Eucharist - Earliest Testimonies.
St.
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, knew the Apostles John and Peter personally and
wrote about AD 107, speaking of those holding “heterodox opinions” about Jesus:
“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess
that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which
suffered for our sins and which that Father, in His goodness, raised up again.
They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the
Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1). The gift of God in Holy Eucharist is the risen flesh and
blood of Jesus Christ.
St.
Justin Martyr wrote about 151 AD: “For not as common bread and common drink do
we receive [the Eucharist]; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior,
having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our
salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by
the prayer of His Word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are
nourished, is the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the
apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus
delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when
He had given thanks [eucharist], said, This do in remembrance of Me, this is My
Body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks,
He said, This is My Blood.” (First Apology 66). The Eucharist is Christ’s real Flesh
and real Blood (Jn 6:55), made so by Christ’s word of consecration – spoken by
the priest in the person of Christ at every Mass.
St.
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon (France), a disciple of St. Polycarp who was a
disciple of St. John. wrote about AD 180: “He took from among creation that
which is bread, and gave thanks [Greek: eucharist], saying, ‘This is My Body.’
The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, He
confessed to be His Blood.” (Against Heresies 4:17:5) “He has declared the cup,
a part of creation, to be His own Blood, from which He causes our blood to
flow; and the bread, a part of creation, He has established as His own Body,
from which He gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup
[wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the
Eucharist, the Body of Christ, from these the substance of our flesh is
increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of
receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life – flesh which is nourished by
the Body and Blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of Him?” (Ibid., 5:2).
The gift of God, eternal life, is given to us, who share the same created flesh
as did Jesus, by receiving His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.
Tertullian
wrote about AD 210, saying the soul can receive salvation only while in the
flesh. To do so, one must be washed in baptism, illuminated by the Spirit in
confirmation, and then in the Eucharist, “The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood
of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God” (The Resurrection of
the Dead 8). The Eucharist gives us God’s eternal life.
St.
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, writing about AD 251, quotes St. Paul saying,
“Whoever eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of
the Body and Blood of the Lord: (1 Cor. 11:27). He says lapsed Christians will
often take Communion “before their sin is expiated, before confession has been
made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and
by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord
has been appeased – violence is done to His Body and Blood; and they sin now
against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their
Lord” (The Lapsed, 15–16). After mortal sin [1 Jn 5:16], to receive the
Eucharist in Holy Communion without sacramental confession, penance
("sacrifice"), and absolution ("hand of the priest") is to sin against the Body and
Blood of the Lord.
Today
we want to look at some of the earliest testimonies given outside of the New
Testament about the Eucharist received in Holy Communion.
Dibby Allan Green
Originally published in the print edition of the Mojave Desert News of September 28, 2023.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish