Church Fathers on the Real Presence

Ancient Church Pre-Nicaea

Ignatius of Antioch (~110): “They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up.” (Letter to the Smyrneans 7.2)

Justin Martyr (155): “For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.” (First Apology 66)

Irenaeus of Lyon (~170): “Just as the bread which is from the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is now not common bread but the Eucharist, constituted from two things, earthly and heavenly, so our bodies receiving the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection.” (Against Heresies 4.18.5)

Cyprian of Carthage (251): “With a small child’s sensitivity for the sovereign power of God, she shut tight her mouth with lips pressed hard together to decline the chalice. The deacon however persisted and, though she was resisting, poured into her mouth some of the consecrated elements of the Chalice. There then resulted convulsive sobbing and vomiting. The Eucharist could not remain in her body nor even in her polluted mouth. The drink that had been consecrated in the Blood of the Lord was brought up from her body’s inner organs.” (On the Fallen 25)

Ancient Church Post-Nicaea

Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 387): “Stop, therefore, considering the bread and wine to be ordinary; for they are the body and blood according to the Lord who made the declaration. For even if your senses suggest this to you, let faith confirm you. Do not judge this by taste, but be informed without doubt from faith that you have been made worthy of the body and blood of Christ.” (Lectures on the Christian Sacraments IV.6)

Ambrose of Milan (d. 397): “Perhaps you will say, ‘I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ?’ And this is the point which remains for us to prove. And what evidence shall we make use of? Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed.” (On the Mysteries 50)

John Chrysostom (d. 407): “Christ himself prepares this table and blesses it. No human being, but only Christ himself who was crucified for us, can make of the bread and wine set before us the body and blood of Christ. The words are spoken by the mouth of the priest, but by God’s power and grace through the words that he speaks, ‘This is my body,’ the elements set before us in the Supper are blessed. Just as the words, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,’ were spoken only once but are ever efficacious in nature and make things grow and multiply, so this word was indeed spoken only once, but it is efficacious until this day, and until his return it brings it about that his true body and blood are present in the Lord’s Supper.” (Against the Judeans 1.6)

Council of Ephesus (431): “For common flesh cannot give life. And this our Saviour himself testified when he said: ‘The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit that giveth life.’ For since the flesh became the very own of Word, therefore we understand that it is life-giving, as our Saviour himself said: ‘As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me shall live by me.’” (The Anathemas of St. Cyril against Nestorius Canon 11)

Medieval Church

John of Damascus (d. 749) “The bread and wine are not a figure of the body and blood of Christ – God forbid! – but the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord Himself said: ‘This is my body’; not ‘a figure of my body’ but ‘my body,’ and not ‘a figure of my blood’ but ‘my blood.’” (The Orthodox Faith Book 4 Chapter 1)

Francis of Assisi (d. 1226): “And as he appeared in true flesh to the holy Apostles, so now he shows himself to us in the sacred bread; and as they by means of their fleshly eyes saw only his flesh, yet contemplating Him with their spiritual eyes, believed him to be God, so we, seeing bread and wine with bodily eyes, see and firmly believe it to be his most holy body and true and living blood. And in this way our Lord is ever with his faithful, as he himself says: ‘Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.’” (Admonitions 1)

Thomas à Kempis (1427): “You have prepared a great supper at which You provide us, not with the Lamb of the old law, but Your most holy Body and Blood to be our food. You give joy to all the faithful, enabling them to drink deeply from the cup of salvation. This contains all the joys of heaven, where the Angels share the feast with us, but even greater sweetness.” (The Imitation of Christ Book 3 Chapter 11)

Reformation Era Church

Philipp Melanchthon (1521): “Participation in the Lord’s Supper, that is, eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood, is a sure sign of God’s grace.” (Loci Communes [1521])

Unaltered Augsburg Confession (1530): “It is taught among us that the true body and blood of Christ are really present in the Supper of our Lord under the form of bread and wine and are distributed and received. The contrary doctrine is therefore rejected.” (Augsburg Confession X)

Martin Luther (1537): “We hold that the bread and the wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ and that these are given and received not only by godly but also by wicked Christians.” (Smalcald Articles III.VI.1)

Martin Chemnitz (1574): “We grant, with Irenaeus, that after the blessing in the Eucharist the bread is no longer common bread but the Eucharist of the body of Christ, which now consists of two things – the earthly, that is, bread and wine, and the heavenly, that is, the body and blood of Christ. This is certainly a great, miraculous, and truly divine change, since before it was simply only ordinary bread and common wine. What now, after the blessing, is truly and substantially present, offered, and received is truly and substantially the body and blood of Christ. Therefore we grant that a certain change takes place, so that it can truly be said of the bread that it is the body of Christ. But we deny that it follows from this that we must therefore assert the kind of transubstantiation that the papalists teach … it is sufficient to believe that here the body and blood of Christ is present, offered, and received. Let us commit the mode of His presence to His wisdom and almighty power.” (Examination of the Council of Trent Part II Third Topic Section IV.8)

Pastor Heide