What's the purpose of Israel in history?

[steve]

Paidion wrote:

I know of no other writings prior to 200 A.D which "favored infant baptism, monarchial bishops and eucharistic transubstantiation." Or even one of these three.

It is true that I was thinking primarily of the writings of Ignatius. The theories about interpolations to his writings are, I think, theoretical, but I am no expert on patristics so as to assess their genuineness. I would like to believe that Ignatius did not write his letters, so that I would not have to believe the church degenerated so quickly into the institutionalism found in them. There is no question that, as the letters stand today, they assume the institution of monarchial bishops.

Ignatius (or Pseudo-Ignatius) wrote: "I desire the bread of GOD, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ" (Epistle to the Romans, 7), and identified as "heretics" those who "confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins" (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, 7).

Apart from the alleged writings of Ignatius, the idea that the early church held transubstantiation is indeed tenuous, but there are some additional witnesses.

Justin Martyr (c.150) wrote that "we [have] 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" (First Apology, LXVI). Admittedly, this could be taken non-literally, and, in his Dialogue With Trypho (ch.70), he seems to take the view that it is primarily a memorial of the flesh and blood of Christ—perhaps not literal.

Tertullian (c.200) wrote: "Taking bread and distributing it to his disciples he made it his own body..."(Against Marcion IV. 40). Again, Tertullian's language could be symbolic too.

Roman Catholics appeal to the above for their claims that transubstantiation was the early opinion of the fathers.

The claims that infant baptism was practiced from earliest times is made by Origen (185–254): "The Church had a tradition from the Apostles, to give baptism even to infants" (Commentary on Romans 5.9). He also wrote: "Baptism according to the practice of the Church is given even to infants" (Homilies on Leviticus 8.3.11) and "Infants are baptised for the remission of sins . . . That is the reason why infants too are baptised" (Homily on Luke 14.5).

Irenaeus (130–202) also spoke of infants being "born again to God" (Against Heresies 2:22:4), which, given the connection in the minds of the early believers between rebirth and baptism, probably refers to the latter.

If Ignatius' writings are genuine (about which you have raised legitimate doubts) then all three doctrines—monarchial bishops, transubstantiation and paedobaptism—were taught and practiced in the early church. This does not mean that I believe in any of these doctrines. That was my point to Homer, namely, that we can not always trust that the understanding of the church fathers represents the only, or best, interpretation of New Testament teachings.

[Paidion]

Thank you Steve, for searching out the non-Ignatian writings which may appear to teach that the bread and wine of the eucharist changes into the body and blood of Christ, if interpreted with this idea already in mind.

The Justin Martyr quote does not indicate "transmutation" in the Catholic sense of the bread and wine becoming the physical body and blood of Christ. Jesus Himself said of the bread, "This is my body" but clearly didn't mean His physical body since His physical body was present with them, and they were not eating His flesh.

But Justin's comment is unclear. What he says is that "our our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished" from the food of the eucharist (thanksgiving). That is, food is changed into a form by which our body can become nourished. This is an obvious fact of life. I think that when he said that this food "is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh", he meant it in the same sense that Jesus meant it, and that he may have been suggesting that just as our bodies are physically nourished by food after being changed into a form our bodies can use, so the spiritual aspect of us can be nourished by the presence of Christ in spirit, when we feed on Him, as we are eating physical bread, and drink in the life of Christ while we drink the physical wine. Jesus Himself said, "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." (John 6:53) His disciples found this to be a hard saying, and many of them no longer walked with Him. The Pharisees scoffed, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

I searched Irenæus, Against Heresies 2:22:4, but was unable to find the quote. Perhaps the reference is incorrect. I hope to study the other quotes when I can get to them.

And yes, Tertullian wrote, "Then having taken bread and distributing it to his disciples, He made it his own body..."but I think the rest of the sentence ought to have quoted, since it explains that this is figurative:
"Then having taken bread and distributing it to his disciples, He made it his own body, by saying, 'This is my body,' that is, the figure of my body."

Hopefully, I'll write more about this later.

I hold the Christian writers prior to 200 A.D. in high esteem. Even as a young man, the thought came to me that they were in a better position to understand the writings of the New Testament than we, 2000 years later. If it hadn't been for these writers, I would probably still believe in unconditional security, as I did when I was a Calvinist. These writers "hit me square between the eyes" with their warnings concerning those who had departed from the faith, and so that I repented of this false and dangerous belief many years ago.

[steve]

I re-looked at the Irenaeus reference and could not quickly locate it. Perhaps I wrote the wrong reference down. I was trusting a secondary source, but have attempted to find it in the primary source—thus far without success.

[Ian]

Hi Paidion, you wrote:

If it hadn't been for these writers, I would probably still believe in unconditional security, as I did when I was a Calvinist. These writers "hit me square between the eyes" with their warnings concerning those who had departed from the faith,

I`m not a Calvinist but are you saying that you think that they have gone so far as to depart from the faith ie that they aren`t Christians?

[Paidion]

No, I meant that these early writers taught me that it is possible for a person to be in the faith and then depart from it.

[Homer]

For an explanation of "salted with fire" that is simple and in harmony with the context see here:

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hil ... GTJ-85.pdf

[steve]

I read the article. It is interesting. If it is correct, this goes a long way in removing the difficulty, mentioned above, with my identification of Gehenna with AD70. If "destroyed completely" is the meaning of "salted," then the likelihood is greater that Gehenna is the place of utter destruction, as AD 70 was.

It also would fit well with my earlier suggestion that "destroy soul and body" (also referring to Gehenna—Matt.10:28) means "destroy completely."

Of course, this would leave unaddressed any questions of postmortem destinies. Thanks for doing that research, Homer. It has helped my case considerably.

[Homer]

Paidion,

Earlier you wrote:

The Justin Martyr quote does not indicate "transmutation" in the Catholic sense of the bread and wine becoming the physical body and blood of Christ. Jesus Himself said of the bread, "This is my body" but clearly didn't mean His physical body since His physical body was present with them, and they were not eating His flesh.

But Justin's comment is unclear.

I have the Ante Nicene fathers set with the extra index volume but, as mentioned earlier, almost all my books are in temporary storage, including those by Everett Ferguson on the beliefs of the early fathers. I do know that Ferguson, regarding transubstantiation, says that the statements as translated are ambiguous and are even more ambiguous in the Greek.

Have you read this from Irenaeus:

"These slaves had nothing to say that would meet the wishes of their tormentors, except that they had heard from their masters that the divine communion was the body and blood of Christ. Now, imagining that it was actually flesh and blood, those slaves gave to their inquisitors answer to that effect." Irenaeus 1.570

[dwilkins]

For an explanation of "salted with fire" that is simple and in harmony with the context see here:

http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hil ... GTJ-85.pdf


:

Interesting. This fits precisely into the Aramaic New Testament primacy movement. There are literally hundreds of examples similar to this one indicating that, at the very least, the New Testament is full of Semitic thought that hasn't been translated well into Greek.

Doug

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 3778,d.aWc

[Homer]

Doug,

You wrote:

There are literally hundreds of examples similar to this one indicating that, at the very least, the New Testament is full of Semitic thought that hasn't been translated well into Greek.

Which brings to mind C.F. Burney's book "The Poetry of Our Lord" wherein Burney translated Jesus' sayings into Aramaic and discovered much of what Jesus said was in the form of Hebrew poetry.