This is part of a series on Roman Catholicism and the eucharist. See this index.

Copy-and-Paste Apologetics

A while back I did a 40-part series on the Eucharist entitled “What the Earliest Christians Wrote About the Eucharist.” It was based on a post made by Roman Catholic apologist Fish Eaters. During that series I noted how often Roman Catholic apologists engage in “copy-and-paste apologetics.”

For example:

…and…

…and…

Now a Twitter/X user @catholicfan2 is taking Timothy Kauffman to task here:

And, as we’ll see, it’s just one copy-and-paste after another (see Kauffman’s response here).

The origin of the term “sacrifice of the mass” is the “dismissal sacrifice” because “missa” (from which we get the word “Mass”) means “dismissal” in Latin. Let’s take CatholicEnthusiat’s statement…

…and simplify it by removing the interpretation and paraphrasing:

Now that is interesting! Here is Kauffman’s view:

These are both saying exactly the same thing.

CE has added his own baggage to the terms used by the early writers (e.g. “Jesus made” and “re-presented”), but once that baggage is removed—to avoid circular reasoning—a very different picture emerges. Without adding the much later standardized language of Roman Catholicism back into history, the Roman Catholic viewpoint is no longer found there.

Furthermore, it’s not like the Roman Catholic is shining the light of clarity on the situation:

The Roman Catholic doesn’t have the explanation for the dismissal because Roman Catholicism has altered the liturgy from the original. CE thinks Kauffman is wrong, but CE’s church offers an insufficient alternative. In other words, CR speaks of the “sacrifice of the mass” without even knowing what the “mass” is, let alone why there is a sacrifice of it, especially because the “sacrifice of the mass” isn’t sacrificing the mass. His confidence that it refers to “the sacrifices Jesus made on the cross is re-presented at the mass” must be properly contrasted with his ignorance of what “the mass” is.

Protestants have long objected to the Roman Catholic Church using Latin and its hostility towards the laymen reading scripture in the vernacular. All of these keep the meaning of scripture away from the common man. Similarly, the common man doesn’t know what “Mass” is because it’s in a language they do not know. Roman Catholic tradition is so far removed from its history that not even the Latin-speaking priestly caste knows why it is called the “Mass.”

Kauffman has offered him the explanation, but CE doesn’t like it.

Ignatius of Antioch

This is cut-and-paste theology. Here is what Ignatius wrote:

For those who have read our series, you already know where this is going. It’s the same argument exactly that Fish Eaters made:

CE’s statement leaves out the fact that Ignatius is talking about the thanksgiving (‘eucharist’) in the context of helping the poor. That’s because the eucharist is the tithe offered in thanks. By contrast, the Roman Catholic Eucharist is not a tithe offering for the poor, so the copy-and-paste apologists always leave out the preceding sentence that establishes the context of the eucharist.

The reason the Gnostics didn’t consecrate—by the words of institution—the tithe offering was because they didn’t participate in the offering of the tithe for the poor in the first place. They were dismissed. This is one of the clearest examples of the thanksgiving being a “sacrifice of the dismissal” in the early church writings.

The Roman Catholic must read this as a list of unrelated vices:  first, they didn’t help the poor and second, they abstained from thanksgiving and prayer, and third, they refused to affirm the words of institutions. But these are not separate acts. They are all the “sacrifice of the dismissal” (or, “sacrifice of the mass”). Abstaining from thanksgiving and prayer—because they’d have to affirm the words of institution—is the failure to help the poor.

Or put another way, if the Gnostics had been participating in the tithe but not Lord’s Supper, then they would be showing regard for the poor and needy in the same way as everyone else. In that other hypothetical world, Ignatius would have only taken them to task for refusing to acknowledge the words of institution, and would have needed to say nothing about the poor.

Let’s go to our next copy-and-paste:

Well, what do you know. It’s the same quote that Fish Eaters used in our series! Here is what I wrote about that:

CE says “we don’t need to speculate” and “this is clearly inferred” when neither of these are true.

Does Ignatius mention ‘Holy Communion?’ No. It’s not an inference from what Ignatius writes, its an inference from Roman Catholic doctrine. That’s circular reasoning.

What makes CE’s view speculation is the simple fact that I can take this Ignatius quote unaltered to refer to a thanksgiving tithe offering. This is not difficult at all.

Or to put another way, the only reason CE thinks there is no evidence that Ignatius is reference a tithe offering is because he has already decided that the “one eucharist” is not a reference to the offered tithe. Because, quite explicitly, Ignatius does in fact mention eucharist—the tithe of thanksgiving—so it’s rather odd to say that he isn’t referencing the tithe offering, because that’s what the eucharist is. See how circular reasoning works supports both positions equally?

CE isn’t formulating a proper argument. He brings up “where Christ’s body and blood are truly present” which is a non sequitur. Ignatius doesn’t say that, so why is CE bringing his Roman Catholic theology into the discussion? It’s not relevant to the question under debate.

Because that’s what the historical evidence shows.

Justin Martyr

And neither will we explore each quote here. You can read them in “Part 3: Justin Martyr.”

That’s the dismissal. In Chapter 66 of First Apology, he writes that no one can partake of the thanksgiving, or offer their tithes at all, if they are not properly baptized. Those who are not eligible to participate are dismissed prior to the offering.

In Chapter 67, he says that what is offered are prayers and thanksgivings (with bread and wine and water) to help the needy. As with Ignatius, the emphasis of the eucharist is on helping the poor and needy.

Wow, what a quote. This is, purportedly, a quote from Chapter 66 of First Apology. Notice how it is translated compared with this Roman Catholic one. The word order is quite different. Let’s compare these renderings:

And here is another:

This one comes from Roman Catholic J.P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca (published from 1857–1866) in vol VI, cols 428-429.

Notice the progression in the translations:

First, Migne’s translation has the food “eucharisted.” It was already thanked before it was consecrated by invoking Christ’s  words in prayer.

Second, the New Advent translation calls it the “food which is blessed.” Although this is somewhat unclear and ambiguous, it seems to imply that the food is now being blessed by the prayer, rather than having been already blessed. In other words, it seems to imply that the food becomes the eucharist (or literally flesh and blood) by the consecration.

Third, CE’s “translation” dramatically alters the meaning! The word “eucharistic” is no longer even a verb at all, which simply removes all possible reference to the past tense verb in the original. It is replaced by the word “becomes” as if the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Jesus by the consecratory prayer itself, which it presumptively calls “the prayer of eucharist.” And, lastly, it uses the “bread and wine” instead of “food.” The Roman Catholic doesn’t consider the consecrated bread and wine in “Holy Communion” to actually be food (i.e. transubstantiated), even though Justin Martyr explicitly states that it is digested (i.e. transmuted) food.

This is mistranslation. It’s a biased Roman Catholic mistranslation.

One of Migne’s contemporaries, Anglican William Wigan Harvey, in 1857, was unaffected by modern attempts to spin Justin Martyr’s words into something else. Consequently, he struggled to come to terms with Justin Martyr saying that the words of institution came after the eucharistic offering was completed. So too did the Catholic Encyclopedia, unaware of the modern spin, admit in 1910 that Justin Martyr’s liturgy differed from the Roman Catholic Latin liturgies found in the 6th century and later.

But this isn’t a problem for the copy-and-paste apologist, who doesn’t need to be aware of these issues. They can just uncritically cite bad translations from obviously biased sources. Go ahead and Google search for CE’s source:

You find pages and pages and pages and pages of copying-and-pasting. As is typical with the copy-and-paste apologist, many don’t cite their source. Fortunately the National Catholic Register comes to our aide:

Oh, I’m sure that work is not biased at all!

So basically, CE copy-and-pastes an insufficiently cited quotation from an explicitly pro-Roman Catholic source to defend the indefensible claim that Justin Martyr thought the thanksgiving was “the real body and blood of Christ.”

CE’s argument is a modern innovation. Worse, it is his own private interpretation that stands against the view espoused by Roman Catholics in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His epistemology leaves him, at minimum, no better off than the Protestant he is arguing against. Actually, it’s worse than that, because his epistemology has led him to assert plainly ahistorical and anachronistic claims. At least Kauffman’s claims—like those of Migne and Harvey—are rooted in historical and linguistic evidence.

So far this has not been a good showing. Let’s see what else CE’s got!

Irenaeus of Lyons

It looks like CE is a copy-and-paste clone of Fish Eaters’ citation:

It’s almost exactly the same, complete with the same estimated dates and citation style!

It’s kind of sad that this is what passes for standard Roman Catholic discourse these days. Three sentences of explanation to go with a copy-and-paste quote dump.

You can read my full responses in “Part 6: Irenaeus of Lyons” and Timothy Kauffman’s full response in “Part 36: Irenaeus, Revisted.” You can read those for yourself, but I’ll leave my Readers with this one warning:

Catholic Enthusiast cites mistranslations authoritatively in two out of three church fathers.

The copy-and-paste apologist is so eager to find his view in history that he resorts to spreading—intentionally or unintentionally—outright fraud.

Clement of Alexandria

What do you know? CE uses the exact same quotation that Fish Eaters copied-and-pasted.

My detailed response is found in “Part 7: Clement of Alexandria.” To refute the claim made by CE, all you need to do is expand the quote to include more of the immediate context. There you will see things like this…

…and this…

In his other writings you will see things like this…

…and this…

…and this:

(Please feel free to read those quotes in their proper context)

If that’s the best argument that CE has, he’s not doing well at all. Clement describes the body and blood of Christ as symbols and figures. We agree with Clement and so reject Roman Catholic’s abominable, ahistoric views.

Cyprian of Carthage

CatholicEnthusiast

St. Cyprian of Carthage is very interesting because he, like Irenaeus, explicitly uses the word “sacrifice.” However, he takes it one step further by referring to the Eucharist as the “sacrament of sacrifice.” Once again, one only needs common sense to see what St. Cyprian is referring to when he talks about the Eucharist. So, as we have seen from the fathers, the idea that the Eucharist is holy communion (not a tithe offering) and that Christ is physically present in it can be seen from St. Ignatius through to St. Cyprian.

My Response is found in “Part 11: Cyprian of Carthage” and in “Part 32: Interlude.”

Regarding “The Lord’s Prayer” Cyprian differentiated between the unconsecrated tithe offering and the consecrated bread and wine. He called both of them eucharist because both of them involved the same bread and wine, just not at the same time in the service.

Moreover, as we’ll see below, Cyprian was speaking figuratively anyway.

Would you be surprised to learn that the epistle CE quotes is commonly mistranslated to make it seem as if Cyprian is sacrificing the body and blood of Christ?

In paragraph 7, Cyprian states that Jesus had to die before anyone could drink the blood of Christ. This means that during the Last Supper, Jesus could not have meant “this is my blood” literally because he hadn’t been crucified yet.

In paragraph 17, Cyprian states that the Lord’s passion is the sacrifice which is offered. We offer the cup in commemoration of Jesus and his passion.

So when I read paragraphs 4 and 14, as cited by CE, I read them as the symbols that they are.

So, before we conclude, let’s ask this question: why did Cyprian in Epistle 69 say that sanctified oil from the altar used during baptism was sourced from the eucharist?

Cyprian’s eucharist contained oil. Please pause and take the time to consider the implications. Then ask yourself if any quotes from any century could make that historical reality disappear. Then consider that the historical reality is even more complicated:

Up through the late 4th century, the eucharist included things like oil, cheese, olives, milk, honey, grapes, beer, incense, ointment, monetary donations, sacks of various grains, flour, and dough. These particular tithes—the thanksgiving (“eucharist“) sacrifice of the dismissal (“mass”)—have nothing to do with “Holy Communion,” despite all of them being the actual eucharist.

CE’s mockery aside, the fact is that when the bread and wine from the tithe were eucharisted (thanked for), they remained “the eucharist” until they were consumed, whether by the poor in their homes or after consecration during the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion in the congregation. All partook of “the eucharist.”

But, in the 4th century, the tithes started being split in how they were handled. According to the “Apostolic Constitutions,” now only items agriculturally related to grain and grapes (as well as the liturgical oil and incense) would be offered in the thanksgiving sacrifice. The rest of the tithes would be delivered straight to the storehouse of the bishop. Instead of being used for the poor, they were now primarily used by the clergy.

Once the church “forgot” that the eucharist was supposed to be a sacrificial offering that included tithes for the poor, it opened the door for all the other changes that took place, such as sacrificing the consecrated eucharist. Other writers in this period confirmed these changes.

Conclusion

Catholic Enthusiast scoffs at the reality of the late fourth century changes to the eucharist, but much else changed in the late fourth century. For reference, here is the list of sources CE could have chosen from that show the change in the eucharist:

That’s at least twelve sources from before the late 4th century that describe a liturgy that is different from the Roman Catholic liturgy. This does not include the five that CE cited, which don’t describe the Roman Catholic liturgy either. Including the contested sources, that’s 17 sources in total that defend the ancient liturgy of the unconsecrated tithe sacrifice and a Lord’s Supper of consecrated elements. Add in the three more from the late 4th century, and you get 20 different sources.

Now, let’s go back and examine CE’s claim:

CE isn’t wrong to object that the Roman Catholic eucharist was invented in the late 4th century. We agree, it was not.

What happened in the late fourth century is that the church began to offer the eucharist as a sacrifice of consecrated bread and wine which symbolically represented the body and blood of Christ. This change—attested to by eight different sources—rapidly became the consensus theology over (roughly) a single generation (during the rise of Roman Catholicism).

But this symbolic sacrifice of the late fourth century is not the Roman Catholic doctrine of The Real Presence, where the literal body and blood of Christ are offered in the “sacrifice of the mass.” As CE notes, that actually developed much further forward in time during the more recent centuries.

The liturgy of the late fourth century was transitional. So, Catholic Enthusiast, we will concede the point: the Roman Catholic eucharist—what you call the Holy Communion—was not invented in the late fourth century. It did not originate until at least the 5th or 6th century.