En Garde!

I just recieved an email from the friendly neigborhood Anglican. No, I want to specify -- not Dan, who has Anglican tendencies (see Matt's post of quotes from the week), but Taylor.

Thus saith the Anglican: "I've got some damning quotes from the Fathers against transubstantiation and episcopal celibacy on my blog. What saith the Shriners?"

The quotes can be found here.

I note with fraternal amusement that this post is located beneath a piece on why heretics and schismatics always want to dialog ;)

I guess I would start addressing this issue by not addressing this issue. Instead consider the theology (as taken in the strictest sense, the study of God Himself) of St. Justin Martyr. All of us know Justin martyr. We love Justin Martyr. Frankly, we wish that parts of the New Testament were written as succintly as Justin Martyr. But Justin, he's a solid guy -- his description of the Mass, the Eucharist, everything. And our first non-Biblical witness in the historical record for a lot of Christian teaching.

Except for his articulation of the Godhead. It's subordinist -- the Father "ranks first, in the second place the Word, and in the third the Holy Spirit." A stunning philosophical error -- how can God be less than God be less than God? -- and a heresy to boot. One of the strongest witnesses to the Christian tradition biffed a pretty big point, mostly because he didn't have the concern to analyze it carefully or didn't have the philosophical language to ask the question correctly.

Similarly, as anyone who has perused Abelard's (shudder) "Sic et Non" knows, there is almost no topic of Christian belief for which you can't get two or more Church Fathers to disagree. OK, relative to transubstantiation, it kind of stung to see St. Ambrose seem to vote no. But it is hardly surprising that the Fathers were not unanimous on something as tricky as transubstantiation when they were not unanimous on a softball question like subordination within the Trinity.

The real question is, "who's right?", not "who said what?" Abelard took some palpable measure of joy by airing the disagreements of the Fathers in his book, forcing a Medieval age that perferred to think through others to admit that, occasionally, disagreements must be settled. But this is why the Church did not stop speaking with the death of St. Augustine; this is why the Church has a voice, the magisterium, through all history, as the Holy Spirit refines in her the same teachings within her depositted those two millenia ago.

The matter at hand. First, it ought be understood that transubstantiation is not revelation; it is the most accurate explanation of a point of revelation (ie, the Eucharist) which is availible. Transubstantiation is more an explanation with which one ought not to disagree, rather than one with which one ought TO agree -- specifically with reference to the East. The Orthodox don't disagree perse, but they don't embrace the term because they don't "think" that way. But nonetheless, this philosophical explanation of a revealed doctrine (the Eucharist) is, the Church argues, both true and beneficial to learn.

The Catholic Encyclopedia argues that, regarding transubstantiation, "The argument from tradition is strikingly confirmed by the ancient liturgies, whose beautiful prayers express the idea of conversion in the clearest manner. Many examples may be found in Renaudot, "Liturgiæ orient." (2nd ed., 1847); Assemani, "Codex liturg." (13 vols., Rome 1749-66); Denzinger, "Ritus Orientalium" (2 vols., Würzburg, 1864), Concerning the Adduction Theory of the Scotists and the Production Theory of the Thomists, see Pohle, "Dogmatik" (3rd ed., Paderborn, 1908), III, 237 sqq."

Looking now towards Thomas Aquinas, we consider III Q75 Art. 2 of the Summa Theologica. Thomas' OTC takes a markedly different interpretation of the writings of St. Ambrose of Milan: "Ambrose says (De Sacram iv) 'Although the figure of the bread and wine be seen, still after the Consecration, they are believed to be nothing else than the body and blood of Christ.'"

On his own authority, Thomas goes on to point out that things do not magically appear out of nothing: if suddenly we have a burning fire, the fire was not added to the wood but proceeds from the conversion of the wood. When something comes to exist that did not formerly exist, it does not come "ex nihilo;" it is because something else that did exist has changed or given way that the new substance may now exist. "Consequently it remains that Christ's body cannot begin to be anew in this sacrament except by change of the substance of bread into itself. But what is changed into another thing, no longer remains after such change."

So, my volley. It looks like we may have to do more work at looking into what Ambrose had to say?