If Jesus Knew, Then Why? A Question on the Real Presence in the Eucharist

Here's a question I've been wondering about.  But before I ask it, let's lay out some Scriptural facts.

FACT 1:  Jesus knew the thoughts and hearts of the people He interacted with while He was on earth.  (Mark 2:6-9; Luke 9:47; Luke 24:38; Matthew 9:4, Matthew 12:25, Luke 6:8, Luke 11:7) 

FACT 2:  Jesus knew the future while He was on earth.  (John 13:11, Matthew 17:27, Matthew 26:34, Luke 22:10-12, John 6:64, Mark 13:1-2)

FACT 3:  Jesus spoke the words given to Him by God the Father.  (John 14:10, John 14:24, John 14:31)

FACT 4:  God the Father knows the future.  (Isaiah 46:9-12, Psalm 139:1-6, Hebrews 4:12-13, Isaiah 42:9)

OK, with these facts established, let's get to the question:  IF Jesus knew the hearts and thoughts of His hearers and IF Jesus knew the future and IF Jesus only spoke the words given Him by the Father, then why would Jesus allow all of Christianity to misunderstand His teaching regarding the Eucharist for over 1500 years?

When we look at early historical documents, it is clear that the early Church all the way up until the Reformation believed that Christ was really teaching in John 6 that Christians needed to eat His body and drink His blood in the Eucharist.  

So that brings us back to the question:  IF Jesus knew how the Church would interpret His teachings, why did He let them interpret these teachings so incorrectly for so many years? 

As far as I can see, there are only a few possible answers to this question:

ANSWER 1:  The early Church DID NOT misinterpret the teachings, but instead held to a view on communion and the Eucharist much like the views held by modern-day non-Catholics.  Therefore, Jesus taught and the Church interpreted as God intended.  The current Catholic view was later adopted by the "Romanized" Catholic Church.

The first potential answer is the "Catholics changed the teaching of the Church later" answer.  Unfortunately, this answer doesn't truly deal with the historical record.  Even a cursory glance into Church history will reveal that the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was a standard belief of the Church from the very beginning. 

"Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."  (St. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrneans, paragraph 6, 80-110 AD)

 Notice, St. Ignatius says the Eucharist is the flesh "which suffered for our sins and which the Father...raised from the dead."  If the Eucharistic presence of Christ's flesh is symbolic to St. Ignatius, then so was the suffering and resurrection of Christ.

Here's another quote, from St. Justin Martyr as he describes "Church" to the Romans:

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66 [AD151]).

There are many quotes to choose from, but here's one last one:

 "If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4:33-32 [AD189]).

Notice here that St. Ireneaus isn't debating the Real Presence in the Eucharist.  Instead, he's using it as a proof that Jesus is God.  The basic gist of his argument is this:  if Jesus wasn't of the same substance of the Father, how could he take bread and turn it into his body?  He starts with an obvious assumption that must have been an accepted belief everywhere--the body and blood of the Lord are truly present in the Eucharist--and he uses it to further develop a deeper understanding of Christ.

Now, it could be argued that I'm cherry-picking quotes--that the early Church really didn't believe in the Real Presence except in a few unusual writings of a few unusual writers.  Well, we don't have the time to go through the entire written record of the Early Church Fathers.  But we can appeal to as unbiased a source as I can think of:  the renowned Protestant historian, J.N.D. Kelly.  Kelly explains, in his book entitled Early Christian Doctrines:  "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood" (p. 440).

So, even a renowned Protestant historian (who has nothing to gain and much to lose by admitting the early Church clung to starkly Catholic beliefs regarding the Eucharist) readily admits that the witness of history is clear:  the early Church believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Thus, our question still stands:  Why would Jesus give us a teaching which He knew would be misunderstood by so many Christians for so long?

ANSWER 2:  The second potential answer to this dilemma is to argue that God simply allowed the Christians to be wrong in the same way that He allows the Jehovah's Witnesses (for example) to interpret the Scriptures their way and come up with false ideas.  After all, there is no limit to the number of groups who have interpreted scripture on their own to come up with contrary ideas.  God doesn't stop all of these either.  In regards to the Real Presence in the Eucharist, He simply gave a teaching and the early Church screwed it up until Martin Luther and the other Reformers set it right.  Sad for all those early Christians, but "thems the breaks".

The problem with this answer is that indeed, much of Scripture can be interpreted to mean many different things and God is, by no means, responsible for our bending and twisting scripture to fit our doctrines.  However, with the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, that's not really the case.  

The reason is this:  All we have to go on Biblically regarding the Real Presence are very clear passages in which Jesus says "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever."  So, he starts by saying He's the living bread.  Sounds symbolic.  But then he follows it up immediately, in the same verse, with:  "the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world"  (John 6:51).

Think about that verse for a second:  "the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."  So the bread we must eat is what?  Is the flesh given for the life of the world.  Was his flesh symbolically given?  No.  Then how can we shift gears, break the analogy given by the Son of God, and say "the bread, the flesh, must be symbolic." 

We fall into the desire to make the passage symbolic because we, along with the early listeners of this discourse, don't understand.  We respond (as they did) with incredulity:  "You can't really mean we need to eat your body and drink your blood, right?  You've gotta be speaking symbolically, right?" (John John 6:52, paraphrased).  

