Signs, Symbols, and Spiritual Things
A Response to Nathan Busenitz on the Early Church Fathers and Catholic Teaching on the Eucharist
Note: All Bible verses are from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. All views expressed herein are the author’s own.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had the pleasure of engaging in a discussion with one of my relatives about religion. He is an Evangelical Protestant and I a Catholic, thus it gives me a rare opportunity to catch up on what our Protestant brothers and sisters are up to, and to better understand their positions on things. This time the conversation fell to some of the differences between our two sects, centering on the disagreements surrounding the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper. I, of course, hold to the traditional view of the Real Presence while my relative Matt would tend towards a more spiritual reality advocated by many Protestant theologians over the centuries. My arguments centered on the Early Church and their witness to this belief, and since we were both a bit under-researched on the topic, we agreed to a ceasefire until such a time as we could find some articles and literature to describe our respective positions. Matt sent me a series of three articles on the subject, which I have since dutifully looked over to develop my thoughts. Unfortunately for him my thoughts quickly ballooned beyond what I could fit in a simple text message, thus I came up with the idea of responding to these three articles in a series of blog posts. Over the next couple of days I’ll be releasing my thoughts on each of the sources provided, and whether or not I found them convincing or not.
Today I’d like to start with the first article, entitled “Did the Early Church Teach Transubstantiation?”, written by Nathan Busenitz, the Executive Vice President and Dean of Faculty at The Master's Seminary in Los Angeles. Mr. Busenitz’s general thesis in this article (one of two he wrote on the subject) is to ask the question: “…did the early church believe that the elements (the bread and the cup) were actually and literally transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ? In other words, did they articulate the doctrine of transubstantiation as modern Roman Catholics do?”.
Now my response will not be concerned with trying to provide more quotes from these same early church figures in support of my view, as much smarter people have done this (I’d highly recommend anything from Joe Heschmeyer and Catholic Answers, for starters). Instead, I want to tackle a few assumptions which Mr. Busenitz makes when quoting these Fathers, and why I ultimately find his argument unconvincing.
Mr. Busenitz mentions this big term, “transubstantiation” as the Catholic belief, but does not give a definition of what the Catholic Church means by this term. Therefore, I believe it’s beneficial to define our terms. The word (which I admit is unwieldy to one unfamiliar with it) simply means “the change of one substance to another”. In other words, it describes how the substance of the bread and wine become something else, i.e. the Body and Blood of Christ. The word itself didn’t come about until Hildebert of Tours coined it in the year 1079, however this doesn’t change the fact that the Early Church believed in this sort of idea from the beginning. After all, the idea of the Trinity was always a Christian belief, although it wasn’t codified with that term until the Council of Nicaea (325). According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (emphasis mine):
The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." (CCC, 1376)
If this concept of “substance” still seems a bit strange (after all, the Aristotelian Greek idea of “substances” and “accidents” so familiar to the Medieval philosophers is so far from our understanding nowadays), then let me give an example. Let’s take the Human person: we can say that the “substance” of us, what makes up our being, is our Humanity and our inner life. While we grow and develop, learning and becoming more aware of the world around us and growing in knowledge and wisdom, the fact that we are “ourselves” doesn’t change. Contrast this to our outward appearance, or “accidents”, as the Greeks would call it. These are the outer things about us which do change – our hair grows, our bodies grow, our looks may change with scars, age marks, etc. The “accidents” of us may change, but the “substance” – what makes us ourselves and Human – does not. It is an unseen reality, but one that is undoubtedly real, as even the most hardened solipsist would grant. This is what we mean when we talk about the “substance” and “accidents” of bread and wine. During the Mass, the outer appearances – “accidents” – of bread and wine remain the same, right down to how it tastes, how it is processed by the body, and its molecular composition (except in the rare cases of Eucharistic miracles, but that’s a topic for another day). However, despite this outwardly appearance, the very “substance”, that unseen reality, is transformed – transubstantiated – into the very Body and Blood of Christ.
