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.