Pièce 1 - Letter from W. K. Clifford to Frederick Pollock

1 single sheet

(Cambridge.)—Cannot get away from Cambridge before Friday. Alludes to various theological doctrines relating to the body of Christ.

(Undated. Marked ‘1869’.)

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Transcript

Union Society, Cambridge

Dear Fred

can’t fix it nohow to get a way† from Cambridge before Friday afternoon. Awfully sorry. The universe physical moral and spiritual has been execrated; in vain. I know “sicut in loco” {1} was condemned by the council of Trent; and think oculus saltem glorificatus {2} means only hyperæsthesia which is well known as a disease of the celestials. Will read S. Th. again on 1st opportunity. The Capernaite views {3} made it necessary to give distinct denials to several absurdly material doctrines, and the denials were afterwards made to mean more. Thus the refinement you mention of the harmless remark that “no man hath seen God at any time” into “the Divine essence is per se beyond human perceptive faculties”.

Yours ever
W.K.C.

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{1} Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III. 76. 5: ‘corpus Christi non est in hoc sacramento sicut in loco, sed per modum substantiae: eo scilicet modo quo substantia continetur a dimensionibus’ (‘the body of Christ is not in this sacrament as in a place, but in the manner of a substance, that is, in the manner in which a substance is contained by dimensions’).

{2} oculus saltem glorificatus. i.e. ‘the specially glorified eye.’ Cf. Summa Theologica, I. 12. 3: ‘Ergo oculus glorificatus potest videre Deum’ (‘Therefore the glorified eye can see God’).

{3} i.e. the views of those who believe in transubstantiation.

† Sic.