d a very different type of Christianity to
their type, which he penetratingly criticized, though in a kindly
spirit. He did not approve of rebaptism, for he insisted that the
all-important matter was not how or when water was applied, {81} but
the reception of _Christ's real baptism_, an inner baptism, a baptism
of spirit and power, by which the believing soul, the inner man, is
clarified, strengthened, and made pure.[36]

His view of the Lord's Supper in the same way fits his entire
conception of Christianity as an inward religion. It was through his
study of the meaning and significance of the Supper that he arrived at
his peculiar and unique type of religion. He began his meditation with
the practical test--the case of Judas. If the bread and wine of the
Last Supper were identical with the body and blood of Christ, then
Judas must have eaten of Christ as the other disciples did, and,
notwithstanding his evil spirit, he must have received the divine
nature into himself--but that is impossible.

In his intellectual difficulty he turned to the great mystical
discourse in the sixth chapter of John, in the final interpretation of
which he received important suggestion and help from Valentine
Crautwald, Lector of the Dom in Liegnitz. In this remarkable discourse
Christ promises to feed His disciples, His followers, with His own
flesh and blood, by which they will partake of the eternal nature and
enter with Him into a resurrection life. The "flesh and blood" here
offered to men cannot refer to an outward sacrament which is eaten in a
physical way, because in the very same discourse Christ says that
outward, physical flesh profits nothing. It is the Spirit that gives
life, and, therefore, the "flesh and blood" of Christ must be
synonymous with the Word if they are actually to recreate and nourish
the soul and to renew and vitalize the spirit of man.

This feeding and renewing of the soul through Christ's "flesh and
blood," Schwenckfeld treats, as we have seen, not as a figure or
symbol, but as a literal fact of Christian experience. Through the
exercise of faith in the person of the crucified, risen, and glorified
Christ--the creative Adam--incorruptible, life-giving substance comes
into the soul and transfigures it. Something from the divine {82} and
heavenly world, something from that spiritualized and glorified nature
of Christ, becomes the actual food of man's spirit, so that through it
he partakes of the sa