The Eucharist has been a hot point of controversy ever since the early Church. The quotes below represent the “high church” Anglican expression of the Eucharist, during the Reformation. I would say that they produce a very orthodox example of the Anglican via media. I hope you thoroughly enjoy them. All, except the first one, were taken from Brian Douglas’s pre-publication of Ways of Knowing in the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition.
Alexander Nowell’s Larger Catechism
M Then I perceive that the holy supper sendeth us to the death of Christ, and to his sacrifice once done upon the cross, by which alone God is appeased toward us.S It is most true. For by bread and wine, the signs, is assured unto us, that as the body of Christ was once offered a sacrifice for us to reconcile us to favour with God, and his blood once shed, to wash away the spots of our sins, so now also in his holy supper both are given to the faithful, that we surely know that the reconciliation of favour pertaineth to us, and may take and receive the fruit of the redemption purchased by his death.” (Nowell, A Catechism, Edn, Corrie, 1853: 215).
Lancelot Andrewes
“This then I commend to you, even the being with Him in the Sacrament of His body, that body that was conceived and born, as for other ends so for this specially, to be ‘with you’; and this day, as for other intents so even for this, for the Holy Eucharist.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 152).
“Now ‘the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body, of the flesh, of Jesus Christ?’ [1 Corinthians 10: 16] It is surely, and by it and by nothing more are we made partakers of this most blessed union. A little before he said, “Because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also would take part with them’ [Hebrews 2: 14] - may not we say the same? Because he hath so done, taken ours of us, we also ensuing His steps will participate with Him and with His flesh which He hath taken of us. It is most kindly to take part with Him in that which He took part in with us, and that to no other end but that He might make the receiving of it by us a means whereby He might ‘dwell in us, and we in Him’; He taking our flesh, and we receiving His Spirit; by His flesh which He took of us receiving His Spirit which he imparteth to us; that, as He by ours became consors humanae naturae, so we by His might become consortes divinae naturae, ‘partakers of the divine nature’. [2 Peter 1: 4] Verily, it is the most straight and perfect ‘taking hold’ that is. No union so knitteth as it. Not consanguinity; brethren fall out. Not marriage; man and wife are severed. But that which is nourished, and the nourishment wherewith, they never are, never can be severed, but remain one for ever. With this act them of mutual ‘taking’, taking of His flesh as He has taken ours, let us seal our duty to Him.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 16-17).
“How may we better establish our hearts with grace, or settle our minds in the truth of His promise, than by partaking these the conduit pipes of His grace, and seals of His truth unto us? Grace and truth now proceeding not from the Word alone, but even from the flesh thereto united; the fountain of the Word flowing into the cistern of His flesh, and from thence deriving down to us this grace and truth, to them that partake Him aright.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 100).
“We shall the better dispense the season, if we gather to prayers to God’s word, if we begin with them, if with the dispensation of His holy mysteries gather to that specially. For there we do not gather to Christ or of Christ, but we gather Christ Himself; and gathering Him we shall gather the tree and fruit and all upon it. For as there is a recapitulation of all in heaven and earth in Christ, so there is a recapitulation of all in Christ in the Holy Sacrament. You may see it clearly: there is in Christ the Word eternal for things heaven; there is also flesh for things of earth. Semblably, the Sacrament consisteth of a heavenly and a terrene part (it is Irenaeus’ own words); the heavenly - there the word too, the abstract of the other; the earthly - the element. …. The gathering or vintage of these two in the blessed Eucharist is as I may say a kind of hypostatical union of the sign and the thing signified, so united together as are the two natures of Christ. And even from this sacramental union do the fathers borrow their resemblance to illustrate by it the personal union in Christ; I name Theodoret for the Greek, and Gelasius for the Latin Church, that insist upon it both, and press it against Eutyches. That even as in the Eucharist neither part is evacuate or turned into the other, but abide each still in his former nature and substance, no more is either of Christ’s natures annulled, or one of them converted into the other, as Eutyches held, but each nature remaineth still full and whole in its own kind. And backwards; as the two natures in Christ, so the signum and signatum in the Sacrament, e converso. And this latter device of the substance of the bread and wine to be flown away and gone, and in the room of it a remainder of nothing else but accidents to stay behind, was to them known; and had it been true had made for Eutyches and against them.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 281-282).
“To a many with us it is indeed so and nothing beside; whereas the ‘bread which we break is the partaking of Christ’s’ true ‘body’, [1 Corinthians 10: 16] and not a sign, figure, or remembrance of it. For the Church hath ever believed a true fruition of the true body of Christ in the Sacrament.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, V, 67).
Andrewes says concerning Cardinal Bellarmine’s question about whether the Anglicans adore the sacrament:
“About ‘the adoration of the sacrament’ he stumbles badly at the very threshold. He says, ‘of the Sacrament, that is, of Christ the Lord present by a wonderful but real way in the Sacrament’. Away with this. Who will allow him this? ‘Of the Sacrament, that is, of Christ in the Sacrament’. Surely, Christ Himself, the reality (res) of the Sacrament, in and with the Sacrament, outside and without the Sacrament, wherever He is, is to be adored. Now the king [i.e. King James I] laid down that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, and is really to be adored, that is, the reality (rem) of the Sacrament, but not the Sacrament, that is, the ‘earthly part’, as Irenaeus says, the ‘visible’, as Augustine says. We also, like Ambrose, ‘adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries’, and yet not it but Him who is worshipped on the altar. For the Cardinal puts his question badly, ‘What is there worshipped’, since he ought to ask, ‘Who’, as Nazianzen says, ‘Him’, not ‘it’. And. Like Augustine, we ‘do not eat the flesh without first adoring’. And we none of us adore the Sacrament.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 266, 267).
Jeremy Taylor
“The Altar or Holy Table is sedes Corporis et Sanguinis Christi. S. Chrysost: hom: 21. in 2 Cor: et alibi. And if the Altars, and the Arke and the Temple in the Law of Nature and Moses were Holy, because they were God’s Memorialls, as I shewed above, then by the same reason shall the Altar be uperagion, highly Holy, because it is Christ’s Memoriall. ….. Wee doe believe that Christ is there really present in the Sacrament, there is the body and bloud of Christ, which are, ‘verely, and indeed’ taken and received by the faithfull, saith our Church in her Catechisme. ….” (Taylor, On the Reverence Due to the Altar, edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852, V, 330).
“an action among all the instances of religion [as] the most perfect and consummate [which] actually performs all that could be necessary for man, and it presents to man as great a thing as God could give; for it is impossible any thing should be greater than himself. …. Because, after a mysterious and ineffable manner, we receive him, who is light and life, the fountain of grace, the sanctifier of our secular comforts, and the author of holiness and glory. ….. Christ has remained in the world, by the communication of this sacrament. ….. The bread, when it is consecrated, and made sacramental, is the body of our Lord; and the fraction and distribution of it is the communication of that body, which died for us upon the cross.” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 305).
” … whatsoever Christ did at the institution, the same he commanded the Church to do, in remembrance and repeated rites; and himself also does the same thing in heaven for us, making perpetual intercession for his church, the body of his redeemed ones, by representing to his Father his death and sacrifice. There he sits, a High Priest continually, and offers still the same one perfect sacrifice; that is, still represents it as having been once finished and consummate, in order to perpetual and never-failing events. And this, also, his ministers do on earth; they offer up the same sacrifice to God, the sacrifice of the cross, by prayers, and a commemorating rite and representment, according to his holy institution. And as all the effects of grace and the titles of glory were purchased for us on the cross, and the actual mysteries of redemption perfected on earth, but are applied to us, and made effectual to single persons and communities of men, by Christ’s intercession in heaven; so also they are promoted by acts of duty and religion here on earth, that we may be ‘workers together with God’, (as St Paul expresses it, 2 Cor. 6: 1) and, in virtue of the eternal and all-sufficient sacrifice, may offer up our prayers and our duty; and by representing that sacrifice, may send up, together with our prayers, an instrument of their graciousness and acceptation. … we ‘celebrate and exhibit the Lord’s death’, in sacrament and symbol; and this is that great express, which, when the church offers to God the Father, it obtains all those blessings which that sacrifice purchased. … As Christ is a priest in heaven for ever, and yet does not sacrifice himself afresh, nor yet without a sacrifice could he be a priest; but, by a daily ministration and intercession, represents his sacrifice to God, and offers himself as sacrificed: so he does upon earth, by the ministry of his servants; he is offered to God, that is, he is, by prayers and the sacrament, represented or ‘offered up to God, as sacrificed’; which, in effect, is a celebration of his death, and the applying it to present and future necessities of the church, as we are capable, by a ministry like to his in heaven. It follows, then, that the celebration of this sacrifice be, in its proportion, an instrument of applying the proper sacrifice to all the purposes which it first designed. It is ministerially, and by application, an instrument propitiatory; it is eucharistical, it is an homage, and an act of adoration; and it is impetratory, and obtains for us, and for the whole church, all the benefits of the sacrifice, which is now celebrated and applied; that is, as this rite is the remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ’s sacrifice, so it is destined to do honour to God, to express the homage and duty of his servants, to acknowledge his supreme dominion, to give him thanks and worship, to beg pardon, blessings, and supply of all our needs.” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 308).
