of the Primitive Church. These authorities of the Eastern Fathers shall be fortified, by three of the Western Churches of famous memory. The first is Tertullian, who wrote in the beginning of the third; the others are St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and Gelasius the First, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. Tertullian reports, contra Marcion, "that our Saviour by what he calls his body in the Holy Eucharist meant the symbol representation of his body. Corpus meum, hoc est figura corporis mei." St. Augustine lays down the following rule as a maxim for interpreting Scripture. "If the text," says he, "forbids something that is wicked and flagitious, and commands what is serviceable and beneficial, then the precept is to be literally understood; but if it seems to command a wicked action, and forbid a good one, then it is a figurative expression." And to apply and illustrate this maxim, he instances the text in St. John's Gospel, chap. vi. urged sometimes in proof of the corporal presence, "Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." "Here something very ill and inhuman seems commanded, therefore the place has a figurative meaning. The sense is, that we ought gratefully to recollect our Saviour's passion and entertain our memory with the contemplation, that his flesh has been crucified and wounded for us." His words are "figura est ergo prsecipica passioni ejus esse communicandum et suaviter et utiliter in memoria recollendum, quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit." Augus. De Doct. Christiana. Lib. iii. cap. 15. And in the same book he expressly pronounces, "That it is not really and strictly speaking our Saviour's body, which will not continue with him to all eternity."
