Christ's comparison of Himself with Moses is more frequent. Sinful humanity is also under the curse of the Old Testament law; it is in effect until the moment of Christ's death in the final stanza. "When they did call,/With Manna, Angels' food, I fed them all" (ll. 238-39) is a clear reference to God, through Moses, feeding the Israelites with manna in the desert. However, such manna cannot feed the Israelites' hungry souls; it is Christ alone as the "bread of life" (John 6:35, KJV) who can feed spiritually hungry souls. Christ also calls Himself "the meek/And ready Paschal Lamb of this great week" (ll. 58-59), a clear reference to the first Passover. In this Old Testament type of sacrifice, the Israelites killed lambs and sprinkled their blood on the doorposts so that the Angel of death would "pass over" their homes, thereby sparing them from the tenth and final plague on Egypt. Here, therefore, Christ acknowledges Himself as the fulfillment of that first Passover; His death, the sprinkling of His blood, spares believers from eternal damnation, the second death.
Throughout the poem, Christ acknowledges Moses' failures as Israel's human savior and His success as the divine Savior of humanity. Just as Moses' "cl[eaving] the stony rock" produced water for the physically thirsty Israelites "when they were dry" (l. 122), so also Christ's death produces redemptive blood and water for a spiritually thirsty humanity. Christ's redemption is permanent, for He cleaves and redeems the sinful heart; the Mosaic law cannot redeem the heart because it only reveals sin, not removes it, thereby showing humanity its need for a savior. Again, Christ states, "Without me each one, who doth now me brave/Had to this day been an Egyptian slave" (ll. 9-10). Just as Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, Christ the antitype leads humanity from death to life by His sacrifice; unlike Moses' eternal problems with the Israelites' disobedience, Christ's offer of salvation is complete when each person becomes a believer.
Both dedicatory and eucharistic types of sacrifice also appear in "The Sacrifice." Spoken by Christ, however, these kinds of sacrifice are made explicitly more legitimate, showing an intricate entwining of the three; they cannot be separated. One reference to the dedicatory kind of sacrifice appears late in the poem, as Christ carries His cross to Golgotha, which He initially "bear[s] [Him]self" (l. 197). However, when "Simon bears it for me by constraint" (l. 198), Christ states that such is also "the decreed burden of each mortal Saint" (l. 199). The believer symbolically sacrifices himself as a dedication of his life to God; this sacrifice is a commanded imitation of Christ's sacrifice. The believer does not literally shed his blood; instead, as Christ commands, he symbolically takes up Christ's cross and follows Him. Christ's sacrifice for sin makes possible the believer's sacrifice of himself in dedication to Him. The unique relationship between Christ and the speaker is emblematized through sacrifice.
Christ, a second time, asks believers to sacrifice themselves in imitation of His perfect sacrifice. Christ laments, as He suffers on the cross, "But, O my God, my God! why leav'st thou me,/The son in whom thou dost delight to be?/My God, my God----/ Never was grief like mine" (ll. 213-16). These lines have two paradoxical meanings. The moment Christ identifies with believers by assuming responsibility for their sin, He is rejected by God. Therefore, no human being can know or understand what it cost for the perfect, sinless Christ to feel God's wrath. However, Christ expects believers to complete his partial lament, which the speaker does in "The Thanksgiving." Once again, it is here that Christ identifies with sinful humanity, so believers must identify with, and imitate, Him by taking up their crosses and following Him. This is their sacrifice of dedication.
Although Christ's references to the Eucharist point to the eucharistic sacrifice of praise, the celebration of the Eucharist itself perfectly entwines all three kinds of sacrifice in one. The most obvious is the Eucharist as the believer's sacrifice of praise to God for Christ's perfect, redeeming sacrifice of Himself, two kinds of sacrifice in one: "For they will pierce my side, I full well know;/That as sin came, so Sacraments might flow" (ll. 246-47). Blood and water pouring from Christ's side foreshadows believers' partaking of the cup, while Christ's reference to the Israelites eating manna in the desert foreshadows believers' partaking of the "bread of life" (John 6:35, KJV). As "the meek/And ready Paschal Lamb of this great week" (ll. 58-59), Christ the "antitype" acknowledges Himself as the fulfillment of the first Passover, which, for future believers, becomes the Eucharist. Christ's "blood" as "the only way,/And cordial left to repair man's decay" (ll. 158-59) points to Himself as the perfect, propitiatory sacrifice for sin. Both propitiatory and eucharistic kinds of sacrifice emerge in Christ's references to the Eucharist in this poem.
