- Discussion:
-Following is a text from the Roman Catholic apocrypha which is seemingly problematic for Catholic Eucharist theology:
"For truly, the ancient inhabitants of your holy land, whom you hated for deeds most odious-Works of witchcraft and impious sacrifices; a cannibal feast of human flesh and of blood, from the midst of...-These merciless murderers of children, and parents who took with their own hands defenseless lives, You willed to destroy by the hands of our fathers, that the land that is dearest of all to you might receive a worthy colony of God's children." (Wisdom 12:3-7)
Now, apologists for the Church of Rome can deny the accusation of cannibalism all they want, resorting to substance and accidents Aristotelian philosophy. All intellectual sophistry aside, the point is that Roman Catholicism teaches Christians are to eat the literal flesh and drink the literal blood of Jesus Christ. In fact, the denial of transubstantiation entailing cannibalism is rendered rather implausible as one considers the vivid and keen descriptions provided by Roman Catholic sources such as the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:
"First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpretation of the words: "eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood"...it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion. This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expression "to chew" (John 6:54, 56, 58: trogein) when speaking of this, His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, "to eat" (John 6:51, 53: phagein)...The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text: "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56)...Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally."
Nonetheless, the author of Wisdom utterly shuns this kind of consumption (eating human flesh and drinking human blood) as a heinous crime against God and humanity (in the context of the ancient pagan world). Of course, God the Father does not want us eating the flesh of other human beings, including that of God the Son. The truths that Jesus communicated in the Bread of Life discourse are to be understood symbolically. Jesus is (in the present tense) sitting at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1). He is not coming down from His heavenly throne at the command of some pompous man who calls himself a priest.
"For truly, the ancient inhabitants of your holy land, whom you hated for deeds most odious-Works of witchcraft and impious sacrifices; a cannibal feast of human flesh and of blood, from the midst of...-These merciless murderers of children, and parents who took with their own hands defenseless lives, You willed to destroy by the hands of our fathers, that the land that is dearest of all to you might receive a worthy colony of God's children." (Wisdom 12:3-7)
Now, apologists for the Church of Rome can deny the accusation of cannibalism all they want, resorting to substance and accidents Aristotelian philosophy. All intellectual sophistry aside, the point is that Roman Catholicism teaches Christians are to eat the literal flesh and drink the literal blood of Jesus Christ. In fact, the denial of transubstantiation entailing cannibalism is rendered rather implausible as one considers the vivid and keen descriptions provided by Roman Catholic sources such as the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:
"First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpretation of the words: "eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood"...it can be none other than His true Flesh and Blood, to be really eaten and drunk in Holy Communion. This is why Christ was so ready to use the realistic expression "to chew" (John 6:54, 56, 58: trogein) when speaking of this, His Bread of Life, in addition to the phrase, "to eat" (John 6:51, 53: phagein)...The impossibility of a figurative interpretation is brought home more forcibly by an analysis of the following text: "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56)...Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally."
Nonetheless, the author of Wisdom utterly shuns this kind of consumption (eating human flesh and drinking human blood) as a heinous crime against God and humanity (in the context of the ancient pagan world). Of course, God the Father does not want us eating the flesh of other human beings, including that of God the Son. The truths that Jesus communicated in the Bread of Life discourse are to be understood symbolically. Jesus is (in the present tense) sitting at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1). He is not coming down from His heavenly throne at the command of some pompous man who calls himself a priest.
