In this article we purpose to deal further with the statement of the Catholic writer in the September, 1935, Messenger of the Sacred Heart, wherein he says that "the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist was unanimously taught by the Fathers of the Catholic Church, and for over ten centuries was accepted as an article of faith by all Christians."—Page 99.
The question of the "real presence of Christ in the Eucharist" is so vast that a detailed account of it cannot be attempted in the limited space of a single article, since we purpose to deal with the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation as well. However, sufficient evidence will be given to show what the Christians did believe and practice in the early ages of the church.
The Apostolic Age
The Christians, during the age of the apostles, celebrated the Lord's supper as outlined in a previous article dealing with 1 Corinthians 11. The supper was to them neither a sacrament nor a sacrifice. The apostle Paul distinctly tells us that in the Christian the life of Christ was manifest. He says he was "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Cor. 4 : 10, 11.
Just as the fullness of the Godhead was manifest in Christ (Col. 2:9), so the fullness of Christ must be manifested in us. The fullness of God in Christ was the Word of God incarnate in the body (or life) of Christ. So, in like manner, the words of Christ must be assimilated by us in order for us to manifest the life of Christ, not once a week or a quarter, but every day in the year—Christ in His fullness, as represented in His word, through the Holy Spirit's guidance and teaching. Says Paul: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20.
There is no intimation in the New Testament that a greater power was given them by partaking of the Lord's supper than they possessed every day in having Christ living in them by faith. Nothing can be added to a Spirit-filled life, for he whom Christ possesses is feeding constantly upon the words that He speaks to him. And in harmony with, and according to, the proportion of faith with which each individual assimilates the words of Christ, he manifests the life of Christ in his daily walk. In the New Testament there is no suggestion or intimation of either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, as later develop in the Christian church.
The Postapostolic Age
The usual way of celebrating the supper after the time of the apostles, was at the Agapae, or love feast, which was a sign of Christian brotherhood. This feast began with a blessing by the elder, and closed with passing round the broken pieces of the loaf, after it had been blessed. And the same was done with the cup, after it had been blessed.
In the postapostolic age this love feast gradually died out and degenerated into a social entertainment for the wealthy, with a little food for the poor. Ambrose abolished the Agapae in northern Italy because of its abuses. Augustine urged the bishop Aurelius of Carthage to follow this example. It was during the first five centuries of the Christian Era that a gradual change came into the church relating to the Lord's supper. The teaching of the church Fathers did not agree. Some explained it one way, some another. Cyril of Jerusalem believed in some supernatural relationship between the elements of the bread and wine, and the body of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa called the Eucharist the "food of immortality." St. Chrysostom believed that after the bread had been blessed it became a dignified body of the Lord, but remained bread as before.
Many of the Latin Fathers, such as Hilary and Gaudentius, approached closely to the idea of transubstantiation. Theodoret, who lived not long after Chrysostom, maintained that the bread and the wine retained their own nature after consecration. Thus the Eucharist gradually became a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church; that is to say, through the consecration of the elements of bread and wine, a mysterious, spiritual power was considered imparted to the bread and the wine, which was in turn received by all who partook of it worthily. It thus became the "food of immortality," yet was still bread and wine. Such was the explanation of many of the Fathers, and in particular of St. Austin. We quote from a standard authority:
"The next irrefragable testimony is that of Pope Gelasius, who wrote against the Nestorians and Eutychians, about the reality of the two natures in Christ, anno 490, where he thus proves them: Doubtless, the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we receive, are a divine thing; and, therefore, by them we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them." —Gelas, de Duabus Natur. cont. Nestor, et Eutych. Bible Patr., t. 4, p. 422. "Certe Sacramenta qua Sumimus corporis et Sanguinis Domini Divina res est, propter quod et per eadem Divinae efficimur consortes naturae, et tamen esse non desinit Substantia vel natura panis et vini. Et certe imago et Similitudo Corporis et Sanguinis Christi in actione Mysteriorum celebrantur," etc. (See Bingham's "Christian Antiquities," Vol. II, p. 816.)
Here one of the most noted and aggressive popes freely admits that the bread and wine do not change into the real flesh and blood of Christ, but at the same time he attributes a divine, mysterious power to the elements, the bread and the wine, which united the receiver to Christ. This is a sacrament. As yet (490 A.D.) there is no sign of it as a sacrifice.
The Middle Ages
The natural consequences of elevating the apostolic ministry into a priesthood suggested a sacrificial service, for where there is a priest there must of necessity also be a sacrifice, a victim. The establishing of the Eucharist as a sacrament was but a steppingstone to making it the Sacramentum, of Sacrificiitni,—a sacrament of sacrifice. This took place gradually during the Middle Ages, the process being too involved to relate here. When we reach the time of Innocent III (c.1200), we find a fully established Roman Catholic priesthood, with hundreds of sacrificial altars in use all over Europe. At the Lateran Council, held 1215 A.D., Innocent promulgated his decree as follows:
"There is truly one universal church of the faithful, outside of which no one can possibly be saved. -It which theSame Jesus Christ Himself is the priest and the sacrifice; whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine, by transubstantiation, the bread into the body, and the wine into the blood, by divine power, so that for the completing of the mystery of unity we receive from His, that which He receives from our. . . . And this sacrament, certainly no one is able to administer, except the priest who has been ordained according to the prescribed rites by the authority of the keys of the church which Jesus Christ Himself bestowed upon the apostles and their successors."—Decree of Innocent III, 1215 A.D., concerning Transubstantiation. (See Harduin's "Concilia," VII, 16, 17.)
("Una vero est fidelium universalis ecclesia, extra quam nullus omnius salvatur. In qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Jesus Christus: cujus corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, potestate divina, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus de suo quod accepit ipse de nostro. Et hoc utique sacramentum nemo potest conficere, nisi sacerdos, qui fuerit rite ordinatus secundum claves ecclesiae, quas ipse concessit apostolic et eorum successoribus Jesus Christus.")
By this decree, transubstantiation was established in the Roman Catholic Church. Long before this, many bishops and other prelates had privately believed in it, but not until 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, did it become a universal dogma of the church. In many localities and provinces the bread and wine were still administered to the laity. It was not until the Council of Constance, 1414 A.D., that the wine was taken away from the laity in direct opposition to the Saviour's invitation, "Drink ye all of it" (Matt. 26:27), and thus the universal practice of the apostolic and postapostolic church was abolished.
(To be continued)