The believer's symbolic imitation of Christ, in sacrificing himself and his life to God, is another crucial element in the Eucharist. Significantly, it is a meal, just as the Old Testament Passover was a meal, wherein Christ has now become the Passover lamb. Paul himself states that believers symbolically share in Christ's suffering and death by partaking of this communion meal: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16, KJV). Interestingly, Ann Pasternak Slater, in a recent edition of Herbert's English works, notes that "in this poem alone Herbert speaks entirely in the voice of the crucified Christ and thus makes Christ's sacrifice his own" (xiv, italics mine). Slater makes an excellent point here, but again, she, like others, is guilty of the fallacy of conflating Herbert and the speaker in these poems. It is the speaker who "makes Christ's sacrifice his own" (xiv) in "The Sacrifice," not Herbert. The speaker, through the voice of Christ, imagines Christ's sacrifice so that he can figuratively imitate it by symbolically sacrificing himself. The Eucharist, therefore, perfectly binds all three kinds of sacrifice in one.
In "The Sacrifice," readers cannot focus explicitly on Christ's redeeming sacrifice by ignoring the other two kinds, as some critics have done. The effect of the refrain is not to "undermine totally any hope that the speaker or reader might harbor about the sufficiency of . . . human sacrifice" (Dickson 93), but instead to point to Christ's grief as He is rejected by God in assuming the sins of humanity. The purpose of "The Sacrifice" is not to "undermine the traditional meditative goal of communal suffering" either (Bell 70). The speaker's sacrifice of praise for Christ's redeeming sacrifice, together with his symbolic imitation of that sacrifice, illuminates the nature of his relationship with Christ and how all believers must symbolically share in that sacrifice to demonstrate their love for Him.
"Easter" joyfully celebrates Christ's resurrection. This poem is the fulfillment of the speaker's desire to imitate Christ's sacrifice, for it is through Christ's glorious resurrection that the speaker can symbolically share in that resurrection, and therefore, dedicate his life to Christ. All three kinds of sacrifice appear here. First, the speaker commands his "heart" to "rise," for "thy Lord is risen" (l. 1). It is He "Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise/With him mayst rise" (ll. 2-3). The speaker here declares his dedicatory sacrifice, or the symbolic sacrifice of himself, which is his acceptable imitation of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice. By confessing his sin and accepting Christ's redemption of that sin, the speaker symbolically experiences Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. So, the speaker's heart, a synecdoche of his body (Lewalski 101), rises from the dead because Christ "thy Lord is risen" (l. 1). Otherwise, a valid imitation of Christ is not even possible. Implicit here is Paul's assertion that if Christ is not risen from the dead, we are still dead in our sins. Christ's resurrection completes the cycle of, and therefore makes possible, our death to sin and resurrection to a new life, in Christ. "As [Christ's] death calcine[s]" the speaker "to dust" (l. 5), symbolically killing him, "His life may make thee gold, and much more just" (l. 6). This statement calls to mind the images of both a refiner's fire and a phoenix. Symbolically, the speaker must be burnt to ashes, in a refining purification process, so that, like the phoenix, he may rise both with Christ and as a "new creature" in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15, KJV). Christ's death, burial, and resurrection are repeated in the spiritual life of the speaker, and of each new believer.
The speaker, in the final three stanzas of "Easter," also offers a eucharistic sacrifice of joyful praise and thanksgiving to Christ. It is in the first three stanzas that we discover what makes his song of praise possible. The speaker commands himself to "sing his praise/Without delays/. . . Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part/With all thy art" (ll. 1-2, 7-8). What makes the speaker's eucharistic sacrifice of praise possible is Christ's propitiatory sacrifice: "The cross taught all wood to resound his name/. . .His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key/Is best to celebrate this most high day" (ll. 9, 11-12). Before Christ's redemption of humanity, the speaker's eucharistic sacrifices would not have been considered acceptable, or at least sufficient, to God. It is the cross alone, that sacred symbol of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice, that teaches the speaker his song, namely, "what key/Is best to celebrate" (ll. 11-12) Christ's resurrection, and symbolically, the speaker's own. All three types of sacrifice are intricately entwined in this poem: the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's death makes possible the dedicatory sacrifice of the speaker's symbolic resurrection with Christ, which he celebrates in a eucharistic sacrifice of praise to Christ.Continued on Next Page »
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1.) "Altar" through "Easter Wings (2)"
2.) See Matthew 26:26-29, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
3.) See "The Altar," ll. 1-10
4.) See also Ilona Bell, "'Setting Foot into Divinity,'" 63-83; Barbara Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, 171, 293-94; William V. Nestrick, "'Mine' and 'Thine' in The Temple," 116-18; Michael Schoenfeldt, Prayer and Power, 157-61; and Richard Strier, Love Known, 49-54.
