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| Cæcilius, on the Sacrament of the Cup of the Lord.
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Epistle LXII.2663
| 2663
Oxford ed.: Ep. lxiii. a.d.
253. |
Cæcilius, on the Sacrament of the
Cup of the Lord.
Argument.—Cyprian Teaches, in Opposition to Those Who Used Water in
the Lord’s Supper, that Not Water Alone, But Wine Mixed with
Water, Was to Be Offered; That by Water Was Designated in Scripture,
Baptism, But Certainly Not the Eucharist. By Types Drawn from the
Old Testament, the Use of Wine in the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Body is Illustrated; And It is Declared that by the Symbol of Water is
Understood the Christian Congregation.
1. Cyprian to Cæcilius his brother,
greeting. Although I know, dearest brother, that very many
of the bishops who are set
over the churches of the Lord by divine condescension, throughout the
whole world, maintain the plan of evangelical truth, and of the
tradition of the Lord, and do not by human and novel institution depart
from that which Christ our Master both prescribed and did; yet since
some, either by ignorance or simplicity2664
| 2664
[A kindly rebuke of those Encratites who were called
Hydroparastatæ. Epiphan., iii. p. 9, ed.
Oehler.] | in sanctifying the cup of the Lord, and
in ministering to the people, do not do that which Jesus Christ, our
Lord and God, the founder and teacher of this sacrifice, did and
taught, I have thought it as well a religious as a necessary thing to
write to you this letter, that, if any one is still kept in this error,
he may behold the light of truth, and return to the root and origin of
the tradition of the Lord.2665
Nor must you think, dearest
brother, that I am writing my own thoughts or man’s; or that I am
boldly assuming this to myself of my own voluntary will, since I always
hold my mediocrity with lowly and modest moderation. But when
anything is prescribed by the inspiration and command of God, it is
necessary that a faithful servant should obey the Lord, acquitted by
all of assuming anything arrogantly to himself, seeing that he is
constrained to fear offending the Lord unless he does what he is
commanded.
2. Know then that I have been admonished
that, in offering the cup, the tradition of the Lord2666
must be observed, and that nothing must
be done by us but what the Lord first did on our behalf, as that the
cup which is offered in remembrance of Him should be offered mingled
with wine. For when Christ says, “I am the true
vine,”2667
the blood of
Christ is assuredly not water, but wine; neither can His blood by which
we are redeemed and quickened appear to be in the cup, when in the cup
there is no wine whereby the blood of Christ is shown forth, which is
declared by the sacrament and testimony of all the
Scriptures.
3. For we find in Genesis also, in respect of the
sacrament in Noe, this same thing was to them a precursor and figure of
the Lord’s passion; that he drank wine; that he was drunken; that
he was made naked in his household; that he was lying down with his
thighs naked and exposed; that the nakedness of the father was observed
by his second son, and was told abroad, but was covered by two, the
eldest and the youngest; and other matters which it is not necessary to
follow out, since this is enough for us to embrace alone, that Noe,
setting forth a type of the future truth, did not drink water, but
wine, and thus expressed the figure of the passion of the Lord.
4. Also in the priest Melchizedek we see
prefigured the sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord, according to
what divine Scripture testifies, and says, “And Melchizedek, king
of Salem, brought forth bread and wine.”2668
Now he was a priest of the most
high God, and blessed Abraham. And that Melchizedek bore a type
of Christ, the Holy Spirit declares in the Psalms, saying from the
person of the Father to the Son: “Before the morning star I
begat Thee; Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of
Melchizedek;”2669
which order is assuredly this coming
from that sacrifice and thence descending; that Melchizedek was a
priest of the most high God; that he offered wine and bread; that he
blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God
than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a sacrifice to God the Father,
and offered that very same thing which Melchizedek had offered, that
is, bread and wine, to wit, His body and blood? And with respect
to Abraham, that blessing going before belonged to our people.
