Seraphim Hamilton

What is the historic doctrine of the Eucharist?  The answer to this question is of great importance.  We shall begin at the first document we have speaking of the Eucharist, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, written in approximately 56ad.  St. Paul of Tarsus says,

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.  Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.  A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Here we see that Paul equates the bread and wine with the body and blood, for he says, “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.”  It is fairly clear, then, that St. Paul affirms the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Another key element of patristic Eucharistic doctrine is that the Eucharist is a true sacrifice.  It is not a re-sacrifice, however, but a return to the one sacrifice.  The Didache, an early Christian catechism many scholars date to the Apostolic Age, mentions this when it states, “And on the Lord’s own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.  And let no man, having his dispute with his fellow, join your assembly until they have been reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be defiled; for this sacrifice it is that was spoken of by the Lord.”

We see several themes in here.  First, the Eucharist is a sacrifice, and it is proper to call it such.  Second, the Eucharist is to be performed every Lord’s Day.  Third, people must do confession before they receive the Eucharist, so that they may be purified.  St. Clement of Rome also refers to the Eucharist as a sacrifice, saying in his Letter to the Corinthians, “Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its Sacrifices.”

St. Ignatius of Antioch, a student of the apostle John and second Patriarch of Antioch after the apostle Peter, writes in response to those who believed that Jesus did not have a physical body but was only divine, “Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God….  They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again.  They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.”

St. Justin Martyr, writing in 151ad, states regarding the Eucharist, “We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ enjoined.  For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

We thus see that the second century Church clearly taught that at the words of consecration said by the presbyter, the bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, and only baptized Orthodox Christians could receive it.  St. Clement of Alexandria, commenting on John 6 in 191ad, states, “‘Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’  The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children.”

Origen of Alexandria, commenting on John 3 and John 6, applies them to baptism and the Eucharist, respectively, saying, “Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way … now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit.  Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Aphrahat the Persian Sage, commenting on the Last Supper in 340ad, states, “After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested.  But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead.  With his own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink.”

Serapion, writing in 350ad, records the Eucharistic prayer said at the Divine Liturgy, “Accept therewith our hallowing too, as we say, ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord Sabaoth, heaven and earth is full of your glory.’  Heaven is full, and full is the earth, with your magnificent glory, Lord of virtues.  Full also is this sacrifice, with your strength and your communion; for to you we offer this living sacrifice, this unbloody oblation.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the same year, states regarding the Eucharist, “Then, having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth his Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before him, that he may make the bread the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ, for whatsoever the Holy Spirit has touched is surely sanctified and changed.  Then, upon the completion of the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless worship, over that propitiatory victim we call upon God for the common peace of the churches, for the welfare of the world, for kings, for soldiers and allies, for the sick, for the afflicted; and in summary, we all pray and offer this sacrifice for all who are in need.”  We thus see that by the time the Eucharistic words of consecration were recorded, they had taken essentially the same form as used today in the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

St. Gregory Nanzianzen comments on the Eucharist as well, saying in 383ad, “Cease not to pray and plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when in an unbloody cutting you cut the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for a sword.”  St. John Chrysostom writes regarding the Eucharist in 387ad, “When you see the Lord immolated and lying upon the altar, and the priest bent over that sacrifice praying, and all the people empurpled by that precious blood, can you think that you are still among men and on earth?  Or are you not lifted up to heaven?”

St. Ambrose of Milan, commenting on the Davidic Psalms, says, “We saw the prince of priests coming to us, we saw and heard him offering his blood for us.  We follow, inasmuch as we are able, being priests, and we offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people.  Even if we are of but little merit, still, in the sacrifice, we are honorable.  Even if Christ is not now seen as the one who offers the sacrifice, nevertheless it is he himself that is offered in sacrifice here on Earth when the body of Christ is offered.  Indeed, to offer himself he is made visible in us, he whose word makes holy the sacrifice that is offered.”

Theodore of Mopsuestia says in 405ad, “When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’  In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord.  We ought … not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit.”

St. Augustine of Hippo, writing in 411ad, states in a sermon to newly baptized Christians, “I promised you who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table.…  That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ.  That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ.”

Fulgetius of Ruspe, writing in 524ad, states, “the time of the Old Testament animals were sacrificed by the patriarchs and prophets and priests; and to whom now, I mean in the time of the New Testament … the holy Catholic Church does not cease in faith and love to offer throughout all the lands of the world a sacrifice of bread and wine.  In those former sacrifices what would be given us in the future was signified figuratively, but in this sacrifice which has now been given us is shown plainly.  In those former sacrifices it was fore-announced that the Son of God would be killed for the impious, but in the present sacrifice it is announced that he has been killed for the impious.”

Thus, we see that during the patristic era, the dominant, if not the only viewpoint on the Eucharist was that it was truly the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.