The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 43

Ib. s. ii. p. 422.

'In Synaxi Transubstantiationem sero definivit Ecclesia; diu satis erat credere, sive sub pane consecrate, sive quocunque modo adesse verum corpus Christi;' so said the great Erasmus.

'Verum corpus,' that is, 'res ipsissima,' or the thing in its actual self, opposed [Greek: to phainomen'o].

Ib. s. vi. p. 425.

Now that the spiritual is also a real presence, and that they are hugely consistent, is easily credible to them that believe the gifts of the Holy Ghost are real graces, and a spirit is a proper substance.

But how the body of Christ, as opposed to his Spirit and to his G.o.dhead, can be taken spiritually, 'hic labor, hoc opus est.' Plotinus says, [Greek: kai hae hylae as'omatos]; so we must say here [Greek: ka t s'oma as'omaton].

Ib. s. vii. p. 426.

So we may say of the blessed Sacrament; Christ is more truly and really present in spiritual presence than in corporal; in the heavenly effect than in the natural being.

But the presence of Christ is not in question, but the presence of Christ's body and blood. Now that Christ effected much for us by coming in the body, which could not or would not have been effected had he not a.s.sumed the body, we all, Socinians excepted, believe; but that his body effected it, other than as Christ in the body, where shall we find? how can we understand?

Ib. p. 427.

So when it is said, 'Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of G.o.d,' that is, corruption shall not inherit; and in the resurrection, our bodies are said to be spiritual, that is, not in substance, but in effect and operation.

This is, in the first place, a wilful interpretation, and secondly, it is absurd; for what sort of flesh and blood would incorruptible flesh and blood be? As well might we speak of marble flesh and blood. But in Taylor's mind, as seen throughout, the logician was predominant over the philosopher, and the fancy outbustled the pure intuitive imagination. In the sense of St. Paul, as of Plato and all other dynamic philosophers, flesh and blood is 'ipso facto' corruption, that is, the spirit of life in the mid or balancing state between fixation and reviviscence. 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' is a Hebraism for 'this death which the body is.' For matter itself is but 'spiritus in coagulo,' and organized matter the coagulum in the act of being restored; it is then repotentiating. Stop its self-destruction as matter, and you stop its self-reproduction as a vital organ. In short, Taylor seems to fall into the very fault he reproves in Bellarmine, and with this additional evil, that his reasoning looks more like tricking or explaining away a mystery. For wherein does the Sacrament of the Eucharist differ from that of Baptism, nay, even of grace before meat, when performed fervently and in faith? Here too Christ is present in the hearts of the faithful by blessing and grace. I see at present no other way of interpreting the text so as not to make the Sacrament a mere arbitrary 'memento,' but by an implied negative. In propriety, the word is confined to no portion of corporality in particular. "This (the bread and wine) are as truly my flesh and blood as the 'phaenomena' which you now behold and name as such."

Ib. s. ix. p. 429.

From this paragraph I conclude, though not without some perplexity, that by 'the body and blood verily and indeed taken,' we are not to understand body and blood in their limited sense, as contradistinguished from the soul or G.o.dhead of Christ, but as a 'periphrasis' for Christ himself, or at least Christ's humanity. Taylor, however, has misconstrued Phavorinus' meaning though not his words. 'Spiritualia eterna quoad spiritum.' But this is the very depth of the purified Platonic philosophy.

Ib. s. x. p. 430.

But because the words do perfectly declare our sense, and are owned publicly in our doctrine and manner of speaking, it will be in vain to object against us those words of the Fathers, which use the same expressions: for if by virtue of those words 'really,'

'substantially,' 'corporally,' 'verily and indeed,' and 'Christ's body and blood,' the Fathers shall be supposed to speak for Transubstantiation, they may as well suppose it to be our doctrine too; for we use the same words, and therefore those authorities must signify nothing against us, unless these words can he proved in them to signify more than our sense of them does import; and by this truth, many, very many of their pretences are evacuated.

A sophism, dearest Jeremy. We use the words because these early Fathers used them, and have forced our own definitions on them. But should we have chosen these words to express our opinion by, if there had been no controversy on the subject? But the Fathers chose and selected these words as the most obvious and natural.

Ib. s. xi. p. 431.

It is much insisted upou that it be inquired whether, when 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?' I answer, that I know none else that he had or hath: there is but one body of Christ natural and glorified.