For if Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted unto him for
righteousness, assuredly whosoever believes in God and lives in faith
is found righteous, and already is blessed in faithful Abraham, and is
set forth as justified; as the blessed Apostle Paul proves, when he
says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for
righteousness. Ye know, then, that they which are of faith, these
are the children of Abraham. But the Scripture, foreseeing that
God would justify the Gentiles through faith, pronounced before to
Abraham that all nations should be blessed in him; therefore they who
are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”2670
Whence in
the Gospel we find that “children of Abraham are raised from
stones, that is, are gathered from the Gentiles.”2671
And when
the Lord praised Zacchæus, He answered and said “This day is
salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of
Abraham.”2672
In
Genesis, therefore, that the benediction, in respect of Abraham by
Melchizedek the priest, might be duly celebrated, the figure of
Christ’s sacrifice precedes, namely, as ordained in bread and
wine; which thing the Lord, completing and fulfilling, offered bread
and the cup mixed with wine, and so He who is the fulness of truth
fulfilled the truth of the image prefigured.
5. Moreover the Holy Spirit by Solomon shows
before the type of the Lord’s sacrifice, making mention of the
immolated victim, and of the bread and wine, and, moreover, of the
altar and of the apostles, and says, “Wisdom hath builded her
house, she hath underlaid her seven pillars; she hath killed her
victims; she hath mingled her
wine in the chalice; she hath also furnished her table: and she
hath sent forth her servants, calling together with a lofty
announcement to her cup, saying, Whoso is simple, let him turn to me;
and to those that want understanding she hath said, Come, eat of my
bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for
you.”2673
He
declares the wine mingled, that is, he foretells with prophetic voice
the cup of the Lord mingled with water and wine, that it may appear
that that was done in our Lord’s passion which had been before
predicted.
6. In the blessing of Judah also this same
thing is signified, where there also is expressed a figure of Christ,
that He should have praise and worship from his brethren; that He
should press down the back of His enemies yielding and fleeing, with
the hands with which He bore the cross and conquered death; and that He
Himself is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and should couch sleeping in
His passion, and should rise up, and should Himself be the hope of the
Gentiles. To which things divine Scripture adds, and says,
“He shall wash His garment in wine, and His clothing in the blood
of the grape.”2674
But when the blood of the grape
is mentioned, what else is set forth than the wine of the cup of the
blood of the Lord?
7. In Isaiah also the Holy Spirit testifies
this same thing concerning the Lord’s passion, saying,
“Wherefore are Thy garments red, and Thy apparel as from the
treading of the wine-press full and well trodden?”2675
Can
water make garments red? or is it water in the wine-press which is
trodden by the feet, or pressed out by the press? Assuredly,
therefore, mention is made of wine, that the Lord’s blood may be
understood, and that which was afterwards manifested in the cup of the
Lord might be foretold by the prophets who announced it. The
treading also, and pressure of the wine-press, is repeatedly dwelt on;
because just as the drinking of wine cannot be attained to unless the
bunch of grapes be first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink
the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trampled upon and
pressed, and had first drunk the cup of which He should also give
believers to drink.
8. But as often as water is named alone in
the Holy Scriptures, baptism is referred to, as we see intimated in
Isaiah: “Remember not,” says he, “the former
things, and consider not the things of old. Behold, I will do a
new thing, which shall now spring forth; and ye shall know it. I
will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry place, to
give drink to my elected people, my people whom I have purchased, that
they might show forth my praise.”2676
There God foretold by the prophet,
that among the nations, in places which previously had been dry, rivers
should afterwards flow plenteously, and should provide water for the
elected people of God, that is, for those who were made sons of God by
the generation of baptism.2677
| 2677
[For a full view of all theories of election, see Faber, On
the Primitive Doctrine of Election, New York, ed. 1840.] | Moreover, it is again predicted
and foretold before, that the Jews, if they should thirst and seek
after Christ, should drink with us, that is, should attain the grace of
baptism. “If they shall thirst,” he says, “He
shall lead them through the deserts, shall bring forth water for them
out of the rock; the rock shall be cloven, and the water shall flow,
and my people shall drink;”2678
which is fulfilled in the Gospel, when
Christ, who is the Rock, is cloven by a stroke of the spear in His
passion; who also, admonishing what was before announced by the
prophet, cries and says, “If any man thirst, let him come and
drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture saith, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And that it
might be more evident that the Lord is speaking there, not of the cup,
but of baptism, the Scripture adds, saying, “But this spake He of
the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should
receive.”2679
For
by baptism the Holy Spirit is received; and thus by those who are
baptized, and have attained to the Holy Spirit, is attained the
drinking of the Lord’s cup. And let it disturb no one, that
when the divine Scripture speaks of baptism, it says that we thirst and
drink, since the Lord also in the Gospel says, “Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness;”2680
because what
is received with a greedy and thirsting desire is drunk more fully and
plentifully. As also, in another place, the Lord speaks to the
Samaritan woman, saying, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him, shall not thirst for ever.”2681
By which is also signified the
very baptism of saving water, which indeed is once received, and is not
again repeated. But the cup of the Lord is always both thirsted
for and drunk in the Church.
