THe person ofchrist aRD HIS PReseoce m THe LORD'S SUPPeR jGrnmim zii??r7?eRr??^n LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. Presented by THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND HIS PRESENCE IN THE LORD'S SUPPER BY JEREMIAH ZIMMERMAN, D.D., LL.D. ^ . l-V. t^ V-. r. .\- / o r- ~. * ' «■ r I^ARTl^VQUTAri^ BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS COPYEIGHT, I919, BY RiCHAKD G. BADGER All Rights' Reserved Made in the United States of America The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. TO ALL WHO COMMUNE WITH CHRIST JESUS IN THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER PREFACE All Christian believers have a common-central meeting place in Christ even though they may refuse to meet with one another at the Lord's Table. In Christ the Church-universal meets, whatever the name, nationality or social stand- ing, whether male or female, bond or free, all are one in Christ Jesus. They all acknowledge Him as their Lord and Master, and their only Saviour. Him they worship as the Son of God and one with the Father. To Him they make confession of their sins in true penitence, trusting Him for forgiveness and salvation. To them the creed of the primitive Church remains, even as Christ ever remains the same. All seek His peace and guid- ance, and would abide in Him. There is one Holy Catholic Church in spite of dissensions and all the imperfections of the mem- bers who compose it, because of their mystical and vital union with Christ. Hence the unity of the Church; for Christ said: "They shall become one flock, one shepherd"; and He prayed, "that they all may be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." 6 PREFACE This unity of the one Church may be realized by all believers without an organic union and central- ization of absolute power — with autocratic author- ity — if they "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and in all." "We who are many, are one body in Christ;" "for ye all are one in Christ Jesus," and hence there is one Holy Catholic Church because of the intimate and vital union of all its members with Christ, the body and head of the Church. There is no place where we have Christ so clearly set before us as an objective reality as in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, for He is personally identified with it. St. Paul discerned the Person of Christ in the Holy Communion when in positive language he declared: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" Christ Jesus Himself says to every communicant who partakes of the sacramental Bread and Wine: "Take eat; this is my body. . . . This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." The Church accepts these words without revision, and believes them, though some differ in their understanding and interpretation as PREFACE 7 to the manner of Christ's Presence, for all must desire their Saviour's Presence and to meet Him in the Holy Communion that they may truly com- mune with Him; for we cannot doubt nor deny the reality of His Presence, nor wish that He should not be present but absent. He said: "Abide in me and I will abide in you." The author was appointed in January 191 8 to deliver at Gettysburg the Holman Lecture for that year on Article Tenth of the Augsburg Con- fession. Later, he was urged to publish the same with important additions in book form. The re- sult of the study is this volume which is sent forth with the earnest prayer and hope that it may tend to increase our faith in the historical incarnation of the Divine One in Christ; that our fellowship with the personal Christ may be- come more real by discerning His Presence in the Lord's Supper; that in this Holy Com- munion there may be developed and realized the spirit of genuine love for the Church universal; so that whilst we may not all be able to think and express ourselves exactly alike, — though holding fast to the Divine Christ, we may all be able to love one another, even as He hath loved us, and as He hath enjoined and commanded us to Love one another. May we ever realize this spirit of love for all the brethren, in our oneness in Him our common Lord and Saviour, so that this central 8 PREFACE Rite of worship in the Christian Church may no longer be the storm center of bitter controversy, misrepresentation and alienation, but a precious and real Eucharist and communion of all Christian believers with the Saviour-Christ, and with the Church-universal. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Christ of the Lord's Supper . . 13 II. The Passover 80 III. The Real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper iii IV. Consensus of Opinion Among Theolo- gians 176 V. The Analogy of Faith 208 VI. Christ's Glorified Body in the Eu- charist 254 VII. Side Lights from Comparative Reli - gions 276 THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND HIS PRESENCE IN THE LORD'S SUPPER THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND HIS PRESENCE IN THE LORD'S SUPPER THE CHRIST OF THE LORD S SUPPER IN the study and discussion of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the logical method of approach must be by way of the Person of Christ. This supreme subject must precede the consideration of the words themselves in the In- stitution. Who was He who uttered the words? This we must determine and know before we can interpret the words themselves. Their actual content is wholly dependent upon the character of Him who spoke those startling words, for they would be utterly vain and mean- ingless if Jesus were no more than one of the Rabbis, and they would have no significance for us. The Person of Christ is fundamental in the un- derstanding and defense of the doctrine of the Presence of the Person of Christ in the Lord's 13 14 Christ and the Lord's Supper Supper. It Includes the supreme question that the Divine Lord and Master asked the Pharisees: "What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son Is He?" The correct answer will furnish our de- fense for the doctrine of the Eucharist. If he were only the son of Mary, then our view would be as utterly Impossible as It Is to the Socinlan or to the unbeliever; but If Christ was the Son of God as He claimed to be, and as His disciples believed him to be, then our doctrine is not only possible, but it Is not unreasonable. However great the mystery may be to us, it is not too great for the Godhead. "Great is the mystery of god- liness; He who was manifested in the flesh." It surpasses human comprehension, but we can believe God and obey by putting ourselves in right mental attitude of faith, love and purpose, just as the unlearned child and unscientific man take the receiver of the telephone and talk to unseen friends, or mount the electric car believing that they shall reach their destination, though they see not nor fully understand the hidden forces that make these things possible. Neither need we see God and understand all His mysterious ways. In order to enjoy the benefits of His divine power and love. In order to approach aright the contemplation of the actual purport of the Lord's Supper and The Christ of the Lord's Supper 15 the real presence of Christ in it, we must go back through the centuries and study the Christ of his- tory in the light of His own age, and get the im- pression that He made upon His contemporaries. What did they think of the Christ, and how deep and lasting was the impression that He made upon those who believed in Him? They are His wit- nesses, and there are not a few. Their attach- ment was no mere momentary enthusiasm, but stood the test of great personal self-sacrifice through years of devoted service, and they pre- ferred to die rather than deny their Lord and Master. In fact when He had withdrawn His visible presence, they enjoyed the overmastering convic- tion that He was ever with them even as He had promised them that He would be. He was their daily peace, their hope, inspiration and power. It was the peace of God which passeth all under- standing that guarded their hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus. They had the realizing sense of His presence, for Jesus meant just what He said in those precious words: — "Abide in me, and I will abide in you." He meant what you may un- derstand by the mystical union with Him, but do not lose sight of Him in your mystical terminol- ogy, for Christ spoke plainly that He would al- ways sustain an intimate personal and vital re- 1 6 Christ and the Lord's Supper latlon with each one of His followers. He would not withdraw from them, but would remain in loving and potent touch with them — inspiring and sustaining them. The Church would have perished centuries ago because of the persecutions from without, and the unfaithful misguided ones from within. When even the chief heads of the Church became cor- rupt and lost sight of the spirit and teachings of Christ, then the Lord and Master still kept His abiding presence in the souls of the faithful whom He prepared and inspired to- reform the evils in the Church, and to restore God's Word to the people as the one Divine authority for faith and practice. What made the faithful leaders in the Church from Apostolic times to the days of Luther so bold and invincible was the fact that they realized that the Great Head of the Church — ^the ever living Christ was living in them, and with this con- sciousness they were mighty. Listen to that in- domitable Apostle Paul who once verily believed that he did God's service by persecuting the Chris- tians, but who by becoming conscious by irresist- ible proof that Christ was God, was ready to en- dure all things for His sake — even rejoicing that he should be accounted worthy to suffer in the name of Christ. Hear his confessions: — "I have The Christ of the Lord's Supper 17 been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." That clear and unshaken conviction alone can explain the life of St. Paul. He knew the Christ he trusted, and he could do all things through His strength. It is impossible to account for the remarkable influence that Christ exerted over the Apostles and the Church universal, unless we see in Him the God-man. In fact it would be difficult for us to believe some of the things attributed to Jesus, if we did not believe His own claim of oneness with God the Father ; but in the light of this truth all is reasonable, and the difficulties vanish as they did with the Apostles. Read the historical document known as the Acts of the Apostles, and you will see that Christ alone was the Creed of the early Church. Listen to Peter as he declares to the rulers and elders that it was "in the name of Jesus Christ of Naz- areth whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead" that the Apostles received their power. "And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved." These are weighty words of no uncertain sound, and they tell plainly what the early Church thought of Christ Jesus. This subject takes us back to the Christ who 1 8 Christ and the Lord's Supper once sojourned among men as the transcendent Teacher of all history — for He was pre-eminently a teacher, the Rabbi. He was the unique teacher of His times because He spoke as one having au- thority and not as the scribes. But He was the unique teacher of all times, because His teaching was inseparable from Himself. You cannot read the Gospels without the Christ. Eliminate the historic Christ from them, and they would be meaningless. This is not true of the great his- torians, poets, philosophers and even founders of world religions, like Buddha, We can read their works without even thinking of the authors, but that is impossible in the case of the Founder of Christianity. You cannot separate Jesus from the New Testament nor from the faith of the Church through the Christian centuries. As an experiment, take the four Gospels and eliminate the names, and every passage that has any refer- ence whatever to the Christ of history, and what would remain? Not the Gospels. Their rich content and meaning would be gone, for they would no longer contain the good news from God. The precious promises would be gone and every hope canceled; for He who gave the promises and assurances of hope would be non-existent In the transaction, and all the promises without Him would be as worthless as so many checks that bore The Christ of the Lord's Supper 19 no signature of a responsible endorser who could and would pay the amount promised. When we come to the study of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, we find that it is pre-eminently true that the words are inseparable from Christ Himself. The entire doctrine is taken up with Him in view, and without Him this ordinance would be non-existent. The very first words of Christ given in all four of the Scriptural accounts, show how He identifies this Sacrament with Him- self : — "This is my body ." A teacher in a liberal church once said to me, as an apology for his position: "It makes little difference what we think respecting the person of Christ and His divine nature, the all-important matter for us is to study His teachings." This he might truly say of some philosopher and his writings, but with respect to the Gospels every- thing depends upon the character of the teacher, who and what he was and what he claimed to be — whether He was merely the son of Mary, or whether He was also the Son of God. That is of supreme importance, for the greatest disclos- ures and most precious promises are worthless unless He who declared them is the Divine Sa- viour. Of what avail is a note with a "promise to pay" when given by a fraudulent maker? With reference to the sayings of Christ, every- 20 Christ and the Lord's Supper thing depends upon who He was. You cannot match the rich treasures embodied in His recorded sayings — for example, in chapters 14 and 15 of St. John's Gospel — but they would become mean- ingless if Jesus be not the Christ — the God-man He claimed to be. The Word of God teaches us that Christ was God manifest in the flesh, and the New Testa- ment shows that there is "no contact with God except in Christ." Hence in that God conscious- ness Christ declared: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, for the Father and I are One." With the Apostle Paul Luther gave Christ the preeminence in all things, and exalted Him to the highest place: "Nos nihil sumus; Christus solus est omnia." Prof. Lindsay was deeply im- pressed by the conception of the Majesty of Christ, and he wrote : "With the Reformers, the historical life of Jesus is of the utmost im- portance, far exceeding all metaphysical disserta- tions upon the nature of a God-man. ... In Jesus we see God appearing in history and ad- dressing man. Hence the Person of Christ was something more than a mere doctrine for them — an intellectual something outside us. It must be the heart of that blessed experience which is called Justification by Faith." Luther, as Harnack says, in his relation to God, only thought of God The Christ of the Lord's Supper 21 at all as he knew Him In Christ. Beyond them there Is the unknown God of philosophical pagan- Ism, etc., whom men ignorantly worship. No one can really know God save through the Christ of history. Hence, with Luther, Christ fills the whole sphere of God: 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,' and conversely, He that hath not seen me hath not seen the Father. The history of Jesus Christ Is for Luther the revealer, and the only revealer of the Father." Says Lindsay: "The early Christians had said of Jesus that he must be conceived of as belonging to the sphere of God. The Reformers (Luther added, and that He fills the whole sphere of God, so that there Is room for no other vision of God than that which Christ gives us. This master-thought of Reformation theology simplified Christian doctrine In a wonderful way." To-day we see God in Christ, for they are One. We and all the world have a direct approach to Him who said: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, — and ye shall find rest to your soul." That includes us, and It is this personal Christ, — the burden bearer that we all need, and who is with us in person in the Holy Communion. Christ enjoyed the consciousness of oneness with the Father, for God dwelt incarnate in Him 22 Christ and the Lord's Supper who was the express image of His Father's Per- son. Our nearest and clearest view of God our heavenly Father is in Christ, for in Christ we have the self-manifestation of God, "reconciling the world unto himself." We need at times to go back through the cen- turies to Palestine, and become eyewitnesses with the contemporaries of Christ Jesus. We must look upon His disciples as they walked and talked with their Lord and Master, and saw the wonder- ful signs that He gave in evidence of His divine mission that convinced them that He was the Mes- siah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. We must get their point of view as they saw and heard, and observed His influence over themselves as well as the people. What impression did He make upon their minds, and what influence did He exert upon their lives? What did they think of Christ? They had abundant opportunity to make every test and to form opinions at first hand that are worthy of our serious consideration. They have given us their testimony in the records of the Four Gospels, which are likewise the testimony that Christ gives us of Himself. In addition we have the Acts of the Apostles which are the united testimony of the first Christian community. These, as Harnack states, "enable us to gather what was the prevailing impression made by His personal- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 23 ity, and in what sense His disciples understood His words and the testimony which He gave of Himself." These Christian records are well authenticated as containing reliable information, and the most searching historical criticism has shown them to be worthy of our acceptance. The foundations for our Christian faith have not escaped the most violent attacks from hostile camps of unsympa- thetic critics who allowed no statement to go un- challenged, and yet the words of Christ remain invincible. No worthy substitute has been of- fered to meet the pressing needs of the human soul even in this intellectual age of advanced the- ories in social and scientific development. The words of Holy Writ ever remain true: "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come." Christ is no less real, personal, potent and precious, for He ever continues the same, and exerts His influence over us. Men realize His presence and power. The Church has en- countered opposition from the combined forces of unrighteousness in the many forms of selfish greed, intemperance, vice, lust for possession, power and gold, and yet Christianity has triumphed, and the Church in spite of all the imperfections of its members, and the opposition of worldly men has realized what Christ promised, that "He that is 24 Christ and the Lord's Supper for us is mightier than they that are against us." We can still say with Paul: "If God be for us who can be against us?" If we would get the impression that Jesus made upon His followers let us stand by and listen to His reply to the messengers that John the Bap- tist sent to Him with the question: "Art thou He that should come or look we for another?" Christ answered with signs that attested to His Messiahship, and these we should contemplate as He then dismisses the messengers with the sig- nificant words: "Go and tell John the things which ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me." The historical records for the validity of Christ's words and claims, and power over the thoughts and lives of men have been assailed at times, but they are firm as the eternal hills. There are fundamental facts that have been estabhshed as unquestioned in the history of Christianity, and upon which the faith of the Church rests, as upon an impregnable founda- tion. There are likewise certain facts in this his- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 25 tory that the doubters must account for before they can dismiss the question: "What think ye of Christ?" There is no escape by assuming in- difference. Every man must either accept Christ or reject Him, but the latter course involves seri- ous consequences that cannot be escaped. Let us briefly consider some of the plain outstanding facts that must be accounted for in any rational study of the Person of Christ in history. What led the first disciples to believe on Jesus, and to follow Him as their Lord and Master? They were intimately associated with Him for three years, and of all men they knew Him best. We must stand with them, and see and hear the Christ, for He is the central fact in the Christian religion, and Christianity is not only inseparable from Him, but is in essence adherence to the Person of Christ. The Gospel is emphatically the Gospel of Good news of Christ, and inseparable from Him, for you cannot read the Gospels without Christ, for their very essence consists in the character of His Person. Christianity is not founded upon mere faith, as the indefinite idea of some appears to be, but it is founded upon Christ and our faith in Him. It is the personal Christ who is the hope of the world to-day, and every Church claims Him, and trusts Him, and seeks to fol- 26 Christ and the Lord's Supper low Him. His guidance they seek, Him they wor- ship, to Him they pray, and to this Almighty One we commit ourselves for time and eternity. But what led the disciples to continue steadfast in their selfsacrificing devotion to Jesus after He had suffered that ignominious death upon the cross? That was a disgraceful end, and all their hopes seemed crushed and buried with His body in the tomb. What brought about the sudden and startling change that made the disciples more de- voted than ever, and invested them with an in- vincible faith in Christ as the Divine One? Never again did Peter quail before the face of his ac- cuser and deny his Lord and Master. Never again was he afraid to acknowledge that he was a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. But what caused this astounding change? There must have been a sufficient reason since every effect must have a cause. Go back with me to the historical records and get the personal testimony of the disciples thmselves. We will let them speak for themselves. From them we learn that this change came about after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That evening the disciples were as- sembled in a room with closed doors when "Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when He had said this He showed them His hands and His side. The dis- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 27 ciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord." They bore witness to that fact when they testified, "We have seen the Lord." Doubting Thomas could no longer doubt, but overwhelmed with the Irresistible objective evidence that the risen Christ stood before him, Thomas answered and said unto Him : "My Lord and my God." Had Jesus not risen from the dead as He had declared on various occasions that He would, then the disciples would have dispersed to their homes — with shame and abandoned hopes In Jesus, and never would they have preached Him as the Sa- viour of the world. Then the Gospels would not have been written, and John would not have added the statement: "Many other signs therefore did Jesus In the presence of the disciples, which are not written In this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus Is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life In His name." Had Jesus not confirmed by incon- trovertible proof that He had risen from the dead the disciples would never have entrusted themselves to a crucified and dead Jesus, and there would hav^e been no organized Church and ob- servance of the Lord's Supper, After His resurrection He sustained and com- forted His disciples by the consciousness of His presence. He had said to them: "Abide in me 28 Christ and the Lord's Supper and I will abide In you." He kept that precious promise, and they realized Its fulfilment, and the power of His resurrection, and in that power they became invincible, for they were not left to their own strength, but Christ was in them and for them. Here is a remarkable outstanding fact from the day He ascended from the Mount of Olives into heaven. Naturally that separation would have partaken of the character of the sorrow of the bereaved when parting from a loved one, but there was nothing funereal about it as the his- torical record informs us: "And it came to pass, while He blessed them. He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually In the temple, blessing God." We can only account for this unique joy in the fact of the presence of the Christ, and that He had them realize what He had promised them: "I would that my joy might be In you and that your joy may be made full," "and your joy no one taketh away from you." My purpose Is to show what Is of the greatest Importance In considering the Person of the Christ of history, for this is fundamental in our study of the character of the Lord's Supper. His own disciples who knew Him best believed Him to be the Messiah, the Son of God. They may The Christ of the Lord's Supper 29 have been slow to believe at times and faltered, but after the resurrection they saw clearly an^ understood what had been difficult to comprehend. Then instead of becoming weak in the faith they became mighty, for they saw that Christ had not merely revealed God to them, but He had re- vealed Himself as God to them. Glover, the scholar and historic critic, asks the pregnant ques- tion: "How came the Christian community, within one generation of Calvary, to the conviction that the historic Jesus, whom they had known, with whom they had talked and traveled — a cruci- fied provincial, and one of many such — was to sit upon the Judgment seat of the universe? The cross and the throne were certainly incompatible ideas; and yet they are linked deliberately — and for the sake of a man whom they had passed on the street. What was the experience that led the followers of Jesus to a faith like this?" It was the power of the risen and ever present Christ, and the love of Christ constrained them. What Is the love of Jesus for those who find most in Him? It is this belief that in Him the sin of the past is taken away. They certainly live on the basis of being able, by His strength daily given, to over- come the repeated impulse of evil from without or from within, and of being. In the New Testa- ment phrase, "kept by the power of God." "We 30 Christ and the Lord's Supper are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." With the Christian martyr facing a dis- graceful and painful death; and yet enduring pain and shame without human sympathy some su- preme and effective motive was necessary to sus- tain them. To them Christ was real, and they realized their vital relation to Him whilst seeing Him that is invisible — who once went through the agony of the cross in order to save them. He gave them power to do and to endure. St. Paul was only one of the Christian heroes who could truly say: "I can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me." He and He alone was the substantial Helper for them in their undying faith. Nothing can be more real than our experience and convictions. It is what we know; it lies within our own consciousness, and embodies all our per- sonal history, and we have our most direct knowl- edge through our experience. When the boy's sight had been restored he knew from personal experience that whilst he had been blind for years now he saw, and no reasoning nor threats could shake the conviction of that knowledge, for it was based upon his own experience. No one can ques- tion the reasonableness of such an argument, nor deny the validity of human experience, for to deny it would be to deny our consciousness — the foundation of our knowledge. If we abide in The Christ of the Lord's Supper 31 Christ and He in us as He teaches us, and as we believe, then is it too much to claim some sort of experiential or experimental knowledge of this intimate and vital relation? Or must it ever re- main merely a matter of faith, an intellectual ap- prehension of belief, and outside of all moral and spiritual consciousness? Can there be no certainty or knowledge from religious conviction whilst we trust to so much knowledge that comes to us through actual experiencce by means of the senses that we have learned to trust? Can there be no evidence from the religious experience of the soul, and must we deny God's power or will ever to manifest Himself in this manner to His children? Heroes have trusted themselves to the evidence of religious experience and found it precious and soul-satisfying. Inasmuch as the Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the chil- dren of God, and "being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," and since He gives to us "the peace of God that passeth all understanding, guarding our thoughts and minds in Christ Jesus," surely it is not too much to crave a realizing sense of his indwelling. We realize the forgiveness of sin, and the bless- edness of fellowship with Christ, for He says: "ye shall find peace to your soul." Such a fel- lowship with God that transforms ideals, pur- 32 Christ and the Lord's Supper poses, hopes and living, must be attended with some conscious reahzation of God's influence upon us, for "it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure." The ex- periences of the heart that lead to a transformed life of righteousness may be trusted more implic- itly than some metaphysical speculations however logical the reasoning may be. The men who have studied the profound problems of life, involving sin and the wants of the soul, and thought most deeply about the things of God and man's present and eternal destiny, have been most thoroughly persuaded that Christ is all that He claimed to be, and that He is indeed the Saviour of men. The faith of the Christian does not rest upon some foundation in the invisible realm of uncer- tainty, but is based upon the living and ever pres- ent Christ who abides with us forevermore. The supreme verities connected with His Person are undeniable facts as recorded in the Gospels, and impartial criticism bears testimony to their unas- sailable character. This is the sober judgment of scholarship of the most thorough historical in- vestigation. There is a certain objective histori- cal reality for our faith. Whilst the Apostle Paul had subjective experiences of the reality and power of Christ in the soul — it was none the less a mat- ter of practical knowledge that made his subse- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 33 quent life of effectiveness in the cause of Christ for humanity. The foundations of our faith have not gone unchallenged by scientific investigation and historical research, and yet these rather con- firm the fact that the Church has not overesti- mated the Person of Christ. Harnack refers to Acts 4:10-12 as the creed of the primitive Church : "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead. . . And in none other is there sal- vation : for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, whereby we must be saved." "With this creed she began, in the faith of it her martyrs have died; and to-day as 1800 years ago, it is from this creed that she derives her strength." Of all the founders of re- ligion He is "the only One that we know that united the deepest humility and purity of will with the claim that He was more than all the prophets who were before him: the Son of God. Of Him alone we know that those who ate and drank with Him, glorified Him not only as their Teacher, Prophet and King, but also as the Prince of Life, as the Redeemer, Judge of the world, as the liv- ing power of their existence — it is not I that live, but Christ in me, and that presently a band of Jew and Gentile, the wise and the foolish, ac- 34 Christ and the Lord's Supper knowledged that they had received from the abun- dance of this one man, grace for grace. This fact which lies open to the light of day, is unique in history; it requires that the actual personality be- hind it should be honored as unique." "What is it that leads us to believe in an eternal life? reliance upon Christ. God speaks to us through Him. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life : the true Saviour, Guide and Lord who leads the soul to God." "The sayings and discourses of the Lord, and the image of His life itself lose no particle of their power and validity, unless it can be shown that the main lineaments of the personality of Christ, and the sense and true point of His say- ings, have been altered. I cannot see that his- torical criticism has affected any such change . . . The same is true of the testimony which He gave of Himself (in the Gospels), and the united tes- timony of the first Christian community. It en- ables us to gather what was the prevailing impres- sion made by this personality, and in what sense His disciples understood His words and the tes- timony which He gave of Himself . . . All that criticism can do is to place it in a clearer light and so increase our reverence for the divinity of Christ. Let the plain Bible reader continue to read his Gospels as he has hitherto read them, for in the The Christ of the Lord's Supper 35 end the critic cannot read them otherwise." Chris- tianity and History. John Stuart Mill was no advocate of evangel- ical Christianity, and yet in his Essays on Re- ligion he is impelled to say: "whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left, a unique figure, not more unlike all His predecessors than all His followers, even those who had the direct benefit of His teachings. It is of no use to say that Christ as exhibited in the Gospels is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been super- added by the tradition of His followers . . . But who among His disciples or among their prose- lytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fisher- men of Galilee." Page 253. It was no mere accident nor arbitrary council that decided or fixed the Canon of the New Tes- tament, for there was no party in power to create it, but it was the incomparable character of the writings therein contained that formed and closed the sacred canon. The force of this statement is seen in the fact that there are no contemporary nor subsequent Christian writings that can be com- pared with them, and that could possibly have been mistaken as belonging to the canonical Scrip- 36 Christ and the Lord's Supper tures. These particular writings were accepted as such because of their positive-Inherent char- acter. Their content Is the justification for their place in the New Testament. To realize fully what this means we need but read the Apocryphal Gos- pels and compare them with the Four Gospels, or rather contrast them, for they are not to be com- pared. No one could mistake the spurious Gospels for the genuine ones. Delssman in Light from the Ancient East says that: "the formation of the New Testament is the most important event In the lite- rary history of mankind. . . . The fact that scarcely any but popular and primitive Christian writings found their way into the nascent New Tes- tament Is a brilliant proof of the unerring tact of the Church that formed the Canon." Primitive Christianity "began without any written book at all. There was only the living words — the gospel but no gospels. Instead of the letter there was the spirit. The beginning in fact was Jesus Himself." Gwatkin makes this striking discrimination: "There is no more striking contrast In the whole range of literature than that between the creative energy of the Apostolic writers and the imitative poverty of the sub-Apostolic. Contrast St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians with that of Clement, or even better, the Epistle to the Hebrews with that of Barnabas. They set before us the same The Christ of the hordes Supper 37 questions about the relation of the Law to the Gos- pel, and give the same general answer to it: but while the Epistle to the Hebrews is a masterpiece, Barnabas is a sad bungler. ... In the uncanoni- cal writers we miss the spiritual depth and the in- tellectual force and clearness of the New Testa- ment." Church Hist. I, 98. But how shall we account for the origin of the Church? What induced the early Christians to take their stand for Christ and follow Him when it meant sacrifice, and at times bitter persecution? We must go back in history and get a real and vivid picture of the Graeco-Roman world when the Church was born so as to appreciate the difficul- ties that the members encountered. How did that primitive Church originate and continue to attract new members? There was no strong and influen- tial organization to begin with, having magnifi- cent church buildings, for no such buildings ex- isted for many years, or until near the close of the second century, and the only meeting place of the Church was in the house of some of the leading members, but even these were generally plain and poor people. We have a contemporary record that gives us a reliable picture from the writings of St. Paul: "Behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but God chose the fool- 38 Christ and the Lord's Supper ish things of the world, that He might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong." There was no special inducement in that program for the one who was ambitious for worldly distinction and ag- grandizement. No worldly prizes were offered. Hence the supreme motive that induced men to follow Christ was of a very different character, and if we reconstruct a picture of the early Church we shall find that it was not only without wealth and political influence and favor with those in authority, but they were placed under the ban of the Empire as a forbidden religious sect. Only the power of Christ in their soul can account for the triumph of the Church under these adverse cir- cumstances, and without Him it would have per- ished soon after it was born. He was the body of the Church as He was the essence of Christianity. We must account for another unquestioned fact, and that is the conversion of St. Paul. Here was an extraordinary example of a Christian convert from the higher-intellectual class, and the momen- tous change was a thoroughly radical one. No one knowing the life and character of Paul — the Saul of Tarsus — will hesitate for a moment to acknowl- edge that he was a completely converted man, for his subsequent life shows him to be an entirely dif- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 39 ferent person — a new man in Christ Jesus. He himself declares respecting the change: "I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injuri- ous : howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it ig- norantly in unbelief. . . ." He was no longer the bitter persecutor of Christians, for he had become convinced from overwhelming evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead, and had appeared to him, and that He was the Christ, "the living God, who is the Saviour of all men: who would have all men to be saved." We know the persistency of reli- gious beliefs, and Paul was strongly intrenched in his intense Jewish religious prejudices, for he tells us that he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, per- secuting the Church. Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and I do but count them refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him: that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." Here is a remarkable outstanding fact of history recorded by Paul himself — who once persecuted the Christians with a deadly hatred because they taught that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. 40 Christ and the Lord's Supper This he believed to be a blasphemous falsehood, and hence he blasphemed against that Name — even unto death. We have abundant and reliable documentary evidence from the Apostle, given in his own words, and attested to by a long life of self-sacrificing devotion that cannot be misunder- stood. Nothing could have changed his religious convictions short of evidence that could not be gainsaid. With him there was no question as to the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and this fact he emphasizes in his Epistles, beginning with the earliest, I Thessalonians, written about the year 53. The fact and power of Christ's resurrec- tion alone can account for the conversion and life of St. Paul. His words and life bear irresistible testimony to the fact, for it is utterly inconceivable that he could have been mistaken. He was over- mastered by the conviction because the proof was overwhelming. Even such an unsympathetic his- torical critic as Prof. Percy Gardner feels com- pelled to bear this testimony to the Apostle as a credible witness to the resurrection: "As regards his own life, and the phenomenon of Christianity which came under his direct observation, he is as good an authority as we can have in regard to any events in ancient history. . . . However confused and inconsistent may be the accounts in the Gos- pels of the appearances of the risen Lord, there The Christ of the Lord's Supper 41 can be no doubt that the society believed such ap- pearances to have taken place. No other cause can be suggested for the sudden change in the minds of the disciples from consternation and ter- ror to confidence and boldness. And the well- known Pauline passage as to the witnesses of the resurrection is as historic evidence of the belief of the first disciples unimpeachable. Paul himself claims with perfect confidence that he has seen the risen Lord." Gwatkin in his Church History refers to the fact that, "the silent transfer of worship from the Sab- bath by born Jews can hardly be accounted for but by the overwhelming impression of the resurrec- tion. Similarly the Lord's Supper needs the resur- rection to explain its observance. It is hard to see how either could have arisen at once, if the horror and infamy of the crucifixion had been the end of all. . . . Though there is no recorded command of the Lord for the observance of Sun- day, we find it settled from the first as the usual day for common worship. . . . The observance differed both in motive and character from the Sabbath. It commemorated not the Seventh day of the creation, but the Saviour's resurrection: and what marked it out was common worship, not Sab- batic rest. . . . Constantine's legislation is good proof that by his time there was a widespread feel- 42 Christ and the Lord's Supper fng against needless worldly business on Sunday." The appearances of the risen Lord on the first day of the week was a significant fact, and fixed times of worship began at once; the Christians in Jerusalem going up to the temple to pray; and elsewhere they sought out the synagogues until they were excluded. They worshipped in houses that had rooms to accommodate them, and suit- able for worship. They were not permitted to hold church property until the edict of Severus in the third century. No one who thoughtfully reads the Epistles of St. Paul can fail to be impressed with what he thought of Christ, for he exalts the person of Christ to oneness with God the Father, for "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bod- ily;" and he speaks of Christ "who is over all, God blessed forever;" and agairt writes of "the appear- ing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." He is the universal and only Sa- viour of mankind, and "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." "Even as God also in Christ forgave you." "In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God . . . that in all things He might have the preemi- nence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell, and The Christ of the Lord's Supper 43 through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross." "And you being dead through your tres- passes — did He make alive with Him, having for- given us all our trespasses; having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross," "To Him bear all the prophets witness; that through His name everyone that believeth on Him shall receive re- mission of sins." The Apostle emphasized the immeasurable sav- ing power of Christ: "Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "There is therefore now no con- demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." "Knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justi- fied by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." "But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh In the blood of Christ." The Apostle saw "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ who is the image of the Invisible God," for "God was In Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 44 Christ and the Lord's Supper "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." "The free gift of God is eternal Hfe in Christ Jesus our Lord;" and "Your life is hid with Christ in God." "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; and whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." "The peace of God which passeth all understand- ing, shall keep your hearts, and your thought in Christ Jesus. And God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." "Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords," "Our Sa- viour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." What a vision of the glory and universal su- premacy of Christ the Apostle must have had when he wrote his letter to the Christians at Phil- ippi; telling them how Christ "who existing in the form of God" came from heaven to earth in great humiliation for the redemption of the world by His death on the cross: "Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, The Christ of the Lord's Supper 45 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." It was the power of His resurrection that in- spired St. Paul to utter the challenge: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? . . . I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor things to come; shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This triumphant confession and challenge was the expression of a matured conviction of faith that had been thoroughly tested through years of hardship, but which never failed because Christ never failed him. He writes : "I know Him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to guard that which I have committed unto Him against that day." "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suf- fered shipwreck." "What things befell me at An- tioch, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: and out of them all the Lord delivered me." "At my first defence (in Rome) , no one took my part, but all forsook me. . . . But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me. . . . The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto His heav^enly kingdom." Such a man could not have been mistaken as to the fact of the risen Christ. His faith was no momentary impulse, but 46 Christ and the Lord's Supper the profound and steady conviction of a life — thoroughly tested by the severest trials, but striv- ing according to the working of Christ "which worketh in me mightily," as he assures the Church. At Lystra "they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead." I had a vivid mental picture of the bitter opposition en- countered by St. Paul, during a visit that I made to the ruins of the ancient theatre at Ephesus. With the aid of the imagination and all the local asso- ciations I was able to reproduce a memorable scene witnessed here when it was crowded with the zeal- ous followers of the Ephesian Artemis, with a bed- lam of voices crying out: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and it was not safe for the Apostle to enter lest that angry mob should tear him limb from limb, for daring to proclaim Christ in their city. The cause of Christ seemed hopeless on that day, but how changed the situation since then? Not only has the city of Ephesus disappeared, but that once great Diana, the Ephesian Artemis whom they claimed that all the world worshipped, has not one worshipper to-day. Some may ask, but why did not all who saw and heard Jesus be- lieve and follow Him if He were the true Mes- siah? In reply I would state that no public man impresses all alike. Abraham Lincoln was loved and admred by many, but he was just as truly ma- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 47 ligned and hated by others. Here Is a psychologi- cal fact seen in the history of politics and religions. What bitter opposition has often existed; each party claiming to be right; and the wars of re- ligion have been the most shocking, Jesus did not escape the wrongs of men. Before Pilate we hear the mob crying: "Give us Barabbas: Away with Jesus. Crucify Him." Christ did not change, though the world has given Him a name that is above every name, for He ever continues the same. Man under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit sees Christ and the Gospels in a new light, and as he never saw them before. Hence the problem to be solved is not merely one of objective histori- cal evidence, for that remains unchanged so far as Christ and the New Testament are concerned; but it resolves itself into a matter of correct inter- pretation, understanding and experimental knowl- edge gained from personal conviction in our own soul. Prof. Bowne tells of a man who after read- ing the words of the Apostle: " 'If thine enemy hunger, feed him: if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,' declared it was the most infernal thing he had ever heard. Of course, if he viewed it that way, and in that spirit he was in no mood to be convinced by argument." Christ foresaw such types of men, and the impossibility of convincing 48 Christ and the Lord's Supper men against their will when He said: "If they be- lieve not Moses and the prophets neither will they believe though one rose from the dead." We might as well ask: why do not all children follow the teachings and example of Christian parents, and lead a life of virtue and usefulness, instead of disobeying them and wasting their lives In un- righteous living, especially in view of the Incon- trovertible fact that "Godhness Is profitable unto all things, — and the wages of sin is death?" Such wasted lives are no exception, but it does not prove that there Is no such thing as virtue, and that the evildoer gets the most out of his life. His best judgment as well as his conscience tell him better whilst sinning against the will of God and disobey- ing his parents. God does not coerce a man against his will. His method Is stated in Rev. 3 :20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." No man Is entitled to be heard in testimony either for or against Christ Jesus who has no rev- erence for holy things ; who is prejudiced against Him, for such prepossessions disqualify him from knowing the Christ of the Gospels, just as the man who Is color blind has no right to sit in judgment upon the masterpieces in a picture gal- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 49 lery and criticise the blending of colors, for the one who is so defective in vision cannot even see in all their marvelous beauty of color the magnifi- cent splendor displayed in the rainbow, or in the gorgeous sunset. The rationalistic critic would eliminate the eternal Spirit of God, and all the fulness of the Godhead bodily that dwelt in Christ, and shorn of all divinity — call upon us to behold the Man. But that is merely the Jesus of their own making and not the Christ of history. With minds prepossessed with unbelief, and with an un- sympathetic mental attitude they cannot see the things that are spiritually discerned, and they fail to recognize Christ as truly as did the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, and Jesus might address some modern critics as he said to her: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." Christ emphasized a philosophic truth when He said: "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself." As well might a man argue against the choice flavor of a luscious peach, or an Oregon nectarine who had never tasted one as for an unsympathetic unbeliever to set up as authoritative his definition of the per- 50 Christ and the Lord's Supper sonality of Christ. Or for one who has no ear for music to claim authority for judging a production of music; or an illiterate and inartistic mind to pose as a judge of the merits of literature and art. The one who has never loved — if there be such a one, knows not the joys and power of love. As well tell the mother that there is no such thing as love, as to tell the devoted Christian that his faith in Christ is all a delusion. Like the Apostle he knows the constraining power of the love; of Christ, and he speaks with an authority that comes from personal conviction. It is this that impresses us with the Epistle of St. John: "That which we have seen and heard (concerning the Word of life) declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us; yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ : and these things we write, that our joy may be made full." The strongly prejudiced one, obsessed with his objections, whether real or imaginary, is not open to conviction, and hence he will not be persuaded by any argument, for though convinced against his will — he stands firmly by his prejudices. Christ encountered such unsympathetic ones on various occasions who willed not to believe in Him: "Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear The Christ of the Lord's Supper 51 witness of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life." When He taught in the syna- gogue at Nazareth many were astonished at the wisdom of His teachings, and the mighty works wrought by His hands, as they had learned, but prejudice led them to ask: "Is not this the carpen- ter, the son of Mary?" They plainly indicated by the contemptuous tone of their question, that their purpose in asking it was to discredit Him, and to cast suspicion upon His claims. When on the Sab- bath he healed the woman who had suffered for 18 years from an infirmity, the ruler of the syna- gogue, instead of glorifying God with her for such a mercy, was moved with indignation because He had healed her on the Sabbath day and sought to prejudice the multitude against Him. That was another striking contrast when Jesus moved with unbounded pity for the poor man afflicted with the withered hand, healed him on the Sabbath, but this so enraged "the Pharisees with the Herodians that they took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him." That was the climax at the trial of Jesus when the chief priests stirred up the multitude that they should demand that Pilate re- lease unto them the robber Barabbas for freedom — rather than the innocent Jesus, and shouted: "Crucify Him, Crucify Him!" St. Paul expresses the striking contrasts of prejudice when he wrote : 52 Christ and the Lord's Supper "We preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stum- bling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Paul's enemies at Jerusalem maddened by preju- dice exclaimed with murderous frenzy: "Away with such a fellow from the earth : for it is not fit that he should live." How shall we account for the power of the Church in the past centuries, and to-day, or in what does that power consist? I am not tempted to idealize the Church; to deny the many sad mis- takes made by the members, nor to condone the sins committed by some of the leaders of the Church, but the overwhelming preponderance has been for good; for the moral and spiritual eleva- tion of mankind. Auguste Sabatier wrote true and sober words : "Taken all in all where shall we find a higher or more universal school of respect than in the Church, a more efficacious means of com- fort and consolation than the communion of the brethren, a safer tutelary shelter for souls still in their minority? And what part played in history is comparable to that of the Church in the history of the Church in European civilization? Chris- tianity can neither realize nor propagate herself without the Church ; the Church cannot live with- out the Bible." (Religions of Authority). He The Christ of the Lord's Supper 53 should have added that the Church cannot live without the Indwelling Christ who is the head and body of the Church. It is because of His abiding presence that the Church has prevailed in spite of all human weaknesses and the contradictions in the lives of many members. When Christ declared to His disciples, ''Abide in me and I will abide in you," He meant that He would ever sustain a vital relation to His people ; that He would never leave nor forsake them. "Lo, I am with you alway." These were momentous words, but Christ meant all that He said, and the Church prevailed be- cause the faithful members abode in Him as the branches in the vine. He inspired them as well as sustained and strengthened them, and hence their faith, heroism and power of endurance. They be- lieved not only in the risen and ever living Christ, but that He was living in them as He had prom- ised, and would never fail them in their greatest need. It was this deep conviction of Christ's abid- ing presence in them that made them bold and mighty, and this must ever be the fundamental faith of the Church. This was the secret of the power of St. Paul: "Christ liveth in me," and nothing less than this can satisfy the living Chris- tian to-day and make the Church a mighty power for good. No student of history nor thoughtful observer 54 Christ and the Lord's Supper of the Church to-day can fail to recognize that at- tendent power. When the world became involved in this appalling war that the Church should have averted according to the mind of some critics, un- belief became bold and rampant in some impulsive spirits who declared that the death knell of Chris- tianity had been sounded, and its power had gone forever. But these prophets of evil failed to steady their thoughts, and to safeguard their speech, for the prevailing facts show that Chris- tianity was never more alive to human needs and in greater demand than now, and never was there such a universal call for the preaching of the pure Gospel. There has been a steady and ever-increas- ing demand for chaplains and camp pastors. The thoroughly organized work of the Y. M. C. A., the K. of C, and the various denominations of the Church Is the undeniable proof of this statement. But there is another fact in all this that is of su- preme importance; the soldiers want the pastors and chaplains to preach Christ and the Gospel; they would see Jesus; and they call for the Gospel hymns that have Christ in them. The Church is not doomed but is taking on new power. The Church has not lost faith in Christ, but as ever preaches the unsearchable riches of Christ and makes its final appeal to Him, for He is the head and body of the Church, the chief corner stone, and The Christ of the Lord's Supper 55 "other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Never has the Church denied Christ, but it has been inseparable from Him from the very beginning, and all its in- spiration and power come from Him through the various organized forces, and it is the most po- tent agency on earth for the moral and spiritual regeneration and elevation of humanity. The Church has not lost hope because of the unbounded greed of some rulers who would rob and destroy other people for the sake of conquest; for rulers like individuals* may exercise their will to rob and kill, for God does not enforce obedience against the will of the evildoer, no more than He compels belief against the man's will. Instead of the Church despairing in the face of this world's ca- lamity we can look into the face of the ever-living and present God, who Is our Almighty helper, and say with the Apostle: "I am filled with com- fort, I overflow with joy In all our affliction." "I can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me." He was only one of the multitude of Chris- tian heroes whom no man can number who could truly repeat these words, for they are not without hope and without God In the world. Luther wrote to Justus Jonas the encouraging words: "Christ lives, and does not sit at the Emperor's but at God's right hand, else we should have been lost ^6 Christ and the Lord's Supper long ago." What a striking contrast with the Diary of Marcus Aurehus; whose sayings some have magnified, but according to Glover is "surely the most desperately hopeless book ever written. Marcus had as little joy or hope as ever man had who got through a life of work without hanging himself." Even the unfortunate persecution of Christians at times must have afforded him no sat- isfactory diversion. He died, but the Church en- dured all the persecutions waged against her, and became the foremost and the mightiest agency for the spread of lofty ideals, and the universal re- generation of mankind that the world has ever seen. It continues as a social, moral and religious necessity, and no city nor state would ever vote to close the doors of the Church. I have written respecting the impression that Jesus made upon His disciples and contemporaries, and the testimony that they bore concerning Him, as well as the testimony of the Church universal. After Jesus had stilled the storm and the fears of the disciples on the sea of Galilee, so profoundly were they impressed with His transcendent Person that "they worshipped Him, saying. Of a truth thou art the Son of God." At Caesarea PhilippI, when He asked His disciples: "Who say ye that I am? Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." John the Bap- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 57 tist bore this testimony to Christ: "Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Nathaniel was fully persuaded when he said to Him: "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, testified to his convictions: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, ex- cept God be with him." The Gospel of John, written many years after the events had trans- pired, and his early impressions had been thor- oughly tested by trying experiences of serious re- flection and matured convictions that remained un- shaken must be accounted for. His positive testi- mony to the Divine Person of Christ Jesus is no sudden impulse, or outburst of momentary enthu- siasm, but the result of what he saw and heard, and all the subsequent mental processes that had passed through the alembic of his personal consciousness — tried by the intellectual difficulties involved in the doctrine of the God-man, and by the disap- pointments, and trials that he experienced through a long and strenuous life. It was impossible to have been mistaken, and we must reckon with the unique Person, the works and sayings that he at- tributes to Him, and then ask whence and how did he get the lofty conceptions concerning Christ whom he knew personally and so intimately, — if 58 Christ and the Lord's Supper not from Jesus Himself, for he was Incapable of inventing such a character. The writer ascribes to Him words such as man never uttered: take the familiar passage: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eter- nal life." Nowhere in all the Sacred Books of the East can you match these words. The very conception is even unthinkable in a religion that makes the caste system fundamental. It was a precious revelation and inspiration to universal humanity — such as man never dreamed of. That the great God our heavenly Father loves every man, and gave His only begotten Son to die that He might save all men; not merely some favored, chosen people of Israel, but Christ embraced in the scope of His love and sacrifice the whole world of humanity. All were God's offspring; all were His children, however unworthy many might be, and He loved and longed to save them all. This rev- elation was indeed a precious Gospel of good news from God, and it became the hope and joy of the poor, the wronged, and oppressed, for God loved and was concerned for them and If God be for us who can be against us? That assurance was a new source of strength and endurance; it gave a new and priceless value to every soul, how- ever humble, and it made life worth the living, and The Christ of the Lord's Supper 59 men and women able to live it, even in times of bitter persecutions. Here was the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man taught as never before, and it inspired a cheerful hope that could not be crushed. What a contrast that revelation was with the prayer of the Jew about the same pe- riod, who prayed: "I thank Thee, that I am a Jew and not a Gentile ; a man and not a woman, a free- man and not a slave." I have on different occa- sions when in the Museum in Constantinople, con- templated that most interesting historic monument — containing the Greek inscription, that once lay on the balustrade of the Temple that divided the Jew from the Gentile world, warning every Gen- tile on pain of a certain death not to pass within the precincts reserved for the Jews. Jesus must have seen this stone and read the sad inscription, and Paul must have been familiar with it, and had it in mind when he wrote: "But now in Christ Jesus ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition." "For ye are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Our review of the things to be reckoned with in 6o Christ and the Lord's Supper the study of what men said respecting Christ would be incomplete unless we consider the testimony of One who knew Him best of all. The personal let- ters of some noted person are often so valuable because they are the genuine and frank expression of the soul, not written for the public eye, and hence with guarded policy, but giving us an actual insight into the secret thoughts, motives and pur- poses of life. Recently I have read with great in- terest the letters of Oliver Cromwell, and they gave me an insight into his real character such as I had not obtained from biographies written by friends and foes. In these unrevised letters we have the real Cromwell speaking for himself, at his best and at his worst, the testimony that he bears of himself, and not the extravagant praise of his friends, nor the rhetorical misrepresenta- tions of his enemies. Cromwell is the writer; with frankness — concealing nothing, but stirred with the bitter conflict of a cruel and wicked war of re- ligion, his passion of narrow-intolerant hate is on fire, like all his opponents who hate with deadly hatred, and he discloses it all in language that un- mistakably reveal the true political, moral and re- ligious character of this stern and cruel soldier, as well as the wicked times in which he lived. But Jesus also spoke freely in public, concealing and compromising nothing, but declared from his in- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 6i ner consciousness the deep things of God; speak- ing boldly, and with an authority so different from the Scribes that the people were deeply impressed by It, and His enemies demanded of Him: "By* what authority doest thou these things? or who gave thee this authority to do these things?" The divine self-consciousness of Christ Jesus Is no mere dogma of theological speculation, but a plain and unquestioned fact of the Gospel record, that Is stated time and again. He said to His ene- mies : "I am from above, I am not of this world." "I and the Father are one." In this He asserted His essential oneness with the Father, for He was "the only begotten Son" and even "God only be- gotten" as Swete and many very ancient author- ities read John i:i8. But the Jews, blinded by prejudice, "took up stones again to stone Him, saying; for blasphemy; and because that thou, be- ing a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them. . . Say ye of Him, whom the Father sancti- fied and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not." "Be- fore Abraham was I am." In that HIgh-prlestly Prayer Jesus asserts His pre-existence and oneness with the Father; "And now Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." "All things have 62 Christ and the Lord's Supper been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom- soever He willeth to reveal him." He had this knowledge and authority because of His Sonship and oneness with the Father, for the Eternal Spirit of God was in Him. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us ( and we beheld His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth. . . No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him." When Philip, ex- pressing the universal need of the human soul said to Jesus; "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffic- eth us. Jesus said unto him. Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me." "All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine : therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you." "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgments unto the Son." "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," was His answer to his ene- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 63 mies who charged Him with blasphemy because God alone could forgive sins: "Thy sins be for- given thee" was his answer and challenge. Heav- en and earth would pass away but not His words. "I am the way, the Truth, and the Life, no man Cometh unto the Father but by me." Surely no man ever spake thus, but He alone who came from the Father. Christ startled His hearers by announcing Him- self as the source and fountain of eternal life, and His own resurrection from the dead bear witness that His testimony is true. From prehistoric times men had pondered with anxious inquiry the ques- tion; "If a man die shall he live again?" Christ Jesus answered the question once for all when He said: "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die." "Because I live, ye shall live also." "For this is the will of the Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him. should have eternal life. . . Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life. . . I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. . . And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and Him whom thou didst send, even Jesus 64 Christ and the Lord's Supper Christ." "Whosoever belleveth may In Him have eternal Hfe." "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish." These are clear and positive statements respect- ing our personal immortality. It is true that the hope for some future life has been a well nigh uni- versal belief, and even the ancient Egyptians be- lieved in some sort of a future existence as we learn from the objects deposited with their dead 8000 years ago, but it was a vague and indefinite hope. Even in the Old Testament there are but five places where personal immortality is stated with any degree of certainty, and yet as compared with the clear revelations of the New Testament it was but dimly shadowed forth, and not so clearly stated. Hence the Apostle spoke truly that "life and Immortality were brought to light through the Gospel," and that "the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ spoke clearly and with positive affirmation, assuring us of our eternal life, for "If any man keep my say- ings he shall never see death." He who made such astounding claims was In- deed Immanuel, who with boundless love, and knowing what was in the hearts of humanity gave that precious invitation: "Come unto me, all ye that weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." "Peace I leave with thee, my peace I The Christ of the Lord's Supper 65 give unto thee, not as the world giveth give I unto thee." "Let not your heart be troubled, ye be- lieve in God, believ^e also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. . . And I will come again and will receive you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also." These are startling claims, but His Person justified Him, and the disciples were convinced that He came from God. When we behold the Christ of the Gospels as God incar- nate then the difficulties vanish, but what inconceiv- able self-assumption for any mere rational being among the sons of men to utter such words? No mere human being could have put forth such claims and performed such works; but He alone who was the Eternal Word or Son of God who be- came incarnate of the Virgin Mary. Young says truly that, "it is only by the admission of the union of Divinity with the human soul with Jesus Christ that a solution can be found of historical and psy- chological difficulties, which are otherwise as in- surmountable as they are undeniable. The idea of incarnation in all its meaning is, indeed, incompre- hensible, but we can very distinctly comprehend that it must be true nevertheless, because, other- wise facts of which we have the fullest evidence are absolutely unbelievable. The incarnation is a profound mystery, but intelligence and candor will allow that this is the very region where mystery 66 Christ and the Lord's Supper was even to be looked for. We are compelled to believe that this mystery is a truth; because if not, the marvelous phenomena of the life of Jesus, which we cannot deny, are not only a mystery, and one even more inscrutable and insurmountable, but a direct contradiction." Christ of History, 185. He was Immanuel, God with us, and when Christ speaks we hear the voice of God, and hence the authoritative character of His words that still con- tinues. The best Christians, and the most intel- ligent and scientific among His followers acknowl- edge the binding authority of the eternal truth con- tained in His words. However much they may fail in living up to their ideals, and lament their shortcomings, they realize that there is no escape from Christ's standard of authority, and the su- preme values that He placed upon righteous liv- ing. What He accounted of the highest impor- tance, and what He regarded of comparatively little consequence, cannot be reversed as to their relative values by the judgments of men after nearly nineteen centuries. He emphasized the pri- macy of religion and moral life when He called upon men to "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness"; and to "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." No wonder that Christ attracted the common The Christ of the Lord's Supper 67 people and they heard Him gladly, and He over- awed the officers sent to arrest Him so that they could not lay hands on Him, and answered those who demanded why they had not brought Him: "Never man spake thus." The Scribes appealed to the prophets for their authority in teaching, but Christ asserts His own authority as final when urging His claims. He not only claimed to be greater than a prophet, but that He was the Mes- siah; nay more, that He was the Christ, the Bless- ed. He referred to what was said of old, and then drew the sharp contrast between them and His per- sonal authority, "But I say unto you." That was final — from which no appeal could be taken. Time and again does He draw this authoritative contrast, "But I say unto you." "Ye have heard that it was said : Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you. Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven, for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." When we give ourselves up to bitter hate, and cease to love, then we cease to be Chris- tian. All religious hate is absolutely un-Christian; and contrary to the teachings and spirit of Christ. The Jews were put to their wit's end to ac- count for the Person and influence of Jesus, and 68 Christ and the Lord's Supper after His Irresistible authority in cleansing the Temple of the shameful abuses, they demanded of Him, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?" Jesus answered them: "Destroy this temple (referring to His body), and in three days I will raise it up again." Later their murderous hate led them to accept this challenge, not dreaming that it would prove disas- trous for them, for His resurrection from the dead made the followers of Christ invincible. As His power over the people increased, and that of the hierarchy waned, the chief priests, and scribes and the elders in Jerusalem demanded of Him: "By what authority doest thou these things? Or who gave thee this authority to do these things?" Jesus put them to silence by asking them a question that they dared not answer. Never did the world hear such a teacher; never did a being appear on earth with such a message, and with such perfect balance of proportion be- tween teaching and living. He was faultless in both and could challenge His enemies to convict Him of sin. His life had been lived in the open among men as the sinless One, and hence they did not accept his challenge. All have ideals to which they never attain, but Christ lived and was what He taught. He came not merely to teach men of God, but He was God manifested in the flesh as The Christ of the Lord's Supper 69 He claimed to be. When He was put under oath before the Sanhedrin by the high priest, there was nothing found affecting His lofty character, but He was charged with having claimed to be the Christ. The historical record of the Evangelist makes this very clear, for "the high priest said unto Jesus: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said." When Jesus acknowledged that He was the Christ they declared Him to be worthy of death because He had spoken blasphemy as they claimed. St. Mark states that Jesus gave them the positive answer, "I am"; so that there could be no mistake as to the testimony that He bore for Himself. Pi- late, the Roman governor was persuaded that it was "for envy that the chief priests had delivered Him up," and hence he sought to release Him. When the chief priests stirred up the people that he should rather release Barabbas unto them, "Pi- late said unto them, Why, what evil hath He done? And they cried out exceedingly. Crucify Him." St. Luke tells us that Pilate said unto them the third time, "I have found no cause of death In Him." "The Jews answered him. We have a law, and by that law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." His death was a case of judicial murder, for the chief priests incited the 70 Christ and the Lord's Supper mob to terrorize Pilate with the terrible threat that if he released Jesus he was not Caesar's friend. Pilate feared to incur the displeasure of a mighty Ccesar, and Jesus appeared powerless and friend- less, but how history has reversed all this? In all the world the Emperor Tiberius has no one to fear nor love him, whilst no name is so potent as the name of Christ Jesus, and hundreds of mil- lions of followers acknowledge Him as the King of kings, the Lord of lords; the Saviour of the world. Luther ever saw God in the historic Christ, and he only knew God in Christ who revealed him, and apart from Christ he could not know God as he really is as the God of infinite love and mercy, patient and forbearing, ever ready to for- give. Luther was unshaken in his allegiance to Christ in His oneness with the Father, for he wrote: "For if we are certain of this: that what Jesus thinks and speaks, and wills, that the Father also wills, then I defy all that may fight against me. For here in Christ have I the Father's heart and will." In Christ he found and knew God. "We must neither worship nor seek after any God, save the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. See, there is open to me my Father's heart, will and work, and I know him." It Is a mistake when some men speak as though The Christ of the Lord's Supper 71 we should place the supreme emphasis of the Gos- pel on the Sermon on the Mount, for is it not true that Christ's Person rather than such teaching is the heart of the Gospel? John makes this distinc- tion very clear when he declares towards the close of his Gospel: "but these things are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name." He came to seek and to save the lost. He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He was the Way, the Truth and the Life. He was the resurrection and the Life. He gave the eternal life, and He called all humanity unto Himself that they might find rest and Peace to their souls. He declared His oneness with the Father; and we are persuaded by incontrovertible facts that He was the Son of God, for otherwise certain outstanding and undeniable facts remain unaccounted for, and the difficulties encountered are greater than those that the believer finds in the historic faith. We must ever keep before us the transcendent character of the Christ of the Gospels, for some have been led astray by rationalizing methods that would discover only another Buddha in Jesus. I freely acknowledge the noblest traits of self-denial in Buddha in his efforts to bring about some much needed reforms, but the points of resemblance be- 72 Christ and the Lord's Supper tween him and Jesus are so superficial that they cannot be compared but only contrasted. I need but mention a few traits to show how Immeasur- ably Christ transcends Buddha. Jesus claimed al- ways to do the will of God His Father in heaven, but Buddha had no God In his system. Jesus claimed to be one with the Father, the Son of God, but Buddha never claimed to be more than a man, and It was only the Irony of history that forced his followers to make him a God, for God Is a human necessity and realizing this, the necessary alterna- tive was to elevate Buddha to deity. Buddha taught that there was no place for prayer, and no one who could forgive sin; but Christ taught all men to pray, and He openly said to the sinner; "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and He declared Himself to be the Saviour of the world, the giver of eternal life. Christ taught the personal immor- tality of the soul, and a blessed heaven hereafter, but Buddha had no heaven In the Christian sense, for according to the authoritative Ceylon Buddhist Catechism: "The belief in an immortal personal soul, i.e., an Indestructible and eternal separate substance which has only a temporary abode In the body, is regarded by Buddhists as a heresy." We live In a rational world where a reason can be assigned for the things that transpire, and throughout the boundless universe every effect has The Christ of the Lord's Supper 73 a cause. Hence the moral and spiritual results from the preaching of Christ by the Church In the past and to-day must be reckoned with, as we have endeavored to account for It In this initial chapter, for these marvelous and irresistible Influences would be wholly unintelligible had Christ not in- spired and sustained His followers by a power that was more than human. We have endeavored to account for the origin, growth and power of the Christian Church in the world, with the established religions against the infant Church, and yet it an- tagonized them all by refusing to compromise with any; and it conquered all, and left the pagan tem- ples and altars without a worshipper. There was a severe conflict with the Mystery religions that at times sought to rival Christianity by appropriating some of her forms and teachings. The old native Institution of the Vestal Virgins flourished for eleven centuries. The six Vestals were most influ- ential In the political affairs of Rome, selected from noble families, possessing great wealth, en- trusted with the secrets of the imperial house, and tending the sacred fire that was to be kept perpetu- ally burning on the hearth of Vesta In the Forum Romanum, for It symbolized the life and religion of the state and must not be allowed to die out. Their religious duties were strictly observed and the severest penalties were imposed for any in- 74 Christ and the Lord's Supper fraction. They enjoyed the favor, protection and support of the Emperor, and their influence was far-reaching. Their position was a striking con- trast with that of the humble Christians who could turn to their Saviour alone for help in time of trouble. But there is another striking contrast; the sacred fires of the Vestals have gone out for- ever, never again to be lighted, whilst Christ the Light of the world has lighted up the darkest places of the earth with His beneficent institutions for the healing of the nations, as I have seen in years of world wide travel. I would have you con- trast with this direct influence, that of the entire pantheon of Greece and Rome that held sway when Christ came preaching the everlasting Gos- pel as the Good News of God. Gone is the in- fluence of all their gods and goddesses, and they have no place in the religious forces of to-day, and no living power in the hearts of men, but their place is confined to the classics, and the only human interest in them is as so much ancient history in the comparative study of religions, but Christ still abides in the hearts of His followers, inspiring them to noblest deeds, and sustaining them by the consciousness of His living presence and saving power. Even John Morley admits that: "The Christian organizations which saved Western so- ciety from dissolution owe all to St. Paul, Hilde- The Christ of the Lord's Supper 75 brand, Luther, Calvin; but the spiritual life of the West during all these generations has burnt with the pure flame first lighted by the sublime mystic of the Galilean Hills." I am aware of the intellectual difliculties con- nected with faith in the Incarnation and the Per- son of Christ, but there is no escape in turning away from Jesus, for the intellectual difficulties of unbelief are still greater. Human needs remain, and the profound mysteries concerning God, the spiritual and eternal world press upon us for an answer. To whom shall we go if not to Christ? No one ever spoke, and lived and promised as He did. The Incarnation was neither unreasonable nor impossible. If man is God's offspring and made in his own image, then it would seem reason- able as well as possible for him to reveal himself to the world of humanity through a human form, and in the likeness of man, as he appeared in Christ Jesus. That is our nearest and clearest view of God, for only through Christ can we have a clear conception of the being and character of the invisible and Infinite God. John tells us that "God is love," but in Christ we have the love of God incarnate. Before calling Lazarus to life the people who saw His tears said: "Behold, how He loved him;" but on the cross He gave full proof of His boundless love in that matchless sacrifice 76 Christ and the Lord's Supper that speaks louder than words. God must reveal himself through a person. "Show us the Father and it sufficeth us." "God was in Christ reconcil- ing the world unto Himself." The sacrifice made for the redemption of the world of humanity was not unreasonable when we remember the great sac- rifice that a loving mother will make even for a worthless child that has brought sorrow and shame upon her. But we all are God's children, and the boundless sacrifice on the cross was not made merely for one lost child, but for the countless mil- lions of all mankind. If "God is love" then He could endure it no longer, for love must express itself in deeds, and no sacrifice is too great; and hence he came in Christ to save. When He went forth to Calvary, bearing the cross, it looked like a lost cause, and yet contrary to all appearances that crucifixion on Golgotha was to be His corona- tion, and would transform the disgraceful cross into the most hallowed symbol of Christendom. Graetz admits this astounding fact for in one of his volumes on the History of the Jews he states that Jesus is "the only mortal of whom one can say without exaggeration that His death was more ef- fective than His life. Golgotha, the place of skulls, became a new Sinai." As a historian, Graetz should have endeavored to give the philos- ophy for this unique fact in all history, for there must have been an adequate reason, inasmuch as The Christ of the Lord's Supper 77 every effect has a cause. Had his religious preju- dices not prevented him from referring to the al- most contemporaneous account of the life and death of Jesus as preserved in the historic Fourth Gospel, he might have found the reason clearly stated in Christ's own words, when with a vision of the future and the cross on Calvary he said; "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die." And again; "Destroy this body, and in three days I will raise it up again." That was the amazing chal- lenge that Christ submitted as the final test, and the result of that "third day" was so decisive and overwhelming that no appeal could be taken from that supreme court of inquiry. The facts of the resurrection could not be denied; not only were they incontrovertible, but it was the risen Christ from the dead that made His death on the cross so marvelously effective. It was the power of that resurrection that gave boldness to the disciples, and they became invincible as they went forth like the immortals to conquer the world for Christ. But, had Jesus not risen from the dead, then that Fourth Gospel would not have been written, and the Lord's Supper would never have been repeat- ed by His disciples. It was the overpowering mas- tery of the risen Christ that filled His disciples with impassioned love and devotion. 78 Christ and the Lord's Supper It was that resurrection that made the Ascension a necessary sequence, and invests with a conceiv- able interpretation the momentous words that He uttered before withdrawing His visible presence from His disciples : "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you : and lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Hence the Person of Christ as the miracle of his- tory will continue to be the religious theme of every age as the fundamental doctrine of Christi- anity. He stands unique in transcendent and in- comparable grandeur among the greatest that ever appeared on earth. Nay more, through the suc- ceeding centuries He has met the prof oundest aspi- rations of humanity, and satisfied the deepest in- tellectual as well as moral and spiritual wants of mankind, in every age and country, and among people of most diverse temperament, antecedents, and social life; and yet assimilating and regenerat- ing them, and making them all twice-born new creatures in Christ Jesus, with changed thoughts, joys, hopes, purposes and living, with love to God, and love to their fellow man. In the world's Exposition in Paris there was a The Christ of the Lord's Supper 79 great exhibition of paintings from the leading art- ists of Europe and America, but among that col- lection there were three that attracted the multi- tudes. They were large canvasses of merit, and yet as works of art they were not superior to many others, but it was their particular motiv that at- tracted and held the thoughtful observer, and it is a significant fact that they were not only religious pictures, but in each instance the central figure was that of Christ, and with a brief description I will close this chapter on the things that must be ac- counted for in the Person of Christ Jesus. It was a large canvass, and in the foreground lay a French soldier across his war horse, for both had been slain on the field of battle, and the brief in- scription, "Pro Patria" told the sad story; he had died for his country. The head of the patriot who had died for his country, was resting against the foot of a cross, and upon that cross was nailed the Christ of history, and over it was the inscription : "Pro Humanitate." Christ had died not merely for the people of Palestine, but for the whole world of humanity, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have ever- lasting life." II THE PASSOVER THE Synoptlsts appear to Identify the Last Supper with the Passover, for Mark 14:12 states that It was "on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover." The Gospel of St. John Is just as explicit In state- ments that Imply that It was before the Passover. Various theories have been proposed to reconcile the discrepancies, that are still unsolvable, until further knowledge may possibly afford a solution. Professor Sanday with many eminent scholars, believes that the Last Supper which Jesus ate with His disciples was not the regular Passover, but a meal by anticipation of the Jewish celebration, "which was In some sort a keeping of the Pass- over." According to Allen In his Commentary on Matthew, the Passover fell on the Sabbath, and It was on Thursday evening that Christ ate the Pass- over with His disciples. He earnestly desired to eat the Passover with His disciples before His death on the cross, for He knew of the secret plans of Judas to betray Him. It was not the actual or 80 The Passover 8 1 technical Passover meal of the 14th of Nisan, but anticipating it in spirit though differing in time, and the fact of the absence of the paschal lamb for that was not killed until later at the temple on Friday. "But there was bread symbolizing Christ's body, and that sufficed." Stone thinks that even the Sy- noptists contain hints that the Supper was not a regular Passover meal. Kent also holds that be- yond reasonable doubt the Last Supper took place on Thursday before the Passover feast, and "even the Marcan narrative records the fact that the Jewish high priests, unprincipled though they were, would not countenance a crucifixion on the Pass- over day." According to Sir Ramsay the Supper took place on the evening of March 18,29 A.D., and the Cru- cifixion in the afternoon of Friday, and that the Synoptlsts are in error In regarding the Feast on Thursday night as being the regular Passover. "It It inconceivable that the Jews should have permit- ted the Trial of Jesus and the Crucifixion of Him and of the two criminals to take place after the Passover had been eaten and the Feast had begun. It was the Jews, and not the Romans, who caused the arrest and all its consequences; and John is be- yond all question right, even according to the Sy- noptic testimony. In asserting that the two robbers were hurried on in order that the corpses might be 82 Christ and the Lord's Supper disposed of before the Saturday began, i.e., before Sunset on the Friday, lest the great day should be profaned. The words of Jesus would seem to in- dicate that the meal which He ate with the Twelve was not the regular Passover, for He said but one by anticipation, for according to Luke He said unto His disciples: "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." The Passover was the greatest of all the na- tional feasts of the Jews, and inseparable from their religious worship, for it was a sacrificial feast annually observed as a solemn memorial in com- memoration of their deliverance as a people from the bondage of their oppressors in Egypt. They would make the greatest sacrifice rather than fore- go the sacrificial cult of the lambs. Hence during the Nabatean siege of Jerusalem in the year 65 B.C., when the time of the Passover came, Aristo- bulus and the priests who were shut up in the city temple mount, implored their countrymen to fur- nish the necessary paschal lamb for celebrating the feast, and they paid an exhorbitant price that was demanded, though to the shame of the unscrupu- lous extortioners — who after receiving the money refused to furnish the animals for the sacrifice. I have mentioned this striking historical incident be- The Passover 83 cause it shows the supreme Importance that the Jews attached to the sacrifices at the Passover; and it gives emphasis to the remarkable fact that with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 that elaborate ceremonialism was never renewed. Another Temple was not erected, and the once indispensable sacrifice of the lambs that was always connected with the Jewish Passover ceased forever — with the exception of the sporadic observance by the small sect of Samaritans, the de- scendants of a mixed Jewish and despised race, that at times and often after long intervals, encamp on Mt. Gerizim to keep and eat the Passover. When Christian churches and cathedrals were de- stroyed by their enemies during the years of perse- cution — others were built and the worship con- tinued; but not so with the Jewish Temple, and its sacrificial observances. How shall we account for this unique fact in ecclesiastical history? With the intense loyal conservatism of the race in maintain- ing the national purity of their people, without ad- mixture with others; and in view of their influ- ence, wealth and continued zeal in adhering to the letter of the Law; how can we account for this ab- solute discontinuance of the greatest of all their national feasts; the one in which it was insistent that the paschal lambs without spot or blemish must be slain? But at once it ceases, and without 84 Christ and the Lord's Supper renewal. There must be an adequate reason for such a stupendous change. Of the three characteristic features of the Passover, the chief one was that of sacri- ficing the lambs, but as we have seen, with the destruction of the Temple of the Jews, the sacrificial cultus of the paschal lambs that charac- terized the Passover ceased. Why was not an- other Temple built, and the sacrificial ceremonies continued, for they had means sufficient to erect another of adequate proportions for all the sacri- ficial ceremonies; and no greater difficulties to overcome than the Christians had, but when one Church was razed to the ground by the pagan per- secutors they built another. Did not Christ fore- see all this, and did He not have it in mind at that Last Supper when He said: "This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is poured out for many." These words seem to indicate that this new ordi- nance was to supersede the old Levitical-Jewish Passover. It gives special meaning and emphasis to that word New in this connexion, and it stands out in striking contrast with the momentous events soon to be enacted on Calvary. For "Christ hav- ing come a high priest . . . not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood entered into once for all into the holy place, hav- ing obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood The Passover 85 of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprink- ling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit of- fered Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the liv- ing God. And for this cause He is the mediator of a New Covenant: "For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ;" and hence it is not the lamb which held the chief place in that Pass- over feast of the New Covenant, but the bread that Christ exalted in the new paschal feast; when He was about to offer Himself on the cross once for all as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Never in all my study did I get such a vivid and realistic impression of that great annual feast of the Passover, as when for hours I beheld from beginning to the end the celebration of the Samaritan Passover on Mt. Gerizim. That unique ceremony by the smallest sect of an ancient religious observance is of unusual interest to the Bible student, for it is the only Jewish institution that has come down to us from Mosaic times with its original and elaborate ceremonials, repeated in all their essential features, though differing In some minor details. The Samaritans conform to the letter of the Law, and rigidly observe the an- 86 Christ and the Lord's Supper cient sacrificial ceremonies enjoined by the Law just as the more orthodox Jews did until the time of the destruction of their Temple. The Samari- tan Jews keep the Passover on the evening before the first full moon in the Greek Nisan (April), but occasionally on the afternoon preceding. Ordi- narily the ceremonies begin at sunset and continue until late at night, even to midnight, but there are exceptions as to the time though rare, when they begin at noon and then by sunset the ceremonies are practically over. Fortunately, this convenient time for observing and photographing the chief features occurred in 1904. It was on the morning of April 29, 1904, that we made the zigzag ascent of Mt. Gerizim. We were courteously received by the High Priest Jacob who received us into his tent where we rested during the intervals in the services; and ate our noonday and evening lunch- eons without any embarrassment to him because of the presence of Food that was not unleavened. He had good features and was communicative, claim- ing to be of the Aaronic descent as a valid claim to his high priestly office. With much Interest and reverence he opened their most precious treasure, the sacred codex of the Pentateuch, with a vener- able antiquity, most probably antedating by some centuries any known Hebrew Manuscript. The large ancient roll was enclosed within a heavy, em- The Passover 87 bossed silver case, protected by a richly embroid- ered crimson satin covering. When we looked over the 40 tents of that en- campment, where a week had been spent In prepa- ration, we pictured to our minds the great annual feast that was celebrated at Jerusalem, for with the historic background of that ancient city and remote times, and with an imagination quickened by the scene before us we could easily behold tens of thousands of the faithful Jews as they came up to their Holy City, not only from the different parts of Palestine, but from the distant countries of Egypt, Asia Minor and far away Babylon to en- gage in similar solemn services, whilst a million or more dwelt in temporary booths on the slopes of Olivet, and in the public places and in the adjacent villages. The vast numbers of people who could not attend because of distance and other disabili- ties still longed after Jerusalem, for they were loyal to their faith and craved the blessings of the feast of the Passover, and hence they sent the half shekel to defray the expenses of the temple serv- ices. It Is true that the City of Jerusalem with its hallowed associations was not there on Gerizim, nor the Holy Temple with its high priests and scores of assistants nor the thousands of animals for sacrifice, nor yet the countless number of pil- grims who had come to the feast. 