Monday, August 21, 2023

Timothy F. Kauffman on the Catholic Appeal to Ignatius, To the Romans, to Support Transubstantiation in the 2nd century

  

. . . Ignatius of Antioch tended to use flowery, metaphorical language, illustrating his messages with analogies and similes even when they served no obvious purpose except to adorn his letters with figures of speech. While in transit to Rome, he says he is “bound to ten leopards” and then quickly adds, “I mean a band of soldiers” (To the Romans 5). He warns against “herbage of a different kind,” and then quickly adds, “I mean heresy” (To the Trallians 6). Closer to our point, in his letters he employed the figures of flesh, blood, bread, wheat and leaven for various meanings that were very obviously not to be understood literally:

 

·       “Wherefore, clothing yourselves with meekness, but ye renewed in faith, that is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, that is the blood of Christ.” (To the Trallians, 8).

·       “I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.” (To the Romans, 4)

·       “Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour leaven, and be changed into the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ.” (To the Magnesians, 10)

 

We will not begrudge Ignatius his predilection for metaphors and analogies and for whom there was no figure that could not be stretched to suit his purpose. But Madrid must surely recognize that the figurative language of such a man cannot possibly serve as proof of belief in the literal presence of Christ in the Supper. If faith “is the flesh of the Lord”; and the bread of God “is the flesh of Jesus Christ”; and love “is the blood of Christ”; and Ignatius himself is “the wheat of God” ground into “the pure bread of Christ”; and the Magnesians are “changed into the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ”; in what meaningful way can Ignatius confirm that wine literally becomes the blood of Christ at the consecration? Would Madrid also conclude from this that the bread is transubstantiated into “faith,” Jesus’ blood into “love,” Ignatius into “bread,” the Magnesians into Jesus, the Roman guards into leopards and herbs into heresy? (Timothy F. Kauffman, “The True Church?,” in A Gospel Contrary! A Study of Roman Catholic Abuse of History and Scripture to Propagate Error [2023], 104-5)