Roman Catholic Transubstantiation
From Del April 2, 2009 Roman Catholic Transubstantiation
One should understand or be aware of the term Transubstantiation
In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation (in Latin,
transsubstantiatio, in Greek μετουσίωσις (metousiosis)) is the change
of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ
occurring in the Eucharist while all that is accessible to the senses
remain as before.[1][2] Not all Christian churches agree that
transubstantiation takes place.
The earliest known use of the term "transubstantiation" to describe
the change from bread and wine to body and blood of Christ was by
Hildebert de Savardin, Archbishop of Tours (died 1133), in the
eleventh century and by the end of the twelfth century the term was in
widespread use.[3] In 1215, the Fourth Council of the Lateran spoke of
the bread and wine as "transubstantiated" into the body and blood of
Christ: "His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of
the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having
been transubstantiated, by God's power, into his body and blood."[1]
The Council of Trent defined transubstantiation as "that wonderful and
singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body,
and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood – the species
only of the bread and wine remaining – which conversion indeed the
Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation".[4]
This council thus officially approved use of the term
"transubstantiation" to express the Church's teaching on the subject
of the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of
Christ in the Eucharist,[5] with the aim of safeguarding the literal
truth of Christ's Presence while emphasizing the fact that there is no
change in the empirical appearances of the bread and wine.[6] But it
did not impose the Aristotelian theory of substance and accidents: it
spoke only of the "species" (the appearances), not the philosophical
term "accidents", and the word "substance" was in ecclesiastical use
for many centuries before Aristotelian philosophy was adopted in the
West,[7] as shown for instance by its use in the Nicene Creed which
speaks of Christ having the same "οὐσία" (Greek) or "substantia"
(Latin) as the Father.