This may be true, or at least intelligible, of Christ's humanity or personal ident.i.ty as [Greek: noaeton ti], but applied to the phenomenal flesh and blood, it is nonsense. For if every atom of the human frame be changed by succession in eleven or twelve years, the body born of the Virgin could not be the body crucified, much less the body crucified be the body glorified, spiritual and incorruptible. I construe the words of Clement of Alexandria, quoted by Taylor below, [17] literally, and they perfectly express my opinion; namely, that Christ, both in the inst.i.tution of the Eucharist and in the sixth chapter of John, spoke of his humanity as a 'noumenon,' not of the specific flesh and blood which were its 'phaenomena' at the last supper and on the cross. But Jeremy Taylor was a semi-materialist, and though no man better managed the logic of substance and accidents, he seems to have formed no clear metaphysical notion of their actual meaning. Taken notionally, they are mere interchangeable relations, as in concentric circles the outmost circ.u.mference is the substance, the other circles its accidents; but if I begin with the second and exclude the first from my thoughts, then this is substance and the interior ones accidents, and so on; but taken really, we mean the complex action of co-agents on our senses, and accident as only an agent acting on us. Thus we say, the beer has turned sour: sour is the accident of the substance beer. But, in fact, a new agent, oxygen, has united itself with other agents in the joint composition, the essence of which new comer is to be sour: at all events, Taylor's construction is a mere a.s.sertion, meaning no more than 'in this sense only can I subscribe to the words of Bertram, Jerome, and Clement.'

If a re-union of the Lutheran and English Churches with the Roman were desirable and practicable, the best way, [Greek: h_os emoige dokei,]

would be, that any remarkable number should offer union on a given profession of faith chiefly negative, as we protest against the authority of the Church in temporals; that the words agreed to by Beza and Espencoeus, on the part of the Reformers and Romanists respectively, at Poissy, used with implicit faith, shall suffice. 'Credimus in usu coentae Dominicae vere, reipsa, substantialiter, seu in substantia, verum corpus et sanguinem Christi spirituali et ineffabili modo esse, exhiberi, sumi a fidelibus communicantibus.'

Ib. s. in. p. 434.

The other Schoolman I am to reckon in this account, is Gabriel Biel.

Taylor should have informed the reader that Gabriel Biel is but the echo of Occam, and that both were ante-Lutheran Protestants in heart, and as far as they dared, in word likewise.

Ib. s. vi. p. 436.

So that if, according to the Casuists, especially of the Jesuits'

order, it be lawful to follow the opinion of any one probable doctor, here we have five good men and true, besides Occam, Ba.s.solis, and Mechior Camus, to acquit us from our search after this question in Scripture.

Taylor might have added Erasmus, who, in one of his letters, speaking of Oecolampadius's writings on the Eucharist, says '"ut seduci posse videantur etiam electi,"' and adds, that he should have embraced his interpretations, '"nisi obstaret consensus Ecclesiae;"' that is, Oecolampadius has convinced me, and I should avow my conviction, but for motives of personal prudence and regard for the public peace.

OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.

Ib. p. 436.

I cannot but think that the same mysterious truth, whatever it be, is referred to in the Eucharist and in this chapter of St. John; and I wonder that Taylor, who makes the Eucharist a spiritual sumption of Christ, should object to it. A = C and B = C, therefore A = B. [18]

Ib. s. iv. p. 440.

The error on both sides, Roman and Protestant, originates in the confusion of sign or figure with symbol, which latter is always an essential part of that, of the whole of which it is the representative.

Not seeing this, and therefore seeing no 'medium' between the whole thing and the mere metaphor of the thing, the Romanists took the former or positive pole of the error, the Protestants the latter or negative pole. The Eucharist is a symbolic, or solemnizing and 'totum in parte'

acting of an act, which in a true member of Christ's body is supposed to be perpetual. Thus the husband and wife exercise the duties of their marriage contract of love, protection, obedience, and the like, all the year long, and yet solemnize it by a more deliberate and reflecting act of the same love on the anniversary of their marriage.

Ib. s. ix p. 447-8.

That which neither can feel or be felt, see or be seen, move or be moved, change or be changed, neither do or suffer corporally, cannot certainly be eaten corporally; but so they affirm concerning the body of our blessed Lord; it cannot do or suffer corporally in the Sacrament, therefore it cannot be eaten corporally, any more than a man can chew a spirit, or eat a meditation, or swallow a syllogism into his belly.

Absurd as the doctrine of Transubstantiation may thus be made, yet Taylor here evidently confounds a spirit, 'ens realissimum,' with a mere notion or 'ens logic.u.m.' On this ground of the spirituality of all powers [Greek: donameis], it would not be difficult to evade many of Taylor's most plausible arguments. Enough, however, and more than enough would be left in their full force.

Ib. p. 448.

Besides this, I say this corporal union of our bodies to the body of G.o.d incarnate, which these great and witty dreamers dream of, would make man to be G.o.d.

But yet not G.o.d, nor absolutely. 'I am in my Father, even so ye are in me.'

Ib. s. xxii. p. 456.

By this time I hope I may conclude, that Transubstantiation is not taught by our blessed Lord in the sixth chapter of St. John: 'Johannes de tertia et Eucharistica caena nihil quidem scribit, eo quod caeteri tres Evangelistae ante ilium eam plene descripsissent.' They are the words of Stapleton and are good evidence against them.