5.) Genesis 22:1-19
6.) Exodus 12:1-30, 42-51
7.) Numbers 21:5-9
8.) Hebrews 7:27, 9:26-28, 10:5-12
9.) See Ira Clark, Christ Revealed: The History of the Neotypological Lyric in the English Renaissance, 1-28.
10.) Psalm 107:22, 116:17; Amos 4:5, Philippians 4:17-18, Hebrews 13:15-16
11.) See Ira Clark, Christ Revealed, 80-106; Donald Dickson, The Fountain of Living Waters, 80-123; Albert Labriola, "The Rock and the Hard Place," 61-69; Barbara Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, chapters 4 and 9; C. A. Patrides, "The Experience of Otherness," 181-82; Rosamond Tuve, A Reading of George Herbert, 24-41.
12.) See Julia Carolyn Guernsey, Pulse of Praise, 15-17; John R. Mulder, "The Temple as Picture," 3; Joseph Summers, George Herbert, 140-43. Barbara Lewalski, Protestant Poetics (283-316), notes the use of praise in these poems, but never acknowledges them as a type of sacrifice. Diana Benet, Secretary of Praise (87-90, 124-27), notes Herbert's use of praise, but calls it his poetic vocation, and never applies the concept to these poems.
13.) Wall 213.
14.) Malcolmson, George Herbert, 64, 66-68.
15.) Benet 112.
16.) See Elizabeth Clarke and Barbara Lewalski for Herbert's Calvinism; see Richard Strier for Herbert's Lutheranism.
17.) Ilona Bell "'Setting Foot into Divinity," 63-66; Elizabeth Clarke, Theory and Theology in George Herbert's Poetry, 10-13; Barbara Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, 293-94; Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert, 64; Heart-Work, 1-7; and Richard Strier, Love Known, 49-54.
18.) Heather Asals, Equivocal Predications, 4-5; Diana Benet, Secretary of Praise, 107-15; Stanley Stewart, George Herbert, 89-97; Rosamond Tuve, A Reading of George Herbert, 23-99.
19.) See Mario Di Cesare, "Sacred Rhythms and Sacred Contradictions," 6-8; Donald Dickson, The Fountain of Living Waters, 8-9, 95; Patrick Grant, The Transformation of Sin, 75-99; Christopher Hodgkins, Authority, Church, and Society in George Herbert, 2-5, 32; Richard Todd, The Opacity of Signs, 1-20; Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Reformation Spirituality, 23-41; John Wall, Transformations of the Word, 1-3.
20.) See John Mulder, "The Temple as Picture," 3.
21.) See William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, 229-33; Stanley Fish, The Living Temple and Self-Consuming Artifacts; Julia Carolyn Guernsey, Pulse of Praise; Barbara Leah Harman, Costly Monuments; Susannah B. Mintz, "Unstrung Conversations"; William Pahlka, Saint Augustine's Meter and George Herbert's Will; Michael Schoenfeldt, Prayer and Power; Helen Vendler, The Poetry of George Herbert; and James Boyd White, 'This Book of Starres.'
22.) See Malcolmson, George Herbert, xii.
23.) Hebrews 7:27; 9:7-10, 25-26; 10:11-14
24.) Matthew 26:61, 27:40; John 2:19-21
25.) See also 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19
26.) Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 25-27; 2 Cor. 6:16, Ephesians 2:20-22, 1 Peter 2:4-8
27.) "The Dedication": "Lord, my first fruits present themselves to thee;/Yet not mine neither: for from thee they came,/And must return" (ll. 1-3).
28.) Luke 19:40: "I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out" (KJV).
29.) Malcolmson argues that "the speaker's desire in line 15 of 'The Altar' verges on an unreasonable sacrifice, since he moves beyond acknowledging the power of grace to the desire to imitate Christ" (George Herbert 64).
30.) Michael Schoenfeldt, in Prayer and Power, argues that the poem "is about the dangers of covert usurpation of divine authority implicit in devotional action" (161). In "'That Spectacle of Too Much Weight,'" he argues that in "The Sacrifice," "the event which the speaker of 'The Altar' prays to appropriate is unfathomable and unreachable by humanity" (574).
31.) William V. Nestrick, "'Mine and Thine' in The Temple," notes "that sanctification is the means whereby the self is remade like God" (116), but fails to apply this idea to "The Sacrifice" and "The Thanksgiving," where he argues that "the idea of converting thy Passion into my passion becomes impossible" (118).
32.) Romans 6:23
33.) Matthew 26:61, 27:40; John 2:19
34.) Romans 5:12-19
35.) Exodus 16:13-15
36.) Exodus 12:1-30, 42-51
37.) Exodus 17:5-6
38.) "They strike my head, the rock" (l. 170)
39.) Romans 3:20
40.) Mark 10:21
41.) "My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?" (l. 9)
42.) "When they did call,/With Manna, Angels' food, I fed them all" (ll. 238-39).
