrete thinking. .
A bit more to Augustine's Expostion of that psalm (either 33 or 34, depending on the numbering system?), which aids us in the context: "And was carried in His Own Hands:" how "carried in His Own Hands"? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, "This is My Body." Jesus took into His hands physical things that are familiar to the faithful: bread and wine. And "in a manner" carried himself: he kind of, sort of, in a manner of speaking, carried Himself. It might be helpful to recall that during His earthly ministry Jesus is never recorded in the N.T. as having utilized the power of being in more than one place at once (omnipresence). This is because He lived as "fully man," a mortal life in a mortal body, with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. (Like us, for example, He had to pray in order to know the will of the Father.)
The english dictionary agrees with me. Again, if we can't come up with agreements on definitions, we can't get anywhere. Give me your definition of body and your supposed understanding of what Scripture says a body is. Read EL Mascall to see.
Ah but He is still divine, therefore, having the capability to be at more than one place at one time. He can, and I believe, as Scripture says, "This is my body." To say otherwise or reinterpret it in a "spiritual" way (again what is a spiritual body? That doesn't make sense) is to against the plain reading of Scripture.
1 Cor.15:42-49. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. It is clear from this that a natural body is not the same as a spiritual body. If you doubt there is such a thing as a spiritual body you had better take it up with St Paul when you end up with one of your own. .
St. Paul isn't saying that we will be spirits, but that our body will no longer be only natural but glorified, spiritual i.e. filled with the Spirit. In the Resurrection, we will have bodies, physical, tangible bodies, but they will be glorified. We will bear the image of the man of heaven, Jesus, who has a body still. So the spiritual body is a glorified body. What I am asking is what is a spirit body, in the sense of what is a spirit body made up of? Definition wise a body is material. So something immaterial is not a body. A spirit is opposite to a body. We have souls and bodies, two separate things. A soul is by nature not a body. And I would argue that it is the same with the spirit creatures in heaven.
Paul says we will be like Christ. He had a spiritual body which could appear, vanish and walk through closed doors. His body was not the body of a ghost, so neither will we have 'ghostly' bodies, according to St Paul. Have you ever seen a body like that? No? Neither have I yet but according to scripture that's what we have been promised by Apostolic authority. .
Exactly! So He wasn't a spirit, but a Man. He is the last Adam, the heavenly Man. He has a glorified body and one day we will have a glorified body as well, God willing. So, our Lord's spiritual body was material, as will ours. Our natural body, that is, unglorified and corrupted bodies, will one day be filled and enlivened by the Holy Spirit and we will be as our Lord is, glorified. Luke 23:39 - "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have." John 20:27- "Then he saith to Thomas: Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." 1 John 3:2- "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is."
I agreee that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, was divine. Yet He did not exercise full divinity, by choice, because it would have made it impossible for Him to live as man, a mortal human. He could have held full knowledge of all things, but He did not. ("Only the Father knows.") Jesus had to pray to the Father and listen to the Holy Spirit, much as we do. He could have been in Jerusalem, Galilee, and Samaria simultaneously, but He didn't. He could have thrown Himself off the top of the temple, or He could have come down off the cross.... but He didn't! God the Son voluntarily set aside many divine attributes, including omniscience, omnipresence and immunity to temptation, to be born of a virgin and live as a mortal human being. Php 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: Php 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: Php 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Just as you could choose to wrestle with one arm tied behind your back, in similar fashion God the Son chose to live on earth, not as a divine being, not as God in the flesh, but as a man.