88 Christ and the Lord's Supper The tent of the high priest Jacob was very plain as well as all its appointments, for as he told us his people were very poor. Whilst he wore a loose outer dark robe of a purple shade, that dis- tinguished him from the others, the long under garment reaching to his heels was plain and once white, but now faded and made of a very cheap material like cotton, but possibly linen. The faded border of the brownish coat that once marked his position, had evidently seen service and lost its original color, and his head covering was perhaps the most distinctive mark, except the darker ma- terial and particular cut of his garment. We ob- served that he did not wear the phylacteries when reading the sacred scriptures as we had seen prac- ticed by the Jewish readers in their Synagogues in Jerusalem. He told us that the Mohammedan of- ficials in Nablus had refused to send the police- men or military officers to preserve order and pro- tect them against any intrusion during their cere- monies, and they had no redress, for they were few in number, and without political influence and too poor to pay the price necessary to secure the pres- ence of such a safe-guard as an officer of the law, although the subsequent demonstrations on the part of lawless ones showed that it was greatly needed. There was no altar at the Samaritan Passover, The Passover 89 but near by is the rocky platform or original altar, and is still the holy of holies to the devout Samari- tan who approaches it with reverence, for it pos- sesses for him all the sanctity of a remote tradition of the primitive celebration of the Passover many centuries ago. The place for the present observance of the feast is about a half a mile away and it is a ques- tion why they abandoned the sacred altar. It would seem more natural for them to celebrate the Passover on the site of the ancient temple, and yet they doubtless have a reason for the change, pos- sibly because of the profane intrusion and at times disorderly interference of the Moslems, which might appear like sacrilege if perpetrated on the Holy place that had been hallowed by their remote ancestors, as the pake for sacrifice. Possibly too, there may be a reason that grew out of the fact that for a long time they were not allowed to main- tain the annual celebration of the Passover on Gerizim, but observed it without ostentation quietly in their homes, and when they renewed it on the Mount they selected a less venerated, and more sheltered place on lower ground. It is only within the last 70 years or less, in re- cent times, that they again have been able to cele- brate their Passover on Gerizim, and even now at times their public ceremonies are interfered with 90 Christ and the Lord's Supper in a most disgraceful manner, but they bear the in- sult with patient forbearance lest any resistance should furnish the coveted excuse for violence and bloodshed on the part of their overbearing Mos- lem neighbors who so greatly out number them. The ancient right had been denied them by the Turic for a time and they were obliged to observe the Passover under unfavorable circumstances in their narrow quarters in Nablous. As we arrived a long time before the hour for the Passover, and before the crowd appeared, we improved our opportunity to study the ground and to examine the preparation for the coming feast. We saw them heating the pit or well which was walled around and had been used for many years and into which they threw quantities of coarse grass, weeds and brushwood until It was heated hot as an oven and in this the dressed lambs were to be roasted. The high priest informed me that the total num- ber of the Samaritans was about 200, a larger number than that usually given by writers, al- though we may take the word "about" with some latitude of meaning. However, from the number of tents that I counted, 40 in all, we might conclude that they had provided for as many as 200 per- sons. Besides a few may have been too feeble from age and sickness to come up from the city to spend The Passover 91 the week on the mountain, and whilst I am confi- dent that I did not see as many as 75 persons pres- ent at the ceremonies or perhaps not more than 50, yet we must make allowance for the women and the children who with few exceptions remained in the tents. Unfortunately for the future of this small sect the proportion of the males Is greatly In excess of the females, and as the Jew^s have rejected all overtures to Inter-marry with them, their future seems somewhat precarious. The present temporary enclosure or so called tabernacle on Mt. Gerizim In which they celebrate the Passover, is open to the heavens and all the ceremonies are exposed to the profane gaze and even Intrusion of the disorderly Mohammedan rabble, for it consists of a quadrangle merely en- closed by an uneven wall of rough and loose stones, about 4 ft. high. It was located near the southeast end of the camp and was divided by a low partial wall Into two equal portions, and in the one nearest the camp was a trench about 8 ft. In length In which a hot fire was burning and over it hung two large kettles, filled with boiling water to scald the lambs as soon as killed so as to remove the fleece. It was around these cauldrons that the lambs were killed, and just outside the wall, at a distance of a few rods was a heated oven for roasting the lambs. Outside the enclosure and in the direction of the 92 Christ and the Lord's Supper tents were a dozen or less one year old lambs hud- dled together, preparatory for the sacrifice. These lambs had all been selected from the flock with special care, for according to the ancient law they must be physically perfect, that is without spot or blemish, and outwardly they all seemed to have an- swered the most rigid requirements for there were no lame or scrawny ones among that select group, and yet there was an imperfect one among them as was subsequently discovered, and it was rejected with a sort of abhorrence as though it were a sacri- lege, to present such an offering for sacrifice al- though the blemish was a very trivial and appar- ently superficial one. The entire quadrangle was perhaps 60 ft. long by 20 ft. wide and the farther half was reserved for the more strictly religious services, which con- sisted in reading from their sacred books, and though this ritual was divided into different courses, several hours at least were occupied at different times in this part of the ceremonies. It was after the sun had reached the zenith and the noon hour had passed before the high priest left his tent, followed by the men who had as- sembled, and together they proceeded to their place in the farther part of the enclosure. The high priest knelt on a small rug facing the east and look- ing toward the site of their ancient Temple. The The Passover 93 women and the children also with few exceptions remained in the tent. The high priest with solemn composure raised his eyes and then suddenly be- gan to repeat the sacred account of the institution of the Passover on that memorable night of Is- rael's departure from Egypt. The members sat and then knelt with faces to the ground, and then arose and stood for a time, suiting the action to the word according to the portions read. They all chanted or repeated from memory with few ex- ceptions and with great rapidity and emotion. Whilst this feature detracted from the dignity and reverence of the occasion, perhaps it was none the less impressive because of the tumultuous haste, inasmuch as it was a constant reminder of the haste and confusion on the night of its original institu- tion. Whilst the high priest chanted appropriate pass- ages from the Torah, they changed their posture frequently and suddenly from kneeling to standing, and at times gesticulated violently, as if under great mental excitement, stroking their beards or breasts, and drawing their hands over their faces, perhaps in deep reverence at the mention of the name of Jehovah. The high priest alternated his posture at times, but with slow movement. Whilst they were reciting the historical account with vehement fervor, seven men entered the space 94 Christ and the Lord's Supper in great haste, dragging the seven lambs that had been selected for the Passover. They were all left standing together in the corner and so near the high priest that he could have touched the nearest one with his hand. Back of him were grouped about 40 or 50 men, with white robes, but some wore dark overcoats. No doubt the particular number of lambs used would be regulated by the number of people to eat the Passover. Perhaps an hour was taken up in this first part of the ceremon- ies. When the high priest read: "And the whole assembly of the congregation of the children of Is- rael shall kill it in the evening:" then all suddenly arose and certain ones seized the Pascal lambs that had hitherto been, uninterested observers, some standing and others lying on the ground dur- ing all the noise, and unconcerned for they were unconscious of the part they were to play in the ceremonies. But in a moment these innocent lambs were not merely "led," but quickly rushed to the slaughter in the adjoining end of the enclosure, around the cauldrons. They were thrown vio- lently upon their sides and men held them firmly on the ground. In the meantime all had crowded into this quarter, and the curious spectators were crowding them still more, almost to the provoca- tion of violence, for each one was intent upon see- ing every feature of the ceremony. During all this The Passover 95 time the high priest remained at his place reciting from the Pentateuch. The signal for the bloody sacrifice to begin was when he read the words from Exodus xii : 5, 6, "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old: ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats : and ye shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it." As these last words were repeated the assistant hurried around that circle and cut the throat of each of the lambs. He drew the knife quickly back and forth several times so as thor- oughly to sever the arteries, and the animals soon bled to death without any noise and with little vis- ible struggle. There was tremendous excitement during all this, because of their excessive haste and the crowd- ing of the spectators, for all wanted the nearest view possible. The scene seemed rather a cruel performance for sensitive nerves and had rather the appearance of a slaughter house, as compared with the essentially spiritual worship of the Chris- tian religion. However, in charity we must recog- nize the power of religious education which gives each one his own point of view, and which has changed the Christian conceptions of worship from those that prevailed among the Jews at the time of Christ's sojourn upon the earth, when the g6 Christ and the Lord's Supper Apostle Paul himself was one of the most devout and zealous adherents of the same blood cere- monial, and not only entered his vehement protest against any seeming interference with it, but even thought that he did God service in persecuting the followers of Christ. I distinctly recalled the words that Jesus addressed to the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well; "God is a spirit: and they that wor- ship him must worship in spirit and in truth." There was much for study and reflection in the strange, rapid, loud and accentuated manner of the worship. They employed tremendous energy in their hurried and tumultuous haste, for everything, seemed to have been done in a hurry and under pressure of great excitement. This was true of the entire religious service of chanting and repeating their sacred scriptures with powerful expulsive utT terances, and every movement that followed whether the seizing, dragging, and killing of the lambs, the process of scalding them, the removing of the fleece and the right foreleg and entrails, and the violent throwing of these into the fire, spit- ting the carcasses, and transferring them to the tent, and later dropping them into the hot oven — all was done in haste. As soon as the lambs had been killed they took large dippers of boiling water from the huge ket- tles and poured it on them, and at once with great The Passover 97 haste the men crowded over them to remove the fleece. Then the hamstrings were slashed and a stick of strong wood was run through and in this position the animal was suspended by the ends of the piece of wood resting upon the shoulders of two men. Then the right shoulder was cut off and the entrails removed and both were cast into the fire and burned. The shoulder was not given to the high priest according to the ancient custom, at least I saw the most of them thrown into the fire as though rejected. The liver was preserved with the heart and these were later placed within the carcass. Each animal had been carefully examined in the dressing to see that there was no blemish among them. All the lambs had been previously selected with special care so as to fulfill the strict requirement of the law, and no outwar'd defect was apparent. However, each animal was still fur- ther carefully scrutinized when dressing it, for the discovery of any physical imperfection would ren- der it unfit for the Passover. The ist, 2d and 3d were pronounced worthy for the sacrifice, but there was a sudden excitement when the 4th had been subjected to a critical examination, for that re- vealed a strange natal blemish, a slight imperfec- tion in its organism, lacking one of the testes, and after a brief consultation they referred the case to the high priest, who had remained in his quarters 98 Christ and the Lord's Supper at the other end of the tabernacle, reading the ap- propriate lessons. He came with suppressed emo- tion but with evident mortification because of the failure in not having detected the unworthy lamb at an earlier stage, instead of its having escaped their discovery until this hour, for they had ac- cepted it through that long religious ceremony and it must now be rejected and another substituted. The high priest carefully referred to the copy of the Pentateuch which he held in his hand, and then again examined the carcass in the light of the di- vine requirement, taking considerable time, for with the sacred canon he was now most deliberate, and then consulted with his associates. I can still see his intent examination and interested look, and keen disappointment and embarrassment because of the absence of that small male member that caused so much trouble, but when the decision was rendered the men seized the lamb as though it had been morally responsible for its slight defect and with looks of indignation they became more de- monstrative than ever, as they hurried it away and threw it with fury into the fire, where it was burned, for it had been rejected as unfit for the Passover. I see that picture still in all its vivid real- ism as though I had witnessed it but yesterday, and it gave me a commentary on the kind of ani- The Passover 99 mals that were to be offered for sacrifice, and it produced a deep impression sucfi as I fiad never realized before. I recalled the scathing rebuke of the prophet Malachi against the people who brought the blind, the lame and the sick animals, "a blemished thing" for sacrifice unto the Lord. As the rejected animal had been thrown into the' fire, several men rushed out where a few lambs had been kept in reserve for such a possible but unexpected emergency, and after carefully exam- ining them, so as not to have a repetition of a lamb with a blemish, they dragged another into the en- closure and after the high priest had made a fur- ther examination and whilst holding a knife be- tween his teeth, at a given signal the lamb was thrown on its side, and after he had carefully se- parated the wool at the neck, he himself cut the throat of the victim getting some of the blood stains on his left hand and wrist. After the lambs had been thoroughly dressed, a slender pole for spitting the animal lengthwise passed through the hamstrings of both hind legs that had been placed across each other and this held them in position, whilst a transverse piece of board fastened to the end next to the head prevent- ed the carcass from slipping off when once trans- ferred to the oven. In the meantime they were carried to the tent near the place of the high 100 Christ and the Lord's Supper priest, having been thoroughly salted within and without and there they remained until the oven was sufficiently heated. Just outside the enclosure on the northeast side was the pit about 4 ft. in diam- eter and 9 ft. deep which had been heated for some hours. At a given signal and amid great ex- citement seven men came from the tent within the Tabernacle each holding aloft the lamb by the pole that had transfixed it. They bore them in haste and the crowd pressed upon them as they approached the pit, and stood around it, holding the lambs over the oven that was to roast them. The director of ceremonies gave the signal and at once all were expected to drop the lambs to- gether into the oven, but in the midst of the haste and excitement, a young man was slow and did not let his go until the others had dropped in and as a result there was some difficulty in crowding his down between the rest. I clearly saw it all, for I occupied my command- ing position on the low wall of the enclosure throughout the entire ceremonies of the day, mak- ing copious notes and using my kodak to the best advantage. I greatly regret that my photos are not as satisfactory as I would like to have them, for the light was not favorable, and the exceed- ingly rapid movements of the various parts of the ceremony, and the excessive crowding of so many The Passover loi into a small spaste made it exceedingly difficult to get even the results that I did. The participants always seemed to be impelled with tumultuous haste. As soon as all the lambs had been crowded into the pit a hurdle was dropped over them and then several sacks of green grass were emptied in, the sharp ends of the poles extending through the trel- lis above the surface. The men and boys collected soil and threw it in until the pit was full, when they took some earth that had been mixed with water to the consistency of clay, and covered the mouth of the oven so as to keep in the heat, round- ing the top like a dome, as they plastered it with their bare hands and then wiped them on their garments in true Oriental fashion. Several hours were necessary to roast the Iambs and we anxiously waited for the opening of that oven, for we wanted to see them eat as well as prepare and kill the Passover. There was another long religious ceremony con- ducted by the high priest in which the men united. This continued until nearly sunset, when at a given signal in great haste they went to the oven, and with their hands scratched away the covering of baked earth, removed the grass and hurdle, and then drew out the 7 poles or stakes with the roasted animals or that portion of the meat that 102 Christ and the Lord's Supper still adhered to the skeleton, for the lambs had been so thoroughly roasted that large chunks had fallen off and were in the bottom of the pit. One of the young men jumped in, his head disappear- ing below the surface and he quickly collected the fragments into a sort of basket. When he came out of the steaming oven he was covered with perspiration and red as a parboiled lobster. All the meat was placed on seven mat-like baskets and these were borne before the high priest who had occupied his regular station. I counted about 50 persons, all were men except a few boys. They sat in order, squatting on their feet, and arranged before them were seven large and plain tin plat- ters, about two feet in diameter, heaped up with green herbs and portions of the bitter herbs were rolled in small wads in the unleavened bread, one of which was passed to me. The green herbs had been chopped in small pieces. The folded mats that served for baskets in bearing the roast lamb from the oven were now spread out flat before them, and the savory meat smoked from the heat that had burned it almost black. The unleavened bread was like the thin wafer kind found every- where in Palestine, resembling our dough after it has been rolled out for the pie, but much darker and only two thirds baked. It is a convenient form for the Oriental table, for it can be torn and The Passover 103 rolled into any size and shape and becomes a use- ful substitute for a fork and spoon in eating from a common dish. Before they began to eat the Passover the high priest introduced the readings from the sacred rec- ords of their fathers and they all joined in chant- ing with vehement haste, and at times turned their heads about with a significant movement, and their eyes were full of expression as they nodded assent to the statements concerning certain events in their national history, as they were then reciting them. There, all was reenacted before our eyes, and we saw the ancient Jews eating the Passover not merely in imagination from what we once had read but from what we now actually saw, for here in the presence of the high priest we beheld the lineal descendants of the old Jewish race, although with some remote admixture of blood from the Assyr- ian colonists, prepared to eat the Passover as their fathers ate it several thousand years ago. That was the Jewish Passover that had come down through the centuries from Mosaic times, and in all its essential features was the same that the Is- raelites had witnessed of old, and I had clear vis- ions of that distant past and the history of these memorable ceremonies which had been preserved to our day and these were now being observed by a small remnant with all the deep fervor of their 104 Christ and the Lord's Supper religious belief. They realized its religious sig- nificance and the importance of keeping this Pass- over, for their souls seemed to have been stirred and hence it was no mere acting, but the outward expression of their deepest conviction. They ap- peared at least as though they were filled with the spirit of that institution, and all the insults and disturbances of their enemies could not interfere with their zealous observance. They were moved with deep emotion, and their highly dramatic ac- tion was expressive of their feeling, for they made vigorous and significant signs with their hands, that were full of meaning as they recalled the his- tory of Israel during that memorable night in Egypt. They shook their heads, signalled with their hands, often stroking their beard or chin, bowing their head, passing the open or palm of the hand across the face and then bringing it down vio- lently about the chin as if striking a phantom beard, for a real one was generally absent. All continued chanting for a long time, and I longed for the end to come so that I might see them eat the Passover. The signs of the approaching end seemed near when there was an unusual outburst of excessively loud and vigorous chanting that had been pro- longed for several minutes, and which seemed ex- hausting, but the climax had not been reached. The Passover 105 However, I felt some relief when the chanting ceased and the son of the high priest brought a ewer and basin for his father who washed his hands, and then taking one of the servers gave a piece of the unleavened bread enclosing the bitter herbs to each of the Samaritans. Then all faced the east, the high priest recited alone for the time when the people bowed with their faces to the ground. Then they arose, followed by moments of silence, when they began to chant again, and then prostrated themselves several times as before, sit- ting at interv^als but none ate the morsel of bitter herbs that had been handed to them. Whilst they were generally dressed in white, some wore dark overcoats, and only one man had a towel girt about his loins, and none of the rest had their loins girt about, and all wore shoes. Then the exercises again varied; from sitting, they prostrated thern- selves, returned to the sitting posture, and toward the close especially there were violent symptoms of strange uncontrolled emotions, and unnatural hysterical jerking in their chanting, with loud ex- pulsive voice, enough to exhaust their physical en- ergies; and all was suggestive of great haste, ex- cept the prolonged length of the exercises, for they did not seem to be in any hurry to end them, al- though we felt that they might have shortened them without sacrificing the general effect. How- io6 Christ and the Lord's Supper ever, my interest was sustained to the last, and T followed the ceremony with unflagging attention, for there was great variety and hence it was not monotonous whilst the rapid movements of the ritual kept the beholders alert for any new feature that might appear, and the intense realism that it gave to this historic institution was a constant source of profound interest. It gave us most vivid impressions of the ancient Jewish Passover that ceasedwith the destruction of their temple in the year seventy and henceforth became obsolete for them, so far as the sacrificial rites were concerned, even though the fact of the institution itself was commemorated by a special brief ritual to keep it in everlasting remembrance, for the outward and elaborate ceremonial that was once inseparable from this memorable feast has been wanting among them since their worship in the temple of Jerusalem ceased, and hence as year- ly observed by the Samaritans it is the solitary example of the Mosaic institution that has come down to our times. I was also impressed by way of contrast with the infinite superiority of the new dispensation over the old, for it was a bloody sac- rifice, and was lacking in serious reverence and spirituality. Only a few had a staff to symbolize the ancient institution, but all sat and none stood whilst eating The Passover 107 the Passover, although the same haste that charac- terized all their ceremonies was not absent from their eating, and no doubt their long abstinence had given them a keen relish for the feast, so that their haste in swallowing the food was wholly un- assumed, and they entered upon this last feature of their ceremony with that same strange but to them apparently natural hurry that had marked all the various parts of the Passover celebration. Never before from all my reading did I re- ceive such vivid impressions of that memorable rite which was instituted on the night of Israel's deliverance from Egyptian bondage, as when I witnessed the celebration on Mt. Gerizim. Whilst the Holy Temple at Jerusalem has passed away, and whilst the local surroundings on Gerizim were different, yet we were in the midst of the historical associations, connected with a Sa- maritan temple that once stood near by us as a rival to that at Jerusalem, and this had been held in sacred memory through many centuries of religious devotion, for whilst the Jews had allowed the original Passover with all its former elaborate ceremonialism to cease with the destruction of their Temple, the Samaritans had preserved that an- cient institution, and annually celebrated the feast of the Passover with all the essential and main features as their fathers had observed it. Hence io8 Christ and the Lord's Supper with the Important characteristics of this Mosaic institution of the ancient Jews enacted before our eyes, even in minor details, it was not difficult for us in imagination to reproduce the similar scene once witnessed In Jerusalem. For here was the actual observance of that same historic Passover. The high priest and people repeated the very- words of that same original Institution as their fathers did several thousand years before, and the different parts of that feast were enacted with all their objective realism by the slaying of the lambs, the roasting and eating of the lambs with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, not permitting any Important feature of the ritual to be omitted as the Jews do in their quasi-memorial or spiritual obser- vance of it. That remnant of this most wonderful race still preserves the formal and outward ceremonies in all their essential detail, and according to the strict letter of the law as once did the entire Jewish peo- ple several thousand years ago. Nay more — they seem to be fully persuaded from deep religious conviction that in this manner they ought to ob- serve the annual feast of the Passover, and hence they engage in the particular ceremony with all the ardor of their ancient belief, with impassioned en- thusiasm, and at times their religious unction rises almost to the pitch of frenzy. On that memorable The Passover 109 day my long deferred hope was realized, for there I had seen this remarkable historic rite that Israel of old celebrated with impressive ceremonialism because it was dear to the heart of Israel, and this my eyes had now beheld celebrated in all its im- portant features by this ancient Jewish sect on Mt. Gerizim. Whilst from a remote period a most bitter feud has existed between the Samaritans and the He- brew race as a whole, which became intensified when they were forbidden to assist the exiles in re- building the temple, and whilst they had been stig- matized as Cushites and denounced for their het- erodoxy, they are undoubtedly a Jewish sect, al- though their distant ancestors did inter-marry with the Assyrian colonists. But the great majority of the Jews of Palestine to-day, and those who claim to be orthodox are the descendants of foreign an- cestors and the admixture of ethnic blood in their veins from other nations than that of the Jews, may be even greater than in the case of the Sa- maritans. At all events their rival co-religionists can lay claim to a longer period for their Passover observance in its fullest outward ceremony than the most orthodox Jews can, for whilst their tem- ple on Gerizim was destroyed by John Hyrcanor 132 B.C., and through long periods of war and persecution their outward observances of the Pass- no Christ and the Lord's Supper over were interrupted, nevertheless through all this time Gerizim continued to be their sacred shrine, and their faith adhered to the Holy Mount and under favorable circumstances they repaired their simple tabernacle and kept the Passover. The references to the Samaritans in the New Testament present them in a rather favorable light, and in Christ's healing of the ten lepers he has immortalized the gratitude of the one who felt impelled by gratitude to return and give thanks to his gracious benefactor, and this grateful one was a Samaritan, although it does not necessarily fol- low that all the other nine were Jews, and that there was not even a Samaritan among them. On another occasion, Christ brings out in strik- ing contrast the respective moral traits of the Jew and the Samaritan, to the decided advantage of the latter, I refer to the parable of the Good Samaritan, and this marked contrast is even greater when we remember with what aversion the Jew looked upon the Samaritan and even treated him with social ostracism as a despised people. Ill THE REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE LORD S SUPPER IT is not difficult after witnessing the Samaritan Passover to reproduce before the mind's eye the thrilling scenes connected with the annual feast of the Jewish Passover when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from various countries came up to Jerusalem, encamping within and without the city on the slopes of the surrounding hills. We are greatly aided in giving vivid realism to that distant event when we observe the Easter cere- monies in Jerusalem, for thousands of pilgrims come annually from the different countries of Eu- rope to see and worship in that most holy shrine of Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sepul- chre. At one of these festivals 10,000 pilgrims had come from Russia; crowding into all the many holy places made sacred by tradition. On our way to and from the Jordan we passed groups of tens and even hundreds hurrying to the Russian bath- ing place in the Jordan, hallowed by their tradi- tion as the place of our Saviour's baptism. As III 112 Christ and the Lord's Supper we look upon these zealous pilgrims, in imagina- tion we can easily transpose them into the Jewish pilgrims who came up the same way from Jericho to celebrate the Passover in the days of Christ. Hence let us in the mind's eye go back through the centuries to Jericho, that we may meet Jesus as He comes with His disciples from Galilee on His way to attend the Passover. We may see Jesus as He proceeds through Jericho, followed by a crowd of people who were attracted by various motives. We may hear the loud cry of blind Bartimaeus that Jesus would restore his sight, and we may see Zacchaeus who sought to behold Jesus as He passed by, but whose view was obstructed by others as he was short of stature, and running ahead he climbed into a sycamore tree by the wayside, hop- ing that the face of Jesus might be turned toward him as He passed by. His anxiety was of short duration, and with joy he realized more than he had hoped for; he not only saw Jesus, but Jesus saw him, and looking up into his face, called him down for He would be his guest that day. One of the most realistic pictures of that journey, and one that could only have been drawn by an observant eye-witness, is that which portrays a vision of the effect of the final crisis; when, "He steadfastly set His face to go up to Jerusalem." So remarkable was that incident on the journey to which I refer Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 113 that the Gospel informs us that: "they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed and they that followed were afraid." There was something unusual and overawing in His manner and visage as He was approaching the city where the greatest tragedy of history was soon to be enacted. "For He took unto Him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets shall be ac- complished unto the Son of man. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spit upon: and they shall scourge and kill Him : and the third day He shall rise again." With the historic background of the times of Christ, and with the aid of the three Gospels and I Cor. let us in imagination go back through the centuries, and get as clearly as possible the view point of the disciples, and hear what they heard, and see as they saw what actually transpired, and as far as possible, get the impression that was most likely made upon them on that momentous occa- sion. By visualizing the scene, and vitalizing the chief actors we may in a measure become specta- tors as we draw near in reverent contemplation, for the place we tread is on holy ground. It is not only possible but highly probable that we may lo- 114 Christ and the Lord's Supper cate the very site where Jesus came with His dis- ciples to eat the Passover, and that when we enter the upper room of that venerated building known as the Coenaculum, on Mt. Zion, we have actually- come to the very place where Jesus ate the Last Supper with His disciples, and instituted this holy and central rite of the Church. For many cen- turies tradition has identified the site where this old building stands as the actual place. On various occasions when visiting the places of chief histori- cal interest in Jerusalem and studying them in connection with events in the life of Christ, I have spent much time in the Church of the Holy Sepul- chre and about the Temple area, but in no place did I seem to come to a conclusion of certainty sur- passing or rather equal to that which I felt when pondering, on the spot, the claims that entitle the Coenaculum to be the veritable place, and worthy of acceptance; and as often as I came, the convic- tion grew more strongly upon me that here indeed we were standing upon holy ground. This is not the place to enter into an investigation of the his- torical reasons adduced in favor of the claim, but it must suffice to state that they are of sufficient importance to have commended themselves to some noted scholars who are inclined to accept the claim. Such an amount of historical evidence has been produced by scholarly investigation that Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 115 there Is a very strong probability In favor of the traditional Coenaculum. No one can question the continuity of the tradition since the days of Con- stantlne; and there seems to be a quite reliable con- necting link extending back, to the reign of the Em- peror Hadrian. Epiphanius writes without any hesitation, as If referring to a well-authenticated fact of history that Hadrian "found the whole city razed to the ground and the Temple of God trod- den under foot, with the exception of a few build- ings and of the little Church of God, on the site where the disciples returning after the ascension of the Saviour from Olivet had gone up to the upper room, for there It (I.e. the little church) had been built." Whilst we cannot tell to-day from what source Epiphanius obtained his Infor- mation, Dr. Sanday says : "I do not think that its historical character need be questioned." The his- torical character of the circumstantial statement of Epiphanius seems sufficiently valid, and if he ob- tained his Information from reliable sources, and quotes from accurate knowledge as appears from his straightforward manner and unqualified state- ment, then he takes us back to the beginning of the second century, or the beginning of the reign of Hadrian 117. As Dr. Sanday states: "This Is the last of the stepping stones from Constantine backwards, and a sufficiently broad and firm one." ii6 Christ and the Lord's Supper He holds that there is no reason to doubt that the upper room mentioned in the Gospels and Acts is the one that Epiphanius refers to; "Nor is it, I suppose, a very precarious step to identify this upper room as in the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, and quite legitimate if we suppose that the house of Mary and her son was the one central meeting place of the Church of Jerusalem through- out the Apostolic age." If there was but a single church, and a little one in the time of Hadrian, we naturally conclude that it was, as the language of Epiphanius implies, the direct descendant of the single house that appears to have done duty for a church (or at least for the principal permanent church) in the days of the Apostles. Indeed the memory of this fact appears never to have been lost. "Referring to the early tradition of writers Sanday concludes: "It is really remarkable to see what I believe to be a perfectly valid tradition pre- served thus clearly and consciously throughout the centuries. It is the strength of a cord made up of many strands. The meeting-place of a whole church would not likely to be forgotten. The tra- dition would always remain. As the Upper Room was not only all the time visible, but also continu- ously in use, or so nearly continuously as not to make a real break in the chain. Indeed the evi- dence for the site of the Coenaculum or Upper Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 117 Room appears to me so strong that, for my own part, I think that I should be prepared to give it an unquahfied adhesion." Sacred Sites. In the early Christian Church, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was regarded as of supreme im- portance when they assembled together for wor- ship. They realized their need of the real pres- ence of Christ, and in the Lord's Supper they had the assurance of His presence given in His own words that He spoke when He instituted the Sup- per. When they heard the same words repeated that once fell from His lips, they carried with them all the significance that they bore when originally uttered by their Lord and Master; and hence the supreme emphasis given to this ordinance by the Church universal. Nowhere else was the doctrine of the brother- hood of man exemplified as here in the fellowship of all classes of Christians, from the higher classes as well as from the lowest ranks of society. The masters and slaves met together in common places of worship — in private homes of those who could provide suitable rooms, in the days when the Church was in the home. The doors were closed against no believer, and however humble, all were admitted to the Lord's Table. Christ had died for all irrespective of their social standing; for all were one in Christ Jesus and were partakers to- Ii8 Christ and the Lord's Supper gether at the Lord's Supper that was instituted for all who received Christ for their Lord and Master. The early and general observance of the Lord's Supper is undeniable proof of great evidential value as to the fact of Christ's resurrection, and the irresistible impression that it made upon His contemporaries and their immediate followers. Never would this Supper have been repeated after Christ's ignominious death, and become the most sacred ordinance in the worship of the primitive Church, had He not risen from the dead and ap- peared alive again unto His disciples. It was the power of the personal and ever-living Christ in His resurrection from the dead that made the Lord's Supper a necessity in that Sacrament where they held a real communion with Him, and for which there could be no substitute. In the Christian Church the altar or table of the Lord was of the highest significance, for it was in- separable from the Lord Himself; and hence it was the most conspicuous object in the Church, oc- cupying the central or chief place in the sanctuary. The reason for this distinction was due to the fact that on that altar or table of the Lord were consecrated the sacred elements, the bread and wine — of which Jesus had said: — "Take eat; this is my body," etc. They recognized the presence of the Person of Christ in that Holy Sacrament, and Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 119 hence its prominence and the supreme importance attached to it. Amid the bitter persecutions of the first Christian centuries when the devotion of the worshipper meant death, they sought out at times the subterranean chapel in the Catacombs among the recesses for their dead in Christ, and there on the sacred altar were consecrated the elements for the celebration of the Lord's Supper; for that holy fellowship was too precious to them to be omitted. It was indeed a nourishment for their souls as they recognized the real Presence of the body of Christ in that Sacrament. The same was true when the bloody persecutions were waged against the Huguenots of France, when at times the worshippers were hunted down like wild beasts, and were unable to assemble in their public sanctuaries, for that would have ex- posed them to death. But they longed to com- mune with Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and hence at the great risk of life theymet in the dead of night at a designated secret place known as the "Black Swamp," and there they met their Saviour in the Holy Communion. The ter- rible wars of religion could not quench the deep longings of soul that Christ alone could satisfy. The same was true in the north of Europe, when the Covenanters of Scotland were denied the precious and God-given, inalienable rights of re- I20 Christ and the Lord's Supper ligious liberty, to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. They could commune with Christ in prayer in secret in their own homes, at their work and along the street or highway, but they realized the deep wants of the soul that had often been satisfied at the Holy Communion, and hence they assembled at night on the heath, in an unfrequented place, and there together in God's unbounded sanctuary and the starry canopy of heaven above them, and the consciousness of Christ's presence, they met at the Lord's Supper and together received the Person of Christ — His Body and His Blood. They realized His real presence and that they had received His substan- tial grace that was sufficient for them; and they returned home strengthened and encouraged, abiding in Christ and He in them. The Holy Eucharist meant something to them and they could not dispense with it. Our New England forefathers suffered great hardships during the severe winters for they lacked the modern comforts, and their churches had no methods of warming them; and yet the people assembled together and in their plain and uncomfortable sanctuaries to celebrate the Sac- rament of the Lord's Supper. So bitter cold was It at times, as Judge Sewall left us the record, that the broken bread for the communicants was frozen Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 121 and rattled in the paten like morsels of ice. It meant something to them, and the sacrifice that they made was the proof of their conscientious de- votion to the Sacrament from which they had re- ceived potential efiicacy for Christian living. There are some precious truths to the Christian that we cannot explain, though the Church uni- versal unites in believing them. Such are the doc- trines of the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Eucharist; and it is useless to press for an answer the question: "How can these things be?" for no man can explain them. The Scriptural nar- ratives of the Lord's Supper constitute the sure and only foundation for our faith in this Holy Sacrament, and there is substantial agreement among the Latin, Greek and certain Protestant Churches in the simple statement of that doctrine, as may be seen by a reference to their Creeds, for the differences become manifest in their explana- tions. As an example. Art. X of the Augsburg Con- fession, which is based upon a plain and positive statement of the Scriptural narrative, declares: "In regard to the Lord's Suppper, they teach that the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and are dispensed to the communicants in the Lord's Supper; and they disapprove those who teach otherwise." Art. 28 of the 39 Articles of 122 Christ and the Lord's Supper the Church of England declares: "that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ." The Coun- cil of Trent, 21 year after the Augsburg Confes- sion was adopted, pronounced "anathema" against any one who denied "that in the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the Whole Christ." These state- ments are not necessarily antagonistic in fact, and the conflicting opinions only appear when the Council of Trent ventured to explain their posi- tive statement by declaring the doctrine of Tran- substantiation in these words: "this holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that, by the consecra- tion of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood; which conversion is, by the Holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation." It is the explana- tion that makes the radical difference irreconcil- able with Protestant views. But Zwingle went to the other extreme by denying any real Presence Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 123 of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, but emptied it of all substantial content of Christ, and declared that it was only a commemoration of the sac- rifice of Him on the Cross. It is evident that our differences as well as our difficulties become manifest when we endeavor to penetrate the profound mystery of the real Presence of Christ as stated in the Divine nar- rative, and attempt a solution. The Lutheran Church does not feel bound to explain that Pres- ence, but holds to the plain Scriptural account, taking the words of Christ Himself. She believes that the Presence is that of the spiritual body of Christ, the same body that suffered on the cross, but now present in its glorified states; and "in full and complete exercise of those infinite prop- erties that belong to human nature in both body and soul from its union with a divine nature." Dr. Jacobs. As Dr. Valentine states; "Though we can- not explain this Eucharist presence of the un- divided Person of the Divine and human nature In Christ, it is conceivable and not impossible for the Omnipresent Saviour to will and grant to the faithful communicant a special sacramental pres- ence. He fills these elements with His perva- sive presence, with His glorified human nature as well as with the divine, making them the ve- 124 Christ and the Lord's Supper hides of His self-importation in the fulness of His atoning self sacrifice . . . The terms body and blood stand for the humanity in which Christ gave Himself to death for sin; and since His ex- altation He is present in the mode of existence which His Deity gives or can give to His whole Person ... It is the body and blood of Christ as He possesses them since His glorification, and not of them in naturalistic sense or condition, that the Lutheran Church makes aflirmation . . . The mode is marked as 'sacramental,' 'supernatural,' 'incomprehensible,' and 'spiritual.' Hence, impa- nation, consubstantiation, and subpanation are all repudiated as descriptive of the manner. The Presence in the Supper is of the glorified and ex- alted Christ Himself, in the indivisible unity of His Divine-human Person, and the glorified Christ can be received only by spiritual compre- hension and appropriation. Oral manducation is inapplicable to acceptance of His Divine nature, and His human nature does not exist apart, to be separately given or received." (II, 357.) Whilst this is the accepted belief and teaching of theLutheran Church, as defined by her theologians, unfortunately she has been misunderstood, and even persistently misrepresented by certain writ- ters who distort and exaggerate the language as teaching an offensive naturalistic and materiahstic Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 125 mode of the real Presence, and such as the Church has never held, and against which we have al- ways protested; but in spite of which they re- proach us with the fallacious stigma of teaching the doctrine of Consubstantiation. There is no excuse for such misunderstanding and perversion of the well known teaching of the Church, for re- liable information on the subject can easily be ob- tained from acknowledged Lutheran sources by any desiring to know the truth. Inasmuch as Christ desired the oneness of all His believers to meet in this Holy Sacrament in the spirit of truth and love in this centre of worship in the Chris- tian Church, therefore, we should try to get nearer together by putting the most charitable construction upon the opinions of others, and not insist upon separating others as far as possible from ourselves by gross misrepresentation, and attributing to them views that they as a Church never held, but always repudiated. Surely others have a right to explain their own interpretation of the real Presence in the Eucharist and we have no right to misunderstand them, nor to misrep- resent them as teaching otherwise. Love for the brethren in Christ should make us most charitable in dealing with the truth of our brethren. Inasmuch as the various denominations ac- knowledge the authoritative character of the same 126 Christ and the Lord's Supper scriptural accounts, It is evident that it has be- come a question of interpretation. It is no less evident that the particular views arising from in- terpreting the divine record will depend largely upon our mental bias and the manner of approach. If we are thoroughly prepossessed with our par- ticular views, however we may have come by them, then the result is a foregone conclusion. The point of view that men take of questions depends very much upon which side they are on, for this is a psychological fact seen in the history of pol- itics as well as in religion. The rank and file fol- low the leaders and take it for granted that they are on the right side, for prejudice and the per- sonal equation become the substitute for critical investigation. The members of the Roman Cath- olic Church do not think for a moment that they have been in error in any of their fundamental doctrines and practices, and that the Protestants are nearer the truth in faith and practice. The converse Is also true, and hence the persistency of the ways that endure. Much depends upon the antecedents of the people, and the vast majority, if not all, are the product of their antecedents. Hence when some controversialists have entered the arena, they found it so difficult to get the other man's point Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 127 of view and to deal fairly with him, for they were controlled by prejudice. There have been much bitterness and misrep- resentation among controversialists at times, who losing their judicial temperament also lost sight of the critical standards that should always guide us in the search for truth. Some men who have differed from us on even important questions, may be vastly the superior of some who have agreed with us and we must still love them in soul and show it in conduct. This is Christ's re- quirement: "This I command you that ye love one another, even as I have loved you." Whilst all cannot think alike, all may love alike, and hence Christ's command. In years of world-wide travel I saw mothers of every intel- lectual, social and religious condition imaginable — their differences were great and irreconcilable, but they all resemble one another in this one su- preme fact they all loved alike. Each one cared for and loved her child devoutly. God is love, and each mother bore the image of God mani- fested in the Flesh, for we all are the offspring of God. When we give ourselves up to hate and cease to love, then we cease to be Christian. Hence there should be no intolerant speech nor hate in theological discussion, however much men 128 Christ and the Lord's Supper may differ in their opinions. I pray and long for the early coming of the day when the Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy can talk as men and brethren in Christ, about the undeniable facts of history that brought about the Reformation; and freely acknowledging the lamentable mistakes that once prevailed in the Church, desire to find a common ground of belief where we can labor together for God and humanity. I can and have talked as a brother man to a Jewish Rabbi respect- ing that memorable Passover in Jerusalem when Jesus suffered crucifixion. We talked like men concerning the chief actors and the responsibil- ity of the High Priest in that miscarriage of jus- tice when the Innocent One was nailed to the cross. Surely we must be able to meet Christian men also, and in the spirit of love discuss historic events that emphasized abuses as well as the Christ and His truth. The old veterans of the Civil War who fought at Gettysburg, come together on that famous bat- tlefield, with all the once bitter differences buried, and they meet in love and hearty good fellow- ship — vying in loyal devotion to country. Why cannot priests and ministers do as well? All re- gret the mistakes of the past. No Jew would name his boy Judas Iscariot and no Roman Cath- olic would baptize his boy John Tetzel, just as Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 129 no American would name his son Benedict Ar- nold. When I reflect upon some of the shocking ex- amples of intolerance and selfishness on the part of men claiming to be followers of Christ, I am reminded of Constantine the Great who after vainly endeavouring to enable the old Novation to see his un-Christian intolerance as the Emperor saw it, said complacently to the self-possessed pretender: "Take a ladder, Acesius, and climb to heaven by yourself." There have been some self-deluded fanatics like the ascetics, and a few selfish ones that remain, who would even want to take the ladder with them when they make the ascent to heaven and leave others to perish. It is a sad reflection that no one has been so mis- understood and misrepresented by his own chil- dren as God our heavenly Father; and at times the greatest wrongs were committed by those who in- sisted that they were His only true children, and persecuted all who dared to differ. On all questions concerning which neither rea- son nor revelation enables us to express an in- fallible opinion, and where absolute certainty from any source is unattainable, the spirit of modera- tion should characterize our utterances, with a sympathetic mental attitude toward those who differ from us, ever desiring to know the truth. 130 Christ and the Lord's Supper All must deplore the bitter controversies respect- ing the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, for in- stead of being maintained in the spirit of Chris- tian love, and allowing others to follow their conscientious convictions, some of those in the minority were put to death for denying the doc- trine of Transubstantiation, though they professed their unqualified faith In the very words that Christ used at the Institution, and believed in His real and true presence in the Eucharist, but not in the mode as expressed by transubstantia- tion. We must have love and patience with those who honestly differ from us on questions that can- not be solved with absolute certainty; and not as- sume an autocratic manner of dogmatic author- ity to speak, ex cathedra, the final word from which no appeal can be taken, and declaring anathema against all who dare to think differently. They should seriously meditate upon the words of Plummer on reverent Agnosticism: "Reli- gious truth is a very large thing, and none of us grasps more than a fragment of it. The frag- ment which other people grasp may be very dif- ferent from our own, and yet, for all that, they may be justified in believing that it is true. As John Newman has reminded us, there are regions of thought in which something that we know to be Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 131 false is the nearest approach that our minds can make to the truth." It Is difficult for a man who has studied and thought upon a subject, to approach Its discussion with a wholly unbiased mind, for he must have received some Impressions and have some con- victions upon the subject. Doubtless Dr. Thor- burn in his Mythical Interpretation of Christ realized this difficulty, for he betrays his own bias when he Informs us that in order to approach this doctrine of the Eucharist, we must "first of all disembarrass ourselves of sacramental theories of a metaphysical nature, whether they be those of the Middle Ages or of the Sixteenth Century or later." But this is a begging of the question. In the study of the Lord's Supper, it is all important to approach it with a judicial mental attitude and in the spirit of humble devotion, recognizing our human limitations and the transcendent divine mystery Involved in the doctrine of the presence of the Person of Christ, which surpasses our com- prehension and hence Is beyond the power of any man to explain. This is no reason, however, for indifference or neglect to devote the most serious contemplation in the endeavor to approach as nearly as possible to a reasonable understanding and interpretation 132 Christ and the Lord's Supper of the fundamental concept and practical design of the Lord's Supper. Such a reverent view should beget in us the Spirit of Christ as we seek His presence and guidance into this the very Holy of Holies in the Christian Religion. Surely the student with the consciousness of Christ's presence, should steady his soul and safe- guard his thoughts and speech so that in this Holy Communion where the whole Church of Christ is united as one in Christ, in redemption and in love, there may be no spirit of hate and no ambition to denounce nor misrepresent those who may differ from us; but we should seek to be controlled by the Holy Spirit's guidance who has promised to take the things of Christ and show them unto us, and who is to lead us into all the truth. It is not our prejudice, not our will that we would have prevail, but alone the Will of Christ and His interpretation we would humbly seek. Whilst the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper has occupied the central and fundamental place in the worship of the Christian Church, it is no extravagant speech to declare that it has been the storm centre of theological controversy. This has been due to the variations of belief as to the content or meaning of the words of the Institu- tion, for scholars have differed greatly as to their interpretation. The words are familiar to every Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 133 one and very simple in meaning when taken singly, but when joined together as Jesus used them on that memorable night when He instituted the Holy Eucharist, what meaning did He attach to them and what meaning did He intend that they should convey to His disciples and to the Church Universal? They are momentous words for us as they have come down through the centuries unchanged, and as they were spoken by our Divine Lord and Master in whom dwelt all the fulness of the God- head bodily, — for God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself when He came to save men from their sins. The chief discussion has been as to the content and meaning of the words of the Institution: "This is my body," and given In the four accounts of Scripture. In times past much has been made of that little copula "is," and much learning has been expended to prove its significance or its original absence in the Aramaic language. The conclusions have not been overwhelmingly conclusive; for we are not' absolutely sure that our Saviour spoke those words in the Aramaic language, though most probably He did, or that the Apostle Paul received them in that language — a fact to be accounted for be- fore the argument as to the absence of that copula 134 Christ an^ the Lord's Supper in the Aramaic can have any final weight. More- over we beheve that undue emphasis has been placed here ; for we have not to do with a hypo- thetical Aramaic expression in which the locus classicus does not exist; for the crux of this whole question is found in the Greek language, as given in the Synoptic Gospels and in I Cor. It is the only text that we have; the only one that the Church universal has had, and the so-called Ara- maic text with that word "is" wanting, does not exist. We have to do with the Greek that con- tains the ear IV ^ corresponding to our English word "is," but the exact meaning of which is the question of dispute. To say that it has no place in Aramaic does not decide the question either way for us. Christ's words have come directly to us through the Greek language ; tovto esriv to ccbfia ijlov, and with this we have to do. What meaning did Christ Intend that His words should convey to His disciples and to His Church? That Is the question. The written account of St. Paul is the earliest account that we have of the Lord's Supper, al- though the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew were written not long after and independently of the Apostle to the Gentiles. But this Epistle is of supreme importance inasmuch as Paul may be Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 135 said to give us his Interpretation of the Sacra- ment, in the significant reference to the eucharis- tic cup in I Cor. 10:16: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break? Is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" In this early explanation he uses forceful lan- guage that we cannot escape by saying that it is only figurative, and that the Apostle did not mean what he really wrote. The word koivwvI'o. Is a strong word and full of weighty significance in this connection. What did St. Paul mean when he spoke of the cup over which the blessing had been pronounced, as "a communion or participa- tion in the blood of Christ?" Would critical exegesis decide that to an un- biased mind the natural interpretation of the Apostle's words is that he regarded the Eucha- rist merely as a memorial feast? Then the Apos- tle, who was a profound thinker , would have plainly said so. Can we conceive of the writer having such a simple conception when he wrote: "The bread which we break, is it not a communion (or participation) in the body of Christ?" Nay, the Apostle Paul had a far deeper and richer meaning. It was not the mere memorial of an absent Christ, but the ever-living Christ present in the 136 Christ and the Lord's Supper Lord's Supper, and an actual union between the communicants and Christ, Whom they received in this blessed Sacrament. We find a support for our view of the inter- pretation of St. Paul from an unexpected source. Prof. Dr. Andrews of the Free Church in an ar- ticle on the Sacraments, reaches this significant conclusion in his thorough study of the subject in the light of Scriptures and history, that the pendulum of criticism against the sacramental view "has swung too far, and the whole ques- tion must be restudied in the light of modern critical investigation." In summing up, he says: "Taking all these facts together, it becomes very doubtful whether any theory that falls short of the Lutheran doctrine, will adequately explain the utterances of St. Paul in reference to the Eucha- rist. If these arguments are sound, we are forced to admit that as far as exegesis is concerned the sacramentarian interpretation of Paulism has won a decisive victory, and the Symbolical school has been driven off the field. There can be no doubt whatever that baptism and the Eucharist stood for far more in the life of the Apostolic Church than they do in the estimation of the bulk of the members of the Free Churches to-day. The evi- dence seems to me to be so clear upon this point as to amount almost to demonstrative proof." Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 137 "There is a feeling in some quarters that the Free Churches have never yet entered into the full sacramental heritage, and to that extent their spiritual life has been beggared and impoverished. No one can read the biographies of the great mediaeval saints without realizing that there are whole regions of spiritual experience which are a terra incognita to ordinary Free Churchmen. The difference is not so much due to mysticism as to the place which sacrament holds in their devo- tional life. May we not in the fervor of our pro- test against sacerdotalism, have allowed our icono- clasm to carry us too far and, as a result, have attached too light a value to ordinances which to other Christians have been not merely the med- icine of immortality and the antidote against cor- ruption, as Ignatius put it, but the mainstay of the faith of the soul in the life that now is?" He would advocate a return to the sacramen- tarian teaching of St, Paul and the other writers of the New Testament — "Is it possible for us to go the length to which Paulism seems to carry us? Can we accept Luther's interpretation of the Eu- charist?" I believe he could without difficulty if he understood it correctly and that it does not mean consubstantiation. So much depends upon our spirit and method of approach, and this will often be determined 138 Christ and the Lord's Supper by our prepossessions or mental bias. One day in speaking on the subject to a layman of more than ordinary intelligence and a worthy elder in a prominent church, I received the reply that Christ made the meaning very plain when he said: "Do this in remembrance of me," and that it was merely a memorial of His suffering and death. The man was perfectly honest in his expression, for that view alone had been impressed upon his mind and he never questioned it. We know how inadequate such a method is, for the words quoted were not intended to define the actual meaning of the Lord's Supper, for that we must rather seek in Christ's words: "Take eat, this is my body." These are the words that contain the crux, and these have been the storm centre in its discussion. But the words: "Do this in remembrance of me," do not even appear in the first two Gospels, and it may be an interpolation in St. Luke's Gos- pel, as some able critics of the text believe. At all events we know that it is not contained in the two oldest Gospels. St. Mark's is the oldest — written between the years 6k, and 70, according to Harnack and other authorities. No doubt as early as the year 50, earlier documents existed from notes made of the words that Jesus had spoken and the impressions made, as well as the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 139 circumstances connected with them. How many had written down such memoranda of the words of Jesus we know not, nor the extent of such writ- ings. Luke sought out such hterature and availed himself of various transcripts, but the first to give form was that of St. Mark in the Gospel bearing his name. Moffatt states that "the earliest sources upon which they draw, were not composed till about 20 years after the death of Jesus, and no one took down the words of Jesus during His lifetime. Retentiveness of memory, however, and the needs of the Christian halacha in the churches, helped to carry many of the words through the preliminary period of oral tradition. None of them is the direct transcript of an Apostle's mem- ories, even by another hand." Inasmuch as the Gospel of St. Mark antedated that of St. Matthew by some years, hence for several years at least, if not a longer period, there was but one Gospel in the churches — at first there was but one copy of this Gospel. But naturally it was early copied so that other churches might be supplied with the written Gospel. Let us go back through the centuries to the primitive Church, when St. Mark was the only Gospel that they had. What impression did they get as to the meaning of the Lord's Supper, when they read from St. Mark's Gospel the words of I40 Christ and the Lord's Supper the Institution, when Jesus blessed and brake the bread, and gave to them and said: "Take ye: this is my body," etc.? The words "Do this in remembrance of me," did not appear in the first Gospel read and heard. Not a word in the text to suggest that the Lord's Supper had only a symbolical character and was intended as a me- morial and nothing more. The same is true of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, for there is no suggestion of the modern theory that the Holy Eucharist meant only a memorial service to commemorate the absent Lord, who had suf- fered and died for them. I am not unmindful that the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, written early in the year 55, contains the words not found in Mark and Matthew, but that does not detract from the force of my reasoning, for the supply of these manuscripts furnished to the churches was lim- ited because of the peculiar circumstances; and for some years some churches would have but one manuscript of the Gospels or Epistles of Paul. It was not in the days of printing and there were serious diflliculties in the way of having the copies made, for not only were the members poor and generally unlearned, but without necessary in- fluence to overcome prejudice and fear on the part of the specialists engaged in the work of Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 141 copying manuscripts for the despised persecuted Christians; who were under the ban of the Empire. Dr. Alexander MacLaren, writing concerning the Lord's Supper, states that "Marie 14:22 omits the affecting, 'Do this for remembering me,' which is presupposed by the very act of instituting the ordinances, since it is nothing if not memorial; and it makes prominent two things — the signifi- cance of the elements and the command to par- take of them" (p. 179). MacLaren is not con- sistent, for on page 180 he says: "The Lord's Supper is the conclusive answer to the allegation that Christ did not teach the sacrificial character and atoning power of His death." What then did He teach when He said: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many"? But why does MacLaren so thoroughly ignore the meaning of these words, when substituting words that do not appear, in order to explain away the real essence and persuade others as well as him- self, that the Lord's Supper is nothing but a memo- rial? Such exegesis is pure dogmatism in order to support a cherished theory; but is not scien- tific nor characteristic of the critical temper of the historical student in search for the truth from authoritative sources. He not only betrays his bias in taking such undue liberty with the words of Scripture to sup- 142 Christ and the Lord's Supper port his views, but he shows his antipathy toward* a different view. I was pained when glancing throughVol.IIIof his "Expositions of Holy Scrip- ture," page 285, of John, to read these words, following his Zwinglian ideas concerning the Lord's Supper, for it is nothing more than "purely and simply a rite of remembrance," he says the Zwinglian methods "do look very bald and bare by the side of modern notions and mediaeval no- tions resuscitated. Well, I had rather have the bareness than I would have it overlaid by cover- ings under which there is room for abundance of vermin." This is evidently dogmatism of a pronounced character, but it is not sound exegesis, nor rever- ent criticism where reverence is naturally expected; for inasmuch as the Lord commands us to rev- erence His Sanctuary, we are expected to be no less reverent in our behavior respecting the Sac- rament of the Altar; for severe chastisements came upon the Corinthian Church because of their irreverent abuses and utter failure to distinguish the distinct and sacred character of the Lord's Supper. We cannot but deplore such an utter abuse of sound and reverent exegesis on the part of a vet- eran expositor who has been admired for the spir- itual character of his writings. It lacks the ju- Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 143 diclal balance of a conscientious scholar who will not juggle with words, and even suppress the plain records of the Gospel in order that his own views may prevail — as we shall see. We can only deplore his dogmatic expression that "Do this for remembering me, is presupposed by the very act of instituting the ordinance, since it is nothing if not memorial." Such an emptying of the sacrament of all Divine content, is serious; but the offensive word that he injects is next to sacrilege. There is this apology however for him, in the fact that to him this ordinance is nothing but memorial, and he sees not in it the Divine content of the Person of Christ that St. Paul recognized and emphasized when he wrote the warning words: "For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto him- self, if he discern not the body." This prejudice warped his judgment, and his sense of proper expression of the sacred content of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; but it evidently has little meaning and solemnity for him. Neither does he appear to be very sensi- tive respecting his representations or misrepre- sentations of the teaching of Jesus as to the mean- ing of the sacrament, for he states that "Jesus Christ said that the Lord's Supper was to be ob- served 'in remembrance of me.' That was his 144 Christ and the Lord's Supper explanation of its purpose, and I for one am con- tent to take as the expounder of the laws of the feast, the feast's own Founder." Doubtless he intended this statement for wit, and I have no contention on this point, except to affirm that it contains neither reason nor the truth. He knew very well when he wrote these words that the language of Jesus the Founder, as recorded in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew, do not contain these words, and that possibly their ap- pearance in St. Luke is an interpolation. Hence why does he base his argument and draw his in- fallible conclusion from a hypothetical statement that he would inject into the first two Synoptic Gospels, and without due qualification, he would put into the mouth of Jesus as well as his own interpretation thereof? This shows the power of prejudice when an expositor of God's Word will deliberately eliminate or suppress, by ignoring the very words of Jesus in two of the Gospels, and substituting others in order to support his theory, and mislead his readers. I am not called upon to prove the impossible — that Mark and his readers and hearers were not familiar with the words in question, but I contend that we have no right to read our words into his narrative, but we must confine ourselves to the original text. We cannot know the several Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 145 independent and primary sources from which he derived his text, and we cannot assert author- itatively that he merely omitted the "Do this in remembrance of me" for the sake of brevity. No doubt we have the most abbreviated form in Mark and Matthew who followed him, but un- questionably Mark embodied the most essential features as he understood them, and he would not omit the fundamental element in the Eucharist for the sake of brevity, thereby sacrificing the very content of this Holy Sacrament. The words of supreme importance were: "This is my body," and they may have been accompanied with some explanation of their profound mystical meaning — by the speaker; and the words "Do this," etc., may have appeared very early in the ritual of the Church; but our contention is that they did not appear in the earliest Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew, and had the writers regarded them of supreme importance then they would not have failed to give them in what was to be the central Rite in the Church. If the purport of the Lord's Supper is only a memorial of Christ's death, then why not sub- stitute in its stead a more positive and significant symbol, — one which is not only the peculiar prop- erty of the Gospel, but which is inseparable from Christ? I mean the cross that Jesus bore for us 146 Christ and the Lord's Supper and on which He died to save us. No one could ever be mistaken when he contemplates the cross. The power of association is irresistible here, and to look upon the cross is to look into the face of the suffering Christ who died for us on the cross. We cannot say the same of mere bread and wine; for neither one in itself nor together are so in- dissolubly associated with our Lord. They were common articles of daily food and drink for all classes of people in Palestine irrespective of their religious faith and life. But the cross had a sym- bolical meaning that could neither be confused nor overlooked. It was the symbol of God's love and man's redemption. No symbol in all the world is so sacred or so rich in meaning; for it stands for Christ and Him alone on Calvary. It is by this sign that we conquer. In the Museum at Ueno, Tokio, I saw those interesting symbols that were devised by the gov- ernment with a view of discovering the Japanese Christians so as to stamp out Christianity in Japan in the beginning of the 17th century when the converts were estimated at one million. The persecutors, knowing the sacredness of the cross, determined that the Christians should either trample upon it or expose themselves to death by refusal. Hence at the great thoroughfares, all had to pass through narrow passages on the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 147 ground of which were placed plates of copper on which were in relief, representations of Christ's sufferings on the cross. The pagan had no scruples for that symbol, but the Christian convert re- fused to trample upon the figure that meant his Saviour; and thus the spies detected many Chris- tians among the Japanese, who accordingly paid the death penalty for their faith, during the two centuries that this infamous edict remained in force. The historic meaning of the cross was unmistakable. Inasmuch as the words: "This do in remem- brance of me," are not contained in St. Mark, St. Matthew, and probably not originally in St. Luke, but alone in I Cor., therefore some would claim for St. Paul an entirely independent source, — because the passage in question is found in no other record. But no one who has seriously stud- ied the subject could be influenced by those who claim that St. Paul originated this Sacrament, and that the Jewish Christians received it from him. Such a conclusion is incredible, for the ordinance was observed among the Christians of Jerusalem before the Apostle became a convert to Christian- ity. It is also inconceivable that the primitive Church could ever have taken the initiative in introducing this Supper of the Lord as a substi- tute that was to supersede the Jewish Passover. 148 Christ and the Lord's Supper There is only one way of accounting for its imme- diate and dominant central place in the worship of the early Church, and that was the universal faith that our Lord Jesus Himself had instituted it with Divine authority and with the assurance of His presence in that Sacrament. Neither the disciples nor St. Paul, without the sanction and guidance of Christ who instituted it, could ever have given to it the overmastering influence that it has exerted through the Christian centuries. Headlam declares that: "On no ordinary theory of probability is it possible to believe that the ac- count in St. Mark's Gospel was drawn from that of St. Paul in any way at all? St. Paul's account might be a development of that of St. Mark: that of St. Mark cannot be derived from or developed from that of St. Paul. What is true in this par- ticular case is true about the whole Gospel." "St. Paul's Gospel was the same as that of other preachers of the primitive Church." While St. Paul gives us the first written account of the Lord's Supper, we must not overestimate the significance of this fact and conclude that the first knowledge of its existence is traceable to him, for as Plummer states, "this does not for a moment imply that he was the first to teach Chris- tians to 'do this in remembrance of me.' This- Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 149 passage Implies that repeated celebrations were al- ready a firmly established practice." The authority of St. Paul was quite inadequate to this immense result. Nothing less than the authority of Christ would have sufficed to pro- duce it. Paul himself tells us whence he received the information. The source of it was Christ — not necessarily direct, but through the immediate agency of the disciples who had heard the words from the lips of Jesus. Whilst we cannot tell with absolute certainty just how he received the information, this seems the most reasonable, for there was no necessity for special, supernatural revelation when actual witnesses were available. It is the unimpeachable fact that we have to do with the unquestioned testimony of the writer who makes his appeal to that memorable night when Christ instituted the Supper; and none could deny the fact. Professor Percy Gardner maintains that St. Paul is the author of the Lord's Supper; and to this McGiffert replies in the Apostolic Age as follows : "It is Inconceivable that the Jewish wing of the Church would have taken it up had it orig- inated with him. Its general prevalence at an early day in all parts of the Church, can be accounted for only on the assumption that it was pre-Paul- 150 Christ and the Lord's Supper ine. There can be little doubt that Mark and Matthew, so far as they agree, represent the prim- itive tradition as to Christ's words. We must go back to Mark for the primitive form." "There can be no doubt that Jesus ate the Last Supper with His disciples, as recorded In all three of the Synoptic Gospels, and that He said of the bread which He broke and gave to His compan- ions: 'This is my body,' and of the wine which He gave them to drink, 'This is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many,' and that He did it with a reference to His approaching death. As the bread was broken and the wine poured out, so must His body be broken and His blood shed, but not in vain" (p. 69) . "The Lord's Supper was eaten by the primitive disciples of Jerusalem, and there can be no doubt that it was everywhere cel- ebrated in the Churches of the Apostolic Age. The only description of It which we have In the literature of the period, is found in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians" (p. 537). Whilst this Epistle was written anterior to any of the Gospels, It does not necessarily follow that there were not In existence partially written ac- counts of the Sayings of Jesus; and St. Mark may have been able to make use of such a document that was earlier by some years than the First Epistle to the Corinthians. At all events the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 151 Gospels were entirely independent of the Apostle St. Paul. On the other hand he naturally obtained his information from certain ones of the disciples, notably St. Peter — with whom he spent 15 days m Jerusalem, and that knowledge came to the disciple direct from the Lord; and hence as the sole intermediary, St. Paul could truthfully say that his communication respecting the Lord's Supper came from the Lord and was not the speculations nor fabrications of men. He had every reason to be convinced as to the Divine source, though not directly communicated to him, but through the disciples, and the authenticity was unquestioned. Hence he wrote in such positive language — with a feeling of absolute certainty. This early account of the observance of the Lord's Supper in the city of Corinth, shows how well known this Sacrament must have been at that time. Already abuses had sprung up, and hence St. Paul writes his Epistle to correct the evils and to set before them the facts connected with the divine origin and character of the Lord's Supper, so unique and sacred that it must not be confound- ed with the ordinary feasts of the pagans about them; for this is indeed the Lord's Supper and Christ's Presence is in this Holy Eucharist. St. Paul doubtless obtained this information 152 Christ and the Lord's Supper concerning the Lord's Supper, directly from the Apostles, although he gives us the earliest and oldest written account. The reason that the Gos- pels were not written earlier were two-fold. In the first place there was no occasion inasmuch as the living witnesses were the teachers and preach- ers of Christ and His Word. They had seen and heard Him, and people would have greatly preferred to receive their knowledge directly from these witnesses, who testified what they personally knew and heard than to have read it from a man- uscript. Just as we to-day prefer to hear men tell us what they themselves saw in some strange country, rather than read the book written by one who obtained his knowledge from secondary sources. We know what feelings are awakened when we find an old volume published in the days of the author who describes what he actually saw among the nations of our country 175 years ago. When I Cor. was written, the Gospels were not known, and the small assemblies that made up the early Churches were composed, for the most part, of people in humble circumstances, un- learned and not influential. The Apostles visited them and told them of Jesus and what He said. Of course the only Sacred Scriptures that they had were the Old Testament — in rolls, and hence they were entirely dependent upon the voice of Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 153 the preachers who at first were the Apostles them- selves. The churches were limited, and there seemed no immediate occasion for writing the Gospels as a sacred canon for the remote future, because there was a general expectation that Christ would soon come again, and hence the Gospels were not written earlier; and St. Paul may never have seen a copy of any of them. In fact it may be truly said that the Synoptics were crystallizations of the Gospel that had been preached in the early Churches. The words had become familiar by being repeated over and over again, by the Apostles and by those who had heard them from the lips of eye-witnesses or from special written sources. If we hold to the Lutheran view of the doc- trine of the Eucharist then the view of our Church must harmonize with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, for they are the fundamental rule for our faith and practice. This is the norm by which our doctrine is to be tested, and by this alone it can stand. We are justified in making our appeal at all times to Christ's own words. We have no other standard, and these will continue to be the standard for all time, for Christ declared: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Hence the foundation for our doctrine is secure. We take the identi- 154 Christ and the Lord's Supper cal words of the Institution, and allow them to stand for each communicant as he comes to meet his Lord and Saviour at the Holy Communion. We do not add nor subtract from these momen- tous words spoken by the Son of God who is really present in that Supper. He fully understood what He said, and He meant all He said; and had He intended less, then He would have spoken accord- ingly. Hence we dare not subtract anything from His words nor add thereto by way of substitution in order not to discern the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. That might lessen the Divine Mystery but in the same degree it would lessen the actual content and precious meaning as a spe- cial and substantial means of grace. Such an unwarranted method involves too great a sacrifice and we do not escape mystery; and the intellectual difficulties, have not been removed. Far better we believe, to repeat to the communi- cant the very words spoken by Christ Himself, unchanged and undiluted by any rationalizing method to get rid of the power and presence of Christ, the God-man, who ever remains the same undivided Divine and human Saviour, boundless in power, omnipresent, and hence able to be pres- ent also in the Holy Sacrament; but how we are not called upon to explain, but merely in faith and love to obey Him who says to the communicant: Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 155 "Take, eat, this Is my body." Christ thoroughly understands them — they are no empty words, but they contain and convey to the faithful communi- cant a precious and special blessing, for it is no less than Christ Himself. This full measure of grace is what our people realize. The Holy Communion in accordance with Christ's words means much to them, and with proper prepara- tion they come expecting much, and they are not disappointed. No matter how much Christ's words contain He will not disappoint us; He is inexhaustible, and He can and will keep His word. There is no occasion for anxiety or doubt here, He will abundantly meet His obligation when we come In faith and loving devotion; for whilst He is Invisible to us. He sees us and knows our needs, and He who died for us on the cross and rose again for our salvation, He will not with- hold Himself from us in His Holy Supper. He is not afar off, seated somewhere in heaven; for He is not localized nor restricted, but He is here also on earth among humanity — those whom God loves as His own children and for whom Christ died. Yea this Christ who said: "Lo I am with you alway," why stumble at the doc- trine of His real presence in the Eucharist, and insist upon excluding Him here at His own altar? Why not find fault with St. Paul for using the 156 Christ and the Lord's Supper strong language he does concerning our "com- munion or participation with the body of Christ" in the Lord's Supper? The difficulties are only- increased, instead of lessened by taking a lower view than that held by our Church, for there re- mains too much to be explained away, if we would make it only a memorial of Christ's sufferings and death. Is it consistent to reason thus and discount entirely the words that Jesus attached to these elements? Surely Christ did not utter meaningless words. On that solemn occasion, on the eve of Calvary He fully realized the solemnity of the Institution, and He knew what language meant, and surely He did not speak empty words. Are we justified in saying so by declaring that they are purely figurative and contain no special content of the Person of Christ, but that He is absent and only present through the Holy Spirit? Why deprive Christ's own words of their inesti- mable value? for the communicant who realizes his sins and need of the Saviour, wants to meet that same Christ in this Sacrament. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever." The burden of proof must lie with those who would eliminate the undivided oneness of Christ's presence from this Sacrament by seeking to explain away the content of Christ's own words. Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 157 The Lutheran Church acknowledges the pro- found mystery involved, but her position is safe in accepting Christ's words as spoken; and she does not feel warranted in explaining them away even though we may not be able thoroughly to explain them. In obedience to His gracious words we come to the Lord's Supper expecting to find the presence of Christ in it and to receive much from Him; and we are not disappointed. We greatly prefer to accept the historic Christ who came from God the Father for man's salvation, and to listen to the words that He uttered when He instituted the Eucharist. We do not seek a different Christ, but He alone who announced Himself as the God-man; and whatever He said that would we believe and do in this objective teaching. We know but one Christ, the true Im- mamiel — God with us, in Christ Jesus. That was the Jesus of the primitive Church, whom they knew, believed and worshipped as the Christ of God, for He alone was the Christ of the Gospel, and His presence we would discern in the Lord's Supper by faith in His Word. Have not Protestant churches at times made a mistake in putting the supreme emphasis on the words of the preacher, and losing sight entirely of profound meditation and communion with God in the services of the Church? This sad fact is un- 158 Christ and the Lord's Supper mistakable in the common language of to-day when inviting some one to their Church, for in- stead of saying: "We would like to have you come and worship with us," they say: "You ought to come and hear our preacher." Such sig- nificant invitations tell their own story; but why not come to worship God, and meditate upon His Word? The soul needs to commune with Him with whom we have to do, and this should be the chief end of our coming to the sanctuary. This is es- pecially true when we come to the Lord's Sup- per, for then we would commune with Him alone, and meditate upon the very words He spoke when He instituted this sacred ordinance. Does it not appear most unseemly for frail and sinful man, utterly to ignore these words of Christ that are absolutely inseparable from the Lord's Supper, and necessary to make it the Lord's Supper, and instead of Christ's own words, substitute what we in our human conceit presume that He ought to have said. How can we justify ourselves in tell- ing the people to accept our words, and not Christ's if they would know the truth concerning the significance of the Holy Communion? Nay Christ's words shall never pass away, and he who would come to Christ in the Eucharist and com- mune with Him must ponder only the words of Christ in the Institution: "Take, eat; this is my Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 159 body." Let the communicant take these words alone and meditate upon them, for there can be no others. These are Christ's words, and He who Is the Truth made no mistake when He ut- tered them. They have come down through the Churches unchanged for nearly nineteen centuries, and they will remain until the end of time. Med- itate upon them alone when you come to the Lord's Supper and you will find Christ there as your Lord and Saviour. We acknowledge the profound and Impene- trable mystery Involved in the words of Christ spoken on that memorable occasion; and whilst we cannot make them plain and present an Infalli- ble solution as to their philosophy and how these things can be, we nevertheless cling to the words of Christ without revision and without denial — for His words cannot pass away, and we dare not take from them nor add thereto, just because they surpass our comprehension and power to ex- plain them. We dare not separate the humanity from the Divinity in Christ in the Presence of His Person In the Lord's Supper; for we can know only the one Indivisible Christ who con- tinues the same forevermore. The fact that it Is an inexplicable mystery must not disturb our faith, for we cannot fathom the mind and the ways of the Almighty In accommo- i6o Christ and the Lord's Supper dating Himself to the needs of humanity, and we must not insist upon limiting^ Him by our human limitations. In fact we are in the realm of mys- tery as soon as we enter the domain of religion; for we have to do with the unseen and the In- finite One. Nevertheless the things with which we have to do are not unreasonable nor impos- sible with Him, for all things are possible with the Infinite God. The most real things are unseen. By the terms flesh and blood or body as used in the Scriptures, we understand them to mean what is embraced in the human nature or human- ity of Christ Jesus. According to Dean Goul- burn, when we engage in the sacramental act by taking the consecrated elements, the bread and wine, they are "not only the sign and symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, but also the in- strument of conveying, in some highly mysterious way, far above out of our reach, an actual par- ticipation in His crucified Human Nature, ac- cording to St. Paul, I Cor. io:i6. In the well known words he becomes his own interpreter of the words of the Institution that he records in the following chapter, and we would abide by his ex- planation." As the learned Hooker writes: "The bread and cup are His body and blood, because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper i6i participation of His body and blood ensueth. Our participation of Christ in this sacrament depend- eth on the co-operation of His omnipresent power which maketh it His body and blood. Let It therefore be sufficient for me, presenting myself at the Lord's Table to know what there I receive from Him, without searching or inquiring of the manner how Christ performeth His promise." The Lutheran Church is perfectly safe in her position in holding unequivocally to the words of the Institution without trying to explain away their content, and thereby eliminating from them the real Presence of the Person of Christ and mak- ing them rather symbolical than sacramental. To state that Christ is really present through the Holy Spirit is too indefinite and unsatisfactory to be ac- cepted as a substitute for the real objective pres- ence of Christ Himself. Not a divided and par- tial Christ, but the same Christ of history, who became incarnate when the Logos became Flesh and dwelt among men. We need the same Christ, and no human device. We, too, like the ancient Greeks, would see Jesus. There is power in the personal Christ and nothing else can satisfy the human soul. God must manifest Himself through a person that men could see and hear. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," expresses the universal need. Ab- 1 62 Christ and the Lord's Supper stract teachings concerning God's love would not satisfy. It would not be comprehensible by the human mind. Love must express itself indeed through a person. It must be seen in service, in sacrifice for man. Christ foresaw all this when He said: "And if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself." In that match- less love that led Jesus to the cross, actions spoke louder than words, and no power is comparable with it; for the cross showed God's love and man's redemption. When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, they said: "Behold how He loved him," but on the cross we behold the full measure of that boundless love. It is this same Christ, the God-man who is present in the Lord's Supper, that every human soul needs. Every tempted and tried child of humanity struggling to do the will of God in his service for mankind, but ever conscious of sin and his many shortcomings — always earnestly praying and striving to be better, finds precious consola- tion and assurance in meeting the Christ in the Lord's Supper, who once dwelt in a human form with a human nature (tempted in all points like as we are, but without sin), and who can fully sympathize with us. We come with confidence as we look into the face of the same Christ who Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 163 said to the repentant sinner: "Thy sins be for- given thee. Go and sin no more." He sympathizes with us in our infirmities, and we realize His fellowship and forgiveness as we commune with Him. We believe and receive as He says: "Take, eat, this is my body, given for you." I am confident that, like the Greeks who came to the disciples with the earnest request that they might be able to see the Jesus of whom they had heard so much — we also would see Jesus. We all have had this longing, and my supreme purpose is to make the ever-living Christ as real to you as He was to the Greeks. This is possible, for "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to- day, yea and forever." He says to us: "Abide in Me and I will abide in you." It was the con- sciousness of His abiding presence, that made the phenomenal lives of the Apostles as they went forth like immortals whose lives were hid with Christ in God, and with the inspiration and vision of Christian imperialism — to win the world for Christ. He kept His promise that He would abide in them. He made their heroism and suc- cess possible by His divine presence that inspired and sustained them. He did not abandon them when thrust into prison for preaching in His name, but He visited them and brought them forth 164 Christ and the Lord's Supper with the heroic challenge, that only the conscious- ness of His abiding presence, could have made possible: "We must obey God rather than man." Make this Christ very real, for you must feel the power of His presence if you would preach His Word. We must see Jesus when we declare to the people: "We are the ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreat- ing by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." We should seriously ponder these profound words that we may fathom their meaning, and adjust ourselves to this rela- tion as ministers of Christ. Before we can meas- ure up to this intellectual and spiritual standard of thinking and being, we must realize Christ's presence, as did the Apostle when he declared: "it is not I but Christ that liveth in me." We must recognize with St. Paul, the power of the personal Christ; and "ever looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith." Time and distance are no barriers for the human mind. It is the mind that is the man; and the mind sees more than eyes can see. We can see with the mind and love our loved ones 1,000 miles away, as clearly and as dearly as we can when they are invisible to our eyes in an adjoining room. We can think back several thousand years and see some famous character of history, just as he ap- Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 165 peared to his contemporaries. We need not see the Christ with our eyes. There would be no practical advantage in see- ing Jesus in the flesh; and the great apostle did not desire any longer such a view; whilst the dis- ciples were never so mighty and triumphant in faith as when they saw Him no more with their eyes. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus failed to recognize Jesus, even though they saw His face and heard His words. Though He stood before Mary on that first Easter morn, she failed to know Him; but stood disconsolate at the tomb weeping, though He said to her, "Woman, why weepest thou?" Not until He called her by name, did she recognize the risen Lord. To go back through the centuries to Palestine when Jesus sojourned among men, may seem a long distance to some, and the way at times may appear indistinct and hazy, but we need not trav- erse that journey and period on foot; but with the historic document of the gospels in hand or in mind, — and in a moment we go back in thought and visualize the scenes and vitalize the leading characters. Whilst we have no portraits of Jesus, we have the moral and spiritual portraits in the Gospel; and the contemporary portraits of rulers may aid us in our efforts after realistic and vivid impressions. 1 66 Christ and the Lord's Supper When I was addressing an association of clergy- men on the subject of the Lord's Supper, a min- ister said to me, "I see that you get much more out of the Lord's Supper than we do, and that it means much more to you." I replied, "True, because we believe that there is much more in the Lord's Supper than you see. We take the words of Christ at their face value, as they stand in the divine record; and as the Apostle Paul taught — we discern the Lord's body in this holy sacrament, whilst you eliminate the Person of Christ, the essence that we receive; — hence we receive so much more than you receive, for it is an entirely different Communion. With us it is the real communion with the body of Christ: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a com- munion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" But my friend recognized in it only a memorial of the absent Person of Christ. There is a vast difference, hence, between our concep- tions of what the Lord's Supper is and what it means to the communicant — of the one who sees in it only a memorial service. No wonder that the Eucharist is so precious to us; for it means so much to us, and we receive so much. We may receive much or little from this Sacrament, according to our conception of Its Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 167 content. If we fail to discern the Lord's body in this Holy Communion and make it merely a memorial to commemorate the Christ who once sojourned on earth, then we may receive what we expected from it, and nothing more, since we have failed to recognize the real intrinsic content. It is because the Person of Christ is indivisible in His deity and humanity, that His real presence includes His divine and human natures. Hence in the Lord's Supper, we enter the very Holy of Holies of the Christian religion, for here we meet the Christ as nowhere else. The elements are not mere signs, for the Christ Himself is here, and the communion in the language of St. Paul, is the actual participation of the body and blood of Christ as our spiritual food; for Christ is not ab- sent though unseen, but present as the symbols are, and as truly communicates Himself to us ac- cording to His Will. We must distinguish between the presence of the spiritual or glorified body of Christ, and the mere spiritual presence of the body of Christ. Dr. Jacobs states in this connection, "When, however, they teach that the presence is that of the spiritual body of Christ, they do not mean to affirm that this is not the same body as that in which He suffered and died; but by the spiritual body is meant that Same Body in its glorified 1 68 Christ and the Lord's Supper state, sharing not only in the new properties that belong to the glorified bodies of believers after the resurrection, but in the full and complete ex- ercise of those infinite properties that belong to human nature in both body and soul from its union with a divine nature. This presence, they teach, is dependent entirely upon the word and Institution of Christ, and In no way upon the faith of the communicant." "No scriptural authority can be found for any sacramental presence except In the sacramental action itself. Nor are the bread and wine, and the Body and Blood of Christ received by the mouth in the same way; the former being received natur- ally and subjected to all the processes undergone by other food; but the latter supernaturally and In a way not occurring except in this Sacrament. There Is a sacramental which is not a spiritual, and there is a spiritual which is not a sacramental, feeding upon Christ." Dr. Valentine In his valuable work on "Chris- tian Theology" says: "Our logically consistent dogmatlclans have represented the supernatural presence In the Eucharist as the presence of Christ In His whole theanthropic Person, In Self- Presence and Self-communication to His people. Luther maintained the real presence of Christ Himself." He quotes Martensen: "He is pres- Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 169 ent wholly and entirely in His Supper, where He in an especial manner, wills to be. The sacramen- tal communion is not a partaking of the corporeal nature of Christ apart from His corporeity." "We believe that the whole and undivided Christ gives Himself as the ailment of the new man in the Lord's Supper." "In His gifts, He gives Himself. Take, eat, drink, this is I; in this I give you what is the innermost power of life in Myself." Sartorius says: "For bread and wine truly communicate and appropriate to us, the Christ who was sacrificed for us." II, 347. Dr. Valentine quotes Hollaz in his explanation of the "difference between the eating by faith and the sacramental manducation" : "The former always contributes to our salvation; the latter sometimes may be done to our condemnation; the former ap- prehends the whole Christ with all His benefits; the latter apprehends only the body of Christ in and under the bread." Dr. Valentine adds : "Does not this concession show the urgency for the oral or corporeal reception to be at least a misplaced emphasis in ideating the realities of the Sacra- ment? The strenuous insistence on it as the chief essential reality is hardly justified, in face of the admitted fact that there is no real necessity for it per se; that in itself, without the spiritual recep- tion at the same time, it is ineflicacious and damag- 170 Christ and the Lord's Supper ing. The vital need in the sacramental doctrine is to lay the controlling stress on the spiritual reception of Christ through faith. No grace is received through either word or sacrament ex- cept through this. And he who thus receives Christ realizes in Him all grace. This recogni- tion of the truth that Christ in His whole Divine- human Person is present in the Supper where He specially wills to be, thus suggests the possibility that there may have been no real necessity for the various experiments to explain and assure a literal oral reception." "These methods of support or elucidation, which have been (or some of them) increasingly abandoned among our most prominent confes- sional theologians, have been more successful in continuing the controversy than settling it. But when the Eucharistic Presence is clearly recog- nized as that of the glorified Christ Himself, it is at once divested of the incongruities and troubles connected with efforts to think it under the mate- rialistic and limiting terms of flesh and blood, and the equally limiting acts of 'oral' eating and drinking. By such recognition both the presence and 'reception' are at once lifted above the natur- alistic modes, and transferred to the generic and acknowledged reality of the mystery of the ex- Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 171 alted Redeemer's omnipresence and bestowal of the gifts of His grace." II, 350. "Though we cannot explain this Eucharistic Presence of the undivided Person of the Divine and human nature in Christ, it is conceivable and not impossible for the Omnipresent Saviour to will and grant to the faithful communicant a 'spe- cial' sacramental presence. Through His omni- presence wherever He wills, the bread and wine are made the appointed media to His people of a special real communion with Himself, not as an absent but present Christ and Saviour. He fills these elements with His pervasive presence, with His glorified human nature as well as with the divine, making them the vehicles for His self- importation in the fulness of His atoning self- sacrifice. This truth becomes explanatory and de- fining for the mode of communication and re- ception in the Supper." p. 351. "The terms body and blood stand for the hu- manity in which Christ gave Himself to death for sin; and since His exaltation. He is present in the mode of existence which His Deity gives or can give to His whole Person: Lo, I am with you always." "It is of the body and blood of Christ as He possesses them since His glorification, and not 172 Christ and the Lord's Supper of them in naturalistic sense or condition, that the Lutheran doctrine makes affirmation. It distinct- ly repudiates everything like a presence or recep- tion after a gross, natural or physical manner. "Though it has sometimes been called 'cor- poreal,' this word is used, not at all with respect to the mode of it, but only adjectively to include the human or bodily reality in the Presence. The mode is marked as 'sacramental,' 'supernatural,' 'incomprehensible,' and 'spiritual.' Hence impa- nation, consubstantiation and subpanation are all repudiated as descriptive of the manner of it. The 'oral reception' or 'oral manducation' has not been made by our Church as a whole, a nec- essary part of its sacramental doctrine, appearing only in the Form of Concord." The Presence in the Supper is of the glorified and exalted Christ Himself, in the indivisible unity of His Divine human Person, and "the glorified Christ can be received only by spiritual compre- hension and appropriation. Oral manducation is inapplicable to acceptance of His Divine nature, and His human nature does not exist apart, to be separately given or received." p. 357. He holds that according to the Lutheran doc- trine the Lord's Supper is "in its essential con- tent and significance, a divinely-instituted Sacra- ment for perpetual use in His Church, which while Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 173 constituting a memorial of His redemptive suf- fering, is made also through a real, special defini- tive Presence, under His generic omnipresence, — a means by which He gives Himself to believers as the ever-living Saviour, in the fulness of His provided grace and saving power. This believing sacramental reception becomes a real communion, fellowship, not only with Christ, but of believers with one another, as forming the Church, the spiritual body of Christ." Dr. Valentine, ii, 359. Dr. Krauth in his monumental work on "The Conservative Reformation," furnishes abundant testimony to the fact that the Confessions and great Lutheran theologians without a dissenting voice repudiate the monstrous doctrine of Consub- stantiation, the name and the thing, in whole and in every one of its parts. In the Wittenberg Con- cord, 1536, prepared and signed by Luther and the other great leaders in the Church, it is dis- tinctly stated: "We deny the doctrine of transub- stantiation, as we do also deny the doctrine of a Capernaitish eating of the body of Christ, which after so many protestations on our part, is mali- ciously imputed to us; the manducation is not a thing of the senses or of reason, but supernatural, mysterious and incomprehensible. The Presence of Christ in the Supper, is not of a physical na- ture nor earthly nor Capernaitish, and yet it is 174 Christ and the Lord's Supper most true." Thus Bishop Waterland states con- cerning the doctrine held by the Lutheran Church respecting the Lord's Supper: "What they admit and abide by, it is a sacramental union, not a cor- poreal presence." In reference to the charge of ubiquity, the Form of Concord is very explicit: "Our Church rejects and condemns the error that the human nature of Christ is locally expanded in all places of heaven and earth, or has become an infinite essence." "If we speak of geometric locality and space, the hu- manity of Christ is not everywhere." "In its proper sense it can be said with truth, Christ is on earth or in His Supper only according to the Di- vine nature, to wit: in the sense that the humanity of Christ by its own nature cannot be expected in one place, but has the majesty (of copresence) only from divinity." "When the word corporeal is used of the mode of presence, and is equivalent to local, we affirm that the body of Christ is in the heaven and not on earth." Dr. Krauth further states: that "Of a local presence of the body of Christ, in, with or under the bread, there never was any controversy be- tween Lutherans and Calvinists; that local pres- ence we expressly reject and condemn in all our writings. But a local absence does not prevent a Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper 175 sacramental presence, which is dependent on the communication of the divine majesty." Gerhard, that profound thinlcer and theologian of the Lutheran Church, is very clear and unequiv- ocal in his statements respecting our belief, and in repudiation of the errors attributed to us respect- ing the Lord's Supper. Surely our Confessors and theologians must have known what they believed and taught; and they have a right to explain the content of their words and language, as well as to deny and refute the erroneous views that have been attributed to them whether through malice-afore- thought or misunderstanding of their actual belief. Necessity has compelled this to be done so often and thoroughly that it might reasonably seem that there would be no further excuse for any further misunderstanding or misrepresentation as to our real views. IVi CONSENSUS OF OPINION AMONG THEOLOGIANS DR. HODGE, in his lectures, says of the Lord's Supper: "We now enter the inner- most Most Holy Place of the Christian's Temple. We approach the sacred altar on which lies quiver- ing before our eyes the bleeding heart of Christ. We come to the most private and personal meet- ing place between our Lord and His beloved. It is the central ordinance in the whole circle of church life, around which all the other ministries of the church revolve." 390. "The divinely-prepared historic root of the Lord's Supper was the Passover. The paschal lamb was a type of Christ." "Christ as an objective fact is as really present and active in the sacrament as the bread and wine, or the minister or our fellow-communicants by our side. We know nothing as to the ultimate union of our souls and bodies, yet we no less are certain of the fact. So we need not speculate how it is that Christ, the whole God-man, body, soul and divinity, is present in the Sacrament; but we are 176 Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 177 absolutely certain of the fact that He has promised it." "What is present in the Sacrament is not lit- eral flesh and blood to be eaten and drunk, but the whole divine-human person of our Lord, etc." "We maintain our unshaken faith, not in ab- stract material flesh and blood, but in the actual objective, efi^ective presence with the believing communicant of the whole divine-human Person of Christ. We are unable and we do not care, to explain the nature of the fact scientifically — Christ is personally and literally and immediately pres- ent." These positive statements for the real Presence are encouraging, for he realized as others did the difficulty to state in a verbal formula the faith of the Church in the content of the doctrine of the Eucharist. He found it necessary to qualify by explanatory words in order that he might express himself in accordance with the consciousness of his own convictions; and others have struggled no less to express adequately, if possible, the truth respecting the profound mystery of Christ's sacramental presence in the Eucharist; but not to explain it away. Dr. Hodge must have realized his difficulty in reconciling the doctrine of the Person of Christ with the Calvinistic view of His presence in the Eucharist, for in his efforts to explain and illus- 178 Christ and the Lord's Supper trate the absolute and perpetual union of the di- vine and human natures in Christ, the logical se- quence would make the Lutheran doctrine a neces- sity. He declares that "divinity and humanity act together in the thought, heart and act of Christ who is absolutely one — at the same time unchanged God and pure, unchanged and unmixed man, and whose person in its wholesomeness and fullness is available throughout all space and time to those who trust Him." If this be true, why can He not be present in the Holy Sacrament as we teach, for there is but one Christ, undivided and inseparable, and His humanity must appear with His divinity, since they are united in the Person of Christ? We acknowledge the mystery as Dr. Hodge does, but we are no more called upon to explain the insoluble than he is ; but we believe the fact just as he believes the profound mystery of Christ's Person although it transcends all human compre- hension, as he freely admits. The Lutheran position is consistent and safe in- asmuch as we stand by the divine record. We accept it as a historic fact of the Scriptures. So far as the interpretation of the content of the lan- guage is concerned, we encounter no greater diffi- culties on the whole than do those who differ from us, for the supreme fact of the continued-undivided oneness of Christ's Person is involved, and this Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 179 must be accounted for by those who would have the human nature absent, and locahzed in heaven. Hence the process is not so simple as it would ap- pear to some who recognize nothing more than a symbolical significance in the Lord's Supper. They assume that they escape all difficulty of interpreta- tion by eliminating the real Christ of history from the Eucharist, under the plea that the words are merely figurative, and that Christ did not or could not have meant what the language would naturally convey. But what basis of evidential certainty have they for such a conclusion? The reasons assigned are generally the result of what they con- ceive insuperable difficulties in the way of accept- ing a more literal interpretation. But they are not through with all the difficulties to be explained by such a summary process. They may escape Scylla, but only to find themselves later contending in Charybdis; for how can they reconcile such a di- vided Christ with the universal view of the Church respecting His Person? Dr. Henry J. VanDyke, Sr., in his lectures on the Church, her Ministry and Sacraments, deliv- ered at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890, refers to Calvin who at times wrote like a Luther- an on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. But he says that Zwinglianism is essentially rationalistic in the evil sense of the words. Its chief effort is l8o Christ and the Lord's Supper to explain away or reduce to a minimum the mys- tery of the Lord's Supper. We have heard Pres- byterian ministers in administering it, eulogizing the absolute simplicity not only of its symbols, but of its whole design and efficacy, comparing it to the monument which recalls the memory of some great man, as though that explained its whole meaning and effect." "We grow weary in our reading on the subject of the reiterated assertion that this or that view is incomprehensible, unreasonable or con- trary to common sense; and the more so because the same writers who use such arguments in re- gard to the Lord's Supper repudiate and denounce them when they are urged by others against the doctrine of the Trinity, the Sovereignty of God, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, the vital union of believ- ers with His glorified Person and the wonder- working power of His Holy Spirit — all of which revealed mysteries pervade and are embodied in the transcendent mystery of the Holy Commun- ion." "The Sacrament is founded upon and leads up to His one indivisible Person, which is the reservoir of all divine fulness for our salvation. He is not and cannot be divided. His human nature never had and never can have, any existence separate from His Deity. He was conceived by the Holy Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians i8i Ghost, and was the Son of God from the moment of His conception. His human soul and His hu- man body were separated for three days when the one descended to Hades and the other lay in the tomb; but neither was parted for a moment from His Divine nature. Moreover since the in- carnation, Christ's Divine nature does not exert any saving power nor bestow any gracious gift upon men, except in and through His human na- ture. The Son of God was from the beginning, the living Word of the Father, the life and light of men ; and now since the Word became Flesh it is the Son of Man who has power on earth to for- give sins, and is exalted a Prince and a Saviour. By its union with the Divine nature, the humanity of Christ is infinitely exalted. It follows from this that wherever Christ is, there is His human as well as His Divine nature. His human nature is vir- tually omnipresent, because it is inseparable and forever united to the Divine." 179. "His whole human nature, body and soul, being forever united to His Divine nature, is virtually omnipresent; that is to say — its influence can be exerted and manifested anywhere according to His Divine Will. This real presence of Christ is spe- cially promised and covenanted to us in the Lord's Supper. The consecrated bread and wine are not merely the symbols of His body and blood, but the 1 82 Christ and the Lord's Supper Divine seals of the covenant whereby Christ and all His benefits are not only represented but ap- plied to us; and therefore their use is the kolvuvIq., the actual participation of Christ's body and blood by every believing communicant. . . . The grace signified is the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in Christ." "It should be remembered, however, that the body and blood of Christ cannot be separated from Christ Himself, and that no saving benefit can be received from Him unless we are vitally united to His person. His body and blood represent His whole person and offices. His merits, the sacri- ficial merits of His death and all His benefits, both of grace and glory." "We reject also the theory of a local presence in, with or under the sacred symbols. Presence as applied in Scripture and in our theology to the an- thropic person of Christ, has nothing to do with locality or limitation of any kind." VanDyke, p. 184. The controversialists who strive to array Me- lanchthon on the side of Calvin repecting his views on the Sacrament, will find a strong corrective in the conclusion of Dr. Richards in the statement: "Melanchthon never departed from the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist nor from the essentials of the Lutheran teaching on Consensus of Opinion A^nong Theologians 183 the subject, though later in life he laid more em- phasis on the ethical features of the sacraments. "For proof of these affirmations we quote from Corpus Philippicum, the preface to which Me- lanchthon wrote only two months before his death. "In this communion Christ is truly and substan- tially present, and Is truly administered to those who take the body and blood of Christ." "Christ is truly present, and by means of this service He gives His body and blood to him who eats and drinks. So say also the ancient writers: What is the Lord's Supper? It is the communication of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as it was instituted In the words of the Gospel, In the taking of which the Son of God is truly and sub- stantially present." "Melanchthon does not echo Luther's words nor does he speak of a repletlve presence or of oral manducation, but without hesitation and with- out equivocation he affirms the substantial pres- ence of Christ in the Eucharist; and the communi- cation of the body and blood of Christ to the com- municant; and in the emphasis which he places upon the sacrament as a sign, a seal, a testimony, an application of the blessing and benefits of Christ, he surpasses Luther, as might be expected of one who declared that the aim of all this theo- logizing was to make men better." 184 Christ and the Lord's Supper "Against this teaching by Melanchthon, Luther never raised a word of oFjection, not even in the Small Confession of 1544 in which he so violently assailed all those who had differed from him in his teachings on the Lord's Supper; but he actually endorsed Melanchthon's teaching on this and on all other subjects, when in 1545 he extolled Me- lanchton's Loci Communes above all other books of divinity. "Hence we may say that Luther and Melanch- thon were one in their doctrine of the Lord's Sup- per — not one in phraseology, but one in the essen- tial things, namely, in the real presence of Christ; In the Eucharist; in the communication of the body and blood of Christ to the communicant; and In the necessity of faith for the profitable use of the Sacrament." p. 391. "But by and by the ultra Lutherans emphasized the accidents rather than the essentials of Luther's teaching, and more and more laid stress on oral manducation, on the sacramental union, on the in, cum, sub pane et vino, that is, on the dogmatic and extra-biblical content, and on the conception that there can be no substantial reception of Christ apart from the sacraments, since the heavenly gift Is Imparted only in, with and under the sacra- ments." Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 185 "The followers of Melanchthon insisted more and more on the union of the living Christ, the God-man with the believer. Such presence of Christ was not less real than that contended for by the rigid adherents of Luther. It was less dog- matic but more religious and ethical. The two views and the two tendencies are absolutely irrec- oncilable with each other. In the extreme form in which they appeared in the 7th decade of the 1 6th century, they do not represent the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, as the same had been set forth in the official witnesses of the Lu- theran Church." 393. Calvin in his Institutes, Vol. II, p. 534, quotes St. Paul: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" "Nor is there any cause to object, that It is a figurative expression, by which the signified is given to the sign. Yet this being admitted, we may justly infer the substance; for unless any one would call God a deceiver, he can never presume to affirm that He sets before us an empty sign. Therefore if by the breaking of the bread, the Lord truly represents the participa- tion of His body, it ought not to be doubted that he truly presents and communicates it. I say 1 86 Christ and the Lord's Supper therefore, that in the mystery of the Supper, under the symbols of bread and wine, Christ is truly ex- hibited to us, even His body and blood." "Christ exerts His power wherever He pleases in heaven and earth — just as if He were corpo- really present; in short, feeds them with His own body, of which He gives them a participation by the influence of His spirit. This is the way in which the body and blood of Christ are exhibited to us in the sacrament." (542). That is, they are not there as Christ said they were. VanDyke says : "It is trifling to set aside these Scriptural statements as mere figures of speech. The figures fall short of the profound reality which they illustrate. It is no less trifling to resolve the mystery of this personal union with Christ into the indwelling of His spirit in the souls of believers." 180. He quotes from Bannerman on the Church of Christ — "It seems impossible, with any show of reason, to assert that the discernment spoken of in I Cor. xi : 27-29 is the mere power of interpret- ing the signs as representatives of Christ's death, or that the guilt incurred is nothing more than the danger of abusing certain outward symbols. These expressions evidently point to a spiritual and awful sin, not of misusing and profaning outward sym- bols, but of misusing and profaning Christ actual- ly present in them." II, 138. Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 187 Even Calvin at times expresses himself in the language of a Lutheran as when he remarks on I Cor. 11:24-26: "For He (Christ) does not sim- ply present to us the benefits of His death and resurrection ; but the very body in which He suf- fered and rose again." We have a right to be judged in the light of the statements of our own theologians who have spoken ex-cathedra for us; and we have a right to protest against writers, who instead of consulting the recognized standards of the Lutheran Church, persist in misrepresenting us by deliberately quot- ing what our enemies have said about us. A con- scientious scholar always examines the original sources as far as possible, in order to get authori- tative testimony. We want to know the absolute truth respecting a man's belief; and hence we go to the man himself. If I want to know what the doc- trine of transubstantlatlon is, as held by the Catho- lic Church, then I must go to the recognized au- thority, and hence I quoted from their able writer in the Catholic Encyclopedia. We do not want a caricature by perverting the facts, nor by substi- tuting the views of an unsympathetic critic. It is because this principle of justice and fairness has been so commonly and persistently abused that the Lutheran Church has been greatly misunderstood concerning the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. I 1 88 Christ and the Lord's Supper regret to find that able and broadmlnded scholar, Dr. Briggs, repeating the old charge that Consub- stantiation Is the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, — an error that our Church has always re^- pudiated from the beginning. With the passing of Dr. Briggs, who cannot atone for the wrong by acknowledging and correcting it, there seems little hope of our escape from far less fairmlnded and able men, who prefer to misrepresent rather than to take us at our word as so often publicly de- clared. All may know the Lutheran position and under- stand us if they will. Dr. Gerhard spoke with the authority of the Church when he wrote the clear forcible words: "To meet the calumnies of oppo- nents, we would remark that we neither believe In Impanatlon nor Consubstantlatlon, nor In any physical or local presence whatsoever. Nor do we believe In that consubstantiatlve presence which some define to be inclusive of one substance in an- other. Far from us be that figment. The hea- venly thing and the earthly thing. In the Holy Supper, In the physical and natural sense, are not present with one another." It was a disappoint- ment when reading the article on the Eucharist In the Catholic Encyclopedia, to find that the writer had fallen into the same pit of careless error with his many Protestant brethren. On page 580 he Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 189 twice repeats the obnoxious word, and quotes with approval the attitude of Calvin in this respect, for he states: "The Calvinists therefore, are per- fectly right when they reject the Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation as a fiction, with no founda- tion in the Scripture." He might with greater truth and fairness have stated that the Lutherans therefore are perfectly right when they reject the doctrine of Consubstantiation, and the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation, as a fiction, with no foundation in Scripture, for the Lutheran Church has always repudiated these errors as unscrip- tural. We agree with the writer of that excellent ar- ticle on the Eucharist in the Catholic Encyclo- pedia, when he says, "The Church's Magna Charta are the words of the Institution, 'This is my body — this is my blood,' " although we might qualify the explanatory clause connected with it, viz., "whose literal meaning she has uninterrupt- edly adhered to from the earliest times." How- ever, what the writer says is worthy of serious consideration: "It is but natural and justifiable to expect that, when four different narrators in dif- ferent countries and at different times relate the words of Institution to different circles of readers, the occurrence of an unusual figure of speech, as for instance, that bread is a sign of Christ's Body, 190 Christ and the Lord's Supper would somewhere or other, betray Itself either in the difference of word-setting, or In the unequivocal expression of the meaning really intended, or at least In the addition of some such remark as: 'He spoke, however, of the sign of His Body.' But nowhere do we discover the slightest ground for a figurative Interpretation." 574, V. "Neither from the nature of the case nor in common par- lance Is bread an apt or possible symbol of the hu- man body. Were one to say of a piece of bread: 'This is Napoleon,' he would not be using a fig- ure, but uttering nonsense. Belief In the Real Presence necessarily presupposes belief in the true divinity of Christ." "There Is but one means of rendering a symbol, improperly so called, clear and intelligible, namely, by conventionally settling beforehand what It Is to signify." He Is not so secure of his position when he states that "Christ intended to institute the Eucharist as a most holy sacrament, to be solemnly celebrated In the Church to the end of time. But the content and the constituent parts of a sacra- ment had to be stated with such clearness of termi- nology as to exclude categorically every error In liturgy and worship." A fair and generous interpretation of the diver- gent opinions that have prevailed among the most conscientious scholars in the various branches of Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 191 the Christian Church, would hardly warrant such a positive statement as being delivered with ex- cathedra authority. With the spirit of all judicial fairness, we must admit that we cannot be so abso- lutely certain, and that the language is so cate- gorically certain that there cannot be an honest dif- ference of opinion; for the words do admit of more than one interpretation, and that accounts largely for the unfortunate divisions in bitter con- troversy, for here we all ought to be united in love to Christ as well as in love to one another. We cannot but deplore the gross error into which Zwingli fell when he utterly repudiated the doc- trine of the Real Presence and made the sacrament of no effect, but merely a memorial of Christ's death, and without the living Christ in that sup- per. The writer in the Catholic Encyclopedia accepts the words of the Institution and John 6 as well, in all their literalism; and the doctrine of transub- stantiation was the logical sequence for the Church in time. Under "The Totality of the Real Pres- ence" he refers to the Council of Trent which de- fined the Real Presence "to be such as to include with Christ's Body and Blood His soul and divin- ity as well. Hence Christ is present in the sacra- ment with His Flesh and Blood, Body and Soul, Humanity and Divinity." 578. 192 Christ and the Lord's Supper He holds that when Christ said of the bread: "This is my body," "the bread became through the utterance of those words, the body of Christ; con- sequently on the completion of the sentence, the substance of the bread was no longer present, but the body of Christ under the outward appearance of bread. Hence the bread must have become the Body of Christ, i.e., the former must have been converted into the latter.". The "Totality of Presence means that Christ in His entirety is present in the whole of the Host and each smallest part thereof, as the spiritual soul is present in the human body. The difficulty reaches its climax when we consider that there is no question here of the divinity of Christ, but of His body which with its head, trunk and members has assumed a mode of existence spiritual and in- dependent of space; a mode of existence indeed, concerning which neither experience nor any sys- tem of philosophy can have the least inkling. That the idea of conversion of corporeal matter into spirit can be entertained, is clear from the ma- terial substance of the Eucharist Body itself. The body of the Christ is not invisible or impalpable to us because it occupies the fourth dimension, but it transcends and is wholly independent of space. Such a mode of existence, it is clear, does not come within the scope of physics and mechanics, but be- Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 193 longs to a higher order, even as does the Resur- rection from the sealed tomb, the passing in and out through closed doors, the Transfiguration of the future glorified risen Body." He holds that "the Body given to the Apostles was the selfsame Body that was crucified on Good Friday, and the Chalice drunk by them, the self- same Blood that was shed on the Cross for our sins." "The total conversion of the substance of bread is expressed clearly in the words of Institu- tion, 'This is my body.' Transubstantiation means that 'the entire substance of the bread and the en- tire substance of the wine are converted respec- tively into the Body and Blood of Christ in such a way that only the appearances of bread and wine remain." Concerning the doctrine of transubstantiation we agree with Gore: "Apart from the degree of authority which it has obtained in the West and to a certain extent in the East, there is truly on the grounds of antiquity or Scripture or reason, noth- ing to be said for It. And we cannot admit the weight of an authority w^hich fails in these sup- ports." 123. This materialistic theory of the Eucharist grew In the Church until In the nth century It became established as the fundamental doctrine In the cele- bration of the Lord's Supper. Beranger who had 194 Christ and the Lord's Supper ventured to dissent from the teaching of the hier- archy was compelled to recant what he had pro- claimed, and to declare "that the bread and wine which are placed upon the altar, are after conse- cration not only a sacrament but the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and sensibly (sen- sualiter), not only in sacrament but in reality, are handled by the hands of priests and broke and bruised by the teeth of the faithful." Plummer quotes Evans where he states that "the bread and wine after their benediction or con- secration, are not indeed changed in their nature but become in their use and in their effects, the very body and blood of Christ. How the sacramental bread becomes in its use and effects the body of Christ, is a thing that passes all understanding: the manner is a mystery." Plummer adds: "The meaning is in harmony with the context. In this connection the symbol is never a mere symbol, but a means of real union; and in the Lord's Supper the symbol is very significant. It is a means of union with Christ in that character which is indi- cated by the broken body and shed blood: that is, union with the crucified Redeemer. Christ's death was a sacrifice; and to proclaim His death and ap- propriate His body and blood offered to that sacri- fice, is to realize the sacrifice and to appropriate Its' effects. The sacrificial idea appears in Heb. 13 :io. Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 195 But the altar on which Christ offered His sacrifice was the cross; and the altar on which we offer is Christ Himself." With regard to the Eucharistic controversy we wish, with Hooker, that "men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how." Of the much discussed words ToyToeTto-j/Too-oj/xd/zoi; he says: "All carnal ideas are excluded by the fact that the Institution took place before the Pas- sion. Our Lord's human body was present, and His blood was not yet shed. What is certain is that those who rightly receive the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist, receive spiritually the body and blood of Christ. How this takes place is beyond our comprehension." On I Cor. 10:16 Plummer says: "There is only one body, the Body of Christ, the Body of His Church of which each Christian is a member. This is the meaning of 'This is My Body.' " Jeremy Taylor, on the Real Presence wrote: "In the explication of this question it is much in- sisted upon that it be enquired whether, we say we believe Christ's body to be really in the sacrament, we mean that body, that flesh that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was crucified, dead and buried. In answer, I know none else that He had or hath; there is but one body of Christ natural and glori- 196 Christ and the Lord's Supper fied; but he that says that body is glorified that was crucified, says it is the same body but not after the same manner; and so it is in the sacrament; we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ that was broken and poured forth; for there is no other body, no other blood of Christ; but though it is the same which we eat and drink, yet it is in an- other manner." Ignatius wrote : "The false teach- ers (who denied the reality of our Lord's man- hood) abstain from Eucharist and prayer, because they do not acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, which by His goodness the Father raised up." "Breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote that we should not die, but live in Christ Jesus forever." "The gift of the Eucharist is precisely that gift of the flesh or body and blood of Christ — the spiritual principle and life of Christ's manhood, inseparable from His whole living self — the mean- ing of which, apart from all question of how or when we receive it." .Gore contends that "the gift and presence are spiritual, but by the word 'spiritual' it expresses not what is unreal, but what is profoundly real. In whatever sense then we approach and receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist as spiritually present, it is certain that they are in the Consensus of Opinion Antony Theologians 197 deepest sense real and really present." 125. "The more the modern physicist investigates the ulti- mate nature of matter, the more he breaks down all the supposed barriers between matter and spir- it." "The risen body of Christ was spiritual in a different sense not because it was less than before material, but because in it matter was wholly and finally subjugated to spirit and not to the exigen- cies of physical life. Matter no longer restricted Him or hindered. It had become the pure and transparent vehicle of spiritual purpose." 127. This is illustrated by the appearance and disap- pearances at will after His resurrection: He be- came visible and invisible according to His divine purpose. He appeared to His disciples when the doors were closed, "yet to exhibit to them the at- tributes even of the mortal body, by eating with them. Henceforth, during the 40 days. He never lived with them in the life of earth, but was mani- fested from time to time as His spiritual purpose required. From a physical point of view, spirit- ualization of matter as is involved in this concep- tion of a spiritual body is becoming perhaps, more and more conceivable; less out of analogy with our ultimate conceptions of matter. But the im- portant point to notice is that the spirituality of the risen body of Christ, lies not so much in any physical qualities as in the fact that His material 198 Christ and the Lord's Supper presence is absolutely controlled by His spiritual will. His manifestations were manifestations to special persons — those whose faith He willed to rel^^indle — under special forms for special pur- poses. "And if all subjection to conditions of space was over for the body of the resurrection, even more certainly was It over for the glorified body (if any distinction is to be drawn), the body in which He through His whole person has become 'quickening spirit,' even His flesh and blood are 'spirit and life.' As to what the 'body of glory' is, silence is our best wisdom. We feel sure indeed that He retains 'all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature' ; and with St. John we believe that He not only has come but also is to come again in the flesh. But it is not in the flesh and blood of our present conceptions, which 'cannot inherit the king- dom of God' ; nor have we any faculties to con- ceive the glory of which even our material nature in Him is susceptible. It is enough for us to know that in the perfection of our nature, but in glory inconceivable, He still exists; and it is out of this glory that He feeds us with the flesh and blood which are spirit and life." 130. "What materially fundamentally means are be- coming increasingly vague." 131. "Though Christ condescends to use material means, the sac- Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 199 ramental elements, yet He is never subject to them." "No physical organs can appropriate the accompanying spiritual gift" in the Eucharist. As Mozley states: "To suppose that a man's natural mouth and teeth can eat a spiritual thing, would be a simple confusion of ideas." He quotes the cele- brated phrase of Augustine: "Believe and thou hast eaten." And yet we must not separate and make faith so entirely independent of the act of actual participation in the Eucharist, for the words of the Institution are "Take, eat, this is my body," and the Apostle severely condemns those at Cor- inth who fell into abuses. I believe there are positive indications of an un- mistakable character that the tendency of Protes- tant Churches in Great Britain, is toward a doc- trine more in harmony with the Lutheran, and that when once they understand our doctrine they will find it altogether acceptable. Unfortunately we have been so misunderstood, that we are often grossly misrepresented. With all our explanations and denials, they insist upon charging us with hold- ing the doctrine of Consubstantiation, which some would understand as only a refined degree of tran- substantiation — hardly differing in kind but only in degree. But the future appears brighter, as my reading and intercourse with able representatives of the 200 Christ and the Lord's Supper various denominations in Great Britain lead me to conclude, A learned bishop recently assured me that they were not less pronounced in their doc- trine respecting the Real Presence of the Person of Christ in the Eucharist, and that the Scotch Presbyterians had never been Zwinglians, but held to a Real Presence. In a recent volume on the Church and the Sacraments, by Principal Forsyth, there is decisive evidence of the positive restless- ness in the Free Church respecting their former doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Sacra- ment. He appeals to his Church to "get rid of the idea which has impoverished worship beyond measure, that the act is mainly commemoration. No Church can live on that. How can we have a mere memorial on one who is still alive, still our life, still present with us and acting in us?" "A sacrament is as much more than a symbol as a symbol is more than a memorial. It is not an hour of instruction but of communion. It is an act created by the eternal Act of Christ which made and makes the Church. It is Christ's act offering Himself to men. Christ offers anew to us, as He did at the Supper, the finished offering which on the Cross He gave to God once for all." It is a sacramental act in the Lord's Supper. God's grace is given through the media of the bread and wine, as the stream is given through the conduit. Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 201 "This grace fills the sacraments always with the same power that gave them being. So there is a certain place for the idea of the opus operatum m the sacraments." "The deed of God comes home through a living soul indeed but chiefly In its own wealth and power — the same yesterday, to-day and forever." "If the elements are and remain material, the act which uses them is spiritual and real. What- ever is symbolical, the action is real. In so far as our action Is symbolical, it Is symbolical of Christ's Act, not of His essence. But it is symbolical in the ancient sense of the word symbol. It does not simply point to the thing signified nor suggest it, but conveys it, has it within it, brings It with it, gives it, does something. Is really sacramental." Christ seems to say to the communicant: "This bread, broken and eaten, represents the giving and the partaking of my person. But there is far more than a memorial of an event or a mere symbol of an idea. "It was symbolic In the great sense and really sacramental. It does more than mean — it conveys what It means." "The great meaning of the pass- age and of the rite depends on our personal and present relation to Christ, and on our conception of Him." Harnack states : "What is nowadays understood 202 Christ and the Lord's Supper by 'symbol' is a thing which it is not that which it represents; at that time (i. e., the early Chris- tian centuries) symbol denoted a thing which, in some kind of sense, really is what it signifies; but on the other hand, according to the ideas of the period, the really heavenly element by either in or behind, the visible form without investing itself with it. According to distinction of a symbolic from a realistic conception of the Supper is alto- gether to be rejected." Lehrbuch der Dogmatic, quoted by Gore. "The Lord's Supper was historically attached to Jewish usage — to the paschal feast." Jesus "lays stress on the bread first as the essence of the matter. He does not lay it on the flesh in the meal, as if He would avert a connection with His mere flesh and fix it on His body or person." 236. "It was Christ's body that was taken, not His flesh. The presence of His body meant, in symbolic lan- guage, the presence of His person. The body means the entire person and presence of Christ. He will, symbolized by the bread, be there in per- son, breaking the bread of life." "The elements are made sacramental by promise and by use; they are not transmuted in substance. They are charged with Christ, but not converted into Christ." "In the sacrament we have much more than Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 203 mere emblems, we have real conveyance. What Is given to us is Christ Himself, His person. The great matter is to recognize the real Presence in holy and saving action; the minor matter is the rationale of His procedure." It was a sacrament that Christ made at the Lord's Supper and not a sacrifice, but in time the sacramental side was subordinated to the sac- rificial. Our Church places great emphasis upon the unique character of the Eucharist and its spe- cial blessings for the communicant; and our peo- ple show their faith and high appreciation of the. actual benefits by their faithful attendance. As an illustration, a laboring man, through a mis- understanding as to the hour of worship, did not reach the church until the Communion service had closed. He had walked many miles and his dis- appointment was great. His soul was greatly stirred and he could not suppress the Intense feel- ing of disappointment; and after the benediction was pronounced, he told the pastor of his great sorrow, saying: "I did so build upon it." The faith- ful pastor saw his duty, and did it by solemnly ad- ministering the Holy Communion to the one who, with intense longing and with eyes fixed upon Jesus, had walked so many miles to meet and re- ceive his Saviour in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 204 Christ and the Lord's Supper We cannot emphasize too strongly the im- portance of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The word and the sacraments cannot be separated . and the one subordinated to the other; but each must ever be given its place, and they must contin- ue together in the Christian Church as they have from the beginning of the primitive Church. In fact that which constitutes a Christian Church is a body of believers among whom the Word is preached and the sacraments administered in ac- cordance with the teachings of Christ. In the Holy Communion we publicly confess Christ as our once crucified but risen and exalted Redeemer who instituted the Eucharist and who now gives Himself to us when we partake of the bread and wine. We are taught that in this sacra- ment Christ gives us something, and we look for- ward to this Holy Communion expecting in ac- cordance with His word, to receive something. We take Christ at His word. He gives Himself and we receive something substantial. It is no mere sentiment expressed in a figure of speech, which conveys no special, substantial blessing. There was something in Christ's words of the In- stitution, when He took the bread, blessed and brake it and said to His disciples as He gave it to them: "Take, eat; this is my body." When He used this unqualified language on this solemn occa- Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 205 sion, there was profound impresslveness in His speech and feeling. That utterance came from the depths of His soul, and He knew the signifi- cance of His own words and the impression that He would convey to His disciples. I cannot con- ceive of Him using such language if He only in- tended it in a merely figurative sense ; for He could easily have qualified it, or used such plain language that could not have been interpreted as so many have understood it, "We are become partakers of Christ," (Heb. 3 :i4) but where is this so effectually realized as in that Supper, where in the bread that we eat we have communion or participation in the body of Christ. Christ once for all, w^hen He offered up Himself obtained eternal redemption for us through the sacrifice of His own body on the cross. Hence we are emboldened by the blood of Jesus shed for us, to come in faith with assurance and conviction that Christ Himself, the unseen, is real- ly present in the sacrament of the altar. I say we may come with this assurance; for many have real- ized the conviction so clearly and profoundly in its effects upon their being and life, that the evi- dential reasons could not be gainsaid, — no more than in the case of the young man whose sight Jesus had restored. He could not explain and answer their questions, but he had the unshaken 2o6 Christ and the Lord's Supper conviction that whilst once he was blind now he could see, and all the logic of the most learned ones could not convince him to the contrary. Such evi- dence is the most soul-satisfying to the Christian, and It cannot be overthrown nor silenced by the sophistry of the most learned unbeliever. The God-consciousness is His direct witness to the soul. We all believe in our mystical union with Christ though it surpasses our comprehension. The same is true of the real presence of the Person of Christ. Here we enter into the most Intimate and vital union with Him. It is the divinely appointed means by which are conveyed to us the blessings and life that Christ secured by His sufferings, death and resurrection. In this sacrament Christ is the giver, and He gives Himself through these outward symbols. He is the Invisible grace. He is present though we see Him not. When Christ said, "Take, eat," He gave something, and we must not explain that something away. We accept His words unchanged, with faith and without unbelief, even though we can neither explain nor fully comprehend them. The real man himself is as Invisible as Christ. The face Is often the real Inner-man only In dis- guise. We cannot see the most real hidden man of the heart, but only the outward expression. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper may be Consensus of Opinion Among Theologians 207 designated as the visible embodiment of Christ in His work of redemption. These elements are not only signs of the inward grace, but the channels through which Christ in His presence conveys to us special grace. We appropriate Christ in a special sense, for is it not in the words of the Apostle, "a communion with the body of Christ?" THE ANALOGY OF FAITH THE Analogy of Faith," as I recall It, was a familiar theological term when a student at this Seminary, and doubtless it still continues (whether in the same formula or not) , to express an important truth that should be observed in order to arrive at the meaning of some disputed passage. In seek- ing to determine the exact meaning that St. Paul attached to the doctrine of the Lord's Sup- per as he describes it in I Cor. ii :25, we cannot escape the impression that he regarded it as a sacrament of momentous import that could not be abused with impunity; for he warns them against such profane violation by referring them to the severe and even fatal judgments that were meted out to some for disregarding the solemn character of this divine ordinance, In which they had failed to discern the body of our Lord. I know the attempts to rid the language of all divine content, and the various expedients to elim- inate the Person of Christ from the profoundly 208 The Analogy of Faith 209 significant words used in the Apostle's warning to the communicant: "For he that eateth and drinlc- eth, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body. For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep." It cannot be safe exegesis to resolve at once to explain away that "body" just because it is not in harmony with our views of the Lord's Sup- per. We cannot reduce the words to a meaning- less phrase, emptied of all content. It is natural to conclude that Paul who must have understood what he was saying, likewise meant what he was saying, and why would he have warned them against not discerning the body, if he did not wish to convey the impression that the body of Christ was really present in that sacrament? But we are left in a dilemma, for in the preced- ing chapter St. Paul explains what he really meant by that ambiguous word " o-co/xa " that has troubled so many in their efforts to interpret the writer of this Epistle. The familiar words In I Cor. 10:16: "The bread which we break, is It not a communion of the body of Christ?" In this explanatory and emphatic passage he uses the same word for the body of Christ, and his meaning of the Lord's Supper seems unmistakable. "It may therefore be assumed," as Dr. Andrews states, "that these words represent not merely the Apostle's own 2IO Christ and the Lord's Supper view, but the theory which was universally ac- cepted and regarded as axiomatic by the Christian Church in his day." 151. We may learn something from the analogy that St. Paul gives between the Lord's Supper and the well known feasts among the pagans. Whilst he did not recognize the existence of their deities — outside of their imaginations, he knew that they were real to the mind of the pagan worshippers, and hence the force of his reasoning is not weak- ened by their non-existence. He refers to the ex- isting beliefs, and these were real facts that exert- ed a potent influence over the minds and lives of the worshippers, for they believe that in their pa- gan feasts, they actually entered into participation with their deities, and the Apostle has this in mind in his argument. Hence he would have the Chris- tians believe that in the Eucharist they really en- ter into communion or participation with the body and blood of Christ. He must have used the word Communion in the current sense of his times when referring to the pagan worshippers at their feasts in the temple, and he did not intend that it should be understood in a different sense, so as to bring it into accord with some modern conceptions as to what the writer should have meant to say. As Kirsopp Lake states: "St. Paul clearly means that the Co- The Analogy of Faith 211 rinthians knew quite well that the Eucharist is a rite which really conveys that which the heathen erroneously thought to obtain in their sacrificial meals — that is, participation in the Divine na- ture." It seems to me that the language of St. Paul cannot be harmonized with any mere symbolical view. So grievous is the sin of those who eat and drink in an unworthy manner, that they are held responsible for profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord, not recognizing the sanctity of the Body. The Apostle reminds them of the judgment that had been visited upon them, in the form of sick- ness and even death. I have always felt that it was most unfortunate that in the so-called Au- thorized Version, the mistranslation made timid souls fearful of the Eucharist, lest they might thereby incur "damnation" instead of receiving Christ, though the word damnation has no author- ized place in the New Testament. But at all events the penal judgment was of such a serious character that the sin committed must have been correspondingly great, and this we can easily understand with the doctrine of the real presence of the Person of Christ in the Lord's Supper. For years I have been interested In the study of comparative religions. It is the scientific method, for comparison brings out the real qualities of re- 212 Christ and the Lord's Supper semblances and differences, and sheds valuable side lights upon certain features of Christian faith and worship. Hence it must not be overlooked when we seek to interpret the meaning of the Holy Communion in the primitive Church. In fact, in a critical study of the doctrine of the Eucharist, it is important to give and have clearly in mind an historical setting of the circumstances connected with the Institution of the Lord's Supper and its relation to the Passover, as well as the nature of the contemporary pagan feasts and the light they throw upon the meaning of the crucial words em- ployed In their communions with their gods. The ancient Greeks had pronounced and profound con- victions as to their close communion with their gods. It was under various aspects that this per- sonal communion was sought and realized, but the sacramental must have been the highest. The pre- cise method through which they attained It varied, though generally some sacred animal was selected as representing the anthropomorphic god, and In the mind of the worshippers, they by partaking of its flesh and blood, at the same time actually par- took of the god's own life and self, for they ate the god. The Apostle Paul had knowledge of their belief and practices as his references show; and he did not Invent a new language, but used old words The Analogy of Faith 213 taken from the pagan feasts to express the Chris- tian ideas contained in the Holy Communion of the Lord's Supper.* He did not borrow from them this sacred ordinance, nor the Christian concep- tions, for he received these from the Lord as he tells us, but he used the familiar pagan terms for expressing them. In the pagan cults the Greeks discerned the pres- ence of their god, and they believed that they real- ized actual communion or participation with the body and even ate the god. Hence, had St. Paul not really recognized and believed as he clearly states in positive language, the real presence of the body (glorified) of Christ, in the Lord's Supper, then he would never have made use of such positive terms as when he de- clared: "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" for in his day such words could have had but one meaning. Tak- ing the view of a contemporary it seems to me that his language could admit of no interpretation less than that of the Real Presence of the glorified body of Christ when he denounced the grievous * Whilst there is a vocabulary of nearly 5000 words in the New Testament, Deissman estimates that probably not more than fifty are "Christian" or "Biblical" Greek words. "The great enriching of the Greek lexicon by Christianity did not take place till the later ecclesiastical period, with its enormous development of dogmatic, liturgical and legal concepts." 214 Christ and the Lord's Supper sin committed at Corinth in their shameful abuses through "not discerning the Body" in the Holy Communion. He certainly meant that Christ's body was there or else he would not have con- demned them for not discerning that Body. Hence the Lutheran Scriptural view is fully sus- tained by an appeal to the contemporary use of the terms employed in this holy ordinance, with which St. Paul was thoroughly familiar. Following the words: "Shall be under guilt of violating the Body and Blood of the Lord," Plum- mer says: "Dishonor to the symbols is dishonor to that which they represent." "What is certain is that those who rightly receive the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist, receive spiritually the body and blood of Christ. How this takes place is beyond our comprehension, and it is vain to claim knowledge which cannot be possessed; or to attempt to explain what cannot be explained." He quotes Bishop Thirlwall: "If there is a point on which the virtues of Scriptures, of the purest ecclesiastical tradition and of our own Church is more express and uniform than another, it is the peculiar and transcendent quality of the blessing which this sacrament both represents and exhibits, and consequently of the presence by which that blessing is conferred. How this presence differed from that of which we are assured by our Lord's The Analogy of Faith 215 promise, where two or three are gathered together in His name — whether only in degree or in kind, it is beyond the power of human language to de- fine, and of human thought to conceive. It is a subject fit, not for curious speculation but for the exercise of pious meditation and devotional feel- ing; and it is one in which there is a certainty that the highest flight of contemplation will always fall short of the Divine reality." (I Cor. p. 244.) We do not interpret nor exhaust the meaning of the Apostle's significant words: "Not discern- ing the body" by dismissing them as only a figura- tive expression; for they must convey and contain some real, positive essence or else why was the sin of those so great at Corinth that many were visited with divine chastisement and even death? There is no gain in seeking to remove the Christ who says to the communicant, "Take, eat; this is my body." Through the spiritual eating of faith, we receive Him. Nay, since every soul realizes such a need of Christ and would enjoy personal fellowship with Him through this communion or participation with His body, as St. Paul says, we have in the Lord's Supper, why then should men strive to argue Him out of their doctrine of this sacrament? With less effort they might find Christ really present in His Humanity as well as in His Divinity, and realize the blessedness of 2i6 Christ and the Lord's Supper those who in the Eucharist, discern the Lord's body. The intimate connection of the passage follow- ing I Cor. io:i6, shows that it must be regarded in the light of that which precedes it, and that it must be taken into account in seeking the meaning that the Apostle had in mind when uttering the familiar words in verse i6. He sought to illus- trate or confirm the truth therein expressed by re- ferring to the well known religious practices of the Jewish and pagan rites: "Behold Israel after the flesh: have not they that eat the sacrifices com- munion with the altar?" As Plummer states : "The main point to which the Apostle is leading his readers, is that to partake ceremonially of the Thing Sacrificed is to become a sharer in the Sacri- ficial Act, and all that it involves." The Apos- tle's argument is to show from the Jewish sacri- fices "that participation in sacrificial feasts is com- munion with the unseen. They are in fellowship with the altar, and therefore with the unseen God, whose altar it is. . . . To have fellowship with the altar is to have fellowship with Him whose sacrifices are offered thereon. There is something analogous to this in the sacrificial feasts of the heathen; but in that case the unseen power Is not divine. * Rather, there is no reality corresponding The Analogy of Faith 217 to the concept that they have in their minds, for there is no such thing as an idol, beyond their im- agination only, although that was very real to the worshippers at the heathen altars, and I believe St. Paul meant to present their point of view for the sake of argument, and to enable him to ex- press his own thought as to the reality of the com- munion in the Christian rite, for as the pagans held that they had fellowship with their no-gods, the Christians would be guilty of having fellowship with demons, that Paul seems to have recognized — should they participate in the heathen worship. As Plummer states : "the primitive and widespread idea that there, in sacrifice, communion between deity and worshipper, and between the different worshippers, greatly aided St. Paul in his teaching. The idea that evil spirits are worshipped, when idols which represent non-existent pagan deities are worshipped, was common among the Jews, and passed over from them into the Christian Church, with the support of various passages in both Old Testament and New Testament." Weinel, In St. Paul, the Man and his Work, holds that the Apostle believed that "we enter into a mysterious, and at once sensual and supersensual, with the devils. If we partake of the flesh offered them. Paul believed this as firmly as that he believed in the Lord's Supper. He par- 21 8 Christ and the Lord's Supper took of the very body and blood of Christ." Such contemporary conceptions of pagan thought re- specting their real communion with their particular deities, even though they were non-existent beyond their imagination, cannot fail to assist us In our Interpretation of St. Paul when he uses the same words In connection with his explanation of the meaning of the Lord's Supper In I Cor. io:i6. With such realistic language and conceptions it is evident that It meant something very real to him, and far more real than a mere memorial of an ab- sent Christ; existing between the pagan and Chris- tian feast, for he recognizes a certain similarity. The Apostle refers to the Jewish altar; that they that eat the sacrifices have communion with the altar, and this not only throws light upon the meaning of the Christian rite, but Is interesting in this connection, In view of the prominent relation that the Eucharist sustains to the altar In the his- tory of the Church. The altar stood for God among the ancients, and was the symbol of His presence in sacrifice. Paul saw one in Athens dedi- cated to "the Unknown God," and a similar one was discovered In the excavations at Olympla, and another may still be seen on the Palatine hill In Rome. The only reference in the New Testament to the Christian altar occurs in Heb. 13:10, and the first mention by a Church Father is from Igna- The Analogy of Faith 219 tins in connection with the Eucharist, from the celebration of which sacred ordinance it was insep- arable, and was often called the Sacrament of the Altar. The altar occupied the most prominent place in the Church, for the Eucharist celebrated thereon was the most conspicuous as well as the most sacred and precious rite of the Church. In the early period of the house-Church, a table was used for the sacred elements, but later there were also special, and often elaborate and magnificent altars, as may be seen in the great Cathedrals of Europe. Conybeare says: "That the Lord's Supper was from the first a meal symbolic of Christian unity and commemorative of Christ's death is ques- tioned by none. But Paul, while he saw this much in it, saw much more, or he could not in the same epistle x:i8-2 2 assimilate communion in the flesh and blood of Jesus, on the one hand, to the sacri- ficial communion with the altar which made Israel after the flesh one ; and on the other hand commun- ion with devils attained by pagans through sacri- fices offered before idols. Paul caps his argument thus : 'Ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.' These words with the content show that Paul like the Fathers in the Church, re- garded the gods and the goddesses as real living, supernatural beings, but malignant. They were 220 Christ and the Lord's Supper the powers and principalities of the air with whom he was ever at war. . . . The notion that by eat- ing the flesh, or particularly by drinking the blood, of another living being, a man absorbs its nature or life into its own, is one which appears among primitive peoples in many forms. But this effect of participation in bread and the cup was not in Paul's opinion automatic, was no opus operatiim; it depended on the ethical cooperation of the be- liever, who must not eat and drink unworthily . . . With what awe Paul regarded the elements mys- tically identified with Christ's body and life is clear from his declaration in I Cor. ii :27." Owen C. Whitehouse in Hastings's Bible Dic- tionary cautions us respecting the Gospel narra- tives in their relation to demonology, "that it should not be forgotten ( i ) that we are dealing with the reports of chroniclers whose minds were necessarily colored by the prevailing beliefs of the age, psychic and cosmic; (2) that the properly de- moniac element is almost wholly absent from the Fourth Gospel. ... St. Paul, however, shared the conceptions of his contemporaries respecting devils." Whitehouse agrees with certain scholars "that in reference to I Cor. 10:19, 2^' ^t- P^ul borrowed from Alexandrian Judaism the belief that the offerings to heathen deities were offerings to demons, and he quotes the two examples of the The Analogy of Faith 221 Christian Lord's Supper and the Jewish sacrifice. In both cases there is a real communion between the participator and the object of worship. The statement in 8 :4, 'We know that no idol is any- thing in the world,' does not involve any incon- sistency. For St. Paul, the gods as such are crea- tures of the imagination; yet he does not hold that nothing at all is behind the image-worship of the heathen, but that demons lurk there and the king- dom of Satan, and that participators in heathen feasts are drawn into the circle of their evil influ- ence." We recognize the superficial analogy between the Christian and pagan rite as did St. Paul who emphasized the transcendent character of the Holy Sacrament in the Christian Church, and yet as Ramsay states: "By participating in the pagan ceremonies the Christian entered into a fellow- ship united through daemonic powers, and was thereby repelled from the fellowship which is ce- mented by the Christian Sacrament. No one can read this passage intelligently without perceiving that Paul regarded the Eucharist not as a mere symbolic ceremony, but as a force of infinite poten- tiality in the life of man and in the constitution of the Church." To Paul the rite has far greater significance than we should gather from the nar- rative of Mark; and yet his opinion on this mat- 22 2 Christ and the Lord's Stepper ter is seen only from I Cor. lo. We take kolvupU dal/jLovLuv In the sense of 'a communion and fellow- sliip (of men with one another) united and ce- mented through daemonic powers. . . . He is speaking of forces and spiritual powers, not of ma- terial things. Those are the realities of life: the spirit is the true body: the material thing is merely outward appearance. . . . It is in chapter lO that we learn most about the power and meaning which Paul felt to lie in the Eucharist. That point of view is one with which in modern times many find it difficult fully to sympathize. Paul's view is of the first century, the belief of one trained in Jew- ish thought and in the ideas of a Graeco-Oriental city like Tarsus; and it is not easy to understand it. Probably they do not err so far from the truth as those do who neglect altogether the power which he attributes to the sacred rite, and see In It a mere symbolic and occasional reminiscence of the Lord's death." "One who reads Ch. II too superficially might readily understand from v. 17 that Paul thought of the rite only in that fashion, as a memory and testimony of the Lord's death. But underneath that verse lies the whole trans- cendent and supreme potentiality which Paul knew to exist in the fact of the death. The Lord's death was to Paul the essential and overpowering fact In the force of the Faith. The account in The Analogy of Faith 223 chapter 10 must therefore always be read along with that in 11, as indeed it necessarily would be fresh in the mind of the reader who takes the Epistle as a continuous letter, and does not cheat himself by reading 11 apart from 10. The two accounts are clearly united. They form part of the treatment of one subject; and the view which is most prominently put in 10 is repeated in 12:12 under another image." Expos. Times. Whitehouse refers to the "enormous range of belief in demonology, in all its varieties, and the extent to which it penetrated into the popular be- lief and practice from the hoary antiquity of Babylonian and Egyptian magic down to the time of the Reformation and beyond, is a fact of which this modern age of scientific discovery is but dimly conscious. Monumental evidence presents a vast array of examples. Respecting modern examples of demoniacal possession and exorcism it is diffi- cult to speak with certainty, though some striking examples appear well authenticated." We know that Martin Luther was not exempt from the influ- ences of his contemporaries, for he did not escape the inheritance of his age respecting the prevailing belief in demonology, nor was he the last to be troubled with the strange hallucinations concerning the activities of demons in warring against the children of men when engaged in a righteous 224 Christ and the Lord's Supper cause. We know how even to-day millions of the people of Southern India are tortured with the belief that the evil ones have power over them and they resort to various devices and compro- mises to escape their malignant influence. The history of Witchcraft even in Massachusetts, and in Europe bear testimony to similar delusions. Evans, commenting on I Cor. io:i8 says: "Ac- cording to St. Paul the Eucharistic Feast is an anti- type of the sacrificial meal of the Peace-offering here as it is of the Passover in ch. 5. And from the significant word altar of sacrifice it seems that the Apostle's thought was that the flesh of Christ, as given back from the altar of the Cross, is the medium of communion in the eating thereof and the real and therefore spiritual food of His Body, by feasting on which we have fellowship with Him- self and with one another and through Himself with God. His human nature then of flesh and blood is the resurrection sacramenti or thing sig- nified: and the virtus sacramenti or remission of sins and all other benefits of His Passion is that which is given through the resurrection; and the resurrection is the effect, how produced we know not, of the consecrated bread and wine. This be- ing true, it follows that the Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice, save in the offering of self-dedication and of God's creatures of bread and wine, but a sacra- The Analogy of Faith 225 mental Feast upon the great sacrifice which was once for all offered to God upon the altar of the Cross." Evans refers to the significant change of grammatical structure in 11:18 from this bread to "of the bread, the of (EK) by position em- phatic, seeming to denote, precisely as in ch. xriy, the mystical ejects of the bread eaten. These mystical effects then are the veritable Flesh of the glorified Body, that living Bread from heaven which is the Flesh of Christ (John 6:51), of which heavenly Bread the earthly bread is to the faithful receiver in esu et tisu the material cause." . . . "This divine flesh, spiritually eaten, assimi- lates us to its own spiritual substance, just as on the other hand we assimilate to our bodily substance the material bread physically eaten." He says of I Cor. 11:16: "the natural bread after consecra- tion being not only the symbol, but also the vehicle (in effect) of Christ's body (in essence). How often in Scripture is the natural consecrated to be the medium of the supernatural. And there is al- ways a congruity and meetness of correspondence between the outward sign and the inner thing sig- nified. How the sacramental bread becomes in its use and effects the body of Christ is a thing that passes all understanding: the manner is a mystery — the mode is a depth beyond all sounding." Concerning the nondiscernment of the Body, i.e., 226 Christ and the Lord's Supper ''not spiritually discerning the Body. . . . There are two discernlngs, the one leading to the other, ( I ) of the inner man receiving, (2) of the inner gifts received: how can these last be appropriated unless there be a corresponsive appropriativeness, such as the expectancy of faith and surrender of the will unto receptivity of spirit — all fruits of , moral sifting." Christ is not divided In the sense that every communicant does not share in the entire Christ, though millions may commune on the same day and at the same hour. We cannot and we need not explain how these things can be. Of the countless millions who at the same moment are sharers of the light and warmth of the undivided sun, no one stands in our way to deprive us of the light. The rays come to us direct from that one sun, and warms all alike, even though many may not be able clearly to explain all the phenomena of the heavens. The fact continues, for it is not depen- dent upon our absolute comprehension. Christ says: "Abide In me and I will abide in you." Stand In right relation to the sun and you will get its light and warmth, and so* with reference to Christ. We must have a sympathetic-mental atti- tude toward Him; we must believe Him, and do what He commands us to do and then we shall know the truth, and its power. When He says: The Analogy of Faith 227 "Take, eat; this is my body," we must obey His word, and believe what He says to us. In reference to I Cor. Headlam says: "Now, all this shows us clearly the reality of the sacra- mental principle in the early Church. No perver- sion such as this would have been possible had the Sacraments been looked upon as mere symbols; and if that had been St. Paul's teaching he would have said so, in contradistinction to the false teach- ing that had arisen. Instead he bases his admoni- tion in all cases on the real spiritual significance of the Sacrament. It is because in the Communion we are joined with the Lord that we must avoid idolatry." See I Cor. x:i6-20. What St. Paul means is that just as in all sacrifices or sacrificial feasts, whether Jewish or Gentile, the worshipper believed that he was in communion with his God, so in this Christian sacrifice the worshipper was united with Christ. To St. Paul there was nothing symbolical about it. It was real. It is very prob- able that the metaphor of the body, as applied to the Church, rose out of the Eucharist. ... Of the reality of sacramental communion there was to him no doubt." Sir William Ramsey states that: "the rite was the expression of the firm belief and knowledge that the Saviour was with them, and that the bread and wine were given by Him, and according to the 228 Christ and the Lord's Supper oriental mind were Himself. . . . The Western mind (which can rarely attain to the mystic per- ception of the truth), through its desire to give precision and definite form to the vague and mys- tic, is always prone to represent and misconceive oriental thought; and thus falls into the error of materializing the ideal and the spiritual." Expos. Times, xxi, 536, Dr. Chadwick, Dean of Armaugh, in his expo- sition of the bread and wine in St. Mark's Gospel says: "But bread and wine do not express an in- definite Divine help; they express the body and blood of Christ; they have to do with His Hu- manity. We must beware of limiting overmuch. At the Supper He said not 'my flesh,' but 'my body,' which is plainly a more comprehensive term. And we may not so carnalize the Body as to ex- clude the Person who bestows Himself. Yet is all the language so constructed as to force the convic- tion upon us that His body and blood. His Hu- manity, is the special gift of the Lord's Supper. As man He redeemed us, and as man He imparts Himself to man." How well does such a doctrine of the sacrament harmonize with the declaration of St. Paul : "I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." p. 382. In section XXXVI-XXXVIII of the Galilean Confession, originally prepared by Calvin, but The Analogy of Faith 229 later revised and adopted by all the Reformed Churches, including the Church of England, we find some very positive and explicit statements that rival in materialistic literalism some of the most pronounced expressions of confessional Lutheran- ism. "We confess that the Lord's Supper which is the second sacrament, is a witness of the union which we have with Christ, inasmuch as He not only died and rose again for us once, but also feeds and nourishes us truly with His flesh and blood. By the secret and incomprehensible power of His spirit He feeds and strengthens us with the sub- stance of His body and His blood. We hold that this is done spiritually, not because we put Imagina- tion and fancy in the place of fact and truth, but because the greatness of this mystery exceeds the measure of our senses and the laws of nature. In short because it is heavenly, it can only be appre- hended by faith." "We believe that In the Lord's Supper, God gives us really and in fact that which He there sets forth to us; and that consequently, with these signs is given the true possession and enjoyment of that which they present to us. For the body and blood of Christ give food and drink to the soul, no less than bread and wine nourish the body." The body of Christ is our meat, and His blood our drink. And we reject the Enthusiasts 230 Christ and the Lord's Supper and Sacramentarlans who will not receive such signs and marks, although our Saviour said: "This is my body, and this is my blood." (Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, III, 381.) The Christian Churches have no controversy as to the words of the Institution, however they may differ as to their meaning, for all accept as au- thoritative the words contained in St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul's I Cor. But the interpretation of Christ's words: "This is my body" has constituted the source of much contro- versy, and at times of such an acrimonious charac- ter that all must deplore it as being utterly out of harmony with the divine purport of this holy ordi- nance in which Christ would have believers com- mune with Him and with one another In the spirit of love. The Lutheran church believes and teaches the real presence of the body of Christ In the Lord's Supper, and that It is received In a heavenly and spiritual manner by the faith of the communicant. We are not disturbed by the mysteries Involved in this rite, nor by the unanswerable questions that may be asked, for we are not called upon by any divine authority to make these things plain, either to ourselves or to others. What concerns us most Is to go back In our minds to the night of the In- stitution so that we may see Christ In our mind's The Analogy of Faith 231 eye, and feel the power of His presence In our heart as we endeavor to visualize the circumstances connected with that memorable hour in which He was betrayed, when He celebrated this Last Sup- per with His disciples. We place our emphasis upon Christ and His own words, rather than con- fusing our minds with the thoughts of controver- sies that have been waged by various branches of the Church, dividing them more widely asunder instead of bringing them more closely together in the spirit of our Lord and Master who prayed that we might be one. After all, it is not so much the philosophy or metaphysics involved in the dis- cussions as to just how Christ is present in the ele- ments of the bread and wine, for we need not know the unknowable, but it is the fact of Christ's presence, and our believing it, or as St. Paul says: "discerning the Lord's body" in this holy Com- munion. This is of supreme and fundamental im- portance, but the faithful communicant is not called upon first to explain the language, but to come in faithful and loving obedience — taking Christ at His word. Whilst we are enjoined to "be ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you," that does not mean that we must answer all the doubts, unbelief and questions that others may ask us. Often the objector is responsible for his 232 Christ and the Lord's Supper greatest difficulties because of false conceptions that he may entertain respecting the being of God and His relation to man, as well as his inadequate estimate of the real nature of man as God's own offspring, and man's consequent intimate relation to God. We must not think of man as nothing but a "poor, miserable, groveling worm of the dust," as some have characterized him in their moments of extreme humility, or desperation, for man was created in God's own image, and for fellowship with his Creator. The real man is the inner-hid- den man of the heart; he is as unseen as God him- self, and this is the man that communes with Christ and Christ with him. What is of supreme importance then in the Holy Communion is that we recognize the presence of Christ, the God-man, who says to us in His own words: "Take, eat; this is my body." There can be no Communion without Christ in the Lord's Supper. He must be present as well as His words. We must hear Him say to us: "Take, eat; this is my body." His sacramental presence we must desire and recognize in this spiritual feast for nothing less can satisfy the soul. He ministers to us through the bread broken, and the poured out wine, giving us His Body and His Blood in this Sacrament, though in a heavenly and spiritual manner, but none the less real. We may not al- The Analogy of Faith 233 ways enjoy that Intense consciousness of fellow- ship with Christ that we so ardently desire In this Holy Communion, but this must not disturb our faith and fidelity, as though our consciousness were the full measure of our warrant for faith In the sacramental Presence itself. After all It Is not the standard of our feelings, the emotions stirred with- in us upon which we rely for our salvation, but solely upon the merits and the love of Christ pre- sented to us In this Sacrament. Hence, Instead of regarding our feelings, and our own worthiness, we should come with repentance, and faith In God's love as seen In Christ on the cross. We come in loving trust, and with Christ's as- surance of His Presence and blessing whatever our feelings may be. Mere emotions do not save the sinner, but Christ's sufferings and death, and His words are our surety. The Lutheran church Is not alone In its doctrine as to the real presence of the Body in the Lord's Supper, for Bishop W. W. How of the Church of England wrote: "We hold that Christ really gives His Body and Blood to the faithful, who do really receive the same, and are thereby spiritually nourished and strengthened. How this is we know not, nor would we curiously enquire. Thus while we shrink from the awful doctrine of a carnal par- taking of Christ, we believe In a real partaking of 234 Christ and the Lord's Supper Christ. We do not say that the Holy Sacrament is only a means whereby we approach Christ, so as spiritually to feed upon Him by faith. We rather say it is a means whereby Christ approaches us, and communicates Himself to us as our spirit- ual food and sustenance. Moreover that He is truly present in His holy Sacrament we most surely believe." We cannot fathom, much less explain the pro-' found-divine mystery, though convirfcced of its truth because of Christ's teaching in the Divine Word, and our deepest religious convictions agree- ing therewith — in harmony with millions of others through the Christian centuries. As the learned Hooker wrote and felt, so we come, for: "What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not. It is enough that unto me which take them they are the Body and the Blood of Christ. His promise in witness hereof sufficeth. His word He knoweth which way to accomplish. Why should any cogita- tion possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this : O my God, Thou art true : O my soul, thou art happy." There is also much wisdom in the quaint lines attributed to Queen Elizabeth: "Christ was the word that spake it: He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it. That I believe, and take it." The Analogy of faith 235 We must hold to the supreme and incontrovert- ible fact of the real presence of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, for His own words affirm this in the most positive language. "This is my body." Hence, the only question can be as to the mode of His presence. The language contains a direct, categorical statement, without any qualifica- tion, or the remotest suggestion that He meant less than He said. He knew the natural meaning of the language he employed, and what it would naturally mean to the disciples, and had he meant that the sacramental bread was merely a memorial and nothing more, then He would have told them so, and He would not have made use of such ab- solute language: "This is my body." As to the exact meaning that Christ attached to these words there has been much difference of opinion, but the amplification given by the Apostle Paul serves as an invaluable commentary from an intelligent contemporary, as well as from the great Apostle himself who knew the mind of Christ. We are interested In knowing what St. Paul re- garded as the true interpretation of these words, and elsewhere I have devoted considerable space to an earnest consideration of this phase of the study of our subject, In Its various bearings from the study of contemporary pagan feats, and some ancient monuments. In seeking the meaning of the words of Insti- 236 Christ and the Lord's Supper tution we must ever keep in mind the true Person of Christ who instituted the Last Supper — in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bod- ily, who In the consciousness of His divine being as the God-man, to whom "all authority hath been given in heaven and on earth," commanded His disciples to "Go and make disciples of all na- tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command- ed you : and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," He gave them the new covenant in His blood that was to supersede the old Jewish covenant, for Christ our Passover — as the Paschal Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world was sacrificed for us. All this, and nothing less we must see when Jesus cele- brated that Last Supper with His disciples, for this alone has given it that central place in the Church, and made it so precious to beUevers. Christ foresaw it all, for He had the future gen- erations before Him. He saw the infant-strug- gling Church that would observe this sacred ordi- nance, and realize precious fellowship with Him in the Lord's Supper that would prove so helpful to them. His presence in the Eucharist was real, as well as His Indwelling, and not a mere prom- ise, but it became a divine and effective reality The Analogy of Faith 237 that made them bold, and mighty — with the world against them. Because the nature of that Pres- ence was a profound mystery did not disturb their faith, for it was the fact of Christ's real presence that they believed because of His own words, and because He was with them in power, and there- fore it became the guarantee of His presence. To them the Eucharist was indeed "the new covenant in His blood," and with that objective witness or testimony they could not doubt their Lord and Master. Gould in his Commentary on Mark says : As to the meaning of the words: this is my body, "it is enough to say that any insistence on their literal meaning is entirely contrary to linguistic laws and usage." We have in this very connection an in- stance or example "that evidently disproves the literal meaning, not merely establishing the pos- sibility of the symbolic use here, but making the literal meaning impossible, viz., 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood.' No one would con- tend for the literalness of the language in this case, and yet it is perfectly evident that the copula is used in the same sense in both cases, and hence the bread could be no more literally flesh, than the cup could be literally a covenant. The spiritual character of the religion that Christ taught would be at variance with such a material conception 238 Christ and the Lord's Supper that the literal meaning would indicate." But, says Gould: "One more element needs to be con- sidered in estimating the meaning of the Eucha- rist, as it came from the hands of our Lord. The bread and wine were to be eaten and drunk. The meaning is thus a partaking of the Lord, the feed- ing of our spirit with the cnacified Jesus. That is to say, it is Jesus our life, rather than the ex- ternally atoning aspect of his death, that is im- parted to us in the Sacrament." Plummer in his Commentary on Matthew concludes that whilst the meaning will perhaps always be disputed "all that is necessary is that the Christian should be assured that whoever worthily partakes of the Holy Communion really partakes of Christ." Blunt in Key to the Prayer Book says: "After the celebrant has administered 'the body and blood of Christ' to himself, he delivers them to the Bishops, Priests, etc. In