The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

the received text, a good sense is: This (death) is the second death. How,
too, can he imagine, even on his ground, that a "this" which refers to a
previous sentence is parallel to a "this" which has no sentence or word on
which it grammatically depends. Where is the parallel to touto artos?
In Matt. xxvi. 28: "This is My blood of the New Testament" is not
parallel; for it is not independent, and is connected with what precedes by
the gar "for:" Drink of it, for this is My blood. The pronoun autou (hereof,
of it, of this) is connected with what follows: Drink of it, for this is My
blood, and moreover does agree in gender with the noun poterion (cup), if
a word is to be supplied, the word which is actually supplied in Luke xxii.
23: This cup is. Now, the critic will not deny that in Luke xxii. 20, the
gender of touto is determined by poterion (cup), not by aima (blood), and
if it is so there, so must it be in Matt. xxvi. 27, where we know, on divine
authority, that if we supply a noun at all, poterion is to be supplied, and
where consequently the gender of touto would be determined, not by the
noun in the predicate, but by the noun understood. If, then, artos were the
noun understood here, as the critic supposes, the very principle of the text
to which he appeals is decisive that the pronoun should be autos,
masculine, not touto, neuter. If St. Luke had supplied a noun understood,
as he does in the case of poterion, he would, according to the critic's
principles, have written touto artos, which even he will not contend would
be Greek. Yet, into this actually runs what he is now contending for, and
what he has to prove, to wit, that the demonstrative pronoun requiring a
noun to be supplied does not agree in gender with that noun. Not a solitary
example adduced even contemplates the disproof of this position. Yet this
is the very thing which is to be disproved.
A true parallel in the main matter is found in 1 Cor. x. 28: "If any of
those that believe not bid you to a feast,...if any man say unto you: This is
offered in sacrifice to idols, (more literally, This is idol-sacrifice, 'a thing
offered to a god,') eat not." Here is a real as well as a verbal example; for it
speaks of the very eating of which St. Paul makes a contrasting parallel
with the "communion of the body of Christ." What does