43.) "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come" (1 Cor. 11:26, KJV).
44.) Exodus 12:1-30, 42-51
45.) The New International Version (1984) is more explicit: "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (italics mine). Herbert, however, would not have been familiar with the NIV.
46.) Donald Dickson (The Fountain of Living Waters 93n24), Barbara Lewalski (Protestant Poetics 171), Cristina Malcolmson (George Herbert 64), Michael Schoenfeldt (Prayer and Power 157-58), and Richard Strier (Love Known 49n47), responding to Bell's reading of "The Sacrifice," agree that the poem ironically refutes the Catholic fallacy that the speaker can imitate Christ.
47.) Romans 6:2-11, Colossians 2:12
48.) 1 Corinthians 15:14-17
49.) Isaiah 48:10, Zechariah 13:9, Malachi 3:2-3
50.) Gene Edward Veith, Jr., referring to Calvin's Institutes, acknowledges "the speaker's interaction and involvement with the atonement of Christ" (71), but argues that "Herbert conceived his poetry as a means of participation with Christ" (72-73). He ignores the theological implications of his earlier statement.
51.) The doctrine of justification states that man, by faith, is made perfect in Christ. By faith he stands before God clothed with the righteousness of Christ. See Romans 3:23-26, 5:9-19; 2 Corinthians 5:21, Philippians 3:9.
52.) Ilona Bell, "'Setting Foot into Divinity," 71-78; Cristina Malcolmson, George Herbert, 64.
53.) John 19:15 -- "We have no king but Caesar" (KJV).
54.) Although Diana Benet seems to acknowledge the scriptural basis for imitation of Christ, in these lines, she argues that the speaker's "zeal is commendable but ignorant and misdirected" (112). See also Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Reformation Spirituality, 72; and John Wall, Transformations of the Word, 213.
55.) Richard Strier argues that "Herbert is presenting the desire to imitate Christ as the essence of misguided good intentions" (50). See also Sharon Seelig, The Shadow of Eternity, 11-12.
56.) Ilona Bell argues that the speaker's turning to the Bible is the Protestant answer to Catholic meditation on Christ's Passion (77-78). However, she fails to note that the speaker still sees "Victory!" (l. 48) in this "solution"; it is faith alone through confession of sin, not the Bible, that allows the speaker to "imitate" his Savior.
57.) Richard Strier argues that in these two lines, "imitation falls away as an evasive and rationalizing fiction" (52). Richard Todd argues that "for all divine gifts but one it is possible . . . to make imitative reparation. For the Passion, however, it is not" (150). See also Marion White Singleton, God's Courtier, 112-13; Cristina Malcolmson, Heart-Work, 90-91; and Michael Schoenfeldt, "'That Spectacle of Too Much Weight," 577.
58.) Elizabeth Clarke argues that "since Christ's death is the cause of every good act the believer can do, there is nothing the believer can give to Christ" (193), which is theologically unsound. The believer is expected to dedicate his life to Christ, a great sacrifice on his or her part.
59.) Ilona Bell argues that "the speaker here announces unequivocally that he cannot participate in Christ's Passion" (78). However, she fails to analyze the rest of the poem. Although William Pahlka seems to acknowledge imitation here, he confuses the speaker and Herbert, who "acts out an imitation of the Passion in the 'creative groaning' of his poems" (107). Palhka does not acknowledge the theology of imitation and sacrifice. John Wall argues, in these lines, that "there is only loving response, or response through loving" (213), a non-theological argument.
60.) Elizabeth Clarke argues that, at the end of the poem, "Herbert seems to have forgotten that the battle is supposed to be over" (193). She mistakenly equates Herbert with the speaker. Stanley Fish argues, that, "having found the art of love," the speaker "finds that its perfection in Christ has left him with nothing to do" (Self-Consuming Artifacts 183). Fish's non-theological reading is inadequate.
61.) Romans 6:2-11, Colossians 2:12
62.) Richard Strier argues that "to come into Christ's conquest . . . is not a matter of consciously imitating Him but rather of being conformed to Him" (54). However, "being conformed to [Christ]" (54) is the speaker's symbolic imitation.
63.) Gene Edward Veith, Jr. argues that, in these lines, "all the Christian need do, according to Reformation theology, is to receive God's love" (68). However, the Christian must do much more than this, according to Reformation theology; he must dedicate his life to Christ. Thanking God without serving Him appears superficial.
64.) See Sibyl Lutz Severance, "Numerological Structures in The Temple, 229-49; and Louis Martin, "Numerological Wit in Herbert's 'Sepulchre,'" 56-64.
65.) Doctrine of justification -- see footnote 51.
