Ancient (Early Church) Eucharistic Theology

The Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life”.[1] This sacrament makes the Church capable of being the “incarnation perpetuated through time and space” on account of the Church being “the bread sent down from heaven”, the Body of Christ(cf. John 6:22-70, cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23-29)[2]. Thus, there are few things as important to being a Christian. However, the mystery has always been difficult to understand, especially to the disciples of Jesus and (for a time) the Apostles (cf. John 6:22-70, cf. Luke 24:13-25, cf. Acts of Apostles 2:42 RSVCE). In light of the fact of the consecration being a miracle, the lack of ease of description is understandable. However, the miracle can be understood in a useful way. As material empiricism began to rise, the former method of rendering Eucharistic theology began to break down. Analyzing the world more empirically and less philosophically, the mystical and Platonic understanding of the consecration miracle proved to be insufficient. By faith, it is clear that this specific miracle takes place, but in every physically sensible way (with the exception to Eucharistic miracles which aided theology’s credibility on the subject) the bread and wine remain the same. In other words, it contradicted sense experience to assert that after the consecration there no longer existed bread and wine upon the altar. This difficulty was found in Sacred scripture as cited above. Yet, it could not be said that the species were unchanged and were thus only a symbol of the Lord’s Body and Blood. The metaphysics used to explain this reality had been those used by the Church Fathers, largely Platonic. Before the eleventh century, the Church used Neo-Platonism/Augustinianism to explain the nature of the Eucharist.

Before the eleventh century, the Church used Neo-Platonism/Augustinianism to explain the nature of the Eucharist. The Early Church understood the significance of the Eucharist and its reality, but could only explain it in terms of “something being changed” (cf. Luke 24:13-25). This is demonstrated by the apologist Justin Martyr (approx. AD 100 to 165), who was vague about the specific nature of the Eucharist, yet it seems apparent that the bread and wine, once consecrated, are no longer simply bread and wine. “this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”[3] Gregory of Nyssa (AD 335–394) simply wrote, “The bread and wine, sanctified by the Word (the sacred Benediction), is at the same time changed into the Body of that Word; and this Flesh is disseminated among all the Faithful.”[4] Gregory’s description suggests that the bread and wine are more than representative and are in fact “flesh”. However, how the Eucharist is the flesh and not bread was not well illustrated. The writings of St. Augustine, a Neo-Platonist as much as he was a Church Father, concerning eucharistic theology often had the following qualities: realistically assuming continuity of the crucified Jesus (the slain Lamb) with the Eucharist and the spiritual and sacramental manner in which Christ’s flesh is to be eaten.[5] The Church Fathers tended to deal with matter as a symbol (in the strong sense of the term) of the corresponding form. The modern sense of sign/symbol, what a Platonist would consider a weak sign, is not bound in any way to what it symbolizes e.g. the American flag representing the fifty united states, the original thirteen colonies, and the republican structure therein. This was changed from sign/symbol being understood as a strong/efficacious sign, that which both points to a reality and concurrently bears something of what it symbolizes within itself, as an individual iteration to a universal form e.g. a stop sign in terms of the law or a loaf of bread representing wheat.[6] For a Platonist, every individual thing is a sign of a universal form. The “Platonic transcendent realism…is the view that for x to possess a property is for x to instantiate a transcendent (i.e., non-spatial) universal.”[7] This understanding, being Platonic, reveals the understanding of the Eucharist prior to the eleventh century. The Eucharist is an efficacious sign and thus participates in the reality of Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, God’s love, and the grace of the sacrament.[8] This understanding was hitherto the eleventh century a sufficient explanation of the mystery and remains an orthodox explanation. However, materialist empiricism was on the rise in the eleventh century as a result of the advent of translated Aristotelian thought.[9] According to Aristotle, “Empiricism, the conviction that in one way or another sense experience or being acted upon by the world is the primary source of human knowledge, is a notion so broad as to be in need of continual refinement.”[10] This definition is accepting of Platonic philosophy, however the medieval empiricism, to be later discussed, would have asserted that the senses were the only means of knowledge attainment and not just the primary. It is thereby at odds with the Platonic assertion of reality beyond senses. “As long as the Platonist-Augustinian understanding of symbol prevailed, the controversy between the two trends remained within the boundaries of the Church’s Eucharistic faith. Even the extreme symbolist believed that the symbol of bread and wine participates in the reality of the body and blood of Christ.”[11] Yet, the realist/materialist position in the controversy knew that the miracle did not produce a change in the appearance of the matter, leaving the question of whether it was the Lord’s blood and body in a sense that was not actual per se. By the Medieval era, this need became clear, that Eucharistic theology required restatement in terms that a concrete materialist could find intelligible. 

In conclusion, understanding does not necessarily perfectly correspond to reality. The way we express our understanding even when it does is important. Even though our linguistic rendering is not necessarily perfect, our intent and understanding can be sufficient. Before the eleventh century, the Church used Neo-Platonism/Augustinianism to explain the nature of the Eucharist. The theology of the Early Church was not intended to be (and thus was not) buttressed against a materialist epistemology, since that had hitherto not been thought to be a comprehensive way of understanding existence. The Eucharist participates in the reality it signifies, that was never a question though.

A compilation/ synthesis of the two Pange Lingua Hymns:

"Sing loud the conflict, O my tongue,

   The victory that repaired our loss;

Exalt the triumph of thy song

   To the bright trophy of the cross;

Tell how the Lord laid down his life

   To conquer in the glorious strife."

"Eating of the Tree forbidden,

   Man had sunk in Satan's snare,

When his pitying Creator

   Did this second Tree prepare;

Destined, many ages later,

   That first evil to repair."

"Of a pure and spotless Virgin

Born for us on earth below,

He, as Man, with man conversing,

Stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;

Then He closed in solemn order

Wondrously His Life of woe."

FN:

1. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium (21 November 1964), § 11.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 1325.
3. Philip Schaff. “The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.”, Ante-Nicaean Fathers, Vol. 1, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1885, pg. 495. (Justin Martyr. First Apology, Chapter LXVI.)
4. Gregory of Nyssa. The Great Catechism, trans. William Moore and Henry Austin Wilson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.), Ch. 37. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
5. Paul Haffner, The Sacramental Mystery (Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2008), 87.
6. Cf. CCC, 1127.; cf. P. X. Monaghan, “A Novel Interpretation of Plato’s Theory of Forms,” Metaphysica 11, no. 1 (2010), 2.
7. P. X. Monaghan, “A Novel Interpretation of Plato’s Theory of Forms”, 2.
8. Cf. CCC, 1323, 1325.
9. Gregory W Dawes. “Ancient and Medieval Empiricism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, September 27, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empiricism-ancient-medieval/#MediEmpi, 3.1.
10. Jean De Groot. Aristotle’s Empiricism : Experience and Mechanics in the Fourth Century BC. Las Vegas, Nevada: Parmenides Publishing, 2014, pg. 1.
11. Roch A Kereszty. Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eucharistic Theology from a Historical, Biblical, and Systematic Perspective. Vatican City State: Hillenbrand, 2004, pg. 131.