To which Jesus says (and goes on to repeat himself 4 times):  "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you" (John 6:53).  He even changes the Greek word from one which was the normal word for dining or eating, to one that was much more coarse and meant to "gnaw or to chew."  He says that this idea is a salvation issue--we must eat His flesh if we are to have life in us--and He lets people (followers) leave him (presumably forever) over this concept.  All He had to say was, "Wait!  I'm being symbolic!  Don't you get it?  It's just bread, but it represents my body."  Had He just said those simple words, the disciples (for disciples they were--see John 6:66) would never have left Him.

If Jesus had gone on to explain that He was speaking symbolically, then Catholics could be faulted for ignoring the clear words of Jesus and clinging to the metaphor instead.  However, He didn't say He was being symbolic.  In fact, He seemed to go out of His way to let everyone know He meant what He said.  And so, we have Jesus in Scripture giving us every inclination that He meant this literally.  If Catholics interpret this literally--as He implied it was meant--and they are wrong, are they to blame?  No.  The teacher is to blame.

Think about it this way:  if a teacher presents students with a lesson in class and uses heavy symbolism to make a point, and, when the students react and say the teacher can't be serious, only goes on to reiterate (over and over) that yes, indeed he is serious . . . well, are the students to blame for eventually taking him at his word?  Any responsible teacher, realizing the students had mistaken his intentions and the lesson, would have put the brakes on and made the symbolism clear. Any teacher who would stubbornly cling to symbolic language even when it was clear that the students didn't understand, has no right to feel angry or disappointed when those same students accept the teaching as true.

It's the same situation here:  with Jesus' teaching regarding the Eucharist, there is no interpretation of Christ's words needed to arrive at the Catholic concept that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood in the Eucharist.  If Catholics have taken Jesus at His word, they are not to blame if they are mistaken:  Jesus would be to blame for failing to clarify his teaching, especially since He (knowing the future and the hearts of men) would know that His stubborn refusal to admit to His followers He was being symbolic caused all of early Christianity to believe Him literally.

Finally, that brings us to Answer 3...

ANSWER 3:  He said it this way and let the early Church and all of the Church believe it in this manner because He truly meant it in this manner.  There was no other way to convey what He meant other than to simply say it as He did.  There was no clarification to make, so He gave none.  He said what He meant and meant what He said and He said it knowing that the Church, His Church, would understand exactly what He meant.

Of all the possible answers to the question posed at the beginning, the only one that makes sense logically and Scripturally is answer 3.  Jesus didn't mislead the Church.  He didn't give us a teaching that He knew we would misinterpret.  He knew the Church would get it right because He is God.  He knows our hearts, our thoughts and our futures.  Nothing surprises Him.  And so, when He spoke in John 6 about eating His flesh and drinking His blood and when He instituted the Lord's Supper with "This is my body", He knew how His people would interpret His words. 

A Far Green Country Under a Swift Sunrise

As [my wife] and I struggled and talked and prayed all through that autumn of 1984, the tug-of-war inside of me was between "Am I mad?" and "Show me, dear Christ, Thy spouse so bright and clear."  Could I introduce this fissure into our very household?  How could I possibly head for a Table other than the one at which my dear lady made her communion from week to week, and at which I had brought up my children, and, indeed, at which I myself had worshipped for twenty-five years?

--Thomas Howard, Lead, Kindly Light (p. 64-65 )

So writes Thomas Howard, an Anglican convert to Catholicism, about his journey to Rome.  And I find myself echoing his thoughts, though certainly not his prose, as I weigh the same decision and mull the same looming consequences:  what will happen to my children if I pull up stakes and head for that strange and ancient country?  What about my wife?  

My dream was always to be a father and to live in a comfortable little house and close enough to a small Baptist or Reformed church that we could walk there on crisp, sunny Sunday mornings.  That's what I pictured, what I wanted.  And that's what I have:  a thriving church filled with kind, friendly and real people.  

My children are happy there.  My wife is happy there.  And I was happy there until a couple of years ago when I found myself suddenly face to face with the authentic Catholic Church. (I say "authentic" because as Archbishop Fulton Sheen once accurately wrote "There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.")

That certainly summed up my experience.  I had always pitied the Catholic Church and the poor Catholics with their mumbled Hail Mary's, their rote prayers, and dry, dead faith.   I knew from vast amounts of experience (which I gained by listening to various preachers talk about Catholics) that Catholic Churches were places of despair where the misinformed throng was taught to "earn their way to heaven", to "bow in worship to Mary" and to completely ignore the saving work of Jesus, replacing the "real" Christ with a sissy who was bossed around by his mother.  (I remember an ex-Catholic in one of the churches I attended explaining that the "Catholic Jesus" he'd been raised to believe in was a "namby-pamby Jesus."  And that he was glad to finally have found the "real Jesus" here.)

So, when I looked into the claims of the Catholic Church--mostly just to disprove them with my tremendous Biblical knowledge (of which I was humbly proud)--I began my search with no fear at all of being converted.  In fact, I began my study with no fear at all that it would even develop into something that could accurately be described as a "study".  I figured it would be an afternoon (maybe two) of reading and then I figured I'd step in with my great wisdom, derail the Catholic arguments easily and handily, and be back home in time for dinner.

But it didn't go that way.  Instead of finding the Catholic Church I'd always heard about, I found something all together different.  Something ancient and yet vibrant.  Something tied indelibly to history and yet current and, to use a sadly overused and twisted word, relevant.  To put it simply:  I found Christ.  And not the "namby-pamby" Christ that my ex-Catholic friend had warned me about.  I found a blood-and-bones Jesus who loved and suffered and died and rose.  In short, I found the same Jesus I'd always known about--and yet I found him in what seemed the most unlikely of all places.

Still, this didn't completely sway me.  I remember thinking that this was good news (I have a number of Catholic friends and it was a great surprise and comfort to discover that they may indeed be "saved" after all and that I needn't worry about them as much as I had been) but I still believed them to have a faith full of errors and misguided devotions.  

However, that initially startling discovery of Christ in the Catholic Church did lead me to dig a little deeper:  after all, there was no fear of my conversion to Catholicism, so I might as well try to understand their strange ways a little better.

And so I've done for the last 2 1/2 years or so.  I've read books by Protestant converts, countless conversion stories and basic introductions to the faith.  When those made more sense than I thought possible, I looked to Protestant sources to refute this belief system and get me back on track.  However, instead of finding reasoned arguments against Catholicism, what I found was sad, angry and vitriolic.  Even with my limited study, I was able to see that many of the arguments presented by "ex-Catholics who left the Church when they found Jesus" were simply not based in fact or in a firm understanding of their previous Catholic faith.  In some cases, I found what I can only believe were lies (supposed ex-Catholic priests with a poorer understanding of the Eucharistic mysteries than I myself had after reading just a few books or researching for more than 10 minutes on the internet).

Neither confirmed nor comforted by my Protestant compatriots, I went back to Catholic sources to see what they had to say about themselves.  I picked up the Catechism, dipped into the writings of various Saints and looked into the documents written by the early Church Fathers.  After that, it was time to tackle Conciliar documents and encyclicals.  All of these were rooted in Scripture and the writers, rather than having a disdain for the Word of God (as I'd been taught) actually held the Bible in high regard.

By the end of all this--or actually, part way through--I discovered that something had shifted in my thinking:  instead of reading to disprove their doctrines, I was reading to understand them better.  At some point in the journey, I'd come to the very remarkable (in my opinion) point that whenever a Catholic Doctrine or Teaching seemed bizarre and unnatural and pagan and unholy, it's very likely that I simply didn't understand it. (Afterall, when I read the love for Christ that is apparent in the writings of the Church's Saints and Doctors, who am I to so quickly and easily conclude (with my immeasurable storehouse of Biblical Knowledge) that I had succeeded where they had failed?  That Saint Thomas Aquinas, or Saint Augustine, or Saint Louis de Montfort failed to discern true Christianity whereas I, Daniel Hansen of Zeeland, Michigan, was able to grasp the fruit the giants couldn't reach?  To make that claim is a failure to think critically and honestly on my part.  Or at the very least, it gives evidence of a tremendous over-confidence in my own cognitive abilities.  For someone with my limited experience and knowledge to dispel out of hand, without more than a few moment's thought, the entire canon of St. Thomas is, to put it mildly, arrogance in the extreme).

At any rate, I found that I was no longer reading to refute, but reading for clarity, for understanding.  Before long, the strange phrases, "our Blessed Lord" the "precious body and blood" and many others felt comfortable and, more importantly, Right on my tongue.  The holy water, the icons, the statues, the rosaries, the beads, the Saints, the feasts, the liturgy, the confessional . . . all not only made sense to me but actually have become essential to the full expression of my faith.

I found myself not just looking at them with the eyes of wonder one might have at a museum filled with strange and unusual artifacts, but with real and sincere (and aching) longing.  The Catholic faith of the ages came to life before my eyes and lit a fire in my chest.  Yes, part of it's a yearning for the past--for the ancient cathedrals filled with stained-glass and symbolism and hymns that must be chewed before they can be absorbed--but that's not all.  It's also a longing for sublime and serious and weighty liturgy and for worship that is not based on a thumping beat but which is instead grounded in the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ "made present" in the Eucharist.  And yet, even that is not the sole reason for my longing for communion with Rome.  I feel, in a remarkable and undeniable way, that Christ is calling me.  To disobey for the sake of convenience is not an option.  I want to be obedient above all.  

And that brings me back to the quote we started with at the beginning of this ramble.  Thomas Howard was in this same place and was wondering the same things and dealing with many of the same issues.  His wife wasn't ready for the journey.  How would their relationship fare when the most important part of their lives--their faith--was something they didn't share?  And what about the children?  What would become of them? 

I find myself asking those same questions.  My wife and I have argued and discussed this long into the morning on many occasions.  My children are aware of the Struggle, the Quest (or, as it's more often called:  Dad's Catholic "Thing") and often ask, on any given Sunday, whether we're going to "Dad's" church or "Mom's"?  

I don't know, right now, what the outcome of all this will be.  And though I'm hesitant to even use this analogy because I've learned over the last couple years that I'm no "Father of Faith", neither did Abraham know the outcome of his journey up the mountain with Isaac.  He only knew God had called him to go and to be willing to give up all that made sense and abandon that to Him.  

