Around the third century, Cyprian
spoke of “representation” to describe the metaphorical meaning for the
Christian eucharistic celebration as the sacrifice of Jesus, not of animals or
food. Other ancient Christian writers, such as Origen, pointed out that the
reception of the Lord’s body and blood was a purely spiritual affair. At the
same time, early Christians were also worried about the growing gnostic groups
that valued spiritual things and denounced all material substances. Against the
Gnostics who denied the value of the Lord’s Supper. Irenaeus, for example, used
strong “realistic” language. Subsequent controversies within the early church prompted
other emphases of the Lord’s Supper to arise. Conflicts with the Manichees,
Donatists, and Pelagians shaped the teachings of Augustine, who addressed some
aspects of the Eucharist in his conflict with the Donatists. For Augustine, the
sacraments did not rely on the purity of the priest but were defined as
belonging to and given by Christ. In the “Nestorian” controversy in the fifth
century, Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, wished to demonstrate the unity of the
divine and human natures of Christ against Nestorius, patriarch of
Constantinople. In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Cyril insisted that
the body of Christ was so inseparably linked to the second person of the
Trinity that, through contact with Christ’s body in the Eucharist, believers
shared in divine immortality. For Cyril, the sharing of immortality could only
happen if there was an insoluble union between the human and divine natures in
Jesus Christ. Responding to controversies in their time, the church fathers
often discussed the Eucharist to address particular issues concerning
Christology (e.g., the humanity and divinity of Christ) and ecclesiology (e.g.,
the efficacy of the sacraments). (Esther Chung-Kim, Inventing Authority: The
use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist [Waco,
Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011], 159-60 n. 64)