receive the Holy Spirit in the water; but that, being cleansed in the water, we are prepared for the (reception of the) Holy Spirit. In like manner, in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, a sanctifying power is communicated to the elements, which passes from the body to the soul. This is the clue to the right interpretation of the strong expressions which Tertullian sometimes uses respecting the eucharist. When a spiritual benefit is conferred on the soul, some outward act is performed on the body.* "The flesh is washed (in baptism), that the soul may be cleansed. It is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated (to God). It is signed with the sign of the cross, that the soul may be fortified. It is overshadowed by the imposition of hands, that the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit. It feeds on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may be fattened of God." There is no more reason for interpreting Tertullian literally, when he speaks of feeding on the body and blood of Christ, than when he speaks of the soul being fattened of God. Such an interpretation, too, would be utterly at variance with those passages in † which he speaks of the bread and wine as representative symbols; while, on the contrary, all apparent inconsistencies are removed by the supposition that he believed a participation in the symbols of Christ's body and blood to be the medium through which the soul is brought into union with the divine Aóyos, who is spiritually present in the eucharist. We are surely bound to adopt that interpretation of an author's words which places him in accordance, not that which sets him at variance, with himself. If, however, any doubt can remain respecting Tertullian's meaning, it must be removed by his comment on John vi. 63. The flesh profiteth nothing. "The Sadducees," he says, "thought our Saviour's words hard and intolerable, as if he meant actually to give them his flesh to eat. In order, therefore, to direct them to the Spirit as the giver of salvation, he first says, It is the Spirit which maketh alive; and then adds, The flesh profiteth nothing nothing towards making alive. He then explains what he means by the Spirit. The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life: as he had before said, He who hears my words, and believes on Him who sent me, has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but shall pass from death to life. Having thus made the Word the giver of life, inasmuch as the Word is Spirit and Life, he calls the same (the Word) his flesh; for the Word was made flesh. The Word, therefore, must be desired as the cause of life; must be discerned by the hearing, ruminated by the understanding, and digested by faith.' tur. Scilicet caro abluitur, ut anima emaculetur. Caro ungitur, ut anima consecreCaro signatur ut et anima muniatur. Caro manûs impositione adumbratur, ut et anima Spiritu illuminetur. Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo saginetur. De Resurrectione Carnis, c. 8. The expression opimitate Dominici corporis vescitur, in the tract de Pudicitiâ, c. 9, is an allusion to the fatted calf, which the father killed on the return of his prodigal son, and which Tertullian interprets of the eucharist. c. 40. See the Tract de Oratione, c. 6. Adv. Marcionem, 1. i. c. 16. 1. iii. c. 19. 1. iv. De Resurrectione Carnis, c. 37. From this passage it is evident that Tertullian did not understand our Saviour's words in John vi. 31, literally; and if we compare the concluding sentence with the words of our 28th article- The body of Christ is given, eaten, and taken, in the (Lord's) supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner; and the sense whereby the body of of Christ is received and eaten in the supper is faith"-we shall be satisfied that his opinion respecting the presence of Christ in the eucharist coincided, not indeed with that of the Socinians and Hoadlegites, but with that of the church of England. It is scarcely necessary for me to prove by quotations from the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, and Origen, that they were not believers in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Our traveller betrays his consciousness that they lend no support to his cause by his insinuations against their honesty or their courage. Clement and Origen employed an allegorical and anagogical mode of interpretation, in order to mystify their hearers; and Cyprian, from the timidity of his character, was the closest and most circumspect observer of the discipline of the secret. In other words, their testimony is adverse to the doctrine of the Romish church: some pretence must, therefore, be invented for setting it aside. Clement repeatedly quotes John vi. In the first book of the Pædagoge, c. 6 (cxxv, 37), he thus comments on the 51st verse, The bread which I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world" Here we must remark the mystical character of the bread; he calls it flesh, and says that it will rise like wheat, (read dikny Tupou with Sylburgius) which rises out of corruption and seed; and that like kneaded bread, it will be brought to consistence through fire, to the joy of the church. But this will be more clearly explained in my work concerning the resurrection. Since, however, he says, And the bread which I shall give is my flesh, and the flesh is moistened by the blood, and the blood is called