Did all the Church Fathers believe in transubstantiation?
The Catholic Catechism states the following about the Church Fathers’ beliefs regarding transubstantiation, the conversion of the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus:
“It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion” (para. 1375).
The Catechism quotes John Chrysostom (d. 407) and Ambrose (d. 397) to demonstrate the Church Fathers’ support of transubstantiation. While some of the Church Fathers may have affirmed transubstantiation, not all Church Fathers affirmed this belief. Clement of Alexandria (d. 214) is quoted twice, and Tertullian (d. about 240) is quoted fourteen times in the Catholic Catechism, but neither is quoted in reference to transubstantiation, because neither one believed in it.
In the following passage, Clement of Alexandria referred to Jesus’ drinking wine at the Last Supper and states not only that it was wine, not blood, but also that Jesus “figuratively calls the Word [or Himself ], ‘shed for many.’”
“In what manner do you think the Lord drank when He became man for our sakes? As shamelessly as we? Was it not with decorum and propriety? Was it not deliberately? For rest assured, He Himself also partook of wine; for He, too, was man. And He blessed the wine, saying, ‘Take, drink: this is my blood’—the blood of the vine. He figuratively calls the Word ‘shed for many, for the remission of sins’—the holy stream of gladness. And that he who drinks ought to observe moderation, He clearly showed by what He taught at feasts. For He did not teach affected by wine. And that it was wine which was the thing blessed, He showed again, when He said to His disciples, ‘I will not drink of the fruit of this vine, till I drink it with you in the kingdom of my Father’ ” (The Instructor, 2:2).
And Tertullian clearly rejected transubstantiation, as illustrated in the following quotation:
“He [Jesus] says, it is true, that ‘the flesh profiteth nothing’; but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat His flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, ‘It is the spirit that quickeneth’; and then added, ‘The flesh profiteth nothing,’—meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’ In a like sense He had previously said: ‘He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.’ Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation [title or designation]; because, too, the Word had become flesh, we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate [to chew cud] on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith. Now, just before (the passage in hand), he had declared his flesh to be ‘the bread which cometh down from heaven,’ impressing on (His hearers) constantly under the figure of necessary food the memory of their forefathers, who had preferred the bread and flesh of Egypt to their divine calling. Then, turning His subject to their reflections, because He perceived that they were going to be scattered from Him, He says: ‘The flesh profiteth nothing.’ Now what is there to destroy the resurrection of the flesh? As if there might not reasonably enough be something which, although it ‘profiteth nothing’ itself, might yet be capable of being profited by something else. The spirit ‘profiteth,’ for it imparts life. The flesh profiteth nothing, for it is subject to death. Therefore He has rather put the two propositions in a way which favours our belief: for by showing what ‘profits,’ and what ‘does not profit,’ He has likewise thrown light on the object which receives as well as the subject which gives the‘profit’ ” (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chap. 37).
In the quotation above, Tertullian explained that when some supposed that Jesus “had really and literally enjoined on them to eat His flesh,” Jesus explained that the flesh profits nothing and that it is the Spirit who gives life. Tertullian explained that it is with our ears, understanding, and faith that we devour, ruminate (chew), and digest the Word of God. Tertullian also explained that Jesus declared His flesh to be “the bread which cometh down from heaven” and that he was impressing on His hearers the “figure of necessary food.” Tertullian directly stated in the following quotation that the bread represents Jesus’ body.
“Indeed, up to the present time, he has not disdained the water which the Creator made wherewith he washes his people; nor the oil with which he anoints them; nor that union of honey and milk wherewithal he gives them the nourishment of children; nor the bread by which he represents his own proper body, thus requiring in his very sacraments the ‘beggarly elements’ of the Creator” (Against Marcion, 1:14).
Tertullian not only stated again that the bread is a figure of Jesus’ body, but he went on to give examples from the Old Testament to show that this figurative representation was known from ancient times:
“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of My body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He [Marcion] did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: ‘I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread,’ which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed ‘in His blood,’ affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks, ‘Who is this that cometh from Edom, from Bosor with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel, in the greatness of his might? Why are thy garments red, and thy raiment as his who cometh from the treading of the full winepress?’ The prophetic Spirit contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the labourers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood. Much more clearly still does the book of Genesis foretell this, when (in the blessing of Judah, out of whose tribe Christ was to come according to the flesh) it even then delineated Christ in the person of that patriarch, saying, ‘He washed His garments in wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes’—in His garments and clothes the prophecy pointed out his flesh, and His blood in the wine. Thus did He now consecrate His blood in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure of wine to describe His blood” (Against Marcion, 4:40).
Although there were some Church Fathers who believed in the “real presence” (which is not necessarily the same as transubstantiation) and some who may have believed in transubstantiation, these quotations from Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian show that not all the Church Fathers believed in it. Clement and Tertullian clearly believed that the bread and wine are figures to represent Jesus’ body and blood and are not transformed into them. So, despite the fact that Clement and Tertullian are quoted elsewhere in the Catholic Catechism, the Catholic Church leaves them out of the catechism when it comes to the topic of transubstantiation.
- Did all the Church Fathers believe in penance and confession to a priest?
- Did all the Church Fathers believe Mary never sinned?
____________________________________________________________
If you would like a free copy of the book
for yourself to share with family or
friends, simply e-mail me at:
Joe@TeachingsOfTheCatholicChurch.com
and I will be happy tosend a free copy to you.
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________