Beating the Bounds of Anglican Eucharistic Doctrine [Commentary on Browne: Article XXVIII]

Much like baptism, the Eucharist is too capacious to address comprehensively in a commentary. For this reason, Browne says that a “brief view” of the subject “is all that is here possible.” In discussing how Browne delimits the Church of England’s doctrine as it pertains to this Article, it should first be noted that the corresponding Article on the Eucharist in the Forty-two Articles of 1553 contains a paragraph that is absent in the Article’s current form:

Forasmuch as the Truth of Man’s Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one Time in divers Places, but must needs be in one certain Place; therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one Time in many and divers Places: and because, as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up into Heaven, and there shall continue unto the End of the World; a Faithful Man ought not either to believe, or openly confess, the Real and Bodily Presence, as they term it, of Christ’s Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.[1]

Browne observes that this passage was “omitted in Elizabeth’s reign, lest persons inclined to the Lutheran belief might be too much offended by it; and many such were in the Church, whom it was wished to conciliate.”[2] Others have pointed out that the passage “was to many minds suggestive of interpretations favourable to the school of Zwingli.”[3] Undoubtedly, the Article is designed to exclude the eucharistic doctrine commonly called Zwinglian, wherein (as Browne characterizes it) “the Eucharist is a bare commemoration of the death of Christ, and…the bread and wine are mere symbols and tokens to remind us of his Body and Blood.”[4] That the above passage is absent from the current Article should not, however, be taken to mean that Lutheran eucharistic doctrine is thereby meant to be accommodated. Indeed, the so-called “Black Rubric” at the end of the service for Holy Communion in the 1662 Prayer Book states that “the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here, it being against the truth of Christ’s natural body to be at one time in more places than one.”[5]

Having distinguished the Church of England’s eucharistic doctrine from that of Luther and Zwingli, Browne declares that “the doctrine of a real, spiritual presence is the doctrine of the English Church, and was the doctrine of Calvin, and of many foreign reformers. It teaches that Christ is really received by faithful communicants in the Lord’s Supper; but that there is no gross or carnal, but only a spiritual and heavenly presence there; not the less real, however, for being spiritual.” Browne quotes Calvin to the effect that in the Eucharist, “the elements…receive the name of Christ’s Body and Blood, ‘because they are, as it were, instruments whereby Christ distributes them to us.’”[6] Moreover, he affirms that “it is by faith we are enabled to receive Him. By believing we eat Christ’s Flesh, because by faith our feeding on Him is effected; and that feeding is the fruit of faith.”[7] As for the precise manner in which Christ is spiritually present, Browne declines to speculate: “There have, no doubt, been different ways of explaining the spiritual presence, among those who have agreed to acknowledge such a presence. But perhaps the safest plan is to say, that because it is spiritual, therefore it needs must be mystical.”[8]

If the Article’s affirmation of Christ’s spiritual presence in the Eucharist is clear, then its rejection of transubstantiation as “repugnant to the plain words of Scripture” appears equally clear. However, Browne notes that there is considerable “difference of statement and difference of thought upon the subject” within the Roman Catholic tradition:

Here we get a phenomenon by no means without parallel in other Roman Catholic articles of faith. For, as in saint worship some only ask departed friends to pray for them, whilst others bow down to the stock of a tree; so in the Eucharist, the learned and enlightened appear to acknowledge a far more spiritual change than is taught to the equally devout but more credulous multitude. For the latter all kinds of miracles have been devised, and visions, wherein the Host has seemed to disappear, and the infant Saviour has been seen in its room; or where Blood has flowed in streams from the consecrated wafer, impiously preserved by unbelieving communicants. But on the other hand, by the more learned and liberal, statements have been made perpetually in acknowledgment of a spiritual rather than a carnal presence; and such as no enlightened Protestant would cavil at or refuse.

Other commentators recognize this as well, observing that the Article is “directed against the coarse and carnal form of the doctrine [of transubstantiation] which was present to the minds of those who compiled the Article,” rather than the “more refined and spiritual form in which it is held by thoughtful and well-instructed Romanists.”[9] Yet this is not to say the latter understanding of transubstantiation is without problems:

Even with regard to the more refined and spiritual form in which the doctrine is capable of being presented, we cannot but feel compelled to resist it when it is pressed as an Article of faith, and our assent to it is required as a condition of communion. At best it is but a theory of the schools, a philosophical opinion which is “destitute and incapable of proof,” as well as “involved in tremendous metaphysical difficulties.” As such we decline to be bound by it.[10]

Notwithstanding, some have suggested that transubstantiation is tolerable as an opinion rather than a dogma:

We can very well bear with some opinions, that we think ill grounded, as long as they are only matters of opinion, and have no influence neither on men’s morals nor their worship. We still hold communion with bodies of men, that, as we judge, think wrong, but yet do both live well, and maintain the purity of the worship of God.[11]

But the Church of Rome is not content to treat it as such, with the Council of Trent declaring,

If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood—the species only of the bread and wine remaining—which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema.[12]

The Council furthermore teaches that it is obligatory to worship Christ in the Eucharist:

If any one saith, that, in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored with the worship, even external of latria; and is, consequently, neither to be venerated with a special festive solemnity, nor to be solemnly borne about in processions, according to the laudable and universal rite and custom of holy church; or, is not to be proposed publicly to the people to be adored, and that the adorers thereof are idolaters; let him be anathema.[13]

Eucharistic adoration, then, follows from the doctrine of transubstantiation—they stand or fall together, Browne reasons: “Elevating the host resulted from a belief in transubstantiation. If that doctrine be rejected, we shall not believe the wafer to have been really transformed into Christ’s Body, and so shall not worship it, nor elevate it for worship.”[14]

The account Browne gives could be described as a standard presentation of Elizabethan eucharistic doctrine, to the point that when the second volume of his Exposition was published, he was criticized for his “mere following of Hooker”[15] on the sacraments. But there are professing Anglicans who have rejected this account as inadequate, sometimes in scathing terms:

In England, in consequence of the great authority of Richard Hooker, who, in the gradual process of working himself out of Puritanism, had on this mysterious doctrine attained to Catholic feeling, while he adhered to Calvinistic definition, this view has obtained to an extent remarkable in view of its intrinsic inanity. It does not satisfy the letter of Scripture, which distinctly predicates the affirmative proposition, “This is My Body.” It contradicts the testimony of the primitive Church, as we shall presently proceed to shew from a long catena of authorities. It has exhibited its unsatisfactoriness in never having been able to maintain an abiding existence, either rising in to the Catholic doctrine, or, more commonly, degenerating into a bare Zwinglianism, and has only found favour with those who, unwilling to accept the profound mystery of the Holy Eucharist with all its consequences, are unable to bring themselves to an absolute denial of any presence of Christ, and, therefore, in this formula find a sop to the cravings of an intellect which dreads to carry to conclusions the premisses which in reason only lead to the acceptance of the Catholic doctrine.[16]

The “Catholic doctrine” alluded to here has been called the “Real Objective Presence” by a number of Tractarians and Anglo-Catholics. One of the defining points of this eucharistic doctrine is that the body and blood of Christ are present in the elements of bread and wine prior to and independent of the communicant’s faith or partaking thereof:

The presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated elements is an objective reality which depends upon the fulfilment of certain external conditions, so as to be independent of anything in those who receive the Sacrament. It follows that all who receive the Sacrament receive the same gift so far as the Sacrament is concerned; that is, they receive the body and blood of Christ. Nothing less than this can be implied in the truth that the presence of Christ in the Sacrament is connected, not with the faith of the receiver, but with the act of consecration of proper elements with the proper form by a priest.[17]

On such an understanding of the Eucharist, it follows that all who communicate, irrespective of faith, partake of Christ in some sense. More will be said later with regard to Article XXIX, which, on a plain reading, flatly contradicts this notion. Another consequence is that eucharistic adoration is permissible, if not obligatory:

By identifying consecrated elements of bread and wine with His own Body and Blood—doing this incidentally to His purpose of instituting a memorial of Himself—our Lord did establish a continuing mystery of objective presence of Himself among His people. And where He is objectively present, He is not only adorable, but ought to be adored by all who apprehend Him as thus present in the Blessed Sacrament. This does not mean at all that the Eucharistic elements are in themselves adorable, nor that the Body and Blood of Christ are adorable apart from Him. The identification of the sacrament with Christ is the postulate of Eucharistic adoration, and only by recognizing this postulate can anyone correctly and justly consider the subject.[18]

The language of the Article that “the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance…carried about, lifted up, or worshipped” would seem to preclude this practice in the Anglican tradition. This has not prevented numerous commentators from making much of the wording here, pointing out that eucharistic adoration and the other practices mentioned are technically not forbidden: “The statement made in the Article is worded with the utmost care, and with studied moderation. It cannot be said that any one of the practices is condemned or prohibited by it. It only amounts to this: that none of them can claim to be part of the original Divine institution.”[19] Tractarian proponents of the Real Objective Presence claimed that the doctrine is in continuity with the “consensus of seventeenth-century divines such as Overall, Andrewes, Hammond and Taylor,”[20] but this argument has been contested:

