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Coena Mystica
Debating Reformed Eucharistic Theology
by John Williamson Nevin and Charles Hodge
Edited by Linden J. DeBie and W. Bradford Littlejohn
Foreword by Anne T. Thayer
Series: Mercersburg Theology Study Series
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) was a leading nineteenth-century Reformed theologian. Originally trained in the Presbyterian Church, he took up a teaching post at Mercersburg Seminary of the German Reformed Church in 1841, and spent the rest of his life teaching and writing in that denomination.
Charles Hodge (1797-1878) was the premier American Presbyterian theologian of his era. Through his fifty-year tenure at Princeton Seminary, his editorship of the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, his three-volume Systematic Theology, and a host of books and articles, he exerted a decisive influence on conservative American Protestantism throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.
Editor:
Linden J. DeBie has taught at Seton Hall University and New Brunswick Theological Seminary. He is the author of Speculative Theology and Commonsense Religion: Mercersburg and the Conservative Roots of American Religion (Pickwick, 2008), and editor of the first volume of the Mercersburg Theology Study Series.
General Editor:
Brad Littlejohn has an MA in Theology from New Saint Andrews College (2009), and MTh in Theological Ethics from the University of Edinburgh (2010), where he is currently completing a PhD in Theological Ethics. He is the author of The Mercersburg Theology and the Quest for Reformed Catholicity (Pickwick, 2009).
"This debate on the Lord's Supper is by no means of narrow denominational interest only; for Hodge and Nevin represent doctrinal and sacramental views that are ardently defended to this day--not least in ecumenical discussions. We thus have here a welcome and instructive addition to what is already proving to be a useful series of carefully introduced and edited texts."
--Alan P. F. Sell, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
"Too often in contemporary theology . . . the Eucharist is identified with its Zwinglian variant, according to which the sacrament is largely a spiritual memorial. In the nineteenth century, this view was championed by Charles Hodge, who eschewed the higher sacramentalism of Calvin. By contrast, his erstwhile student John Williamson Nevin attempted to restate the higher Calvinistic account of communion. The battle of journal articles that ensued, reprinted here for the first time since the nineteenth century, is a window into this debate."
--Oliver Crisp, Fuller Theological Seminary
"These are essential documents pertaining to one of the most important theological debates in American history. They remain of great interest today for not only deepening how Reformed churches might understand the Lord's Supper in accord with Calvin, but also for the possibility of Reformed ecumenical convergence with churches from which they have long been divided. . . . The editors have performed a great service to theology and the church."
--George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary
"No theological debate in nineteenth-century America displayed more erudition, logical acumen, and knowledge of European scholarship than the clash between Hodge and Nevin over the sacraments. The editors of this volume not only provide stunningly good introductions, but they also arrange the material in an ingenious way that deepens our insights into the issues and enables us to easily follow the discussion."
--E. Brooks Holifield, Emory University
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