In What Sense the Eucharist is a Sacrifice [Commentary on Browne: Article XXXI]

The fact that “the one Oblation of Christ” is “once made” tells us that the Eucharist, whatever the precise nature of its sacrificial character may be, cannot be a sacrifice in exactly the same way that Christ’s death on the Cross was. Browne, appealing to the fathers, writes that “we find no certain reference to any offering in the Eucharist, except the offering of the bread and wine in the way of gifts and oblations to the service of God; as the fine flour and the meat or bread-offerings were presented by the Jews, and with them a sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving.”[1] The Eucharist is therefore said to be a “commemorative” or “spiritual” sacrifice.[2] It is not in itself propitiatory, as the Cross is, but rather is “called a sacrifice of propitiation, both because of its recalling that great propitiatory sacrifice, and because by enabling us spiritually to feed on, and to take the blessed fruit of that sacrifice to ourselves, it was the means of bringing home to our souls the pardoning efficacy of Christ’s death, the propitiation for sins which He has wrought.” In the Eucharist, then, we “plead before the Father, the efficacy of that great offering, the all-prevailing merits of His precious Blood.” Another way of saying this is that the Eucharist is an impetrative sacrifice: “The priest impetrates or entreats God on behalf of the whole church on account of the sacrifice re-presented on the altar,”[3] and in this way the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice are applied to the worthy recipient.[4]

All of this is opposed to the Roman Mass, which Anglicans have rejected partly on the grounds that “the priest is said to offer up Christ afresh, as a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead. That is to say, the mass is a repetition or iteration of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross,” derogating from the sufficiency of “that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world.”[5] Moreover, as the Article says, in “the sacrifices of Masses” the quick and the dead “have remission of pain or guilt,” entailing a belief in the “Romish doctrine” of purgatory condemned by Article XXII.[6] In response, it is argued that the Article, in speaking of “the sacrifices of Masses,” does not attack any formal Roman teaching, on the grounds that “the subject was only considered at Trent in the autumn of 1562, nearly ten years later” than when the Article was originally drafted.[7] Yet the relevant question is not which came first, but “whether Trent has, or has not, set its seal on the doctrine which our Article condemns”[8]:

It [a certain section of Newman’s Tract 90] argues that what the Article condemns is not the authoritative teaching of Rome, but only the common belief and practice of Catholics, as regards Purgatory and private Masses. But the words in which the Article condemns the so-called abuse are ipso facto a condemnation also of the ordinance itself which is abused. This will be seen at once by comparing the language of the Article with the language of Pope Pius IV. and the Council of Trent.[9]

The Council straightforwardly teaches that the Eucharist is “truly propitiatory…. Not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those who are departed in Christ, and who are not as yet fully purified.”[10] Thus the Council authoritatively sets forth what the Article condemns, notwithstanding the fact that the latter precedes the former. As for the charge that the Roman Mass is a repetition or reiteration of Christ’s sacrifice, it is objected that Rome does not teach any such thing. Rather, according to Trent,

In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross…. The victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different…. So far is this (latter) from derogating in any way from that (former oblation).[11]

Therefore, “The Eucharist is a Sacrifice because it is essentially identical with the Sacrifice of Calvary, which it reproduces and re-presents.”[12] Needless to say, such reasoning hinges on either the doctrine of transubstantiation or something akin to it (e.g., the “Real Objective Presence”). Alternatively, a number of commentators on the Articles, as well as other authors, appear to suggest that the Eucharist derives its propitiatory character from Christ’s eternal sacrifice in Heaven: “How then was the sufficiency of the Sacrifice on the Cross to be reconciled with the reality of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist? By their common relation to the eternal self-oblation of Our Lord in heaven.”[13] The idea can be traced to either the heretic Faustus Socinus or his uncle Laelius,[14] and has also been advocated by some Reformed scholars in recent years.[15] This notion of eucharistic sacrifice is, if anything, even less tenable, for the Prayer Book could not be clearer in stating that Christ “made there [upon the Cross] (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”[16] Whatever the nature of Christ’s mediatorial work in Heaven, it should not be described in terms of active sacrifice.[17]

Hence, the Eucharist can only be called propitiatory in an attenuated sense, insofar as it applies the merits of the Cross. However, this in no way detracts from the Eucharist’s sacrificial character, which is manifested in our offering of the consecrated elements, our praise and thanksgiving, and even “our selves, our souls and bodies.”[18] Some Anglicans have been willing to say that the Eucharist is not a sacrifice “in the strict sense of the word,” meaning in the same propitiatory sense that “Christ himself is said to have been a sacrifice.”[19] This may concede too much, though—as if we believe the Eucharist is not really a sacrifice at all because it does not qualify in the “strict sense”—for which reason this move has been criticized:

It was a great injury to the Protestant argument to be diverted from the scriptural and patristic ground, into the tortuous and disingenuous distinctions of the champions of the Mass. The first of our own divines to adopt the new language was Hooker, with whom, as with others of his age, Calvin was a great authority; and Waterland rebukes him severely for this innovation.[20]

Browne, for his part, never qualifies his language by saying the Eucharist is only “figuratively” a sacrifice, or that it is not a sacrifice in the “strict” sense. We would do well to follow his example and affirm that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, without reservation and without regard for artificial distinctions that serve to undermine our profession.

Notes

  1. See also Burnet, Articles, 459, 463; Tomline, Christian Theology, 439; George Trevor, The Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrifice (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co., 1876), 2, 94, 142; and Thomas, Articles, 425. Browne’s description of the Eucharist as “a sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving” is nearly identical to the language of a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” found in the Prayer Book Service for Holy Communion. See Protestant Episcopal Church, Book of Common Prayer [1928], 81, and Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 264. ↑
  2. See also O’Donnoghue, Articles, 246–47; Waite, Articles, 448; Burnet, Articles, 460, 463; Welchman, Articles, 74; Tomline, Christian Theology, 439; and Trevor, Sacrifice, 10. ↑
  3. Sean Luke, “The Impetrative Sacrifice of the Mass,” The North American Anglican, 7 March 2025, https://northamanglican.com/the-impetrative-sacrifice-of-the-mass/, italics original. ↑
  4. See also Nathaniel Dimock, ‘Dangerous Deceits’: An Examination of the Teaching of Our Article Thirty-One (London: Elliot Stock, 1895), 81n1, and Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 519. ↑
  5. See also O’Donnoghue, Articles, 249; Waite, Articles, 448; Welchman, Articles, 74; Claughton, Articles, 109–111; Tomline, Christian Theology, 436; Boultbee, Articles, 268; Macbeth, Articles, 175; and Maclear and Williams, Articles, 359. ↑
  6. See also Waite, Articles, 457; Tomline, Christian Theology, 436, 441; Macbeth, Articles, 171; Baker, Articles, 176; Middleton, Articles, 211; and Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 510. ↑
  7. Gibson, Articles, 694. See also Kidd, Articles, 241, and Green, Articles, 263. ↑
  8. Thomas, Articles, 417. ↑
  9. John Henry Newman, “Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles” [Tract 90], in The Via Media of the Anglican Church, vol. II (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1891), 351, note 2 on section 9. See also Tait, Articles, 210; Thomas, Articles, 416–17, 419; Dimock, ‘Dangerous Deceits’; and Francis Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1960). ↑
  10. Waterworth, Trent, Twenty-second Session, Chapter II, 154–55. ↑
  11. Waterworth, Trent, Twenty-second Session, Chapter II, 154–55. ↑
  12. Alfred G. Mortimer, The Eucharistic Sacrifice (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901), 146. See also Forbes, Articles, 609; Mortimer, Sacrifice, 76–77; Stone, Christian Dogma, 192; Alfred G. Mortimer, Catholic Faith and Practice, pt. I, 5th ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1905), 241; Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 518; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 489. ↑
  13. Kidd, Articles, 244. See also Stone, Christian Dogma, 186, 192; Darwell Stone, The Eucharistic Sacrifice (Milwaukee: The Morehouse Publishing Co., 1920), 24, 40; Bicknell, Articles, 518–19; Thomas, Articles, 423–24; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. VII, 272–73, 278–79, and Bk. IX, 489–91. ↑
  14. See Mortimer, Sacrifice, 89, 408, 412, 491, and David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Boston: Brill, 2011), 199n130. For a response to the Socinian account of Christ’s heavenly priesthood, see Hugo Grotius, A Defence of the Catholic Faith Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ, trans. Frank Hugh Foster (Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1889). ↑
  15. See, e.g., Moffitt, Atonement, 257; David M. Moffitt, “It Is Not Finished: Jesus’s Perpetual Atoning Work as the Heavenly High Priest in Hebrews,” in So Great a Salvation: A Dialogue on the Atonement in Hebrews, ed. Jon C. Laansma, George H. Guthrie, and Cynthia Long Westfall (New York: T&T Clark, 2019), 157–75; Stephen R. Holmes, “A Reformed Account of Eucharistic Sacrifice,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 24, no. 2 (April 2022): 191–211; and David M. Moffitt, “Hebrews and the Atonement,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, ed. Patrick Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024), 197–214. ↑
  16. Protestant Episcopal Church, Book of Common Prayer [1928], 80, and Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 262. ↑
  17. See also Mortimer, Sacrifice; Mortimer, Catholic Faith, 330; Nathaniel Dimock, Our One Priest on High (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910); Thomas, Articles, 424; and Litton, Dogmatic Theology, 520–21. Mortimer contends that Tractarian authors affirm Christ’s heavenly sacrifice only in the “passive” sense, meaning that He continues to be a sacrifice in Heaven on the basis of His already completed sacrifice on the Cross (Sacrifice, 452, and Catholic Faith, 326–27). ↑
  18. Protestant Episcopal Church, Book of Common Prayer [1928], 81. See also Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 264. ↑
  19. Tomline, Christian Theology, 439. ↑
  20. Trevor, Sacrifice, 11. ↑
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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