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Folks, these are wolves. Truth be told, I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get rid of wolves.
We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
We are polemical and polarizing, Jesus style.
I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible.
Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.
Okay, welcome back everybody. This is Tim Shaughnessy from Simple Riff around the radio, and this is going to be part two in our series on the mingled cup with Tim Coffman. I just want to remind everybody that we are part of the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network, so please check out all of the other podcasts.
But today, we're just going to dive right into the topic. Last week, we were going over the claim that well, you know,.
It's.
Better if I just let Tim Coffman give us a recap of the issue. This is pertaining to Roman Catholicism, and he is our expert in that area, and this is a topic that I have very, very little knowledge about, so I'm very grateful that he's here.
I'm very grateful that we're getting to learn from him. He's done a tremendous amount of research on this, a tremendous amount of research in this area to really refute the claim that the Roman Catholics have an apostolic tradition that Protestants don't have, and therefore they are the true church.
So Brother Tim, I'm just going to let you do the recap. I'm looking at your notes, and they're extensive, and I think that you're better to do that, so can you give us a recap of what we talked about last week, and then let's just dive into the topic this week.
Sure,.
Sure, no problem at all. Glad to be back, and I hope people are enjoying this series on the mixing of water and wine. It matters to us because Roman Catholics will point to early church fathers in their reference to a mingled cup being used during the Lord's Supper, and say, see, it proves that Jesus himself added water to his wine at the Last Supper, and therefore we should too.
In fact, Roman Catholics will say that even though the Gospel narratives imply that Jesus used pure wine, the fact is that the ritual was to add water to that pure wine during the Lord's Supper. Now, here's the problem with that.
First, the Gospel doesn't actually imply that Jesus used pure wine, because pure wine is a very specific term when it comes to wine manufacturing. Pure wine, or a mirum, is actually wine concentrate. Now, I want you to think for just a second if you were to, just think about orange juice concentrate.
It's that frozen orange juice that comes in a can,.
And.
When you buy orange juice at the grocery store, you get it in that frozen concentrate can, you bring it home, you mix it with water, and then you serve it at the table as mixed orange juice. But nobody would actually put the orange juice concentrate in one cup, and water in another cup, and have their kids mix their own orange juice at the table.
In fact, the mixing of orange juice concentrate with water is done in the kitchen, not at the table. And that's what we find in the early church, what we find actually from the ancient Greek time through the Jewish period and the Roman period and the early Christian period, that mirum, or grape juice wine concentrate would not have been served at the table, but it would have been mixed in the kitchen with water as the final step in the manufacturing process.
Now, Roman Catholics will say, well, Jesus must have mixed the water and wine himself at the table because the early church makes reference to the mingled cup. What we'll find is when we get to the, we're going to eventually end up in the 11th century here in a controversy that erupted between the East and the West about what's the right way to mix the water with wine during the Lord's Supper, and both of them based their positions on a historical misunderstanding, and both of them were wrong, and yet they both believed that they had an apostolic tradition.
So,.
Mirum, and this is a key word because we're going to come back to mirum over and over again. Mirum is wine that has not been mixed with water. It is like orange juice concentrate, it is wine concentrate.
It's high in alcohol content, and as we covered last week, only the uncivilized barbarians would consider drinking it straight. The Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians all considered it unhealthy to drink mirum straight.
I'm going to keep emphasizing that because when we get to the latter part of the 4th century, mirum becomes a very important issue when we understand the Lord's Supper and importantly the marriage at Cana, which we covered last week.
But, as we covered last week, mirum is wine without water, or pure wine. Water with mirum is called wine. Wine without mirum would be water, and if you think about it, if mirum is wine without water, then mirum with water is simply wine without water plus water, which is wine, or in some cases, the early church referred to wine as water.
I'm sorry, wine and water, wine with water. This is just the way they described wine back then. It's no more liturgically or apostolically significant than the mixing of flour and water to get dough, or the baking of dough and kneading of dough to make bread.
It's not liturgically significant, it's just part of a manufacturing process, and what we find when we read through the early church fathers in their reference to the mixed cup, we'll find that they were not referring to an apostolic rite, but to a manufacturing process, and you cannot validly infer an apostolic ritual from a secular manufacturing process.
Everybody in the known world mixed their mirum with water before serving it at the table, and that mixing was performed in the kitchen, not at the table. It was the last step in the manufacturing process, and just like you would not say that Jesus mixed flour with water and kneaded the dough and then baked it at the table, you also wouldn't say that Jesus took water and mixed it with mirum at the table, and yet that's exactly what Roman Catholics would have us believe, just because the early church makes reference to a mixed cup being used in the Lord's Supper.
They want you to take from that that Jesus himself poured water into the wine at the last supper, and therefore instituted the apostolic rite of mixing water with wine at the table, and Roman Catholics will point to the early church fathers and say, see, they used a mixed cup, therefore you need to add water to the wine.
When the early church reflected on the wine used in the last supper, it was simply assumed that the wine Jesus had used was already manufactured, it was already mixed. What we'll find when we read through the early church fathers is that a mixed cup was brought to the table.
That is, a cup that was mixed, mirum with water, was brought forward. It is not something that was brought forward separately for Jesus to do the mixing himself. We'll find as we go through the early church fathers that they did not believe that Jesus mixed the water and wine himself, and it's not until you get to the latter part of the 4th century that you start seeing references to the mixing of water with wine as an apostolic rite.
Like so many of the novelties of Roman Catholicism, you can find it as recently as the late 4th century, but no earlier.
What I want to do now, Tim, is to jump into the early church fathers and the mingled.
Cup.
And what's important here is that the early church was constantly battling all sorts of heresies, and they often used the symbolism of the Lord's Supper.
As.
A point of defense against the heresies. And one of the heresies of the early church is that Jesus had not really become like us. Something that's absolutely critical to the gospel is that Jesus became a man like us.
He was truly a man in all ways but sin. The heretics and the gnostics of the early church tried to pass off Jesus' incarnation as simply the appearance of taking on a body. That was called the docetic or the Marcionite heresy of thinking that Jesus had just been a phantom.