To make matters even more complicated, this is different from the actual teaching that Christ is literally and wholly present in the appearance of bread and wine, which is simply called the “Real Presence”. “Transubstantiation” describes how this reality happens, but the teaching itself should be rendered “Real Presence”, therefore that is how I’ll be describing it.
Hopefully that makes sense and hasn’t caused you to run off just yet. With that out of the way, we can turn to Mr. Busenitz’ article itself. As mentioned, the premise of this article is to show that the Early Church (those Christians who lived during the time of the apostles in the First Century, up to roughly the year 600, depending on how you number it) did not believe this. To begin with, Mr. Busenitz offers a handful quotes from several fathers, including St. Ignatius of Antioch (died ca. 108), St. Irenaeus of Lyon (ca.130 – 202), Tertullian (ca. 155 – 220), Origen (ca. 185 – 253), and St. Augustine (354 – 430), which he says are commonly used by Roman Catholics to justify the belief of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I won’t quote all of them here, but feel free to check out Mr. Busenitz’ listing in his article. I will however include the two earliest Fathers of the group, that of Ignatius and Irenaeus.
St. Ignatius of Antioch was the third bishop of Antioch (in Roman Syria, also the city where the term “Christian” first came into use in Acts 11:26), who lived in the late first century, dying around the year 108 (though later dates have also been proposed). He was a known companion of St. Polycarp who was himself a student of the Apostle John, thus indicating that St. Ignatius was also familiar with John’s teachings. The quote of him affirming the Real Presence is as follows (emphasis mine):
“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).
Another of the earliest Church Fathers is another “I” character, St. Irenaeus of Lyon (And yes, I always get these two mixed up), who lived in the mid-to-late second century (ca.130 – 202) in the city Lyon in the Roman province of Gaul (modern-day France). He is one of the most famous from this period, writing a volume entitled Adversus Haereses (literally Against Heresy) which, fittingly, tackled many of the heretical ideas of his day. One of the most prominent groups were the Gnostics, who believed that the physical world is evil, created by an evil god the “demiurge”, while the spiritual world is good, created by the God of the New Testament (interestingly enough, some Gnostic sects believed that the Old Testament God was this demiurge, a belief that Christians have always denied). Therefore, Jesus came in a merely spiritual, intangible way to save our souls, while eschewing our bodies as evil. (Another note is that many Gnostics denied the Incarnation of Christ, as well as his bodily Resurrection). In trying to combat these false ideas, Irenaeus uses, amongst other things, the truth of the Real Presence, already common amongst the early Christians, to dispel the Gnostics:
“He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood” (Against Heresies, 4:17:5).”
“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?” (Against Heresies, 5:2).”
Getting back to our interlocutor, Mr. Busenitz, he correctly identifies the Gnostic heretics as the people to whom those like Ignatius and Irenaeus are arguing with. He rightly points out that St. John himself combated the idea that Christ had no physical body right in the pages of Sacred Scripture, when he says, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7). Mr. Busenitz grants that, in order to combat this idea that Christ had no body, those like Ignatius and Irenaeus used Christ’s words in the Last Supper “This is My body, this is My blood” to argue otherwise. My understanding and Mr. Busenitz’ understand begin to diverge, however, when he brings the second-century writer Tertullian into the conversation.
Tertullian (ca. 155 – 220) was, like the aforementioned men, in written combat with the Gnostic ideas (he was, after all, a contemporary of Irenaeus, albeit living in Carthage in North Africa as opposed to Gaul). His opponent was a Gnostic named Marcion. In a treatise called Against Marcion (the ancients were very direct in what they wanted to convey), Mr. Busenitz quotes Tertullian saying (emphasis Mr. Busenitz’):
“Having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, Jesus made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is My body,’ that is, the symbol of My body. There could not have been a symbol, however, unless there was first a true body. An empty thing or phantom is incapable of a symbol. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new covenant to be sealed ‘in His blood,’ affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body that is not a body of flesh” (Against Marcion, 4.40).
