Body and Blood

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Denials of the salvation and regeneration of the flesh are futile. For if there is no salvation for the flesh, then the Lord has not redeemed us by his blood, the cup of the Eucharist is not communion in his blood, and the bread which we break is not his body. For blood can issue only from veins, from flesh, from the whole human substance, and it is because he truly became all this that the Word of God redeemed us by his blood… And because we are his members and are fed by means of created objects—things he himself provides for us by making the sun rise and the rain fall—he declared that the cup, part of creation, is his own blood by which our blood is strengthened. He likewise pronounced the bread, part of creation, to be his own body by means of which our bodies are strengthened.

 

IRENAEUS OF LYONS Against Heresies

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