The necessity of the Eucharist

[CrossoverManiac]

Today, for Catholics, is the Sunday set aside for Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ).  It brought up some questions that I have been avoiding.  When I was a teenager and I questioned my Catholicism, I asked God to show me that the Eucharist was the literal body and blood of Christ in Scripture.  Sometime later, I heard John 6 preached

"Joh 6:55  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."

I took it to be a message from God, but I'm having my doubts, which started when I heard the message of universal salvation.  How would you interpret this scripture?

[Seth]

I would take that to me a metaphor. A metaphor is a kind of simile without the "like" involved. So, rather than saying, "This hot water is like fire", I would say "This hot water is fire."

[CrossoverManiac]

I forgot to mention something else.  Didn't the Early Church believe in the literal interpretation of John 6/Eucharist being the literal body and blood of Christ?  This has been brought up by Catholic apologists.

[Seth]

Depends on what they mean by "early church."

[CrossoverManiac]

From all of the literature I read about the Early Church Fathers, it's the leaders of the Church from after the last book in the Bible was written to the 5th-6th century AD

[Seth]

From my understanding there is at least 100 to 200 years gap between the emergence of the Catholics church and the 1st century church other than tradition concerning the papal line. Paul said that shortly after his death wolves would enter in and not spare the flock. A lot can happen in a century or two. Look at Scientology. It.only took 40 years to.become a recognized religion.

[WhiteWings]

I forgot to mention something else.  Didn't the Early Church believe in the literal interpretation of John 6/Eucharist being the literal body and blood of Christ?  This has been brought up by Catholic apologists.

There was no early church as in something with a unity. Perhaps the very, very early church is an exception because that were people that were Jewish in all their ways. Obviously they believed Jesus was the Messiah while the other Jews didn't believe that. They kept their food laws. They kept their Sabbath and other customs. That was more unity than among the current denominations.

Things changed when the Gospel went to the gentiles. I think it's only human that when someone is placed in a new environment they compare to what they are used all their life. So, interpretation of Christ's message according to their old ways (slowly) crept in. Maybe not on purpose, but it did.

A good example of that is Saturday vs Sunday day of rest. The Romans increased the pressure on the Jews because they (jews) always rebelled. So some Messanics slowly started to keep Sunday sabbath. Just to show the Romans they were not Jews. Likely they also changed the day for other reasons. Many just kept Saturday Sabath rest.

When Constantine was trying to reunite his crumbling empire by religion he used Christianity. But soon he learned that wasn't of much use to him because by then there were many flavors of Christianity. It's often said Constantine invented the Sunday Sabbath, aka Lord's day, aka (the sun god) emperor's day, that isn't true. Many kept it already. He just made it the law, a law he strictly enforced.

So to answer your question: Unknown.
The early RCC doctrine is quite clear. The very early church doctrine was very Jewish. But the time between that comes in all possible shades of grey. It wouldn't surprise me at all that Christians before Constantine kept the Eucharist because it's very similar to certain pagan rituals.