Mr. Busenitz rests his argument on this passage. “Tertullian's explanation could not be clearer.”, he says. “On the one hand, he based his argument against Gnostic docetism on the words of Christ, “This is My body.” On the other hand, Tertullian recognized that the elements themselves ought to be understood as symbols which represent the reality of Christ's physical body. Because of the reality they represented, they provided a compelling refutation of docetic error.” Basically, because Tertullian (and others, as we’ll see) use the term “symbol” in reference to Christ’s words about His Body, this indicates that they cannot be talking about the Real Presence. Furthermore, if a father uses the words “spiritual” when describing the Eucharist then, according to Mr. Busenitz, they cannot mean anything like the Real Presence. He gives a whole slew of quotes to show this, but in the interest of brevity I will only give a few (again, emphases Mr. Busenitz):
The Didache, written in the late-first or early-second century, referred to the elements of the Lord’s table as “spiritual food and drink” (The Didache, 9 [NOTE: This is actually from Chapter 10])
Justin Martyr (110–165) spoke of “the bread which our Christ gave us to offer in remembrance of the Body which He assumed for the sake of those who believe in Him, for whom He also suffered, and also to the cup which He taught us to offer in the Eucharist, in commemoration of His blood"(Dialogue with Trypho, 70).
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150 – 215) explained that, “The Scripture, accordingly, has named wine the symbol of the sacred blood” (The Instructor, 2.2).
Augustine (354–430), also, clarified that the Lord’s Table was to be understood in spiritual terms: “Understand spiritually what I said; you are not to eat this body which you see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify me shall pour forth. . . . Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood” (Exposition of the Psalms, 99.8).
So… is that it? Do these quotes offer sufficient evidence that the Church Fathers unanimously teach against the idea of the Real Presence? As can be expected from what I’ve alluded to thus far, I don’t think this is the case. Mr. Busenitz gives snippets of quotes from these fathers, highlights places where they speak of “symbol” or “spiritual” or “commemoration” when describing the Eucharist, concludes that this proves they didn’t hold to the Real Presence, and rests his case. But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves: does this actually conclusively prove what Mr. Busenitz wants it to? If St. Augustine says that the Eucharist should be understood spiritually, does that preclude any other type of way to understand it? I’d say no, because the Catholic Church affirms everything that’s said here; we wouldn’t have any problem calling the Eucharist a “sign” or “symbol” or “figure”. The Catechism itself, which I quoted from earlier, refers to the Eucharist as a sign (emphasis and brackets mine):
Inasmuch as they are creatures, these perceptible realities can become means of expressing the action of God who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God. the same is true of signs and symbols taken from the social life of man: washing and anointing, breaking bread and sharing the cup [The Eucharist] can express the sanctifying presence of God and man's gratitude toward his Creator. (CCC 1148)
The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you.... This is the cup of my blood...." (CCC 1412)
Just because something is a “sign” or “symbol” does not necessarily mean that that is the only way to understand it. To wantonly assume that a symbol is not also real in any sense and cannot be a tangible, visible thing would be incorrect. Take, for example, this analogy (which I definitely stole from a friend of mine who is much better at analogies than I): is the American flag a symbol of America? Of course, it is; it’s a symbol which represents our country and everything it stands for on an abstract level. But it doesn’t simply stop there; this symbol of America, Old Glory, is also a very real representation of America. If I were to go to a town and see the American flag flying over the town hall, that would tell me something real- that the United States has political control over that area. In this way, the American flag is a symbol, both in a philosophical sense and in a real sense.
The same with Christ’s body. As the Catechism says, Catholics believe that the bread and wine are signs of Christ’s body, but also that they become Christ’s body. After all, Our Lord is very clear on this matter in John 6 (I know there’s a contentious verse here, which I’ll address in Part III of this series):
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” (John 6:53 – 58)
I know Catholics, when debating this topic, tend to say “We don’t believe that the Eucharist is symbolic”, as if there is no symbolism inherent in the idea of the Real Presence. I know I’ve said such in my time. This is not strictly true, however, as the Catholic idea is that the Real Presence isn’t merely symbolic. That’s where the contention lies. Just because something is a symbol, does not mean that said thing is also not real in a sense. Especially if our Lord doubles down on this teaching several times, not bothering to correct those who began to walk away because they could not accept it.
When it comes to something being referred to as “spiritual”, much of this same logic applies. Something being spiritual can be referring to things of the spirit (commonly juxtaposed with the flesh), but this does not mean that it has nothing at all to do with the body. Take Romans 12, for example (another passage we’ll come back to in Part III). St. Paul is enjoining the new Christian converts how to live their new life in Christ. He says: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). He is telling the Romans to offer their own bodies in service to God as part of their spiritual worship, connecting the two. The rest of the chapter describes how to live their lives, not in a merely inward or invisible way, mind you, but in an outward, tangible way.
Indeed, Christianity does not believe that we are simply physical bodies, nor does it believe we are only souls. As our Lord says, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28). There are two components to what we are made up of, and neither can be separated from the other. (After all, God created both the spirit and the body when he named creation very good in Genesis 1) When we become more spiritually linked to Christ, then we are compelled to act in ways which represent this, showing a union between our inward disposition and outward action. Like St. James says:
What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
Our Lord knew this to be true, which is why He became a man and was bodily killed on the cross in order to save us. All of this was spiritually renewing but done in a very bodily way. He didn’t just come to take away sins in an invisible way, He did this and gave physical signs – healings, works, and sacraments. You can’t separate the invisible from the visible in Christ’s coming; to do so would be to fall into a similar trap as those St. John warns about in his letters.
As I wrap up, I think this is a good time to quickly mention the Catholic practice of sacraments and how it plays into this duality of body and soul. As we’ve gone over so far, we are a composite of body and soul, thus God’s grace is meant to affect both realities of our persons. The sacraments are simply the embodiment of this, a visible sign of invisible grace. God knows we cannot normally perceive the disembodied spiritual world, thus gives us things we can perceive with our senses to communicate these realities, hence sacraments. Baptism (Matthew 28:19, John 3:5), the Eucharist (John 6, Luke 22:19-20), Confirmation (Acts 8:14-17, Titus 3:5), Anointing of the Sick (Mark 16: 17-18, James 5:14-15), Holy Orders (Hebrews 5:1, 4-6, Titus 1:5, 1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Timothy 1:6), Marriage (Mark 10:4-12), and Confession (John 20:21-23) are all spiritual things, but since we cannot perceive spiritual them with our incarnate, bodily senses, they have this physical, visible component we can perceive as a sign (or symbol) that God’s grace is present. And, indeed, these bring life to both body and soul. “…Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…"
I’ve perhaps expended a few more words than I initially intended, but I think it necessary to get to the core of why I find Mr. Busenitz’ quotes unsatisfying. While they are all undoubtedly from the fathers, Mr. Busenitz makes the mistake of assuming that symbols cannot also indicate realities, and that spiritual things must intrinsically be things unrelated to the body or visible world. The Truth is greater than that, as Our Lord’s whole ministry serves as testament to. We are body and soul composites, so while our flesh may be compromised by sin, we can have confidence that through Christ all sin can be forgiven and we can be purified. Even though through sin we will physically die, we also live in hope of the resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come.
Other Posts in this Series:
Signs, Symbols, and Spiritual Things (you are here)
Further Reading:
Did the Early Church Teach Transubstantiation? by Nathan Busenitz- The original article
Very Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist by Joe Heschmeyer - A list of different Church Fathers and quotes supporting their views on the Real Presence
Is the Eucharist a Symbol, or is it Real? by Tim Staples - Further explanation on the Catholic position on symbol vs real
