Scriptural Mormonism: Adam Clarke on "This is My Body"/"This is My Blood"

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Adam Clarke on "This is My Body"/"This is My Blood"

But let it be observed, that in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Chaldeo-Syriac languages there is no term which expresses to mean, signify, denote, though both the Greek and Latin abound with them: hence the Hebrews use a figure, and say, It is, for it signifies. So Gen. xli, 26, 27, The seven kine ARE (i.e., represent) seven years. This is (represents) the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Dan. vii, 24, The ten horns ARE (i.e., signify) ten kings. They drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock was (represented) Christ, 1 Cor. x, 4. And following this Hebrew idiom, though the work is written in Greek, we find, in Rev. i, 20, the seven stars ARE (represent) the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks ARE (represent) the seven churches. The same form of speech is used in a variety of places in the New Testament, where this sense must necessarily be given to the world. Matt. xiii, 38, 39. The field IS (represents) the world: the good seed ARE (represent, signify) the children of the kingdom: the tares ARE (signify) the children of the wicked one. The enemy IS (signifies) the devil: the harvest IS (represents) the end of the world: the reapers ARE (i.e., signify) the angels, Luke viii, 9. What might this parable BE? τις ΕΙΗ η παραβολη αυτη; what does this parable SIGNIFY? John vii, 37, τις ΕΣΤΙΝ ουτος ο λογος; what is the SIGNIFICATION of this saying? John x, 6. They understood not what things they WERE, τινα ΗΝ, what was the SIGNIFICATION of the things he had spoken to them. Acts x, 17, τι αν ΕΙΗ το οραμα, what this vision MIGHT BE; properly rendered by our translators, what this vision should MEAN. Gal. iv, 24, For these ARE the two covenants: αυται γαρ ΕΙΣΙΝ αι δυο διαθηκαι, these SIGNIFY the two covenants. Luke xv, 26, He asked, τι ΕΙΗ ταυτα, what these things MEANT: see also chap. xviii, 36. After such unequivocal testimony from the sacred writings, can any person doubt that, this bread IS my body, has any other meaning that, this REPRESENTS my body? (Adam Clarke, A Discourse on the Nature and Design of the Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper [New York: G. Lane & P. P. Sandford, 1842], 64-65, emphasis in original)