He had not really taken on a body. And so when the early church referred to the Lord's Supper, they often highlighted the facts that Jesus had used mingled ingredients in both elements of the Lord's Supper, that is the bread and the wine, and that he had used these mingled elements to show that he had truly mingled himself with his own creation.
And in the process they were simply making reference to the standard manufacturing processes for bread and the standard manufacturing process for wine. It's important to understand that in the early church the mixed cup was no more liturgically significant than the mixing and grinding of grains or the adding of water to flour or the kneading of dough to make bread.
These are just common agricultural processes. The significance to the early church was not that Jesus mixed water with wine at the Lord's Supper, at the Last Supper, but rather that he had used bread and wine that were both composed of mixed ingredients.
In their mind the bread was mixed with grain ground up and mixed with water and it was mirum that was mixed up with water to make the wine. And so when we look through, say, Irenaeus he rejoiced in the knowledge that in the incarnation God had quote, mingled with his own creation.
Tertullian delighted that in the manger in Bethlehem it showed God mingled with man. And Cyprian of Carthage celebrated the knowledge that in Jesus.
God.
Had mingled with man. And John Chrysostom also made reference to, in Jesus he had kneaded up his body with ours. It was a reference to the kneading process of making bread. You mix the grain, you grind the grain, you add to make flour, you add water, you knead the dough, and then you bake it.
What we notice is that in the making of bread you have all these mingled ingredients. Different grains, water, flour. In the making of wine you have mirum, which is pure wine, mixed with water. And Jesus had used mixed ingredients for both elements of the Lord's Supper, and they used that to show that, see, he really had become a part of his own creation, or he never would have used solid elements like, or solid and liquid elements like bread and wine to figure his body and blood.
That's how the early church responded to the heresies. They pointed to the Last Supper and they said, look, Jesus took bread that was made out of mixed grains, he took wine that was mixed, it was mirum that was mixed with water.
He mingled himself with his own creation, and that's why he used these appropriate symbols of his incarnation. Not that the bread and wine were literally his body and blood, but that he never would have referred to them as his body and blood if he was just a phantom.
Because a phantom is incapable of being figured by something that is solid. So, as was often the case in the early church, such rich, symbolic soil was just too tempting to leave untilled, and thus they often brought forward the figures of mixed bread and mixed wine as a profound representation of what God had done to become like us.
And the early writers expressed and defended his incarnation in those very terms, using the liturgy of the Lord's Supper to show that he really had been incarnated, and had really become part of creation like us.
What they didn't do is say that Jesus mixed the water and wine himself. That's never actually stated. In fact, what we find when we get into some of the early representations of the Lord's Supper is that the wine was brought forward already mixed.
You can't legitimately get an apostolic rite of Jesus mixing the water and wine himself from a cup that was brought forward already mixed.
When you attend a. If a person were to attend a Roman Catholic Mass today, they would see this being played out, that the priest will take. I don't know if it would be called mirum, but he mixes it up there in front of everybody, and then he administers it to the congregation.
Is that.
Right? That's correct. In fact, in a Roman Catholic Mass, three elements are brought forward to the altar. Wine, water, and bread. And what happens is that they bring forward the wine, the water, and the bread, and the priest then mixes it.
Now the problem is that it's this historical misunderstanding. The wine that you and I consume today has pretty much already been mixed with water. It's already in the right concentration for consumption.
It's just normal wine. Because that's how we make wine. And they add water in the process at some point, but nobody ever gets pure, unadulterated wine as a let's say, pure wine concentrate off the shelf.
They get wine that's already mixed to the right concentration for alcohol, for ideal taste, and ideal alcohol concentration. So you don't need to actually mix it again. What Roman Catholics have done is they've taken the ancient wine craft of mixing wine concentrate with water to make wine, and then they add even more water to it as if it was an apostolic ritual.
And that's the error, is that they think that you should bring three items to the table. Water, wine, and bread, and then mix the water and wine at the table. What we'll find as we proceed through the early church fathers, all the way through the 4th century, we find that mixing water with mirum was something that was done in the kitchen or at home before bringing the wine to church.
It's not something that was done at the table. And we'll see that when we jump into the very first detailed reference to the liturgy of the Lord's Supper, which we find in Justin Martyr, is that on a casual reading, it looks like three elements are brought forward, and Roman Catholicism will camp on that.
But on a closer reading, you see that he actually Justin Martyr simply reports that when they're celebrating the Lord's Supper, they bring forward two elements. Bread and a cup of wine that's already been mixed with water.
Because that's what wine was. So let's jump into Justin.
Martyr.
He's from the 2nd century. And if we just skip forward to chapter 67 of his first apology, it doesn't mean what we mean by apology today. It's a defense. Apologia is just a defense of his Christian faith.
And he's explaining Christianity to unbelieving friends. And he says, here's why we do what we do. So this is from chapter 67. And he's describing the Lord's Supper. He says, Then we all rise together and pray, and as we before said, when our prayer is ended, the bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability, and the people ascend, saying Amen.
Chapter 67 of the first apology. So bread and wine and water, right? It sounds like Justin Martyr is saying.
Yeah.
The earliest reference to this is the earliest reference on record to the details of the Lord's Supper. And he says you bring forward bread and wine and water. Sounds like you bring forward three elements.
But two paragraphs earlier, he had actually explained the actual ritual for bringing forward the elements of the Lord's Supper. And this is chapter 65. He says, Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss.
There is then brought to the president, that is to say the president is whoever is presiding over the ministry of the Lord's Supper. Says there is brought forward, there is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water.
That's chapter 65. When Justin Martyr was describing the Lord's Supper, he said you bring forward bread and you bring forward wine and water. Wine and water is simply mirim plus water to make wine for consumption.
And when he explains this, he says what gets brought forward is bread and a cup of wine that is already mixed with water. Now, the reason this matters to us is because Roman Catholics want to say that there is an ancient apostolic ritual of Jesus mixing the wine and water himself at the Last Supper.
