551. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 214–215.
[London]
[1837] [1]
My dear friend,
I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in mentioning to Mrs Holmes, [2] my desire of seeing the mss. in the British Museum. But—do you remember that she is quite a stranger to me and that I have a Ksenophobia as strongly, & perhaps more so than a bibliomania; and that besides, even if I liked it, Papa might not like my troubling so a person with whom I have not any acquaintance. Then will you say nothing more about me to Mrs Holmes, and let me wait for some other opportunity of seeing the museum?——
I will write out two passages from Justin Martyr, [3] the only ones which struck me while I was reading him, on the subject of the Lord’s supper. ου γαρ ὡς κοινον αρτον, ουδε κοινον πομα, ταυτα λαμβανομεν αλλ' ὁν τροπον δια λογου Θεου σαρκοποιηθεις Ιησους Χριστος ὁ σωτηρ ἡμων, και σαρκα και ἁιμα ὑπερ σωτηριας ἡμων εσχεν, ὁυτως και την δι' ευχης λογου του παρ' αυτου ευχαριστηθεισαν τροφην, εξ ἡς ἁιμα και σαρκες κατα μεταζολην τρεφονται ἡμων, εκεινου του σαρκοποιηθεντος Ιησου και σαρκα και ἁιμα εδιδαχθημεν ειναι. [4] This is from the Apologia to the Romans. The next is from the Dialogue with Trypho.—— ὁτι μεν ουν και εν ταυτη προφητεια περι του αρτου ὁν παρεδωκεν ἡμιν ὁ ημετερος Χριστος ποιειν εις αναμνησιν του τε σωματοποιησασθαι αυτον δια τους πιστευοντας εις αυτον, δι' ὁυς και παθητος γεγονε, και περι του ποτηριου ὁ εις αναμνησιν του ἁιματος αυτου παρεδωκε[ν] ευχαριστουνται ποιειν, φαινεται. [5]
I do not remember the expression types, as applied to this subject; and altho’ I have turned over many pages just now for the purpose of finding it, I cannot do so.
If you have Athenæus, [6] or any Anthology by Stephans [7] or others, will you lend me either or both? I promise to be careful.
Yours affectionately
E B Barrett.
Our love to Annie.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / 3. Circus Road / St John’s Wood.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 221–222 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Written while Annie Boyd was still living in her father’s house (i.e., before her marriage in August 1837).
2. From the context, Mary Anne Holmes (née Rivington), wife of John Holmes (1800–54), a senior assistant in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum.
3. Justin Martyr, born in Samaria ca. A.D. 100, defended Christianity against the accusations of pagan writers in his Apologies. He was martyred in Rome ca. A.D. 165.
4. Apologia Prima Pro Christianis, LXVI, 2. Boyd himself translated this extract in his Select Passages, as follows: “For we receive not these as common bread and common drink; but as Christ our Saviour, being made incarnate, put on both flesh and blood for our salvation; so likewise we are taught, that this food, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, and over which thanks have been offered up, in his own expressions, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus” (p. 270 in the 3rd edn., 1813).
5. Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo, 70. This passage translates as: “Now it is evident, that in this prophecy, [allusion is made] to the bread which our Christ gave us to eat, in remembrance of His being made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the cup which He gave us to drink, in remembrance of His own blood, with giving of thanks” (Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 1867, II, 64).
6. Athenæus was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, ca. 2nd–3rd century A.D.
7. Henri Estienne (1531–98), Latinized as Stephanus, published a Greek Thesaurus in 1572 and Anthologia Gnomica in 1579.
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