“When the holy man stands at the table of blessing, and ministers the rite of consecration, then do as the angels do, who behold, and love, and wonder that the Son of God should become food to the souls of his servants: that he, who cannot suffer any change or lessening, should be broken into pieces, and enter into the body to support and nourish the spirit, and yet at the same time remain in heaven, while he descends to thee upon earth. …. These are such glories, that although they are made so obvious, that each eye may behold them, yet they are also so deep, that no thought can fathom them: but so it hath pleased him to make these mysteries to be sensible, because the excellency and depth of the mercy is not intelligible; that while we are ravished and comprehended within the infiniteness of so vast and mysterious a mercy, yet we may be sure of it, as of that thing we see, and feel, and smell, and taste; but yet it is so great we cannot understand it.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 498).
“In the act of receiving, exercise acts of faith with much confidence and resignation, believing it not to be common bread and wine, but holy in their use, holy in their signification, holy in their change, and holy in their effect: and believe, if thou art a worthy communicant, thou dost as verily receive Christ’s body and blood to all effects and purposes of the Spirit, as thou dost receive the blessed elements into thy mouth, that thou puttest thy finger to his hands, and thy hand into his side, and thy lips to the fontinel of blood, sucking life from his heart; and yet if thou dost communicate unworthily, thou eatest and drinkest Christ to thy danger, and death, and destruction. Dispute not concerning the secret of the mystery, and the nicety of the manner of Christ’s presence; it is sufficient to thee, that Christ shall be present to thy soul, as an instrument of grace, as a pledge of the resurrection, as the earnest of glory and immortality, and a means of many intermedial blessings, even all such as are necessary on thy part but a holy life, and a true belief of all the sayings of Christ; amongst which, indefinitely assent to the words of institution, and believe that Christ, in the holy sacrament, gives thee his body and his blood. He that believes not this, is not a Christian. He that believes so much, needs not to inquire further, nor to entangle his faith by disbelieving his sense.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 499).
“Now Christ did establish a number of select persons to be ministers of this great sacrifice, finished upon the cross; that they also should exhibit and represent to God, in the manner which their Lord appointed them, this sacrifice, commemorating the action and suffering of the great priest; and by the way of prayers and impetration, offering up that action in behalf of the people, epi to anw jusiasthrion anapemyaV taV jusiaV, as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it, ‘sending up sacrifices to be laid upon the altar in heaven’; that the church might be truly united unto Christ their head, and in the way of their ministry, may do what he does in heaven. For he exhibits the sacrifice, that is, himself, actually and presentially in heaven: the priest on earth commemorates the same, and, by his prayers, represents it to God in behalf of the whole catholic church; presentially too, by another and more mysterious way of presence; but both Christ in heaven, and his ministers on earth, do actuate that sacrifice, and apply it to its purposed design by praying to God in the virtue and merit of that sacrifice: Christ himself, in high and glorious manner; the ministers of his priesthood (as it becomes ministers) humbly, sacramentally, and according to the energy of human advocation and intercession; this is the sum and great mysteriousness of Christianity …” (Taylor, Clerus Domini, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 694-695)
What are thoughts on the first part of Andrewes’ Responsio ad Apologiam Bellarmini:
“As to the ‘This is in this way’ (namely, by the Transubstantiation of the bread into the Body), as to the method whereby it happens that it is, by means of In or With or Under or By transition, there is no word expressed. […] It is perfectly clear that Transubstantiation, which has lately been born in the last four hundred years, never existed in the first four hundred…In opposition to the Jesuit, our men deny that the Fathers had anything to do with the fact of Transubstantiation, any more than with the name. He regards the fact of Transubstantiation as a change in substance (substantialis transmutation). And he calls certain witnesses to prove this. And yet on this point, whether there is a conversion in substance, not long before the Lateran Council the Master of the Sentences (Peter Lombard) himself says ‘I am not able to define.’ But all his witnesses speak of some kind of change (promutatione, immutatione, transmutatione). But there is no mention there of a change in substance, or of the substance. But neither do we deny in this matter the preposition trans; and we allow that the elements are changed (transmutari). But a change in substance we look for, and we find it nowhere…” (from Documents of the Christian Church, 2d ed., Bettenson; Oxford 1963)
