Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 10-15-2012, 12:53 PM

The use of unleavened bread in the Catholic Western eucharist is probably rather late.

See for example church separation

Quote:

As far as one can judge from the
doubtful evidence on the subject, it seems probable that ordinary, that is,
leavened bread, was generally used in the church for this purpose until the
seventh or eighth century, when unleavened bread began to be employed in the West, on the ground that it was used in the original institution of the
sacrament, which took place during the Feast of the Passover

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 12:57 PM

But there are examples of early ideas resurfacing later in the Roman tradition. For instance the cult of Peter and Paul which seems to have disappeared in the third century but been revived in the fifth century.

Iskander · 10-15-2012, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Marcion's 'heresy' was to agree with the Roman rite.

But, how could an orthodox heretic tell us anything of interest?

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 12:59 PM

There may have been two competing traditions - evidenced also by Hippolytus as anti-Pope and the novatian sect - from a very early period. I don't trust monolithic claims about the Roman Church. At one time Valentinus even seems to have been accepted as a figure of good standing.

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:00 PM

Quote:

how could an orthodox heretic tell us anything of interest?

I don't understand the question. Clabeaux's work is interesting because it grounds Marcion in something other than the hocus pocus of anti-heretical Church Father narratives. I have to admit though, I thought Quispell's summary wasn't exactly accurate to what was written in Lost Edition, but maybe he is drawing his information from something else?

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:04 PM

Perhaps the main question is whether (a) we can conclude the Marcionites shared the preference for unleavened bread with the contemporary Roman Catholic church, (b) whether there was an established tradition in Christianity to this effect (i.e. that it had to be unleavened) (c) whether there is a connection between (i) the old Latin text and Marcionite, (ii) Marcion always been referenced in association with the city of Rome and (iii) the use of unleavened bread. My sense is that yes there is something here. Whether it goes all the way to connecting Marcion to the unleavened bread (i.e. that there was no Marcion) is debatable.

Still there certainly was a thin, flatbread wafer referenced with a name which could be associated with Mark and Marcion and it was used in Jewish circles leading up to the Bar Kochba revolt (130 - 135 CE)

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:28 PM

More from Book Four:

Quote:

Of the second parable I do rather fear that perhaps it looks to the kingdom of that other god: for he has compared it to leaven, and not to that unleavened bread which is more usual with the Creator. This surmise too suits the purpose of those who are destitute of arguments. Consequently I in turn shall drive out one fond conceit by another, and say that leaven as well is in keeping with the Creator's kingdom, in that after it comes the oven, and the furnace of hell. [Against Marcion 4:31]

It is curious to me at least that Tertullian cites the same scripture four times in the same book:

Quote:

My Creator however has both of old time and in every place prescribed that the needy, poor and orphans and widows, must receive protection, help, and refreshment: as by Isaiah, Break thy bread for the indigent, and them that are without shelter bring thou into thy house, and if thou seest the naked, cover him:j also by Ezekiel, concerning the just man, He will give his bread to the hungry, and will cover the naked. [1.16]

Again when he teaches of mercy and pity he says, Be ye merciful, even as your Father has had mercy upon you. This will be, Break thy bread for the hungry, and him that is without shelter bring into thy house, and if thou seest the naked cover him;f and, Judge for the fatherless and sustain the cause of the widow. I see here that ancient teaching, of him who would rather have mercy than sacrifice [1.17]

What sort of people does he say must be invited to dinner or supper? The sort that he had told them of by Isaiah: Break thy bread for the hungry, and the poor and such as have no covering bring into thy housea—those in fact who have no means of returning your hospitality. [1.31]

For in fact Zacchaeus, though a foreigner,1 yet perhaps had breathed in some knowledge of the scriptures by converse with Jews, or, what is more, without knowing about Isaiah, had fulfilled his instructions. Break thy bread, he says, to the hungry, and bring into thy house them that have no covering—and this he was even then doing when he brought the Lord into his house and gave him to eat. And if thou see the naked,
cover himb—at that very moment he promised this, when he offered the half of his goods for all works of mercy, thus loosing the bonds
of enforced contracts, and letting loose the oppressed, and breaking down every unjust assessment, in the words, And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore it fourfold. [1.37]

How can Tertullian divide up the original reference from Isaiah in the first quote and think the part about nakedness came Ezekiel when he knows the whole quote in the rest of the citations?

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:38 PM

Book Five confirms that the Marcionites used unleavened bread:

Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new baking, even as ye are unleavened: so that unleavened bread was to the Creator a figure of ourselves, and in this sense too Christ our Passover was sacrificed. [5.7]

Referencing 4:40 we read in Book Five also that:

I have already several times observed that by the apostle heresies are set down as an evil thing among things evil, and that those persons are to
be understood as meeting with approval who flee from heresies as an evil thing. And further, I have already,1 in discussing the gospel, by the sacrament of the Bread and the Cup, given proof of the verity of our Lord's Body and Blood, as opposed to Marcion's phantasm. [5.8]

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:48 PM

On the Flesh of Christ:

Thus the Jews, by hoping for earthly things and nothing more, lose the heavenly things, not knowing that even the bread that was promised is of the heavenly <sort>,9 the oil that of divine unction, the water that of the Spirit, and the wine that of the soul which receives strength from the vine which is Christ: even as they reckon the holy land itself to be strictly the Jewish territory, though it ought rather to be interpreted as the Lord's flesh, so that flesh thenceforth also in all who have put on Christ is a holy land, truly holy through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, truly flowing with milk and honey through the sweetness of his own hope,2 truly Judaean through the familiar converse of God ---- For he is not a Jew who is one openly, but who is one in secret?3 ---- so that it is also the temple of God, and Jerusalem, to which Isaiah says, Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, put on the strength of thine arm: awake as in the beginning of the day4 ---- that is, in that integrity in which it was before the sin of the transgression. [25]

For a little earlier he had pronounced that his flesh is also heavenly bread,6 forcing from all sides, by the allegory of essential food, the memory of their fathers who preferred the bread and flesh of the Egyptians to the divine vocation. Therefore, turning back to their secret thoughts (because he had perceived that these needed to be broken down) he said, The flesh profiteth nothing. [36]

stephan huller · 10-15-2012, 01:59 PM

Leaven is never mentioned in Cyprian's discussion of how bread is made:

Quote:

Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be offered. For if any one offer wine only, the blood of Christ is dissociated from us; but if the water be alone, the people are dissociated from Christ; but when both are mingled, and are joined with one another by a close union, there is completed a spiritual and heavenly sacrament. Thus the cup of the Lord is not indeed water alone, nor wine alone, unless each be mingled with the other; just as, on the other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone, unless both should be united and joined together and compacted in the mass of one bread; in which very sacrament our people are shown to be made one, so that in like manner as many grains, collected, and ground, and mixed together into one mass, make one bread; so in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body, with which our number is joined and united. [Epistle 62]

Origen similarly commenting on the words, " Take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees." says:

Quote:

"You must know that, wherever leaven is mentioned, it is used allegorically for ' teaching,' whether in the law or in the other scriptures whether in the law or in the other scriptures which come after the law. And so leaven is never offered at the altar, for prayers must not be like learnt lessons, but just simply the asking of things good for us from God." [Commentary on Matthew 12]

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10-15-2012, 12:57 PM	#42
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But there are examples of early ideas resurfacing later in the Roman tradition. For instance the cult of Peter and Paul which seems to have disappeared in the third century but been revived in the fifth century.

10-15-2012, 12:59 PM	#44
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	There may have been two competing traditions - evidenced also by Hippolytus as anti-Pope and the novatian sect - from a very early period. I don't trust monolithic claims about the Roman Church. At one time Valentinus even seems to have been accepted as a figure of good standing.

10-15-2012, 01:04 PM	#46
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Perhaps the main question is whether (a) we can conclude the Marcionites shared the preference for unleavened bread with the contemporary Roman Catholic church, (b) whether there was an established tradition in Christianity to this effect (i.e. that it had to be unleavened) (c) whether there is a connection between (i) the old Latin text and Marcionite, (ii) Marcion always been referenced in association with the city of Rome and (iii) the use of unleavened bread. My sense is that yes there is something here. Whether it goes all the way to connecting Marcion to the unleavened bread (i.e. that there was no Marcion) is debatable. Still there certainly was a thin, flatbread wafer referenced with a name which could be associated with Mark and Marcion and it was used in Jewish circles leading up to the Bar Kochba revolt (130 - 135 CE)

10-15-2012, 01:38 PM	#48
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Book Five confirms that the Marcionites used unleavened bread: Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new baking, even as ye are unleavened: so that unleavened bread was to the Creator a figure of ourselves, and in this sense too Christ our Passover was sacrificed. [5.7] Referencing 4:40 we read in Book Five also that: I have already several times observed that by the apostle heresies are set down as an evil thing among things evil, and that those persons are to be understood as meeting with approval who flee from heresies as an evil thing. And further, I have already,1 in discussing the gospel, by the sacrament of the Bread and the Cup, given proof of the verity of our Lord's Body and Blood, as opposed to Marcion's phantasm. [5.8]

10-15-2012, 01:48 PM	#49
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	On the Flesh of Christ: Thus the Jews, by hoping for earthly things and nothing more, lose the heavenly things, not knowing that even the bread that was promised is of the heavenly <sort>,9 the oil that of divine unction, the water that of the Spirit, and the wine that of the soul which receives strength from the vine which is Christ: even as they reckon the holy land itself to be strictly the Jewish territory, though it ought rather to be interpreted as the Lord's flesh, so that flesh thenceforth also in all who have put on Christ is a holy land, truly holy through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, truly flowing with milk and honey through the sweetness of his own hope,2 truly Judaean through the familiar converse of God ---- For he is not a Jew who is one openly, but who is one in secret?3 ---- so that it is also the temple of God, and Jerusalem, to which Isaiah says, Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, put on the strength of thine arm: awake as in the beginning of the day4 ---- that is, in that integrity in which it was before the sin of the transgression. [25] For a little earlier he had pronounced that his flesh is also heavenly bread,6 forcing from all sides, by the allegory of essential food, the memory of their fathers who preferred the bread and flesh of the Egyptians to the divine vocation. Therefore, turning back to their secret thoughts (because he had perceived that these needed to be broken down) he said, The flesh profiteth nothing. [36]

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