Blackthorne

2/ The word eucharist means "thanksgiving" and the eucharist at the time included the entire offering to the poor and not just bread and wine. I think the debate over what Ignatius meant by the statement you quoted is ongoing, and is about to be engaged further by some anticipated scholarship, but I'm not remotely surprised that the church as an institution would adopt an understanding that would further their institutional interests.

@GrandMosk @Ramandu_Star @thattradgal He's using the Ascension to validate his authority. Obviously if he has the power to ascend into heaven, he has the power to give his flesh as food. Their simple logic is too small for the reality of who he really is, so this just reinforces his point. Now your turn.

He didn’t say; “This represents my body.” He didn’t say; “This symbolizes my body.” He said; “This IS my body.”

Assertions like this is why I left Catholicism: "He's using the Ascension to validate his authority." He's doing no such thing. Verse 59 is a narrative break: "59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum." Up though v58 he was addressing the crowd that had been fed by the fish and loaves the previous day, a "great multitude". (John 6:5) In v60, Jesus is debriefing with His disciples, as He often did after addressing the public. The text doesn't tell us if this was immediately after his public comments in the synagogue or later. At this briefing, Jesus was again directly addressing the complaints and murmuring that had been present earlier among the crowd. The "hard saying" that caused murmuring is captured here: "41 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves." 1/

I'll answer your question if you can tell me why you think the "hard" saying" dealt with eating his flesh when Jesus says this: 60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” 61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?" What does v62 have to do with "eating His flesh"?

@GrandMosk @Ramandu_Star @thattradgal So you think for the first 1500 years of the church they just "got it wrong"? St. Ignatius wrote in 110AD "They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins."

Catholics need to read John 6 more carefully. Verse 59 is a narrative break. In the subsequent discussion, Jesus directly addresses the “hard saying” (v61-62), which is that Jesus came down from heaven. His response has nothing to do with eating his flesh. The issue was blasphemy, not cannibalism. Jesus was directly responding to verses 38-42.

@Ramandu_Star @thattradgal Why ignore John Chapter 6? What are your thoughts on his followers leaving him for specifically saying it is his flesh and blood? "Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”"

@NehemiaszWilk @severegrace @thattradgal The context is blasphemy, not cannibalism, which is easily seen by posting the entire discussion starting at verse 28. Verse 59 is a narrative break. The discussion after that narrative break makes clear that the issue is blasphemy.

@severegrace @thattradgal He said He will be resurrected and it wasn't metaphore. Also He said that about bread and wine He held in His hands, not about food in some abstract story. And He had said before that people will eat His flash as bread.

The early church had the canon and debated scripture from the apostolic era. "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures." (2 Pet 3:15-16) "And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea." (Col 4:16) "I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers." (1 Thes 5:27) Matthew, who would have known shorthand as a tax collector, is reported to have written down scripture in Hebrew by Papias of Hierapolis, (130–140 AD). Likely this would have been contemporaneous with his eyewitness. “Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect [or: ‘Matthew put together the oracles [logia] in the Hebrew language’], while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome… Matthew composed the oracles [sayings/logia] in the Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted them as he was able.”

Nope I said all that the apostles taught is truth. That’s what scripture says. Scripture alone denies scripture itself. Over 1/2 the NT is on the Church. Not on reading scripture. The NT wasn’t considered scripture for centuries. Not all cities had the writings. They had in person teaching. Paul & the other apostles visited many cities establishing the Church. Yet the NT contains only a few writings to a snail number of them. No letters to Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, etc. They had the faith from in person teaching.

Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics: "to read church history is to cease to be protestant." (Protestant read church history) Also Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics: "You're QUOTE MINING!" You're CHERRY PICKING!" "All the fathers didn't agree!" "You gotta read the original Latin!" "We don't have to follow everything they say!!"

Europe can suit itself. Only about 2% of U.S. oil supply passes through the Straight of Hormuz. But we'll be happy to take the maritime insurance market as a consolation prize. We'll see how Lloyd's likes competing with U.S. companies now that the DFC, backstopped by the U.S. Navy, Centcom & 20B in seed capital, is in the game.

@JoelWBerry @Sargon_of_Akkad

America blew up the Nordstream pipeline, and now has closed the Strait of Hormuz. Hard not to see this as a deliberate strategy of denying energy to Europe, whilst America can produce its own. Callous.

