In a mock
dialogue between “Orthodox” and “Philodox” (the latter being favourable towards
Roman Catholic theology), John Garbett, an Anglican theologian and minister,
wrote the following about the Second Council of Nicea/Nice and the Council of
Constantinople in 754 vis-à-vis the nature of the Eucharist:
PHILODOX
The Second Council of Nice declared
transubstantiation to be then the doctrine of the Church.
ORTHODOX
The question of a corporeal presence was
first counciliarly brought forward in the year 754 by the Council of
Constantinople, consisting of 238 bishops. In their decree, which swept images
out of the Church, they advert, in way of illustration, to the Catholic
doctrine of the Eucharist, which was accounted to “be the type and image of God”;
and they infer that, to avoid idolatry, He would have no human effigy, but chose
bread to be an effigy of Himself. Now this testimony deserves the more attention,
inasmuch as it is not brought into discussion, but alleged in proof from a
tenet admitted on all sides.
PHILODOX
This assembly is entitled to no respect. The
Romanists admit it not to be a general council; and all its decrees were
annulled by the Second Council of Nice.
ORTHODOX
It is much more entitled to respect than that
vile conventicle, which the Roman Church, to her eternal disgrace,
acknowledges. Its proceedings were much more consistent with scripture and
primitive tradition. But be this as it may. We have therein the testimony of two hundred and thirty-eight bishops,
headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and legally convened and sanctioned
by the emperor, that the corporeal presence was not the doctrine of the Church.
(John Garbett, The Nullity of the Roman
Faith; Being a Practical Refutation of the Doctrine of Infallibility in a View
of The Evidence and History of Certain Leading Tenets of the Church of Rome [London:
John Murray, 1827], 102-3, emphasis added)
Elsewhere, with
respect to the Greek Fathers and the various terms they used to describe the “change”
in the Eucharist, we read:
Whoever is even slightly acquainted with the
Greek Fathers and authors, has found that they use many expressions implying a
moral effect produced in the Eucharistical elements by consecration,
as μεταβαλλειν, μεταποιεισθαι, “to change”, μεταστοιχειουσθαι, “to be trans-elemented”, (i.e.
says Augustin, “the element by the word, is made the sacrament”,”) μετασχηματιζεσθαι, “to be transformed”; and other
such terms signifying a moral change. But
the term μετουσιωσις, which alone accurately expresses the Roman tenet, is absent not
merely from the creeds and authorities of the Greeks; but even from their
writers, until a very modern period. (ibid., 130-31)
This is
important as Robert Sungenis and other Catholic apologists point to Greek
Fathers using μεταουσιος as evidence
that they believed in an ontological change in the “substance” of the bread and
wine (e.g., Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone [2d
ed, 2009], p. 119 n. 120). For more, see:
