I recently watched a video by Trent Horn responding to James White. Trent brings up as early evidence for a sacerdotal priesthood and the Eucharist being the substantial re-presentation of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ from letter 62 of Cyprian of Carthage (200-258):
For
if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest of God the
Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has
commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest
truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and
he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when
he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have
offered. (ANF 5:362)
The Latin reads:
Nam,
si Jesus Christus Dominus et Deus noster ipse est summus sacerdos Dei Patris,
et sacrificium Patri se ipsum primus obtulit, et hoc fieri in sui
commemorationem praecepit, utique ille sacerdos vice Christi verse fungitur qui
id quod Christus fecit imitatur, et sacrificium verum et plenum tunc offert in
Ecclesia Deo Patri, si sic incipiat offerre secundum quod ipsum Christum videat
obtulisse. (Migne, PL
4:385-86 [here, it is letter no. 63])
It is pretty clear that Cyprian
of Carthage did teach these doctrines, even if he did not have the developed
terminology one would find at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), as well as have some issues hammered out one finds in that council and later writers (e.g., Aquinas; Council of Trent; Catechism of Trent). I think
critics of Catholicism (myself included) need to be honest and admit that at
least some of Rome’s doctrines and dogmas are found rather early.
