The early churches weren't transubstantiationist

By Tim Dunkin

In a previous article published here at Renew America, I presented some arguments in favor of the view that Christians, far from abstaining from speaking of theological matters in the public square, should engage in a robust discussion of these issues, for a number of reasons. As part of the "follow through" to my point, in which I put meat onto the bones of that argument, I proceeded to address some of the fallacious assertions made by Eric Giunta in favor of transubstantiation. Continuing in this vein, for those who may be interested, I would like to take this opportunity to attend to Mr. Giunta's latest attempt to read this doctrine backwards onto the earliest years of Christianity.

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Giunta for his response; I appreciate his willingness to discuss this issue, rather than yielding to the calls by many in our society to "not talk about that!" Religion must take its rightful place at the forefront of our societal consciousness once again.

To begin with, in the process of attempting to establish a uniform belief in transubstantiation on the part of the patristics, Mr. Giunta states,

"When the Fathers as a whole, for instance, are so unanimous on an essential point of doctrine, and another Father appears to be teaching contrary to this unanimity without incurring any scandal or controversy, one has to at least consider the possibility that the appearance ought not to be taken at face-value."

This statement rests upon a false premise, which is this so-called unanimity. It is not supported by an actual reading of the relevant works. Instead, it is an argument made by Catholic apologists who have pulled statements from the patristics, in isolation, out of context, in support of this or that doctrine that later Catholicism chooses to "read back" into the first centuries of Christianity. Indeed, as I hope to show below, this in fact applies to Mr. Giunta's arguments from a number of the patristics that I previously cited — he is reading them in isolation, viewing them through a lens foreign to the actual beliefs of the men themselves, and doing so by ignoring portions of their words that are plainly spoken, and which provide critical context for the portions Mr. Giunta chooses to focus upon. The problem for Catholic apologism is that the "Fathers" do not, in fact, present the sort of unanimity on this doctrine (or many others, for that matter!) that Mr. Giunta mistakenly believes they do. Let's face it — the patristics were as diverse a group of men as any comparable group of people professing Christianity who were drawn from various denominations today would be. Attributing to them the sort of uniform opinions that Catholic apologism often rests upon is simply not a tenable approach for addressing them comprehensively.

At this point, I would like to state that Mr. Giunta espouses what I tend to refer to as the "Traditional Account" of church history. This terminology is drawn from the similar instance of a "traditional account" in Muslim historiography, something with which I am intimately familiar, having discussed it at length in my book about Islam. Briefly, the "Traditional Account" of Muslim history is that with which most of us are probably at least somewhat familiar — that a prophet named Muhammad, called by Allah, preached monotheism to pagan Arabs, won them to a religion called Islam, and after his death, these united Arab tribes flooded outward into Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Persian, fighting great battles with the Byzantines and Sassanid Persians, destroying great armies through the miraculous power of Allah, showing the rectitude of the Islamic faith.

The problem with this account is that it is entirely fictitious. As a number of specialists in the pertinent fields of study have shown, there is no evidence of these great battles supposedly won by valiant Muslim armies, nor for a great Arab prophet named Muhammad. Instead, the records from archaeology, numismatics, and contemporary Christian and Jewish writings seems to suggest that the Arab takeover of the Fertile Crescent was a slow and haphazard process, one which took place because the Byzantine Empire had largely withdrawn effective force from its Eastern provinces decades previous. In the earliest records, a "Muhammad" appears, but he is not called a prophet, indeed, he is treated as just one of many petty chieftains of the incoming Arab tribesmen. The name "Muhammad" in a prophetic context does not appear until seven decades after he supposedly died. The term "Islam" similarly takes this long to appear in the actual records. There is no evidence for Mecca being the seat of any trading empire or that any religion originated there — instead, the Arab religion developed into Islam in what we would now call Syria and Iraq over the course of a couple of centuries. Indeed, there is good evidence to suggest that not only was the Qur'an pieced together from scattered writings and oral traditions chosen and collated for political reasons, but that it may indeed even have originally been in Aramaic, rather than Arabic. [1]

In short, the "traditional account" is contrived and invented, being the product of a sectarian community that successfully presented its version of history as the "correct" one.

I would say that this is, in many ways, what happened with "church history," as it has traditionally been written and promulgated by the Catholic religion. The reason I would say this is because the evidences from the "Fathers" themselves do not support the traditional historiography that Mr. Giunta has faithfully represented from the "traditional" sources. There is no such "unanimous consent" as Mr. Giunta presumes. There is, instead, a steady history of various writers straying further and further away from Biblical truths, as the centuries went by. Mr. Giunta at several points mentions that Protestant historians hold to generally the same view on church history as Catholics do. This shouldn't surprise us. These Protestant historians are relying upon the "traditional account" that was written by...wait for it...the Catholic religion. That they should rely upon this account is no more surprising than that many students of Islam should rely upon the Traditional Account of Muslim history when that's all they've been taught.