recognizing the real Presence of our Lord each communicant is sep- arately reminded that what he receives is 'The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ'. . . so that no excuse is left for ignorant unbelief." p. 6^. Canon Gore says: "The belief of the Church in an objective body and blood of Christ sacramentally identified with the bread and wine — has been due to our Lord's language, reinforced by St. Paul's, in the Institution." . . . "The The Analogy of Faith 239 spiritual, in the New Testament, means not what is separated from the material or bodily, but that in which the spirit rules, or that which expresses a spiritual meaning." Wescott states: "Now it is easy to say that eating the flesh of Christ, is a figurative way of describing faith in Christ. But such a method of dealing with the words of Holy Scripture is really to empty them of their divine force. This spiritual eating, this feeding upon Christ, is the best result of faith, the highest en- ergy for faith, but it is not faith itself. To eat is to take that into ourselves which we can as- similate as the support of life. The phrase 'to eat the flesh of Christ' expresses therefore, as per- haps no other language could express, the great truth that Christians are made partakers of the human nature of their Lord which is united in one person to the divine nature, that He imparts to us now, and that we can receive into our man- hood, something of His manhood, which may be the seed, so to speak, of the glorified bodies in which we shall be hereafter, and behold Him." This is because of our realized relationsip with Christ in the Eucharist in which He communi- cates Himself to us. "Because I live, ye shall live also," is His precious assurance of our im- mortal life. The Greek Professor Evans In his learned 240 Christ and the Lord's Supper notes states that: "The much controverted 'is' means precisely is. It can never mean, as many signifies or represents, nor can it combine, as some, both senses is and signifies. It is the copula pure and simple, the link of correlation between the subject this and the predicate my body. In gen- eral this correlation is one of identity, but iden- tity of what kind or to what degree lies not in the copula to determine but solely in the content, i.e., in the character of the surroundings and also in the nature of the case. In the text I am the vine the am is am simply, and the vine is a mental figure. In this phrase I am the vine — the identity between subject and predicate is limited to cer- tain properties of mutual immanence and conse- quently fruitfulness which are absolutely common to Christ Himself who is seen with the eye of the body and to the natural vine as contemplated with the mind's eye . . . But the sentence : This is my body has really no analogy whatsoever to the text / am the vine or These are the covenants, as many assert: this is evident from the nature of the case : it clearly belongs to that class of pas- sages in which the copula links together sub- ject and predicate not merely as identical more or less, but chiefly as correlated in the way of cause and efect. Such passages are numerous In St. Paul: one may suffice from Rom. 8:10, the The Analogy of Faith 241 Spirit is life, i.e., the principle of life, as cause, is energy or activity of life as effect. Similarly in the text before us, there is no identity indeed, but there is a certain congruity between God's lesser ffood or gift of bread and God's inesti- mable good or gift of the Body, given by Him and self-given by Christ; for from the earth born food comes natural nourishment, from the heav- enly spiritual; and there is beside this congruity a correlation also of cause and effect. So that the meaning seems to be: This (in effect) is my body: hozv such instrumental cause produces such effect, is to us unknown ... In the Lord's Sup- per the bread taken and eaten is in the mystical effects thereof the Body really received, not 'par- taken of,' but as Augustine says corpus accep- tum . . . The dogma of transubstantiation is a baseless fabric, apparently founded in part upon ignorance of linguistic usage." "In the^ Holy Supper ... the bread and wine after their ben- ediction or consecration are not indeed changed in their nature, but become in their use and in their effects the very body and blood of Christ. This of course, to the worthy receiver . . . The natural bread after consecration being not only the symbol, but also the vehicle (in effect) of Christ^s body (in essence). How often in Scripture is the natural consecrated to be the medium of the 242 Christ and the Lord's Supper supernatural. And there is always a congruity and meetness of correspondence between the outward sign and the inner thing signified." Inasmuch as the words of Christ do not neces- sarily affirm that He meant absolutely to identify the bread and wine before Him in that Last Sup- per with His own body, and because of the un- fathomable mystery involved in the remarkable language used, as the greatest minds that have attempted a solution of the words of the Institu- tion, freely acknowledge; and because of the utter absence of any explanatory words connected therewith, as well as any recorded questions on the part of the disciples who heard them — that He would further explain the incomprehensible language, as when on a previous occasion they said to Him: "Explain to us the parable of the Tares;" — it would seem that they must have asked for some explanation of this profoundly mysterious language. Unless at some previous time He had delivered to them, either in public or in private, a discourse calculated to prepare their minds to receive, and understand the pur- port of the words in question, for otherwise it would have been as startling, if not as mysterious as a bolt out of a clear sky. It is true that Christ had often used figurative language before this, but never of that strange character — with but one The Analogy of Faith 243 exception, and that was the memorable discourse at Capernaum, when a number of the disciples took serious offence at the language used, for they could not endure it, and they turned away from Him. Hence because of the unique character of that discourse recorded in John VI, it is only natural to recognize some words in common with those spoken in the Last Supper, even though it may not have borne any direct reference to it. How- ever, some such previous instruction it would seem was necessary to prepare them for the reception of the remarkable truths connected with this sa- cred ordinance that has been the most holy and impressive rite of the Christian Church through the centuries. Whatever the relation of the two, the points of contact and resemblances are of such a striking character that they must at least be reckoned with, even though that memorable discourse did not have in fact, as no one knows, any direct reference, when spoken, to the Last Supper. On that occasion, Jesus saw that some were offended at His sayings — touching the deep mysteries of God, and Himself as the Son of God manifest in the flesh; for He declared: "I am the bread of life ... I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall eat forever: yea and the 244 Christ and the Lord's Supper bread which I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world. Verily, verily I say unto you. Ex- cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink. His blood, ye have no life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day . . . He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. He that eateth me, he also shall live because of me . . . It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh proliteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." 6:48-63. We are told that many disciples murmured at this teaching, and said: "This is a hard saying: who can hear it? They went back and walked no more with Him." Then said Jesus unto the twelve: "Would ye also go away? Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." That confession of Peter shows the depth of his conviction, and the profound impression that Christ had made upon him; and his subsequent life of sacrificing de- votion, with the solitary exception at the trial of Jesus, is the unquestioned confirmation of his sin- cerity. Christ's discourse had reached the depths of his soul, and completely mastered him with faith in Christ and the eternal. That message did not offend Peter, nor was it wholly incomprehen- The Analogy of Faith 245 sible to him, for he saw the greatness of Christ emphasized, and hence he added: "And we have believed and know that thou are the Holy One of God." Whilst a literal interpretation of these words is not admissible, there are those who appeal to this strong language in John VI for their inter- pretation of the words of the Institution in the Lord's Supper. But at most these words cannot be taken literally as eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ; it was not a hteral-carnal eating and drinking. Plummer holds that "it is incredible that this momentous act in the work of redemption had not been thought out by Him when He spoke at Capernaum ... the corre- spondences between the language used, and the ac- counts of the institution — cannot be fortuitous . . ." A special reference to the Lord's Supper is clear from the words used about eating the flesh of the Son of Man, and drinking His blood, and from the fact that just a year after this discourse Christ instituted the Eucharist. Whatever application the disciples may have made of that discourse I know not, but they must have recalled them when Christ said: "Take, eat; this is my body," for the law of association would have brought to their minds the saying of the offended ones: "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" 246 Christ and the Lord's Supper In order fully to appreciate the words of In- stitution, and realize the true character of this holy ordinance — we must recognize continually that He who ordained this Sacrament was God- manifest in the flesh. They are ever His words though repeated by His ambassadors, and though the elements remain bread and wine, in this con- secration they become the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ to the faithful communicant, even though he may not be able to give the interpreta- tion thereof, but he must recognize the Christ, the God-man present in that holy ordinance. There are too many eminent scholars who be- lieve in a more or less intimate relation of the dis- course of Johh 6 to the Last Supper to justify us in ignoring it without a passing notice when dis- cussing the Eucharist. Whatever the position of our Church may have been respecting this ques- tion we must give due consideration to what has been said by other Christian scholars. Every thoughtful student of the Gospel of St. John must often have wondered why the writer was silent respecting this central rite in the Church; if he has really been silent. There must be a sufficient reason for such a remarkable omission from his narrative, especially in view of the fact that for many years before he wrote the Gospel he must have been familiar with the universal observance The Analogy of Faith 247 of this Holy Sacrament wherever the Church ex- isted. But Sir Ramsay holds to the theory that "St. John describes the Last Supper without mentioning the incident of the Bread and Wine; he places similar teaching as to the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ at a much earlier stage in the Saviour's career (6:31, xc). St. Paul and the Synoptists describe the incident of the Bread and Wine as occurring at the Last Supper, and as being the origin of the Eucha- ristic ceremony in the observance of the Church. St. John seems to imply that the Saviour's teach- ing at an earlier time was a sufficient cause and origin of the ceremony." "This omission in the Fourth Gospel is remark- able and beyond all question intentional. Our theory is that the error of the Synoptists and the omission by John are connected. John said nothing about the rite of the Bread and Wine at the Last Supper, because an erroneous interpreta- tion of the meaning and importance of that In- cident had gained currency and had led to the errror made by Mark, and reproduced after him by Matthew and Luke . . . The fact that the doctrine and principle of the Eucharist already existed in the teaching of Jesus at a much earlier time, and was expressed in His practice, does not necessarily throw any doubt on His formal in- 248 Christ and the Lord's Supper stitutions of the Sacrament on the night before His death. The testimony of Paul (I Cor. 10:11) is quite clear and definite on this point; and may be regarded as final. There is no difliculty and no inconsistency in the two positions. Jesus taught the doctrine during His life (though like much of His teaching it was not understood by the dis- ciples), and gave some marked significance to the act of breaking and distributing the Bread in His daily life; on the last night He enjoined on the Twelve to repeat the act in His memory. Both are true. It is not a case where we are to choose between one and the other. One thing, however, follows inevitably from this previously existing germ of the Eucharist. That which was institu- ted was not a mere commemoration of the death of the Saviour; it had no analogy nor connexion with a death feast, which was usually an annual one. It was the expression of a truth, of a vital principle, which had been part of the teaching of Jesus long before . . . The doctrine of the Eu- charist is not omitted. It is stated elswhere. The occasion on which John records the exposition of the mystic truth that is expressed in the Rite is Important, and was certainly selected by him of set purpose (ch. 6) . . . John's account of the teaching of the Master regarding the mystic truth which was afterwards embodied in the Sacra- The Analogy of Faith 249 merit is contained in his 6th chapter ... In this discourse the gradual transition is clearly in- dicated from the simpler idea 'bread' through the stages 'bread from heaven,' and 'I am the bread of life,' to the mystic saying 'he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abldeth in me, and I in him ... he that eateth me, he shall live be- cause of me.' But 'it is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.' . . . We must no- tice also that John explains why this earlier teach- ing had passed unobserved and unrecorded. It was beyond the comprehension of the disciples. Many of them even said, "This Is a hard saying." I have quoted at length from the Expository Times the theory of this eminent Christian scholar to solve a perplexing problem. We are not obliged to accept it, but In merely rejecting it without offering a more reasonable one we do not escape the difficulty; that remains, and we must not be satisfied without some solution, for evi- dently there is a reason why the Gospel of John contains no formal account of the institution of the Lord's Supper as clearly given by the Syn- optists and Paul. We learn from John 6 that the startling words of Jesus were confounding to His hearers, and unable to Interpret them they murmured among themselves : "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Jesus did not ex- 250 Christ and the Lord's Supper plain the "how," but emphasized the necessity of the fact: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood ye have not life in yourself." Though men may deny that this dis- course has anything to do with the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (though it expresses it in the concrete), it is evident that it contains the doc- trine of that Sacrament, which is the outward or visible embodiment of the doctrine here taught, and to the believing partaker there is a real par- ticipation of His flesh and blood. The transcend- ent claims of Jesus can only be conceivable in con- nexion with His divine origin. He asserts His own life-giving power as the living bread that came down from heaven; the living source of that bread being in His own person, and imparting the spirit and eternal life of all who accept Him. It is Christ's body sacrificed on the cross for us that is to be given to behevers in Him to nourish their soul unto eternal life. The Incarnation was a necessity, and so was the Crucifixion of His body. It is the glorified body with which we have to do; it is the sacramental body and blood of Christ that we receive in the Holy Communion, and thus we sacramentally feed upon Christ. This must be our answer to them who ask: "How can these things be?" The word flesh in this connexion The Analogy of Faith 251 would seem to denote human nature on its earthly side. Ramsay holds that "St. Paul is in essential agreement with the Fourth Gospel (6:31-59) as to the nature of the Sacrament; that the life-giv- ing bread is Christ, and that life can be had only through eating that bread. When he draws the parallel between the sacrificial meal which was the force binding together the pagan society as the communion of Daemonic Powers, and the eat- ing of the Eucharistic meal which was the com- munion of the body of Christ, and then shortly afterwards quotes the Saviour's own words, 'this is my body,' it seems irrational to doubt that he is expressing the view of the Fourth Gospel . . . John would hardly have laid such stress on the sensuous facts of eating and drinking, unless he had the Sacrament in mind when he wrote . . . He only explained the mystic doctrine that every one who rightly partakes of this food from heaven becomes united with and merged in the Saviour's personality." Wescott, commenting on this discourse, says that: "The remarkable succession of phrases can- not refer primarily to the Holy Communion; nor again can it be simply prophetic of that Saca- ment ... It treats essentially of spiritual reali- 252 Christ and the Lord's Supper ties with which no external act, as such can be coextensive. The well-known words of Augustine, 'crede et manducati,' believe and thou hast eaten, give the sum of the thoughts in a luminous and pregnant sentence. But on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the truth which is presented in its absolute form in these discourses is pre- sented in a specific act and in a concrete form in the Holy Communion; and yet further that the Holy Communion is the divinely appointed means whereby men may realise the truth. Nor can there be a difficulty to any one who acknowl- edges a divine fitness in the ordinances of the Church, an eternal correspondence in the parts of the one counsel of God, in believing that the Lord, while speaking intelligibly to those who heard Him at the time, gave by anticipation a commentary, so to speak, on the Sacrament which He afterward instituted. But that which He deals with Is not the outward rite, but the spir- itual fact which underlies it. To attempt to trans- fer the words of the discourse with their conse- quences to the Sacrament is not only to involve the history in hopeless confusion but to introduce overwhelming difficulties into their interpreta- tion." "St. John living in the centre of Christian so- ciety does not notice the institution of services The Analogy of Faith 253 which were parts of the settled experience of Church life. He presupposes them; and at the same time records the discourses in which the ideas clothed for us and brought near to us in the two Sacraments were set forth. He guards the Sacraments in this way from being regarded either as ends in themselves or as mere sym- bols . . . That which the believer must appro- priate is, the virtue of Christ's humanity; through this, in the unity of His Person, Christ unites him to God. That which Christ offers to His Church in the institution of Holy Communion is His 'Body.' " VI Christ's glorified body in the eucharist THE seemingly insuperable difficulties that arise in the minds of some, are largely due to their not making the fundamental distinction be- tween Christ's body before and after the resurrec- tion, and especially previous to the ascension, for It underwent a great transformation. But the per- sonality of Christ as the same human and Divine One continues in its inseparable oneness, and this too is fundamental in the doctrine of His presence in the Lord's Supper. We must not try to sepa- rate the Indivisible One, and localize the human — far away from earth, — high and lifted up on a ce- lestial throne like some might conceive of an East- ern potentate, for such a mental division of the Person of Christ would increase the difficulties, and add to the confusion of thought. I have often felt with millions of others the full effect of the rays of the sun, in world-wide travel, though widely separated, and on different continents, and surely the Creator is greater than anything that He has created, and we must not apply to His su- 254 Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 255 preme powers any mechanical limitations as to mode of Presence and manifestation merely be- cause we cannot comprehend them. He still works in us both to will and to work for His good pleas- ure, and He has not withdrawn Himself from the world of humanity, but He continues in love and power on earth, even as He declared the assurance of His continual presence to His disciples: "Lo I am with you alway." Not afar off in heaven; too far away for us to speak to Him and feel the per- sonal touch of His power, but He is very near, as He promised: "Abide in me and I in you." That "I" expressed the oneness of His Person as the God-man, in the personal Divine-human consciousness, both in essence or nature. As Lid- don states: "The perfect Manhood of Christ, not His body merely, but His soul, and therefore His human will, is part of the one Christ." The Di- vine nature must have taken the initiative in this union, just as in the work of redemption." Dr. Valentine states that "the attributes of both the Divine and human natures truly belong to the One Person, the God-man; and that in the redemptory work this One Person acts through each of the two natures, or through one with communication of the other." He quotes the Form of Concord that: "The two natures of Christ are so united that they are not mingled one with another or changed 256 Christ and the Lord's Supper one into the other, and each retains its natural, es- sential property, so that the properties of one na- ture never become the properties of the other na- ture. . . . Therefore in Christ is and remains only one divine omnipotence, power, majesty, glory, which is peculiar alone to the divine nature; but it shines, manifests, and exercises itself fully yet vol- untarily, in, with and through the assumed exalted human nature." It was explained that: "The es- sential attributes of the one nature, which are truly and rightly ascribed to the whole Person, never become the attributes of the other nature." Dr. Valentine further states that: "if we remember this fact, that no transfusion of divine properties into the human nature of Christ is meant, but only a participation by the human in the action of the divine through the unity of the theanthropic Per- son, the difficulty of this species of communication disappears. There is a clear difference between a communication or communion in the activities, ex- ercises, glories, and prerogatives of the divine idio- mata, in and through the One Person, and the sup- posed impartation of the attributes themselves to the human nature as such." "Looked at in this light, this kind of communi- cation surely belongs to a full Christological view. The theanthropic Person cannot be divided, and in the unity and wholeness of Christ's Person since Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 257 His exaltation, He is Almighty, omnipresent, and infinite in all divine perfections. This gives all that is necessary to a correct view of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper." Whatever and however great the changes that took place in the passing of the body from the natural to the glorified state it was none the less really the body of Christ preparatory to the As- cension, but as to its real nature no man knoweth, nor need know, and all speculation is unprofitable and self-gratuitous. I could not believe for a mo- ment such a grossly materialistic conception as that stated in Article IV of the Church of Eng- land, that "Christ . . . took again His Body, with flesh and bones, and things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature; wherewith He ascend- ed into heaven," It is too earthy. It is the nature of that glorified body that must be taken into account in the doctrine of the real Presence, for it is the glorified body that we be- lieve to be present. That was very different from the natural body that had been, for as Plummer states: "We are to understand disappearance with- out physical locomotion when the risen Christ suddenly disappeared" ; and Briggs says of the As- cension : "His body rose from the earth as with- out weight, and not subject to the laws of gravi- tation, and disappeared in the sky." . . . "How 258 Christ and the Lord's Supper far the human body has been assimilated to the divine nature, how far attributes of divinity have influenced the humanity, we cannot say. If we must, on the one hand, deny that the humanity has been deified, and so possessed of all attributes of divinity, we must recognize, on the other hand, that human nature is capable of the divine to an indefinite extent and that its capacities and powers must be immensely enchanced. / can see no ob- jection, therefore, to the doctrine of multipresence. We know little of the essential nature of substance or body. Is it a bundle of forces, or of atoms? A spiritual body cannot be a bundle of material atoms. Are there spiritual atoms? If a bundle of forces, there must be a principle of unity, a uni- fying force. If Calvinists think of dynamic pres- ence, may that not be interpreted as corporal presence? The latter is the better term because it is more comprehensive and leaves the nature of the presence less determinate than the term dynam- ic presence. Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Cal- vinists ought to agree upon the real, substantial, corporal presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The chief difficulty as to the relation of the body of Christ to the elements of bread and wine." The Apostle Paul, speaking of the resurrection of the dead, states: "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." When in a lecture I Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 259 quoted this in connection with the doctrine of Christ's Presence in the Lord's Supper, a student of philosophy took exception to St. Paul's state- ment as inv^olving a contradiction of terms. I re- minded the objector that in the light of the most recent scientific discoveries, the Apostle may not have been so paradoxical after all, for some of the eminent scientists, like Sir Joseph John Thom- son, inform us that their "conceptions of the na- ture and structure of matter have been profoundly influenced in recent years by investigations on the conduction of electricity through gases and on Radio-activity." For a long time the atom, as its name designates, — that which cannot be cut, was supposed to be the limit of divisibility, and this hitherto theoretical particle was so minute that no expert microscopist with the most powerful ob- jective was ever able to discern it. But now we have gone far beyond the minuteness of the atom, for there is evidence that what is termed mass It- self may be an "electro-magnetic phenomenon." Hence our conceptions of matter and body have undergone some modifications, for the atom has been cut, and divided into infinitesimal particles called electrons. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states that electrons have a mass equal to about one two-thousandth that of the hydrogen atom. They are apparently derivable from all kinds of 26o Christ and the Lord's Supper matter, and are believed to be components at any rate of chemical action. The size of the electron is roughly in the ratio of a pin's head to the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral." In view of these start- ling discoveries in the realm of matter, as I re- marked to the Semitic Club, the great Apostle does not appear to be so absolutely self-contradic- tory when he states that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." With the results of the electron theory we may conceive of matter, and a body as being so infinitely etherialized, that St. Paul was neither unscientific nor unphilosoph- ical in his statement, though made so many cen- turies ago. We speak of a luminous body, and why may it not be admissible to speak of the glorified body as a spiritual body? I have not presented this digression as proof of the scientific correctness of the Apostle's argument nor of the doctrine of the real Presence of the glorified body of Christ in the Eucharist, but rather as an illus- tration of their reasonableness, — barring out the ultra materialistic theories, and the extravagant literalism of words, and confusion of grossly ma- terial terms in language that is not only repellent, but beset by insuperable difl'iculties, even for the mind to conceive of. Surely it was unguarded lan- guage to speak of oral eating and drinking of the "flesh of God," and the "Flesh of Spirit," and Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 261 "the body Is crushed by the teeth;" "What the bread does and suffers, that the body of Christ does and suffers." It is true that such unquahfied statements uttered in the heat of passionate contro- versy must not be taken as clearly expressing their views, for elsewhere they are defined, and it is ut- terly unfair to talce some rugged statements out of their connection when uttered to combat the evil in- fluences of those who denied the objective reality of the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. We must consider the times and issues at stake, and then we cannot cease to be grateful for the immortal Luther for his uncompromising adher- ence to the Word of God, Dr. Fisher referring to the Conference of Marburg states that: "Lu- ther had not the temper of a peacemaker, as Me- lanchthon had in an eminent degree. But it is not to Luther's discredit that he had no relish for am- biguities of compromise." Luther was right in emphasizing the necessity of the presence of the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. He did not insist upon more than St. Paul did, and he did not dare to deny the substan- tial element expressed in Christ's own words. We of a gentler spirit may blame Luther for his im- perious will in withholding the hand of fellowship, but we must admire him in being true to his con- victions, and uncompromising in his firm adher- 262 Christ and the Lord's Supper ence to Christ's own words, Instead of emptlng them of their precious content by making an un- Scriptural compromise with ZwingH. Our inability to know the real character of Christ's existence in the glorified state, with a glorified body, is the chief cause of our difficulties and misunderstandings respecting the doctrine of the real Presence, for we must reason about things that we cannot know, and yet we make use of strictly material terms "flesh and blood," though of necessity we feel compelled to refine or spirit- ualize them. No wonder that there is lack of definiteness, and at times confusion of ideas in the words and phrases employed to express an idea that we cannot fully comprehend, though we may recognize the error or denial of the Scriptural truth itself as stated in the Institution. What Hooker said respecting the intellectual difficulties of apprehending the doctrine of the Incarnation Is applicable here also: that: "because this divine mystery is more true than plain, divers having framed the same to their own conceits or fancies are found in their expositions thereof more plain than true." Christ submitted to special appearances in a visible-bodily form to His disciples for evidential reasons, for only thus by manifesting Himself to their senses could He persuade them that He was Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 263 no mere disembodied spirit, but a bodily resurrec- tion of the identical Christ who had said: "De- stroy this body and in three days I will raise it up again." Hence He must present visibility, and even offer tangibility to His disciples who were so slow to believe what seemed so incredible, and only overwhelming evidence of an undeniable character could convince them. The properties of that body had changed, for closed doors were no barrier, and He appeared and disappeared at will. The resurrection body was, according to Briggs, "the same human body persisting through these changes which did not affect the form of the body, however much they may have affected the substance of which it was composed, making it independent of the laws of material substance and giving it some of the properties of spiritual substance." "That the body of Jesus saw no corruption in the tomb may have been an act of the Father, or of the Son Himself, or it may have been a property of the Redeemer's body itself. . . . The properties of the risen body of our Lord are certainly most re- markable. ... It was a body which shared in ghostly qualities, and in part in qualities of the or- dinary body. Was it then, in a state of transition from one to the other? Certainly not, because the same body that died rose and ascended, and re- mained in heaven, and is given to the Church in 264 Christ and the Lord's Supper the Eucharist. That is the teaching of Scripture and of the Church; and it is based on the doctrine of the resurrection of behevers. I Cor. 15. All Churches agree in this, whatever variant views they may have as to the nature of the Redeemer's presence, since His enthronement. . . . We must therefore think of the Redeemer's body, as hav- ing after the resurrection, quahties which other hu- man bodies have not, and as being composed of substance different in character from ordinary hu- man flesh. The spirit of Jesus rejoined His body in the tomb; and so He came forth in bodily form from the tomb, and He manifested Himself to His Apostles." Id. What then is the present nature of the Person of Christ, apart from all human speculation? He is still the God-man, the two natures, divine and human in One Person, for "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever." "Having then a great High Priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feel- ing of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted hke as we are, yet without sin." The consensus of the Christian Church con- cerning the Person of Christ has been that the Di- vine and the human natures are united in one Per- Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 265 son, and their activities proceed from that One Person. Not only has the human nature been greatly exalted by this union, but Dr. Hodge states in his Lectures that; "the human attributes of our Redeemer are the organ of His divine Person, and are through the divinity rendered virtually in- exhaustible and ubiquitously available for us . . . you do not mean simply that Christ's divinity will be with you. You mean that the Person, that is, very man as well as very God will be with you. You want His human love and sympathy as well as His divine benevolence. If He were a mere man. He could be only at one place at one time, and His attention and sympathy would soon be overwhelmed by our demands. But He is at once God and man, and as such, in the wholeness and fulness of both natures. He is inexhaustible and accessible by all believers in heaven and on earth at once and forever ... As both soul and body act together inseparably; as human voice and in- strument blend in one harmony, as human soul and body blend in each act of feeling, thought or speech, so as far as we can know, divinity and humanity act together in the thought and heart and act of Christ ... I adore a Christ who Is absolutely one, who is at the same time pure, un- mixed, unchanged man, and whose Person in Its wholeness and its fulness is available throushout 266 Christ and the hordes Supper all time to those who trust Him and love His appearing." p. 233. He cannot escape the con- clusion of making the whole Christ "ubiquitously available for us." I have given this lengthy and exact quotation from the excellent Lectures of Dr. Hodge, for he acknowledges in his doctrine of the Person of Christ what is of fundamental importance in the Lutheran doctrine of the real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and there is no logical escape from accepting our doc- trine, for there is no more mystery In the Lu- theran view of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist than there is in the doctrine of the Person of Christ, and the intellectual difficulties are not greater. I believe Dr. Hodge would have freely admitted this for he states that: "this unique per- sonality, as it surpasses all analogy, also trans- cends all understanding . . . All attempts to explain the intimate relations which the external Word and the human soul and body sustain to each other in the Person of Christ have miserably failed." "In the constitution of the Person of the God- man lies the, to us, absolutely insoluble mystery of godliness. ..." "The divine Word, which from eternity was the Second Person of the Trinity, did 1800 years ago take, not a human person, but a human nature into his eternal personality, which Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 267 ever continues, not a human person nor a divine person, but the eternal Second Person of the Trinity, with a human nature embraced in it as its personal organ." Id. 222. Dr. Stearns says: "That Christ's human nature should be present in a true sense in a thousand worshipping assemblies at the same time, and com- municated to every one who partakes of the con- secrated bread and wine, this must be the case. And even though we may hold a wholly dif- ferent doctrine of the sacrament, there is much in the theory of Christ's human omnipresence to com- mend it to our acceptance. The ordinary view in our branch of the Protestant Church is that Christ is present only by His Spirit. His humanity is circumscribed and local, the place where God manifests His highest glory. It is truly absent from us as our friends who have passed from earth and gone to be with Him. We ask, what it means for Christ to be with us by His Spirit? Is it not a real presence? When He dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17), is it not a real In- dwelling? Is He in reality far from us in His humanity? And so to those who think most deeply on this subject, and with most real longing for personal communion with the human Christ, the Lutheran view has great attractiveness, even though they may not see their way clear to accept 268 Christ and the Lord's Supper it." "But when all is said, we find that we are once more in the realm of mystery. That Christ is with us in His humanity we know. But how it is effected we do not know. We must accept the fact in the silence of faith and leave its explanation to the time of fuller knowledge." Dr. Stearns was a thinker, and a profoundly spiritually-minded theologian, and he struggled earnestly to solve the mysteries of Christ's Per- son, but he would not divide the Christ, for noth- ing short of the whole Christ, the God-man could satisfy the needs of his soul, and he demand- ed this Christ in the Eucharist as well. As I read his confessions I am persuaded that he could have had no difficulty in accepting the Lutheran doc- trine as taught by our Church, and this alone could satisfy his soul. We all need the human as well as the Divine Christ, — who was tempted like as we are though without sin, who was wearied in body, who hun- gered, sorrowed and wept. This is the High Priest and Saviour that we need, and whom we would meet in the Lord's Supper; He who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmity, and why deny that Presence in the Eucharist? Luthardt says : "It is His body. It is not merely an image and sign or pledge of His body. How could it be such? What would be the tertium com- Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 269 parationisf This the Lord would not say. Nor is the mere action of giving an image of spiritual giving, for the Lord speaks not of the action, but of the thing which He gives them. Rather, what they take and eat in taking and eating the bread is His body," "Invisibly present, and working in a mysterious way, the Lord would feed us with His body. When He departed from the earth. He took with Him from the world to His Father nothing but His body and blood. His human na- ture, in which He reconciled and united us to God, and now sits at the right hand of the Father in the kingdom of glory. This His human nature He makes our food. ... In the Lord's Supper the Church of Jesus Christ on earth celebrates its fellowship with Him and its fellowship with it- self." Dr. Krauth says: "The truth is, that when we admit the personal union of thfe human nature of Christ with a divine nature, we have already ad- mitted the fact, in which the mystery of Christ's sacramental presence is absorbed. The whole di- vine person of Christ is confessedly present at the Supper, but the human nature has been taken into that personality, and forms one person with it; hence the one person of Christ, consisting of the two natures, is present, and of necessity the two natures which constitute it are present." He 270 Christ and the Lord's Supper quotes Gerhard that: "The sacramental eating of the body of Christ is none other than with the mouth ('take eat') to receive the Eucharistic bread, which is the communion of the body of Christ (I Cor. 10:16). This sacramental eating is said to be spiritual, because the body of Christ is not eaten naturally, and because the mode of eating, like the presence itself, is neither natural, carnal, physical, nor local, but supernatural, di- vine, mystical, heavenly, and spiritual. . . . The Word of God is the food of the soul, and yet is re- ceived by the bodily ear." "The Lutheran Church repeatedly and unequiv- ocally has denied all local or carnal presence of Christ's body, and has affirmed that, as antago- nistic to any such conceptions. His presence is spir- itual." "To be omnipresent of itself, in virtue of its own essence, is an attribute of the divine, and therefore the humanity of Christ is not and can- not be omnipresent of itself, in virtue of its own essence; but the Godhead can render it present through the divine, with which it is one person. . . . The divine in Christ is forever divine; the human forever human, so can they never be sep- arated, and the one person participates in both, and each has a personal communication with the attributes of the other. Great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 271 Krauth quotes Melanchthon : "It is not to be imag- ined that the divinity of Christ is anywhere where His humanity is not: for what is this but to sepa- rate Christ?" . . . "Why should there be these contentions in regard to the Lord's Supper? As all confess that Christ is present in the communion, according to His divine nature, to what purpose is it to separate the humanity from the divinity?" "This presence is spiritual, when that word is opposed to carnal, but it is not spiritual when that word is opposed to true. . . . His body is a spirit- ual body, as opposed to the present conditions and limitations of flesh and blood, but it is not spiritual as opposed to real and natural." "This presence does not depend for its reality (but alone for its salutary results) upon the faith of the receiver." "It is through His human nature that Christ is our Paschal Lamb sacrificed; and therefore it must be through His human nature that Christ our Paschal Lamb is eaten." We must hold to the belief "of an objective presence of Christ's body and blood." As to the mode of the sacramental Presence of Christ, Dr. Krauth states that the Lutheran Church: "believes that the sacramental elements are divinely appointed through the power of the Saviour's own benediction, as the medium through which we participate, after a spiritual, supernatural, heavenly, substantial, objective, and 272 Christ and the Lord's Supper true manner, in the communion of His body and of His blood. (I Cor. 10:16.) Our Church never has denied that the Ascension of Christ was real, literal and local; never has denied that His body has a determinate presence in heaven; never has maintained that it has a local presence on earth. Neither does she impute to Him two bodies — one present and one absent, one natural and the other glorified — but she maintains that one, forever a natural and true body as to its essence, but no longer in its natural or earthly condition, but glorified, is absent, indeed, in one mode, but pres- ent in another. . . . It is on earth, for the divine is on earth — it is in heaven for the divine remains in heaven, and like the divine it (i.e., the body) is present truly and substantially, yet incomprehen- sibly." 651 .. . "He imparts His presence that there may be a reason for the sacramental eating. But He imparts it with His word, by whose om- nipotent force the element becomes a sacrament. Therefore when He speaks, we know it is done." . . . "The doctrine of the Lutheran Church is, that the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Christ begins with the beginning of the Supper, and ends with the end of the Supper. . . . That presence is vouchsafed on condition that the divine essentials of the Institution be observed. As the Formula of Concord states : 'As to the con- Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 273 secration, we believe, teach and confess, that the presence of the body and blood of Christ is to be ascribed solely to the Almighty power of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . The words of the institution, are by no means to be omitted. . . . The 'blessing' takes place through the repetition of the words of Christ." 