'The similitude and parity of baptism to this mystery': Taylor, the Eucharist, and breathing with both lungs

Last week we considered how Section XII of Taylor's The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654) affirmed the East's theologies of sacramental change - "conversion, mutation, transition, migration, transfiguration" - as agreeing with the theology of the Church of England. Also evident in Section XII is evidence of Taylor's knowledge of some of the lesser of the Eastern patristic thinkers. 

Taylor points to Ephraim, the 6th century patriarch of Antioch, quoting him to the effect that our partaking of the Lord in the Eucharist is spiritual, not in substance:

St. Ephrem the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch, is dogmatical and decretory in this question, τὸ παρὰ τῶν πιστῶν λαμβανόμενον σῶμα Χριστοῦ καὶ τῆς αἰσθητῆς οὐσιας οὐκ ἐξίσταται φύσεως, καὶ τῆς νοητῆς ἀδιαίρετον μένει χάριτος: "The body of Christ, received by the faithful, departs not from his sensible substance, and is undivided from a spiritual grace." He adds the similitude and parity of baptism to this mystery; "for even baptism being wholly made spiritual, and being that which is the same and proper of the sensible substance, I mean of water, saves, and that which is born, doth not perish."

The comparison with Baptism is also highly significant: we partake of the Lord in bread and wine on the Holy Table as we do in water in the Font. This was, of course, a common Reformed emphasis, that our partaking of the Lord through the bread and wine of the Eucharist is not different to our partaking of Him through the water of Baptism. Taylor here demonstrates that this conviction has patristic roots.

Taylor then turns to Epiphanius, the late 4th century Bishop of Salamis. Here he sees the use of the language of "image or representment" regarding the bread and wine of the Eucharist:

St. Epiphanius, affirming man to be like God, návtes τὸ κατ᾿ εἰκόνα, ἀλλὰ οὐ κατὰ φύσιν, "in some image or similitude, not according to nature," illustrates it by the similitude of the blessed sacrament: "We see that our Saviour took into his hands, as the evangelist hath it, that he arose from supper, and took those things; and when he had given thanks, he said, 'This is mine, and this;' we see it is not equal, it is not like, not to the image in the flesh, not to the invisible Deity, not to the proportion of members" ... Now the force of Epiphanius's argument, consisting in this, that we are like to God after his image, but yet not according to nature, as the sacramental bread is like the body of Christ, - it is plain, that the sacramental species are the body of Christ, and his blood, κατ' εικόνα, ἀλλὰ οὐ κατὰ φύσιν, according to the image or representment, not according to nature, but according to grace.

Finally, there is an extract from the late 4th century Macarian Homilies, affirming that our partaking of Christ in the sacrament is spiritual:

Macarius's words are plain enough: Ev Tỷ inuλnoiḍ προσφέρεται ἄρτος καὶ οἶνος ἀντίτυπον τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ αἵμα τος, καὶ οἱ μεταλαμβάνοντες ἐκ τοῦ φαινομένου ἄρτου πνευματικῶς τὴν σάρκα τοῦ Κυρίου ἐσθίουσι· "In the church is offered bread and wine, the antitype of his flesh and blood; and they that partake of the bread that appears, do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ."

Taylor's use of these three Eastern figures certainly further evidences an impressive knowledge of Greek thought, beyond the well-known figures. It also again demonstrates Taylor's sense that the liturgy and Articles of the Church of England cohered with Eastern eucharistic theologies. And, in light of Ephraim of Antioch's comparison of the Eucharist with Baptism, it is suggestive of how the Reformed theological commitments of Prayer Book and Articles spoke of an enriched sacramental economy, looking to the East.