It is likely against this that Mr. Giunta writes,

"This is not special pleading on my part, but sound historiography, one to which Christian believers (Catholic and Protestant) adhere to all the time, when we contest secularist or leftist-Christian assertions of multiple Christianities taught by the Apostles, for instance the oft-repeated claim that the religion of Paul differed from that of James and/or other Apostles, or that the Apostles themselves misunderstood Jesus, manipulating His teachings without anyone raising so much as a wimper [sic] in protest."

The problem, however, is that apples and oranges are being compared here. Yes, I am fully aware of liberal and secularist claims to "multiple Christianities," or the oft-repeated claims that orthodox Christianity only attained to the status of orthodoxy by beating out its various Gnostic opponents, and so forth. That is not, however, the same thing as pointing to doctrinal variance within the early patristics. When we say that Irenaeus and Eusebius differed on the nature of the Lord's Supper, for instance, we are not talking about one being a gnostic and the other being orthodox, or that one was a "Paulian" and the other a "Jacobian." We are talking about two men, both professing the same basic faith in the same Jesus Christ, but having a doctrinal difference.

Further, Mr. Giunta's arguments regarding the development of doctrine do not really apply to what is really under discussion here. For instance, while the doctrine of the Trinity may not have been as fully expostulated in the 1st century as it was centuries later at Nicaea, it nevertheless existed and was believed by Christians from the very beginning. The Bible itself provided the knowledge of this doctrine to these early Christians. Councils were largely superfluous for anything other than providing a precisely defined creedal statement about the doctrine. Certain other doctrines — transubstantiation included — appear to have been late additions to the field, making them innovations added to Christian doctrine, rather than expanded formulations of such. The problem with Mr. Giunta's arguments along this line is that simply affirming that the fleshing out of doctrinal truths should not be taken as the creation of those truths does not, in and of itself, prove that Catholicism did not, in fact, innovate doctrines centuries after the fact. He needs to show, clearly and unambiguously, that transubstantiation was there from the beginning, which he does not do.

Mr. Giunta goes on to state,

"I don't know of any historian who claims that the early Church held to a symbolist understanding of the Eucharist. The consensus on this matter was summed up by the late Protestant church historian J. N. D. Kelley thusly..."

After which he produces a lengthy citation from Kelly purporting to demonstrate the early belief in transubstantiation, including this quote, "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." [2] The problem with this use of Kelly is that he goes on to say closely after,

"Among theologians, however, this identity [i.e., the Supper] was interpreted in our period [fourth and fifth centuries] in at least two different ways, and these interpretations, mutually exclusive though they were in strict logic, were allowed to overlap. In the first place, the figurative or symbolic view, which stressed the distinction between the visible elements and the reality they represented, still claimed a measure of support..." [3]

This is an interesting statement, for a couple of reasons. First, Kelly is necessarily implying that when the patristics seem to be using "realist" language, this does not necessarily mean that they were speaking of transubstantiation — they may well have been "mixing" terminology from both the "symbolic" and "realist" views, which would, depending on further supporting context, yield either a consubstantial or a "spiritual" view of the ordinance. Hence, simply pointing to a writer's affirmation that the bread and wine are the "body and blood of Christ" does not necessarily imply that this was meant in the Catholic, transubstantiatory sense. Indeed, as a Baptist who obviously holds to a "spiritual" and "symbolic" view of the Lord's Supper (not necessarily contradictory, by the way), I would have no problem affirming these symbols to be the "body and blood of Christ," and reverencing the ordinance accordingly.

Second, Kelly said that the "figurative or symbolic view...still claimed a measure of support." The obvious inference from this is that this figurative view of the Lord's Supper was, in fact, a view already held widely prior to the time period that Kelly was discussing. It suggests that the transubstantiatory view may have been the innovative position that was gradually coming to replace the older view. Obviously, when viewing what Kelly has to say, he did not view transubstantiation as being the "uniformly held" view from the earliest times in Christianity.

