While
researching the theology of the Eucharist among the patristic authors, one is
struck by how, at times, they were inconsistent, no doubt clearly trying to wrestle
the growing belief in a more substantial or “ontological” presence of Jesus in
the Eucharist while Jesus remains in heaven until the eschaton, the Eucharist
being a sacrifice and yet, the cross being a once-for-all sacrifice, and other
beliefs. This has led some critics of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology to
read one portion of an author’s writings which supports a “purely symbolic”
view of the Eucharist while ignoring or trying to use such writings to
overwhelm their other writings that teach a more ontological understanding of
Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist. Augustine (354-430) is a prime example of
such. Personally, I think Augustine was inconsistent and did not hold to a “merely”
symbolic or “merely” ontological understanding; as with the understanding of
the relationship between our will and God’s predestination, it was something he
wrestled with and never resolved in his lifetime.
While
I do not agree with everything he writes about Augustine, Joseph M. Powers, a
Jesuit priest and theologian, wrote the following about Augustine’s theology of
the Eucharist; I reproduce it here showing that one always has to be careful
when reading any author, patristic-era or not, and trying one’s best to be
cognisant of the totality of their
works on a given topic as well as how
they used terms such as “sign” and “symbol”:
Augustine’s (d. 430)
theology of the Eucharist is a “problem” for many theologians. The difficulty
is not to be found in his lack of statements of the doctrine of the real
presence. Rather, it is found in the fact that his theology of the Eucharist is
far more comprehensive than the statement of the fact of the real presence. His
sermons, letters and other writings abound with statements such as
The bread which you see on
the altar, once it is sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. And
that chalice, or rather, what the chalice contains, once it is sanctified by
the word of God, is the blood of Christ. [Serm.
227]
This is a perfectly clear
statement of the fact of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, a
presence which is the result of the words of consecration. Without any
philosophical elaboration, it is a clear and simple statement of the traditional
belief of the Church at this time.
In spite of these
statements, however, Augustine worries some theologians because of the
sacramental context into which he sets the real presence. Thus, as van der Lof
indicates, given the multiplicity of meanings in which Augustine uses the word “sacramentum,” some are disconcerted when
he applies this word to the body and blood of Christ. On the one hand, it is
true that the expressions such as “sacramentum
corporis” and “sacramentum sanguinis”
indicates the sacred species under which Christ is truly present. Thus in the De Trinitate, after distinguishing the
ways in which Christ is present in the works of St. Paul (in his preaching,
letters, in the sacrament of His body and blood), Augustine makes a sharp
distinction between the different meanings of sacramentum:
. . . but we do not say
that his tongue, nor his parchments nor the ink, nor the meaningful sounds
which come from his tongue nor the marks of the letters as they are written by
pens are the body and blood of the Lord; this is only to be found in that which
has been taken from the fruits of the earth, consecrated by the prayer of the
mystery and rightly received for our spiritual health in memory of the Lord’s
suffering for us. [III, iv, 10]
In other words, the body
and blood of the Lord are only present in their strictest sacramental sense
when we receive the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. What is
important in the Eucharist, however, is not the physical fact of the real presence,
but the fact that the really present Christ is received in the commemoration of
His suffering for us. Christ is adored, as van der Meer remarks, not as a permanently
reserved Host, but He is adored in the reverent handling and reception of the “sacrament”
of His Body and blood, the Eucharistic Species. It is under these appearances,
in these signs that Christ is present
to be received for the salvation of the Christian.
Van der Lof indicates
another “tension” in Augustine’s language which also disconcerts some
theologians. This is a tension which arises once against from the sacramental
context into which Augustine sets his treatment of the Eucharist. This full
sacramental context is particularly striking in two sermons to the newly
baptized. In the first, an Easter sermon to the newly baptized, he states:
You should know that you
have received, what you will receive, what you should receive daily. The bread
which you see on the altar, when it has been sanctified by the word of God, is
the body of Christ . . . If you have received it rightly, you are what you have
received. For the Apostle says: because there is one loaf, we who are many are
one body (1 Cor. 10, 17). This is how he explained the sacrament of the Lord’s
table. [Serm. 227; PL 38, 1099-1100]
Again, in a Pentecost sermon to the newly
baptized:
. . .
how is the bread His body? And the chalice, or rather what the chalice contains
how is it His blood? Brethren, these things are called sacramenta because in them one thing is seen, but something else is
understood. What is seen has a bodily appearance, but what is understood has a
spiritual fruitfulness. Then, if you wish to understand the body of Christ,
listen to the Apostle, who says to the believers: You are the body of Christ
and His members (1 Cor 12, 27). And thus, if you are the body of Christ and His
members, it is your mystery which has been placed on the altar of the Lord; you
receive your own mystery. You answer “Amen” to what are you, and in answering,
you accept it. For you hear, “The body of Christ” and you answer “Amen.” Be a
member of Christ’s body, so that your Amen may be true. [Serm. 272; PL 38,
1246-1247]
Thus the expression that the body of Christ
is present in the Eucharist in figura (in
a figure), in signo (in a sign), in sacramento (in a sacrament) does not
mean that Christ is only symbolically present. It means, as has been seen, that
Christ is present in the species of bread and wine which are the sign of His
true corporeal presence and it means that this true corporeal presence is, in
turn, a sacramentum, the sign and
cause of a further grace-reality which is the very continuing existence of the
Church as Christ’s body. In other words, the real presence of Christ is not the
ultimate value in the Eucharist. The ultimate value of this presence is the
unity of the Church brought about in the sacramental commemoration of the
Passion of Christ in the reception of Christ under the species of bread and
wine. (Joseph M. Powers, Eucharistic
Theology [New York: Herder and Herder, 1972], 18-21)
Responses to Robert Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone (2000/2009)
