In the book I am currently reading In the Presence of Our Lord by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the good father addresses erroneous teachings by anti-Catholics.
..."Without any credible evidence anti-Catholic writers often falsely maintain that belief in the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ and in the Eucharist as a sacrifice began in the Church in the fourth century, after Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the Roman Emipre. It is alleged, completely without any historical foundation, that large numbers of pagan priests, put out of their jobs by the formal end of the Greco-Roman cult, became Christians in name only and brought their pagan belief in sacrifice with them.Father Groeschel goes on to show how early Church Fathers such as Saint Justin Martyr, very early in the Church's history referred to the Eucharist as a sacrifice. When referencing the prophet Malachi, the saint wrote "Already, then, did he prophesy about those sacrifices that are offered to him in every place by us Gentiles, speaking, that is, about the Bread of the Eucharist and the cup of the Eucharist."
Ignatius of Antioch and several other key patristic writers long before Constantine's edict in 313 clearly demonstrate the fallacy of this claim. No one who knows the writings of the postapostolic Fathers could honestly maintain that the idea of the reality of the Eucharist and its sacramental character came from pagan priests. Since many of these anti-Catholic writers are misled and confused about the Catholic teaching on the reality of the Eucharist, we need to be aware of and ponder the message of the early Christian writers...
Fr. Groeschel also referred to St. Irenaeus, who is referred to as an important link to the apostles. He wrote a book entitled Against the Heresies, wherein he condemned those who taught that the human body was not saved. He believed that the promise of Christ in the Eucharist must be real because the promise of eternal life it gives is true.
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