Interlude

This series is, in part, a response to FishEaters, who was raised up as a credible expert on the Roman Catholic Eucharist:

I had, for a while, wanted to respond to FishEaters’ “The Eucharist,” but we needed to set up the ground work of this series before we could attempt it. Now, in this interlude, we will partially examine FishEaters’ explicit claims.

In her “great write-up”, there are many errors and unfounded assumptions. It is difficult to take it seriously. Yet, in my experience, FishEaters is fairly typical as far as Roman Catholic apologists go. This is not hyperbole, nor an ad hominem. FishEaters demonstrates things like cherry-picking, failing to check her references (e.g. in “Abolishing the Sacrifice” below), and leaps of inference, and so makes trivial mistakes. But, don’t worry, I’m not just making empty claims, I’ll show it below.

Complexity

FishEaters’ statements are so full of loaded words and phrases, that we have to break them down piece-by-piece. Consider these sentences:

Look how many terms of art there are:

• The Mass
• True Sacrifice
• Order of Melchizedek
• The Graces
• Sacramentally
• Appearance(s) of bread and wine
• Ordained
• Really and Truly Present

Of these, only one (or maybe two) is mentioned—in the sense given above—explicitly in the Bible. If you are not a Roman Catholic, there is a very good chance probably don’t even know what she is talking about. But the complexity doesn’t end there. These sentences assume the following doctrines and dogmas:

• Transubstantiation
• The Real Presence
• The sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood
• The doctrines of the graces, priesthood, and the sacraments.

What is one to do with this? To even respond to it, you have to address each one of these things. Were I to attempt this, it would take months of articles, just as this series on the Eucharist. The underlying assumptions make it too complex to address it directly.

So what are we to do? Deny the Roman Catholic assumptions:

First, no church writer in the first 300 years of the church ever offers Christ’s body and blood as a sacrifice. Without this, transubstantiation, the real presence, and the sacrifice of the body and blood are just later innovations.

By contrast, this series has shown that the thanksgiving is a true sacrifice—of prayer, praise, hymns, service, gratitude, a pure heart, a pure mind, and the giving of gifts and tithes—in fulfillment of Malachi 1.

As per Part 26: Lactantius, the offering is of the incorporeal, because the altar of God is in heaven.

As discussed in Part 8: Interlude, this is attested by Jesus, the apostles, the Didache, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius, Aphrahat, Athanasius, and Cyril. Far from being a minor view, about a third of those we discuss in this series state it explicitly.

Second, no church writer in the first 300 years of the church ever offers views Christ’s body and blood literally (i.e. not a symbol).

Third, no church writer in the first 300 years of the church ever distinguishes between the appearance and substance of the bread and wine. At most they talk about the bread and wine having two simultaneous natures (e.g. physical food and spiritual “body”)

Fourth, the doctrines of the sacraments are a based on a Greek-to-Latin translation error in the late 4th century. As we discussed in Part 9: Tertullian, the conflation of ‘mystery’ with ‘sacrament’ is invalid. Moreover, the concept of “graces”, as part of the Roman Catholic conception within the sacramental systems, is an invention of Roman Catholicism. We discuss this in more detail in Part 34: Hilary of Poitiers.

Fifth, the Bible teaches that all Christian men and women are priests. With respect to the Roman Catholic innovation of “sacraments” and “the Mass,” this is especially relevant. See The Protestation of Dr. Hugh Latimer. As Hugh Latimer pointed out, if priests are to offer Christ to the Father, than this implies that only priests should take part in the sacrament, not the laity. For the laity to take part exposes the logical contradiction in the Mass sacrifice.

In short, Roman Catholicism didn’t exist prior to the late 4th-century. The answer to all the Roman Catholic innovations is not to address those innovations directly, but merely to point out that they have no basis in the first 300 years of the church, and are thus not apostolic nor part of church tradition.

