Apostolic Constitutions (c.375-380) In Part 15: Athenagoras of Athens, we began a discussion on the Apostolic Constitutions, written two centuries after Athenagoras. There we discovered that the unbloody sacrifice is the eucharist of a pure heart and unreprovable mind. This is precisely what we’ve seen in our series so far: the sacrifice that …

Athenagoras of Athens (133-190) Athenagoras is one of the earliest patristic writers that we examine in this series. He wrote sometime in the middle or late second century, well before the innovations of the late 4th-century. Here is what he had to say on the topic of sacrifices. I’ve reproduced …

Let’s take a short break from the examination of the patristic era writers to look at a timeline of the patristic writers, to give you an idea who was writing when. The images below are from Mike Cook, pastor of the Columbia River Foursquare Church. See his charts here. The …

Aphrahat the Persian Sage What more can be said about this? It’s basically just a repetition of scripture itself with some minor flourishes. Aphrahat was repeating the same metaphor that Jesus used: “this is my body” and “this is my blood.” For sake of argument, let’s assume that Aphrahat viewed …

Hippolytus of Rome FishEaters does not mention Hippolytus and this is not surprising. Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, whom we covered in Part 6. Unsurprisingly, Hippolytus and Irenaeus describe the same Eucharistic liturgy. As we will see, Hippolytus’ comments are a thorn in the side of the Roman liturgy. …

Cyprian of Carthage Before we talk about Cyprian, let’s see how the Catholic Encyclopedia sings his praises: It is certainly notable here how the Catholic Encyclopedia is trying to distance Tertullian from his pupil Cyprian. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls Tertullian’s writings “harsh and unintelligible.” The Encyclopedia seems to be setting …

Origen Let’s start with the final quote before examining the others. There Origen is very clear: Origen identifies the flesh of Christ as the Word of God and cites John 6—on the bread of life from heaven—to illustrate the metaphor. This is just as we examined in Part 7: Clement of …

Tertullian At first glace these quotes seem rather tame and innocent. But they are among the most divisive words ever written in the church. For the first time in this series, additional contextual analysis—from outside this mostly self-contained series—is required. Tertullian is the first writer in the church to use …

Let’s take a short break from the examination of the patristic era writers to look at the concept of the sacrifice and thanksgiving (eucharist). The Eucharistic Sacrifice The first mention of thanksgiving in the Bible is Leviticus 7 referring to the fellowship offering of thanksgiving, a sacrifice of bread or meat. The …

Clement of Alexandria To respond to this, we need only share a bigger quote: Clement believed that the flesh and blood of Christ were metaphors for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that leads to eternal life (see Jesus’ reference to Isaiah 55 in John 6). Who can …