Transubstantiate Pagan or Sacred?

The Christian church is founded solely upon the teachings of Jesus Christ. The church originally was composed of all Jewish members who accepted Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah and the Son of God. Most of the Jewish community, however, rejected the Gospel which was then embraced by the Gentiles. Through Christ's universal message of grace and redemption, God's church was opened to all believers, both Jew and Gentile. Scattered throughout the world, God's church existed as "a spiritual entity- one founded and directed by the Holy Ghost.1] United in the sacrifice of Christ, Christians remember Christ;s conquering of eternal death in the celebration of Holy Communion. At the Lord's Supper, Jesus first celebrated the sacrament of Communion, an "outward sign of inward grace instituted by Christ for our sanctification[2] to convey to His church the eternal accomplishments of His sacrifice.

The roots of Holy Communion trace back to the Jewish Passover Seder symbolism of the Passover lamb. The Passover Seder is a symbolic meal celebrating how God spared the Israelites from the Angel of Death in His final plague on Egypt. Through His servant Moses, God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice a spotless lamb and spread its blood on the doorposts of their homes. When the Angel of Death came to slaughter the firstborn in Egypt, he passed over the homes that were covered by the lamb's blood, inflicting death upon those homes, Jewish and Egyptian alike, that were not covered with the blood. Each year afterwards, the Hebrew people have continued celebrating the Passover Seder, remembering how God has preserved the nation of Israel. Wine is symbolically used in the Seder where, Four cups of wine are consumed at the meal indicating God's saving presence four times in Jewish history.[3] Both the unleavened bread and wine, along with the other symbolic elements of Passover, were given new meaning at Jesus' celebration of the Passover Seder in the Last Supper.

Jesus reassigned the significance of the symbolic elements of the Passover, establishing the tradition of the Last Supper as Holy Communion, celebrated in remembrance of His death. By calling the bread His body, Jesus explained to His apostles that His body would be broken for those who placed their faith in Him. Breaking the bread, Jesus demonstrated that He was the spotless Passover Lamb. Sharing a communal cup of wine with His disciples, Jesus said that like the Passover lamb, the shedding of His blood would provide a covering from the God's judgment of death for those who placed their trust in Him for eternal salvation, making sin obsolete through His blood. With Christ's blood painted over the doorposts of their hearts, God recognizes those who have chosen to believe that Jesus' death has paid the price for their sins and that His resurrection conquers death. The remembrance of this conquest continues in Christians' obedience to Jesus' command of celebrating communion "in remembrance of Me.[4] This celebration of Christ's one time sacrifice has been changed and distorted by the domination of the Roman Catholic Church over God's Church.

Constantine's conversion established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, giving the paganly influenced Roman Catholic Church power over religion and state. Though Constantine believed he was told in a vision to conquer under the sign of the cross, he believed that Apollo, not God, had sent him the vision. Recognizing the cross as a Christian symbol, Constantine believed that establishing Christianity as the religion of Rome would win his Apollo's favor. The powerful Roman Catholic Church that Constantine forcefully imposed upon his empire was rooted in paganism rather than true Christian doctrine. The birth of the Roman Catholic Church as a physical institution increased in power by erroneously claiming Christ to have established His Church on Peter, from whom the bishop of Rome believed he was spiritually descended. Because Catholicism regards the Bible, tradition (papal authority), reason, and personal experience as equal in authority, Catholic regard for the meaning behind Holy Communion diverted from the biblically orthodox view of Communion.

Some scholars believe that the Greco-Roman symposia were influential in the establishment the Catholic Eucharist's ritual. Deriving its name from Plato's Symposium,[5]the Greek symposium was a social gathering of aristocratic men, highly distinguished by its highly structured roles for participants and by "ceremonial drinking.[6] The Catholic Church's Eucharist celebration originated as a symbolic banquet accompanied by ritualistic drinking derived partially from this Hellenistic pagan tradition.[7] Through its desire to appeal to and aid the conversion of pagans to Christianity, the Catholic Church compromised Christian beliefs with those of pagans.

During the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, the Catholic Church's desire to convert pagans began affecting the meaning behind Christian traditions and rituals. The Catholic Church deliberately adopted rites resembling those of paganism with a view of attracting those who were without[8] to accommodate pagan beliefs that differed from Christian theology, making Christianity and paganism so similar that pagans would have no qualms about converting to Christianity. When Holy Communion was established as one of the seven canonical sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent held from 1545-1563 AD, pagan themes were incorporated into the sacrament to attract pagan attention and ease he transition from paganism to Christianity.[9] The Catholic Eucharist in which the bread and wine are transformed on the altar into the blood and body of Christ[10] incorporated Pagan Totem-system beliefs to ease pagan conversion.