A Hint of a Problem

Above we cited Malachi 1:11. We see hints of a problem with FishEaters stance in the way she handles scripture:

Notice her annotations of scripture. I wouldn’t normally complain about this, except that the Douay-Reims is an English translation from the Latin Vulgate, and so inherits all of the errors of the parent plus the ones introduced by the English translation. Neither of these translations are critical translations, that is, scholars do not look to either of these as being authoritative of what the originals contained. Notice how she prefers sacrifice over incense because the former (somewhat) supports a Roman liturgy, but the latter does not. Let me demonstrate.

First, she cites 2 Chronicles 4:2:

The word for incense here is qetoreth (smoke, incense). The word for incense used in Malachi is qatar (to make sacrifices smoke), whose origin is a denominative verb which comes from qetoreth. They are also related to qitor which means “thick smoke.” All these related words refer to smoke. They are often translated as incense for this reason, because any smoke of a sacrifice that is pleasing to God is “incense.” To the extent that it refers to sacrifice, it refers to the smoke: the smoke of sacrifice.

Second, the word “incense” in Malachi is translated as thymiama (θυμίαμα) in the Greek Septuagint. This translation is the Old Testament which Jesus, the Apostles, and the early church writers quoted from in their writings. The Greek word means aromatic incense or odor. That is the same word as used by John the Revelator, who identifies the incense as prayers.

Third, it is translated as “incense” in almost every English translation. It is, notably, the Catholic translations that avoid using incense.

Fourth, she wants you to accept the Latin Vulgate as authoritative, not the earlier Greek and original Hebrew:

In Hebrew, the words are qatar (קָטַר) and minchah (מִנְחָה). In the Greek Septuagint, they are thymiama (θυμίαμα) and thysia (θυσία). Ironically, in both Hebrew and Greek, the second word—for “offering” (KJV) and “oblatio” (Latin)—means sacrifice. But the first word in Latin “sacrificatur” means sacrifice! This mistranslation…

…removes the distinction found in the original “incense,” as if ‘sacrifices and sacrifices would be sacrificed’ (i.e. offered). FishEaters did not cite Revelation 5:8, which calls the incense that God receives the “prayers of God’s people.” It is no wonder, given her opinion of any version of the Bible that goes against the Roman liturgy:

FishEaters just assumed that the official Catholic version of the Bible must be correct and that every other version must be incorrect, including the earlier and original versions. In doing so, she implicitly called the original Bible faulty! This is quite illustrative of the contrast between sola ecclesia—the church alone—and sola scriptura—scripture alone. Faced with a conflict between scripture and her church, FishEaters chose the latter.

We have seen throughout this series how the habit of using pro-Roman Catholic Latin translations instead of the original and earlier Greek in the church fathers has led to a number of egregious intentional mistranslations (e.g. in English). We are not going to repeat that mistake here.

Fifth, she doth protest too much:

Our sacrifice is our thanksgiving which we offer in Spirit and in truth. As John the Revelator saw, the incense that God receives are the prayers of God’s people.

The Priesthood

FishEaters moves to the crux of the issue:

Yes, she has asked the right question. But we have already answered it! The true sacrifices are the prayers of the people of God:

These are the thanksgiving, the sacrifice of prayer, praise, hymns, service, gratitude, a pure heart, a pure mind, and the giving of gifts and tithes. This fulfills the prophecy of Malachi 1:11. These are offered by every Christian in every place in every time before God, and so every Christian is a priest:

True worship was always sacrificial worship. For the Samaritans this was on Mount Gerizim. For the Jews it was in Jerusalem. But for Christians it is no longer animals or anything else corporeal, nor is it at any particular location: our sacrifice is now in Spirit and truth alone in all places. This is why Jesus setup a thanksgiving and why he commanded it of us. It is our thanksgiving [offering] to God.

When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, he told her that his followers would worship in Spirit and truth now. Not after Christ’s last supper, crucifixion, death, resurrection, or ascension: now. The sacrificial worship that would be made in all places and in all nations began even then before Christ’s offering himself as the Paschal sacrifice, even before he offered the bread and wine at the Last Supper.

