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Did a Church Father Deny Christ’s Real Presence at Mass?

Did a Church Father Deny Christ’s Real Presence at Mass?

Last updated on: August 6, 2026 at 1:49 pm by Billy Kangas

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Did a Church Father Deny Christ’s Real Presence at Mass? 2026-08-06T13:49:19-04:00 Billy Kangas

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Clement uses symbolic language and the liturgy uses memorial language. But in the Jewish and early Christian worldview, these words point to real participation, not mere metaphor. | Image courtesy of See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Over the past week, a lively debate has been unfolding online about whether any of the early Church Fathers denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist. One comment in particular caught my attention because it raised thoughtful questions about symbolism, metaphor, and the meaning of “memorial” in early Christian worship. The commenter quotes Clement of Alexandria:

“Elsewhere, the Lord, in the gospel according to John, brought this out by SYMBOLS, when he said: ‘Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood,’ describing distinctly by METAPHOR…”

— Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 1.6

They also pointed to the Liturgy of St. James, which speaks of the Eucharist as “an everlasting memorial.”

Let’s get into it a little.

To begin with, I don’t think they quoted Clement in the proper context.

What is this chapter really about?

This chapter isn’t a treatise on the nature of the Eucharist at all. It’s Clement’s answer to critics (likely proto-Gnostic Christians) who mocked ordinary baptized believers as mere “children” and “infants,” implying they’d received only elementary teaching while a spiritual elite possessed deeper, hidden knowledge. Clement’s central argument is that baptism confers complete salvation instantly and equally to everyone who receives it. There is no tier of “milk-fed” beginners and a separate tier of “meat-eating” advanced Gnostics, because milk and meat are, in his reading of Paul, the very same substance (Christ himself) offered in full to every believer regardless of how long they’ve been in the faith.

So why is he talking about the Bread of Life discourse at all?

Clement gets there through his running argument about “milk vs. meat” in 1 Corinthians 3. He’s just spent a stretch insisting that milk and meat aren’t two different grades of teaching but one and the same substance, Christ, taken in different forms depending on what the recipient can handle. To back that up, he needs to show that “milk” itself can mean something as weighty and total as the “meat” his opponents think is reserved for advanced believers.

So he reaches for a second scriptural image of nourishment: Jesus in John’s Gospel saying “eat my flesh, drink my blood.” Clement’s move is to point out that even this most solid, substantial image of food carries a deeper meaning beyond the literal act of eating it signifies the very realities that hold the Church together as one body. This isn’t a denial that the Eucharist truly is Christ’s flesh and blood; Clement, like other Fathers of his era, can affirm a reality and draw out its symbolic significance in the same breath. His point here is simply that the nourishment Christ gives, whether described as milk, meat, bread, wine, or flesh and blood, is always one and the same gift: Christ himself, given whole, not doled out in lesser and greater portions to different classes of believer. John 6 gets folded into that argument as one more link in the chain, not as a place where Clement stops to settle the question of eucharistic presence for its own sake.

That’s also why the move feels sudden if you’re reading specifically for eucharistic theology. Clement isn’t pausing to explain the Eucharist; he’s using the “eat my flesh” line as leverage in his larger anti-elitist point, then immediately continuing into the blood-becomes-milk physiology to keep building that same case.

Clement is explaining the mode of Christ’s teaching, i.e., the metaphorical language of John 6, not denying the sacramental reality. He’s attacking a Gnostic argument that promotes a spiritual elitism, not talking about the physical reality of the sacraments. If you look at the rest of this work as well as in the Stromata, I think you would be hard-pressed to argue (in spite of his love of spiritualization and symbol) that he did not believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is commentary on a different topic, and applying it to eucharistic theology is a stretch. There are many Christians throughout the history of the Church who recognize the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist and still see the Bread of Life discourse (given before the institution of the Eucharist) as full of symbolic meaning.

Clement makes an interesting point, and I’m not sure I agree with him completely, but in no way is he offering a commentary on Eucharistic theology.

What about “Memorial Language”

This brings us to the Liturgy of St. James, which calls the Eucharist “an everlasting memorial.” That phrase can sound like “mere remembrance” to modern ears, but in Scripture and Jewish worship, “memorial” (anamnesis in the LXX) never means simple recollection. It means making the saving act of God present.

In the original language of the liturgy, the phrase is ““…τὴν μυστικὴν ταύτην καὶ φρικτὴν θυσίαν, εἰς ἀνάμνησιν αἰώνιον…”

In English this is: “…this mystical and awe-inspiring sacrifice, as an everlasting memorial…”

Memorial is ἀνάμνησιν – anamnēsin – from anamnesis. This is a word that has a meaning in context that is very different from what we think of when we hear it translated into English.

In the Old Testament, Passover is called a “memorial”:
“This day shall be a memorial for you…” (Exodus 12:14)

But Israel didn’t merely remember the Exodus; they participated in it liturgically. The Septuagint uses anamnesis for sacrificial offerings: “He shall burn it on the altar as a memorial (anamnesis) offering.” (Leviticus 2:2 LXX)

This “memorial offering” is not symbolic in the modern sense. It is the actual presentation of the sacrifice before God.

The New Testament uses the same word: “There is a reminder (anamnesis) of sins every year.” (Hebrews 10:3)

Again, this is not mental recollection. It is the liturgical re‑presentation of the sacrifice.

So when Jesus says at the Last Supper, “Do this in anamnesis of me.” (Luke 22:19)
He is speaking in that Jewish sacrificial sense: not “think about me,” but “participate in my offering,” or perhaps “make present what I accomplished.”

The Catechism explains this directly:
“In the sense of Scripture, the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men… these events become in a certain way present and real.” (CCC 1363)

And:
“The Eucharist is thus a memorial because it makes present the sacrifice of the cross.” (CCC 1364)

This is why Catholics can say the Eucharist is both symbolic and real. The symbolism is not a denial of the miracle; it is the very way the miracle is communicated.

So yes, Clement uses symbolic language and the liturgy uses memorial language. But in the Jewish and early Christian worldview, these words point to real participation, not mere metaphor. The sacraments are “smoke,” not “stop signs,” signs that reveal and communicate the reality they signify.

And all of this stands alongside the clear and repeated affirmations of the Real Presence found throughout the early Church. Take Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, and Augustine, for starters. Each of them speaks of the Eucharist as the true Body and Blood of Christ. Even the Fathers most fond of figurative language, such as Tertullian and Origen, affirm that reality while drawing out its symbolic depth, which is precisely the pattern we have been describing. Place Clement’s language next to this witness and it becomes a losing argument to suggest the early Church understood the Eucharist as “mere symbol.” The record is simply overwhelming. When you place Clement’s symbolic language next to the innumerable explicit statements from these Fathers, it becomes a losing argument to suggest that the early Church understood the Eucharist as “mere symbol.” The Fathers were fully convinced that in the sacrament, under the signs of bread and wine, the faithful truly receive the Body and Blood of the Lord.

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