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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2021
In his refutation of Marcion, Tertullian argued that Marcion failed to appreciate that Christ, as figured, is present in the Old Testament. Marcion may have similarly denied the presence of Christ, as figured, in the Eucharist. This outcome is expressed in the eucharistic theology of the great eighteenth-century Anglican theologian, Samuel Clarke. Clarke is a harbinger of modern Marcionism because his Old Testament denigration is the product of his specifically Marcionite impulse to excise Christ from the Old Testament. And as he consistently applies this impulse to his eucharistic theology, his memorialism becomes another venue for him to transmit Marcionism to modernity.
David Ney is Associate Professor of Church History at the Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, PA, USA.
2 See Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), p. 2.
3 Voltaire tells the story that when Queen Caroline (1683–1737) wished to confer the see of Canterbury on Clarke, Bishop Gibson ‘informed her that Clarke was the wisest and most honest man in her kingdom, but that he lacked one qualification for the position: he was not a Christian!’ Michael Buckley, The Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 172; Voltaire, ‘Lettre VII’, in M. Beuchot (ed.), Oeuvres de Voltaire, vol. 22 (Paris, 1879), pp. 100-102. As late as 1727, Clarke was offered the see of Bangor, and Queen Caroline sent Prime Minister Walpole (1676–1745) to convince him to accept the post. Discussions were said to have extended well into the night, but Clarke insisted he would not accept preferment which required him to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles. James P. Ferguson, An Eighteenth-Century Heretic: Dr. Samuel Clarke (New York: Vantage Press, 1974), p. 209.
4 See Wesley Hill, ‘Andy Stanley’s Modern Marcionism’, First Things, available at: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/05/andy-stanleys-modern-marcionism; Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, ‘Marcion on the Elbe: A Defence of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture’, First Things, available at: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/12/marcion-on-the-elbe
5 For example, Joseph Tyson persists undeterred though he confesses that attempts to describe the text of Marcion’s Luke-Acts are speculative since ‘the document itself is no longer extant and our only references to it are from Marcion’s opponents’. Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), p. 40.
6 Erich Auerbach, Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Theory and History of Literature, 9; Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 29.
7 Auerbach, Scenes, p. 30.
8 Wilhite highlights inconsistencies in Tertullian’s approach in order to call into question his claim that Marcion was a docetist. David E. Wilhite, ‘Was Marcion a Docetist? The Body of Evidence vs. Tertullian’s Argument’, Vigiliae Christianae 71.1 (2017), pp. 1-36.
9 Stewart-Sykes maintains that Tertullian and Marcion would have shared the conviction that the bread and wine were figures of the body and blood of Christ. Seen in this light, Tertullian is appealing to Marcion to bring his theology into line with liturgical practice. Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ‘Bread and Fish, Water and Wine: The Marcionite Menu and the Maintenance of Purity’, in Gerhard May and Katharina Greschat (eds.), Marcion und seine kirchengeschichtliche Wirkung/Marcion and his Impact on Church History (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), pp. 207-20 (209-11).
10 Stewart-Sykes, ‘Bread and Fish’, pp. 12-27.
11 Tertullian, ‘On Prayer’, in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903), III, pp. 681-92 (687).
12 Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, in Roberts and Donaldson (eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, III, pp. 269-476 (418).
13 Tertullian, ‘A Treatise on the Soul’, in Roberts and Donaldson (eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, III, pp. 181-235 (230). Tertullian’s participatory view of the Eucharist should come as no surprise given that patristic theology was already oriented in this direction. For example, Ignatius sees the bread and wine as the flesh of Christ which grants immortality, and Irenaeus speaks of Christ being present at the Eucharist in power. For a helpful treatment of these and other early Christian writers, see Bryan D. Spinks, Do This in Remembrance of Me: The Eucharist from the Early Church to the Present Day (London: SCM, 2013), pp. 30-51.
14 Tertullian uses Old Testament figures throughout the five books of his work, but he focuses on them in a concerted way as his primary means of rescuing the Old Testament from Marcion’s grasp in Book III. Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, pp. 321-44.
15 Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, p. 337.
16 Tertullian, ‘Against Marcion’, p. 440.
17 Tertullian, ‘Against Marcion’, p. 453.
18 Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, p. 418.
19 Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, p. 418. Tertullian insists that though this mystery was not fully disclosed until Christ unveiled it for his disciples in the gospels, it is nonetheless present in Jeremiah’s text.
20 Adoph Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of an Alien God (ed. John E. Steely and Lyle D. Bierma; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1990), p. 94.