Indeed, to take the example of Irenaeus, we see that while Irenaeus seems to have held to a view that the nature of the bread and wine changed, his view was not the transubstantiationist view of Catholicism, with its emphasis on "appearance." For example, Irenaeus wrote,

"Then, again, how can they 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." [4]

Hence, Irenaeus says that the bread and wine simultaneously have two natures. This may not be a "symbolic" or "figurative" interpretation of the Lord's Supper, but the problem for Mr. Giunta's argument is that it is not a transubstantiationist interpretation either. One well-known Catholic reference resource defines transubstantiation thus,

"The complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood by a validly ordained priest during the consecration at Mass, so that only the accidents of bread and wine remain."

Or, even more authoritatively, we could cite the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the matter,

"In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.' 'This presence is called 'real' — by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present." [5]

These certainly do not jibe with Irenaeus' "two-nature" approach. Indeed, Irenaeus' view seems to more closely approximate that of the consubstantiation held by the Lutherans. Not symbolic, but not the Catholic view, either. Indeed, Webster notes the diversity of views about the Lord's Supper in the first centuries of Christianity,

"There is the literal view of transubstantiation which could be that expressed by Chrysostom; the Lutheran view of consubstantiation, which could be taught by Irenaeus or Justin Martyr; the spiritual view of Calvin, which is closely aligned with Augustine; and the strictly symbolic view of Zwingli, which is similar to that expressed by Eusebius." [6]

Kelly himself indicates that a number of patristics seem to have held to the spiritual or symbolic views of the Lord's Supper. Among others, he seems to indicate Cyprian, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Athanasius .[7] To these, Webster adds others such as Jerome and Ambrosiaster .[8] Quite clearly, there was not a uniform understanding of transubstantiation in the Lord's Supper, despite Mr. Giunta's assertions. Eusebius evinced a symbolic understanding,

"Yea, and perfect services were conducted by the prelates, the sacred rites being solemnized, and the majestic institutions of the Church observed, here with the singing of psalms and with the reading of the words committed to us by God, and there with the performance of divine and mystic services; and the mysterious symbols of the Saviour's passion were dispensed." [9]

Justin Martyr, a very early witness, likewise says,

"Now it is evident, that in this prophecy allusion is made to 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." [10]

Justin is utilizing the same essential "spiritual" argument that a modern Baptist would — that the bread and wine are given in remembrance (i.e., as a figurative reminder, per the actual wording the Bible uses in Luke 22:19 and I Corinthians 11:24-25) of the Lord's sacrificial work on the cross. We should also note, however, that Justin's view on the Supper appears more consubstantial than purely "spiritual," but once again, he differs from the transubstantiational view of later Catholicism. Now, what are we to believe? That these men, writing as precisely as we all admit they did, didn't really mean what their words say? No, that is unacceptable, and does violence to their integrity. In short, when a patristic writer used terms such as "symbol," "figure," "remembrance," and so forth, they meant what they said. They didn't really mean transubstantiation — wink wink nod nod — which has to be circularly inferred from the a priori assumption that they were supporters of that doctrine.

But it is exactly this type of a priori assumption, made without really having solid evidence to back it up, that Mr. Giunta relies upon. For instance, in attempting to get around the plain words of Gelasius I against transubstantiation, he writes,

"That Pope Saint Gelasius I caused absolutely no uproar, absolutely no controversy over his articulation of Eucharistic doctrine strongly militates against a symbolist understanding of his words."

A more likely explanation is that Gelasius' words created no uproar for the simple fact that transubstantiation was not "established" doctrine yet in his day, and therefore his "symbolist" interpretation wouldn't have made waves. Mr. Giunta's argument that Gelasius was speaking phenomenologically in the passage is clearly wrong. Gelasius does not speak of appearance, he speaks of substance. Indeed, the additional citation from the passage of Gelasius' that Mr. Giunta calls as a witness still does not establish any transubstantial view on his part. Again, transubstantiation involves the change of substance — something Gelasius twice rejects explicitly in Giunta's enlarged quotation. Gelasius' concurrent affirmation of the bread and blood as "divine things" that "pass into the divine substance" cannot be taken apart from the essential core of Gelasius' view of these elements themselves — that they do not change in their substance. In other words, you can't simply toss out the plain words of the man so as to fit subsidiary statements by him into a foreign mold. You have to take his words together. The sum total of what we see from Gelasius? A "spiritual" view of the Lord's Supper in which the elements have no substantial change, but in which they do have spiritual efficacy to the partaker — they are divine things by virtue of their relationship to the One they represent, just as Christians themselves are said to be "partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4) via our relationship with the Lord — this obviously does not mean Christians actually take on divinity. In turn, this fits in precisely with what I said previously.

