Did the Catholic Church believe in transubstantiation prior to the Council of Trent?

Answer 1

Transubstantiation of the Eucharist is a Basic church doctrine. It can be argued some Biblical passages suggest it is merely a commemorative rite ( akin, to say, a postage stamp honoring, say, Washington) The Biblical passage is- Do this in Memory of Me! One can argue both ways. There were far bigger issues on the table than such as basic doctrine- for example the standardization of the Latin mass - which lasted until Vatican II, with some alterations, and the requirements of basic sacramental theology and the Priestly celibacy laws- which were affirmed as LAW at the time of the Council of Trent. so it went. It was so important, they used to talk about it in Sunday School in the late sixties, without date references - I assumed it was something fairly modern like the United Nations or the Atlantic Charter of 1942.

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Catholic AnswerOf course the Church has always believed in the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist, although the word "Transubstantiation" did not come into common use until the early 13th century when the word was used by the Fourth Lateran Council to describe how the bread and wine are transformed into the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord. The fact of transubstantiation is clearly taught in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and was believed by all Christians for the past two thousand years. It is one of the doctrines which heretics hold in ridicule.

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Cardinal Newman, whom very few would accuse of being unreasonable or credulous, had this to say about the "difficulties" of transubstantiation:People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe . . . It is difficult, impossible to imagine I grant -- but how is it difficult to believe? . . . For myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? Just as the greatest philosophers, and that is nothing at all." . . . And, in like manner . . . the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fat, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

When one realizes that transubstantiation is a miracle of God, any thought of impossibility vanishes, since God is omnipotent and the Sovereign Lord over all creation (Matt 10:26; Phil. 3:20-21; Heb. 1:3). If mere men can change accidental properties without changing substance (for example, turning iron into molten liquid or even vapor), then God is certainly able to change substance without outward transmutation.

Therefore, having disposed of these weak philosophical objections, we can proceed to examine the clear and indisputable biblical data that reveal to us that God does in fact perform (through the agency of priests) the supernatural act of transubstantiation.

New Testament teaching on the Real Presence

John 6:47-63, 66:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from ...

James Cardinal Gibbons, a notable figure in American Catholicism in the late nineteenth century, commented on this passage:

If the Eucharist were merely commemorate bread and wine, instead of being superior, it would really be inferior t the manna; for the manna was supernatural, heavenly, miraculous food, while bread and wine are a natural, earthly food . . .

The multitude and the disciples who are listening to Him . . . all understood the import of His language precisely as it is explained by the Catholic Church . . .

It sometimes happened, indeed, that our Savior was misunderstood by His hearers. On such occasions He always took care to remove from their mind the wrong impression they had formed by stating His meaning in simpler language [Nicodemus -- John 3:1-15; leaven of the Pharisees -- Matt. 16:5-12].

Among the Jews of Jesus' time, the phrase "eat the flesh" was a metaphor for a grievous injury. It is obvious that our Lord did not use the phrase in this sense (which would have been nonsensical), so it is altogether reasonable to conclude that he intended a literal meaning. When Protestants claim that Jesus meant only to "believe" in him, or to "accept" him spiritually and symbolically by faith, they are violating their own hermenutical tenet of interpreting Scripture according to the Jewish customs, idioms, and usages of the time. The current prevailing Protestant interpretation originated only centuries afterward (basically in the sixteenth century). [This historical fact is acknowledged by reputable Protestant reference work Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F. C. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, eds. It is conceded that the Real Presence was universally held from the beginning o the Church. This is also confirmed by the New Internal Dictionary of the Christian Church (J.D. Douglas, ed.)]

Surely Jesus would not condemn people to eternal punishment (John 6:53) for the neglect of something that they never even comprehended in the first place! Rather, it was the rejection of a divine revelation due to its difficulty that was the cause of the loss of eternal life (6:57-58). The hearers, it is true, did not grasp the miraculous, sacramental way in which Christ was speaking (6:60-61) and balked (somewhat understandably) at the notion of what they imagined to some sort of grisly cannibalism (6:52). Jesus countered with a statement that his natural human body would ascend to Heaven and not remain on earth (6:62), and that spiritual wisdom and grace are necessary in order to understand his words (6:63, 65).

Answer 2

Yes, the Catholic Church's belief in transubstantiation, which is the teaching that the bread and wine of the Eucharist become the actual body and blood of Christ while maintaining the appearances of bread and wine, predates the Council of Trent. The doctrine of transubstantiation was formally defined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, but the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist can be traced back to the early Church Fathers.