him with our hearing, and to ruminate on him with our understanding, and to digest him by faith].18 And in the early third century, Clement of Alexandria offers a vivid sense of the Eucarist as a kind of immanent sign, a figure that makes use of the capacity of the flesh itself to serve as a site of representation: “σἀϱϰα ἡμῖν τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἀλληγοϱεῖ· ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὑπ' αὑτοῦ δεδημιοὺϱγηται ἡ σἀϱξ· Aἷμα ἡμῖν τὸν Λόγον αἰνίττεται· ϰαὶ γὰϱ ώς αἷμα πλούσιον ὁ Λόγος ἑπιϰέχυται τῷ βίω” [The Spirit uses flesh as an allegory for us; for by him was the flesh created. Blood signifies through a veil the Word for us, for as rich blood the Word has been poured forth into our life].19 Clement’s use of “σάϱϰα,” whose carnal connotations are akin to “meat,” to describe the embodiment of spiritual ideas, locates in corporeal flesh the function of representing divine interventions into the world. In a later passage from the same treatise, Clement returns to the same terminology to elaborate on the ways in which the particular enfleshed signs of the sacrament manifest not only the body of Christ, but the abstract meaning of sacramental worship:
Διττὸν δὲ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Κυϱίου· τὸ μὲν γὰϱ ἐστιν αὐτοῦ σαϱϰιϰόν, ᾧ τῆς ϕθοϱᾶς λελυτϱώμεθα, τὸ δὲ πνευματιϰὸν, τοῦτ' ἔστιν ᾧ ϰεχϱίσμεθα. Kαί τοῦτ' ἔστι πιεῖν τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, τῆς ϰυϱιαϰῆς μεταλαβεῖν ἀφθαϱσίας· ἰσχὺς δὲ τοῦ λόγου τὸ πνεῦμα, ὡς αἷμα σαϱϰός. Ἁναλόγως τοίνυν ϰίϱναται ὁ μὲν οἶνος τῷ ὕδατι, τῷ δὲ ἀνθϱώπῳ τὸ πνεῦμα, ϰαὶ τὸ μὲν εἰς πίστιν εὐωχεῖ, τὸ ϰϱᾶμα, τὸ δὲ εἰς ἀφθαϱσίαν ὁδηγεῖ, τὸ πνεῦμα, ἡ δὲ ἀμφοῖν αὖθις ϰϱᾶσις ποτοῦ τε ϰαὶ λόγου εὐχαϱιστία ϰἐϰληται, χὰϱις ἐπαινουμἐνη ϰαὶ ϰαλή, ἧς οἱ ϰατὰ πίστιν μεταλαμβὰνοντες ἀγιάζονται ϰαὶ σῶμα ϰαὶ ψυχήν, τὸ θεῖον ϰϱᾶμα τὸν ἄνθϱωπον τοῦ πατϱιϰοῦ βουλήματος πνεύματι ϰαὶ λόγῳ συγϰιϱνάντος μυστιϰῶς· ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὡς ἀληθῶς μὲν τὸ πνεῦμα ᾠϰείωται τῇ ὑπ' αὑτοῦ ϕεϱομένῃ ψυχῇ, ἡ δὲ σὰϱξ τῷ λόγῳ, δι' ἣν ὁ λόγος γἐγονεν σὰϱξ.
[The blood of the Lord is double in nature. In one sense it is fleshly, that by which we have been redeemed from destruction. In another sense it is spiritual, that by which we have been anointed. To drink the blood of Jesus is to share in the Lord’s immortality; and the force of the Word is the Spirit, as the blood of the flesh. Thus as wine is mixed with water, just so is the Spirit mixed with man; the one, the mixture, quenches us to faith, and the other, the spirit, leads us to immortality; the mingling of both—of the drink and the Word—is called the Eucharist … and those who partake of it with faith are sanctified in both body and soul…. For truly the Spirit cleaves to the soul that is moved by it, and the flesh to the Word, for which purpose the Word became flesh.]20
Clement’s reading exemplifies the interdependence of figuration and corporeality in the sacrament. He identifies the different senses by which the Eucharist manifests the divine as physical and spiritual, and argues that the partaker experiences a transformation in both body and soul. That is to say, Clement, like other early thinkers about the Eucharist, views the sacrament as both a fleshly and a referential event, signifying both in the drink and the word.
Though these early Christian writers tend to display a notable, almost programmatic, reserve regarding the operation of the Eucharist, preferring mystery to speculation on the precise mode of sacramental physics, their commentary consistently recognizes the special significative status of the eucharistic elements. The ritual has ever been understood as a ceremony deeply invested in representation, and historical divisions in eucharistic theology arise precisely over questions of signification—that is, of how a sign manifests meaning. And while the variety of opinion on the manner and mode of signification in the sacrament dispels any illusion that Christianity enjoyed, even long before the Reformation, a monolithic and uncomplicated understanding of the rite, much of the diversity of opinion from the early medieval church through the era of Reformation can be traced to the competing influences of Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo.21 In his fourth-century treatise on the Eucharist, De sacramentis, Ambrose emphasizes the identity of sign and signified as the sacrament’s primary event: “Ergo, tibi ut respondeam, non erat corpus Christi ante consecrationem, sed post consecrationem dico tibi quia iam corpus est Christi. Ipse dixit et factum est, ipse mandauit et creatum est” [Thus, so that I answer you, there was no body of Christ before the consecration, but after the consecration I say to you that there is now the body of Christ. He himself said it and it is done; he himself commanded and it is established].22
Ambrose commits his understanding of the Eucharist to a kind of hermeneutic certainty, in which the sign is secured to its signified: the ritual elements are substantially identical to the body of Christ, the words of institution are identical to their accomplishment. But writing as a rough contemporary to Ambrose, Augustine proposes a formulation of the ritual that allows for a degree of referentiality, the sign indicating its signified as a figure or metaphor, as when he recalls that the Last Supper was a festive event “in quo corporis et sanguinis sui figuram discipluis commendavit et tradidit” [in which he delivered and entrusted to his disciples the figure of his body and blood].23 In his De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine elaborates on his use of the term “figuram” to describe the sacramental event:
Si praeceptiva locution est aut flagitium aut facinus vetans, aut utilitatem aut beneficentiam jubens, non est figurate. Si autem flagitium aut facinus videtur jubere, aut utilitatem aut beneficentiam vetare, figurate est. Nisi manducaveritis, inquit, carnem filii hominis, et sanguine biberitis, non habebitis vitam in vobis (Joan. VI, 54). Facinus vel flagitium videtur jubere: figura est ergo, praecipiens passione dominicae communicandum, et suaviter atque utiliter recondendum in memoria quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit. [If a commandment prohibits that which is shameful or villainous, or orders what is useful or beneficial, it is not figurative. But if it seems to order what is shameful or villanous, or to prohibit what is useful or beneficial, it is figurative. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, scripture says, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you (John 6.54). This seems to order what is villainous or shameful: it is a figure, therefore, commanding communion in the passion of the Lord, and that there is to be a sweet and useful recollection in the memory that for us his flesh was crucified and wounded.]24
Here, Augustine foregrounds the referential qualities of the sacramental rite, designed to activate in the worshipper an awareness of sacrifice and mercy. And yet this figure is distinct from other kinds of signs because of the ways in which it commands “communicandum”—both communication and communion together—a representational and experiential sharing in Christ’s passion that is unavailable in other signs. Indeed, Augustine argues, “Diximus enim, fraters, hoc Dominum commendasse in manducatione carnis suae et potatione sanguinis sui, ut in illo maneamus, et ipse in nobis” [We have said, brothers,
