Transubstantiation: Encyclopedia - Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation

also known as
"The Eucharist" or
"The Lord's Supper"

Theology
Consecration
Consubstantiation
Memorialism
Real Presence
Transubstantiation

Theologies contrasted

Important theologians
Paul ·Aquinas
Augustine · Calvin
Chrysostom · Cranmer
Luther · Zwingli

Related Articles
Christianity
Catholic Historic Roots
Closed and Open Table
Divine Liturgy
Eucharistic adoration
Eucharistic discipline
First Communion
Infant Communion
Mass · Sacrament
Sanctification

Transubstantiation is the belief held by some Christian denominations that the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus during Consecration.

Transubstantiation - Theology of transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is generally understood to refer to the belief that at the "moment" of Consecration, the elements (or "gifts" as they are termed for liturgical purposes) of bread and wine are transformed (literally trans-substance-iated) into the actual Body and Blood of Christ. The terms "elements" or "gifts" are preferred, as it is theologically incorrect to refer to the "bread" or "wine" after they have been consecrated, as Roman Catholics believe they are no longer bread and wine. This doctrine holds that the elements are not only spiritually transformed, but are actually (substantially) transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. The elements retain the appearance or "accidents" of bread and wine, but are indeed the actual Body and Blood of Christ, the true, real, and substantial presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. For this reason, what remains of the sacrament after the Communion procession is reserved in the Tabernacle, for distribution to the dying ("viaticum") and sick, for private devotion and prayer, as well as for public Eucharistic adoration. The practice exists of distributing the reserved sacrament at later Masses, but this is deprecated in Church documents (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 55).

"Substance" as a philosophical term describes what a given object is, the properties of the object that are essential to "it" being "it." Without its substance, an object ceases to be what it "is." Accidents are non-essential properties; even without its accidents (such as color, taste, or shape), an object remains what it "is." For example, hair is an accident of humans, while being a mammal is substantial. If a human loses its hair, it is still human. If a human stops being a mammal, it is no longer a human, because being a mammal is essential to being human. At Consecration, the substance of the Eucharistic elements change; while the non-essential properties (shape, taste, color) remain the same, the essence of what it "is" changes into Christ's Body and Blood.

Transubstantiation - Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church holds that Christ directly instructed the Apostles in belief in the real presence, that the elements of the Eucharist become the body and blood of Christ. The Synoptic Gospels present the words of Christ concerning the bread and wine at the Last Supper: "This is my body... This is my blood" (Matthew 26:26-28).

The Gospel of John records that Jesus said: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you" (John 6:53). Many of those who heard Jesus's words appear to have taken them literally, as the majority were shocked and left him. Adherents to Jewish Law consider eating blood one of the worst transgressions of kashruth, the law of eating and drinking, and a violation of the noachide laws which apply to all people and not just Jews.

St. Paul implies an identity between the apparent bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ when he writes: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27).

Roman Catholic doctrine is that because Christ is Risen, His Body and Blood are reunited; therefore, not only is each Host both the Body & Blood, but each sip of Consecrated wine is also both the Body & Blood. The Council of Trent decreed that all of Christ, His Body, Blood, Soul, & Divinity are fully present in each species:

For we do not receive in the Sacred Host one part of Christ and in the Chalice the other, as though our reception of the totality depended upon our partaking of both forms; on the contrary, under the appearance of bread alone, as well as under the appearance of wine alone, we receive Christ whole and entire (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. iii)..

Catholics use the term Real Presence to refer to Christ's actual presence in the Eucharist. Because Catholics believe the Eucharist is really and truly Christ Himself under the appearances of bread and wine, Catholics worship and adore the Eucharist. Catholics do not believe that this worship and adoration is idolatry, as they are worshipping what they truly believe to be Christ, not a mere commemoration or representation of Him.

The Catholic Church does not view the Eucharist of the Protestant communities to be valid, as under Catholic doctrine the Protestant ministers lack the sacramental power to effect transubstantiation, even if they claim to possess it.