And here we have the most ancient reference to the details of the Lord's Supper outside of the scriptures. And what does Justin Martyr say? He says what gets brought forward to the person presiding over the supper is bread and a cup of wine that has already been mixed.
Do you see the significance there? You would not signify Jesus mixing the water and wine himself by bringing to the person presiding at the meal a cup that was already mixed. You can't get an apostolic tradition of Jesus mixing the wine with water out of a church father who explains that the wine was brought forward mixed already.
And so, he lived from 100 to 165 and this would be the earliest reference that we have? It's the.
Earliest detailed reference on the Liturgy of the Eucharist or the Liturgy of the Lord's Supper. That's correct. There are references to it in other writings, but this is the first one that actually describes how it happens.
So, I'm wondering if they would actually try to claim that they can get past the latter part of the 4th century with their apostolic tradition. And, of course, you've just demonstrated that if you go to the preceding chapter, you see that water was already mixed with the wine, but I find that interesting because our claim is that they can't get past the latter part of the 4th century with their apostolic tradition.
And I'm wondering if your average Roman Catholic who maybe has looked into this a little bit would think that they can based off of the misrepresentation of Justin Martyr by the Roman Catholic Church on this particular point right here.
In fact, I've heard Roman Catholics argue based on chapter 67 of the First Apology that they brought forward three things, bread and wine and water.
But,.
As I would say, if you look at the ancient practice of wine craft, wine for consumption is called wine and water. And, in fact, two chapters earlier, that's exactly how Justin Martyr describes it, a cup of wine mixed with water.
A cup of wine already mixed with water is brought forward. And I remember talking with a Roman Catholic about this. He said, well, it's obviously that Justin Martyr made a mistake in chapter 65 and the truth is that he really meant that he brought forward three elements to the table.
Well, the only basis for saying that Justin Martyr had made a mistake is the Roman Catholic belief that this is an apostolic right to mix the water at the table. What we find in the earliest representation from Justin Martyr is that the cup was brought forward already mixed because that's what wine was.
Just like the bread was brought forward already baked, the wine was brought forward already mixed. That's just simply how meals were done back then. It's not an apostolic right. It's simply a standard manufacturing and preparation process.
The same way that you wouldn't put orange juice concentrate and water on the table together, you would mix them in the kitchen and then bring them as just orange juice, orange juice concentrate mixed with water, or mirum mixed with water, which is what Justin Martyr was referring to.
Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm tracking.
With you. Okay, so we're now going to fast forward to the 2nd century. We've been in the 2nd century, but we're talking about Irenaeus of Lyons, who lived from the early 2nd century to just the beginning of the 3rd century.
Irenaeus, in his arguments against the Valentinians, the Ibanites, and the Marcionites, referred more than once to the mixture of water with wine. The Ibanites believed that Jesus was a man, but denied his divinity, and they do not receive by faith the union of God and man.
So this is Irenaeus describing the error of the Ibanites, that they don't really believe that Jesus became man, and that God in Jesus had brought man and God together. In his arguments against them, he refers to the elements of the Lord's Supper.
He says.
Vain also are the Ibanites who do not receive by faith into their soul the union of God and man. Therefore do these men reject the co-mixture of the heavenly wine, and wish it to be water of the world only.
So all Irenaeus of Lyons has done here is say, okay, we know that wine.
Is.
Wine for consumption is mirum plus water, and he calls this a co-mixture of heavenly wine. And he's using this in reference to the Eucharistic Liturgy or the Liturgy of the Lord's Table.
And so.
As we noted before, remember when the early church was combating heretics, they would often appeal to the mixed element of the bread and the mixed element of wine. The bread had been made out of grains mixed together, the wine had been made out of mirum mixed together with water, and truly Jesus had mixed himself up with us.
And that's all that Irenaeus of Lyons is saying. As we noted in our previous installment last week, mirum with water is wine, and therefore wine without mirum is water. And this is a concept that Irenaeus restates for us here.
When it came to this particular symbolism, Irenaeus thought that the mirum signified Jesus' divinity and the water signified humanity in his mind. The Ebionites would be more consistent, of course, if they celebrated the Lord's Supper just with water, not mixing it with mirum.
But again, it's just, what I want to highlight here is how the early church deferred to the elements of the Lord's Supper to show that Jesus had truly become physical with a body, otherwise he would not have used physical elements to symbolize his body.
And if he had not truly become part of creation, it made no sense for him to use physical elements from creation to symbolize himself. And here he simply returns to the mingled cup. Just as the bread and wine are part of creation, Jesus too had become part of creation for us.
It doesn't confirm transubstantiation, which I know that Roman Catholics would like to use. They want to use this argument to show that he really believed that the bread and wine became Jesus' flesh and blood.
In fact, in Fragment 37, Irenaeus acknowledges that the bread and wine, after they're blessed by the minister, are still just antitypical or symbolic of Jesus' body and blood. But here, he's simply arguing that Jesus, as divine, had taken on our human flesh in order to save it.
And here is where I want to highlight the fact that Irenaeus is simply referring to a manufacturing process. And this is his argument, Book 5, Against Heresies. He says, he has acknowledged the cup, which is part of the creation, as his own blood, from which he bedews our blood.
And the bread, also part of the creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase to our bodies. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the word of God, and the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which flesh is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of him?
That's against Heresies, Book 5. Now here, Roman Catholics want to camp on the fact that Irenaeus says, hey, he made the bread and wine to be his body and.
Blood. And yet, as.
We mentioned in our series on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and as I just mentioned in Fragment 37, even after the bread and wine have been blessed by the minister, Irenaeus still refers to them as antitypes, or symbols, of Jesus' body and blood.
So he's not saying that Jesus actually turned the bread and wine into his body and blood, but what he does refer to is the mingled cup and the manufactured bread. That's explicit words from Irenaeus. The mingled cup refers to the manufacturing process for wine, and the manufactured bread is just an explicit statement of the manufactured bread.