@MarioNawfal That's just the cocaine talking.

🚨🇫🇷🇺🇸 Trump said Macron's wife beats him up. Macron's response: "Trump talks too much... his remarks are neither elegant nor up to the standard." Macron told Trump that he has bad manners. In French this is a declaration of war. x.com/LCI/status/203…

@JohnCleese Theology might not be your lane John. "Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me," (Psa 40:7) "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God." (Heb 10:7)

Dear Rory, The essence of Christianity is in Christ's teaching You won't find anything about him in the Old Testament, because he isn't in it

@Konraddin My experience was the opposite.

Funny, I read the Bible finally and it led me directly to the Catholic Church.

The "hard saying" had nothing to do with consuming His flesh. Verse 59 is a narrative break. "60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” 61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?" Blasphemy was the issue, not cannibalism. Jesus' claim that he came down from heaven was the "hard saying". "41 The Jews then complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” 42 And they said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?"

@grok this knucklehead asserts the Eucharist as a symbol based on Scriptures. Based on Jesus’s doubling down on the literal meaning of consuming His flesh (“this is a hard teaching”), his declaration of “this IS my body and blood;” the fact that John declared “Behold the Lamb of God” and Jews had to actually eat the sacrificial lamb to be saved at Passover; and that on the road to Emmaus the disciples “came to know Him in the breaking of the bread,” with Paul finally declaring that consuming the Eucharist unworthily brings condemnation, he doesn’t appear to show any actual evidence for his specious claims. Evaluate the passages I presented in light of his symbol view. As Flannery O’Connor says, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.

Not exactly a Mic drop for ya bud…. Luke, Matthew, Mark, John and Paul taught a symbolic Eucharist! They in no way taught the pagan aristotelian philosophy of the transubstantiation eucharist! Those men are really, the only Christian authors who’s opinion matters since they are the only ones inspired by God! But you also have Clement of Alexandria, & Tertullian. Now tell the truth about how the Jewishness of our faith was diminished after Rome demolished Jerusalem twice, and the emphasis of Bible interpretation became overrun by Greek modes of interpretation of scripture that overly spiritualized and allegorized the Bible! The early church writers are not our instruction in the faith. It’s the inspired written word of God that does that.

@narindertweets @NewStatesman If observation, pattern recognition and critical thinking are racist, then racism is a good and necessary outcome.

@NewStatesman It is racism. Pure and simple

The anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping across the UK and Europe is "basically racism" says Rory Stewart

The perpetual virginity of Mary was not the universal position of the early Church and didn't take hold until the 4th century and didn't become official until 553AD. The first mention of the doctrine is found in the Protoevangelium of James, a book that also claims Mary spend her childhood in the Temple and was fed daily by an angel (among other apocryphal claims).

Need or desire is not the point. The perpetual virginity of Mary was the universal position of the early Church and is still held by all four churches that can trace their origins to ancient roots (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of the East). Even the Reformers ascribed to it. Unless you hold the opinion that everyone before the second generation of Reformers held absurd beliefs, then the burden is on you to prove why such an ancient, universal belief should be abandoned.

Mary was not a perpetual virgin. That would have made her marriage to Joseph null and void. I've never understood the need or desire to believe Mary was a perpetual virgin. Sex within marriage is expected and normal in a faithful marriage.

@Lynel_Hutz @TertiusIII @ProtPhilosopher "I just love how they act as if no one has ever thought of these things before". That goes double for Fr. Krupps and Catholicism's special pleading and tortured exegesis about Mary's perpetual virginity.

@TertiusIII @ProtPhilosopher

Many Protestants are calling this poll from Michael Knowles a "trap." Redeemed Zoomer says of the Catholic and early Reformers’ view on the perpetual virginity of Mary, "They're the same." But Knowles's poll is only "a trap" if you grant him the ambiguity in his framing of the prompt. Knowles asks, "do you agree with the Catholic view or with the view of Protestant reformers...?" The ambiguity is that your agreement only focuses on the conclusion reached by those two "views." But agreement with views, and the views themselves, aren't comprised of just whether both camps endorse the perpetual virginity of Mary. They also include the grounds on which those conclusions are held. Luther, Zwingli, and Wesley held perpetual virginity as a personal opinion consistent with their reading of Scripture, not as a dogma binding on conscience. None of the Reformers treated perpetual virginity as the kind of doctrine that requires Tradition and the Magisterium to establish it as an article of faith. The same cannot be said for the Catholic "view." So there's no trap. The conclusions may match. The views don't.