9. Nor is there need of very many arguments,
dearest brother, to prove that baptism is always indicated by the
appellation of water, and that thus we ought to understand it, since
the Lord, when He came, manifested the truth of baptism and the cup in
commanding that that faithful water, the water of life eternal, should
be given to believers in baptism, but, teaching by the example of His
own authority, that the cup should be mingled with a union of wine and
water.2682
| 2682
[See Justin, vol. i. p. 185, this series.] | For, taking the cup on the eve of
His passion, He blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying,
“Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood of the New Testament,
which shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins. I say
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until
that day in which I shall drink new wine with you in the kingdom of my
Father.”2683
In
which portion we find that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed,
and that that was wine which He called His blood. Whence it
appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if there be no wine in
the cup, nor the Lord’s sacrifice celebrated with a legitimate
consecration unless our oblation and sacrifice respond to His
passion. But how shall we drink the new wine of the fruit of the
vine with Christ in the kingdom of His Father, if in the sacrifice of
God the Father and of Christ we do not offer wine, nor mix the cup of
the Lord by the Lord’s own tradition?
10. Moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul,
chosen and sent by the Lord, and appointed a preacher of the Gospel
truth, lays down these very things in his epistle, saying, “The
Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and
when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is my body, which
shall be given for you: do this in remembrance of me. After
the same manner also He took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This
cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink
it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and
drink this cup, ye shall show forth the Lord’s death until He
come.”2684
But if
it is both enjoined by the Lord, and the same thing is confirmed and
delivered by His apostle, that as often as we drink, we do in
remembrance of the Lord the same thing which the Lord also did, we find
that what was commanded is not observed by us, unless we also do what
the Lord did; and that mixing the Lord’s cup in like manner we do
not depart from the divine teaching; but that we must not at all depart
from the evangelical precepts, and that disciples ought also to observe
and to do the same things which the Master both taught and did.
The blessed apostle in another place more earnestly and strongly
teaches, saying, “I wonder that ye are so soon removed from Him
that called you into grace, unto another gospel, which is not another;
but there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of
Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any
otherwise than that which we have preached to you, let him be
anathema. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man
preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be
anathema.”2685
11. Since, then, neither the apostle himself
nor an angel from heaven can preach or teach any otherwise than Christ
has once taught and His apostles have announced, I wonder very much
whence has originated this practice, that, contrary to evangelical and
apostolical discipline, water is offered in some places in the
Lord’s cup, which water by itself cannot express the blood of
Christ. The Holy Spirit also is not silent in the Psalms on the
sacrament of this thing, when He makes mention of the Lord’s cup,
and says, “Thy inebriating cup, how excellent it
is!”2686
Now the
cup which inebriates is assuredly mingled with wine, for water cannot
inebriate anybody. And the cup of the Lord in such wise
inebriates, as Noe also was intoxicated drinking wine, in
Genesis. But because the intoxication of the Lord’s cup and
blood is not such as is the intoxication of the world’s wine,
since the Holy Spirit said in the Psalm, “Thy inebriating
cup,” He added, “how excellent it is,” because
doubtless the Lord’s cup so inebriates them that drink, that it
makes them sober; that it restores their minds to spiritual wisdom;
that each one recovers from that flavour of the world to the
understanding of God; and in the same way, that by that common wine the
mind is dissolved, and the soul relaxed, and all sadness is laid aside,
so, when the blood of the Lord and the cup of salvation have been
drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there arises an
oblivion of the former worldly conversation, and the sorrowful and sad
breast which before was oppressed by tormenting sins is eased by the
joy of the divine mercy; because that only is able to rejoice him who
drinks in the Church which, when it is drunk, retains the Lord’s
truth.2687
| 2687
[A happy conception of the inebriation of the Spirit,
“where drinking largely sobers us
again.”] |
12. But how perverse and how contrary it is, that
although the Lord at the marriage made wine of water, we should make
water of wine, when even the sacrament of that thing ought to admonish
and instruct us rather to offer wine in the sacrifices of the
Lord. For because among the Jews there was a want of spiritual
grace, wine also was wanting. For the vineyard of the Lord of
hosts was the house of Israel; but Christ, when teaching and showing
that the people of the Gentiles should succeed them, and that by the
merit of faith we should subsequently attain to the place which the
Jews had lost, of water made wine; that is, He showed that at the
marriage of Christ and the Church, as the Jews failed, the people of
the nations should rather flow together and assemble: for the
divine Scripture in the Apocalypse declares that the waters signify the
people, saying, “The waters which thou sawest, upon which the
whore sitteth, are peoples and multitudes, and nations of the Gentiles,
and tongues,”2688
which we evidently see to be
contained also in the sacrament of the cup.
