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Glory to Jesus Christ!
Has it always been said that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood as well as the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ or is the Soul and Divinity a new aspect of modern understanding (i.e. The Divine Mercy Chaplet)?
Kyrie eleison,
Manuel
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I believe, Stuart, that the Hypostatic Union is an inseparable one and is no innovation. In the Eucharist one receives sacramentally the whole resurrected Lord.
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But the formula is a innovation, and to large extent a redundancy, precisely because of the hypostatic union. Someone was gilding the lilly when they added "soul and divinity"--and note that the last two are not integrated into the liturgical formulae used at the administration of the Eucharist.
When in doubt on any theological point, go back to the liturgical texts and see what they say. The liturgy is the source and touchstone of theology.
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Has it always been said that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood as well as the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ or is the Soul and Divinity a new aspect of modern understanding (i.e. The Divine Mercy Chaplet)? It certainly predates the Chaplet. 1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651). [ vatican.va] As to "always been said," it is not to be found, in those words as phrased, in Scripture but then neither is the word Trinity/Holy-Three. Trent, for instance, is just reiterating the faith which is always what is believed, everywhere the Church is present, by all true believers (cf. Saint Vincent of Lérins,"...teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est." Migne, PL 50:637-86, Commonitorium Primum and Secundum Commonitorium) even if not articulated, or stated differently though essentially with the same meaning: "We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving"
-Council of Ephesus, Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]. [ catholicquotations.blogspot.com]
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Glory to Jesus Christ! I am posting below the reply I received from my Roman Catholic friend for the sake of the conversation. I am going to have to give you a conclusory answer, versus a direct.
It was the Council of Trent which defined in binding terms that Catholics henceforth MUST BELIEVE that the Eucharist contains 'the body and blood, soul and Divinity' of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here is the Catechism's reference to same:
1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."201 IN THE most blessed sacrament of the EUCHARIST "THE BODY AND BLOOD, TOGETHER WITH THE SOUL AND DIVINITY, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, THEREFORE, THE WHOLE CHRIST IS TRULY, REALLY, AND SUBSTANTIALLY CONTAINED."202 "This presence is called 'REAL' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but BECAUSE IT IS PRESENCE IN THE FULLEST SENSE: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."203
But that doesn't mean that most Catholics didn't already believe it prior to the Council of Trent. Most Catholics realized that Calvin, Swingli, and Luther were claiming that the Eucharist was the dead body of Christ. But Christ has prophesied about it that it would be living bread/a living body [and blood].
The reason for the definition at that time is that Protestantism was now finally denying this belief which the Church had always commonly taught and believed.
How far back was this expressed INDIRECTLY in defined teachings?
Well if we go to the guts of the Monophysite Heresy of the early 5th century, we find the same false roots of the Protestant Revolt against the full reality of the Eucharist. Here is the answer to the Monophysites from the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AS CITED IN PARA 467 IN THE CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT:
467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God's Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed -
'Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST: THE SAME PERFECT IN DIVINITY AND PERFECT IN HUMANITY, the same truly God and truly man, COMPOSED OF RATIONAL SOUL AND BODY; CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH THE FATHER AS TO HIS DIVINITY AND CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH US AS TO HIS HUMANITY; "like us in all things but sin". He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis."
So, now, let us go back even further, to the Fathers of the Infant Church:
1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. THE CHURCH FATHERS STRONGLY AFFIRMED THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH IN THE EFFICACY OF THE WORD OF CHRIST AND OF THE ACTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BRING ABOUT THIS CONVERSION. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:
"It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.204
And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:
Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed. . . . Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.205
1376 The COUNCIL OF TRENT summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "BECAUSE CHRIST OUR REDEEMER SAID THAT IT WAS TRULY HIS BODY THAT HE WAS OFFERING UNDER THE SPECIEF OF BREAD, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CONVICTION OF THE CHURCH OF GOD, and this holy Council now declares again, THAT BY THE CONSECRATION OF THE BREAD AND WINE THERE TAKES PLACE A CHANGE OF THE WHOLE SUBSTANCE OF THE BREAD INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF THE BODY OF CHRIST OUR LORD AND OF THE WHOLE SUBSTANCE OF THE WINE INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS BLOOD. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."206
1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.207
From:
1. the sacred Scriptures, and
2. the sacred Tradition of the generations of Bishops trained directly by the Apostles and their successors - and,
3. the direct tesimony of Our Lord Himself - we know that ---
Christ did not demand that we cannibalize His corpse, but gain life living bread - by consuming his actual Body and Blood, - which is inseparable from His soul and Divinity.