Abolishing the Sacrifice

On one hand, FishEaters says this…

…but on the other she says this:

The Korbonot she lists are the Korban Todah (thanksgiving offerings), Korban Pesach (Passover Offering), and the Red Heifer offering of Melchizedek. Here are the problems:

First, her Jewish references do not support her claim. Here is what the Midrash says:

The Messiah was to abolish all offerings and all prayers except the thanksgiving. When has the Roman Catholic church abolished all prayers except the thanksgiving? Perhaps it has abolished prayers to the dead and prayers to the saints? Moreover, this also directly contradicts her claim that Christ’s death on the cross brings together all the sacrifices. Bringing them all together is not abolishing anything.

But what about the other Jewish reference:

If Jesus abolished all sacrifice except the thanksgiving, then the purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to thank God for the sacrifice of his son and the salvation that he brought, which is precisely what a remembrance service accomplishes. After all, when Jesus went to the cross for us, he caused death to permanently pass over us. So every time we gather, in perpetuity, we are to give thanks for that. That thanks is our thanksgiving, our only thanksgiving. But the Roman Catholic does not believe this.

FishEaters is throwing Jewish quotes as Protestants, but those quotes do not support her claims. FishEaters does not understand the reference she is using—the Haggada from the 2nd or 3rd century:

Do you know what’s missing there? Any reference to what FishEaters has claimed. It is certainly no Jewish justification for offering Jesus as the Passover sacrifice, something no one in the first 300 years of the church ever did, and no Jew has ever done.

The link FishEaters provided only shows the reference in Hebrew alongside the English commentary she referenced. She clearly didn’t bother to read the actual translated text, or she would have realized that it is a reference to the Hebrew people triumphing over their enemies who had enslaved them, not a reference to the Passover sacrifice being repeated. Let’s emphasize this: the Jews perpetually celebrated the Passover as remembrance of God saving them from slavery—their national redemption! Passover is a celebration of the solidarity of Jewish Nationalism!

The Jews do not perpetually offer the sacrifice of a lamb at Passover. They no longer make sacrifices. It should be obvious as a matter of historical fact, that FishEaters’ claim is impossible. FishEaters is so blinded by her Roman axiom that she can’t even imagine that the evidence might not support her claims. She just assumes that it does, without even bothering to check it.

Second, she doesn’t list all the Korbonot. The Old Testament describes many more sacrifices than the three that she gave. She doesn’t’ explain how all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, besides those few restricted, are “brought together” in Christ. She’s just selected three of them and ignored the rest.

Third, the thanksgiving sacrifice that Christ established is incorporeal and he set it up long before the Last Supper or his death and resurrection on the cross. Jesus discussed this with the Samaritan Woman at the Well.

The Bread of Life

This is ironic, considering what Cyril wrote:

Cyril, writing in 350AD and whom we discussed in Part 25, is in complete opposition to FishEaters, in no uncertain terms. By Cyril’s reasoning, FishEaters has fallen in with the error made by the Jews: supposing that he was inviting them to eat his (literal) flesh. Moreover, no church writer in the first 300 years of the church agrees with her claim. For the early church, the body and blood of Christ were figurative of spiritual things.

FishEaters simply took the Roman Catholic understanding and read it right into scripture. The irony of FishEaters’ position is completely lost on her:

The Jews scorned Jesus because Jesus told them that his flesh and blood were figures and they thought he was speaking literally. Do you know—according to FishEaters—the best way to defend Jesus from scorning? Join in with those who scorned him!

What was so hard about Jesus being the Bread of Life? Accepting the Word of God that he received from his Father. Indeed, for billions of people—many of which are Roman Catholic—it has been incredibly difficult to accept what Jesus was saying about his doctrine in John 6. The single largest body of “Christians” is unable to accept his hard saying! It doesn’t get any harder than that.

FishEaters seems to be asking “What if Jesus’ hard saying wasn’t actually a hard saying at all, but was actually so easy that my denomination could dominate for 1500 years?” If that’s what a hard saying means, then Roman Catholicism falls to her very own objection!

Sacrificed on a Thursday

As we go throughout this series, we have seen where Roman Catholicism got its ideas. When did Roman Catholicism get the idea that the Final Passover actually took place the day before Jesus was crucified at the Lord’s Supper? We read about that in Part 23: Gregory of Nyssa.

Gregory noticed a big problem. Since the last Supper was on Thursday, but Jesus was crucified and died on Friday, there wasn’t enough “days” for Gregory to count to three. So he came up with a creative way around this problem. In 373, he was the first to claim that Jesus offered his (crucified, dead, and buried) flesh at the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, Gregory said that Jesus was actually in the grave even as he served his disciples. Since Jesus was dead and in the grave, even as he served himself, Gregory could now count to three days in the grave.

This innovation would need to be refined (e.g. Jesus had to serve his living flesh), but it eventually turned into an orthodox Roman Catholic belief. But no writer in the first 300 years of the church ever made this claim. Christ sacrificed himself on the cross, not at the Lord’s Supper. FishEaters’ attempt to merge the Thanksgiving and Paschal sacrifices into one falls flat.

Moreover, FishEaters’ is very confused about the chronology:

According to Gregory of Nyssa and the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Last Supper was on a Thursday and Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The whole reason Gregory’s solution “worked” is because the Last Supper was not on Friday. Since FishEaters’ chronology seems integral to her merging of the sacrifices into one, a miscalculation would invalidate her argument. Considering that there are some who hold to a Wednesday crucifixion and a literal 3 days / 3 nights in the grave, it’s best not to debate the correct chronology at this time, but rather simply be aware of the issue, and how these other writings disagree with FishEaters’ private interpretation. Since, according to FishEaters the Lord’s Supper was really on a Friday due to her selected chronology, we would like to know how she calculates her three days in the grave.

In any case, the original sacrifice of the Lamb to put blood on the doorframe took place the very same night that the angel passed over. Jesus was crucified and died during the day. For someone placing extreme emphasis on the precise arrangement of hours in the day, this is sloppy and arbitrary.

Time Travel

FishEaters view requires one to subscribe to particular philosophies of time and infinities that are not, themselves, specified anywhere in Scripture:

For what its worth, FishEaters’ viewpoint is difficult to distinguish from Part 23: Gregory of Nyssa, who had to have Jesus die on Thursday before he died on Friday in order to be in the grave long enough to count to three days.

There are a host of metaphysical reasons why the space-time-defying, time-traveling Jesus doesn’t make sense. Most notably, it invalidates the incarnation. Suffice it to say that FishEaters hasn’t thought through the consequences that the “eternal present” view of time (which she didn’t invent) has on other doctrines and aspects of Jesus’ life. She really just wants you to accept time travel “only here and not anywhere else and don’t look over there,” which makes no sense at all.

There is no reason at all, other than to support a medieval Roman liturgy, to make these kinds of philosophical and metaphysical commitments, especially when those commitments are not rationally consistent. Each and every new appeal to a “mystery” undermines the rationality of the claims being made.

Miscellany

Yes, we agree. When we tell the truth, it evokes in listeners an infuriating state. Nobody likes to hear the truth when it opposes their deeply held beliefs. It is sad, even infuriating, that Roman Catholics are easily deceived. But, as we’ll see with Joshua Charles below, this deception is freely chosen.

And they’d be correct. The early church banned kneeling on Sunday and any time during Pentecost. Kneeling during those times is a Roman Catholic novelty.

This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984:

It’s the only way they can get you to accept a lie as truth. It is the Roman Catholic’s most essential command, for the acceptance of the bread as literal flesh is the very essence of what it means to be a Roman Catholic. Without the Mass sacrifice, there is no Roman Catholicism.

It is impossible to assent intellectually to what the Roman Catholic Church has taught for two millenia, because it didn’t exist prior to the late 4th century. It is truly ironic to describe Protestants as succumbing to “feelings” when the Roman Eucharistic liturgy is an historical anachronism. It is ironic that the Roman Catholic church flees to their feelings of mystery as an ‘explanation’ for its dogmas and doctrines when it cannot use history or the rational mind.

It is true, that either one listens to the Roman Catholic church or one doesn’t. You do have to pick one. But in choosing whether to obey the Roman Catholic church, you are not also choosing whether or not you read scripture, or intellectually assent to the early church teachings. Indeed, if you listen to the Roman Catholic church, you cannot assent to what the early church taught, for the Roman liturgy did not exist in the first 300 years of the church. Choosing what the Roman Catholic church says goes against the testimony of scripture. You cannot choose both church and scripture.

