profound, and are so written that one who is not content with
CHAP. XXI.] EX.UrPLES FEOM AMCPOSE AND CYPrJAX. 13 O of any ornaments such as appear in the passages just quoted, it cannot be called anything but powerful : " Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest
I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am ; for I am as ye are : ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected ; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ
Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of ? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out" your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth ? They zealously affect you, but not well ; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you^ I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice ; for I stand in doubt of you."^ Is there anything here of contrasted words arranged antithetically, or of words rising gradually to a climax, or of sonorous clauses, and sections, and periods ?
Yet, notwithstanding, there is a glow of strong emotion that makes us feel the fervour of eloquence.
CiiAP. XXI. Examples of the various styles, drawn from the teachers of the
Church, esjjecially Ambrose and Cyprian.
45. But these writings of the apostles, though clear, are yet profound, and are so written that one who is not content with a superficial acquaintance, but desii^es to know them thoroughly, must not only read and hear them, but must have an expositor. Let us, then, study these various modes of speech as they are exemplified in the writings of men who, by reading tlie Scriptures, have attained to the knowledge of divine and saving truth, and have ministered it to the Church. Cyprian of blessed memory Avrites in the subdued style in his treatise on the sacrament of the cup. In this book he resolves the question, whether tlie cup of the Lord ought to contain water only, or water mingled with wine. But we must quote a passage
1 Gal. iv. 10-20.
15G ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK IV.
by way of illustration. After the customary introduction, he proceeds to the discussion of the point in question. " Observe," he says, "that wc are instructed, in presenting the cup, to maintain the custom handed down to us from the Lord, and to do nothing that our Lord has not first done for us : so that the cup which is offered in remembrance of Him should be mixed with wine. For, as Christ says, ' I am the true vine ,' ^ it follows that the blood of Christ is wine, not water ; and the cup cannot appear to contain His blood by which we are redeemed and quickened, if the wine be absent ; for by the wine is the blood of Christ typified, that blood which is foreshadowed and proclaimed in all the types and declarations of Scripture. For we find that in the book of Genesis this very circumstance in regard to the sacrament is foreshadowed, and our Lord's sufferings typically set forth, in the case of Xoah, when he drank wine, and was drunken, and was uncovered within his tent, and his nakedness was exposed by his second son, and was carefully hidden by his elder and his younger sons." It is not necessary to mention the other circumstances in detail, as it is only necessary to observe this point, that Noah, foreshadowing the future reality, drank, not water, but wine, and thus showed forth our Lord's passion. In the same way we see the sacrament of the Lord s supper prefigured in the case of Melchizedek the priest, according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, where it says : * And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine : and he was the priest of the most high
God. And he blessed Abraham.'^ Kow, that !Melchizedek was a type of Christ, the Holy S])irit declares in the_rsabns, where the Father addressing the Son says, * Thou art a priest for ever after the order of ^lelchizedek.'^ " ^ In this passage, and in all of the letter that follows, the subdued style is maintained, as the reader may easily satisfy himself.
4G. St. Aml)rose also, though dealing with a question of very great importance, the equality of the Holy Spirit with the
Father and the Son, employs the subdued style, because the oljject he has in view demands, not beauty of diction, nor the swaying of the mind by the stir of emotion, but facts and
John XV. 1. » G.-n. ix. 20-24. ' Gen. xiv. IS, 19.
Tb. ex. i. ^ Ad Ccecilium, E;). G3. 1, 2.