Transubstantiation - Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy

The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, like the Roman Catholic Church, teach that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. Orthodox theologians, however, have tended to refrain from philosophical speculations such as those of the scholastic theologians. Rather, they generally prefer to simply rely on the status of the doctrine as a "mystery," a doctrine known by Divine Revelation that could not have been arrived at by reason without revelation. They would prefer to say too little about the details and remain firmly within Holy Tradition, than say too much and possibly deviate from the truth. Although the four-syllable word "metabole"/"metavole," sometimes used by Orthodox writers, has been loosely said to be "Greek Orthodox for 'transubstantiation'," it actually means "change" or "alteration." Orthodox divines usually express the whole mystery in terms of metousiosis, a great mystical change of essence. Nonetheless, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, Anglicans, and Old-Catholics (Altkatholische) recognize Orthodox holy communion as "valid."

Transubstantiation - Anglicanism

Anglican Churches generally use the term "Real Presence" without necessarily being more precise, though many Anglican divines utilize the Orthodox idea of metousiosis. Some Anglicans hold views nearly indistinguishable from transubstantiation, while others hold views closer to consubstantiation, or "pneumatic presence" or other Protestant views.

A minority of Anglicans disavow the idea that the real presence is objective. As an extreme reaction against the idea of objective presence, it was associated with idea from Roman scholasticism of corporeal-fleshiness. In 1684, Archbishop John Tillotson went as far as to decry transubstantiation as the introduction of the "real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion." For him, it was a great impiety to believe that people who attend Holy Communion "verily eat and drink the natural flesh and blood of Christ. And what can any man do more unworthily towards a Friend? How can he possibly use him more barbarously, than to feast upon his living flesh and blood?" (Discourse against Transubstantiation, London 1684, 35.)

Most Anglicans do not associate objective presence with corporeal-fleshiness, however, relying on the statement in the Thirty-nine Articles that the presence is of the Risen Christ, "after an heavenly and spiritual manner."

The Anglican wideness of view has its roots in the sometimes violent controversies on religion during and after the reign of Henry VIII. During the reign of Elizabeth I, a more inclusive (some would say fuzzy) approach was adopted, called the "Elizabethan Settlement." A single liturgy -- The Book of Common Prayer -- would be used for the whole Church, regardless of theological party, and the rest would be between the individual and God. This "via media" between the supposed extremes of Rome, on the one hand, and Geneva, on the other, was championed by the famous Elizabethan divine, Father Richard Hooker. Elizabeth's own response when pressed on this issue was to quote the poet and priest, John Donne:

He was the Word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it;
I do believe and take it.

In the decades after Vatican II, Anglicans and Roman Catholics reached substantial agreement about the doctrine of the Eucharist, as is stated in The ARCIC Windsor Statement of 1971[1] and its 1979 Elucidation[2]. Remaining arguments can be found in the Church of England's pastoral letter: The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity[3].

Transubstantiation - Lutheranism

Lutherans subscribe to a form of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Real Presence, believing the body and blood of Jesus Christ are present in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. Lutheran divines have espoused views akin to the Orthodox metousiosis, and often speak and write of "Sacramental union." They do not endorse any particular view of how this takes place or the mode of presence, and regard attempts to explain in terms of philosophical metaphysics how the Eucharist "works" as disrespectful of the Sacrament's miraculous and mysterious character. This refusal to endorse such explanatory doctrines, particularly transubstantiation, is sometimes interpreted by non-Lutherans as denial of the Real Presence. Non-Lutherans also sometimes describe the Lutheran doctrine as consubstantiation, an incorrect understanding of Lutheran teaching, since, like transubstantiation, consubstantiation is rejected by Lutherans as a misguided attempt to philosophically categorize a divine mystery.

