St. Cyril was the Bishop of Jerusalem. Due to the Roman persecution of the Church, there is not as much theological work preserved from the time of Irenaeus to Cyril & due to the Arian heresy, the majority of debate focused on the divinity of Christ.
Key Ideas: Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures shows that through the persecutions of the Church in the third century and the legalization of Christianity in the first part of the fourth century, the teaching of the Church on the Eucharist remained the same. Cyril distinguishes between the reality of the body and blood in the Eucharist and the appearances of bread and wine sensed by the recipient. When Cyril uses the term “spiritual sense,” he does not mean “not real.” Rather, he uses his wording to explain the phenomenon that what the senses perceive to be bread and wine is, in fact, the body and blood of Christ.
Good Facts and Passages to Memorize: “Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood?” (Catechetical Lectures 22, 1). “Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to you His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood” (Catechetical Lectures 22, 3). “Having learned these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ” (Catechetical Lectures 22, 9).
Effective Questions to Ask When Discussing the Real Presence: Cyril of Jerusalem’s teaching on the Eucharist coincides nicely with Irenaeus’s teaching and the Catholic Church’s current teaching on the Eucharist. If the Catholic Church went wrong, when and how did it go wrong? If you read catechetical lecture 22 as a whole, is there any way to understand the Eucharist as not being the body and blood of Christ?
Prodigal Catholic 