A treatise by Paul Evdokimov (Russian Orthodox theologian)
“For the Eucharist is not a physical conversion but a metaphysical transcensus which identifies the two different ontological realities”
Now is it right, is it even possible to speak of the substance and the accidents of the heavenly, resurrected and totally transfigured body of the Lord?
“At the right hand of the Father” – this is not a place but a symbol of the proximity of Christ to the Father... “Heavenly” is not a cosmological idea. The “heavenly” state of the humanity of Christ is a transcensus which prohibits us from applying cosmic ontology and its laws to him. This state is not at all a dis-incarnation but a de-materialisation. According to the fathers, after the Fall material is a condensation, a thickening of the spiritual and this is why, even after the Fall, “in sensible things, all is intelligible,” according to St John Chrysostom, the assumption of the sensible into intelligibility is normative.
The “glorified” body of Christ is beyond the still material world (1 Cor 15:40-49). It is a state in which the soul possesses the energies of corporeality. It is not that there is no more any ubiquitas or omnipresence, for the heavenly body transcends every place, it is not everywhere because it is outside of, beyond space, all in keeping the power of manifesting itself in a given place and anywhere else in space for, “All power is given to me in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18)
Even though Greek philosophy was familiar to the Fathers, they did not attempt any philosophical explanation or analysis of the Eucharist. Rather than going to Plato or Aristotle, they went directly to the Gospel. Rather than physical evidence, they chose the evidence of the Word. They read the text of the Scriptures and confessed the identity: “This is my body, this is my blood.”
This is a confession which, though radical, is neither simplistic nor naive. The essential position of the Fathers is to see in the word of the Lord a miracle which is not physical but metaphysical. “Metaphysics” is used here in the absolute sense of the term, beyond the limits of this world, a meta-cosmic miracle, one that is also meta-empirical. In reality, the heavenly body of the Lord no longer belongs to the reality of this world. Its transcendence poses a difference in nature between the eucharistic miracle and, for example, the miracle at the wedding in Cana, where one material, water, became another material, wine, on the same ontological plane and within the same cosmic limits.
The eucharistic miracle presents the most radical antinomy imaginable... It is evident that one cannot explain or define the subject of a cosmic material being projected, that is, raised “beyond” itself and assimilated into the transcendent. The entire action is meta-empirical, meta-logical and antinomic, for it expresses the identity and the difference of the identical.
The Eucharist, then, is not a physical transformation, where the terminus a quo passes to the terminus ad quem, as the water turned completely into wine at the marriage feast of Cana…. For the Eucharist is not a physical conversion but a metaphysical transcensus which identifies the two different ontological realities (Bread/Wine :: Body/Blood). It is not “the one in the other,” nor “the one and the other,” physically, but the one is the other metaphysically. This places the miraculous reality outside all sensible perception inherent in things of this world, such as the taste of the wine at Cana.
... During his life on earth, the bread and wine consumed by the Lord were integrated and assimilated into his corporeality. During the Last Supper, Christ extended the reality of his body beyond physical limits. He identified it with the bread and the wine and he gave them to his disciples, saying, “Eat and drink.”
Here is something infinitely greater than a simple physical change.
The miracle does not abolish the reality of the Ascension, but expresses a completely new relationship between this world and the heavenly body of the Lord. Already between the Resurrection and the Ascension, Christ was not with the disciples as in the past. His apparitions were of a different nature. Visibly, the laws of physics no longer had a hold on him. His body attained the summit of spiritualisation and deification and was going toward the beyond, the transcendent, where the disciples were not able to come.
“For the Eucharist is not a physical conversion but a metaphysical transcensus which identifies the two different ontological realities”
Now is it right, is it even possible to speak of the substance and the accidents of the heavenly, resurrected and totally transfigured body of the Lord?
“At the right hand of the Father” – this is not a place but a symbol of the proximity of Christ to the Father... “Heavenly” is not a cosmological idea. The “heavenly” state of the humanity of Christ is a transcensus which prohibits us from applying cosmic ontology and its laws to him. This state is not at all a dis-incarnation but a de-materialisation. According to the fathers, after the Fall material is a condensation, a thickening of the spiritual and this is why, even after the Fall, “in sensible things, all is intelligible,” according to St John Chrysostom, the assumption of the sensible into intelligibility is normative.
The “glorified” body of Christ is beyond the still material world (1 Cor 15:40-49). It is a state in which the soul possesses the energies of corporeality. It is not that there is no more any ubiquitas or omnipresence, for the heavenly body transcends every place, it is not everywhere because it is outside of, beyond space, all in keeping the power of manifesting itself in a given place and anywhere else in space for, “All power is given to me in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18)
Even though Greek philosophy was familiar to the Fathers, they did not attempt any philosophical explanation or analysis of the Eucharist. Rather than going to Plato or Aristotle, they went directly to the Gospel. Rather than physical evidence, they chose the evidence of the Word. They read the text of the Scriptures and confessed the identity: “This is my body, this is my blood.”
This is a confession which, though radical, is neither simplistic nor naive. The essential position of the Fathers is to see in the word of the Lord a miracle which is not physical but metaphysical. “Metaphysics” is used here in the absolute sense of the term, beyond the limits of this world, a meta-cosmic miracle, one that is also meta-empirical. In reality, the heavenly body of the Lord no longer belongs to the reality of this world. Its transcendence poses a difference in nature between the eucharistic miracle and, for example, the miracle at the wedding in Cana, where one material, water, became another material, wine, on the same ontological plane and within the same cosmic limits.
The eucharistic miracle presents the most radical antinomy imaginable... It is evident that one cannot explain or define the subject of a cosmic material being projected, that is, raised “beyond” itself and assimilated into the transcendent. The entire action is meta-empirical, meta-logical and antinomic, for it expresses the identity and the difference of the identical.
The Eucharist, then, is not a physical transformation, where the terminus a quo passes to the terminus ad quem, as the water turned completely into wine at the marriage feast of Cana…. For the Eucharist is not a physical conversion but a metaphysical transcensus which identifies the two different ontological realities (Bread/Wine :: Body/Blood). It is not “the one in the other,” nor “the one and the other,” physically, but the one is the other metaphysically. This places the miraculous reality outside all sensible perception inherent in things of this world, such as the taste of the wine at Cana.
... During his life on earth, the bread and wine consumed by the Lord were integrated and assimilated into his corporeality. During the Last Supper, Christ extended the reality of his body beyond physical limits. He identified it with the bread and the wine and he gave them to his disciples, saying, “Eat and drink.”
Here is something infinitely greater than a simple physical change.
The miracle does not abolish the reality of the Ascension, but expresses a completely new relationship between this world and the heavenly body of the Lord. Already between the Resurrection and the Ascension, Christ was not with the disciples as in the past. His apparitions were of a different nature. Visibly, the laws of physics no longer had a hold on him. His body attained the summit of spiritualisation and deification and was going toward the beyond, the transcendent, where the disciples were not able to come.
I will look at some in the morning. Gotta turn in now! Good to cross paths with you.