21 See Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), pp. 164-67.
22 McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, pp. 98-100.
23 McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, pp. 99, 166.
24 Stewart-Sykes, ‘Bread and Fish’, pp. 212-13, 214. Stewart-Sykes argues that while Ephrem regards Marcion’s view of Eucharistic presence to be underdeveloped, Marcion was probably representative of second-century Christians in this regard.
25 Stewart-Sykes, ‘Bread and Fish’, p. 213.
26 Tertullian, ‘The Five Books Against Marcion’, p. 285. For a helpful summary of Marcion’s theological logic, see Winrich Löhr, ‘Did Marcion Distinguish between a Just God and a Good God?’ in Gerhard May and Katharina Greschat (eds.), Marcion un seine kirchengeschichtliche Wikung/Marcion and his Impact on Church History (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), pp. 131-46.
27 See Gerard Reedy, The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and Scripture in Late Seventeenth-Century England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), pp. 113-17; Henning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 411-12; Adam Sucliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 32-41; Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 23; Diego Lucci, Scripture and Deism: The Biblical Criticism of the Eighteenth-century British Deists (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008), pp. 187-209; Guy Stromsa, A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 78-103.
28 Samuel Clarke, ‘Three Practical Essays, on Baptism, Confirmation, and Repentance’, in Benjamin Hoadly (ed.), The Works of Samuel Clarke, D.D., Late Rector of St. James’s Westminster (London, 1738), III, pp. 567-620 (595).
29 Samuel Clarke, ‘The Character of the Messiah’, in The Sermons of Samuel Clarke, D.D., (London, 1742), I, pp. 438-42 (441).
30 Samuel Clarke, ‘The End and Design of the Jewish Law’, in Benjamin Hoadly (ed.), The Works of Samuel Clarke, D.D., Late Rector of St. James’s Westminster (London, 1738), II, pp. 307-16 (312).
31 Samuel Clarke, ‘The Difference betwixt Living after the Flesh and after the Spirit’, in John Clarke (ed.), Sermons on Several Subjects by Samuel Clarke, D.D. (London, 1738), II, pp. 49-53 (51).
32 Clarke, ‘The End and Design of the Jewish Law’, p. 311.
33 See David Ney, ‘The Sensus Literalis and the Trinity in the English Enlightenment’, Pro Ecclesia 29.3 (2020), pp. 293-307.
34 Samuel Clarke, The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity (London, 1712), Preface; Edward Wells, A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Clarke (Oxford, 1713), pp. 3-4.
35 Essay towards an Impartial Account of the Trinity, and the Deity of our Saviour, as Contained in the Old Testament (London, 1712). Wells went on to write two other refutations of Clarke in 1713. Clarke worries that reliance on Patristic testimony causes Christians to refuse to think for themselves. Clarke is happy to appeal to the Fathers when it suits him, but his biblicism inhibits him from regarding their testimony as authoritative. The authoritative work on the Anglican appeal to antiquity is Jean-Louis Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity: The Construction of a Confessional Identity in the 17th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
36 Samuel Clarke, A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Wells, Rector of Cotesbach in Leicestershire (London, 1714), pp. 4-7.
37 James Knight, The True Scripture Doctrine of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity (London, 1715), p. 20.
38 Ferguson, An Eighteenth Century Heretic, p. 74. This suggests that Clarke holds, not only that the process of constructive theology is simply a matter of finding proof texts, but also that the true theological definition is the definition that lines up with the most proof texts. Clarke is driven to this peculiar conclusion because his epistemology and his hermeneutic make him unable to deal constructively with the diverse voices found within Scripture.
39 Clarke, The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 64; An Exposition of the Church-Catechism (Dublin, 1730), p. 38.
40 Tertullian, ‘On the Flesh of Christ’, in Roberts and Donaldson (eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, III, pp. 521-44 (533-34).
41 Knight, The True Scripture Doctrine, p. 21.
42 Knight, The True Scripture Doctrine, p. 20.
43 Benjamin Hoadly, A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (London, 2nd edn, 1735), p. 121. On Hoadly, see William Gibson, Enlightenment Prelate: Benjamin Hoadly, 1676–1761 (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2004).
44 For a brief discussion of Clarke’s influence upon Hoadly and subsequent Anglican tradition see Spinks, Do This in Remembrance of Me, pp. 341-42. Clarke’s departure point in his sacramental theology is the notion that sacraments are outward and visible signs which must be performed publicly in the hope that such obedience will help to produce inward and spiritual graces. See also Clarke, An Exposition of the Church-Catechism, p. 286.