Lutherans often refer to their Confessional statements from the Book of Concord in this regard -- that the body and blood of the Risen Christ are present "in, with and under the forms" of bread and wine -- in an attempt to adequately express their understanding of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. This is as opposed to Transubstantiationist and other positions. Lutherans believe that Christ's Body and Blood are objectively made present (given his words, "This is my body", and "This is my blood") during the eucharistic ceremony, and this through the power of God's Word, as proclaimed to the congregation in the Words of Insitution. Lutherans place great stress on Jesus' instructions to "take and eat", and "take and drink", holding that this is their proper, divinely ordained use. For this reason, Lutherans only reserve the sacrament for emergency communion of the sick and home-bound and, while it is given due reverence, any actions which might indicate or lead to superstition or unworthy fear of the sacrament are scrupulously avoided.

Transubstantiation - The Old-Catholics Altkatholische and the independent catholic Churches derived from them

Old-Catholics, and the Independent Catholic Churches derived from them, generally accept the doctrine of the Real Presence along the lines of the Orthodox view of metousiosis, but find themselves in agreement with the Anglican and Lutheran official positions as well. Old-Catholics do not require members to give assent to the doctrine of transubstantiation, but they do not reject it, either. Official statements with regard to the Eucharist may be found in the foundational Old-Catholic documents: The Declaration of the Catholic Congress at Munich, The Theses of Bonn, and the Declaration of Utrecht. Roman Catholics consider the Old-Catholic Eucharist to be "valid but illicit. Old-Catholics of the Utrecht Union are in full communion with the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Transubstantiation - Other Christian denominations

In contrast to the Orthodox and Catholic view, many Protestant churches hold that Holy Communion merely symbolically commemorates or memorializes Jesus' Last Supper with the disciples; this belief is known as "symbolism", "commemoration", or "transignification". Some fundamentalist Protestants see any doctrine of the real presence as idolatry, worshipping mere bread and wine as if it were God. Similarly, Andrew Lortie, a leading Huguenot theologian and author, wrote a great deal against transubstantiation.

Other Protestant denominations, such as some Presbyterian denominations, profess belief in the real presence, but offer other explanations than transubstantiation. Classically, Presbyterians have held the Calvinist view of "pneumatic" presence or "a spiritual feeding." However, in the case of the Presbyterian Church (USA), when the Formula of Agreement was signed with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, both churches reaffirmed their mutual general belief in the Real Presence.

Transubstantiation - Historical perspectives

The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was already well established in the Early Church. St. Ignatius of Antioch appears to have accepted the concept; in AD 106, he criticized those who "abstain from the Eucharist and the public prayer, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same Body of our Savior Jesus Christ, which [flesh] suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up again" (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7). Similarly, St. Ambrose of Milan countered objections to the doctrine, writing "You may perhaps say: 'My bread is ordinary.' But that bread is bread before the words of the Sacraments; where the consecration has entered in, the bread becomes the Flesh of Christ" (The Sacraments, 333/339-397 A.D. v.2,1339,1340). Other early patristic writers clearly outlined the doctrine of metousiosis.

Scholastic theologians in the early Middle Ages, influenced by Aristotelianism inquired philosophically into how and in what way the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. It was during this period that 'transubstantiation' was used to explain the belief. Eventually, in the Roman Catholic Church, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, and again the Council of Trent (1545-1563) officially defined transubstantiation as the dogmatic belief of the Church.

In the twentieth-century, some modernist Roman Catholic theologians sought to interpret transubstantiation as only a change of significance and not a change of substance. This was again rejected by Pope Paul VI in 1965 in his encyclical letter, Mysterium Fidei. His 1968 "Credo of the People of God", reiterated that any theological explanation of the doctrine must hold to the two-fold claim that after consecration (1) Christ's Body and Blood are really present and (2) bread and wine are really absent, and this presence and absence is real and not merely something in the mind of the believer, a reiteration of conciliar dogma of the 13th Century.

In literature, the controversy between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation was satirically described in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" as war between Lilliput and Blefuscu.

See also

• Consubstantiation
• Eucharist
• Eucharistic theologies contrasted
• Real Presence
• Eucharistic adoration

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Transubstantiation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki