The Fathers and the Real Presence: further clarifications

By Eric Giunta

I appreciate yet another opportunity to contribute to clarifying the teachings of the Church Fathers via-a-vis the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and of offering further correction to what I continue to believe to be my colleague Dan Popp's misconstrual of said teachings.

I wish to start by making clear my appreciation for the nobility of Br. Dan's endeavor to popularize the writings of the earliest Christian teachers. Every Christian denomination (mine own included) has its "original sins," and one of popular Protestantism's is its utter disregard for the Patristic inheritance, as something "unbiblical," even apostate. I hope my colleague's series contributes to the correction of this most unconservative (and, I would argue, unbiblical) tendency.

(For an understanding of what follows, readers are urged to follow the previous exchanges: here, here, and here.)

Let me address some of Dan's more persistent objections to a realist understanding reading of the Father's Eucharistic doctrine. Regarding the early Church's practice of mixing wine and water in the Eucharistic chalice (a practice maintained to this very day by every church which predates the Protestant Reformation):

Eric's explanation — that "every Mediterranean household" (emphasis his) did the same with their ordinary wine — only raises another question: if this was the mundane practice, why is it mentioned at all, much less so frequently by the "Fathers?" Besides, some of them seem to indicate that the water is an important part of the sacrament — not something incidental, unavoidable and inconsequential. For example Irenaeus, in Book 5 Chapter 1.3 of Against Heresies writes, "Therefore do these men reject the commixture of the heavenly wine, and wish it to be water of the world only...." Here (though the emphasis is on the wine) the water is necessary for the "commixture," which to reject is to put one in the camp of the heretic.

There's no if about this. As I documented in my original response, it was customary in the ancient world (among both Jews and Greco-Romans) to dilute the house wine with a little bit of water. Such dilution helped the highly-concentrated wines of the Mediterranean to taste better, and to mitigate the concentration of the alcoholic content. To my knowledge, this is not something disputed by any historian of classical antiquity. The Scriptures themselves presuppose such a practice (e.g., Proverbs 9:1-5, a favorite text of the Fathers when discussing the Eucharist).

Readers will note what I iterated earlier: Very soon, the early Church would attach mystic symbolism to an originally utilitarian rite. The early Church's conservative instincts, combined with a charming penchant for allegorical reading of the Old Testament, made the Fathers very sensitive to any perceived novelties in liturgical celebration, even on matters subsequent generations would consider nonessential (i.e., subject to the dictates of ecclesial legislation). The early Church's heated controversies over the date for celebrating Easter are a more dramatic case in point.

Gentle or not, my colleague's rib that if [Eric] really believes that wine + water = wine, he probably should avoid a career in the food service industry just reeks of ignorance. While not exactly a wine connoisseur, take it from a red-blooded Papist: wine includes water! Depending on how concentrated one's base is, one can add water and it's still what most people would consider wine. This is true, by the way, for a number of drinks, broths, etc. A liquid brew may be over-diluted, and so change the very substance of the mixture, but adding a few drops of water to table wine does not render the drink something completely different. This point is so obvious that to waste time debating it borders on parody.

Finally, do note that the heretics against whom Ireneaus is writing are Hydroparastatae, or Aquarians, who celebrated the Eucharist with water alone.

When all is said and done, wine mixed with a little bit of water is still wine. When, and if, the elements of the chalice are changed they are changed into the same substance.

As for Br. Dan's exegesis of the word spiritual, again he does not do justice to what I wrote earlier: While the word spiritual may connote immateriality, it does not invariably do so. The same is true, by the way, of the word carnal, (or the Biblical expression, the flesh). In the Scriptures, the "flesh" often does not connote the physical body as such, but the entire man living under the regime of sin and death. I'm assuming both my colleague and my readers are sufficiently acquainted with the Scriptures that I do not need to belabor the point with countless citations. A similar dynamic is at work in the word spiritual, as I illustrated earlier. Something is spiritual when it pertains to the supernatural, particularly to God or godliness, not necessarily because it is immaterial. When the Apostle Paul tells us the "spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," he is not literally positing a body-soul dichotomy, as if the physical body is the only part of a person affected by the Fall. Such misunderstandings lie at the root of Jehovah's Witness misunderstandings of many Scriptures, such as the following: So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45) Does Christ not presently have a human body?

It is this theological background which must be kept in mind when reading the Fathers. I promised my readers I would not inundate them with laundry lists of Patristic citations (other writers have already done so, and I see no need to reinvent the wheel), but I feel I must provide Ireneaus's Fragment 37 in its entirety, to proffer the context denied by my colleague:

Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of the apostles, are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to the declaration of Malachi the prophet. For, "from the rising of the sun even to the setting my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice;" {Malachi 1:11} as John also declares in the Apocalypse: "The incense is the prayers of the saints." Then again, Paul exhorts us "to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." {Romans 12:1} And again, "Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips." {Hebrews 13:15} Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it; {Colossians 2:14} but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God "in spirit and in truth." {John 4:24} 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 antitypes 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. {Source}

It's fairly clear from this passage that the "spiritualness" of the Eucharistic sacrifice is not in its immateriality. This is obvious from the fact that it involves an offering of bread and wine, physical elements. Also note the connection with the Christian's being exhorted to offer his body as a living sacrifice. Is the body not physical? For Ireneaus, the offerings of the Jews were not properly spiritual, not because they involve physical elements, but because the Jews (as a people) did not possess the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and so could not offer God the sacrifice of Christ. He's more explicit in his Against Heresies:

Inasmuch, then, as the Church offers with single-mindedness, her gift is justly reckoned a pure sacrifice with God. As Paul also says to the Philippians, "I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things that were sent from you, the odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, pleasing to God." {Philippians 4:18} For it behooves us to make an oblation to God, and in all things to be found grateful to God our Maker, in a pure mind, and in faith without hypocrisy, in well-grounded hope, in fervent love, offering the first-fruits of His own created things. And the Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator, offering to Him, with giving of thanks, the things taken from His creation. But the Jews do not offer thus: for their hands are full of blood; for they have not received the Word, through whom it is offered to God.

Finally, my colleague's accusations of begging the question are unfair. Some of them are outright non-sequitors. He brings to this discussion a very narrow understanding of words such as spiritual, memorial, and symbol, understandings which are far from axiomatic, and in fact are very modern in theo-philosophical connotation. Reading his expose of the Fathers' Eucharistic doctrine, one would never know that Catholic and Orthodox Christians routinely refer to the Eucharist as a memorial, as something spiritual, and as consisting of symbolism. My reading of the Fathers does not presuppose Catholicism (my obvious biases notwithstanding); I have already admitted that one should not expect the true Church in the first centuries to perfectly resemble the true Church in the 21st. I do insist, however, that the Fathers be accepted on their own terms, and in their broader historical, theological, and ecclesial context. When, for instance, they refer to a visible rite (i.e., the Eucharist) as something spiritual, it's best not to assume that they are referring to something completely and utterly invisible!

Likewise, when there exist today a handful of Christian churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, and Assyrian) which can lay legitimate claim to institutional continuity with the earliest Christian communities, it's not completely anachronistic to examine whether their contemporary Christian doctrine and praxis (which, by and large, they share among themselves, despite their vast cultural diversity) might shed light on that of their spiritual forbearers, men (and women) whom these churches venerate as saints, and but for whose veneration their writings would not have come down to us as those of the Fathers.

© Eric Giunta