Little space is typically devoted to expositing Article XXIX because, as Browne and many other commentators have noted, “if the last Article be true, this most probably follows on it.” If “by faith we are enabled to receive Him,” then “the wicked,” who are “void of a lively faith,” will of course be unable to partake of Christ. Assuming as it does the spiritual nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, this Article “was, for a time, expunged by Queen Elizabeth and her Council; probably as not agreeable to those members of the Church who were of Lutheran sentiments.” As its erstwhile removal indicates, the Article poses “a great difficulty with those who maintain a real objective presence in or with the consecrated elements.”[1]
However, when it comes to interpreting the Anglican formularies, those inclined to Tractarianism and Anglo-Catholicism may at times be perplexed, but never driven to despair. Just as they find room in Article XXVIII for the doctrine of “Real Objective Presence,” so, too, do they construe the present Article as allowing for the wicked to, at least in some sense, receive Christ in the Eucharist: “That all communicants receive the body and blood of Christ, but only some receive to profit, has been the ordinary teaching in the Church.”[2] Purveyors of this doctrine hold that for the wicked, Christ is “present in the Sacrament, not to bless, but to judge.”[3] This is said to be possible because
We distinguish in the Holy Eucharist three parts—the Signum, the Res, and the Virtus Sacramenti. Of these the Signum, viz., Bread and Wine is evidently received by all communicants. The Res, the Body and Blood of Christ, is really there, and is sacramentally received by all. But while the reality of the Sacrament is not dependent upon faith, our own individual ability to partake spiritually of Christ is thus dependent. Christ’s Presence is only realised by the faithful; only they receive the Virtus of the Sacrament.[4]
Thus a distinction is drawn between “eating the body and blood of Christ” (the Res) and “partaking of Christ” (the Virtus Sacramenti), with the wicked being incapable of only the latter: “The Phraseology here used is very important. It is not said that the wicked are not partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ; it is said that ‘in no wise are they partakers of Christ.’”[5] While the title of the Article—which expressly states that the wicked “eat not the Body of Christ”—would seem to rule out this interpretation, it is held in response that this wording is imprecise and should be taken to mean that “the wicked eat not in such a way, that they ‘thereby dwell in Christ and Christ in them.’”[6]
This account of the Article is undermined by the fact that the Prayer Book Catechism teaches there to be two parts of a sacrament rather than three, namely “the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace”[7]:
This distinction between the inward part, res, and the benefit, virtus, of the Sacrament finds no place in Anglican theology; and, indeed, it would involve the fact of three parts in a Sacrament, which is contrary to our Catechism. The “thing signified” includes both the spiritual blessing and its benefit by participation. This distinction between signum, res and virtus was the ordinary teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, as it is to this day, and it is obvious that the Article is not likely to maintain here what it so definitely denies, and even denounces, in Article XXVIII.[8]
The doctrine outlined above rests, then, on a “revised Anglican tradition.”[9] Whatever difficulties are involved with maintaining this doctrine, its defenders have little choice but to bear them, bound up as these difficulties are in the preceding logic of how they understand the Eucharist.
Notes
- Boultbee, Articles, 293. ↑
- Stone, Christian Dogma, 190. See also 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), 94; Brian Douglas, The Eucharistic Theology of Edward Bouverie Pusey: Sources, Context and Doctrine within the Oxford Movement and Beyond (Boston: Brill, 2015); Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 497; and T. A. Karlowicz, The Sacramental Vision of Edward Bouverie Pusey (New York: T&T Clark, 2022), 140. ↑
- Forbes, Articles, 576. See also Karlowicz, Pusey, 141. ↑
- Green, Articles, 242–43. See also Forbes, Articles, 576, 581–82. ↑
- Maclear and Williams, Articles, 349, italics original. ↑
- Maclear and Williams, Articles, 348. Another approach is to insist that the Article’s heading must be understood in light of the Article itself rather than the other way around. See Forbes, Articles, 592. ↑
- Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), 581. ↑
- Thomas, Articles, 407. See also Gibson, Articles, 670–71, 674; Kidd, Articles, 237–38; Tait, Articles, 204; and Bicknell, Articles, 502–503. ↑
- Herringer, “Pusey’s Eucharistic Doctrine,” 101. ↑
