Roman Catholic view of Eucharist not only contradicts, but violates Hebrews “ἐφάπαξ”

While I was looking up something else, I came across this passage from Oscar Cullmann’s “The Christology of the New Testament” and I thought I’d pass it along, as it really is central to the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics:

Before we examine more closely this correspondence between the perfection of the High Priest and the perfection of the brothers, we must first consider an aspect of Jesus’ high priestly work which … indicates the chasm between the theology of Hebrews and all Gnosticism and mythology. We think of the once-for-all character (ἐφάπαξ) of the high priestly work. It stands in express opposition to the necessity of the continual repetition of the Old Testament priest’s work. We see again in this respect how Jesus not only fulfils the Old Testament priesthood, but also overcomes all its inadequacies.

The writer of Hebrews emphasizes the ἐφάπαξ so strongly in order to demonstrate this opposition. He describes a final and decisive act which in its very uniqueness brings salvation to men. This uniqueness points primarily to the idea that the act of salvation will not be repeated by Jesus the High Priest himself, but it also suggests that the brothers cannot repeat the act, despite the solidarity of the High Priest with their humanity. This ‘one time’ means ‘once for all time’: ‘…he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption’ (Heb. 9:12); ‘…he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’ (9:26); ‘…we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’ (10:10). Corresponding to ‘once for all’ we read in 10:14, ‘for all time’ (εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς). The saving character of this historically unrepeatable fact is decisive and unending. What the High Priest Jesus completed on the human level is therefore the centre of all events, the decisive midpoint of time. Every cultic event from now on is concentrated on the historical event of this High Priest’s human life, lived at one single time, with its one crowning climax in his atoning death.

Christian worship is therefore possible only on the basis of unreserved respect for this ἐφάπαξ. As I have previously pointed out, Protestants are incorrect in describing the Catholic mass as a ‘repetition’ of the sacrificial act of Jesus. Catholic theologians have always rejected this interpretation. They speak rather of ‘making present’ Christ’s act. But does not also this description of the mass violate the ἐφάπαξ of Hebrews—above all when one designates the mass a ‘sacrifice’? It is just the sacrifice as such which cannot be made present in the way it is supposed to happen in the Catholic mass.

The danger of falling back to the level of Old Testament priesthood arises when the high priest must always present the sacrifice anew. Christian worship in light of that ‘one time’ which means ‘once for all time’ is possible only when even the slightest temptation to ‘reproduce’ that central event itself is avoided. Instead, the event must be allowed to remain the divine act of the past time where God the Lord of time placed it—at that exact historical moment [when it occurred]. It is the saving consequences of this atoning act, not the act itself, which become a present event in our worship. The Lord present in worship is the exalted Kyrios of the Church and the world, raised to the right hand of God. He is the risen Lord who continues his mediating work on the basis of his unique, completed work of atonement. The words εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν (in remembrance of me, 1 Cor 11:24. 25) describe the connection between his crucifixion and the celebration of the Lord’s supper. This means ‘in remembrance of that which I have completed, on the basis of which I now dwell among you as the resurrected Lord’.

This was one of the things that struck me most, when I read through the New Testament at age 19. Roman Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist, arguably its most central doctrine, is at odds with what the writer to the Hebrews is not only saying clearly, but emphasizing. This is a clear case of biblical perspicuity vs Roman Catholic obfuscation.

Look at this contradiction through the Bryan Cross paradigm, through the Roman Catholic Hermeneutic:

From a Catholic point of view, we never assume as part of our theological methodology that a prima facie contradiction within the Tradition is an actual contradiction. Out of humility toward the Tradition, we instead assume as a working hypothesis that the appearance of a contradiction is due to our own ignorance or misunderstanding. So from a Catholic point of view, if we have at hand an explanation that integrates the apparently conflicting pieces of evidence, we already have a good reason to accept it rather than conclude that there is an actual contradiction…

 Jesus had a word for this, too: “Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that” (Mark 7:13).