TDB 10 The Conversion of Marcus Grodi part 5 (The Eucharist part 3)

And this is very significant. Not one, not even one of those Eastern bishops disputed or questioned the Pope's authority. I mean, the Eucharistic, let's just say this, the Eucharistic abuses are abuses to Jesus' DNA, his body and blood.

Conversion to the Catholic Church and Advice to Investigate History

As I continued to study my early church father, older brothers and sisters, I started to realize that God had a plan for me that was bigger than any plan that I'd ever had for myself. And before you know it, it turned to the Catholic Church.

When I made that decision to become Catholic, everything began to fit. It was like a puzzle with the four sides that I put together with the papacy and the Blessed Mother and tradition in the Eucharist.

Let's say there's a person watching this program right now from where you were. Why should they make the same journey home that you made?

I would say investigate the history for yourself because the famous line from Cardinal Newman is to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. And that's pretty much what happened to me. So I would say take the Catholic Church's claims, investigate them, and as my father always told me, go wherever Jesus leads you and maybe it would end up in the Catholic Church.

The Diving Board Returns After a Long Break

Hello to everyone. We are back with a new episode of The Diving Board where we dive deep into history. It has been almost three months since our last episode, which I did not anticipate when I was recording the last episode, but we have not been idle.

Life has a way of going by without waiting for me to catch up. We've got a lot of good material for you today and it is going to take a long time to go through. The show notes will be extensive as usual.

Why Roman Catholicism Is a Late Historical Novelty

By way of reminder, The Diving Board podcast focuses on the conversion testimonies of Protestants who convert to Roman Catholicism thinking that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. But getting deep in history is something a Roman Catholic cannot do because Roman Catholicism itself is a novelty 300 years removed from the Church of the Apostles and their followers.

Its roots do not go back any further than the end of the 4th century and as we continue to show in each episode, those Roman Catholics who think they are getting deep in history are actually embracing a late 4th century and medieval novelty, not realizing how ignorant of history they really are.

This is episode 10, which is our 5th episode on Marcus Grodi, host of the Journey Home show on the Coming Home Network, a Roman Catholic ministry that focuses on the return of wandering Protestants back to the fold of Roman Catholicism.

Marcus Grodi has provided citations from the early Church Fathers that influenced his decision to return to Rome and he divided his citations into four main categories. The Church Hierarchy, the Eucharist, which to him is the Lord's Supper and the Roman Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass, the Primacy of Rome, and the Unity of the Church.

We are almost finished with Grodi's Misperceptions on the Eucharist. This is our third episode on that and it is taking so long because there is just so much history to cover and because we also need to correct the scholars, apologists, and professional theologians and to educate not only the Protestants, but also the Roman Catholics as well.

As we noted last week, Roman Catholics do not know what the term Eucharist meant to the early Church and they do not even know where the term Sacrifice of the Mass came from. It was not until the latter part of the 4th century that the Roman Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass came about and in the second half of today's episode we will show you how scholars and apologists have been unable to reconcile the liturgy of the early Church with the liturgical novelties of the late 4th century.

And so what they have done is not merely reinterpret the liturgy of the first 300 years, but actually rewrite it in order to make it consistent with the heretical novelties that originated late in the 4th century.

The result of this campaign to rewrite the liturgy of the early centuries has been one of the most dangerous deceptions in the history of Christianity because it has led millions of souls to the destructive and heretical practice of offering Christ to the Father in the Lord's Supper and then worshipping that consecrated bread and wine.

It is a heretical and abominable practice and the intentional rewriting of the early liturgy to make it look like the later heretical abominable novelty is simply unconscionable. And Marcus Grodi is just one of its many, many victims.

We will get to that later today. But for now, let us very briefly review what we covered in the first two episodes on the Eucharist. First, in the early Church, the Eucharist was the tithe offering, not the supper.

Second, in the early Church, unbelievers, catechumens, backsliders, and those at variance with their brethren were dismissed prior to the offering of the tithe. Third, the very simple liturgy that followed the dismissal was a tithe offering, followed by an Amen, followed by a consecration, followed by a meal, as depicted by Paul in the Epistles.