13. For because Christ bore us all, in that
He also bore our sins, we see that in the water is understood the
people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when
the water is mingled in the cup with wine, the people is made one with
Christ, and the assembly of believers is associated and conjoined with
Him on whom it believes; which association and conjunction of water and
wine is so mingled in the Lord’s cup, that that mixture cannot
any more be separated. Whence, moreover, nothing can separate the
Church—that is, the people established in the Church, faithfully
and firmly persevering in that which they have believed—from
Christ, in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always
abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup of
the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be
offered. For if any one offer wine only, the blood of Christ is
dissociated from us; but if the water be alone, the people are
dissociated from Christ; but when both are mingled, and are joined with
one another by a close union, there is completed a spiritual and
heavenly sacrament. Thus the cup of the Lord is not indeed water
alone, nor wine alone, unless each be mingled with the other; just as,
on the other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water
alone, unless both should be united and joined together and compacted
in the mass of one bread; in which very sacrament our people are shown
to be made one, so that in like manner as many grains, collected, and
ground, and mixed together into one mass, make one bread; so in Christ,
who is the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body, with
which our number is joined and united.2689
| 2689
[This figure, copied by St. Augustine (vol. v. p. 1247, ed. Migne), is
retained in the liturgy of the Reformed Dutch communion.] |
14. There is then no reason, dearest
brother, for any one to think that the custom of certain persons is to
be followed, who have thought in time past that water alone should be
offered in the cup of the Lord. For we must inquire whom they
themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ
offered none is to be followed but Christ, assuredly it behoves us to
obey and do that which Christ did, and what He commanded to be done,
since He Himself says in the Gospel, “If ye do whatsoever I
command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but
friends.”2690
And
that Christ alone ought to be heard, the Father also testifies from
heaven, saying, “This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased; hear ye Him.”2691
Wherefore, if Christ alone must be
heard, we ought not to give heed to what another before us may have
thought was to be done, but what Christ, who is before all, first
did. Neither is it becoming to follow the practice of man, but
the truth of God; since God speaks by Isaiah the prophet, and says,
“In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and
doctrines of men.”2692
And again the Lord in the Gospel
repeals this same saying, and says, “Ye reject the commandment of
God, that ye may keep your own tradition.”2693
Moreover, in another place He
establishes it, saying, “Whosoever shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in
the kingdom of heaven.”2694
But if we may not break even the
least of the Lord’s commandments, how much rather is it forbidden
to infringe such important ones, so great, so pertaining to the very
sacrament of our Lord’s passion and our own redemption, or to
change it by human tradition into anything else than what was divinely
appointed! For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the
chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a
sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in
commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the
office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then
offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when
he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to
have offered.
15. But the discipline of all religion and
truth is overturned, unless what is spiritually prescribed be
faithfully observed; unless indeed any one should fear in the morning
sacrifices,2695
| 2695
According to some texts is read here, “to offer wine, lest in the
morning hours, through the flavour of the wine, its smell should be
recognised by its fragrant odour by the perception of unbelievers, and
he should be known to be a Christian, since we commemorate the blood of
Christ in the oblation of wine.” [The heathen detected
Christians by this token when searching victims for the persecutor. | lest by the
taste of wine he should be redolent of the blood of Christ.
Therefore thus the brotherhood is beginning even to be kept back from
the passion of Christ in persecutions, by learning in the offerings to
be disturbed concerning His blood and His blood-shedding.
Moreover, however, the Lord says in the Gospel, “Whosoever shall
be ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be
ashamed.”2696
And the
apostle also speaks, saying, “If I pleased men, I should not be
the servant of Christ.”2697
But how can we shed our
blood for Christ, who blush to
drink the blood of Christ?