When men are compelled to believe certain doctrines by religious overlords (at the cost of their souls), one can never be sure whether expressed beliefs are honest or merely necessary. It may be that the perpetual virginity of Mary was not a hill that Luther, Zwingli, and Wesley wished to fight on.

@certaresnovis @TheBabylonBee @Valspar111 I'm with Cardinal Cajetan, Erasmus, the Glossa Ordinaria and the 31 Cardinals who did not vote for the current Catholic canon at Trent.

@TheBabylonBee @Valspar111 Blessed Palm Sunday, troglodytes at the Babble On Be. Be Babble On.

Pope Leo Explains God Does Not Listen To People Who Wage War So Long As You Don’t Count Moses, David, Joshua, Elijah, Saul, Gideon, Samson, Or Anyone Else In Bible buff.ly/tWfpECv

@CorAd_Cor @rickbrennanjr @findveritasx @JoshuaTCharles Josh strikes me as the type of person who might believe that anyone who leaves the Catholic Church for another denomination is not well catechized by definition.

Risk, it seems to me that Josh is simply saying that in every case he has personally encountered—not in every possible case. I think he’s referring to lived experience and not that every singe Catholic-to-Protestant move is an under catechized and unconvicted leap. Just my observation, in charity.

I have meet at least 50 former Catholics in the non-denom church I’ve been a part of. 100% of them were not catechized even halfway. Examples include not knowing the Catholic Bible had more books, why we pray to saints, or even that the Catholics claim to be the one true church.

@dragodimitrov Especially older Protestants.

I think attachment to contraception is the #1 thing holding Protestants back from becoming Catholic.

@BeardedPresby @5Solas2 Reformed theology does not teach that "the majority of mankind will not make it to Heaven" because they reject Reformed theology.

@5Solas2 Reformed theology is the only true faith. Anything else is a false gospel. Thats why the majority of mankind will not make it to Heaven, as seen in these comments.

💯

@madlabrador_ @rickbrennanjr The hard saying does not deal with eating the flesh of Jesus as His response (v 61,62) makes perfectly clear. Jesus is responding to v 42. Note that v59 is a narrative break. The issue that caused some to walk away was blasphemy, not cannibalism.

@rickbrennanjr God said “This bread is my flesh” and some of his disciples protested “it’s a hard saying” then “they left Jesus” (John 6.66) Same today, reformation protested “it’s a hard saying” and thus left Jesus. Why can’t you accept that God had elevated matter to divinity?

The passage by Justin Martyr reflects an early, high view of the Eucharist. But the question is not whether the Fathers spoke strongly, but how those early statements are to be understood in light of Christology. In 1561 Peter Martyr Vermigli Vermigli’s stated his concern that any account of the Lord’s Supper must be governed by the doctrine of Christ as defined at Council of Chalcedon. Christ is one person in two natures—fully God and fully man. His human nature is real, finite, and located. It does not become ubiquitous or extended into multiple places. To suggest that Christ’s physical body is present in many places at once risks confusing the natures and collapsing the distinction Chalcedon carefully preserves. This is where the key distinction must be made: 1. Christ is truly present in the Supper; but 2. he is present according to his divine nature and by the Spirit, not by a multiplication or extension of his human body. The language of the Fathers, including what you cite here, is often sacramental and analogical, not metaphysical in the later medieval sense. They affirm a real participation in Christ, but not in a way that requires his human body to be physically present in the elements. Vermigli would press the point this way: If the humanity of Christ is everywhere, then it is no longer truly human flesh and you are blending the divine and human natures of Christ which has long been viewed as theological heresy. Thus, the issue is not whether the Eucharist is “mere bread.” It is not. It is a true means of grace. But the mode of Christ’s presence must be understood in a way that preserves both: (1) The integrity of Christ’s human nature; and (2) the once-for-all nature of his sacrifice. The Supper does not re-present or extend the sacrifice of Christ. It proclaims and applies that finished work to believers. So the question is not whether the early church spoke strongly about the Eucharist. It did. The question is whether later interpretations developed in the medieval era imposed a metaphysical framework that the text that our understanding of Christology does not support.