Fourth, in the early Church, the consecration of the elements was simply to pronounce the words of Christ, this is my body, this is my blood, over the bread and wine. Fifth, in the early Church, that consecration was sometimes spoken over the bread and wine after it was already distributed to the people.

So let's cover those very briefly. First, as we showed last week, to the early Church, the Eucharist, the Greek word for Thanksgiving, was the tithe offering, the thank offering, which was an offering of thanks and praise and the first fruits of the harvest for the feeding of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.

It was an expression of gratitude to God for His manifold provisions to His people. It was the sacrifice prophesied in Malachi 1 .11, and it was the sacrifice prescribed by the Apostles, thanks, praise, sharing, caring for one another, an offering well-pleasing and acceptable to the Lord, according to Philippians 4 .18 and Hebrews 13 .16.

Second, the term sacrifice of the Mass literally means sacrifice of the dismissal because in the early Church, unbelievers, catechumens, and the backslidden, or those at variance with their brethren, were dismissed prior to the Eucharistic tithe offering because it was considered inappropriate to offer thanks, praise, prayer, and the tithe with an unclean conscience.

And, of course, it was impossible to have a clean conscience if you were in sin or if you had not yet made a confession of Christ. As such, no one was allowed to remain for the offering of the tithe until they had made a confession of Christ, as recorded in Athanasius Against the Arians, Part 1, Chapter 2, Paragraph 28.

But as soon as someone was converted, he was not only allowed to participate in the thank offering, according to Justin Martyr, First Apology, Paragraph 65, but he was also instructed to bring his own Eucharist with him, according to Hippolytus, Anaphora, Chapter 20, because the new believer could finally make his tithe offering with a clean conscience.

Third, once the unbelievers and unconverted were dismissed, a very primitive liturgy ensued. It was the liturgy depicted in the Scriptures at the Last Supper and in Paul's epistles. There was a thanksgiving tithe offering or sacrifice, that is, a Eucharist, followed by an Amen, according to 1 Corinthians 14, 16, after which some of the bread and wine from the tithe offering were blessed or consecrated and then called the Body and Blood of Christ for a meal, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 10, verses 16 -17.

A Eucharist, an Amen, a consecration, and a meal. That was the simple liturgy of the early church, and we see that liturgy prevail for the first 300 years. We saw it reflected, for example, in Justin Martyr in his First Apology, Chapters 65 -67, in the mid -2nd century, in which a newly baptized person participates in the thank offering, and thanks is pronounced as the bread and wine are offered, or Eucharisted.

Then the people say Amen, then a consecration is pronounced over the Eucharisted food after the Amen, and then the people eat the consecrated bread and wine, calling it the Body and Blood of Christ. That same liturgy is seen in the mid -3rd century, in Dionysius of Alexandria's Epistle 4 to Sixtus II, Bishop of Rome, as he explained that he was unwilling to rebaptize someone who had been present for the Eucharist offering, answered Amen, and then stood at the holy table to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

That was the simple liturgy of the early church, and as we abundantly demonstrated in the previous episode, that Eucharistic sacrifice took place prior to the consecration, before the elements were considered the Body and Blood of Christ.

Fourthly, as we showed last week, the consecration, in the most primitive liturgies, was comprised simply of the words of Christ spoken over the bread and wine at the supper. This is my body, broken for you.

This is my blood, shed for you. That was the consecration. We see this depicted in the liturgy of Justin Martyr, in which he says when the words of Christ are spoken over the Eucharisted food after the Amen, the Eucharist then becomes the Body and Blood of Christ to us.

That's Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66. We also saw this same consecration depicted later in the 2nd century with Irenaeus, against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 17, Paragraph 5, and Book 5, Chapter 2, Paragraph 3, in which Christ gives thanks, that is, Eucharist, for the bread and wine, but the Eucharist does not become his Body and Blood until he utters the words, this is my body, this is my blood.

We also saw that same consecration depicted in Tertullian, against Marcion, Book 4, Chapter 40, in which he says, having taken the bread and given it to his disciples, he made it his own body, saying, this is my body.

That is a significant point which will become even more important to us today, namely, in the early church, the Eucharist and the consecration were different things at different parts of the liturgy. The Eucharistic prayer was not the consecration.

And that leads us to our fifth point, which is, not only was the consecration spoken over the bread and wine after the offering, or sacrifice, or oblation was over, but also sometimes it was spoken only after the bread had already been distributed into the hands of those present, or as the wine was being administered to them.

We saw this in the scriptural accounts of the supper, when Jesus said of the bread, take, eat, this is my body, and of the wine, he gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it, for this is my blood. We also saw this in Justin Martyr, First Apology, paragraph 67, in about 155 A .D., in which the bread and wine were distributed immediately after the thanksgiving and the apostolic amen.

We also saw this in Tertullian against Marcion, book 4, chapter 40, around 208 A .D. Then, having taken the bread and given it to his disciples, he made it his own body, saying, this is my body. We saw this in Origen, about 248 A .D., in his Criticism of Celsus, as he explains that in the liturgy, we give thanks to the Creator of all, and along with thanksgiving, that is, Eucharistus, and prayer, for the blessings we have received, we also eat the bread presented to us, and this bread becomes by prayer a sacred body.

That's Origen against Celsus, book 8, chapter 33. We also saw this in Cornelius' complaint in 251 A .D., that the schismatic Novatus had substituted an oath of loyalty for the consecration. That is from Cornelius, bishop of Rome, in his letter to Fabian, bishop of Antioch, around 251 A .D., and he says, for when he has made the offerings and distributed a part to each man, as he gives it, he compels the wretched man to swear in place of the blessing.

This is also recorded for us in Eusebius' Church History, book 6, chapter 43, paragraph 18. In all of these cases, the consecration is spoken either as the bread and wine are being distributed, or after the bread has already been distributed into the hand of the believer.

So, we covered these five points for a specific reason. It makes sense out of the statements of the early writers on the topic of the Eucharist. In the early church, the Eucharist was the tithe offering, not the supper.

Unbelievers were dismissed prior to the offering of the tithe, which is why the tithe offering was called the Sacrifice of the Dismissal, or, in a later English transliteration, the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The liturgy that followed the dismissal was a simple tithe offering, an amen, a consecration, and a meal, as depicted by Paul in the epistles and in the earliest liturgies. The consecration itself was simply to pronounce the words of Christ, this is my body broken for you, this is my blood shed for you, over the bread and wine taken from the Eucharistic offering, and that consecration was sometimes spoken after the elements had already been distributed into the hands of the recipient.

Now, frankly, that sounds like a Protestant liturgy, and it is important to keep it in mind because it serves as a simple backdrop to the statements of Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr in reference to the Eucharist.

When Ignatius of Antioch says the heretics abstain from the Eucharist because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of Jesus Christ, he means simply that, like unbelievers, catechumens, and backsliders, the heretics don't participate in the tithe offering, and further, they don't agree with the words of consecration that are spoken over Eucharist and bread and wine when they are distributed for the supper.

And when Justin Martyr says we call this food the Eucharist and nobody is allowed to partake of it but those who believe as we do and who are living in accordance with Christ's teachings, it makes perfect sense because those who do not confess Christ, or who are backslidden in sin, are not allowed to remain for the Eucharist, the thank offering.

It is actually very simple. And this simple liturgy prevailed for 300 years after the apostles, until the late 4th century, when people began to believe that the Eucharist was the offering of consecrated bread and wine to the Father, that is, the offering of Christ's body and blood.

And that leads us to the last point we wanted to make about the Eucharist in the early church. Marcus Grodi made the mistake of thinking that the Eucharist in the early church referred to the Lord's Supper after the consecration, but as we have shown, the Eucharist referred to the tithe offering prior to the consecration.

Marcus Grodi said the bread and wine became the Eucharist at the consecration, but according to the early church writers, the bread and wine became the Eucharist when they were set aside as a tithe offering, and then the Eucharist became the body and blood of Christ at the consecration.

Following the simple liturgy of the early church, the bread and wine were already the Eucharist prior to the consecration, and thus it makes little sense for Marcus Grodi to say the early church believed unanimously in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

What he means is that the early church believed unanimously in the real presence of Christ in the Supper. But for the sake of argument, we'll let Marcus Grodi state his position on this.

Again, this emphasizes the unanimous belief in the early church in the belief in the reality of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

As we stated in our previous episode, this idea of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist leads Roman Catholics to believe that the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper are literally the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ.

As you hear in the intro audio to each episode, Roman Catholic apologist Timothy Gordon reminds us that Roman Catholics really believe that the bread and wine contain the actual DNA of the second person of the Trinity.

And the obvious logical conclusion, if it were true, is that the bread and wine should be worshipped. Okay, let's find out if the early church really believed that. The scripture says nothing of the practice, but did the early church unanimously confess the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper?

Let's take a look. There is not much we can get from the Didache and Clement of Rome, both of which are from the period between the 50s and 90s AD, since they do not mention the consecration of the elements as part of the liturgy.

We have evaluated Ignatius of Antioch from early in the 2nd century in his letter to the Smyrnaeans in 107 AD, and his reference to heretics not confessing the Eucharist to be the flesh and blood of Christ is not about transubstantiation, but about the heretics being unwilling to pronounce the words of consecration over the bread and wine that had been taken from the Eucharistic tithe oblation for the Supper.

Thus, Ignatius' statements that the heretics do not participate in the tithe and do not take the bread of the tithe and confess it to be the body of Christ can hardly be taken as evidence of belief in the real presence of Christ in the Supper.

Additionally, while Ignatius is known to say things like, I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is the incorruptible love and eternal life, that is, to the Romans, paragraph 7, such statements are not made in regard to the Supper and rather comport with Jesus' words in John 6, in which eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood are used as metaphors for coming to Christ and believing in Him.

As it says in John 6, 35,. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Besides, Ignatius liked to use flowery metaphorical language, saying things like, Wherefore clothing yourselves with meekness?

Be renewed in faith, that is, the flesh of the Lord, and in love, that is, the blood of Jesus Christ. That's Ignatius of Antioch to the Tralleans, paragraph 8. It is very difficult to get a plain affirmation of the reality of Christ's flesh and blood in the Supper if Ignatius also believed that faith is the flesh of Jesus and love is the blood of Jesus.

Even his statements from his letter to the Philadelphians, paragraph 4, that is, Take heed then to have but one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup to the unity of His blood, are easily understood in the context of the primitive liturgy in which there was a Eucharistic tithe offering and then bread was taken from that Eucharist to be consecrated in accordance with Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 10, 15.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? If the early church offered a Eucharistic tithe of unconsecrated bread and then took bread and wine from the tithe and consecrated it, Ignatius' words make sense in their historical context.

There should be only one Eucharist. They hardly attest to a primitive conviction in the reality of Christ's presence, body, blood, soul and divinity in the supper. And what did we find in Justin Martyr in the 2nd century except an acknowledgment of the Eucharistic tithe offering followed by the apostolic Amen and the use of the bread and the cup in a memorial meal after the consecration in which the bread and wine are called the body and blood of Christ.

We read of this in his first apology, chapters 65 to 67. Protestants actually do the same thing and we are taught that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ to us who believe. Our liturgy is pretty much the same as Justin's.

A thank offering, followed by everyone agreeing that God has provided abundant blessings for his people, followed by a memorial meal in which bread and wine are called the body and blood of Christ, and then eaten.

Other citations from Justin Martyr bear this same character when the liturgy of the early church is understood, especially with the knowledge that the Eucharist was the tithe, the thank offering. For example, in his dialogue with Trifo after reciting Isaiah 33, verses 13 to 19, which says, He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly, bread shall be given to him.

Justin continued, saying that this prophecy foretold the time when believers would be given bread to remind them of Christ's incarnation. Now citing Justin Martyr, dialogue with Trifo, chapter 70. Now it is evident that in this prophecy, allusion is made to the bread which our Christ gave to us to eat, in remembrance of his being made flesh for the sake of his believers, for whom he suffered, and to the cup which he gave us to drink, in remembrance of his own blood, with giving of thanks.

Again, Justin Martyr, dialogue with Trifo, chapter 70. Justin's point is obviously that the prophecy of bread being given to the righteous is fulfilled in Christ giving bread to us to eat, in remembrance of his incarnation.

And that reference to the cup is quite interesting. Justin says, the cup which he gave us to drink, in remembrance of his own blood. He gave us bread to eat to remind us of his incarnation. He gave us the wine in remembrance of his own blood.

That's not something you would say. At least, that is not the way you would say it. If you really believed Jesus was giving us his actual flesh to eat and his own blood was actually in the cup, you'd say, he gave us his own incarnated flesh to eat and his own blood to drink.

Instead of, he gave us bread to help us remember that he had a real body and he gave us the wine in remembrance of his own blood. Frankly, Justin Martyr's language is the language of Protestants today.

Justin makes a similar connection in chapter 117 of his dialogue with Trifo, which we cited in our analysis of the Eucharist two episodes ago, referring to Malachi 111 and the prophecy that the Gentiles would offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.

To Justin Martyr, that prophecy was fulfilled in the Eucharist, that is, in the tithe offering and the offering of prayers. Listen to what Justin Martyr says in this chapter. That is not what you would say if you believed the bread and wine were the flesh and blood of Christ and offered as the sacrifice.

So we really don't find anything compelling about the real presence of Christ in the supper in Justin Martyr's representation of the early liturgy. And what about Irenaeus in the late second century? All we have seen in his works against heresies is language consistent with the primitive liturgy of the early church, that is, bread and wine take on twin realities, both earthly and heavenly, when they are set aside as a tithe, as he noted in Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 18, Paragraph 5.

What we offer in the Eucharist, quote, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly, unquote. And then bread and wine are taken from that Eucharistic tithe offering and are consecrated by the recitation of Christ's words, this is my body, this is my blood, at which point the Eucharist becomes the body and blood of Christ to us.

But there is nothing to suggest that Irenaeus thought the change in the bread at the consecration was literal. In fact, the primary evidence Roman Catholics use from Irenaeus to prove the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist from Irenaeus is a known intentional mistranslation in Book 4, Chapter 18, in which Irenaeus is made to say that the bread takes on two realities, earthly and heavenly, at the moment of consecration.

The only problem is that Irenaeus did not write that, as we will show a little later today. That is intentionally mistranslated by scholars and apologists, precisely because they are unable to reconcile the late 4th century liturgy of Roman Catholicism with the liturgy of the early Church.

So the evidence is forged and hammered on the anvil of tradition until it finally comports with the presumptuous novelty of the apologists. Additionally, in one of the fragments of his works, called Fragment 37, he recites a similar liturgy when he describes the Eucharistic tithe offering as the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy.

Listen as he describes the tithe offering of first fruits as the Eucharist, which is then followed by an invocation of the Holy Spirit to make the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. And even after the consecration, the bread and wine are still antitypical, that is, symbolic, in the same way the earthly temple, according to Hebrews 9 .24, is antitypical of the real temple in heaven.

Now citing from Irenaeus, Fragment 37,. 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.

Again, that is Irenaeus, Fragment 37, on the fulfillment of Malachi 111. Several things we should notice here. First, Irenaeus clearly identifies the oblation of the Eucharist as an offering of the first fruits of the harvest that occurs prior to the consecration, in this case, prior to the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

Second, we notice that the invocation of the Holy Spirit to consecrate the elements does not take place until after the oblation of the Eucharist has been perfected, which is literally telasantes in Greek, or completed, finished.

Third, each time the tithe, that is, the Eucharist, is mentioned, it is called by the Greek word prosphora, or offering, in English. And when the Holy Spirit is invoked to exhibit this sacrifice, the Greek word thusian is used.

And thus, the Eucharistic tithe of gratitude is called an offering, and then after the consecration the Holy Spirit is invoked, not to exhibit this sacrifice, as the English renders it, but rather to exhibit the sacrifice, which is to say, after the offering of the Eucharistic tithe is over, the Holy Spirit is invoked so that the bread and wine may show forth the death of Christ, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 11 .26.

For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. And in fact, the word that is rendered exhibit here, as in, we invoke the Holy Spirit that he may exhibit the sacrifice, is epiphany, from which we get the modern term for the cognitive disorder, epiphania, which is the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things, such as objects or ideas.

So, in sum, we have in fragment 37 what is essentially a Protestant liturgy, in which there is a tithe offering, followed by a consecration in which the Holy Spirit is asked to form in our minds a cognitive connection between the bread and wine set before us, and the sacrifice Christ himself offered for us on the cross, which is to say, the bread, symbolizing his body broken for us, and the wine, symbolizing his blood poured out for us.

Oh, and even after the consecration of the bread and wine, please note that they are still called antitypes by Irenaeus, which is to say symbols of Christ's body and blood. Anyone who wants to check the Greek on that can go to Menier, Series on the Greek Fathers, Volume 7, Column 1253, and do notice that it is listed as Fragment 38 in Menier.

We'll come back to Fragment 37 later, but for now we wish to highlight simply that it is consistent with everything else we have seen from Irenaeus and the other early Christian writers. So there is nothing in Irenaeus to suggest a literal change in the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which is to say, there is nothing in Irenaeus to suggest the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper.

And in fact, the crux of the argument for transubstantiation in Irenaeus is an intentional mistranslation in which the Greek word epikleson, or invocation, is deceptively substituted for his original ekklesian, or summons.

And that brings us to Clement of Alexandria in 202 AD. Listen to what he says about Jesus' command to eat my flesh and drink my blood. Now citing from Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book 1, Chapter 6.

Elsewhere, the Lord in the Gospel, according to John, brought this out by symbols when he said, eat my flesh and drink my blood, describing distinctly by metaphor, that is, allegories in Greek, the drinkable properties of faith.

That's Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book 1, Chapter 6. And anyone who wants to see the Greek on that can see Mignet, Series on the Greek Fathers, Volume 8, Column 296. Yes, Jesus brought this out by symbols, describing distinctly by metaphor, or allegories, the drinkable properties of faith and the promise.

That's not something you'd say if you believed that we are literally to eat the flesh of Christ in the Lord's Supper and literally to drink his blood. They are symbols, allegories, metaphors, and not really what they are said to be.

So that brings us to Tertullian in 208 AD and you'll recall from our previous episode that he said after the consecration the bread and wine are figures of Christ's body and blood. Remember that. We're going to come back to Tertullian momentarily.

He wrote in Against Marcion, Book 4, Paragraph 40, then having taken the bread and given it to his disciples, he made it his own body saying, this is my body. That is, the figure of my body. So that gets us to the Anaphora of Hippolytus in 215 AD.

We will note that Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus and he uses the same word Irenaeus did to refer to the consecrated elements. The listener may recall from our previous episode the words of Hippolytus in Chapter 38 of the Anaphora.

Having blessed the cup in the name of God, you received it as the antitype of the blood of Christ. And that brings us to Origen in 248 AD. Roman Catholics loved to cite his homily on numbers to prove that the early church believed in the real presence of Christ in the supper.

Here is the typical citation.

Now.

Citing from Origen, Homilies on Numbers, Homily 7, Paragraph 2. At that time, the manna was food in an enigma, but now in reality, the flesh of the word of God is true food, just as he himself says, my flesh is truly food and my blood is truly drink.

Again, that's Origen, Homilies on Numbers, Homily 7, Paragraph 2. This is taken as evidence of the reality of Christ's flesh for food and you can find this cited on page after page of Roman Catholic websites attempting to prove that Origen and the whole early church believed in the presence of Christ in the supper.

And yet, if you read Origen's Homily 7 and you don't really even have to read the whole homily, just the paragraph from which this is cited, you'll find that Origen believed that the preached word of God was the true food of the flesh of the word of God.

You'll find the same thing in Homily 23, in which he states emphatically that Jesus' words in John 6 about eating his flesh really means that we consume the scriptures and the preached word of God. He says doctrinal and solid words that are brought forth in a way that is filled with faith in the Trinity.

All these things are the flesh of the word of God. Again, that's Origen, homilies on numbers, Homily 23, Paragraph 6. That is not exactly what you would say if you believed that the way we now literally eat the flesh of the word of God is by consuming the transubstantiated bread of the Lord's Supper.

Another citation Roman Catholics use from Origen is his 13th Homily on Exodus, where he says that his listeners should be attentive to the preaching of the scriptures, just as they are careful not to drop the consecrated bread of the Supper.

Now, citing Origen, Homily 13 on Exodus. I wish to admonish you with examples from your religious practices. You who are accustomed to take part in divine mysteries know, when you receive the body of the Lord, how you protect it with all caution and veneration lest any part fall from it, lest anything of the consecrated gift be lost.

For you believe, and correctly, that you are answerable if anything falls from there by neglect. If you are so careful to preserve his body, and rightly so, how do you think that there is less guilt to have neglected God's word than to have neglected his body?

Again, that's Origen 13th Homily on Exodus. Wow, that sure sounds like they were super careful with the consecrated elements of the Supper back in the day, right? Yet, this can hardly prove a belief in the real presence of Christ in the bread.

Remember, Hippolytus said that we should be careful not to drop the bread or spill the wine because it is the antitypical body and blood of Christ. That's Hippolytus' Anaphora, paragraph 37 and 38. Thus, being careful not to spill the elements is not in itself evidence of a belief in the real presence.

It is a reluctance to let it touch the ground because of what it represents, not because of what it is. What is more, we also have Tertullian saying in the Chaplet, paragraph 3, that believers in the 3rd century treated even unconsecrated bread and wine with reverence for the sheer fact that Christ had used them at his last meal.

He wrote,.

We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. So here, being cautious with bread and wine, even unconsecrated bread and wine, shows that it is possible to be careful with bread and wine solely because of what it symbolizes, not because you think it is what it symbolizes.

Just keep in mind Tertullian in 208 A .D., Hippolytus in 215 A .D., and Origen in 248 A .D. were contemporaries, and if not all writing at the same time, were at least writing in the same era. Clearly, based on Origen's own views on John 6 and his contemporaries' views on being careful with bread and wine, even unconsecrated bread and wine, we can conclude that Origen provides no evidence of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the supper.

And that brings us to Cyprian of Carthage sometime between 254 and 257 A .D. The listener will recall from the last two episodes that Cyprian of Carthage is used by Roman Catholics to support an early belief in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, and thus as early evidence of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of Christ's body and blood in the supper.

But as we have shown, Cyprian used the term to offer someone in the sacrifices to mean to commemorate that person in the sacrifices, as in this example from his epistle 57, in which he says those who are being persecuted ought to be offered in the sacrifices as an encouragement to the faithful.

We express the faithful inclination of our love here also in our sacrifices and our prayers, for the victim which affords an example to the brotherhood both of courage and of faith ought to be offered up when the brethren are present.

Again, Cyprian of Carthage, epistle 57, paragraph 4. Clearly, in this context, the victim is really a martyr and being offered up in the sacrifices is in reality simply being commemorated in the offerings, just as Christ is commemorated in the liturgy, not by offering him up, but by remembering him, which is really Cyprian's point.

We recall as well that Cyprian also said the sacrifice the church offers is thanks and praise and fulfillment of Malachi 111, making no mention of the offering of the body and blood of Christ as a sacrifice.