That's what I will struggle to do in the next year as I plan to enter the Catholic Church next Easter.  And yet, like Abraham (who I'm convinced had more than just an inkling that God would "come through in the end") I'm convinced that He'll work things out to our benefit. 

Right now, the journey is dark and lonely--for all of us.  My children are floundering between faiths, my wife feels alone and I feel the weight of monumental decision-making and the fear of the Second-Guessers, the "What-if-Your-Wrongs" and my own worries that my journey is internally and personally driven.  And yet, I believe that, at the end of this, God will bring us back together--here on earth, mind you and not just in the world beyond--and I am confident that rather than being dark and dreary and frightening and empty, that place He will bring us to will instead be thriving and beautiful and unmistakably, undeniably Right--or, as J.R.R. Tolkien put it in The Lord of the Rings:  we'll see "the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and . . . rolled back, and [we'll behold] white shores and beyond . . . a far green country under a swift sunrise.” 

Come On Christians, History Is Not Our Enemy!

I've just been booted out of a weird facebook argument regarding, of all things, the deity of Christ. A couple of parties took up the position that Jesus is NOT God--that he is subservient to the Father--a subordinate, a lesser being. Oh, they argue that he's still important, but that he's simply and clearly NOT God.

To back up their position, they toss around many scripture passages--passages like John 10:29 where Jesus says "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all." They point to verses like this and exclaim, "See, Jesus himself admits he's not God."

That's their argument--and they've got a large number of verses that, quite honestly, on the surface, seem to support their case. However, the "Jesus IS God" group has its own share of verses. They point to John 1:1 ("the Word was with God, and the Word was God") among others.

Unfortunately, as clear as these passages seem, the "Jesus IS NOT God" crowd has a different interpretation. Oh, their intepretations aren't completely straightforward and they're certainly not orthodox, but they are, at least, feasible.

And so these groups battled on and on and on, each citing more and more scriptures to back up their case.

Finally, the "Jesus IS NOT God" group resorted to this argument that, sadly, in my opinion won the debate: "The Bible has claimed, from its inception, that there is only one God. Not until the 7th Century did this view become distorted and warped in Christian teaching. Not until the 7th Century did anyone start to make the claim that Jesus is God."

Now, this claim is absolutely so ridiculous and absurd that it should have been scuttled immediately. Yet, sadly, the "Jesus IS God" crowd had no response at all. They simply tossed out more and more Bible verses but they never dealt with the bizarre, bald-faced lie. And that strategy of non-engagement allowed the claim to stand and anybody reading it with an open mind (and no background in Christian history) would have to conclude that the claim went unchallenged because it was true.

But it's not true. And it only takes a beginning understanding of Christian History to refute it. Yet the "Jesus IS God" crowd let it stand and the reason is simple: they fear anything that even smacks of Tradition and they shun Christian history.

What a sad, pathetic stance. As Christians, we should never be afraid of the Truth--whatever that Truth is. Christ our Lord is Truth. No exploration into Truth is going to be anti-christ.

In regards to this bozo claim that the 7th Century was the first time we see Christians referring to Christ as God, let's see how quickly history refutes the idiocy.

Let's look at two writings from St. Ignatius, an early Church Father that gives evidence that Christians of that period already thought of Christ as God. First, let's look at his Letter to the Ephesians where he writes:

"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (Letter to the Ephesians, 18:2).

In another letter, his Letter to the Romans, St. Ignatius writes:

"[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is" (Letter to the Romans).

These letters were written around AD 110, so that makes them very early witnesses to the beliefs of the early church, but what's even more interesting is that St. Ignatius was actually a hearer of the Apostle John.

So what we have is a hearer (possibly even a student) of the Apostle John who goes on to become the Bishop of Antioch confirming, at the very beginning of the second century--possibly even during the lifetime of the Apostle John himself--a belief in the Divinity of Christ.

This is well earlier than the claim in the silly facebook argument and so it completely refutes it. However, there's more information we can glean. For example, if St. Ignatius is representing a distortion of the teaching of the Apostles, we would have to admit that the very first generation of Christians after the Apostles had already screwed up the message. That means, before the Doctrine of the Trinity was addressed, before the Canon of Scripture was compiled, the Church had already screwed up--and not just on something little. They had attributed Divinity to a mere man. That would mean the Apostles--at least John--were terrible teachers. It would also mean we would sincerely need to question ANYTHING we believe as Christians. If they could be wrong about Christ being God that early, how do we expect them to get anything else right?

Take the Scriptures for instance. If the early Christians screwed up Christ's Divinity and mistakenly thought and taught that a mere man was God, how in the world are we to believe that these same Christians somehow miraculously figured out which books should be included in the Bible and which books were spurious? If they start with an unorthodox, heretical understanding of Christ, how do we seriously believe these same flawed men would figure out which books shouldn't be included in the Bible?

Now, the "Jesus IS NOT God" crowd places as much importance and significance on the Bible as the "Jesus IS God" crowd. They just have a different interpretation. A look at history and then some fundamental logical reasoning shows that if their view is correct, then even the Scriptures they cling to are not reliable. Their position is untenable. They're basing their case on the words of a document that, if their claim is true, has extremely limited value.

When we consult history in the case of the Jesus IS or IS NOT God argument, we can instantly dispel the ridiculous claim that Christians in the 7th Century pulled the Divinity of Christ out of the air.

