(44) For thou canst not say (when thou dost handle the blessed Bread) Here I hold the Body of Christ in my Hand, I can feel and taste it: No, my Friend, the outward is earthly Bread, from the outward Element; and the Incomprehensible in the holy Element is the Body of Christ, which (in this his Covenant and Testament) is offered to thee under the outward Bread, and that [Body] thy new Man receives; and the old [Man receives] the Bread; and so it is with the Wine.

(1) It is now, however, time for me to pass on to the next doubt which you propose, viz. “ Why it is requisite that the inspector [who presides over sacred rites] ought not to touch a dead body, though most sacred operations are performed through dead bodies? ” Again, therefore, that we may dissolve this doubt, we shall direct our attention to this apparent opposition; for there is not in reality any, but these things alone seem to subsist contrarily. For if the laws of sacred rites ordered that the same dead bodies should not be touched and should be touched, this would be a thing contrary to itself. But if they order that some dead bodies should be abstained from as impure, but that others which are consecrated should be touched, this is not attended with any contrariety. Farther still, it is not lawful to touch human bodies when the soul has left them, since a certain vestige, image, or representation of divine life is extinguished in the body by death. But it is no longer unholy to touch other dead bodies, because they did not [when living] participate of a more divine life. To other Gods, therefore, who are pure from matter, our not touching dead bodies is adapted; but to those Gods who preside over animals, and are proximately connected with them, invocation through animals is properly made. According to this, therefore, no contrariety takes place.

(7) Now if the Soul eats of the clear Deity, what [Food] has the Body then? For thou knowest that the Soul and the Body are not one and the same Thing; it is indeed a [very] Body, but the Soul is a Spirit, and must have spiritual Food, and the Body must have bodily Food. Or wilt thou give the new Man earthly Food? If thou meanest so, thou art yet far from the Kingdom of God. The heavenly Body of Christ did not eat earthly Food, but the outward Body only did eat that. Is not Christ's Body now in the tholy Ternary, and eats paradisical Food? Why then shall not our new Man do so? Did he not eat heavenly Food forty Days in the Wilderness, and always afterwards? And did he not tell his Disciples at Jacob's Well, / have Meat to eat that ye know not of; and further, It is my Meat to do the Will of my Father which is in Heaven? Is the Will of God his Food, why then is it not ours, if we live in him? Has not the Deity of Christ put on the Kingdom of Heaven for a Body? Is not the pure Element (wherein the Deity dwells) his Body?

(43) Not that the Holy is changed into the Outward, that thou shouldst say (of the Bread which thou eatest with the outward Mouth, and also the Wine) that the outward is the Flesh and Blood of Christ; No, but it is the Chest, and yet it cannot be comprehended or inclosed by the Chest, as this World cannot comprehend the Body of Christ in the holy Element, or as our outward Body cannot comprehend the inward new [Body] of the Soul. Also the first Supper of Christ teaches you this, when Christ sat with them at Table, and gave them his holy hidden Body and Blood to eat and drink (after a peculiar Manner) under Bread and Wine.

(13) Now thou wilt say, What did Christ give to his Disciples in his last Supper, when he sat with them at Table? Behold, the Deity is not comprehensible [or circumscriptive,] and the holy Body of Christ is also not measurable, it is creaturely indeed, but not measurable; he gave them his holy heavenly Body, and his holy heavenly Blood, for Food and Drink, as his own Words import. Dost thou say, How can that be? Then tell me, how it can be that the holy Element has put on this World, and has another Principle in the Body of this World? That holy Element is the heavenly Body of Christ. Thus he gave them outward Bread and outward Wine in the Kingdom of this World, and therewith his holy heavenly Body in the second Principle, which comprises the outward, and likewise his heavenly Blood, wherein the heavenly Tincture and the holy Life consists.

(83) There is no Need of Contention about the Cup of Jesus Christ, his Body is really received in the Testament by the Faithful, as also his Heavenly Blood, and the Baptism is a Bath [or Laver] in the Water of the eternal Life, hidden in the outward [Baptism with Water,] in the Word of the Body of Christ. Therefore all Contention [or Disputation] is in vain; be in brotherly Love, and forsake the Spirit of Pride, and then you are all in Christ.

(41) Then says Reason, I can see nothing but Bread and Wine, and Christ also gave his Disciples but Bread and Wine. I answer, As the Baptism outwardly is outward Water, and the inward is the Water of the eternal Life, and the Holy Trinity baptises, as may be seen in Jordan, that three Persons appeared; the Son of God, in the Water; the Father, in the Voice of the Words; and the Holy Ghost over the Water; moving upon the Head of Christ; and so all three Persons in the Deity baptised this Man Christ; thus it is also in the Supper.

(21) Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

(12) When the Hierarch has finished these things, he places the body in an honourable chamber, with other holy bodies of the same rank. For if, in soul and body, the man fallen asleep passed a life dear to God, there will be honoured, with the devout soul, the body also, which contended with it throughout the devout struggles. Hence the Divine justice gives to it, together with its own body, the retributive inheritances, as companion and participator in the devout, or the contrary, life. Wherefore, the Divine institution of sacred rites bequeaths the supremely Divine participations to them both--to the soul, indeed, in pure contemplation and in science of the things being done, and to the body, by sanctifying the whole man, as in a figure with the most Divine Muron, and the most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, sanctifying the whole man, and announcing, by purifications of the whole man, that his resurrection will be most complete.

(78) The body of Christ is no more the hard comprehensibility or palpability, but the divine comprehensibility or palpability of nature, like the angels.

(67) You must not say that whole Christ with Body and Soul came from Heaven. He brought no Soul out of the holy Ternary; the heavenly Virgin was the Soul in the holy Ternary; and that he brought with him for a Bride to our Soul, as this whole Book does treat of it. For what would it help me, if he had brought a strange Soul with him? Nothing at all. But that he has brought my Soul into the holy Ternary, I rejoice at that; and thus I can say, that Christ's Soul is my Brother, and his Body is the Food of my Soul; as he says in the sixth Chapter of John, My Flesh is Meat indeed, and my Blood is Drink indeed.

(67) We know that the Body without the Spirit is a Thing that lies still; for though the Body of Christ (which the holy Element generated in the P Mercy) is from God, yet the Mobility and Life stands only in the Deity; and in us Men in the Spirit of the Soul, and in the Spirit of the great World, which are unseparated in this Body upon Earth.

(9) But observe that they are enrolled in the holy memorials, not as though the Divine memory were represented under the figure of a memorial, after the manner of men; but as one might say, with reverence towards God, as beseems the august and unfailing knowledge in God of those who have been perfected in the likeness of God. For "He knoweth," say the Oracles, "them that are His," and "precious, in the sight of the Lord, is the death of His saints, "death of saints," being said, instead of the perfection in holiness. And bear this religiously in mind, that when the worshipful symbols have been placed on the Divine Altar, through which (symbols) the Christ is signified and partaken, there is inseparably present the reading of the register of the holy persons, signifying the indivisible conjunction of their supermundane and sacred union with Him. When these things have been ministered, according to the regulations described, the Hierarch, standing before the most holy symbols, washes his hands with water, together with the reverend order of the Priests. Because, as the Oracles testify, when a man has been washed, he needs no other washing, except that of his extremities, i.e his lowest; through which extreme cleansing he will be resistless and free, as altogether uniform, in a sanctified habit of the Divine Likeness, and advancing in a goodly manner to things secondary, and being turned again uniquely to the One, he will make his return, without spot and blemish, as preserving the fulness and completeness of the Divine Likeness.

(1) Farther still, therefore, we must not disdain to add what follows; that we frequently perform something to the Gods who are the inspective guardians of body, and to good dæmons, for the sake of the necessary use of the body; as, for instance, when [by sacrifices] we purify it from ancient stains, or liberate it from diseases, and fill it with health, or remove from it heaviness and torpor, or procure for it any other good. In this case, therefore, we evidently must not busy ourselves with the body in an intellectual and incorporeal manner. For the body is not adapted to participate of modes of this kind; but, obtaining things which are allied to itself, it is meliorated and purified by bodies. The rites of sacrifices, therefore, will necessarily, for a purpose of this kind, be corporeal-formed; partly cutting off what is superfluous in us; partly supplying us with that of which we are in want; and partly leading into symmetry and order such things in us as are immoderately disturbed. We also frequently engage in sacred operations, entreating superior beings to grant us such things as are adapted to the wants of human life. And these are such as preserve the body in health, or pertain to those things which we procure for the sake of the body.

(337) He whom God will not bring out of (the) body, let him not burden himself.

(19) She gave the body to those who had given it to her, and they were ashamed, while the dealers in bodies sat down and wept because they were not able to do any business with that body, nor did they find any (other) merchandise except it. They endured great labors until they had shaped the body of this soul, wishing to strike down the invisible soul. They were therefore ashamed of their work; they suffered the loss of the one for whom they had endured labors. They did not realize that she has an invisible spiritual body, thinking, "We are her shepherd who feeds her." But they did not realize that she knows another way, which is hidden from them. This her true shepherd taught her in knowledge.

(1) For is it not the case that rightly and truly we do not circumscribe in any place that which cannot be circumscribed; nor do we shut up in temples made with hands that which contains all things? What work of builders, and stonecutters, and mechanical art can be holy? Superior to these are not they who think that the air, and the enclosing space, or rather the whole world and the universe, are meet for the excellency of God?

(80) When he was here upon Earth in the earthly Man, his outward Body was circumscribed and limited, as our Bodies are, but the inward Body is unlimited; for we also (in the Resurrection in the Body of Jesus Christ) are unlimited, yet visible and palpable or comprehensible, in the heavenly Flesh and Blood, as the Prince of Life himself is; we can in the heavenly Figure [or Shape] be great or little, and yet nothing be hurt or wanting in us; there is no Need of compressing the Parts of that Body. 81.0 dear Christians, leave off your Contentions about the Body of Jesus Christ; he is every where in all Places, a yet in the Heaven; and the Heaven (wherein God dwells) is also every where. God dwells in the Body of Jesus Christ, and in all holy Souls of Men, even when they depart from this outward Body; and if they be regenerated, then they are in the Body of Jesus Christ even while they are in this earthly Body. A Soul here in our Body upon Earth has not the Body of Christ in a palpable Substance, but in the Word of Power [or Virtue,] which comprehends all Things. In Christ indeed Body and Power is one [Thing,] but we must not understand [this of the four Elementary] Creature, [which is] in this World.

(2) That heavenly Person is without body, he is both without and within, not produced, without breath and without mind, pure, higher than the high Imperishable.

(1) CERTAIN of the scribes saw some of Jesus’ disciples eat bread with unwashen hands. They found fault: for the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables.