JUSTIN ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.

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tion of the Lord's Supper as a Sacrifice. He says, "God receives sacrifices from no one unless through his priests; but all Christians when purified from their sins are the true priestly generation." He mentions a twofold object in the presentation of the bread and wine; the grateful commemoration of the redemptive sufferings of Christ and of the gifts of Creation. These two topics are referred to, because by the former all which had been given to Man, but through Sin had lost its just relation to him, is now given back to him. objects, therefore, are brought forward in the thanksgiving prayer at the Lord's Supper. According to this, Justin's view contains nothing but what is consistent with the universal Christian priesthood. The Sacrifice in the Lord's Supper is an act belonging to it which the Bishop performs in the name of the congregation. It is not the introduction of a Jewish mode of thought, but of one directly opposed to it.

Both

But we are not to conclude from the spiritual and symbolical construction of the idea of Sacrifice that Justin attached only a symbolical idea to the Lord's Supper. By no means; for he says, We do not call this common bread, nor common drink, but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh and blood by the word of God for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food blessed by the word of prayer proceeding from him, by which our flesh and blood are nourished (narà METABOλ), is the flesh and blood of Jesus made flesh. Justin, therefore, had the same view substantially as Irenæus, that by virtue of the consecration the flesh and blood of Christ were really combined with the bread and wine In Justin there is also a train of thought which is continued in the sentence that follows,-the λóyos suxs, namely, which produces this wonderful effect, alludes to the Logos, by whom the Incarnation was directly accomplished, and who here produces the flesh and blood of Christ. It is not represented that Christ himself is present with his flesh and blood, but that by the

* Dial. c. Tryph. § 16.

+ Apol. i. 66. Οὐ γὰρ ὡς κοινὸν ἄρτον οὐδὲ κοινὸν πόμα ταῦτα λαμβάνομεν, ἀλλ ̓ ὃν τρόπον διὰ λόγου Θεοῦ σαρκοποιηθεὶς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν καὶ σάρκα καὶ αἷμα ὑπὲρ σωτηρίας ἡμῶν ἔσχεν, οὕτως καὶ τὴν δι ̓ εὐχῆς λόγου τοῦ παρ ̓ αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστηθεῖσαν τροφήν, ἐξ ἧς αἷμα καὶ σάρκες κατὰ μεταβολὴν τρέφονται ἡμῶν, ἐκείνου τοῦ σαρκοποιηθέντος Ἰησοῦ καὶ σάρκα καὶ αἷμα ἐδιδάχθημεν εἶναι.

operation of the Logos who once appeared in Christ, flesh and blood were produced, a reiterated Incarnation, and so far an identity of Christ's body.

The North African doctrine made an advance towards a more spiritual conception. Tertullian sometimes uses expressions as if the bread and wine were only symbolical signs; Christ made the bread his body, i.e., called it his body, to wit, figura corporis ;* further, "Christ consecrated the wine in remembrance of his blood."+ Yet expressions of an opposite kind are also found in his writings, as for instance, vescitur opimitate dominici corporis; ‡ yet phraseology of the first kind is most frequent. As sensuous representations are to be looked for in Tertullian, there is greater occasion for endeavouring to reconcile the two modes of expression; especially since his language elsewhere shows that he believed a supernatural element was connected with the outward signs. It was customary in the North African Church to take home the consecrated bread, and eat it early in the morning. This proceeded from a deep Christian sentiment-that the whole life of the believer ought to be sanctified by continual connexion with Christ. Many, however, were not satisfied with the spiritual view of this practice, but believed that a supernatural sanctifying power and a magical effect were connected with the food. To this Tertullian assents,§ for he describes a supernatural effect which passes from the body to the soul. The body. he says, receives the body and blood of Christ, in order that the soul also may be nourished by God. Here he seems to point out two elements; the spiritual communion with Christ in his essential nature, and a sanctifying contact with his body. This explanation is confirmed by his exposition of the Lord's Prayer. The prayer for our daily bread

* C. Marc. iv. 40.-Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis corpus suum illum fecit, hoc est: corpus meum dicendo, i.e. figura corporis mei.

+ De Animâ, 17.-Vini saporem, quod in sanguinis sui memoriam consecravit.

De Pudic. 9.

§ De Resurrect. Carn. 8.-Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo saginetur.

|| De Orat. 6.-Christus enim panis noster est, quia vita Christus et vita panis. Ego sum, inquit, panis vitæ. Et paulo supra: Panis est sermo Dei vivi, qui descendit de cœlis. Tum quod et corpus ejus in

CYPRIAN ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.

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may be understood spiritually, as far as Christ is to our spiritual life what bread is for our bodies, and as far as the body of Christ is signified in the bread. Here, then, he distinguishes from the spiritual communion with Christ that which is effected through the medium of his body given in the bread. He supposes that through the Lord's Supper there is an indissoluble connexion between the body of Christ and the Church. Accordingly, taking all things into account, we perceive that Tertullian, though he certainly admitted no combination of the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ, and regarded the bread and wine in themselves as symbols of the body and blood of Christ, maintained the existence of a supernatural element in the Lord's Supper and a supernatural connexion with the body of Christ for the sanctification of the whole man.

CYPRIAN speaks of the blood of Christ which is drunk, and is in the wine, but the force of this expression is weakened by the context, since he is aiming to prove that the mixture of water and wine is necessary, against those who merely used water at the Lord's Supper. The water is a symbol of the Church, and by its being mixed with the wine, the union of the Church with Christ is signified. It might be inferred from this language, that he held the wine to be only a symbol of the blood of Christ. But his comparisons are not to be taken too strictly; he likens the effects of the Lord's Supper to the usual effects of wine; the heart of man is exhilarated by the Lord's Supper; it is no more rendered gloomy by Sin, but attains to joy in the divine grace.† Cyprian also thought, that a certain sanctifying contact with the body of Christ was connected with the Lord's Supper. Christ, he says, is the bread of those who touch his body; to be excluded from the Lord's Supper is to be far from the sanctifying power of pane censetur: Hoc est corpus meum. Itaque petendo panem quotidianum perpetuitam postulamus in Christo et individuitatem a corpore ejus.

* Ep. 63, c. 2, 13.-Non quia nos omnes portabat Christus, qui et peccata nostra portabat, videmus, in aqua populum intelligi, in vino vero ostendi sanguinem Christi. Quando autem in calice, vino aqua miscetur, Christo populus adunatur, et credentium plebs ei, in quem credidit, copulatur et conjungitur.

+ C. 11.

R

Christ and his body.* Cyprian's views were probably similar to those of Tertullian. That he admitted a supernatural element in the Lord's Supper is evident also from his legendary narratives of the consequences of partaking unworthily of it.t

In

Infant communion was introduced along with Infant baptism, and in this practice there was assumed to be a sanctifying operation independently of an intelligent reception. As the unconditional necessity of baptism was inferred from our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, so from the words in the 6th chapter of John's Gospel respecting eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Christ it was concluded that no one could have eternal life without partaking of the Lord's Supper, and hence it was given to children immediately after baptism. Cyprian adopted this view, yet still held it necessary, immediately to guard against the moral indolence which might arise from so objective a conception of the Lord's Supper, and to require that Faith should show itself active in works. Cyprian we first observe the transition from the idea of a spiritual sacrifice to the later catholic view. The sacrificial act at the Lord's Supper he refers to the sacrifice of Christ; the Body and Blood of Christ are offered (sanguis Christi offertur). Hence he requires § a correspondence between the sacrificial act and the sacrifice offered by Christ in order to a right celebration of the Lord's Supper. And with this view, notions of magical efficacy were connected. The Christian priesthood formed on the model of the Old Testament, seemed to require a sacrifice and one of a higher kind: the celebration of the Lord's Supper was regarded as a presentation of this sacrifice, and thus was formed the germ of the Catholic idea of the Mass. In addition to this, in the thanksgiving prayer at the Lord's Supper, special mention was made of those who had brought gifts, and prayer also was offered for those who had died in the faith, for whom their relations brought gifts on the day of their death. The conjunction of

* De Orat. 18.-He also explains the petition for our daily bread, in the Lord's Prayer, as referring to the Supper.

De Lapsis, c. 25, 26.

Testim. iii. 25.

§ Ep. 63, c. 17.

THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL.

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these references with the idea of sacrifice led to the Catholic idea of masses for the dead.

THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL went a step farther in the direction of Symbolical construction. The general distinction maintained by it of the νοητὸν and the αἰσθητόν, of the idea and the Symbol, finds also its application in the Lord's Supper. CLEMENT says,' *To eat the flesh and blood of Christ is to take a part in the divine life of Christ by spiritual communion with him; it is to renounce our former course of conduct and to make Christ's course our own." Thus he explains the passage in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John; but though the Alexandrians regarded the symbolic representation of the internal as the highest object of an outward religious act, yet they ascribed an effect to the Symbol in itself. Clement says that they who partook of the Lord's Supper in Faith, were sanctified in soul and body, and thereby seems to admit a spiritual communion with the Logos for the soul, and at the same time a certain connexion of the body with the body of Christ. ORIGEN developes his ideas more clearly;† according to him, we must distinguish what Christ's body is in its bodily and sensuous significance,-the eating of the body and blood in the highest spiritual, and in the subordinate symbolical, sense -the true eating, and that which is understood to be eating, according to the common view of the Lord's Supper. The highest object of the Lord's Supper is to represent spiritual communion with the Logos, and the spiritual enjoyment of it; the Logos becomes the food of the soul. Both the worthy and the unworthy can partake of the visible Supper; but it is not so with the Logos, the true bread and the true wine which a bad man cannot eat. This is the divine promise of the Word of Truth, by which the soul is nourished.§ In like manner be * Παιδαγ p. 102. Strom. v. p. 579.

* Ibid. ii. p. 151.—ἡ δὲ ἀμφοῖν αὖθις κρᾶσις, ποτοῦ τε καὶ Λόγου, εὐχαριστία κέκληται, χάρις ἐπαινουμένη καὶ καλὴ, ἧς οἱ κατὰ πίστιν μεταλαμβάνοντες ἁγιάζονται καὶ σῶμα καὶ ψυχὴν· τὸ θεῖον κρᾶμα τὸν ἄνθρωπον τοῦ πατρικοῦ βουλήματος πνεύματι καὶ Λόγῳ συγκρίναντος ευστικῶς καὶ γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς μὲν τὸ πνεῦμα ὠκείωται τῇ ἀπ' αὐτοῦ φερομένη ψυχῇ ἡ δὲ σὰρξ, τῷ Λογῳ δι ̓ ἣν ὁ Λόγος γέγονε σάρξ.

In Matth. § 14, towards the end.

§ In Joann. xxxii. § 16.—νοείσθω δὲ ὁ ἄρτος καὶ τὸ ποτήριον τοῖς μὲν ἁπλουστέροις, κατὰ τὴν κοινοτέραν περὶ τῆς εὐχαριστίας ἐκδοχὴν τοῖς δὲ βαθύτερον ἀκούειν μεμαθηκόσι, κατὰ τὴν θειοτέραν καὶ περὶ τοῦ τροφίμου τῆς ἀληθείας λόγου ἐπαγγελίαν.