The road to Emmaus
It was Sunday. Two disciples were travelling to Emmaus. Now read the rest of the account in your Bible: Luke 24:13-35. We began discussing this story at the end of Chapter Eight, but never quite got to the end of it.
Remember what we said in Chapter Six about how sometimes our own understanding of God’s work develops best in the context of our own lived action? The journey to Emmaus exemplifies this. We do not know who these two disciples were, but the fact that one of them was called Cleopas suggests that neither of them had been present in the Upper Room. So it is not surprising that they began their journey bewildered by the events of the previous three days.
The Emmaus travelogue is full of profound symbolism. These two disciples’ progress from bewilderment to recognition was surely writ large in the experience of the whole of the early Christian community in those first days of that first Easter. And any of us who seeks to understand the full significance of Jesus’s Passover meal-sacrifice will sometimes struggle to move beyond bewilderment. But, as we saw in Chapter Five, what Gregory of Nazianzus called the “order of theology” [1] is not merely inevitable, but necessary: the gradual progress of the Christian community, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, starting from Scripture, toward greater and greater understanding of the meaning of Christ’s words and actions, is the way God meant things to be: it is, in point of fact, the biblical way (cf. Jn. 16:13).
In the life of the early Church, as we saw in Chapter One, the shared wisdom of both Jew and Greek was essential. Our investigation of Jesus’s Passover sacrifice-meal, which we began in Chapter Nine, has hitherto proceeded from a thoroughly Jewish point of view. Later in this chapter we will see how the opening up of Christianity to the Greek-speaking world added another layer of wisdom to the Church’s understanding of this event. But let us begin by sharing the bewilderment of the two disciples on the road and, like them, seeing how Scripture can enlighten us.
It is instructive that Jesus’s explanations to the two Emmaus disciples start with Moses (Lk. 24:27): as we have seen, Moses, Passover and Exodus are key to understanding what happened at the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. But, before the sun had set on this day of the Resurrection,
they constrained him, saying,
“Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now spent.” So he went
in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and
blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they
recognised him; and he vanished out of their sight. […]
Then they told what had happened
on the road, and how he was known [egnosthe]
to them in the breaking of the bread. (Lk. 24:29-31,35, RSV)
Two things are important about this passage. First, “he was known
to them in the breaking of the bread.” This is the biblical pattern adopted by
Christians ever since: that whenever we eat this bread (1 Cor. 11:26) we know Jesus in the breaking of the bread.
The Greek word egnosthe used here does
not mean merely recognise; it means “to come to know” intimately, person
Second, “they constrained him, saying, ‘Stay with us’… and he vanished out of their sight.” And yet he had not vanished, for in this meal He was reiterating in action what He had said at the Last Supper in words: “Do this in remembrance [anamnesin] of me” (Lk. 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24). This word anamnesis, as we saw in the last chapter, refers to the Bread of the Presence of the Old Covenant. By using it in the context of the New, Jesus was saying that this bread, the bread broken in anamnesis of Him, was the new Bread of the Presence, the Bread of the Face of God, His way of staying with His disciples here on earth even after He had returned to the Father – just as the Old Testament Bread of the Presence had been God’s way of staying with His people even after the manna ceased.
The Jews knew, of course, that the Passover sacrifice is
re-presented each year not because it was ineffective the first time, but
because God is “all-present”, [2] and His
actions are not limited by time or space. They are celebrated always and everywhere
because they are always and everywhere there:
that is why the Passover is “a lasting ordinance for the generations to come”
(Ex. 12:17). In the same way, Jesus’s command to “do this in anamnesis of me” is a lasting ordinance,
designed to draw His people from all places and all ages into His “once for
something itself absent, which is only mentally recollected. But in the scriptures both of the Old and New Testament, anamnesis and the cognate verb have the sense of “re-calling” or “re-presenting” before God an event in the past, so that is becomes here and now operative by its effects. [3]
So, just as the Jewish Passover bread “is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt,” so too do we know that this bread, broken for us, is “the bread of life… the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die… my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn. 6:35,50-51). And just as “it is incumbent on every Israelite, in every generation, to look upon himself as if he had actually gone forth from Egypt,” [4] so too is it incumbent on every Christian to look upon himself as if he actually celebrates Passover with Christ, in the Upper Room on Mount Zion. This bread is our manna from Heaven, our sustenance for our Exodus. Breaking this bread together is the way Jesus gives us to participate in His Passover meal-sacrifice and the heavenward journey of which it is a part.
We saw in Chapter Nine how both the Old Testament and Jewish midrash proclaim the eternal nature of the Passover meal-sacrifice, its inherence in God’s great “four nights” [5] and its anticipation from the six days of creation. [6] The New Testament continues this pattern by proclaiming the eternal nature of Jesus’s Passover sacrifice-meal. Jesus Himself was instrumental in the creation of all things at the beginning of the time (Jn. 1:3). In Jesus God even chose us “before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) to be His Church. [7] And what’s more, Scripture tells us that Jesus’s own sacrifice took place, in some sense, from the six days of creation – for He is “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13:8)! The significance of all these biblical declarations is not just to ascribe early dates to certain important historical events. Rather, it is to proclaim that these things have an eternal existence and an eternal power. They may have burst onto the visible historical stage at specific times, but they were, are and will be forever there in the timelessness of God’s creativity. Therefore, Jesus’s saving sacrifice is not time-limited. “Once for all” (Heb. 10:10, 1 Pet. 3:18) does not mean just at that time and at no other; its means that the “once” of Christ’s sacrifice is so fundamental to God’s great events of salvation history that it, like the Passover of Israel which we discussed in the last chapter, is always there. It is the Christian leil shimurim (Ex. 12:42), the night anticipated, waited for, watched for, and “all-present”. [8]
Todah
The Passover sacrifice is a form of what the Jews call todah, which means “thanksgiving”. [9] Jewish midrash tells us that in the last days
all forms of sacrifice will cease – except
todah. [10] The
prophet Zechariah tells us that in the end-times
my name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations. (Mal. 1:11)
The end-times are now here (Acts 2:17), and these Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled. The Lord’s name is now indeed “great among the nations”, and the Passover meal-sacrifice of Christ is celebrated “from the rising to the setting of the sun”. The Greek for todah is eucharistia. [11] And so the Bible calls this “pure offering” Eucharist:
When he had given thanks [eucharistesas], he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor. 11:24-25)
The New Testament testifies to how the early Christians understood this eucharistic offering. They met regularly for the “breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42), usually on the day of the Resurrection (Acts 20:7), as it had been at Emmaus. And the apostle Paul writes of this gathering:
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 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 Cor. 11:26-27, RSV)
and
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion [koinonia] in the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 10:16, RSV)
Paul goes on to explain the significance of the Eucharist by comparing it, of course, to the ancient Jewish sacrifices, saying: “Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners [koinonoi] in the altar?” (1 Cor. 10:18, RSV) The Greek word for altar used here is thysiasterion, which literally means “place of sacrifice”. [12] And Paul uses exactly the same Greek word, koinonia, to refer both to the manner in which the people of Israel partake in the ancient sacrifices and to the way Christians partake of the Eucharist. The implication is clear: just as those who under the Old Covenant eat the Passover meal are participants in the sacrifice-meal of the lamb, so too are those who under the New Covenant eat the new Passover bread participants in the new sacrifice-meal of Christ.
Epiousios bread
The early Christians knew still more about the “breaking of bread”, for Jesus had taught them to pray for a special kind of bread. It is one of the ironies of Christianity that the Lord’s Prayer, the one prayer which we have received from the mouth of Christ, is almost everywhere mis-translated. In your Bible, it probably says something like:
Give us this day our daily bread. (Matt. 6:11, KJV)
However, the word translated here as “daily” does not actually mean that. The original Greek word is epiousios: “Give us this day our epiousios bread.” We have no way of confirming independently exactly what this word means, because it occurs nowhere in the world except in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Translators, unsure of what to do, have usually rendered this word as “daily”. However, the first bit of the word, epi-, means “on” or “above” or “beyond”; and the second bit, ousia, means “substance”, or “being” or “essence”. So: “beyond essence”? “above being”? “super-substantial”? What can this mean? One clue comes from the Old Syriac translation of the New Testament, possibly the oldest translation from the Greek ever made, dating back to the second century A.D. Old Syriac is a very similar language to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, and so it gives us clues as to what words He may have originally used. Presbyterian scholar Kenneth Bailey explains:
The Old Syriac translation of the Lord’s prayer reads: Lahmo ameno diyomo hab lan.... Lahmo means “bread”. Ameno has the same root as the word amen, and in Syriac ameno is an adjective that means “lasting, never-ceasing, never-ending, or perpetual.” [13]
“Give us this day our never-ceasing, never-ending, perpetual bread”? If the bread we break is the new manna, this translation makes perfect sense, for there is no more perpetual bread than the “bread of angels” (Ps. 78:25) – made by God, according to the Mishnah, at the creation of the world. [14] And if Jesus is truly the new prophet “like Moses” (Deut. 18:18), then He is perfectly capable of providing miraculous bread to sustain us on our Exodus journey.
This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it? (Jn. 6:60) In what manner, and to what extent, is our anamnesis a merely symbolic re-enactment of Christ’s Passover, or a true participation in His eternal sacrifice-meal? These questions have surfaced with vigour during the last 500 years. The danger, however, is that the greater our zeal in pursuing a black-and-white rational answer, the more likely we are to seriously miss the point. We have learnt enough, in Chapters Three and Six of this book, of the Jews’ and early Christians’ understanding of midrash and allegory, to know that the strict separation of symbol from reality is not one that was commonly made. As theologian and church historian J. N. D. Kelly confirms, “According to ancient modes of thought a mysterious relationship existed between the thing symbolized and its symbol, figure or type; the symbol in some sense was the thing symbolized.” [15] The concept of the division between symbol and the symbolised was not to gain prominence in Christian thought until the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as more rationalist concepts of knowledge were introduced to Europe. In the ancient world, symbols bring realities with them; they do not exclude them. Let us take a closer look at how this works.
Ideai
We have, in this chapter and the last, spoken mainly about the Jewish attitude to the divine realities, and how the Christian understanding of the “breaking of bread” developed out of the Jewish understanding of Passover, of todah, and of the Bread of the Presence. But as the early Jewish Christians opened themselves up to Greek influences, they found much in Greek thought to illuminate their understanding of these things as well.
Dominating the philosophy of the Greek-speaking world into which Christianity grew was Plato (c. 424-348 B.C.). What does Plato have to do with Christianity? The best explanation I have found comes from C. S. Lewis. In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord Digory, exasperated at what he sees as the ignorance of the younger generation, complains: “‘It’s all in Plato, all in Plato, bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?’” [16] Well, if C. S. Lewis thought that it was “‘all in Plato’”, then perhaps we ought to give the Greek philosopher some thought.
Plato’s concept was that all material realities on earth are shadows or copies of eternal realities, which he called ideai – a word which is usually translated as “ideas” or “forms”. Goodness on earth is a shadow of an eternal ideal of goodness. A man is a man because he resembles an eternal ideal of humanity. White is white because it exhibits the characteristics of eternal “whiteness”. This philosophy later came to be called “realism”, because it held that these eternal “forms” were real – indeed, the greater reality. C. S. Lewis explains, using Narnia as an example:
It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking-glass. And the scene in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real one: yet at the same time they were somehow different – deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as it if meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean. [17]
We can see why aspects of Plato’s ideas appealed to the Jews and the early Christians, for they believed that eternal realities resided in Heaven, with God as the ultimate reality. Jewish feasts such as Passover echo the banquet at which Moses and the seventy elders ate and drank at Sinai (Ex. 24:9-11) – itself, according to Jewish tradition, a foreshadowing of the eternal banquet in the world to come. [18] The Bread of the Presence too was an earthly re-presentation [19] of the heavenly manna which the Israelites ate in the desert. The temple paraphernalia described in Exodus (Ark, Tabernacle, altars, lampstands etc.) were made according to designs shown to Moses by God “on the mountain” (Ex. 25:40): therefore they are copies and shadows of the heavenly items held in the eternal Temple in Heaven. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem was itself a copy of that heavenly Temple (Heb. 8:5). What makes these things holy is precisely the fact that they re-present to us on earth the eternal realities (“forms”, ideai) of God and His realm: they are symbols which bring with them the greater reality which they represent.
This quasi-Platonic attitude to reality is also evident in the New Testament. For example, Paul writes:
This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name. (Eph. 3:14-15, NJB)
And later in the same letter he says:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy... In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies... After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” [Gen. 2:24]. This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Eph. 5:25-26,28,29-32)
In both these examples, Paul tells us why mundane institutions such as fatherhood or marriage are held by Christians to be holy: not merely on their own merits, but because they are re-presentations, shadows or copies of eternal institutions. Every father on earth images our Father in Heaven. Every marriage on earth images the eternal marriage between Christ and His Church. This is indeed a “profound mystery”, and, though we may never, in this world, get to the bottom of it, we should heed its implications.
We saw in Chapter Two how Greek-influenced Jews such as Philo, and later Paul, saw the presence of God in many of the material realities of the Old Testament. The rock in the desert is the Wisdom of God. [20] The manna is the Word of God. [21] Both are the Son of God. [22] And so, as Christians, we can see how the ideas of Plato find their fulfilment in Christ. It is only in Him that both heavenly ideal and the material reality subsist. It is only He who dwells perfectly both in Heaven and on Earth. It is only in Him that the Word was made perfectly flesh. So both the Jewish concept of earthly copies of heavenly realities, and the Greek concept of material realities imaging eternal “forms”, come together in Christ. For
He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation... He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col.
1:15,17, my emphasis)
In Him all things hold together. This idea lies at the heart of what Christians call “sacrament”. It is now time for us to look in more depth at what this word means.
Sacrament and mystery
The concept of sacrament can be quite challenging, even to people who are used to celebrating the sacraments on a regular basis. But we have covered much of the groundwork already in previous chapters. In Him all things hold together. In Him, Greek and Jew hold together. In Him, word and action hold together. In Him, faith and works hold together. In Him, allegory and literalism hold together. In Him, earthly image and divine reality, symbol and truth, all hold together. A sacrament is but the working out of the last statement: a sacrament is a symbol which, in Him, holds together with the reality it represents.
How can this be so? Quite simply, because it is made so by God. Because a sacrament is instituted by Christ, it is able to hold together, as only He holds together, the earthly and the divine. If you or I were to draw a picture of someone or something, it would be just that: a picture. It might resemble, and remind us of, the thing it depicts, but in essence it would remain mere ink and paper. You and I are not God, and so any image we make is nothing more than a symbol. And so we, fallen beings that we are, have become used to the idea that all symbols are only symbols, nothing more. But God can create things and, literally, breathe life into them (e.g. Gen. 2:7). Because the things He creates are images and shadows and copies of divine realities, they all have in them the potential to contain that divine life which originally inspired them all. If God makes a symbol, it is able to hold together with the divine reality which it images.
The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin sacramentum, which is a translation of the Greek word mysterion: “mystery”. In the Orthodox churches the sacraments are indeed called “mysteries”. This is a good word, for, as we saw in Chapter Six, it denotes things which we can only partly perceive, because their true reality extends into the spiritual realm.
For Christians brought up in a 21st-century scientific mindset, this concept may be difficult to accept. So let us turn to a modern Evangelical theologian for help. Hans Boersma explains:
“Mystery” referred to realities behind the appearances that one could observe by means of the senses. That is to say, though our hands, eyes, ears, nose, and tongue are able to access reality, they cannot fully grasp this reality. They cannot comprehend it. The reason for this basic incomprehensibility of the universe was that the world was, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins famously put it, “charged with the grandeur of God.” [23] Even the most basic created realities that we observe as human beings carry an extra dimension, as it were. The created world cannot be reduced to measurable, manageable dimensions. [24]
In a sense, therefore, the whole of Creation is to a certain degree sacramental, because it is a mystery which extends from the material into the spiritual realm, and points to its divine author. Of everything that He has ever created, God “saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:10,12,17,21,25). “No one is good but God alone” (Mk. 10:18, Lk. 18:19); the “goodness” of Creation, therefore, is testament to its dignity as a bearer of God’s presence, His Shekhinah. That is why the whole of Creation can praise God:
Praise him,
sun and moon,
praise him,
all you shining stars.
Praise him,
you highest heavens
and you
waters above the skies.
Let them
praise the name of the LORD.
for he commanded
and they were created. (Ps. 148:3-5)
And this is why even “the stones would cry out” (Lk. 19:40) in praise of Him!
In Eden, Heaven & earth, Spirit and matter, were “held together”. That is why God “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). The Hebrew for “breath” is ruakh – the same word as “Spirit”. Man was thus made as the perfect union of Spirit and matter. Man was also made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27). There is a lot tied up in and implied by this phrase – too much for us to go into here. But one of the most important aspects of the way in which we “image” God is that we were, from the beginning, made to be in mystical communion with each other: “They shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24, KJV). In this way we are made to reflect the Trinity, who is love. We bear the imprint of that Trinity in our souls.
And so God could say of mankind, “behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31, KJV) – for man was, in the beginning, in communion with himself and with his Creator. This perfect union between Spirit and matter was damaged as a result of the Fall – but not utterly destroyed. We have lost the “likeness” of God, but we retain His “image”. Since then, not just humanity but “the whole creation has been groaning” (Rom. 8:22) in anticipation of the day when our unblemished nature might be restored: when image and likeness, symbol and reality, Creator and created, might be re-joined, and the true sacramentality of creation can shine forth once more. [25]
Of course, not all of Creation has yet been completely and equally redeemed. Those things which we commonly call “sacraments” are those “signs” – those times and places and things and actions – where this restoration of the unity of the Creation with the Creator is at its most potent: where the Shekhinah of God dwells most powerfully among us. Before the advent of Christ, we have had glimpses of this restoration, in visions and in angels, and of course in Scripture. Jacob foresaw this restoration, in his dream about the stairway to Heaven (Gen. 28:12). We have had signs and copies and images, such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple. And we have had moments when Heaven itself has come down to earth: the tablets of the Law from Sinai, the manna from Heaven. And there have been times when mankind has been privileged to be lifted up to the heavenly realms: Enoch (Gen. 5:24), Elijah (2 Kgs. 2:11-12), Moses and the seventy elders (Ex. 24:9-11). But finally, the restoration has been achieved in Christ:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Col. 1:19-20)
All things, whether on earth or in Heaven. In Christ, Heaven and earth, Spirit and matter, are again perfectly reunited. He is fulfilment of Jacob’s ladder, which joins Heaven and earth (Jn. 1:51). Therefore, those things which Christ declares to be Himself, or which God declares to be Christ Himself, are fully capable of holding within themselves this perfect union of Spirit and matter. And so, when Paul says to the worldwide Church, “You are the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27), he is declaring that the Church, like Christ, is both earthly and heavenly, held together. And when Christ says of the bread of the Eucharist, “This is my body,” He is declaring that this bread, like Him, is Spirit and matter, held together.
Evangelical theologian Hans Boersma explains:
In the church’s sacraments... we witness the supernatural restoration of nature to its original purpose. The purpose of all matter... is to lead us into God’s heavenly presence, to bring about communion with God, participation in the divine life. Thus are the church’s sacraments simply the beginning of the cosmic restoration. [26]
This was the early Christian understanding of reality. The world was indeed “charged with the grandeur of God”. [27] And the restoration of the universe to its original Spirit-matter unity was initiated in Christ’s Passover sacrifice-meal: in His breaking of bread. “This is my body” is not an arbitrary declaration of some kind of magical transformation enacted upon a bit of bread, but an affirmation of Creation as the dwelling-place of the Trinity.
Eucharistia
There is plenty of documentary evidence to show that this sacramental understanding of Creation informed the early Christians’ understanding of the Eucharist. First, the Didache, written during the late first century A.D. (i.e. as the New Testament was still being written) refers to the Eucharist specifically as the sacrifice of Christ, even quoting Malachi to prove it:
Assemble on the Lord’s Day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one… For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, “Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations” [Mal. 1:11,14]. [28]
Around the turn of the second century A.D., Ignatius (c. 35-107 A.D.), student of the apostle John [29] and second successor to Simon Peter as episkopos of Antioch, [30] wrote a series of letters to a number of Christian communities, as he journeyed on his way to his martyrdom in Rome. Like Paul, He called the eucharistic table the “place of sacrifice”:
Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with His blood, and one single altar of sacrifice [thysiasterion]. [31]
One of Ignatius’s complaints about the Docetists was that, because they do not believe that Christ has come in the flesh, they logically enough
will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in his goodness afterwards raised up again. Consequently, since they reject God’s gifts, they are doomed in their disputatiousness. [32]
According to Ignatius, then, to deny that “the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Saviour” is to “reject God’s gifts”: the result is to be “doomed”.
Justin “the Martyr” (c. 100-165 A.D.) was born in Palestine, converted to Christianity in his youth, and wrote a number of books explaining the Christian faith to pagans, before his beheading at the hands of Junius Rusticus, prefect of Rome. [33] He wrote this account of the Eucharist around the middle of the second century, confirming the Christian belief that the food consumed therein “is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh”:
There is then brought to the president of the brethren
bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and
glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to
receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and
thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen…
And this food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who
believes that the things which we teach are true… For not as common bread and
common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our
Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood
for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is
blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation
are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the
apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus
delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when
He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;”
and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He
said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. [34]
Irenaeus (c. 120-202 A.D.), episkopos of Lyons, a third-generation Christian (having been a pupil of Polycarp, who was a friend of Ignatius and disciple of the apostle John), [35] in his masterwork Against Heresies (written c. 180 A.D.), also cited Malachi to show that the Eucharist is “the new oblation of the new covenant”:
He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, “This is My body.” And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve prophets, thus spoke beforehand: “I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, unto the going down, My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, saith the Lord Omnipotent;” [Mal. 1:10-11] – indicating in the plainest manner, by these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure one. [36]
Irenaeus railed against the heresies of the Gnostics:
But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire
dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt
its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if
this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His
blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the
bread which we break the communion of His body [1 Cor. 10:16] ... He has acknowledged
the cup… as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread… He
has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.
When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured
bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of
Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and
supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the
gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body
and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him? […] And just as a cutting from
the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of wheat
falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by
the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of
God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes
the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being
nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there,
shall rise at their appointed time. [37]
It seems from the complaints of Ignatius and Irenaeus that during the first century and a half after the Resurrection the only people who denied the reality of the Eucharist as a communion [koinonia] with the true Passover sacrifice of Christ, at which His “self-same” body and blood are offered – were heretics. The Docetists, as Ignatius says, objected because they did not believe that God was truly made flesh in the first place. The Gnostics, as Irenaeus says, objected because they did not believe that our flesh can be redeemed: true virtue could not reside in matter, but only in pure Spirit.
However, in contrast to these heresies, the authentic Christian faith was unified on this point, right from the beginning: Jesus was truly man and truly God. Therefore He was capable of restoring the God-given unity of the divine and the created. The sacraments, and most particularly the Eucharist, were the touchstones of this restoration. Just as there might be different ways to best explain or to conceptualise how Jesus could be both God and man at the same time, there would over the centuries be different ways proposed as to how best to verbalise how the Eucharist could be both bread and body, Body and Spirit, eternal sacrifice and local meal, at the same time. But that it was so was never doubted. [38]
I could go on forever quoting famous Christians who confirmed their faith in the reality of the eucharistic presence. [39] But let me skip 1300 years or so to these two:
For my part, if I cannot fathom how the bread is the body of Christ, yet I will take my reason captive to the obedience of Christ [2 Cor. 10:5], and clinging simply to his words, firmly believe not only that the body of Christ is in the bread, but that the bread is the body of Christ. My warrant for this is the words which say: “He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘Take, eat, this (that is, this bread, which he had taken and broken) is my body’” [Matt. 26:26]. And Paul says: “The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” [1 Cor. 10:16]. He does not say “in the bread there is,” but “the bread itself is the participation in the body of Christ.” What does it matter if philosophy cannot fathom this? [40]
All the benefit which we should
seek in the Supper is annihilated if Jesus Christ be not there given to us as
the substance and foundation of all. That being fixed, we will confess, without
doubt, that to deny that a true communication of Jesus Christ is presented to
us in the Supper, is to render this holy sacrament frivolous and useless—an
execrable blasphemy unfit to be listened to. […]
We must then truly receive in the
Supper the body and blood of Jesus Christ, since the Lord there represents to
us the communion of both. Were it otherwise, what could be meant by saying, that
we eat the bread and drink the wine as a sign that his body is our meat and his
blood our drink? [41]
Yes, those were Martin Luther and John Calvin, respectively, showing themselves wiser than many Catholics would like to admit. Their understandings of the Eucharist do not seem so radically different from the views of the ancients. Where then did all the controversy come from? Why is it that these days many Protestants, including many followers of Luther and Calvin, seem to deny what has been an article of the Christian faith right from the beginning?
Hans Boersma puts it down to certain changes in our understanding of the world which began to occur in the late Middle Ages. [42] The increasing temporal power of the Church, and abuses of that power, led some Christians to prise apart the “held together” conception of the Church as the Body of Christ, and to start to distinguish between and separate out its divine and human aspects. Scientific discoveries tempted Christians to see nature as independent and self-regulating, rather than sustained by and suffused with God’s power. Increased access to Scripture allowed Christians to see the Bible as independent of, and sometimes superior to, the Tradition that had always been “held together” with it. [43] The “univocal” philosophy of John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) posited that created beings do not find their true identity in eternal “forms”, but exist in the same way that God does. William of Ockham’s (c. 1287-1347) “nominalism” held that the Platonic “forms” were not real, but merely names for things which exist on earth in their own right. All these ideas and philosophies, when held in check, were potentially harmless. But put together and allowed free rein, they undermined the ancient Jewish-Greek “held together” Spirit-matter conception of the universe:
No longer does created existence have being by participation... Instead, the created order claims radical independence... No longer are truth, goodness, and beauty given with the reality of the divine Word. Instead, these universals claim independence from what had been their Christological anchor in the heavenly places. Slowly but surely, the infinite mystery of God will recede from the horizon. [44]
The result was a gradual unravelling of the Christian concept of the sacramentality of Creation, and with that unravelling came a change in understanding of the sacraments themselves. Luther and Calvin, as we have seen, hung on doggedly, each in his own way, to the reality of the Eucharist. But others did not.
Zwingli
Probably the first of the great Reformers to sever all ties between symbol and reality in the sacraments was Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531). His theory was that
a sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing, i.e., of grace that has been given. I believe that it is a visible figure or form of the invisible grace, provided and bestowed by God's bounty; i.e., a visible example which presents an analogy to something done by the Spirit. I believe that it is a public testimony. [45]
In point of fact, there is nothing controversial in that statement: all Christians, ancient and modern – Catholics included – can agree with that much of Zwingli. However, Zwingli went further, writing to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V:
That the natural body of Christ is not eaten with our mouth, He Himself showed us when He said to the Jews, disputing about the corporeal eating of His flesh: “The flesh profiteth nothing” [Jn. 6:63], namely, eaten naturally, but eaten spiritually it profits much, for it gives life. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” [Jn. 3:6]. If, therefore, the natural body of Christ is eaten with our mouth, what else than flesh can come out of flesh, eaten naturally? ... If then the flesh is salutary to the soul, it should be eaten spiritually, not carnally... [46]
In other words, Zwingli was adding a new “only” to the litany of Reformation “onlys”: the Eucharist was to be regarded as only a symbol – not a symbol “held together” with the reality it signified. But Zwingli could only do this by completely dissociating the spiritual from the material: “Flesh is flesh... Spirit is spirit.” The two, he insisted, cannot coexist. “Now follow the proofs,” continued Zwingli:
As the body cannot be nourished by a spiritual substance, so the soul cannot be nourished by a corporeal substance. But if the natural body of Christ is eaten, I ask whether it feeds the body or the soul? Not the body, hence the soul. If the soul, then the soul eats flesh, and it would not be true that spirit is only born of Spirit. [47]
I hope you can see how different Zwingli’s mindset is from that of the ancient Christians. Christianity had always held, in common with Judaism, that the material and the spiritual worlds were co-inherent. The body and the soul were not mutually detachable entities. The Hebrew word nephesh, Middle East expert Kenneth Bailey explains, “the self, the whole person – was an undissolvable composite of body and spirit.” [48] This is why man was made in the image and likeness of God, and why God breathed His Spirit into the dust of the earth to make him. This is why God’s Shekhinah dwelt in the Bread of the Presence, in front of the Tabernacle, in the Temple, in Jerusalem of Melchidezek. This is why God had always acted in and through “signs”. And of course this is why the Word was made flesh.
The notion of prising apart matter and Spirit, earthly symbol and divine reality, had only really begun to enter into Christian thought in the thirteenth century. Zwingli’s ideas re-interpreted the Christian revelation in the light of this rationalism and “nominalism”. And that modern mindset held that there was no overlap between “flesh” and “Spirit”, between the “corporeal” and the “spiritual”. The extent of Zwingli’s re-interpretation is evident in the comments he makes on the Passover:
We are compelled to confess that the words: “This is my body,” should not be understood naturally, but figuratively, just as the words: “This is Jehovah's passover” [Ex. 12:11]. For the lamb that was eaten every year with the celebration of the festival was not the passing over of the Lord, but it signified that such a passing over had formerly taken place. [49]
We have learnt enough of Passover already, though, to know that such an interpretation is not authentic. For “the lamb that was eaten every year” is the passing over of the Lord – He who is all-present and whose actions are eternal. Remember what we learnt in the last chapter: that “it... is incumbent on every Israelite, in every generation, to look upon himself as if he had actually gone forth from Egypt... Us also did he redeem with them…,” [50] for “this is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.” [51]
We can forgive Zwingli for not grasping all this: for a Swiss theologian living in the heady rationalistic days of the European Renaissance this ancient Jewish mysticism may have seemed quite nonsensical. But it is no surprise that Zwingli and his followers met with massive hostility not just from Catholics but also from other Protestants, notably Luther, who, in Calvin’s words, “began to resist them to the face, and call them heretics,” saying: [52]
It is written, “Take, eat, this is my body” [Matt. 26:26], and for this reason one must do it and believe it at all costs. One must do this! One must do this! Otherwise… I could not believe in Christ! [53]
The Catholic theologian Johann Eck (1486-1543) wrote to Zwingli:
When... Christ says, “The flesh profiteth nothing” [Jn. 6:63], who will say that the flesh of Christ, in which He wrought the salvation of the whole world, is valueless? For if the flesh profiteth nothing, the word would not have been made flesh... Therefore we must extract a deeper meaning from Christ's words than their grammatical form would suggest... Zwingli... knows only two ways of eating, the physical and the spiritual; he cannot see the genuine and special way of eating the Eucharist, which is sacramental and mystical. [54]
Zwingli’s subsequent reply to Eck brings home the massive difference in mindset between the two men:
In sacraments two factors in general
are to be considered, the thing and the sacrament or sign of the thing. The thing
is that for the sake of which the sign is instituted which we call a
sacrament... In... the eucharist the thing is giving thanks in accordance with
faith for Christ delivered to us by God and crucified for our sins, the
sacrament is the giving of bread and wine with the holy words of the Lord. […]
When the people of old said that
the body of Christ was eaten they understood this in the same way as if one said
“mysteriously” or “sacramentally.” If Eck understood it so, harmony would have
been completely established between us. All controversy would have been equally
brought to an end, if he took “physically” in the sense of “materially” or “substantially.”
But since they have invented some third thing between the real and material
body of Christ and His sacramental body, not that spiritual body which we eat,
but a kind of thing that does not exist, being neither material nor
sacramental, that is symbolical and significative, – I see clearly enough what
stand they would take if one should meet them a hundred times. […]
Let them answer, therefore, whether...
He offered His body to be eaten physically or spiritually. For between material
or physical and spiritual there is no middle term. Though you put together
everything there is, both creator and created things, you will have either spirit
or body... For I have no use for that notion (of which Eck declares me
ignorant) of a real and true body that does not exist physically, definitely
and distinctly in some place, and that sort of nonsense got up by word triflers. [55]
As you can see, for Zwingli, there are two kinds of truth: “physical” (= “material”, “definite”, “distinct”, “the thing”) and “spiritual” (= “symbolical”, “significative”, “sacramental”, “the sign of the thing”). Between them “there is no middle term”. As far as he is concerned, people like Eck, in holding on to the ancient understanding of the Eucharist and calling it “mystical” or “sacramental”, are inventing a third kind of reality, which does not exist: it is “nonsense got up by word triflers”.
Much of Zwingli’s argument rests on his understanding of the word “spiritual”, which he uses to mean something purely symbolic, and not at all “real”. But let us not misunderstand the word “spiritual”. In the modern age, the meaning of this word has become significantly downgraded, even in common Christian parlance. So often we think of “spiritual” things as metaphorical, invisible, or merely symbolic. This is because we have, in the wake of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Zwingli, bifurcated the known universe, no longer seeing material things as shadows of, and potential bearers of, the spiritual. But this is not the way the word is used in the Bible. Catholic theologian Yves Congar explains that both the Hebrew word for spirit – ruakh, and the Greek – pneuma, are
not in any sense opposed to “body” or “corporeal”... Pneuma expresses the living and generating substance that is diffused in animals, plants and all things. It is a subtle corporeality rather than an incorporeal substance. The rûah-breath of the Old Testament is not discarnate. It is rather what animates the body. [56]
Remember, further, that for both Jew and Greek, the greater reality is eternal; what we see and touch on earth is but a copy, a shadow, an image. “Spiritual” things, therefore, are not less real than material things: they are more real. As Presbyterian theologian Edmund Clowney explains:
The Creator Spirit is the One who forms both the first creation and the second. Christ’s resurrection is in the power of the Spirit… The work of the Spirit is to give reality, to actualize. [57]
God is Spirit, after all (Jn. 4:24): and He is the most real of all.
Zwingli also redefines the word “sacrament” in light of his modern understanding of reality. For him, “sacramental” also means “purely symbolic”. However, sacrament, in the ancient understanding, meant “mystery” (mysterion): “something... never completely revealed, for it extends beyond our understanding into the limitless darkness of God.” [58] Sacrament bridges the divide which we, fallen beings that we are, perceive between the material and the spiritual, between “the thing” and “the sign of the thing”. Zwingli accuses Eck of inventing a non-existent “middle term”; but in fact Eck was rejecting Zwingli’s dualism. There is indeed no “middle term”; but nor, in Christ, are symbol and reality always mutually exclusive. C. S. Lewis explains:
It is of some importance to notice that the word symbolism is not adequate in all cases to cover the relation between the higher medium and its transposition in the lower... Pictures are part of the visible world themselves and represent it only by being part of it. Their visibility has the same source... It is a sign, but also something more than a sign: and only a sign because it is also more than a sign, because in it the thing signified is really in a certain mode present. If I had to name the relation I should call it not symbolical but sacramental. [59]
A sign, but also something more than a sign. Not symbolical but sacramental. For, in him all things hold together. All things, whether on earth or in heaven. The ancient understanding of the Eucharist is part and parcel of the ancient understanding of who Jesus Christ is. He who holds together God and man also holds together the heavenly and the material, the eternal and the temporal, wisdom and “signs”, in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is therefore part and parcel of the Incarnation.
One loaf, one body
Furthermore, because the Eucharist is a participation in Christ’s body, it is also the sacrament of the unity of His body the Church. The apostle Paul emphasises this link when writing to the Corinthians:
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we partake of the one loaf. (1 Cor. 10:16-17)
Because there is one loaf, we are one body. Stop for a moment to think about this. Passover is the event which binds together the people of Israel in a way that nothing else does – because the Passover bread, everywhere and at all times, “is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.” [60] And so Christ’s Passover is the event which binds together the Church – because, everywhere and at all times, “this is my body.” If the eternal and the temporal “held together” in His eucharistic body are separated, so too does His mystical body, the Church, risk being rent asunder. And conversely, if the body of Christ which is the Church is divided, then the recognition of the material-spiritual unity of the Eucharist is threatened. As Hans Boersma explains: “The close link between Eucharist and church had implied a strong focus on the unity of the church. Once the Eucharist was no longer seen as constituting the mystery of the church’s unity, it became possible to oppose unity and truth to one another.” [61]
Yet, unity and truth is another of those pairs of spiritual
ideals which cannot, in God’s eyes, be opposed. For unity is the essence of
God, which Christ bequeathed to us (Jn. 17:21-23). And Christ is truth itself
(Jn. 14:6). If we are to repair the damage, we need to look more deeply at how
the body of Christ in the Eucharist effects the unity of the body of Christ in the
Church. This is our next task.
SCRIPTURAL SUMMARY of Chapter Ten
The road to Emmaus
Lk. 24:13-35
The story starts with
Moses.
Lk. 24:27
Jesus is known at the
breaking of bread…
Lk. 24:35; Jn. 6:35-58; 1 Cor. 11:26
… though he has vanished…
Lk. 24:31
… because this is His anamnesis…
Lk. 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24
… and His Passover sacrifice is a lasting
ordinance, “once for all”…
Ex. 12:17, 12:42;
Heb. 10:10, 1 Pet. 3:18
… for He was “slain from the creation of
the world”.
Jn. 1:3, Eph.
1:4, Rev. 13:8
Todah/eucharistia – the sacrifice
of the end-times
Zech. 14:21, Mal. 1:11; Acts 2:17, 2:42, 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:16-18,
11:24-27
Epiousios bread
Deut. 18:14-18, Ps. 78:23-25, Matt. 6:11, Jn. 6:30-60
Ideai
Ex. 24:9-11, 25:40; Eph. 3:14-15, 5:25-32; Heb. 8:5
In Him all things hold
together.
Gen. 1, 2:7, 2:23-24, 5:24, 28:12; Ex. 24:9-11, 2 Kgs. 2:11-12,
Ps. 148, Mk. 10:18; Lk. 18:19, 19:40; Jn. 1:51, Rom. 8:22, 1 Cor. 12:27, Col.
1:15-20
Arguments between Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli
Ex. 12:11, Matt. 26:26; Jn. 3:6, 4:24, 6:63; 1 Cor. 10:16, 2
Cor. 10:5
One loaf, one body
Jn. 14:6, 17:20-23; 1 Cor. 10:16-17
[1] Gregory Nazianzen, The Fifth Theological Oration: on the Holy
Spirit XXVI, in Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II vol. 7, ed.
[2] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[3] Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Dacre, Westminster, 1943), p. 161
[4] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[5] Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Exodus 12:42, quoted in Roger Le Déaut,
“The Targums: Aramaic Versions of the Bible”, on www.notredamedesion.org
[6] Talmud - Mas. Rosh HaShana 11b, on www.halakhah.com. See also Rabbi Mayer Twersky, “And It
Happened at Midnight” (The TorahWeb Foundation, 1999), on www.torahweb.org
[7] cf. Matt. 25:34, 2 Tim. 1:9
[8] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[9] or, in modern Hebrew, “thank you”!
[10] Leviticus Rabba, from The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the
East vol. IV: Medieval
Hebrew (1917), on www.sacred-texts.com
[11] In modern Greek, eucharisto (pronounced “efharisto”)
means “thank you”.
[12] Taylor R. Marshall, The Catholic Perspective on Paul: Paul and
the Origins of Catholic Christianity (Saint John, Dallas, 2010), p. 124
[13] Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (SPCK,
London, 2008), p. 121
[14] Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) V:6, on www.chabad.org
[15] J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (A. & C.
Black, London, 1965), p. 212
[16] C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Puffin, Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 154
[17] C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Puffin, Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 154-5
[18] Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Berakoth 17a, on www.come-and-hear.com
[19] Spelt like this, I mean in the ancient
sense of the word: Latin repraesentare,
meaning “to make present”, “to manifest”, “to show”.
[20] Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II.84-86, in Charles Duke Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus (H. G. Bohn,
London), on www.earlychristianwritings.com
[21] Philo, That the Worse is Wont to Attack the Better 118, in Charles Duke Yonge,
The Works of Philo Judaeus (H. G. Bohn,
London), on www.earlychristianwritings.com
[22] Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues 63, in Charles Duke Yonge, The Works of Philo Judaeus (H. G. Bohn,
London), on www.earlychristianwritings.com
[23] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s
Grandeur”, on www.bartleby.com
[24] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry
(William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2011), p. 21
[25] cf. Origen, Origen de Principiis
III:VI:1, in Ante-Nicene Fathers,
vol. 4, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[26] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry
(William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2011), p. 9
[27] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”,
on www.bartleby.com
[28] The Didache 14, in Early
Christian Writings, ed. Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin, London, 1988)
[29] The Martyrdom of Ignatius I, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[30] Eusebius, History of the Church III.36 (Penguin, London, 1989)
[31] Ignatius, The Epistle to the Philadelphians 4, in Early Christian Writings, ed. Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin, London,
1988)
[32] Ignatius, The Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 7, in Early Christian Writings, ed. Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin, London,
1988)
[33] The Martyrdom of the Holy
Martyrs Justin, Chariton, Charites, Pæon, and Liberianus, who Suffered at Rome, trans. Rev. M. Dods, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[34] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXV-LXVI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[35] Irenaeus, To Florinus, on Sole Sovereignty, or God Is Not the Author of Evil,
quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church
V.20 (Penguin, London, 1989); Tertullian, The
Prescription Against Heretics XXXII, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[36] Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.XVII.5 in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[37] Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.II.2-3, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[38] Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Dacre, Westminster, 1943), p. 253
[39] e.g. Tertullian, On Prayer
XIX.1, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol.
3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org; Origen, Origen Against Celsus VIII.XXXIII, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org; Origen, Homilies on Joshua 2, ed. Cynthia White
(Catholic University of America, Washington, 2002), on books.google.co.uk;
Origen, Homilies on Exodus XIII.3, in
Homilies on Genesis and Exodus,
trans. Ronald E. Heine (Catholic University of America, Washington, 2002), on
books.google.co.uk; Origen, Homilies on
Numbers 7.2.2, ed. Christopher A. Hall (InterVarsity, Downers Grove, 2009),
on books.google.co.uk; Cyprian, On the
Lord’s Prayer 18, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 5, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org;
Cyprian, Epistle LXII “Caecilius, on the Sacrament of the Cup of the Lord”, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org; etc.
[40] Martin Luther, “The Babylonian
Captivity of the Church”, trans. A. T. W. Steinhäuser, rev. by F. C. Ahrens
& A. R. Wentz, p. 18, on www.onthewing.org
[41] John Calvin, Short Treatise on the Supper of Our Lord 12 & 16, on www.the-highway.com
[42] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry
(William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2011), chs. 3-4
[43] George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church (Burns &
Oates, London, 1959), ch. 3
[44] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (William
B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2011), p. 76
[45] Huldreich Zwingli, “An Account of
the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted to the German Emperor Charles V, at
the Diet of Augsburg. (July 3, 1530)”, in The
Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, vol. II, ed. William John Hinke (Heidelberg,
Philadelphia, 1922), p. 48, on archive.org
[46] Huldreich Zwingli, “An Account of the
Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted to the German Emperor Charles V, at the
Diet of Augsburg. (July 3, 1530)”, in The
Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, vol. II, ed. William John Hinke
(Heidelberg, Philadelphia, 1922), p. 52, on archive.org
[47] Huldreich Zwingli, “An Account of
the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted to the German Emperor Charles V, at
the Diet of Augsburg. (July 3, 1530)”, in The
Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, vol. II, ed. William John Hinke (Heidelberg,
Philadelphia, 1922), p. 53, on archive.org
[48] Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (SPCK,
London, 2008), p. 298
[49] Huldreich Zwingli, “An Account of
the Faith of Huldreich Zwingli Submitted to the German Emperor Charles V, at
the Diet of Augsburg. (July 3, 1530)”, in The
Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, vol. II, ed. William John Hinke
(Heidelberg, Philadelphia, 1922), p. 52, on archive.org
[50] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[51] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945) [my emphasis]
[52] John Calvin, Short Treatise on the Supper of Our Lord 57, on www.the-highway.com
[53] “Transcript of the Marburg
Colloquy”, p. 9, on divdl.library.yale.edu
[54] John Eck, “Refutation of the
Articles of Zwingli Presented to His Imperial Majesty (July 17, 1530)”, in The Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli,
vol. II, ed. William John Hinke (Heidelberg, Philadelphia, 1922), p. 88, on
archive.org
[55] Huldreich Zwingli, “Letter of
Huldreich Zwingli to the Most Illustrious Princes of Germany Assembled at
Augsburg, Regarding the Insults of Eck (August 27, 1530)”, in The Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli, vol.
II, ed. William John Hinke (Heidelberg, Philadelphia, 1922), pp. 107 &
119-120, on archive.org
[56] Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Crossroad, New York, 2004), vol. I,
p. 3
[57] Edmund P. Clowney, The Church (Inter-Varsity, Leicester,
1995), p. 81
[58] K
[59] C. S. Lewis, “Transposition”, in Screwtape Proposes a Toast (Fount, London,
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[60] Passover Hagadah, ed. Rabbi Bernard Goldenberg (Yeshiva Mesivta
Rabbi Chaim Berlin, New York, 1945)
[61] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry
(William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2011), p. 87
Empty a packet of balloons onto the table. They make a colourful and attractive sight in their own right. If we imagine Passover to be like the balloons, Jesus breathed himself into the celebration and showed what its true purpose and meaning had been all along.
ReplyDeleteBut the celebration of Passover and the breaking of bread (Emmaus)... are they actually the same thing? Might conflating them risk missing something of importance?