However, that's not all history does for us. History in this case shows that the very earliest extra-biblical sources--the people who were taught by the Apostles--the people who spoke the language the Bible was written in--support the consistently historical Christian viewpoint that Christ Jesus is God the Son--one in substance and being with the Father.

History is not something to be feared. It fleshes out our faith and gives it depth. Every new generation of Christians doesn't need to start from scratch. There's a world of work done by great Christians, men and women who loved our Lord. We can stand on their shoulders. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

An Excerpt from Thomas Howard's "The Night is Far Spent"

The following essay was originally a lecture given at Gordon College by Thomas Howard on June 1995. Howard, according to his biography, was raised in a prominent Evangelical home (his sister is well-known author and former missionary Elisabeth Elliot), became Episcopalian in his mid-twenties, then entered the Catholic Church in 1985, at the age of fifty. Howard is a highly acclaimed writer and scholar, noted for his studies of Inklings C.S. Lewis.

My guess is that a great clutter of bric-a-brac swims into your imagination when you hear of Catholic spirituality: rosaries, holy water stoups, crucifixes, little plastic Saint Christophers for your dashboard, and laminated holy cards depicting pastel-tinted saints with their eyes cast soulfully up into the ozone, not to mention all the polychrome statues and banks of candles flickering in little red glass cups (there are even electric candles that have a bogus flicker).

My guess is also that I am addressing at least three groups of people all stirred in together here in this assembly. The biggest group of you would locate yourselves in that wing of Protestantism known as Evangelicalism and will have been brought up in Evangelical households. A second group will tell us, "I was a Catholic until I was fifteen, then I met Jesus", or "I was Catholic until I was seventeen, then I, became a Christian." A third group of you are Roman Catholic even as we speak and may possibly have discovered that some of your colleagues here are very far from satisfied that your Catholicism qualifies you as a Christian. There may also be a fourth group, namely, those of you who are trying to shuck off whatever remnants of the Christian religion are still clinging to you so that you can get on with your own agenda.

Let me see if I can throw any light on this topic of Catholic spirituality so that the whole array of us may grasp things in a fairly clear light.

Click here to read the rest of the essay (it's worth it!)

Stop Quoting the Church Fathers, They're Not Scripture!

Often, when I write about the Church Fathers, the following statement arises: Why bother quoting these people? They're not authoritative. Their writings aren't scripture. Whatever they said about this or that is worthless if it's not clearly taught in the Bible.

Well, I bother quoting from the early Church Fathers for a number of reasons:

• FIRSTHAND WITNESSES. Many of the Early Church Fathers were taught by the Apostles (or, at least, were taught by people who were taught by the Apostles). No historian worth his weight would throw out the testimony of firsthand and secondhand witnesses. This testimony provides valuable information into HOW the Apostles understood Scripture and HOW the Apostles taught certain doctrines. Scripture doesn't interpret itself and many passages allow multiple interpretations (just look at the Catholic/Protestant debate as well as all the different sects within Protestantism). Since multiple interpretations are possible, I would think any true Bible scholar would be interested in how the people closest to the Apostles actually understood these teachings.

• NO LANGUAGE BARRIER. Another reason to look at the writings of the Church Fathers is that these men literally spoke the language in which the New Testament was written. We rely on interpretations and lexicons. They could pick up an original text and read it with understanding. No nuance of the text, which for us can be lost in the translation, was hidden from them.
  

• UNDERSTANDING of TRADITIONS. The early Church Fathers grew up amongst the traditions of the Jewish culture. The same traditions that underlie the New Testament. They were aware of them. They made sense to them. We on the other hand, have an outsider's understanding of these traditions. An example is the Jewish understanding of the Passover. Understanding these traditions suddenly makes it clear WHY the early church understood Jesus' words "This is my body" to be literal. We miss this because we have no concept of the tradition in which it's steeped.

• THE FIRST BIBLE COMMENTARIES. Finally, few Bible scholars today would think of examining a passage of scripture, especially a complicated or troublesome passage, without referring to one or more of the countless Bible Commentaries available on the market. A trip to the local Christian bookstore reveals hundreds of these works on the shelves. And countless pastors and theologians make use of them. And yet, while making use of these Bible Commentaries written by men 2000 years after the fact, we would think to disregard the Biblical analysis of Christian writers who lived just decades after Christ walked he earth?
  

These are just a few reasons why the writings of the Church Fathers are valuable. No, their writings aren't scripture, but they provide insight that simply can't be found anywhere else as to the authentic interpretation of Scripture and the life and times of the early Church. We can ignore them, but to do so is to ignore history in favor of something of our own creation.

Confession to a Priest Made Up in 1215 AD? History says "No"

No examination of the claims of the Catholic Church would be complete without a look at what Catholics call the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Or Penance. Or Confession. To a priest.

When I dug into it, one of the claims that seems to cycle over and over throughout Protestant literature is a claim made by one of THE standard texts on Roman Catholicism: Lorraine Boettner's Roman Catholicism. Almost everything I've run into on the internet or in print that attempts to rebut Catholic claims stems from or at least draws from Boettner's book.