Take grains, grind them up to make flour, you add water, you knead the dough, you bake it, it becomes bread. To do wine, you take mirum, which is pure wine, and you add water to it to make a mingled cup.
And Jesus took a mingled cup, which is just wine, or the typical beverage for consumption, and he takes manufactured bread. And he's highlighting the fact that Jesus took elements of creation to symbolize the fact that he himself had a body and had flesh and blood.
This was central to the gospel for Irenaeus, not because he thought Jesus turned the bread and wine into his body and blood to sacrifice it to God, but rather that he had taken part of creation to signify that Jesus truly had become part of creation like us.
In other words, the heretics were wrong to say that Jesus had not really taken on creation in taking on a body. And Irenaeus has simply used the elements of the Lord's Supper to emphasize that in the process, Irenaeus highlights a manufacturing process, one for bread and one for wine, showing that the mingled cup here in his reference is not a reference to an apostolic ritual for adding water to wine at the Lord's Supper, but simply a reference to the standard secular manufacturing process for wine as a beverage.
Now he continues on this same thing, and he keeps on referring to that standard manufacturing process. As we go through Book 5, Chapter 2 of Against Heresies, he refers to the flesh, which is nourished by the cup, which is his blood, and receives increase from the bread, which is his body.
A reference to the cup and to the bread. He continues, he says, just as cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a grain of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed rises, so also are bodies being nourished by it, the cup, and deposited in the earth and suffering decomposition there, like the grain of wheat shall rise.
All he is doing is, notice that he's referring to the vine that's planted in the ground and it bears fruit of a grape, or the grain of wheat falls into the ground and decomposes and then grows up into a wheat plant that is then harvested.
He's simply referring to a standard manufacturing process for wine and a standard manufacturing process for bread, and when he refers to the mixed cup and the manufactured bread, that's all he's talking about.
What's missing in Irenaeus is any attempt to show that Jesus mixed water with wine at the Last Supper. So you can't get a liturgical rite out of a known secular manufacturing process for wine in the same way you can't get a liturgical rite of Jesus mixing flour with water and kneading the dough and baking it at the table.
He used bread that had been manufactured and he used wine that had been mixed, but there's no evidence from this to show that he actually mixed the wine himself, which is the apostolic ritual that Roman Catholics are trying to impose on us.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. You know, I'm just thinking because I had a conversation with a Roman Catholic one time and I remember just pointing out that you can't really substantiate this from Scripture. Not this point.
Obviously it was a different point because I wouldn't be able to really lay this out for them, but if I remember correctly, I think it was pertaining to the Mass but one of the things that he said to me was well, we don't really need to substantiate it from Scripture explicitly because the Church has the authority and yeah, it was actually the Mass.
I do remember because he said that the Mass was passed down from the beginning when Christ set up the Church and so that there's an apostolic tradition from the very beginning and what I'm finding fascinating about just going through this with you is that we're seeing that not only can they not substantiate this from Scripture, but the early Church didn't hold to this and so there is absolutely no apostolic tradition with this and you know, there's I mean, at that point there's really no basis for their position.
Yeah, well, there's a couple.
Points that I think are worth highlighting and we're going to get to them in a later episode, but what's interesting here is that Roman Catholics will say that they have to mix their water with wine at the altar because it's an ancient tradition that's received on the authority of the apostolic.
Church.
After Christ. So they'll say, hey, they used a mixed cup therefore Jesus must have mixed it himself which is an invalid inference and then they impose it as an apostolic ritual upon us and yet it's not an actual apostolic ritual, it's a manufacturing process and importantly the manufacturing process was completed in the kitchen, not at the table.
But what's interesting is there's a lot of other things that the early Church taught about the Lord's Supper like receiving communion in the hand or making sure that the wine you use is red or making sure that everybody who's present drinks from the mixed cup and all of those traditions have been abandoned by Roman Catholicism they've been set aside as unnecessary.
So what's funny, and we'll get to this when we get to our wrap up on the inconsistency of Roman Catholicism, is that they'll appeal to the high authority of the early Church tradition to say we absolutely have to mix our wine with water.
And then you point out that the early Church took communion in the hand and some Roman Catholics.
Will say, oh,.
Well we don't do that anymore because as the Church became more and more aware of the real presence of Christ in the bread, they didn't administer it in the hand anymore.
That's really interesting that you say that because I remember as a kid one of the first times, I don't think it was the first time, but I remember very early on in my childhood going and taking communion and my cousin after the priest put the bread in his mouth, I suppose that he didn't like the taste of it and he took it out.
He grabbed it and took it out and looked at it and then put it back in his mouth. I remember that being a big deal and it was like he tainted it and my family was really upset by it and they told all of us, don't touch it.
You eat it or whatever but don't touch it. I just remember he kind of got into trouble for that so I thought that was funny.
Some churches, some Roman Catholic churches today will allow people to take communion in the hand and then put it in the mouth themselves. Some people consider that to be very disrespectful and only the priest should be allowed to touch it and should place it directly on the tongue.
In fact, the Roman Catholic arguments against taking it in the hand is that because it is Christ's body, according to them, it should only be handled by a priest and therefore it's probably not the best practice for people to take the bread in their own hand.
But what's interesting is that the early church believed that the wine used in the Lord's Supper ought to be red so that it would properly signify Christ's blood. Yet the Roman Catholic church today says you can use wine, red or white wine, it doesn't really matter.
The important thing is that it's wine. The early church actually allowed people, whether deacons or even lay people, to take some of the consecrated bread home with them. Well, now the Roman Catholic church says, oh, we don't do that anymore because as the church became more aware of the real presence of Christ in the bread, they stopped treating it that way.
So it's the same thing, taking it in the hand, using red wine, or allowing people to take it home with them. These are all practices that are documented in the early church that the Roman Catholic church rejects, right?
And so they can't consistently say, oh, we have to mix our water with wine because the early church did, and then have all these other things the early church actually did and say we don't do that anymore because the church has decided that it's not reverent.
You either have to take the early church, I mean, as Roman Catholics they appeal to the high authority of the early church as the basis for mixing water with wine at the table, something the early church didn't do.
They say we have to do that. And then you find things that the early church actually did, and they say, oh, we don't do that anymore because it's irreverent. Well, that's interesting because they think that it was known from the beginning that Jesus was physically present in the bread, right?
It's not until later that they actually started forbidding people from taking it home with them because they thought, well, the church became more aware of Christ's real presence. Well, the fact is that the early church wasn't aware of Christ's real presence in the bread, and we can cover that in another series.
But what I wanted to get to now is that Clement of Alexandria, now we're late 2nd century getting into the 3rd century here, and what I want our listeners to remember is that Clement is the one who said that generally speaking, and he was not referring to the liturgy of the Lord's Supper, he was just saying, and this is a quote from him, it is best to mix the wine with as much water as possible.
And he said this to avoid drunkenness and immorality, and he said this in reference to just the beverage itself. Mix the wine with as much water as possible, and what he's referring to here is mirum, that wine concentrate.
So when he says you have to take the wine without water and add water to it in as much quantity as possible is to water it down so much that you avoid drunkenness. And as we talked earlier, mirum and water was such a common mixture that Clement believed that the miracle at Cana had simply been to create mixed wine out of water.
Not pure wine or mirum out of water, but mixed wine out of water, which makes sense because nobody would have served straight mirum at a wedding feast. So we'll get to that in a little bit, but Clement of Alexandria when expounding on John chapter 6 refers to the mixed wine and the baked bread, but the important thing I want to highlight here is that he's talking about Jesus being the heavenly bread for us, and that the bread which I give is my flesh.
That's John 651. But notice there's two things. He refers first to bread that has been baked in a fire, and then refers to a mixture of wine and water. In other words, bread is baked, wine is mixed. He's again referring to simple manufacturing processes for agricultural commodities, wine and bread.
We're quoting now from the instructor book, and he says,. Here is to be noted the mystery of the bread inasmuch as he speaks of it as his flesh, and as flesh, consequently that has risen through fire, as the wheat springs up from the decay of germination, and in truth it has risen through fire for the joy of the church as bread baked.
So he's talking about a standard manufacturing process for bread, right? But then he says,. And the bread which I will give is my flesh, quoting John 651, and since flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively termed wine, we are bidden to know that as bread crumbled into a mixture of wine and water seizes on the wine and leaves the watery portion, so also the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven, absorbs the blood, that is, those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them up to mortality and leaving only to destruction the lusts of the flesh.
So here Clement of Alexandria is making reference to the two ingredients of wine, mirum and water. And he's saying, and he's just using this as an illustration, he just says, If you put bread in wine, it will soak up the wine and leave only water.
In other words, it will soak up the mirum and leave only watery substance behind. And he's saying the blood that gets soaked up is those of us who are saved, and what gets left behind is only the destruction of the lusts of the flesh.
So the watery substance is us and our humanity and our fallen humanity, and what gets saved is just the purest part of us. It's not even that good of an illustration, because bread doesn't discriminate when it absorbs wine.
It takes the wine and the water. He's trying to make this point, but in the process of making the point, and this is the point I want to make, in the process of using the illustration, he refers to the manufacturing process for bread, that is, the wheat springs up from decay and germination, and then is eventually baked as bread is baked, and then he makes a reference to a mixture of wine and water, obviously referring to the mirum and the water, which are the two ingredients of wine.
That's the only point I want to make here. He's talking about John chapter 6, and in the process he talks about mixed wine in the context of the manufacturing process for bread, which shows that the mixture of wine and water was not a liturgical matter, but simply a manufacturing matter.
These are agricultural processes that result in bread and in wine. And when Clement finally does address the Lord's Supper, he simply talks about the ingredients of wine and their meaning, without talking about it being mixed at the table.
So, here.
It's in.
The Instructor, book 2, chapter 2, and he's speaking about the mixture of the water and the word, the word being the blood of the grape. And he says, according as wine is blended with water, so is the spirit with man.
And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith, while the other, the spirit, conducts to immortality. And the mixture of both, of the water and the word, is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace.
And they who by faith partake of it, are sanctified both in body and soul. For the divine mixture, man the Father's will is mystically compounded by the spirit and the word. For in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul, which is inspired by the flesh, by reason of which the word became flesh, has been.
Joined to the word. So,.
The,.
What I want to highlight here is that he's talking about the elements of bread and wine that are used in the Lord's Supper, and he's simply referring again to the fact that that's how wine is made. It's a mixture of wine and water, a mixture of myriam and water.
He's simply referring to a manufacturing process. He's not actually talking about Jesus mixing the water and wine at the table, which is what Roman Catholics want us to believe. So, in sum, just to wrap up on Clement, he speaks of wine mixed with water in the broadest of context, the general consumption, the wedding at Cana, John chapter 6, and the Lord's Supper.
He doesn't say that mixing of water with wine is particular to the Lord's Supper. He says mixing with water with wine is something that you just do to make wine that's suitable for consumption. And when he speaks of the bread and the mixed wine together, he does so in the context of a manufacturing process.
Wheat springs up, and bread is baked. Wine is just a mixture of wine and water. What Clement did not do is establish the mixing of water and wine as liturgical practice. Further, and just to wrap up here on Clement, you can't legitimately arrive at a right of adding a little water to wine from an admonition from Clement that says it is best to mix the wine with as much water as possible.
When we wrap up on this series, we'll find that Roman Catholic, the prescription for the Lord's Supper from Roman Catholics is that you add a little water to the wine. And yet Clement's admonition was it is best to mix the wine with as much water as possible.
You can't get an apostolic right of adding a little water to wine from Clement's admonition that you should mix the wine with as much water as possible. The point is that when you evaluate Clement in context, he's simply talking about a manufacturing process just like he's talking about a manufacturing process for bread.
Bread is just grain that is ground up and then baked. Wine is just water mixed with mirum. It's a standard manufacturing process for bread and wine that is not a liturgical apostolic right. What I want to do next is go into Cyprian of Carthage.
He was born around 200 AD, died around 258 AD, so we're now fully in the 3rd century. Most of what we're getting from Cyprian of Carthage today is from Epistle 62. What was happening was that the persecution of Christians was so severe that the persecutors would actually track down people who had wine on their breath and conclude that they must have been celebrating the Lord's Supper and therefore they'd be put to death because there was sufficient evidence against them that they had wine on their breath.
That's because this would happen right after church service in the early morning?
Yes, that's right.
At that point, most people aren't drinking early in the morning.
That's right, but if Christians had gone to church and they had partaken of wine in the Lord's Supper, then there'd be wine on their breath and there would be sufficient evidence that they were Christian and therefore they'd be put to death.
What was happening was in order to avoid this, some Christians were celebrating the Lord's Supper with just water.
In the morning.
That way they wouldn't have wine on their breath and therefore they wouldn't be put to death. Cyprian of Carthage thought that for you to not have wine in your cup is like a rejection of Christ. It's like denying Christ before men.
He said you should rather embrace martyrdom.
Drink the wine and then be caught and then you're martyred. That's just life, or I should say that's death. He said you should not deny Christ what he instituted in order to avoid martyrdom. You should embrace martyrdom.
That's what his letter 62 is about. Don't change the institution of the Lord's Supper in order to avoid martyrdom. What he's mentioning is that you guys have become just like the Jews for among the Jews all they drank in the wilderness was water.
This is something again as a correction to an incorrect practice the early church would use the elements that Jesus used in the Lord's Supper and they would also refer to the historical references to the Jews drinking water in the wilderness but as soon as they came into the promised land, the very first time they went into the promised land they harvested these really big grapes.
Basically the point that Cyprian of Carthage is making here is that the Jews drank water alone but when they came into the promised land they would add the blood of the grape to that and so then they had wine and so if we're drinking water alone in the Lord's Supper then we're like the Jews wandering the wilderness and we shouldn't do that.
But again it's an appeal to the two ingredients of wine. Back then the two ingredients of wine were mirum plus water and Cyprian of Carthage is saying you guys are doing it wrong if you only have water in the cup.
You're supposed to have water and wine. And I'm going to get to his apostolic, the apostolic tradition that Cyprian appeals to is actually the scriptures and it's very telling in fact because he's saying that you should have a mixed cup because Jesus and the Apostle tell us that and then when we get to his justification for that we'll find that all he's referring to is the fact that Jesus and Paul used wine and therefore we should too and everybody knows the way you make wine is by adding water to mirum.
So in Epistle 62 Cyprian of Carthage like Clement he understood that Jesus' miracle at Cana was the miracle of changing water into water mixed with wine. He took a slightly different tact though you know Clement of Alexandria thought that water represented the law and Adam and the blood of the grape represented Christ.
Whereas Cyprian.
Of Carthage thought that the water represented the people.
That is.
Christians and Jesus' miracle of making water into wine at Cana signified Jesus' marriage to the church because he's the blood of the grape and we're the water because Revelation 17 15 refers to people as water and so the water pots.
At.
Cana when the miracle was complete they had a mixture of water and wine together signifying Christ's marriage to the church. And basically what he is saying here is that if you use water alone you've lost the significance of Jesus being married to his people.
But again he's simply referring to a manufacturing process and what we find as he continues in the same epistle he refers to the manufacturing process for bread as well because he says if you use water alone without mirum it would be like celebrating the Lord's Supper with water without flour.
That is you have to use bread and wine the way Jesus used bread and wine. You can't just select one of the ingredients and call it enough. So here in Cyprian's letter epistle 62 he's still correcting these people who've used water alone in the cup and he says the cup of the Lord is not indeed water alone nor wine alone.
And remember this is my parenthetical statement here. Wine alone is mirum and mirum is not something that you would serve at a feast. He says the cup of the Lord is not water alone nor wine alone unless each be mingled with the other.
Just as on the other hand the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone unless both should be united and joined together and compacted in the mass of one bread in which very sacrament our people are shown to be made one so that in like manner as many grains collected and ground and mixed together into one mass make one bread so in Christ who is the heavenly bread we may know there is one body with which our number is joined and united.
Notice that when he speaks about a mixed cup he's speaking of it in terms of a manufacturing process to make wine in the same way that there is a manufacturing process for making bread. You add flour to water and then knead it and bake it to make bread and for wine you add mirum to water to make wine.
For them to celebrate the Lord's Supper with just water in the cup would be like using just water or just flour for bread. It's inappropriate. It's not the way Christ instituted. Christ instituted the Lord's Supper with bread and with wine and in those days wine was mirum with water.
It's a standard manufacturing process not an apostolic rite. Water is added to flour to make bread and water is added to mirum to make wine. And this gets to where what I wanted to get back to is that the actual apostolic ritual the tradition that Cyprian was appealing to was actually a written tradition.
This gets back to your observation that the person you were talking with Tim, who said we don't need the scriptures, we can go by the tradition of the church. What's interesting is that Cyprian here appeals to an apostolic tradition that he had received from the scriptures.
So he's not actually appealing to an oral tradition he had received. He's referring to the scriptures. When he argues for the use of water and wine in the Lord's Supper remember, he's arguing against people who have been using water alone.
He said you can't do that, you have to do what Jesus did and we know this because of the scriptures. So what I want to do is I want to read the passages from Cyprian of Carthage where he appeals to the scriptures in order to prove that they should not be using water alone in the cup.
You know, real quick I think it's interesting that they want to do exactly what Jesus did and nobody has thought to mention that, well this was supper, not breakfast. You know?
Right, maybe we should have it at night, right?
Right, yeah. Alright, yeah, let's get.
Into it. Okay, so here we are. This is what I consider the most telling statement from Cyprian's letter is that he insists that Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul had enjoined us explicitly in the scriptures to use wine mixed with water.
So he's, remember the Roman Catholic you're talking with would say we don't need the scriptures we go by the tradition of the church from the early church fathers. And yet here's Cyprian of Carthage saying no, this comes from the scriptures.
Okay, and he's saying that Paul and Christ both enjoined us to abide by the tradition of the mixed cup. Okay, and I want to say, I'm going to lay this out there and say I agree with Cyprian on this. Not because I think that Jesus and Paul enjoined us to mix the water and wine at the table.
It's just that Jesus and Paul said we should use wine and wine was mirum mixed with water back then. There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying the standard manufacturing process in the day was to mix mirum with water.
That's what their mixed cup was and that's what wine is today. It's what wine was back then. I think we should use wine. I think we should use the fruit of the vine and it's already mixed because what we get on the shelf today is already prepared for consumption.
But mirum back then was not ready for consumption until they added water to it and that's simply what wine was. So let's go to Cyprian's argument from the scriptures that we must use mixed wine. So here we go.
Teaching by the example of his own authority that the cup should be mingled with the union of wine and water for taking the cup on the eve of his passion he blessed it and gave it to his disciples saying drink all of this for this is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins.
Okay? So he's.
Quoting Matthew 26 28 to 29. That's epistle 62 paragraph 9. So he continues in paragraph 10. He says moreover the blessed apostle Paul chosen and sent by the Lord and appointed a preacher of the gospel of truth lays down these very things in his epistle saying the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he'd given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which shall be given for you do this in remembrance of me.
After the same manner he also took the cup when he had supped saying this cup is the new testament in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. That's quoting from 1 Corinthians 11 23 to 26.
So what I want you to do is I think about this. He says Jesus and Paul both say we should use a mingled cup. He's saying it to people who are using water alone. Well water alone is only one ingredient of wine.
There are two ingredients of wine and we ought to use them both. One is mirum and one is water. Wine you buy on the shelf today already has both of those in it so you don't need to mix it again. But back then wine for consumption was made out of pure wine concentrate with water added to make it suitable for consumption.
Now he's appealing to the scriptures here but notice that the scriptures never say mingled cup. They simply refer to wine. And that's the point that Cyprian is making. The standard manufacturing process for wine is to have mirum with water and it's wrong to leave out the mirum because that's just water and that's not what Jesus used at the Last Supper.
In his.
Concluding argument in paragraph 10 it said if it is both enjoined by the Lord and the same thing is confirmed and delivered by his apostle that as often as we drink we do in remembrance of the Lord or the same thing which the Lord also did we find that what was commanded is not observed by us unless we also do what the Lord did and that mixing the Lord's cup in like manner we do not depart from divine teaching.
He's saying hey listen if you guys are serving water alone then you're not actually using wine and Jesus used wine and as we studied before in part one of the episode of the series wine back then was mirum plus water and what Cyprian was getting at was not that they had left out an important step in the process but rather that they were not using wine at all because water isn't wine it's just one ingredient.
It's just as bad as using flour alone or water alone for bread. Does that make sense?
Yeah I know it does. As you were talking I just had something I had a question and I wanted to just ask you real fast. So when the priest.
Going to initiate the Lord's supper. Is he actually using mirum or does he have wine that he's just adding water to the wine or is he actually adding water to mirum?
No he's actually.
He would not actually buy mirum off the shelf. He would buy wine off the shelf and wine is already mirum plus water. But they're adding the practice of the early church and this wasn't done at the altar.
It was done at the table because they didn't have altars.
Until the middle of the century.
Until then it was just a table.
So that's another thing yeah.
They would take mirum and mix it with water to make wine and then they'd bring the wine and the bread forward and use it for the Lord's supper. What they didn't do is have mirum on the table and water on the table and mix it there.
At least not until the latter part of the 4th century. Because of that misunderstanding what happens in the Roman Catholic church today is that and has been going on since the latter part of the 4th century they take wine that has already been mixed with water and add more water to it.
That's the mistake. That's the historical error based on a misunderstanding of the ancient manufacturing process, the ancient art of wine craft is that back then you mix mirum which is pure wine with water to make wine for consumption and then you're done.
You bring that to the table and then you celebrate a meal. The mistake of Roman Catholicism is to read back into this that they had wine already mixed for consumption and then they added more water to it.
Which is not what Christ did and it's not what Paul did it's not what Paul taught. It's not what Cyprian or Clement or Irenaeus or Justin Martyr were teaching either. Remember Justin Martyr just said hey they're bringing forward a cup of wine already mixed with water.
Because that's what wine was. It was mirum plus water wine and water is just what we would call wine today. And what's notable here about Cyprian is that he has not appealed to an oral teaching that oh I know the scriptures doesn't make mention of it but we should use wine mixed with water.
He thinks the scriptures actually support him on this because they mention wine. And if that's what wine was, then it can't be just water alone. It has to be mirum plus water. That's what wine is. And it's just interesting that Roman Catholics make the argument well we're basing this on an oral tradition and yet Cyprian thought it was based on written instruction from the apostles.
And the only written instruction he appeals to is the fact that wine was used. And what's also interesting here is that because Cyprian is dealing with the error of using water alone, he corrects them by saying you've got to add some wine in that water.
Right? But listen to what the Roman Catholic actual liturgy is. The liturgical rite of Roman Catholicism is you have to pour some water into the wine. So this is from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica.
Third part, question 74, article 8. It's a reply to objection 3. That's just how Thomas wrote and titled the sections. But he says, water must be added to the wine at the actual celebration of the sacrament.
The next one I have is Redemptionis Sacramentum. It's from the Roman Catholic Church explicitly on how to do this. It says, during the celebration itself a small quantity of water is to be mixed with it.
That is, mixed with the wine. Father Edward McNamara writing for the Roman Catholic News Agency, Zenit, explaining why water and wine. He says, the brief rite of pouring water into the wine, used for consecration, is very ancient.
And then from a guy named Jeffrey Pinion, he wrote something called Praying the Mass, mixing the wine with water. He says, the simple act of pouring water into wine in the prayer accompanying it, is a synthesis of the whole Mass, and the whole Catholic faith.
Now notice what they've said. They've said, the apostolic liturgy we've received is to pour water into the wine.
And yet, Cyprian's.
Whole letter is not about adding water to wine, but adding wine to water. Because they already had the water in the cup. He said, you guys are getting it wrong. You're not even using wine. You need to add mirum to make the wine, or else you're not doing what Christ had done.
And so you can't legitimately get an apostolic ritual of adding water to wine by Cyprian's instruction that they should add wine to their water. So, to summarize on Cyprian, to wrap him up, to wrap up on Cyprian, he insists on using a mixed cup, but he bases it not on an oral tradition of mixing water with wine at the Lord's Supper, but on the manufacturing process for bread and wine, as well as a written instruction from Jesus and Paul to use wine, and wine back then was mirum plus water, or what they would call wine and water.
You can't get a liturgical rite of adding water to wine from Cyprian's insistence that wine should be added to water. And further, it's clear that when he does say it, he's referring to a manufacturing process, not to an apostolic rite.
And that manufacturing process would have been complete before the meal ever started. It was not part of the meal itself. And so, once again, we show that even though these early church fathers are writing and referring to, writing about, referring to a mingled cup, they do it in the context of a manufacturing process, a secular manufacturing process, and that's not where we get our liturgy from.
It's not where we get our apostolic teaching from. And even Cyprian knew that if he wanted to have an apostolic tradition, it had to come from the scriptures, and when he invokes the scriptures, all he can come up with is the fact that they used wine, and we know that wine back then was mirum plus water.
And the people of Cyprian's day were using water alone. He said, that's wrong. You've only got one ingredient in there. You've got to have them both. That's the only point he's making. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah.
So, we're now in the early 4th century. This is Aphrahat of Persia, or he's known as Aphrahat the Persian Sage, and he wrote several demonstrations in which he attempted to prove various aspects of Christianity, and he makes reference to Jesus and the Lord's Supper several times.
He talks about Jesus blessed the wine, and that's from Demonstration 12, Chapter 6. In Demonstration 6, Aphrahat made the same connection that Cyprian had between the Last Supper and the Marriage Supper because Jesus promised that he would not drink this fruit of the vine again until he drank it with his apostles.
And that's from Matthew 26, 29 where he says, I say to you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. So, Aphrahat of Persia is drawing on that connection that Jesus made, saying that whatever he drinks at the Marriage Supper will be the same beverage that was served at the Last Supper, and when Aphrahat depicts the Marriage Supper, he speaks of the apostles drinking again with Jesus, and what's notable here is that Aphrahat describes the same thing Aphrahat describes the same thing that Justin Martyr had, and that is, the fruit of the vine is a mingled cup, and he explains that the water and wine was mixed before Jesus ever got to the table.
Remember Justin Martyr, when describing the Liturgy of the Lord's Supper, said that what's brought forward is bread and a cup that's already mixed with wine? Aphrahat of Persia, this is early 4th century, describes this meal and in the process says that the cup of redemption was mixed before the bridegroom ever takes his seat at the table.
Showing that, yes, we understand that there was a mixed cup because that's what wine was, it was mirin plus water, but what's important here is that Aphrahat of Persia didn't think Jesus mixed it himself.
In other words, Aphrahat of Persia would have considered the Roman Catholic ritual foreign because for the first 300 years of Christianity nobody thought that Jesus mixed water with wine at the table.
So this is quoting from Demonstration 6, chapter 6 from Aphrahat of Persia. It says, the table is laid and the supper prepared, the fatted ox is slain and the cup of redemption mixed. The feast is prepared and the bridegroom at hand, soon to take his place.
The apostles are given the invitation and the called are very many. The marriage cry is at hand. So that's just a passing reference to the marriage supper which is simply a repeat of the last supper that Jesus had with his apostles and what's notable here is he says the cup has been mixed before Jesus ever takes his seat at the table.
And again, it's very important to recognize that the fact that he refers to a mixed cup is simply referring to the ingredients of wine, which is mirin plus water in the same way that we've been reading that the early church referred to the mixture of grains and the grinding of grain and the mixing of flour with water and the kneading of the dough and the baking of bread is just a standard manufacturing process to end up with bread for a feast.
And then.
When referring to wine they refer to a mixed cup because that's the manufacturing process for wine. It was not an apostolic rite and what's important here is that as late as the 4th century we still have an understanding that the cup was mixed already before Jesus got to the table and you can't get an apostolic tradition of Jesus mixing the wine himself from the early church who thought that it was mixed before Jesus ever got there.
And the same thing, if you think about the last supper the apostles were sent out to prepare a meal and they would not have put mirin and water on the table for Jesus to mix himself they would have mixed it probably because they went off to prepare a meal but that's just the last step of a manufacturing process for wine.
And just like the last step in a manufacturing process for bread is to bake it in the kitchen, the last step in a manufacturing process for wine is to mix it in the kitchen. You do not mix it at the table.
So in some Aphrahat just like Justin Martyr was unaware of any apostolic tradition of Jesus mixing the cup himself you just can't get an apostolic tradition of Jesus mixing his own cup from a description of the supper showing that the cup was mixed before Jesus even took his seat.
This idea that Jesus mixed the water with the wine himself at the table is a late 4th century novelty and when we pick up on this next week we'll identify exactly where that novelty originated and we'll just wrap up this episode here.
And that is so good, I don't see how the Roman Catholic position could come back from this. So folks let me just remind you that if you want to email us you can email us at semper .refermanda .radio at gmail .com.
And then I want to just remind everybody out there that Tim Coffman does have a blog that I really recommend that you go and visit, he has a lot of stuff. One thing that I think is just apparent.
Tim is an outstanding historian he does his homework, he knows not only does he know the Bible but he knows history as well and the title of your blog is out of his mouth thewhitehorseblog .com.
So.
Go and check it out, he has so much stuff on there that I love reading his blog, his blog is actually one of my favorite blogs.
So check that out also. Tim has put together a blog series about the episodes that we did on Mother Mary so check that out as well. And I just want to wish everybody a blessed week and we will check you next time, God bless.
Made a. It was about when Jesus blood came.
Flowing down.