Did Augustine Teach Transubstantiation? [Part 2]

 

We are continuing our series of articles on Saint Augustine's views regarding the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Last article, I examined some of the most common citations used from Augustine's writings to allege that he taught transubstantiation. In this article, I will show he most certainly did not.

Augustine's Interpretation of John 6

Sermon 81 - "When therefore commending such Meat and such Drink He said, Unless you shall eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you shall have no life in you; (and this that He said concerning life, who else said it but the Life Itself? But that man shall have death, not life, who shall think that the Life is false), His disciples were offended, not all of them indeed, but very many, saying within themselves, This is an hard saying, who can hear it? But when the Lord knew this in Himself, and heard the murmurings of their thought, He answered them, thinking though uttering nothing, that they might understand that they were heard, and might cease to entertain such thoughts. What then did He answer? Does this offend you? What then if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? What means this? Does this offend you? Do ye imagine that I am about to make divisions of this My Body which you see; and to cut up My Members, and give them to you? 'What then if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?' Assuredly, He who could ascend Whole could not be consumed. So then He both gave us of His Body and Blood a healthful refreshment, and briefly solved so great a question as to His Own Entireness. Let them then who eat, eat on, and them that drink, drink; let them hunger and thirst; eat Life, drink Life. That eating, is to be refreshed; but you are in such wise refreshed, as that that whereby you are refreshed, fails not. That drinking, what is it but to live? Eat Life, drink Life; you shall have life, and the Life is Entire. But then this shall be, that is, the Body and the Blood of Christ shall be each man's Life; if what is taken in the Sacrament visibly is in the truth itself eaten spiritually, drunk spiritually." (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160381.htm)

Tractate 26 on the Gospel of John - " 'They drank,' saith he, 'of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ'. Thence the bread, thence the drink. The rock was Christ in sign; the real Christ is in the Word and in flesh. And how did they drink? The rock was smitten twice with a rod; the double smiting signified the two wooden beams of the cross. “This, then, is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall not die.” But this is what belongs to the virtue of the sacrament, not to the visible sacrament; he that eateth within, not without; who eateth in his heart, not who presses with his teeth. ....18. In a word, He now explains how that which He speaks of comes to pass, and what it is to eat His body and to drink His blood. 'He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.' This it is, therefore, for a man to eat that meat and to drink that drink, to dwell in Christ, and to have Christ dwelling in him. Consequently, he that dwelleth not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, doubtless neither eateth His flesh [spiritually] nor drinketh His blood [although he may press the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ carnally and visibly with his teeth], but rather doth he eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing to his own judgment, because he, being unclean, has presumed to come to the sacraments of Christ, which no man taketh worthily except he that is pure: of such it is said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107/npnf107.iii.xxvii.html)

Tractate 27 on the Gospel of John - "This, then, He has taught us, and admonished us in mystical words that we may be in His body, in His members under Himself as head, eating His flesh, not abandoning our unity with Him. But most of those who were present, by not understanding Him, were offended; for in hearing these things, they thought only of flesh, that which themselves were. But the apostle says, and says what is true, “To be carnally-minded is death.” The Lord gives us His flesh to eat, and yet to understand it according to the flesh is death; while yet He says of His flesh, that therein is eternal life. Therefore we ought not to understand the flesh carnally. " (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.xxviii.html)

The Bodily Presence of Christ

Tractate 50 on the Gospel of John - "It may be also understood in this way: 'The poor ye will have always with you, but me ye will not have always.' The good may take it also as addressed to themselves, but not so as to be any source of anxiety; for He was speaking of His bodily presence" (https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107/npnf107.iii.li.html)

Tractate 92 on the Gospel of John - "The Lord Jesus, in the discourse which He addressed to His disciples after the supper, when Himself in immediate proximity to His passion, and, as it were, on the eve of depriving them of His bodily presence while continuing His spiritual presence to all His disciples till the very end of the world, " (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701092.htm)