As for Giunta's further argument that Gelasius couldn't have been using "substance" in its normal, or even Aristotelian, meaning, I fail to see why he would think this. The Latin West was still well acquainted with Aristotle's works even after Gelasius' time. Decades after Gelasius' death, Boethius, the last great Latin philosopher in antiquity, translated Aristotle's corpus into Latin, and most educated people in the West (including Gelasius) would have at least been familiar with Greek, and have known Aristotle, among others. Indeed, Gelasius' dealings with the Greek East presuppose more than just a passing familiarity with the Greek portion of the Empire and its heritage.

The same problem, then, arises for Mr. Giunta's attempt to read transubstantiation into Theodoret's words. Again, as with Gelasius, Theodoret clearly says that these elements do not change. They retain the same nature, they remain in the same figure, form, and substance. Mr. Giunta's attempt to take the further phrase "what they have become" as evidence for transubstantiation simply is not logical. Theodoret did not say one thing in one sentence, and then completely contradict himself in the very next sentence. Mr. Giunta is trying to interpret Theodoret, as he tried to interpret Gelasius, by completely excluding the portions I had previously cited. This does not work. Theodoret's affirmation of the changelessness of the bread and wine refutes transubstantiation — a doctrine explicitly dependent upon the change in substance and nature that Theodoret openly says does not happen. Again, when we look at the sum total of Theodoret's words, we see that he is speaking "spiritually," that he is imputing a spiritual benefit to the bread and wine, and that this spiritual benefit — which did not exist before these elements were taken into hand by the officiator (this is what he is referring to when he says "what they have become") — comes to be attached to these elements.

Lastly, Mr. Giunta attempts to rely upon more citations from Augustine — citations which actually argue against his point, but which demonstrate perfectly that "spiritual view of Calvin, which is closely aligned with Augustine" that Webster spoke of above. To illustrate my point most clearly, I will look at Mr. Giunta's last citation from Augustine,

"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 the Blood of Christ."

Oh my, that clearly and unequivocally shows Augustine's support for transubstantiation, does it not? Well, no actually. Further down, in the same passage, Augustine goes on to say,

"You, however, are the Body of Christ and His members. If, therefore, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your mystery is presented at the table of the Lord, you receive your mystery. To that which you are, you answer: Amen; and by answering, you subscribe to it. For you hear: The Body of Christ! and you answer: Amen! Be a member of Christ's Body, so that your Amen may be the truth."

Isn't that interesting? If we take the "realist" interpretation that Mr. Giunta has been attributing to Augustine with respect to the elements of the Lord's Supper, then we should logically apply this to the members of the church themselves also being — literally — the body of Christ, since Augustine is drawing a parallel between the bread and the church members as being "the body of Christ." Obviously, this is incorrect, and obviously, Augustine is utilizing a spiritual interpretation throughout in reference both to the elements of the Supper, and the disposition of those Christians partaking. They do not literally become Christ, but spiritually, they are identifying with Him, becoming "partakers of the divine nature" while not actually becoming gods themselves. This understanding, then, is in line with my usages of Augustine in my previous essay. The problem is not that Augustine was double-minded, or contradicted himself at various points. The problem is simply that the "traditional account" story about Augustine requires him to be a transubstantiationist, and therefore demands that his words be fitted into that mold, whether they really belong there or not.

With due respect to Mr. Giunta, he has not made his case at all. He has attempted to do the very thing he implicitly accuses me of doing — which is to pull words from the patristics out of context so as to make them say what they did not. The portions of their words that I cited in my previous essay were those portions which were directly relevant to the point I was making — that these patristics did not hold to transubstantiationist views. It made little difference to me, however, whether their views were consubstantiational, symbolic, impanationist, spiritual, or any other competitor to transubstantiation. A little bit of each, in fact, was represented. The point was that they did not support transubstantiation, and my emphasis was typically on making that negative point. As such, I believe my uses of these writers to be entirely honest and contextual. Nevertheless, Mr. Giunta has relied upon expanded quotations from them — with the implied suggestion being that the "full" quotes prove what these men really meant — yet used them in a way that really and truly takes them out of context. He has tried to use these fuller citations in a way that negates the central portions that I cited, instead of explicating them. That is not an appropriate use of these sources.

As such, I have to stand by my original point — transubstantiation was never the "original" belief of early Christians, rejected by "heretics" centuries after the fact. Instead, we see that the patristics, even early on, had a multiplicity of shaded views about the nature of the Lord's Supper, and that the Catholic claim that transubstantiation was the original and uniform position of the early churches is without support.

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© Tim Dunkin