45 Benjamin Hoadly, An Abridgement of A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (London, 1751), p. 45.
46 Clarke, ‘Three Practical Essays’, p. 588. As a rector in the Church of England, Clarke was naturally concerned with liturgical form. Pages 415-80 of his Scripture-Doctrine highlight many things that he finds offensive about the liturgy. In 1718 he edited a collection of psalms which omitted Trinitarian doxologies, and his personal prayer book, which was housed in the British Library after his death, had all of the Trinitarian renderings in the liturgy slashed through with violent strokes of the pen. Clarke’s prayer book was later to become the basis of Theophilus Lindsey’s The Book of Common Prayer Reformed According to the Plan of the Late Dr. Samuel Clarke (London, 1774). See David Ney, ‘The Genesis of the Unitarian Church and the Book of Common Prayer’, Anglican and Episcopal History 90.2 (2021), pp. 134-61.
47 Samuel Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design of the Holy Communion’, The Sermons of Samuel Clarke, D.D. (London, 5th edn, 1742), I, pp. 344-55 (344).
48 Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design’, p. 345.
49 Samuel Clarke, ‘A Paraphrase on the Gospel of St. Matthew’, A Paraphrase on the Four Evangelists (London, 5th edn, 1729), I, pp. 1-211 (187-88). Clarke puts this sentiment succinctly in his exposition of the catechism of the Book of Common Prayer: ‘As the Paschal Lamb was a Solemn Remembrance of the Deliverance out of Egypt, so the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a Thankful Commemoration of the great Redemption purchased by Christ.’ Clarke, An Exposition of the Church-Catechism, p. 303.
50 Clarke’s belief that figures are ornamental is an ancient one. Although Clarke embraced it thanks to the guidance of his associate, John Locke, Locke had picked it up from Aristotle. Stefan Forrester, ‘Theories of Metaphor in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy’, Literature Compass 7.8 (2011), pp. 610-25 (611). In his famous Essay on Human Understanding, Locke had suggested that achieving precision of reference meant letting go of the terms allegory, typology, and figure in favor of the term metaphor. For Locke, the term metaphor is to be preferred because it signals that comparisons between distinct entities are linguistic ornaments. Locke concedes that in discourses ‘where we seek rather pleasure and delight, than information and improvement, such ornaments … can scarce pass for faults’. Yet for Locke, even with such a recognition the danger isn’t entirely abated, for speakers, in their carnality, are inclined to depart from proper ornamental use, failing to grasp that ‘if we would speak of things as they are we must allow, that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgement, and so, indeed, are perfect cheats’. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, 5th edn, 1706), Book 3, p. 372. Hans Frei suggests that Locke’s scriptural hermeneutic cuts the cord between ontology and signification. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 101.
51 Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design’, p. 348.
52 Ephraim Radner, Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), p. 54.
53 Origen, Treatise on the Passover and Dialogue of Origen with Heraclides and his Fellow Bishops on the Father, the Son, and the Soul (ed. Wakter J. Burghard et al.; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1992), p. 28.
54 Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design’, p. 354.
55 Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design’, p. 350.
56 They failed to note that the Christian religion ‘Now consists not in such outward and ceremonial parts of Worship, whose observance was difficult and their signification oft-times obscure’, and thereby fail to appreciate that God is a Spirit and that ‘they that will worship him acceptably, must worship him in Spirit and in Truth’. Clarke, ‘The Nature, End and Design’, p. 345.
57 Clarke, ‘Three Practical Essays’, p. 596.
58 Clarke, ‘The End and Design of the Jewish Law’, p. 313.
59 Clarke, ‘The End and Design of the Jewish Law’, p. 345.
60 Samuel Clarke, ‘Of the Nature of Moral and Positive Duties’, The Sermons of Samuel Clarke, D.D. (London, 5th edn, 1742), I, pp. 704-709 (708-709). See Daniel Waterland, ‘Remarks upon Dr. Clarke’s Exposition of the Church Catechism’, in William Van Mildert (ed.), The Works of Daniel Waterland, D.D. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1823), V, pp. 371-430 (424).
61 William Van Mildert, ‘Review of the Author’s Life and Writings’, in Van Mildert (ed.), The Works of Daniel Waterland, I, Part 1, pp. 1-348 (191).
62 Daniel Waterland, ‘The Nature, Obligation, and Efficacy of the Christian Sacraments Considered’, in Van Mildert (ed.), The Works of Daniel Waterland, V, pp. 431-96 (451).
63 For a still compelling treatment of the relationship between the rise of spiritualism and the denigration of the Old Testament see Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible. Ephraim Radner, A Profound Ignorance: Modern Pneumatology and its Anti-Modern Redemption (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019) incisively narrates the distinctly pneumatological aspect of this early modern shift.