823. It is neither reverent nor reasonable for any one believing in Christ and His Word to say that in claiming such efficacy to the elements by the repetition of the words of Institution, we make ourselves liable to the charge of assigning to them a species of magic, not unlike some heathen prac- tices or rite in repeating some prescribed magical formula, for such reasoning, and such an inference is fallacious. It would be as reasonable to charge the man with magical claims, who by filling out a check and affixing his signature thereto, should state that the piece of paper was no longer the same, but was now $100.00. The words of the responsible man had made it $100.00 indeed, and no one questions it. But the words of the Institu- tion are Christ's own words who declared that heaven and earth should pass away but His words should not pass away. We who minister at the sacramental altar are "ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ; as though God were entreating by us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ" ; and as 274 Christ and the Lord's Supper His ambassadors to teach all things that He has commanded us; we repeat His own words, without any revision or addition thereto: "Take, eat; this is my body." Who would be so irreverent as to say that this sounds like magic on the part of Jesus after He had blessed the elements? But Christ is ever the same, and why deny that effi- cacy to His identical words to-day? Our precon- ceptions of a particular theory of the doctrine of the Eucharist may bias our minds so as to refuse all inquiry into the actual facts of historical value for a proper understanding of the problems in- volved; but the Church universal acknowledges the truth of Christ's words spoken at the Institu- tion, and we cannot deny the efficacy that He as- cribed to them, however profound the mystery may be to us. Our Church holds to a true presence of the whole Christ, as Krauth says; "the factor of which is not our mind, but His own divine person. We do not think Him into the Supper, but He is verily and indeed there. Faith does not put Him, but finds Him there." . . . "It was the whole Christ — the man as well as the God — who said: 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' It was the whole Christ who said: 'Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' And what the whole Christ's Glorified Body in the Eucharist 275 Christ promised, the whole Christ will perform." We rest our faith solely upon the words of Christ — without wavering in our belief because of the low ebb in our momentary emotions, but "ever looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith," — who gives Himself to us in the Holy Communion; the Christ of history; the divine and human Christ of the Gospels, the only Christ we know, who instituted the Last Supper when He took the bread and gave it to His disciples, saying: "Take, eat; this is my body." VII SIDE LIGHTS FROM COMPARATIVE RELIGIONS IN a critical investigation or study of the Eu- charist we encounter certain problems to-day that did not enter into the discussion some years ago. It is possible to confine ourselves entirely to the interpretation of the words of the Institution, and the various views held by different writers of the Church, butit seems to me that in this age of his- torical research and criticism it would be a mis- take to ignore the historical setting, and certain contemporary religious influences that may have an important bearing upon the subject, for these unquestionably shed some light upon certain words employed in the Institution, if not upon the Sacra- ment itself. Such a study has the advantage that it takes us back to contemporary peoples and re- ligious institutions and ceremonies, that in some instances bear a striking analogy in certain out- ward details, and terminology to the Holy Com- munion. This fact need not startle us as though the foundations for our faith in the Eucharist were in danger, and instead of ignoring it, it should be 276 Side Lights from Comparative Religions 277 taken seriously into account and its outstanding facts examined in their direct relation to Chris- tianity, for the challenge must be met, and not by the contempt of silent indifference. It is not strange that some divine truth came through other religions, for there is one God and Father of us all, and He was ever the same loving- heavenly Father, recognizing all humanity as His offspring, and seeking all His children everywhere that He might influence them for truth and right- eousness. When He manifested Himself in Christ that was the fulness of time, and never had there been such a revival of religions in the world; such a universal longing and seeking after a religion that would satisfy the deepest wants of the soul. As St. Paul expresses it, they were seeking God, "if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live and move and have our being; for we are also his offspring." With all the error in their confused mysticism there were truths that pre- pared them for something better. This they found in the Christian religion, and as the teachers were all human, they made use of human endeavor in the spread of the knowledge that they received, and they expressed their Christian ideas in the pre- vailing Greek language that became the vehicle of their thoughts. They did not Invent a new Ian- 278 Christ and the Lord's Supper guage, nor coin an entirely new vocabulary, but they were obliged to make use of pagan words when proclaiming the new faith. When they spoke of the Supreme Being they made use of the same word that the Greeks did when they referred to their great God Zeus, although their conception of God as our loving-heavenly Father was quite different. The same was true of the word "Lord," and "Saviour," and yet the Christians took over these words from the Greeks, and adopted them into their theology. They did not reject them and seek to substitute new ones of their own coining. However, it is not quite so clear in reference to some other words that the Christians appropri- ated, for in the case of Deity, the many attributes that the Christians attributed to God were suffi- ciently explanatory to make the discrimination clear, if not always unmistakable. But when St. Paul uses a word from pagan sources that is not so self-explanatory, then we must examine its use in some contemporary institution that had certain analogous ceremonies or sacramental ideas, for example, so as to discover if possible the exact meaning that they attached to that word. The necessity of this is imperative, inasmuch as the Christians appropriated the word directly from this pagan source in religious worship, to serve in the expression of their Christian thought in the Side Lights from Comparative Religions 279 new religion. The very fact of taking a promi- nent word from the celebration of the distinctive worship or ordinance in the pagan religion, and adapting it to a fundamental place in defining the meaning of a Christian sacrament, indicates some corresponding elements of similarity or resem- blance at least, however remote the analogy of the essential elements may be. At all events, the log- ical order it seems to me, would be to go back as far as possible so as to reason from the known, and first ascertain the meaning that the pagans at- tached to the word as used in their religious cere- monies. But some may ask, What has all this to do with our belief in the Lord's Supper as we have re- ceived it through the centuries, and direct from the sacred books? Much, we reply, as already indicated, because it enables us to study and ana- lyze contemporary thought and usage respecting "communion," and we get the classical meaning that was attached to the identical word used in the celebration of certain feasts that embraced similar ideas. It gives us vivid realism of their point of view as we get back to the contemporary period itself, and among the primitive sources of corre- sponding beliefs of the pagan world, from which St. Paul obtained certain words, and this gives us that known-early use for interpreting the Apostle's 2 8o Christ and the Lord's Supper words. This method reverses the too common one of bringing the Apostle to our age and west- ern mode of thinking, and insisting that the mean- ing of his words must conform to our modern opinion. The more scientific method would be to reverse the order, and take ourselves back through the centuries to Paul's country and age, and listen to his contemporaries as they explained the use of similar words employed in their feasts. We can- not make the Apostle responsible for any modern theory by forcing the interpretation of his words. We must put ourselves in the past; get Paul's point of view, and see the religious institutions about him as he saw them. What did the words that he employed mean in his day, and what mean- ing did he intend that they should convey to others through the letters that he wrote? I know that language is but the vehicle of thought, and tRat men have often been misunderstood and misrepre- sented by the very language that they used. This Is even true of celebrated legal documents, and we are familiar with contests over the Intent of lan- guage used in wills, for since the testator Is dead It Is Impossible to get his explanation of the mat- ter in dispute. Inasmuch as the difficulty of In- terpretation Is often so great even when the docu- ment has been written by an able lawyer, It need not seem strange that St. Paul has been variously Side Lights from Comparative Religions 281 interpreted, nor should it disqualify him in the mind of any as being a reliable writer. In view of much of the bitterness that has at times character- ized the controversies respecting the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, no doubt many have wished that the words of Institution might have been so exceeding plain that the most skilled controversial- ist could not possibly have taken a different view, and that the simplest minds might not err therein. All must deplore the extremes that have separated believers where they should meet together in this central place of universal worship in the Christian Church through the centuries. I am convinced from years of study of the con- temporary monuments of the ancients, that the documentary evidence will yield valuable testi- mony, and to the earnest student of historical re- search who desires to know the truth, they will have a value of fundamental importance in the un- derstanding of terms, if not of the content of the Eucharist itself. St. Paul put into his letters cer- tain forms of expression best calculated to express the Christian truth, for the thought was divine though he gave it a verbal setting in words appro- priated from pagan use. As an interesting example of independent par- allelism, and at the same time an excellent illus- tration of Paul's advice given to the Church at 282 Christ and the Lord's Supper Corinth (I Cor. 10:27), Delssman cites two short letters of invitation, of the second century A. D., found at Oxyrhynchus; given in these words: "Chairemon invites you to dine at the table of the Lord Sarapis in the Sarapeion to-morrow, the 1 5th, at 9 o'clock." The other is as follows : "An- tonios son of Ptolemaios, invites you to dine with him at the table of the Lord Sarapis in the house of Claudius Sarapion on the i6th., at 9 o'clock." There is a striking parallelism between the expres- sion "the table of the Lord Sarapis," and the lan- guage of St. Paul "the Lord's table," but not nec- essarrily any borrowing. The Apostle was inde- pendent by priority of time, and Deissman thinks that in all probability he was influenced by the Greek Old Testament (Mai. 1:7, 12; Ezk. 39 :20, and 44:16) ; just as the phrase "table of devils" in I Cor. 10:21 points to the Septuagint version of Is. 65:11. He would not assume the Pauline origin of the Sarapis formula, though it is not impossible. All that we know is that "the two phrases crop up, as it were, side by side, without any apparent genealogical connexion. The les- son of the Egyptian parallel is that again in an im- portant particular the pagan phraseology approxi- mates to the technical phraseology of early Chris- tianity. In order to make plain to his Corinthians the nature of the Christian Eucharist, St. Paul Side Lights from Comparative Religions 283 did not scruple to employ the analogy of the pagan sacred feasts." (I Cor. 10:19, 21.) New Light on the New Testament, p. 84. Many scholars once supposed that the Apostle Paul had coined the adjective KvplaKos used in I Cor. 1 1 :20 to desig- nate the Eucharist as the Lord's Supper, but Deiss- man calls attention to its contemporary use in the current language of which St. Paul made use. Whilst this fact is proved by inscriptions from papyri and ostraca, Deissman cites an example from Egypt, of which he says: "We have here a clear case of a word current in the official political phraseology of the East being taken over into the religious vocabulary of primitive Christianity." By reproducing some outstanding facts of the historic background of primitive Christianity by the aid of the ancient monuments, whether the in- scriptions are contained on papyri, ostraca, coins or tablets, we may discover some most interesting and illuminating facts. Occasionally some start- ling parallelism of a New Testament word, sym- bol or divine designation will appear. Not only do we find the symbol of the cross on some Greek coins, but divine titles given to the ruler who is called god, and because deified, there followed Emperor worship. This cult was naturally abhor- rent to the monotheistic Jew, and the Christian who regarded it as a sacrilege, and many suffered 284 Christ and the Lord's Supper the penalty of death rather than sin against con- science by offering Incense to the genius of the Cassar-god. No doubt the early Christians suf- fered many misgivings when compelled to receive, and pay out again even for the most sacred serv- ices of their holy religion, the current money that bore the effigy of the ruling emperor, and some with the shocking legend of deity. Even as early as the third century B.C., the silver coin or tetra- drachm of Antiochus II bore this title and we read the same on the similar coin that bears the bold portrait of that mad Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes who so outrageously desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 167 B. C. by sac- rificing the abhorred swine on the altar in the holy place. On his tetradrachms he designates himself as God. With the background of history distinctly be- fore us we get a new and vivid emphasis, with the addition of a supreme truth in that recorded inter- view of Jesus with His enemies on the occasion when seeking to entrap Him in His words, they asked Him: "Shall we render to Cassar tribute or not?" Jesus asked them to show Him a piece of the tribute money, and pointing to the portrait of the Emperor Tiberius upon the denarius he asked whose effigy, and whose Inscription it was? When they replied that It was Caesar's then He gave that Side Lights from Comparative Religions 285 remarkable answer for all time, that put them to silence: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." In that concrete and pregnant saying Jesus drew a sharp contrast between Caesar and God. Tiberius was the Emperor, and entitled to the loyalty that men should render to the state, but he was not God, in spite of the much-abused apo- theosis of rulers; there was the Infinite One, the only true God, infinitely higher, the Sovereign Ruler over all, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, — to whom all owe allegiance, rulers as well, and Him alone should all people worship. No wonder that St. Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth: "There is no God but One. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; as there are gods many, and lords many; yet to us there is one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we unto Him : and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him." The primitive Church greatly needed this positive discrimination when polytheism prevailed, and rulers received deifica- tion. The Roman emperors came to this lordly in- heritance quite naturally through the influence of the Greeks who in the fourth century B.C. dei- fied Alexander the Great, and after death he re- ceived the distinction of being the first man to have 286 Christ and the Lord's Supper his effigy placed upon the coinage, an honor hither- to reserved for the gods and goddesses only, but subsequent rulers were similarly honored. In ad- dition to these records from numismatic monu- ments from an extant official inscription of Ephe- sus we learn that its city Council did not account it sacrilege to speak of Julius Caesar the Dictator, as "the God manifest, offspring of Ares and Aph- rodite, and common Saviour of human life." The Emperor Augustus on an inscription of March 17, 24 B.C. is flattered with the designation as "god of god," and a votive inscription contempo- rary with St. Paul descends to the depths of un- scrupulous adulation by calling that indescribably base Emperor Nero "the good god." In the light of such outstanding historical facts from the times of the great Apostle we can appreciate the neces- sity for the caution to the Corinthian church al- ready referred to. We find an ancient Greek in- scription that was dedicated to the "Honor of Ptolemy the Saviour and god." I recall a familiar Greek tetradrachm with the inscription that desig- nates a ruler as "Saviour of the Thasians." I saw a marble pedestal from Pergamon, now set up at great expense in Berlin, that bears this startling inscription: "The Emperor Caesar, son of a god, the god Augustus, of every land and sea the over- seer." As the altogether human Emperor was still Side Lights from Comparative Religions 287 living at the time, no doubt he would have blushed had he seen such undue extravagance. And yet this was greatly surpassed in extravagant flattery, for Deissman in his recent volume, Light from the Ancient East, gives a facsimile of a marble slab from Magnesia that contains this votive inscrip- tion : to Nero, as, "Son of the greatest of the gods, Tiberius Claudius, etc." In these examples of divine titles ascribed to rulers we have some interesting parallelisms with the titles employed in the New Testament, but they have a very different significance from those ap- plied to Christ by the Apostle St. Paul, for their content is not the same as the writer so clearly ex- pressed it in the letter referred to. The word Lord was commonly applied to the rulers, as was famil- iar to the Apostle, and hence he makes that distinc- tion so clear when he applies the title to Christ Jesus. It is true that a Boeotian town in the year 67, immortalized Nero on a marble tablet by call- ing him "Lord of the whole world," and in the year previous, when the Persian king Tiridates came to Italy he paid homage to the same Emper- or at Naples as "the lord," and later at Rome as "the god" : but this Roman Csesar was a temporal ruler only, and not a universal and continuous one. But Christ was represented as the eternal One, the Supreme Lord and Master. The aged bishop 288 Christ and the Lord's Supper Polycarp at Smyrna suffered martyrdom rather than acknowledge the Emperor as Lord. The Christian Speratus at Carthage, July 17, 180, died for his faith when the Roman officials said to him : "Swear by the genius of our lord the Emperor," for he replied : "I know no imperium of this world. ... I know my Lord, the King of kings, and Emperor of all nations." Deissman in his work of 191 1 called attention to a most striking illus- tration of the present use of that which the primi- tive Church abhorred: "The Church of England prays 'through Jesus Christ our Lord' for 'our most gracious Sovereign Lord' the King, and there is no offence in the collocation, but few users of the prayer ever dream of what lies behin;d these words — that there were times in which the most earnest among Christians went to execution rather than transfer to a man the divine title of their Sa- viour." Of course, the word Kvpios does not necessarily mean in itself alone to imply divinity, for that would be determined by the connexion, or other qualifying words, and in the Septuagint, as well as in the Epistles of Paul it is applied to mas- ters of slaves, but, it had a special significance when used as a title of Jesus — the Divine Lord of lords. Even to-day the word lord is used as a title of honored distinction among men in England, and Side Lights from Comparative Religions 289 the government has its house of Lords, but no mis- understanding arises from this modern use. It is all important to have a clear and correct his- torical background of primitive Christianity, and its intense religious environment. In the truest and most literal sense it was the fulness of time when Christ came, for everywhere the Greek and Ro- man world was ripe and ready for the living God- manifest in the flesh. As Deissman states: "The great mass of the people were deeply religious, and even in the upper classes there were plenty of pious souls. This has been proved irrefutably by Friedlander from the inscriptions in his sketches of the history of Roman morals. And one who is not satisfied with this evidence might calculate the enormous sums of money that were then volunta- rily devoted both in the East and in the West to religious purposes, to temples, to oracles, priests, and pious foundations. The great religious move- ments also bear witness to the strong hold that religion had upon the men of that generation. Gods migrated and became blended with the gods of other nations. Foreign cults came from the East and from the South and mixed with the old forms of worship; Isis, Sarapis, and later, Attis and Mithra found everywhere their enthusiastic devotees. Our general verdict as historians of re- 290 Christ and the Lord's Supper llglon must be framed like this : that the vast ma- jority of mankind were not tired of religion, or hostile to religion, but friendly to religion, and hungering for it." This statement is also sup- ported by the testimony of a contemporary witness who thoroughly understood the religious spirit of his times, for when addressing the crowds that gathered about him St. Paul said: "Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are very religious." Perhaps superstitious is what Paul really meant. There is a vast difference between a purely Im- aginative conception of the historic setting of primitive Christianity, and one that Is based upon the actual facts of history. There was no homo- geneous class of people, but a most heterogeneous one gathered from various and distant sources, with innumerable gradations of heathenism, dif- fering greatly in religious beliefs and culture, ranging from the highest aristocracy to the most abject slavery. Prof. Bigg thinks that in a little Italian town probably nearly everybody could read and write, as we may conclude from the existing remains of graffiti scrawled on the walls of Pom- peii. He Is also of the opinion that "the propor- tion of Illiterates does not seem to be larger than could be found in the marriage registers of an English country parish 100 years ago. . . Among Side Lights from Comparative Religions 291 the clergy of the Church the standard was not high. . . The Fathers of the Western Church, generally speaking, knew Virgil by heart, and in the East, Homer was equally familiar." "The Schools imparted nothing but the merest smattering of philosophy, and the results of this superficial veneer are clearly to be discerned in the age of the Four Great Councils. What the Fa- thers then defined was undoubtedly the faith of the Church. The thing was the Christian belief, but the voice was that of the schools. Men found themselves driven to use words borrowed from Plato and the Stoics, Essence, Hypostasis, Sub- stance and others, which they themselves did not thoroughly understand, and hence arose naturally the most disastrous strife and confusion. The Greek Church, which was the better educated, was amply justified in its dislike of all philosophical terms. . . . The meaning of the word Essence differed in every school. The Latins avoided the word Essence and used in its place Hypostasis (or its Latin equivalent Substantia) ^l^ut Hypostasis was the word selected by the Greeks to denote the Persons. Hence, while one-half of the Empire spoke of Three Hypostases, the other half spoke of One only. The words were in fact little more than counters, used to express whatever ideas theo- logians stamped upon them; the ideas were Chris- 292 Christ and the Lord's Supper tian, the words were heathen." (The Church's Task under the Roman Empire.) Because Mithraism prevailed in St. Paul's na- tive city some unsympathetic writers who know nothing of the subjective power of Christ in the soul, dare to attempt to trace the Apostle's teach- ing respecting the Eucharist to this heathen source, and all this in defiance of his own explicit testi- mony that he received it from the Lord. On the coins of Tarsus we see the evidence of the cult of Mithraism plainly stamped, but it is inconceivable that Paul could have been favorably affected by a religion so abhorrent to Judaism, for he grew up as one of the most rigid of his sect, a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, and his entire life shows his ab- solute freedom from such influence. His testi- mony is clear and unimpeachable except to the rationalizing critic who in his desperate efforts to destroy the force of the evidence must assert that the Apostle was "the victim of unconscious cere- bration and took over the pagan sacramentalism without knowing it," but as Dr. Groton says there is no evidence for such psychological disturbance, and all the efforts to disturb the validity of Paul's testimony are arbitrary. The Apostle makes the Lord's Supper also a memorial of Christ until His coming, and two things could scarcely be "more Side Lights from Comparative Religions 293 unlike than the PauHne and the pagan escha- tology." With all the varied differences of opinion as to the correct interpretation of the doctrine of the Eucharist, no one ventured to impeach the histori- cal records themselves as being unauthentic. It was not until the earlier portion of the nineteenth century that any writer questioned the Christie origin of this ordinance, and sought to trace it to St. Paul who was supposed to have largely bor- rowed his ideas from pagan cults, and the myster- ies of Oriental religions. The science of the com- parative study of religions is not responsible for this extreme form of destructive criticism, but rather the abuse of the false estimate of the super- ficial resemblances discovered in the pagan "re- ligio historical parallels," and some of them we acknowledge have striking correspondences or an- alogies to certain teachings and practices of the Christian religion. Hence these new phases must also be reckoned with in a modern study of the Lord's Supper, for they have an important bear- ing upon the controverted questions involved in this doctrine. No one acquainted with the results brought to light by eminent scholars who have devoted their life to a comparative study of religions, would de- 294 Christ and the Lord's Supper liberately Ignore the methods and conclusions of their investigations. I am convinced that they often shed important light from the age of St. Paul upon the words that he employs from Greek sources and religions to express the belief of Chris- tians in their own ordinances, for he naturally re- sorted to the current linguistic and figurative ex- pressions as the only ones available. It is agreed by students of the religious cults that were contemporary with St, Paul that there existed among the various Greek Mysteries certain sacramental ideas that bore a strong anal- ogy to his illustrations touching the doctrine of the Eucharist. We get a better understanding of his point of view, without any loss to our reverent faith in the Christian ordinance, by studying the Mysteries of Eleusis, and that strange worship of Mithras, even though It came later than the Apos- tle. Mithraism was for some time the most seri- ous rival of the Christian Church, and M. Cumont has made valuable contributions to this subject. In two volumes. In his masterly address before the Archaeological Institute of America, several years ago, we were Irresistibly drawn to some of his conclusions. The Mithraic Church had "a sort of Affape In commemoration of the banquet of Mithra and the Sun, in which the worshippers par- took of bread, water and wine." Prof. Bigg ob- Side Lights from Comparative Religions 295 serves the resemblance of Isis worship to Chris- tianity, though chiefly of a verbal character, but: "In Mithraism they are more numerous, and more than verbal. We find a feast of the Nativity, a Sunday, an Adoration of Shepherds, a Baptism, a Last Supper, an Ascension, an organization in many remarkable points strangely parallel to that of the Church. . . . Cumont thinks that there was a growing tendency to assimilate Mithras to Jesus. Very probably he is right; for there can be little doubt that the later heathenism freely appropria- ted the ideas, the practices, the language of the Christian Church. . . . Mithraism was so like Christianity that it no doubt helped to open the door for its advent; at the same time it was so un- like that there could be no peace between the two. It rested upon a fable. There never was a Mithra, and he never slew the Bull." The rapid spread of this religion along the Northern frontier of the Empire was due to the fact that its chief followers were soldiers who also became its missionaries. Whilst Mithraism is acknowledged to have been the best and most elevating of all the heathen re- ligions of the Roman Empire, it finally died be- cause it was founded on a fiction that had no exis- tence beyond the imagination of its followers. Those who are strongly inclined to eliminate all the supernatural in the Christian religion are eager 296 Christ and the Lord's Supper to discover the origin of the Eucharist In the Eleu- sinlan Mysteries, and any parallelism in words or remote resemblance in ceremony is eagerly wel- comed and fashioned into the required formula. But the inimitable Person of Christ is not there; there is no identity with that sacramental signifi- cance that is fundamental, and the differences of origin and content are irreconcilable. The God- man is nonexistent in Mithraism; its origin and content of ceremonies are Mithraic in character, but not Christian. It is comparison and contrast that bring out the real qualities and we instinctively employ this method in our daily observations. The compara- tive method is the scientific one employed in study, for we view everything relatively. We are first impressed with resemblances, however superficial they may be, for they remind us of somebody or something that has certain points of analogy in common, though the differences may be vastly greater, and these impress themselves upon us later as we proceed in our investigations. When we begin to examine critically we find that some of the apparent resemblances vanish, for the dif- ferences are so fundamental, that the once seem- ing likenesses in some minor features bear no Im- portance to the whole. We must endeavor to get the view point of the ancients, their meaning and Side Lights from Comparative Religions 297 not read our modern theory into It, but inquire Into the original purport; what did the design or sym- bol or words mean to the one who used them, for every symbol however crude is the expression of some thought. It was Invested with some meaning, and that Is what we are to try to discover. The symbol of the Cross does not mean to the Chris- tian what It meant to the ancients who used the symbol centuries earlier. The same is true of the eagle that appears on the American coinage, for It conveys an entirely different meaning to us than It did to the Greeks and Romans when they saw it upon their coins. To us it conveys the impres- sion of political freedom, but to the ancients they beheld the symbol of their great Deity — Zeus and Jupiter. With all human Ingenuity In reconstructing the pagan rites, for often the Imagination and specula- tion figure largely, no ardent supporter of any theory to make them account for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, can so fashion the Mlthralc meal as the progenitor of this central rite In the Christian Church. Various theories have been advocated by negative critics who would deny the Christian origin, but when these men. In the face of the testimony of the most authoritative of his- torical criticism, deny the Scriptural documents, we are not obliged to reply to the far-fetched criti- 298 Christ and the Lord's Supper cisms that will pass away in due time with the authors themselves. The charge of borrowing from the Mystery religions is impossible, inas- much as the Eucharist was commonly observed in the Christian Churches in the first centuries whilst Mithraism did not attain to its full development and potent influence until the century following. The charge of borrowing from any of the existing religions, merely because of superficial or even more striking resemblances in certain forms, is as unreasonable as it would be to charge Christian- ity with having borrowed the symbol of the Cross from the ancients, or that America copied its sym- bol of the eagle from the Greeks and Romans. To us the cross is a symbol of God's matchless love, and man's redemption from the curse of sin, and the American eagle ever reminds us of our freedom, without ever a thought of the gods of the Greeks and Romans. In referring to the cross on coins as a symbol of Christianity, I am reminded that some have thought to discredit our faith and reverence for the historic character of this hallowed symbol o£ our holy religion by informing us that the symbol of the cross had been borrowed from paganism, or a still lower source, and "had been used long be- fore Jesus was born," and that the Christian tra- ditions associated with it in the modern mind are Side Lights from Comparative Religions 299 pagan In origin. But there Is nothing in such reasoning to detract from the Christian signifi- cance of the cross, even though some ancient coins may have borne a geometrical form of it, or that thousands of human beings had been crucified upon the cross long before the advent of Christianity, or that there is nothing new in its form — all true enough, for the Southern Cross Is as old as Crea- tion; and when I looked upon that studded, star- lit cross in the celestial dome, our own cross did not lose its special significance. As well say that the Christian cross is only the modern develop- ment of the earlier conception of the multitudinous forms of the cross seen In the masts and spars and rigging of the ship: in the stems and branches of trees and plants; and in the letter T, and in the orans, or man himself as he stands with out- stretched arms in adoration of Deity. Christ in- vested the Cross with a new meaning, and such as the ancients never conceived of. The significant place of the cross in the thought and life of the Christians was no secret among rulers and ruled, long before it appeared upon the military banners and on the coinage of the empire, for they beheld in the cross the symbol, if not the personification of Him who suffered for us on Cal- vary. With this clearly defined conception. It has become such a sacred symbol through the centu- 300 Christ and the Lord's Supper ries, not merely because of its inherited associa- tions, but because of its inseparable meaning as symbolizing Him whom we instinctively associate with it in our deepest religious convictions. I am not confounding mere symbol with reality, for there is an important distinction, and the disregard of it is seen in the fetishism of many religions. And yet, the two are often most intimately asso- ciated in our minds, for the patriot would resent the insult of seeing his country's flag stamped into the mire, and the Christian would not be indiffer- ent if he saw the cross trambled under-foot and spat upon. Hence many of the Christian converts in Japan during the seventeenth century suffered death rather than save their lives by trampling upon the cross that was laid on the ground in the narrow entrance of the gateway through which all had to pass in order to detect their secret faith, for the genuine convert revered that symbol of his divine Master, and in the museum at Ueno, To- kyo, we may still see some of these memorable yellow copperplates on which the Crucifixion of our Lord is represented in relief, significant monu- ments of the bitter struggle of Christianity in the Orient. To deny the original Christian conception of this meaning and use of the cross as a symbol of Christianity, merely because the form antedates Side Lights from Comparative Religions 301 the advent of Christ, is as unreasonable as it would be for an Oriental to declare that the presence of the eagle on our American coinage is unmistakable proof of the Greek origin of our country and the pagan character of our national religion, inasmuch as that bird was the symbol of Zeus. Suppose an Oriental coming to my own city of Syracuse, N. Y., should display a didrachm of Acragas issued in the first quarter of the fifth cen- tury B.C., stamped with this same familiar eagle, and still another coin of a somewhat later date, that issued from the mint of our own namesake city of ancient Syracuse, bearing the same bird, and similar to the well-known eagle that adorns our coinage, would he be justified in pointing to that ancient symbol of Zeus, and then declare that it was a monumental proof that our religion was the same as that old cult, for the same symbol was used that appeared on the ancient Greek coins? We would reply that it was a very differ- ent eagle, though similar in form, for we see in the eagle that loves freedom the symbol of our Ameri- can Independence. In other words, we have in- vested it with an entirely new and different mean- ing, and the same is true of the cross when appro- priated by Christianity. It is an altogether differ- ent cross, and so the Christians understood it as they saw it with joy upon their national coinage : 302 Christ and the Lord's Suppler hence it is the richest and most precious of all sym- bols because it is the symbol of God's love, and man's hope. It is a well-known fact that the Apostle Paul mentions the parallel that he recognized between the Lord's Supper and the pagan feasts that he had seen in the temples. Later the Church Fathers denounced the heathen for imitating their ordi- nances, and Justin Martyr bitterly charged them with having imitated the rites of Christianity so as to attract the people. He refers according to Gro- ton to that later period when Christianity was "very susceptible to the influences of current thought and philosophy. May not the infiltration of the environment have commenced at an earlier stage than Hatch supposed, and may not the sac- ramentarianism of St. Paul be one of its products? There seems no reason to doubt the probability that this was actually the case." But even though it can be shown that tTie ex- treme form of the Apostle's sacramental ideas came from foreign sources that would not neces- sarily invalidate his authority, for as Dr. Ander- son states: "The origin of an idea is no criterion as to its worth. Many of the categories which were used for the interpretation of Christianity in the later creeds were borrowed from Greek philos- ophy, but that does not in itself prove that the in- Side Lights from Comparative Religions 303 terpretation is unsound. The fact that Paul bor- rowed from the Greek Mysteries for the construc- tion which he put upon the Christian sacraments is by no means fatal to the truth of the doctrines." Just as when Jesus foretold His resurrection its real character was not affected by comparing it with Jonah's being three days and three nights in the belly of the whale — should that story be proved to be without historical foundation as a literal occurrence, but was given merely as a par- able to teach an important truth of God's wonder- ful mercy as contrasted with the mean selfishness of man. Inasmuch as God has ever been the same loving Heavenly Father of all humanity, desiring the salvation of all, we cannot hesitate to believe that he made use of the best of all instrumentali- ties to prepare mankind for the coming of Christ with His message of the Gospel, — the good news from God. Robinson states that: "the Corinthian Eucha- rist had parallels on its social side In the Greek world. Guilds and burial clubs had their stated suppers; and the wealthier townsmen found many occasions of inviting their poorer neighbors to a feast, as, for example, at time of funerals, and on fixed days after the death. From such public en- tertainments Christians were debarred by reason of their connection with Idolatrous worship; but 304 Christ and the Lord's Supper it is likely that the Christians themselves in a Greek city would have similar suppers on some- what similar occasions; and the wealthier members of the Church would thus entertain the poorer from time to time. Such Suppers, though not Eu- charlstic in the strict sense, would be accompanied by eucharlstic rites." "Hence would appear to have originated the Agapae, or charity suppers, which are not always distinguishable from Eucha- rists. They are referred to in Jude 12 (II Peter 2:13), and some light is thrown upon the refer- ence by the custom, mentioned in the DIdache (chap. II), of allowing the prophets 'to order a table, — a custom sometimes misused for selfish ends.' " For some years I have been deeply interested in the study of man's relation to Deity as seen in the history of religions, for man is a religious being, and no race nor people have ever been discovered without faith in some deity, and hence he is in- separable from worship of some form. No man has made such a thorough and extensive investi- gation of religion and magic among modern and past peoples of the pagan world as Dr. J. G. Frazer. His volumes are a storehouse of valu- able information for the thoughtful and trained mind, that has learned to study results relatively, for they are rich in suggestions and shed light upon Side Lights from Comparative Religions 305 many dark problems. In Part V, Vol. II of the Golden Bough, Dr. Frazer devotes Chap. X to: "Eating the God, the Sacrament of first-Fruits." He concludes: "We have now seen that the corn- Spirit is represented sometimes in human, some- times in animal form, and that in both cases he is killed in the person of his representative and eaten sacramentally. To find examples of actually kill- ing the human representative of the corn-Spirit we had naturally to go to savage races." He gives a long description of eating the God among the Astecs, "the custom of eating sacramentally a dough image of the god — as a mode of commun- ion with the deity. . . . They called these morsels the flesh and bones of Vitziliputzli. They hon- ored those pieces in the same sort as their god." There were elaborate preparations and ceremonies and when ended "the priests and superiors of the temple took the idol of paste and made many pieces — which they consecrated, and gave to the people in manner of a communion, — who received it with such tears, fear, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eat the flesh and bones of God, wherewith they were grieved. Such as had any sick folks demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration." He quotes it from a work on the Indies. "From this interesting passage we learn 3o6 Christ and the Lord's Supper that the ancient Mexicans before the arrival of Christian missionaries, were fully acquainted with the theological doctrine of transiibstantiation and acted upon it in the solemn rites of their religion. They believed that by consecrating bread their priests could turn it into the very body of their god, so that all who thereupon partook of the consecrated bread entered into a mystic commun- ion with the deity by receiving a portion of his divine substance Into themselves. The doctrine of transubstantiatlon, or the magical conversion of bread Into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient India long before the spread and even rise of Christianity, The Brahmans taught that the rice-cakes offered in sacrifice were substitutes for human beings, and that they were actually converted into the real bodies of men by the man- ipulation of the priest. . . . On the whole It would seem that neither the ancient Hindoos nor the an- cient Mexicans had much to learn from the most refined mysteries of Catholic theology." He de- scribes the "Astec custom of killing the god Huit- zllopochtli In effigy and eating him afterwards." Whilst even the male child In the cradle received a portion It was denied to every female. The name of the ceremony was very significant, being called teoqualo, I.e., "god Is eaten." In order to satisfy their craving after a closer Side Lights from Comparative Religions 307 union with the living god, the ancient Mexicans re- sorted to a more real communion by sacrificing a beautiful captive of noble birth after they had him impersonate for some time the god Tetzcat- lipoca, and then the body of this sacrificed god was chopped into small portions and distributed among the priests and nobles as a blessed food. "The custom of entering into communion with a god by eating of his effigy survived till lately among the Huichal Indians of Mexico." Communion with the deity still exists in various forms of observ- ance among different low castes in Southern India. When they swallow the piece of the image they have broken they firmly believe that they absorb the essence of the deity whose broken body they have received. We need the caution from Frazer In summing up the results of his extensive studies: "We cannot dissect the history of mankind as it were with a knife into a series of neat sections each sharply marked off from all the rest by a tex- ture and a color of its own, for — the textures in- terlace, the colors melt and run into each other by Insensible gradations. It is a mere truism to say that the abstract generalizations of science can never adequately comprehend all the particu- lars of concrete reality. The facts of nature will always burst the narrow bounds of human theo- ries." 3o8 Christ and the Lord's Supper The belief and practice of communion with deity was quite common among the ancient re- ligions, and the subject is involved in much mys- tery, although certain facts are generally admitted as well established. The communion with deity as it existed among the *jreeks and Romans is the only phase that directly applies in any way to our study because of the contact of those peoples with early Christianity, and they furnished by far the major portion of the converts. Dr. Duff in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics sounds the caution that "In some ceremonies at the altar the difficulty is to decide whether any clear sacramen- tal conception was involved. . . . In a less mystic sense the term sacrament or communion might be applied to the feast shared by deity and wor- shippers which is familiar from the earliest Greek literature." Whilst such sacrificial communion prevailed in Greece, its persistence was rather spo- radic apart from the Mysteries, and the leading authorities "doubt whether the ritual and doc- trine of communion exercised a vital influence upon religious thought in the older Hellenism." Ill, 768. It is claimed that the indications are that a sacramental communion existed also In the com- mon sacrificial feasts in the early religion of the Romans "for the purpose of uniting a deity more closely with his worshippers." Side Lights from Comparative Religions 309 In reference to the sacrificial meal Fairbanks says: "In almost every form of primitive religion, the communion meal in which gods and men share consecrated food, and the use of blood to pacify angry deities or to remove some taint from man, constitute a large part of worship." Greek Re- ligions, 98. "The communion meal, the meat of- fering of our Old Testament, is the appropriate offering to the Olympian gods. ... In prepara- tion for the communion meal, it was necessary first to select a suitable animal — a perfect speci- men of its kind. At some shrines the sex, age, and the color of the victim were determined in the ritual. . . . Occasionally poor people offered cakes in the shape of animals, or fruit fixed to imi- tate animals." In later times they had libations of mixed wine and water at the sacrificial banquet. Too often superficial resemblances have been exaggerated into analogies. Some have drawn heavily upon their imagination to discover in the ceremonies of the Eleusinian mysteries the origin of the Holy Eucharist. There is an inspiration for the student of history In surveying the exten- sive ruins at Eleusis, and I found no difficulty in reproducing possible scenes that may have been witnessed here many centuries ago at the festivals given in commemoration of the goddess Demeter. In the attending feast of eating and drinking an 310 Christ and the Lord's Supper imaginative observer with an ardent desire to dis- cover something in the ritual favorable to his fa- vorite theory, might discover not only the place and ritual of the sacramental meal, but also the re- markable features of striking identity with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. But there is no critical historical value in such a discovery, for it lacks the essential-crucial test of evidence, and on this subject Farnell, speaking with the highest au- thority in his exhaustive work, says: "If we keep strictly to the evidence, as we ought in such a case, we have no right to speak of a sacramental meal at Eleusis, to which, as around a communion table, the worshippers gathered, strengthening their mu- tual sense of religious fellowship thereby. . . . We have no proof here of a sacramental common meal, although it is probable that the votary felt in drinking it a certain fellowship with the deity, who by the story had drunk it before him." Cults of the Greek States. Ill, 196. Farnell's extensive researches in 5 vols, show no recognition of the idea of sacramental com- munion at Eleusis, and Dr. Jevons's theory col- lapses for want of evidence, for "whatever the mystic sacrifice may have been, he (Dr. Jevons) lays a great deal more stress upon it than the Greeks themselves did. . . . There is no text or context which proves that the Initiated at Eleusis Side Lights from Comparative Religions 311 was regarded as of one flesh with deity." Ill, p. 196. In his work on Greece and Babylon he warns men against drawing hasty conclusions of borrowing because of certain resemblances: "For often in comparing the most remote regions of the world we are struck with strange similarities of myth and cult, . . . Many superficial points of resemblance will be found in all religions that are at the same stage of development." p. 37. We frequently discover concurrent streams of religious thought rising from different sources, but with such striking parallelism as to suggest if not a common origin or direct borrowing, at least a contribution of influence due to personal contact with followers of other religions. Just as Israel was influenced by other Semitic nations, especially by the Canaanites, for the stream of religion has not always continued pure as when it left the orig- inal source, but in time foreign tributaries added their contribution and the character was changed. This was illustrated in certain directions by the pagan influences that entered and corrupted the Church to a deplorable extent with Its heretical in- filtrations during the fourth and fifth centuries, al- though the fundamental doctrines were not changed, but pagan customs became engrafted in the ecclesiastical ceremonies — so different from the simplicity of Christ and the Apostles. 312 Christ and the Lord's Supper But it would be a violent perversion of rational criticism to contend that Christianity imitated and borrowed her cardinal doctrines and sacred rites from other religions just because she was obliged to obtain part of her Christian vocabulary from the nomenclature of a contemporary or earlier paganism. The material form may have been imi- tated, but into that pagan form was introduced the content of a new and fundamental Christian truth; just as we have taken over the form of the Shepherd carrying the sheep, but as translated into Christ as the Good Shepherd that transformed symbol has a very different and precious signifi- cance to us. It is the God-man who bore the bur- den of our sins on the cross, and who invites all the sorrowing and heavy burdened ones of earth to come to Him for rest, and to cast all their cares upon Him because He is concerned for them. The common elements of bread and wine have not been restricted to sacramental meals, but have had an almost universal use as a daily food and drink in Eastern countries, and have been adapted to special use, as when men pledged their faith to one another by eating and drinking — a practice traced to primitive times, and practiced to-day by some in ceremonies as a pledge of brotherhood. But there is no confusion among them in confound- ing this ceremony with that of the Eucharist, for Side Lights from Comparative Religions 313 all would deny the very thought of imitation or parallelism between them, both as to content and purpose. The incomparable difference is funda- mental, for in the one there is but bread and wine with pledge of brotherhood and nothing more, but in the sacramental Bread and Wine of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is likewise the real Presence of Christ the God-man, the Sa- viour of the world Who communes with us and we with Him Who nourishes our soul unto eternal life. So far then as the Holy Eucharist or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is concerned there need be no misunderstanding nor doubt as to its divine origin and character, for we have the early his- torical documents of the Synoptist Gospels that record the unquestioned account, and the Apostle St. Paul bears his testimony to the same historic fact when in positive language he declares its sacred content and the source from which he ob- tained his information: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" "For I re- ceived of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is 314 Christ and the Lord's Supper my body, which is for you : This do in remem- brance of me. In Hke manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do as often as ye drink it, in re- membrance of me." Date Due N 4 . '4 i 1 - ' , r f)