This the Church has always taught and believed. Kyrie eleison, Manuel
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Trent is rather late in the day, from my perspective. The citation from the Council merely illustrate's Trent's essentially reactive role of opposing the fallacious teachings of the various Reformation sects, and in doing so, innovates by creating a new formula which has no real purpose outside of the canonical framework of Trent. If Trent thought it was so important, it should have changed the formula recited when each communicant receives the Eucharist. Its use in private devotions and paraliturgical services indicates it is a relatively recent development.
The citation of Cyril of Alexandria, you will note, does not make any distinction between flesh and blood and body and soul--the first two encompass the last two. Cyril would have thought adding soul and divinity to be redundant, and likely to cause more trouble than it resolved.
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It is well known that Trent is 16th century; the question posed, "is the Soul and Divinity a new aspect of modern understanding?" The citation from Trent does indeed function effectively in "opposing the fallacious teachings of the various Reformation sects." In reacting to heresy, as did Nicaea I for instance, it used appropriate new formulations-- "innovates" if you will -- as, for instance but even more so, Nicaea's homoousios. As such, Trent is just demonstrating its proper place among the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. Trent did not address liturgical formulas but even if it did there is no demand that "it should have changed the formula recited when each communicant receives the Eucharist" -- something a modern liturgist might be expected to do.
Of the four actual terms -- body, blood, soul, divinity -- two, body ("flesh") and blood are explicit in the excerpt from Cyril. "Divinity" is readily inferred by "according to his nature as God." "Soul" could be inferred from "he became united to his flesh." The concepts articulated by Trent are essentially there.
Saying body, blood, soul, divinity to me is just another way of emphasizing that we receive, in the language of Chalcedon, Christ true God and true Man -- no more, which is conveyed by the term transubstantiation in the classical western expression of Catholic theology, and no less, that is the whole Christ, the person of Christ, body, blood, soul, divinity.
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The last time the Western Church decided it had to make things more explicit for the peasants, we got the Filioque. That worked out so well, didn't it?
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It has, as a matter of fact. The peasants in the Latin church have been using it for some twelve hundred years. Be a little kinder.
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This argument really seems to be all about nothing. No one disagrees on the theology. If the argument merely revolves around redundancy, then it is really only a matter of addressing the needs of the time.
Sadly, only about 30% of latin rite Catholics believe in the real presence. In the west, this redundancy is needed, IMO. The west has enough problems to deal with.
This one seems to be a non-issue.
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Sadly, only about 30% of latin rite Catholics believe in the real presence. A highly misleading statement, since the manner in which the question was posed revealed nothing more than who could state the formal Latin doctrine of the Eucharistic presence ("real" presence bothers me; what other kind of presence is there?), and not whether they believed the Bread and Wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ. I could answer that question in a manner entirely consonant with Eastern Christian theology, and would be marked down as "denying" the real presence.
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Glory to Jesus Christ! I could answer that question in a manner entirely consonant with Eastern Christian theology, and would be marked down as "denying" the real presence. I'm curious. How would this belief be stated using Eastern Christian theology? Kyrie eleison, Manuel
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The bread and wine of the offering are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ through the descent and action of the Holy Spirit. That is as far as we go.
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The bread and wine of the offering are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ through the descent and action of the Holy Spirit. That is as far as we go. Also, RSV John 6: 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."
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