Contrary to the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to always interpret the Scriptures according to the unanimous consent of the Church fathers, the majority of the early fathers disagree with the dogmatic teachings of the Roman Church concerning its belief in transubstantiation, and the earliest of the church fathers disagree with its belief that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice. What will follow are numerous quotes from the early fathers that prove this. Most quotes are taken from www.ccel.org/fathers2/ (emphasis mine).
The Denial of the Eucharist as a Propitiatory Sacrifice
Historian Philip Schaff notes:
“The ante-Nicene fathers uniformly
conceived the Eucharist as a thank-offering of the church; the congregation offering the consecrated elements of bread and wine, and
in them itself, to God…The germs of the Roman doctrine appear in Cyprian about the middle of the third century, in connection with
his high-churchly doctrine of the clerical priesthood.”
-Philip
Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III, ch.7, part 96
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm
The Didache
“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; In every place and at every time offer Me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great king, saith the Lord, and My name is wonderful among the nations.”
-The Didache 14
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
Justin Martyr
“‘And I will not accept your sacrifices at your
hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles (He says); but ye profane it.’ Yet even now, in your love of contention, you assert that God does not accept the sacrifices of those who dwelt then in
-Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 117
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-48.htm#P5023_1128054
[Notice that he believes that “prayers and giving of thanks…are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God”. He had no concept of the Eucharist as a propitiatory sacrifice.]
Origen
For “to keep a feast,” as one of the wise men of
-Origen, Against Celsus 8.21
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-63.htm#P11319_3081383
The Denial of Eucharistic
Transubstantiation
The Roman Catholic ecumenical Council of Trent claimed:
“Since Christ our Redeemer said that that which he offered under the appearance of bread was truly his body, it has therefore always been held in the Church of God, and this holy Synod now declares anew, that through consecration of the bread and wine there comes about a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And this conversion is by the Holy Catholic Church conveniently and properly called transubstantiation.”
-Council of
However, as the Protestant historian, Philip Schaff, notes:
“…we distinguish three views: the mystic view
of Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus; the symbolical view of Tertullian and Cyprian; and the allegorical or spiritualistic view
of Clement of Alexandria and Origen…The realistic and mystic view is represented by several fathers and the early liturgies…With the
act of consecration a change accordingly takes place in the elements, whereby they become vehicles and organs of the life of Christ,
although by no means necessarily changed into another substance…The symbolical view, though on a realistic basis, is represented first
by Eusebius, who calls the Supper a commemoration of Christ by the symbols of his body and blood, and takes the flesh and blood of
Christ in the sixth chapter of John to mean the words of Christ, which are spirit and life, the true food of the soul, to believers…But
it is striking that even Athanasius, “the father of orthodoxy,” recognized only a spiritual participation, a self-communication of
the nourishing divine virtue of the Logos, in the symbols of the bread and wine, and incidentally evinces a doctrine of the Eucharist
wholly foreign to the Catholic, and very like the older Alexandrian or Origenistic, and the Calvinistic, though by no means identical
with the latter…As to the adoration of the consecrated elements: This follows with logical necessity from the doctrine of transubstantiation,
and is the sure touchstone of it. No trace of such adoration appears, however, in the ancient liturgies, and the whole patristic literature
yields only four passages from which this practice can be inferred; plainly showing that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not
yet fixed in the consciousness of the church.”
-Philip Schaff, History
of the Christian Church, Vol. III, ch.7, part 95
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm
Irenaeus
“For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.”
-Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.18.5
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-62.htm#P8324_2319830
“Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of' the apostles, are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet. For, “from the rising of the sun even to the setting my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice” as John also declares in the Apocalypse: “The incense is the prayers of the saints.” Then again, Paul exhorts us “to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” And again, “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips.” Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it; but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God “in spirit and in truth.” And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that the receivers of these antitypes may obtain remission of sins and life eternal. Those persons, then, who perform these oblations in remembrance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish views, but, performing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom.”
-Irenaeus, Fragments of the Lost Writings of Irenaeus, Fragment XXXVII
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-64.htm#P9620_2803520
[Notice how he links the prophecy of Malachi 1:11 as a sacrifice of prayer and praise and not a carnal sacrifice.]
Clement of
“Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;” describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,-of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle...Thus in many ways the Word is figuratively described, as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord is all these, to give enjoyment to us who have believed on Him. Let no one then think it strange, when we say that the Lord's blood is figuratively represented as milk. For is it not figuratively represented as wine? “Who washes,” it is said, “His garment in wine, His robe in the blood of the grape.” In His Own Spirit He says He will deck the body of the Word; as certainly by His own Spirit He will nourish those who hunger for the Word.”
-Clement
of
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-52.htm#P3375_1010350
Origen
“Now, if ‘everything that entereth into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drought,’ even the meat which has been sanctified through the word of God and prayer, in accordance with the fact that it is material, goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught, but in respect of the prayer which comes upon it, according to the proportion of the faith, becomes a benefit and is a means of clear vision to the mind which looks to that which is beneficial, and it is not the material of the bread but the word which is said over it which is of advantage to him who eats it not unworthily of the Lord. And these things indeed are said of the typical and symbolical body. But many things might be said about the Word Himself who became flesh, and true meat of which he that eateth shall assuredly live for ever, no worthless person being able to eat it; for if it were possible for one who continues worthless to eat of Him who became flesh, who was the Word and the living bread, it would not have been written, that 'every one who eats of this bread shall live for ever.’”
-Origen, Commentary on Matthew, On Matthew 11:14
Tertullian
“For so did God in your own gospel even reveal the sense, when He called His body bread; so that, for the time to come, you may understand that He has given to His body the figure of bread, whose body the prophet of old figuratively turned into bread, the Lord Himself designing to give by and by an interpretation of the mystery.”
-Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.19
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-30.htm#P5086_1599657
“When He so earnestly expressed His desire to eat the passover, He considered it His own feast; for it would have been unworthy of God to desire to partake of what was not His own. Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, “This is my body,” that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body…Thus did He now consecrate His blood in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure of wine to describe His blood.”
-Tertullian, Against Marcion 4. 40
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-31.htm#P6942_2020079
Cyprian
“Since, then, neither the apostle himself nor an angel from heaven can preach or teach any otherwise than Christ has once taught and His apostles have announced, I wonder very much whence has originated this practice, that, contrary to evangelical and apostolical discipline, water is offered in some places in the Lord’s cup, which water by itself cannot express the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit also is not silent in the Psalms on the sacrament of this thing, when He makes mention of the Lord's cup, and says, “Thy inebriating cup, how excellent it is!” Now the cup which inebriates is assuredly mingled with wine, for water cannot inebriate anybody.”
-Cyprian, The Epistles of Cyprian, Epistle 62.11
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-87.htm#P5949_1869665
[Notice Cyprian’s wording. What is in the cup is supposed to express (or symbolize) the blood of Christ. Also, note that he believes that the wine is inebriating. How can one get drunk off of blood?]
The Eucharist and the
Church Fathers
(Part 1)