The Pagan Totem-systems of naming tribes after an animal or plant divinified the creature after which the tribe was named in the Pagan tribesmen's minds. Pagans developed a ritual of eating this holy animal or plant in the belief that the substance would impart some of the creature's divinity to the consumers. A similar meaning exists behind the Roman Catholic celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion, where the bread and wine symbolize Christ's body and blood. Conflicts have arisen inside the Church as to whether the bread physically becomes Christ's body and blood. Christ instituted this sacrament as a symbolic remembrance of his death rather than as a transubstantiate sacrifice.

By adopting the belief of transubstantiation to help ease the spread of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church compromised its beliefs with the surrounding pagan religions in an effort to draw them into its sphere of influence and control.[11] The early church, before the establishment of the Church of Rome, denied the occurrence of transubstantiation in the celebration of Holy Communion when pre-Constantine Roman officials accused Christians of being cannibals. The Roman grounds for this accusation lay in their Pagan understanding of Holy Communion. Comparing the celebration of the Eucharist to Pagan Totem-system rituals, the Romans believed Christians to eat human bodies in representation of Christ's body. The early Christians defended themselves against this transubstantiate belief by claiming their sacred celebration to be in memory of Christ's broken body, not a physical consumption of it. By adapting Christian beliefs to convert its Pagan inhabitants and neighbors, the Catholic Church maintained a pretense of Christianity while becoming thoroughly paganised in its actual practices.[12] As the pagan beliefs slowly came to be accepted in the Catholic Church, the canonization of transubstantiation began to replace the true worship of Jesus Christ throughout all of Christian Europe.

Transubstantiation, the central element of the Catholic Mass, was a main point of contention for the Protestants during the Protestant Reformation because of its pagan origin. Catholic tradition maintains the belief in transubstantiation as a means of perpetuating Christ's ultimate sacrifice. Led by Martin Luther[13], the Protestant Reformation sought to reform the Catholic Church by returning to the authority of Sola Scriptura,[14] or the Bible alone. Protestants rejected the belief in transubstantiation as unbiblical and unnecessary, believing that Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.[15] Rather than adopting transubstantiation, they returned to the biblical view of Communion as a celebration remembering Christ's death. Protestants supported their views with the authority of scripture and testimonies from early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Theophilus of Antioch who supported Holy Communion as memorial rather than transubstantiate[16]. The conflicts between Catholics and Protestants that divided the Church continues today, including the debate over transubstantiation.

The current Roman Catholic Church continues to believe that the sacrament of Holy Communion has transubstantiate significance rather than being a memorial celebration. Valuing tradition as equal with biblical authority, the Roman Catholic Church fails to see the paganistic error of its celebration of Communion, deeming Protestants as heretics for claiming to the truth of the Bible. By clinging to its traditional pagan roots, the Catholic Church mistakes the true meaning of Communion, complicating the simple truth of scripture with unnecessary falsehoods. Because Catholics have been taught to accept the traditions of their denomination as infallible, most are blind to the lies they have believed about Communion which affect their beliefs about the acquiring of salvation. While Protestants cling to the Biblical belief that by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works,[17] Catholicism clings to its pagan roots, believing that eternal salvation must be earned. Both tradition and the Word of God cannot be equally authoritative because they contradict one another. The choice of where you place your eternal hope it up to you. Will in be in the Word of God or the teachings of man.

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[1] B.K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids: The National Union of Christian Schools, 1964), p. 4.

[2] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13295.htm. 16 February 2005.

[3] http://www.bwconf.org/conferencenews/April18-01issue/howardsedermeal/tr4-18-01.html. 24 February 2005.

[4] Luke 22:19, New International Version

[5] http://www.saliu.com/bbs/messages/120.html. 3 March 2005.

[6] http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/meals.html. 2 March 2005.

[7] http://godsfriends.org/Vol10/No3/Holyfood.html. 1 March 2005.

[8] S., Cheethan, The Mysteries of Pagan and Christian, (New York: Macmillan, 1897), p.x.

[9] http://webpub,allegheny.edu/groups/pagans/xian%20beliefs.htm. 4 March 2005.

[10] Robert Le Gall, Symbols of Catholicism, (Singapore: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2003), p.256.

[11] http://www.studytoanswer.net/rcc/rvb_mass.html. 1 March 2005.

[12] http://www.studytoanswer.net/rcc/rvb_mass.html. 1 March 2005

[13] John Dillenberger, ed. Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings, (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1961), p. 265.

[14] John Dillenberger, ed. Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings, (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1961), p. xxv.

[15] I Peter 3:18, New International Version.

[16] http://www.studytoanswer.net/rcc/rvb_mass.html. 6 March 2005

[17] Ephesians 2:8-9, King James Version.