Credulity

There is a famous video of the 1955 atomic bomb test in Nevada. These days, its biggest claim to fame on social media is pushing the theory that it was faked because the camera wasn’t destroyed.

If someone of reasonable intelligence with some knowledge of how to build things took a minute or two to actually think it through, they’d be able to come up with one, two, or even three designs for how to build a camera enclosure to survive the blast. The theory that the video is faked is based entirely on the simple failure to just use one’s mind.

At the opening of this interlude, I said:

Most of her mistakes are really easy to avoid, as in, a minute or two of research on Google would yield an explanation that would completely counter her statement. Yeah, it’s that easy. But FishEaters can’t even be bothered to spend a minute or two questioning her own belief. Let’s emphasize this: most people do not even attempt to disprove their own claims, let alone seriously consider their merits.

FishEaters is clearly not putting her own views to the challenge, because she doesn’t even check her references. Her errors are not accidental typos, nor are they—at the other extreme—failures to understand complex contextual language. She’s not even trying. Most of her copy-and-paste quotes can be found exactly on a dozen other websites, with little to no change in markup, let alone links to the primary sources. Even the ellipses (“…”) are found in the same location! With the Jewish sources, she found something that seemed to support her view, so she used it without checking to see if it actually supported her view (or worse, she did check, but used it anyway).

Joshua Charles, another apologist, does check his references, but he readily blocks people (see here, here, and here) who sufficiently challenge him. Prior to his conversion, he willingy challenged his Protestant beliefs, only to convert to Roman Catholicism by, in his own words here, exchanging discussion for decision (i.e. authority; being told what to do; obedience). He wasn’t convinced by argument. In fact, he was explicitly avoiding what he termed “interminable and unresolvable” debates.

To this day, Joshua Charles actively resists having his views challenged by others, and this shows in the way he “argues.” For example, in Becoming Catholic #13, he states that the Mass Sacrifice is found in Justin Martyr. Mind you, not even the Catholic Encyclopedia is so bold, and Part 3: Justin Martyr shows why. But it doesn’t end there. In his writings on the Eucharist, he cites many of the writers in the first 300 years of the church as if they describe a Roman liturgy. He is credulous when it comes to Roman Catholic doctrine, because it is rooted in obedience to someone else’s decision. Beyond the choice to obey another, he denies his own agency.

Many Roman Catholics are not interested in debate or questioning their own views because their faith is rooted in authoritarianism (and its kin, the fallacious argument from authority). There isn’t anything to debate when you’ve made up your mind, and having your mind made up—blind obedience—on theological matters is publicly required, under threat of excommunication, by Roman Catholic decree (see: “Religious Discussions” in the Catholic Encyclopedia).

A proper intellectual (or scientific) inquiry involves detailed—not limited—examinations of the relevant evidence, including producing hypotheses and theories. The more evidence, the better. What is the most surefire way to tell when you are being subject to propaganda? When the addition of more evidence is viewed as a threat.

I spend an inordinate amount of time putting my viewpoints to the test. I go out of my way to post quotations and opinions of people who hold the opposing viewpoints, trying to avoid where possible quotations from people who agree with me if a quote from an opponent would suffice. I have a whole blog dedicated, in part, to putting my ideas out there with the express purpose of getting them challenged. I even go to other forums for this purpose.  I’ve never blocked anyone on this site, nor otherwise engaged in viewpoint censorship. What I’ve found, invariably, is that no one is more willing to challenge all viewpoints—including my own—than I am. Oh, the people I talk to are quite willing to challenge my viewpoints… but only as long as I don’t challenge theirs.

What makes this disappointing isn’t that Bardelys has imputed certain motivations onto me—which reflects the lamentable state of modern intellectual discourse—but that other readers here will have no opportunity to hear any cross-examination. I’d love to avoid strawmen, but the best I can do is post links to Roman Catholic apologists and respond to them, as in this interlude. I hope that’s enough.