Wednesday, October 16, 2019

John Garbett (1827) on the Eucharist, The Council of Constantinople (754), and terms used by Greek Fathers


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: