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Faith Hope Charity · 12-28-2006, 09:03 AM

In the name of God - Father Son Holy Spirit.

I'm back from Mass & pumped for another round - LOL!

Quote:I'll post another entry containing relevant info concerning symbolism/literalism & stance of the Early Church Fathers.

CC's quotes from the Early Church Fathers are gold! I don't think it's neccasry for me to post more. I urge you to read the book CC recommended (the Lamb's Supper - Dr Scott Hahn). If you're like me & don't have time to read... buy the audio discs :) I give it 5 stars * * * * *

Speaking of brilliant books & admirable authors, here are some excerpts from "Defend the Faith" by Robert Haddad, explaining the various ways to interpret Jesus' sayings. Sorry, I couldn't shorten the length of it! I hope you find it helpful :)

Our Lord used words either literally or figuratively. The issue surrounding verses 35-71 is how to determine what meaning He intended to give.

Our Lord Himself gives us two basic rules to resolve this dilemma.

Rule number one: When Our Lord spoke figuratively but was taken literally, He always corrected the mistake of His listeners immediately.

Example A: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (St. Matt. 16:5).

The Apostles took these words literally and began to argue among themselves about the fact that they had no bread. Then Our Lord said, “How is it that you fail to perceive that I did not speak about bread…Then they understood that he did not tell them to be aware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (vv. 11-12).

Example B: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep” (St. John 11:11).

The Apostles again took Our Lord literally and said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover” (v. 12). Immediately came the correction, “Lazarus is dead” (v. 14).

Example C: “…unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (St. John 3:3).

Nicodemus automatically took these words literally and replied, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (3:4). Our Lord’s answer immediately dispelled Nicodemus’ error, showing that He meant a spiritual, not physical, rebirth: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5).

Rule number two: When Our Lord spoke literally, and those who heard Him understood Him correctly but refused to accept what He said, He reasserted the literal meaning again more forcibly.

Example A: “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven” (St. Matt. 9:2).

The Scribes at hearing these words were greatly disturbed and said among themselves, “This man is blaspheming” (9:3). However, Christ did not try to water down or explain away His words but reasserted His claim to forgive sins by miraculously healing the paralytic before all.

Example B: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day” (St. John 8:56).

The Jews correctly understood Our Lord literally but rejected Him asserting, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” (8:57). Our Lord’s solemn reply, which brought forth the immediate wrath of the Jews and the risk of being stoned to death, was, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (8, 58-59).

Keeping in mind these two rules, let us examine Our Lord’s discourse in St. John 6.

Our Lord proclaims “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (vv. 48-51). The Jews present understood Christ literally but could not accept what He said: “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (v. 52). But Christ reinforced His literal meaning saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (vv. 53-56).

Not satisfied with this, Our Lord went further and solemnly invoked His Father’s Name to confirm His meaning: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever” (vv. 57-58). Nevertheless, the Jews continued in their disbelief, seeing in Christ’s words a literal meaning that contradicted the Mosaic prohibition against the consumption of blood (Lev. 17:14): “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (v. 60). But knowing their murmuring, Christ again did not retreat or explain away His words, rather He implicitly asserted His own divine authority and future glorification: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” (v. 62).

By now this was too much for the Jews who “drew back and no longer went about with him” (v. 66). Christ had now lost most of His long-time and closest followers but he allowed them to go even though He had earlier declared “that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me” (v. 39). Is it reasonable to believe that He would have allowed such a catastrophe over a simple misunderstanding, particularly in light of His established habit of correcting past misunderstandings? He went further still and challenged the Apostles themselves: “Do you also wish to go away?” (v. 67). Christ was prepared to lose all human support rather than deny the literal truth of His words.

This was the first apostasy from the Body of Christ recorded in history, an apostasy which even claimed one of the Apostles: “For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him” (v. 64). This apostasy continues in the denials of Protestantism, which since the sixteenth century has repeatedly said of Catholic belief in the Real Presence, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Catholics, on the other hand, profess the faith of Simon Peter who, though not having full understanding himself, answered “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (v. 68).

Most Fundamentalist authors claim that they can prove that Christ was speaking only metaphorically by comparing His words in St. John 6:35 (“I am the bread of life”) to verses such as St. John 10:9 (“I am the door”) and St. John 15:1 (“I am the true vine”). The problem with such an argument, however, is that there is no connection between St. John 6:35 and these latter verses. Furthermore, St. John 10:9 and 15:1 make sense as metaphors while, as we shall see, St. John 6:35 does not. In addition, Our Lord Himself takes St. John 6:35 beyond symbolism by repeating four times the injunction “to eat my flesh and drink my blood” and saying “for my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (v. 55).

Another Protestant objection revolves around the claim that Christ’s phrase “to eat his flesh and drink his blood” was a figurative way of saying to believe and have faith in Him. There is some truth in the assertion that such a phrase had a figurative meaning. However, in the cultures of the Middle East it meant to calumniate, revile, attack or insult someone unjustly. It is, therefore, nonsense to argue that Christ would have used this phrase in the popular figurative sense, for that would have been tantamount to Christ asking His followers to sin against Him in order to inherit eternal life! It should also be noted that the Greek word used for “eat” in St. John literally means “to gnaw.” This is not the language of figuration.

A final Protestant appeal is also made to St. John 6:63: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” We are told that these words mean that the eating of flesh is of no spiritual value, and only faith can profit one unto eternal life. So, Christ could not have meant to eat His flesh in order to have life. The Catholic response is that Christ was, in reality, making an appeal to His listeners to trust Him on faith rather than try to rationalize His words in order to find their true meaning. In the previous verse (v. 62) Christ infers that His listeners would have had no difficulty accepting His words if they had seen Him in His original glory, that is, as the Son of God equal to the Father, for then His words would obviously be the words of God rather than the words of man––words of “spirit and life.”

To conclude, it is also necessary to examine the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapters 10 and 11. In these chapters he sternly chastises the Corinthians for their idolatry and their poor attitude towards reception of the Eucharist. His language is remarkably literal and blunt:

"I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ (10:1-4) … Therefore, my beloved, shun the worship of idols … The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread (10:14-17) … You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons (10:21-22)…"

In verses 1-4, St. Paul is regarding the manna, the water and the rock as types of things to come. This ties in with the words of Christ in St. John, outlined earlier, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die” (vv. 48-50). The early Christians saw the Eucharist as a fulfillment of the promised manna, but unlike those who ate the manna, he who eats the bread of the Eucharist will “live forever” (v. 51).

The language of verses 14-17 again is the type that excludes all sense of the figurative or symbolic. St. Paul speaks directly of “participation in the blood and body of Christ.” St. Paul uses even more striking language in chapter 11:

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the 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. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died" (vv. 23-31). 

Some scholars believe this written account of the institution of the Eucharist predates all the Gospel accounts. Stephen Ray, a recent convert to Catholicism from Evangelical Christianity, comments on vv. 23-31 as follows:

"Being guilty of someone’s ‘body and blood’ was to be guilty of murder. How could one be guilty of murder if the body (bread) was only a symbol? The Real Presence of Christ’s Body is necessary for an offense to be committed against it. How could one be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ by simply eating a little bread and drinking a little wine?…St. Paul’s words are meaningless without the dogma of the Real Presence."

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