16. Does any one perchance flatter himself
with this notion, that although in the morning, water alone is seen to
be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer the mingled cup?
But when we sup, we cannot call the people together to our banquet, so
as to celebrate the truth of the sacrament in the presence of all the
brotherhood.2698
| 2698
[Much light is thrown on this by the Hebrew usages. See
Freeman, On the Principles of Divine Service, vol. ii. p.
293.] | But
still it was not in the morning, but after supper, that the Lord
offered the mingled cup. Ought we then to celebrate the
Lord’s cup after supper, that so by continual repetition of the
Lord’s supper2699
| 2699
“Frequentandis dominicis.” | we may offer the mingled cup? It
behoved Christ to offer about the evening of the day, that the very
hour of sacrifice might show the setting and the evening of the world;
as it is written in Exodus, “And all the people of the synagogue
of the children of Israel shall kill it in the evening.”2700
And again
in the Psalms, “Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening
sacrifice.”2701
But we
celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.
17. And because we make mention of His
passion in all sacrifices (for the Lord’s passion is the
sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do nothing else than what He
did. For Scripture says, “For as often as ye eat this bread
and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord’s death till He
come.”2702
As often,
therefore, as we offer the cup in commemoration of the Lord and of His
passion, let us do what it is known the Lord did. And let this
conclusion be reached, dearest brother: if from among our
predecessors any have either by ignorance or simplicity not observed
and kept this which the Lord by His example and teaching has instructed
us to do, he may, by the mercy of the Lord, have pardon granted to his
simplicity. But we cannot be pardoned who are now admonished and
instructed by the Lord to offer the cup of the Lord mingled with wine
according to what the Lord offered, and to direct letters to our
colleagues also about this, so that the evangelical law and the
Lord’s tradition may be everywhere kept, and there be no
departure from what Christ both taught and did.
18. To neglect these things any further, and
to persevere in the former error, what is it else than to fall under
the Lord’s rebuke, who in the psalm reproveth, and says,
“What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou
shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest
instruction and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a
thief, thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with
adulterers.”2703
For to declare the righteousness
and the covenant of the Lord, and not to do the same that the Lord did,
what else is it than to cast away His words and to despise the
Lord’s instruction, to commit not earthly, but spiritual thefts
and adulteries? While any one is stealing from evangelical truth
the words and doings of our Lord, he is corrupting and adulterating the
divine precepts, as it is written in Jeremiah. He says, “What is
the chaff to the wheat? Therefore, behold, I am against the
prophets, saith the Lord, who steal my words every one from his
neighbour, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their
lightness.”2704
| 2704
Jer. xxiii. 28, 30,
32. | Also
in the same prophet, in another place, He says, “She committed
adultery with stocks and stones, and yet for all this she turned not
unto me.”2705
That
this theft and adultery may not fall unto us also, we ought to be
anxiously careful, and fearfully and religiously to watch. For if
we are priests of God and of Christ, I do not know any one whom we
ought rather to follow than God and Christ, since He Himself
emphatically says in the Gospel, “I am the light of the world; he
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light
of life.”2706
Lest
therefore we should walk in darkness, we ought to follow Christ, and to
observe his precepts, because He Himself told His apostles in another
place, as He sent them forth, “All power is given unto me in
heaven and earth. Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you.”2707
Wherefore, if we wish to walk in
the light of Christ, let us not depart from His precepts and monitions,
giving thanks that, while He instructs for the future what we ought to
do, He pardons for the past wherein we in our simplicity have
erred. And because already His second coming draws near to us,
His benign and liberal condescension is more and more illuminating our
hearts with the light of truth.2708
| 2708 [A
very important monition that clearer light upon certain Scriptures may
break in as time unfolds their purpose. Phil. iii. 15.] |
19. Therefore it befits our religion, and our
fear, and the place itself, and the office of our priesthood, dearest
brother, in mixing and offering the cup of the Lord, to keep the truth
of the Lord’s tradition, and, on the warning of the Lord, to
correct that which seems with some to have been erroneous; so that when
He shall begin to come in His brightness and heavenly majesty, He may
find that we keep what He admonished us; that we observe what He
taught; that we do what He
did.2709
| 2709
[Even these minute maxims show that the spirit of the third
century was to adhere to the example of Christ and His Apostles.
This gives us confidence that no intentional innovations were
admitted.] | I bid
you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