allegorically wine, we should know that as bread, broken into the mixed wine and water, drinks up the wine and leaves the water, so the flesh of the Lord, the bread from heaven, drinks up the blood, nourishing heavenly men to incorruption, but leaving the carnal appetites for destruction. Thus the word is represented under various allegories of food, flesh, nourishment, bread, blood, milk: the Lord is all things to us who believe in him in order that we may enjoy him." Clement had before, in the same chapter, (cxxi. 2), referring to vv. 53, 54, said, that our Lord expressed himself by means of symbols, telling his hearers to eat his flesh and drink his blood; thereby declaring, under an allegory, the portable nature (rò Torov) of faith and of the promise, by which the church, consisting, like man, of many members, is nourished and receives increase, and is compacted together of both; of faith, as the body; of hope, as the soul: as the Lord was composed of flesh and blood." He afterwards gives other interpretations of the same words." CXXIII. 25 et sequ. It appears from the Excerpta ex Theodoti scriptis xu that the Valentinians understood by the flesh, the mystical body of Christ; the heavenly bread, the blessed assembly. In one he says that the flesh means the Holy Spirit,—the blood, the word; but in no instance does he even allude to a literal interpretation. Clement says, with reference to Zechariah ix. 9, that the vine bears wine, as the word bears blood; both are to be drunk by men unto salvation the wine, bodily; the blood, spiritually. In another place, he says, that there is a two-fold blood of the Lord: the one carnal, by which we are redeemed from corruption; the other spiritual, by which we are anointed. To drink the blood of Jesus is to partake of the incorruption of the Lord. The Spirit is the power of the word, as the blood is of the flesh. According to this analogy, the wine is mixed with water, the Spirit with man: the mixture of wine and water supplies a banquet (ɛvwxɛî) unto faith; the Spirit leads the way to incorruption; the mixture of both, of that which is drunk and of the word, is called the eucharist-an admirable and beautiful gracewhich, if we partake of it in faith, sanctifies both the body and soul; the will of the Father mystically mixing up the divine mixture-man -with the Spirit and the Word. Thus the Spirit is truly united to the soul, which is borne along or impelled by it; the flesh to the word, on account of which (the flesh) the Word became flesh." Clement here shews that his opinion coincides with that of Irenæus. The flesh receives the principle of immortality in the eucharist through the union of the soul with the Spirit or the Aóyos. We may think Clement's interpretations of scripture far-fetched and unsatisfactory; but we cannot rise from the perusal of them without feeling a full conviction that he never entertained a notion of a corporal presence of Christ in the eucharist. Our Traveller quotes only a single passage from Origen, and that suspected of spuriousness. I refer the reader to Waterland's remarks upon it. It is, as I have before observed, certain that Origen recognised only a spiritual presence of Christ in the eucharist, and believed that the worthy communicant alone was brought into union with him, by participating in the rite. From Cyprian, our Traveller quotes two passages: one in which it is said that Christians, in the eucharist, touch Christ's body.§ Cyprian certainly refers to the practice of daily communion, which then prevailed in the church; and interprets the petition, Give us this day our daily bread, as a prayer that we may be prevented from falling into any heinous fault which may cause us to be cut off from a participation in the Lord's supper. But the question still remains, in what sense did Cyprian suppose the consecrated elements to be Pæd. 1. 1, c. 5 cvп. 3. + Pæd. 1. ii. c. 2. CLXXVII. 24. Compare CLXXXVI. 13, where the blood of Christ is called the blood of the vine, with reference to the words of institution; and that which he blessed is expressly said to be wine. Strom. 1. 5. DCLXXV. 11. DCLXXXV. 38. Quis Dives salvetur. DCDXLVIII. 41. DCDLII. 8. Doctrine of the Eucharist, vol. vii. p. 171. Bp. Van Mildert's edition. $ No reference is given: but I suppose our Traveller to refer to the Tract de Oratione Dominicâ, p. 146. Ed. Oxon. Sic et Panem nostrum vocamus: quia Christus noster (qui corpus ejus contingimus) panis est. Christ's body? In a symbolical or a literal sense?* Our Traveller assumes what he ought to prove that the words are to be literally understood. The second passage is from the epistle to Cornelius,† in which Cyprian is contending for the expediency of re-admitting to the communion of the church those who had fallen away during the Decian persecution, but had since given proofs of sincere repentance, on the ground that the church was threatened with another persecution. "How," he asks, "can we teach and urge them to shed their blood in the confession of their name of Christians, if we deny them Christ's blood when they are about to go to battle ?" Our Traveller must be sadly at a loss for passages in proof of Cyprian's belief in the corporal presence, when he finds it necessary to press this piece of rhetorical declamation into the service. In the very next sentence Cyprian asks, "how can we render them fit for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to drink, by the right of communion, the cup of the Lord in the church?" Are we to infer from this sentence that Cyprian understood Christ literally, when he applied the word cup to his approaching passion? It appears from the foregoing examination of the writings of the fathers of the first three centuries, that their opinion respecting the presence of Christ in the eucharist coincided, in the main, with that of the church of England. They recognised a spiritual, not a corporal presence. Could it, therefore, be shewn, as clearly as our Traveller wishes us to believe that it can, that the fathers of later times held the doctrine of transubstantiation, the right conclusion would be, that they had deviated from the faith of the primitive church. But in appealing to the testimony of the later fathers, our Traveller has practised the artifice which I pointed out in a former letter. He has made such extracts as suited his purpose, and has left his readers to suppose that they convey a fair and full representation of the opinions of the several writers whom he quotes. Sometimes, indeed, he is found to admit the existence of passages of a different character; but for these he accounts by the discipline of the secret. The language of Augustine is not so explicit as he could wish; but that father lived in Africa, where the population was still, for the greater part, pagan. (How does our Traveller reconcile this assertion with the fact, that there were in Augustine's time 466 bishoprics in Africa,-Bingham, Book ix., c. 2, sec. 5,--or with Gibbon's account of the rapid progress * See Waterland, vol. vii. p. 123. † Ep. lvii. or liv. I refer the reader to the quotations made by Bingham, book 15, c. 5, s. 4, from the very authors, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, whom our Traveller quotes in support of his assertions. Thus he quotes part of a dialogue, the work of Theodoret, between an orthodox believer and an Eutychian; and at last can only extract from it a testimony in favour of consubstantiation. The reader will find it discussed by Bp. Pearson, on the Creed, article 111, p. 162, ed. 1683; and will thence be enabled to judge how far our Traveller is warranted in saying that the perαoroixεiwoic of the Greek fathers was synonymous with the transubstantiation of the Romish church. of Christianity in Africa, vol. i. p. 510?) He therefore deemed it prudent occasionally to use ambiguous language. Whether the word ambiguous is rightly applied to the following comment on John, vi. 50, "That a man may eat thereof and not die," the reader will judge: "This is to be applied to the inward power and meaning of the sacrament-not to the outward, visible sign; to him who eats inwardlynot to him who eats outwardly; to him who eats with the heart-not to him who eats only with the mouth." Or to the following extract from his sermon on Easter Day*-"The outward signs are something perishable; but that which is represented by them is something imperishable. Receive them in the sense-t -that you consider yourselves as members of Christ's body-that you are one with Him in heartthat you always have your hearts lifted up. Let not your hope be on earth, but in heaven; let your faith in God be steadfast,-since what you here see not, and yet believe, will hereafter appear to you, where your joy shall have no end." Selden has justly observed, "that the fathers using to speak rhetorically brought up transubstantiation."+ It originated in the declamatory expressions of popular preachers, who have been in all ages too apt to forget the sound principles of scriptural interpretation in their anxiety to produce a strong impression on their hearers. What could be more effectual to the production of such an impression than to represent the Deity as actually present in the eucharist-present by Impanation? "It was," as they truly remark,+ "an idea enough to fill the mind with sacred horror, and to make every ordinary sentiment appear insipid." But expressions, used at first only to produce an effect, were afterwards employed for a less innocent purpose-in order to confirm and extend the authority of the clergy over the laity. How must the sacred character of the priest be enhanced in the eyes of the multitude! how must their reverence for his person be increased! if they could once be brought to believe that he could, at his will, command the presence of the Deity! The attempt was bold; but, through the ignorance in which Europe was then involved, it succeeded; and transubstantiation became, though not without opposition, the doctrine of the churches which recognised the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. Not satisfied with convincing us by argument, our Traveller is determined also to overwhelm us by authority. He points to the long list of illustrious sages who have bowed with implicit faith before the miracle of the eucharist-to the Erasmuses, the Pascals, the Fenelons, Tom. v. p. 974. + Our Traveller charges protestants with affirming that the doctrine of transubstantiation was invented by Paschasius in the ninth century. This is incorrect. We say only that the doctrine then assumed its present definite form. If the reader will compare Chrysostom's exposition of John vi. with that of Theophylact, he will be enabled to form some idea of the process by which rhetoric was gradually turned into logic. Book iv., art. xxviii., sect. 6. VOL. IV. Nov. 1833. 3 Y |