Coena Mystica

Synopsis: Coena Mystica contains the never-before-reprinted text of John Williamson Nevin's response to Charles Hodge's devastating critiques of his 1846 magnum opus, The Mystical Presence. Initially appearing in twelve issues of the little-known Weekly Messenger of the German Reformed Church and almost entirely neglected by historians since, Nevin's response included the full text of Hodge's article, with his rejoinders interspersed every few pages. These articles, in addition to providing a lively and illuminating debate on the roots of Reformed eucharistic theology, take the disputants into such fields as the nature of the church, the development of doctrine, the person and work of Christ, and the merits of German idealism. The quality of the historical argument and theological acumen here displayed makes this exchange one of the landmark theological controversies of the nineteenth century, a gift to historians of the period, students of Reformed theology, and anyone seeking to better understand the contentious legacy of the Protestant Reformation. The present critical edition carefully preserves the original text, while providing extensive introductions, annotations, and bibliography to orient the modern reader and facilitate further scholarship. The Mercersburg Theology Study Series is an attempt to make available for the first time, in attractive, readable, and scholarly modern editions, the key writings of the nineteenth-century movement known as the Mercersburg Theology. An ambitious multi-year project, this aims to make an important contribution to the scholarly community and to the broader reading public, who can at last be properly introduced to this unique blend of American and European, Reformed and Catholic theology. Endorsements: "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 Author Biography: 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).