The Tractarians…went decisively beyond the earlier Anglican theology in making a clear distinction between the presence of Christ in relation to the elements and the presence of Christ in relation to the worthy communicants. According to Tractarian teaching, the presence of Christ in relation to the elements is brought about by the act of consecration and is not dependent on their reception in communion.[21]

What is more, in light of the obvious import of the text of the Article (as opposed to the implications that can only be wrested from it with a studied and exclusive focus on particular words), it is hard to imagine Anglican divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries upholding a doctrine that logically culminates in eucharistic adoration. Then, too, if the language of the Article is capable of being finessed on this point, it is more difficult to say the same of the aforementioned Black Rubric, which spells out that “the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored – for that would be idolatry, to be abhorred by all faithful Christians.”[22] Even such a one as Bishop Cosin, who reportedly “went beyond earlier conformists by articulating a local presence of the body and blood of Christ within the consecrated bread and wine itself, yet…nevertheless rejected…extra-liturgical practices associated with Roman Catholicism, such as veneration of the sacrament.”[23] It is more likely that the framers of the Article were loath to condemn their forebears for these practices, than that there was any design to countenance them for future generations.

The practice of eucharistic reservation, though also mentioned by the Article as “not of Christ’s ordinance,”[24] has stronger historical precedent: “Reservation was allowed in primitive times for the sake of carrying a portion of the consecrated Elements to the sick.”[25] Centuries later, “reservation for the sick, undoubtedly a primitive practice, was permitted, under certain restrictions, in the First Prayer Book of Edward vi.”[26] However,

In the Second Book (1552), in view of the danger of superstitious reservation, the provision for it was omitted altogether. At the last revision in 1662 an express direction was inserted in one of the rubrics at the end of the Order for Holy Communion, that “if any remain of [the bread and wine] which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest and such other of the communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same.”[27]

Those who wish to retain the practice have argued that the rubric is not concerned with reservation;[28] that the Article is meant to rule out reservation for the specific purpose of adoration;[29] and that the 1560 Latin Prayer Book continued to allow for reservation, meaning that the practice was not altogether prohibited.[30] On the other hand, some who favor the practice have nevertheless maintained that “indirectly the rubric forbids all reservation.”[31] Even if this interpretation is true, two points should be noted: first, bishops can and have “allowed reservation for this purpose under proper conditions.”[32] Second, in the event that such allowances have not been made, the efficiency of modern transportation is such that in most circumstances, priests would lose little time traveling to an ailing parishioner in order to celebrate Communion of the Sick. Hence the spirit and aim of eucharistic reservation still persist even when the practice itself sometimes does not, enabling all of Christ’s flock to feed on Him to their sustenance.

Notes

  1. Burnet, Articles, 402. ↑
  2. On the Lutheran teaching of the ubiquity of Christ’s body, see Burnet, Articles, 444; Boultbee, Articles, 254; Hans Lassen Martensen, Christian Dogmatics: A Compendium of the Doctrines of Christianity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1874), 463; Henry Eyster Jacobs, A Summary of the Christian Faith (Philadelphia: General Council Publication House, 1905), 347–48; Green, Articles, 233; Thomas, Articles, 397; Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 215, 492–93; Brian Lugioyo, “Martin Luther’s Eucharistic Christology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christology, ed. Francesca Aran Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 267–83; Mark Elliott, “Christology in the Seventeenth Century,” in Murphy, Oxford Handbook of Christology, 297–314; Richard Cross, Communicatio Idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); Richard Cross, Christology and Metaphysics in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 266–86; and Steven J. Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism: Biblical Christology in Light of the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), 168–78. ↑
  3. Hardwick, Articles, 136. See also Maclear and Williams, Articles, 330. ↑
  4. Scholars have contested this standard account of Zwingli’s eucharistic doctrine, although whether their elaborations and nuancing of his views on the subject differ from it all that much is debatable. See, e.g., Thomas, Articles, 398, 398n2; Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 533n1; W. P. Stephens, Zwingli: An Introduction to His Thought (New York: Clarendon Press, 1994), 94–110; and Carrie Euler, “Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger,” in A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reformation, ed. Lee Palmer Wandel (Boston: Brill, 2014), 57–65. ↑
  5. Samuel L. Bray and Drew N. Keane, eds., The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), 270. This rubric is notably absent from the American Prayer Book tradition. ↑
  6. See also James F. Turrell, “Anglican Theologies of the Eucharist,” in Wandel, Eucharist, 149, 151–52. ↑
  7. See also Macbeth, Articles, 159. ↑
  8. See also Baker, Articles, 166, and Green, Articles, 231. ↑
  9. Gibson, Articles, 658. See also Kidd, Articles, 232; Stone, Christian Dogma, 181–83; Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 220, 227; Bicknell, Articles, 498, 500; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 460, 477. ↑
  10. Gibson, Articles, 659. See also Kidd, Articles, 233; Stone, Christian Dogma, 183–84; and Bicknell, Articles, 500–501. ↑
  11. Burnet, Articles, 445. See also Burnet, Articles, 444, and Gibson, Articles, 659. ↑
  12. Waterworth, Trent, Thirteenth Session, “On the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist,” Canon II, 82. ↑
  13. Waterworth, Trent, Thirteenth Session, Canon VI, 83. ↑
  14. See also Waite, Articles, 415; Beveridge, Articles, 509; Burnet, Articles, 428, 444; Claughton, Articles, 103; Tomline, Christian Theology, 423, 425; Boultbee, Articles, 260; Bicknell, Articles, 508; and Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 508. ↑
  15. Kitchin, Browne, 120. ↑
  16. Forbes, Articles, 502, italics original. See also Stone, Christian Dogma, 192; Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 221; Darwell Stone, The Eucharistic Sacrifice (Milwaukee: The Morehouse Publishing Co., 1920), 42–44; Peter B. Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 241; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 466. ↑
  17. Stone, Christian Dogma, 189. See also Forbes, Articles, 504, 538, 563–64, and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 470–82. ↑
  18. Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 506–507, italics original. See also Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 229–30; Brian Douglas, The Eucharistic Theology of Edward Bouverie Pusey: Sources, Context and Doctrine within the Oxford Movement and Beyond (Boston: Brill, 2015), 124, 164, and T. A. Karlowicz, The Sacramental Vision of Edward Bouverie Pusey (New York: T&T Clark, 2022), 139. ↑
  19. Gibson, Articles, 665. See also Forbes, Articles, 568; Kidd, Articles, 234; Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 232–33; Green, Articles, 239; Bicknell, Articles, 503–504; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 467. ↑
  20. Nockles, Oxford Movement, 239. ↑
  21. William R. Crockett, “Holy Communion,” in The Study of Anglicanism, rev. ed., ed. Stephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 315. See also Nockles, Oxford Movement, 239–40, 242–43, and Carol Engelhardt Herringer, “Pusey’s Eucharistic Doctrine,” in Edward Bouverie Pusey and the Oxford Movement, ed. Rowan Strong and Carol Engelhardt Herringer (New York: Anthem Press, 2012), 91–113. For further resources against Tractarian understandings of the Eucharist, see John Harrison, An Answer to Dr. Pusey’s Challenge Respecting the Doctrine of the Real Presence, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1871); W. H. Griffith Thomas, “A Sacrament of Our Redemption” (London: Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., 1900); and Nathaniel Dimock, The History of the Book of Common Prayer in Its Bearing on Present Eucharistic Controversies (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910). ↑
  22. Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 270. Some protest, as exemplified by Hall quoted above, that it is Christ who is to be adored in the Eucharist, rather than the eucharistic elements themselves (see also Gibson, Articles, 667). But this is reminiscent of the argument for venerating images, which was addressed previously. For a critique of attempts to circumvent the Black Rubric’s clear prohibition of eucharistic adoration, see William George Shaw, Analysis and Refutation of Certain Erroneous Views Recently Promulgated, with Regard to the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (Edinburgh: R. Grant & Son, 1858), 22–24, and Charles Neil and J. M. Willoughby, eds., The Tutorial Prayer Book (London: The Harrison Trust, 1913), 366–69. ↑
  23. Turrell, “Eucharist,” 156. ↑
  24. See also Macbeth, Articles, 164. ↑
  25. Maclear and Williams, Articles, 344. See also Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1848), 320; John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, 6th ed. (London, Oxford, and Cambridge: Rivington’s, 1872), 289; Evan Daniel, The Prayer-Book: Its History, Language, and Contents, 20th ed. (London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1901), 393, 398; Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 230; and Bicknell, Articles, 504. ↑
  26. Gibson, Articles, 666. ↑
  27. Gibson, Articles, 666. See also Blunt, Book of Common Prayer, 289–90; Daniel, Prayer-Book, 398; and Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 321. ↑
  28. See Mortimer, Catholic Faith, pt. I, 230–32, and Green, Articles, 237. ↑
  29. See Daniel, Prayer-Book, 398, and Bicknell, Articles, 505. ↑
  30. Blunt, Book of Common Prayer, 290. See also Daniel, Prayer-Book, 398, and Green, Articles, 236. ↑
  31. Bicknell, Articles, 505. See also Neil and Willoughby, Prayer Book, 361. ↑
  32. Bicknell, Articles, 505. ↑
James Clark
About

James Clark is the author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.

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