I think what he is saying about “substance” is perfectly acceptable for our modern paradigm. The paradigm of the RCC is hard to understand. When we refer to substance, we are thinking in biological terms, when the RCC refers to substance, they are thinking on a plain that does not exist to us. Take the bread to a lab and you will not find any biological change. It’s really that basic. Now, if you are saying that the substance is changed spiritually, I think most Anglicans could agree with that, including the reformers posted here.
The Christian understanding of substance may be found in the writings of the Church Fathers. Of particular interest are the Cappadocian Fathers. Substance is understood as OUSIA, the essence of existence, that which subsists.
You will wish to note that the creed of the Constantinople I proclaimed that each person of the Holy Trinity shared the same OUSIA (or substance) as one God. Chalcedon and Constantinople II further clarified a perfect union of perfect humanity and perfect divinity in one subsistence, without diminishment or confusion. Canon 9 of Constantinople II is extremely clear that the “tradition of the Church from the beginning” is single worship and adoration of God the Word: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
It is the substance of Jesus Christ, therefore, in his perfect humanity and perfect divinity without diminishment, confusion, addition or subtraction that becomes present during the Eucharist. So, not to add the natures of bread and wine to Jesus Christ (so that he would be True God, True Man, True Bread and True Wine), the essence of these things is transformed by the Holy Spirit who created the universe out of nothing. The appearance of bread and wine is complete. They appear in every way to have remained the same. However, because of the word of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the essence has been transformed. This transformation by the Holy Spirit is complete so that Jesus Christ becomes present on the altar without diminishment or confusion under the appearance of bread and wine. Jesus, while on Earth, appeared in every way to be a man and nothing more. And yet, he was the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. The Word of God does not return void. The Word who spoke and the universe leapt into existence says, “This is my body.” It happens just as he says. He says it so we believe it. The prayer of Humble Access said at every Anglican Eucharist professes this constant faith of the Church.
“the essence of these things is transformed by the Holy Spirit who created the universe out of nothing.” That is one of the few parts I understood, Gil. Maybe I’m just not spiritual enough to understand that the Eucharist is and is not biologically changed.
Just to add my own two cents to this debate, I believe a lot of the confusion over the change that takes place in the Eucharist is clouded by the defining of the terms in lieu of Aristotelian philosophy. Not that there is anything wrong with terms so defined, but it is an unfortunate accident of history that philosophical terminology underwent a change in meaning in the late medieval period as the focus in the Western philosophical tradition shifted from the Aristotelian realism of Aquinas, Bonaventure, and John Dun Scotus to the nominalism of William of Occam.
In classical Aristotelian thinking, natural philosophy could roughly be divided into physics and what Aristotle called first philosophy (later called metaphysics). Physics dealt with movement (here meaning just locomotion but any nonessential change - that is anything that does not affect the essence of the object). Metaphysics deals with the essence of the object. The properties of the object that are non-essential are called accidents and that which is essential is the substance. Changes is accidents are percieved by the senses while changes in substance are perceived by the intellect.
The accidents of a thing (color, size, location) can change without affecting the essence of the thing (substance). What transubstantiation contends is that the accidents of bread and wine remain while the substance is changed to the body and blood of Christ. Thus the terminology always speaks of a corporeal presence of Christ but it would be bad terminology to say a physical presence - here corporeal means real as in the natural world but physical means accidental. This is the definition used at Florence.
Unfortuately, nominalism changed the terms. Accidents become mere appearance or perception rather than an actual property of the thing and the essence becomes identified with the physical. Nominalism was dominant in Luther’s day and it was this state of scholasticism that he spent so much time railing against. Unfortunately, he also tended to read all the medieval doctors in terms of what he had learned and so misjudged many great thinkers.
Luther’s own attempts at a definition (with consubstantiation) seems to me (but by no means definitively) to be aiming at what the Catholic Church had defined centuries earlier - albeit Luther’s own attempts were rather clumsy.
It is difficult to state clearly what Trent defined since there were both nominalists and traditional Thomists in attendance and the assembly may have agreed on terminology with each assuming their own definition. This muddled state of affairs continued until the neo-Thomistic revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and then the more traditional interpretation prevailed for a time. Unfortunately, the confusion over Vatican II pretty much evaporated the Thomistic movement and there is confusion once again. Oh well, one man’s opinion :)
Good post, Albert! That was well articulated.
Classical Aristotelianism is the foundation that the Church of the 1st millenium used to hammer out the Christological controversies. These words, however, were given new Christian meaning by the early Ecumenical Councils. It is entirely possible, as the Eastern Churches do, to understand the Eucharist in these terms without recourse to later Scholasticism (which developed due to the insufficiencies of Christian Latin). This is why I have framed the understanding of substance in terms of the Eastern concept of OUSIA. My interest is the understanding of Eucharist in the Church of the 1st millenium and how that relates to Anglican thought on the matter.
Luther’s consubstantiation adds the natures of bread and wine to Jesus Christ. His attempt was to have a “real” presence of Jesus Christ that should not (because of the presence of bread/wine) be worshipped.
Finally, the phenomenological writings of Von Balthasar and John Paul II certainly provide a crystal clear understanding of Eucharist in modern terms and greatly influenced Eucharistocentric V2.
I wonder, regarding the change in substance in the Eucharist, what would the Anglicans say the substance of Jesus Christ lacked in his Eucharistic presence?
Although the Church of the first millennium was, of course, well versed in Aristotelianism, i think it is a mistake to say that it was the foundation of the Church at that time and in particular of the Ecumenical Councils. Actually, a form of Platonism was far more dominant in the philosophical thinking and although this neo-Platonism had adopted many of the Aristotelian categories, the meanings ascribed were not identical. You see this clearly in the writings of both St. Augustine’s City of God where he relies heavily on the thought of Plotinus, the best known of the neo-Platonist philosophers.
This distinction is important since in Aristotelianism the form is inherent in the substance while in neo-Platonism the form is reflected in the substance.
As I mentioned above, Luther’s understanding of the Eucharist is tainted by his misunderstanding of earlier Catholic beliefs. He was trying to grant a real presence while maintaining the reality of the bread and wine. Unfortunately, his muddled reasoning led to what almost seems a second incarnation where the Eucharist becomes truly God, truly man, and truly bread. If he had understood the earlier doctors (and Aristotle) better, he would have known that the reality of bread and wine were preserved accidentally. Accidents are real - just non-essential properties of the thing but properties none the less. But under the corrupted nominalist understanding Luther presumed, it seemed more of a magic show where God was playing tricks on you.
As for what Anglicans would say about the Eucharist, it is difficult to state with certainty since different Anglicans would say different things. There is no uniform doctrine on this matter as Anglicanism has a wide range of opinions. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you cannot assume things even from the 39 Articles since these were promulgated at a particularly pro-Protestant period in the Church of England. The 1662 revison of the BCP appears to take a higher view and the two have not been entirely reconciled with “low church” and “high church” parties each ignoring the other. Anglicans in general would grant that Christ is present in the Sacrament but the nature of the presence is not defined.
I should also point out that the doctrine of transubstantiation is an entirely Western development. The East does not use this assertion at all even though their belief in Christ’s presence is as strong as any in the Church. They are reluctant to dogmatically define the mysteries of the faith unless there is a strong Apostolic and patristic consensus on the matter and there is a threat posed by heretics causing confusion by distorting the truth.