O Amazing Mystery!
Clement of Alexandria's teaching on the mystery of Holy Communion.
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh.”
–1 Corinthians 3:1-3
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, “Saint Clément, évêque d'Alexandrie” (c. 1842). Louvre, France. Oil on canvas.
One of the strongest historical cases against a real physical Presence is spoken by Catechetical schoolmaster and Church father, Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215 AD). He very emphatically forwards the principle that the flesh and blood of Christ, spoken of in John 6, is “figurative” and “metaphorical”, and argues that Communion is not the physical body and blood of Christ, but compares it to the same metaphorical ‘substance’ as, what Peter and Paul call, “spiritual milk” (1 Peter 2:2; 1 Corinthians 3:2). Here is a rather long excerpt—take a look:
How then are we not to regard the apostle as attaching this sense to the milk of the babes? And if we who preside over the Churches are shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you the sheep, are we not to regard the Lord as preserving consistency in the use of figurative speech, when He speaks also of the milk of the flock? And to this meaning we may secondly accommodate the expression, “I have given you milk to drink, and not given you food, for you are not yet able,” regarding the meat [food] not as something different from the milk, but the same in substance. For the very same Word is fluid and mild as milk, or solid and compact as meat [food]. And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind. Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat my flesh, and drink my blood;” [John 6:34] describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both — of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle.
“Eat my flesh,” He says, “and drink my blood.” [John 6:53-54] Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and He offers His flesh and pours forth His blood, and nothing is wanting for the children's growth. O amazing mystery! We are enjoined to cast off the old and carnal corruption, as also the old nutriment, receiving in exchange another new regimen, that of Christ, receiving Him if we can, to hide Him within; and that, enshrining the Saviour in our souls, we may correct the affections of our flesh.
But you are not inclined to understand it thus, but perchance more generally. Hear it also in the following way. The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit; for the flesh was created by Him. The blood points out to us the Word, for as rich blood the Word has been infused into life; and the union of both is the Lord, the food of the babes — the Lord who is Spirit and Word. The food — that is, the Lord Jesus — that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh, the heavenly flesh sanctified. The nutriment is the milk of the Father, by which alone we infants are nourished. The Word Himself, then, the beloved One, and our nourisher, has shed His own blood for us, to save humanity; and by Him, we, believing on God, flee to the Word, “the care-soothing breast” of the Father. And He alone, as is befitting, supplies us children with the milk of love, and those only are truly blessed who suck this breast…. And since the Word is the gushing fountain of life, and has been called a river of olive oil, Paul, using appropriate figurative language, and calling Him milk, adds: “I have given you to drink;” [1 Corinthians 3:2] for we drink in the Word, the nutriment of the truth. In truth, also liquid food is called drink; and the same thing may somehow be both meat and drink, according to the different aspects in which it is considered, just as cheese is the solidification of milk or milk solidified; for I am not concerned here to make a nice selection of an expression, only to say that one substance supplies both articles of food. Besides, for children at the breast, milk alone suffices; it serves both for meat and drink. “I,” says the Lord, “have meat to eat that you know not of. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” [John 4:32-34] You see another kind of food which, similarly with milk, represents figuratively the will of God. Besides, also, the completion of His own passion He called catachrestically “a cup,” when He alone had to drink and drain it. Thus to Christ the fulfilling of His Father's will was food; and to us infants, who drink the milk of the Word of the heavens, Christ Himself is food. Hence seeking is called sucking; for to those babes that seek the Word, the Father's breasts of love supply milk.
Further, the Word declares Himself to be the bread of heaven. “For Moses,” He says, “gave you not that bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He that comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world. And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Here is to be noted the mystery of the bread, inasmuch as He speaks of it as flesh, and as flesh, consequently, that has risen through fire, as the wheat springs up from decay and germination; and, in truth, it has risen through fire for the joy of the Church, as bread baked. But this will be shown by and by more clearly in the chapter on the resurrection. But since He said, And the bread which I will give is My flesh, and since flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively termed wine, we are bidden to know that, as bread, crumbled into a mixture of wine and water, seizes on the wine and leaves the watery portion, so also the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven absorbs the blood; that is, those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them up to immortality, and leaving only to destruction the lusts of the flesh.
Thus in many ways the Word is figuratively described, as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord is all these, to give enjoyment to us who have believed on Him. Let no one then think it strange, when we say that the Lord's blood is figuratively represented as milk. For is it not figuratively represented as wine? Who washes, it is said, His garment in wine, His robe in the blood of the grape. [Genesis 49:11] In His own Spirit He says He will deck the body of the Word; as certainly by His own Spirit He will nourish those who hunger for the Word.
And that the blood is the Word, is testified by the blood of Abel, the righteous interceding with God. For the blood would never have uttered a voice, had it not been regarded as the Word: for the righteous man of old is the type of the new righteous one; and the blood of old that interceded, intercedes in the place of the new blood. And the blood that is the Word cries to God, since it intimated that the Word was to suffer.
Wherefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says mystically, I have given you milk to drink. [1 Corinthians 3:2] For if we have been regenerated unto Christ, He who has regenerated us nourishes us with His own milk, the Word; for it is proper that what has procreated should immediately supply nourishment to that which has been procreated. And as the regeneration was conformably spiritual, so also was the nutriment of man spiritual. In all respects, therefore, and in all things, we are brought into union with Christ, into relationship through His blood, by which we are redeemed; and into sympathy, in consequence of the nourishment which flows from the Word; and into immortality, through His guidance.
The same blood and milk of the Lord is therefore the symbol of the Lord's passion and teaching.
– Clement of Alexandria (The Paedagogus, Book I, Chapter 6)
It is God, the Spirit of Christ, the Word, who is life. The Word, then, according to Clement, is the mystical substance “figuratively described, as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk”. All physical substances are symbols, metaphors, and figures of speech of spiritual nourishment and aliveness—the Word is the substance, and the Spirit is the nourishment which flows from the Word. The wine and blood points out to us the Word, for life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14), as typified by Abel’s blood crying out to God from the ground. Therefore, the blood, which is the Word, is the substance of both milk and wine, as drinkable properties of faith and hope. This is intensely spiritual.
André Thevet, “Clement of Alexandria,” From book 1, folio 5 recto, Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres grecz, latins et payens (c. 1584).
That said, notice also that Clement does not argue Communion is a mere memorial service either, to do such in remembrance of Him only (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25). He equates the Lord speaking through the apostle, “I have given you milk to drink” as “mystical”, arguing that spiritual milk is the same substance as the bread [food, meat, flesh] and wine [milk], and he praises Communion, “O amazing mystery!” and calls Christ’s heavenly flesh “the mystery of the bread”. A reminder is not mysterious. A memorial is not mystical. It is the opposite. It is anti-mystery. Knowledge dispels revelation (1 Corinthians 13:2). We all know that a true metaphor is not actual, and should no be taken literally lest folly brew. But a mystery is, indeed, actuality yet revealed. And is the Christian faith not a deposit of great mysteries? For somehow “The food — that is, the Lord Jesus — that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh, the heavenly flesh sanctified” is the substance. To Clement, the body and the blood, the bread and the wine, is of the Word. We eat and drink the Word.
It seems quite evident, to me at least, that Clement does not dogmatically hold to a metaphysical position such as transubstantiation or corporeal Presence, but affirms in heavenly mystery a real spiritual Presence of sorts, however mystical or veiled. He is concerned with the ascension of Christ’s sanctified flesh in the spirit. I find this especially noteworthy given that all of Christendom was celebrating a feast in his honour every fourth of December, and yet seventy years after the Protestant Reformation in 1586 he was de-canonized as a Saint by Pope Sixtus V in Western Catholicism only during Rome’s Counter-Reformation (1545-1648) for holding a number of precarious views—he is still regarded as a Saint in the Eastern Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and in other Christians sects, too—and I don’t think that’s a coincidence, albeit speculative, given the radical depart from Roman Eucharistic dogma espoused by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin not soon after the Reformation, which was not too different from Clement’s teachings. This also means, if I understand Catholic doctrine correctly, the laity and clergy at that time were venerating and praying to Clement until his Papal disappointment. A bit strange, if you ask me, to pray to a person your whole life only to find out he may not be saved.
Be that as it may, Clement believed in the amazing mysteries of Communion—the Word becoming flesh, the Holy Spirit indwelling believers, the bodily ascension of Christ—the flesh and blood sacrificed as the bread and wine sanctified. His views are a healthy reminder on retaining the mystery of the faith, despite our personal opinions.
Matlock Bobechko | October 19, 2023 – 9:00 AM EST
Notes
As a side note worth considering, in The Paedagogus Clement attributes so many maternal aspects to God the Father that sound far more befitting of Mary. If indeed Marian devotion was as ancient and apostolic as Roman Catholicism claims, then it is very surprising that he doesn’t mention Mary at all in his discourse. The opportunity to enunciate her radiance and beauty as the “Queen of Heaven” and celestial intercessor and distributor of Christ’s grace and propitiation through her motherly milk, as the co-mediator and co-redeemer in our salvation, is right there.
The nutriment is the milk of the Father, by which alone we infants are nourished. The Word Himself, then, the beloved One, and our nourisher, has shed His own blood for us, to save humanity; and by Him, we, believing on God, flee to the Word, “the care-soothing breast” of the Father. And He alone, as is befitting, supplies us children with the milk of love, and those only are truly blessed who suck this breast…. Hence seeking is called sucking; for to those babes that seek the Word, the Father's breasts of love supply milk.
So why doesn’t he? Why attribute “the care-soothing breast” to God the Father and not the Mother of God, if Marian devotion was truly apostolic? Seems odd.
Food for thought.
It’s always encouraging to learn the diversity of thought from the church fathers. Extra-biblical dogmatics have robbed a lot of this from the church. And interesting point about the reformation response.