In regards to confession to a priest, Boettner writes:

"It is equally impossible to find any authorization or general practice of it during the first one thousand years of the Christian era. Not a word is found in the writings of the early church fathers about confessing sins to a priest or to anyone except God alone. Auricular confession is not mentioned in the writings of Augustine, Origen, Nestorius, Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, or Athanasius -- all of these and many others apparently lived and died without ever thinking of going to confession. Those writers give many rules concerning the practice and duties of Christian living; but they never say a word about going to confession." (p. 199)

Boettner's claims are another good example of something I've seen over and over in this search: poor research (at best) or intentional misdirection (at worst). The claims Boettner makes have been picked up and spread throughout the Protestant world and they're accepted as gospel truth. Unfortunately, they're completely false. Utterly and completely false. There's just no other way to say it.

For example, Boettner makes a bold claim: "In the first 1000 years of the Christian era . . . [n]ot a WORD is found in the writings of the early church fathers about confessing sins to a priest OR TO ANYONE except God alone."

It's important to note that Boettner said there's no reference to confession to priests or to ANYONE except God alone. He's extremely specific in his claims and, at least for me, his authoritative manner was convincing. I figured no one would go so far, would be so specific unless he was right. Well, I dug into it anyway, just for my own sake. And I quickly realized Boettner might not be a terribly devoted researcher of history.

See, almost immediately in trying to back up his claims, I found this in the writings of St. Ireneaus (180 - 199AD):

[The gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded many women in our own district of the Rhone, by saying and doing such things. Their consciences branded as with a hot iron, some of these women make a public confession; but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses.

This writing is from the years 180 - 199AD. It's written by St. Ireneaus who was trained by St. Polycarp who himself was a hearer of the Apostle John. With these credentials, Ireneaus makes clear mention to certain women making a PUBLIC CONFESSION.

But he's not the only one. Tertullian, (one of the men Boettner lists as writing nothing whatsoever about confession to anyone other than God) writes in 203 AD:

How very grand is the reward of modesty, which the concealing of our sin promises! If in fact we conceal something from the notice of men, shall we at the same time hide it from God? Are, then, the good opinion of men and the knowledge of God to be equated? Is it better to be damned in secret than to be absolved in public? 'But it is a miserable thing thus to come to confession!' Yes, evil leads to misery. But where there is repentence misery ceases, because it is thereby turned to salvation. (Tertullian, Repentance, Ch.10)

Tertullian starts with sarcasm, asking how great the reward of modesty is when we conceal our sins. He then goes on to attack that claim and asks if it's better to be damned in secret than absolved in public? This certainly suggests that Tertullian was familiar with something other than Boettner's "confession to God alone" in the privacy of our own heart.

However, if there were any doubts, Tertullian makes a rhetorical argument: "But it's no fun going to confession!" Rather than console the objector with promises of secret, private confession to God, Tertullian instead basically says "Yeah, I know. But evil leads to misery. But where there's repentance (implication is obviously public confession) misery comes to an end."

Moving on, Origen (another writer cited by Boettner as saying not a word about Confession) writes in 240 AD:

If however, a man in such a circumstance becomes his own accuser, as soon as he accuses himself and confesses, he vomits out his fault and puts in order what was the whole cause of his illness.

Now, we could argue that Origen is talking about private confession to God alone. Except, the very next sentence immediately following the preceding, reads as such:

Only be careful and circumspect in regard to whom you would confess your sins. Test first the physician to whom you would expose the cause of your illness.... When he has shown himself to be a physician both learned and merciful, do whatever he might tell you, and follow whatever counsel he may give (Origen, Homilies on the Psalms, Homily 2).

Well, that is certainly starting to sound a lot like the Catholic concept of Confession--and it's from another writer that Boettner claimed said NOTHING about confessing to ANYBODY other than God.

Already, we've seen that Boettner's research is questionable as are his motives. Either he wasn't aware of these writings (and therefore shouldn't be writing so confidently), or, he was aware and just chose to leave them unmentioned because he knew it was relatively unlikely that his readers would dig into the original documents and discover the truth.

However, we're not done. We've seen that public confession--just from these few quotes--was practiced in the early church. Now, let's find out if there's any mention of confession to a PRIEST before Boettner's cutoff date of 1000 AD.

Here's another quote from Origen from the year 244 AD:

In addition to these there is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes his pillow in tears, when his tears are day and night his nourishment, and when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine (Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, Homily 2).

It's interesting to note Origen's use of the concept of "medicine" coming from the priest. This "medical" motif makes the earlier quote from Origen--that about confessing to a Physician--most likely supportive of the concept of confessing to a Priest as well.

More references to Priestly Confession abound. This one from St. Cyprian of Carthage from the year 251 AD:

Finally, of how much greater faith and more salutary fear are they who, though bound by no crime of sacrifice or certificate, but since they did take thought of doing such a thing, confess even this to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience (St. Cyprian, On the Lapsed, Ch.28).

I could go on and on. I've quoted nothing later than 251 AD. If we looked to later documents, we'd find even more clear references both to Public Confession and then, more commonly, Private Confession to a Priest.

Now, I admit, this doesn't PROVE that the Catholic Church is right in their understanding of Confession to a Priest--that's a topic for another day. My intent today was to show again that the information out there is sketchy and that the reader should be careful about what he or she reads.

Boettner claimed boldly in his anti-Catholic book that "Auricular Confession of sins to a priest instead of to God [was] instituted by pope Innocent III, in ... 1215 AD (Boettner, Roman Catholicism, pp. 7-9). He later claims as we mentioned above, that there was no mention of Confession to anyone but God. Yet, just a few minutes of internet-based research proves his claims are false.

The Pope Shows Up A Couple Hundred Years Early

One of the most frustrating things I've found in my exploration into Catholicism is the apparent lack of scholarly (at best) or honest (at worst) work when it comes to those refuting the claims of the Catholic Church. Now, that's not to say that the Catholic Church is right and that Protestants are wrong. I'm simply saying that when I look for information, I'm finding half-truths that can only be explained by poor research or a convenient hiding of the evidence.

To provide an example, let's look at a quote from Earle Cairns' book Christianity Through the Centuries. This text was handed to me by a co-worker who used the book in college-level religion classes. My co-worker was using the information in the book to dissuade me from my perilous journey into the world of Rosaries and Incense and Holy Water and he specifically directed me to several quotes--quotes he felt would bring me back into the fold, back to my Protestant roots.

One quote in particular he brought to my attention was concerning the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome (who we call today, the Pope). Here's the quote from Cairns' book:

Between 313 and 590, the Old Catholic Church, in which each bishop had been an equal, became the Roman Catholic Church, in which the bishop of Rome won primacy over the other bishops.... The bishop in the early church was considered one of many bishops who were equal in rank, power and function.... But beginning with Leo I's accession to the episcopal throne in 440, the Roman bishop began to claim his supremacy over other bishops.

So, according to Cairns, the Old (that is, the good) Catholic Church saw every bishop as an equal. There was no single bishop over all--no "Pope". All bishops exercised the same authority and power and function. In fact, it wasn't until Pope Leo I, in 440 AD, that the Roman bishop started to exert a role of power or supremacy over the other bishops.

Well, the quote sounds good. It sounds impressive. Cairns' wrote the stuff in a real book. He gives dates and names and he sounds very honest and scholarly. But, his claims simply aren't true. Or, at the very least, they're EXTREMELY debatable.

I've written a much longer rebuttal to the claim that can be found here, but really, to establish that the good Mr. Cairns' is either a half-hearted scholar, or worst, a bit of a sneak, we only need to look at a couple of quotes.

The first (not the first chronologically--see the longer work for ealier references) is from St. Ireneaus (140 - 202 AD). In his Adversus Haeresies, in Chapter 3 he writes about the Primacy of the Church in Rome saying that while it would take too long to enumerate the succession of bishops in ALL the churches, he will make his case by pointing out here:

the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the Apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world; and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the Apostolic tradition.

He doesn't have time to list all the bishops throuhgout Christendom so he'll list the bishops of the most ancient Church known to all. This is a very clear, very straight-forward example from the years 180 - 199 AD that the Church in Rome was considered superior to all others, that this church was regarded as being the most ancient and the greatest. It's proof of the existence of an idea that Cairns' claims surfaces much later in history: that all Churches in the world must agree with this church.

Now, I'll admit that Cairns' claim is regarding the BISHOP of Rome and that he didn't rise to power until later. This quote merely shows that the CHURCH in Rome held a position of primacy. But what I'm trying to show is that very clearly, sometime before the year 202 AD, the CHURCH of Rome was viewed as THE superior Church in the Christian world. At that point, we're only a hop, skip and a jump away from seeing that the Bishop of Rome would likewise hold a place of primacy.

But, a "hop, skip and a jump" isn't proof. So, let's move into the world of facts and prove that not only was the Church of Rome viewed as superior by the Christian world well before 440 AD, but that so also was her Bishop. And to see this, we need to look at one more quote--this one from Tertullian.

Now, Tertullian is an interesting case. He died a heretic (as far as we know), but his beginning years were Catholic. In his treatise on Modesty (AD 220), during Tertullian's Montanist period, he makes an interesting attack on the current Bishop of Rome, Callistus I. This attack is a powerful proof for the authority of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome largely because Tertullian was, at that point, no friend of Rome. Therefore, he had nothing to gain by falsifying Callistus' position.

To provide some quick background: Tertullian clashed with Pope Callistus over Callistus' relaxation of the Church's disciplinary procedures. See, Callistus, citing his Petrine authority to "bind and loosen"(which provides evidence of the Primacy of Peter in the early church), allowed repentant adulterers and fornicators back into the Church.

Tertullian, not wanting to let these folks back in (I'm oversimplifying here), was angered and responded with this:

"I hear that there has even been an edict sent forth, and a peremptory one too. The 'Pontifex Maximus,' that is the 'bishop of bishops,' issues an edict: 'I remit, to such as have discharged [the requirements of] repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.' O edict, on which cannot be inscribed, 'Good deed!' ...Far, far from Christ's betrothed be such a proclamation!"

He sarcastically attacks Callistus as the "Bishop of Bishops" and the "Pontifex Maximus", but it doesn't take much sense to realize that the barb has no bite if Callistus wasn't widely held to hold a higher level of authority than all other Bishops. At the very least, we must acknowledge that Callistus himself must have felt he had more authority, because without that acknowledgment, the sarcasm fails miserably.

Secondly, moving past Tertullian's sarcasm, we should also note the Bishop of Rome issues an edict to let these repentant sinners back into THE Church. Not just back into HIS Church in Rome, but back into THE worldwide Church. Who is he to do that if, as Cairns' claims, he is in the same position of power as any other bishop throughout the Christian world?

Now, these are only two quotes, but as I mentioned earlier, there are plenty more. This is a blog and not a book, so I've attached the longer document with a much more thorough examination here for those interested enough to look. But even though these two quotes are short and simple and by no means conclusive, they are enough to call Cairns' claims into question.

To say definitively that there was no Primacy of Rome, no superior position held by the Bishop of Rome until Pope Leo "made it up in the mid 400's" just doesn't seem to wash with the real, historical evidence. And that leads me to conclude, as I mentioned earlier, that Cairns is either a poor scholar or a selective reporter. And sadly, this is the state of much of what I'm finding out there.

The Early Church and the Eucharist

Growing up, I was always taught that communion, the Lord's Supper, was simply a symbolic gesture. It's a nice little way of remembering that Jesus died for us--that His body was broken like the bread that the Pastor breaks apart in the front of the Sanctuary and that His blood was poured out like the juice in the communion trays with all those little plastic cups.

When I first ran into Catholic Theology on the issue and was informed that the bread--the little wafer--was literally the body of the Lord and the wine was literally his blood, I was, honestly, amused. I really couldn't imagine how in the world thinking people could read Jesus' words at the Last Supper (This is my Body and Blood) and come away thinking Jesus was speaking literally. I mean really, the whole thing was ridiculous. It made no sense.

Well, curious to find out what the earliest Christians believed, I started scouring the internet looking for full texts from these early Church Fathers. And what I found was amazing--something I never expected: The earliest Christians were Catholic in theology--at least in terms of the Eucharist. From what I could see, the Catholic Church in its earliest form took the doctrine of the Eucharist and preserved it just as Jesus taught it even though they didn't always understand it. We Protestants on the other hand seem to have taken that same doctrine and changed it in order to make it easier to understand.

Below you'll find just a few of the available writings. Read them for yourself and voice your disagreements or whatever in the comments. (The full texts of these documents can be found by following the links--I'm trying to quote a significant portion of text to give a feeling for the context, but, by all means, click the links and dig deeper.)

St. Ignatius of Antioch (c.50-117 AD)
Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch (Peter was the 1st) and it's commonly thought that he actually listened to the teaching of the Apostle John.

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again.

Epistle to the Smyraens, Ch.7 (AD 110)

Ignatius states the Docetists he was writing against rejected the Eucharist because they didn't believe it was the flesh of Jesus. He then goes one step farther and shows that he's not speaking of symbolic flesh when he writes "which suffered for our sins."

To say that he's speaking symbolically would be to say that Christ's death was only symbolic. He's as convinced that the Eucharist is the actual flesh of Christ as he is that Christ died in the flesh.

Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

Epistle to the Smyraens, Ch.8 (AD 110)

This quote is interesting because this is the earliest written reference to the Church as the Catholic Church. And the way he words it, it's pretty clear that this isn't the first time the title or name was ever used. In all likelihood it was being referred to in this manner well before the date of this writing.

Also interesting is the mention of an established church hierarchy. (Ignatius' letters to the Churches--all written quickly as he was being marched through the country toward his martyrdom--contain many references to an established hierarchy and even refer to Apostolic Succession--but that's another post.)


Justin Martyr (c.100-165 AD)
Justin Martyr was an early Christian Apologist writing around 148 - 150 AD or so.

This first quote is from his First Apology where he's writing to the Roman Emperor to explain what Christianity really was. It's interesting that there were rumors circulating that the Christians were cannibals and Justin was writing to clarify. (In all likelihood, the charges of cannibalism came from the secular world's misunderstanding of the Christian teaching of the Eucharist).

Here, Justin writes about what Church was like in early Christianity and then he goes on to describe the Eucharist:

And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, [Baptism] and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, 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.

First Apology, Ch.LXVI

St. Ireneaus of Lyons (c.120-180 AD)
Ireneaus was the Bishop of Lyons. Little is known of his life, but one thing that is almost certain is that he listened to the Bishop Polycarp, who himself was a hearer of the Apostle John (the author, by the way, of the Gospel that most clearly describes the Eucharist in terms of Jesus' body and blood).

But how can they be consistent with themselves, [when they say] that the bread over which thanks have been given is the body of their Lord, and the cup His blood, if they do not call Himself the Son of the Creator of the world.

Against Heresies, Bk.4, Ch.18, Paragraph 4

When Christ visited us in his grace, he did not come to what did not belong to him: also, by shedding his true blood for us, and exhibiting to us his true flesh in the Eucharist, he conferred upon our flesh the capacity of salvation.

Against Heresies, Bk.5, Ch.2 Introduction

The one thing worth pointing out here is that Ireneaus ties together Jesus' true blood which He shed for us and Jesus' true flesh which is in the Eucharist. In his mind, Ireneaus is as sure that the flesh in the Eucharist is as authentic as the blood that was shed. If one is meant symbolically, then, by the very structure of the sentence, the other must also be symbolic.

But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body. For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins."

Against Heresies, Bk.5, Ch.2, Paragraph 2

When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body 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?

Against Heresies, Bk. 5, Ch.2, Paragraph 3