Have Anglicans gone Lutheran on Lord's Supper?

I’m not so sure that the Romish conflate the Incarnation and Eucharist to the point of confusion, but I’m open to the possibility they do. If you have any references at hand I’d be interested in reading them.

 

Sure, I have no problem with that title as used now. We all understand what it means: that it in one way or another derives from the thought of Zwingli and Calvin, as Invictus cited. My point is that in the 16th century, which was a time of incredible confusion and bloody suffering, there was a tremendous amount of confusion on what to do now that medieval Roman theology was suspect. There were no clear schools of thought at all. So all I'm objecting to is the imposition of ahistorical categories on the Reformation, and especially our part of it, where we are saddled as somehow being the meek students of Calvin, which is literally opposite of how our Reformation took place.

 

It's just something I've been thinking of. I don't have references. If we make Christ's body physical, then it must be seen as an Incarnation, which must mean,
-we will have to worship it,
-the initial Incarnation becomes, meh, just one of millions, rather than One In History
-we accept that Christ's body can be eaten by rodents and pooped out on the toilet (ie. blasphemy).

It makes a mockery of our religion, if all the ideas are traced out to their conclusions. But I don't think many Romans trace out those conclusions though. I haven't seen a single Roman blog mentioning what happens to Christ's body within us when it's time for us to go to the bathroom. They just don't think about the expulsion, and only mention the consumption, as if the one can happen without the other.

 

The primary sources are in the public domain, and thus budget-friendly. I suggest reading The Zurich Letters (2 vols.), ed. Hastings Robinson. If for the sake of time you want something less labor intensive, I suggest Vol. 1 of The Oxford History of Anglicanism.

I have little confidence that this will resolve anything for you, however. The problem is not the state of the evidence, nor is it the definition of the term "Reformed". With respect, when I have cited modern historians in this vein before, you have rejected their assessment, either because you object to their lifestyle or convictions, or you have cited conspiracy theories about modern academia and "revisionism". When I have cited primary sources, you've simply asked for more. It's never enough. With respect, it seems to me that you will not accept any narrative that requires an acknowledgment that Anglicanism as a body of doctrine has in fact changed over time and is not something constant. That is a faith position, and there's nothing I can do about that.

 

Right, so you pick modern scholarship. Cool. Right up there with Karl Barth, Otto Brunner, and semper reformanda, and the Reformation as "Protestants vs. Catholics", and a whole host of other gross errors, fueled by modern atheist scholars like Diarmaid McCullough. Cool.

You haven't looked into Martin Bucer and Vermigli and their doctrine. If these scholars tell you the guy was "reformed" then you'll just believe them. Cool.

You haven't read the NorthAm Anglican article. If it doesn't fit your preconceptions, then it just can't be right. Cool.

 

Yeah I recognize the difficulty there. I did hear once, if I remember right, this question asked on Catholic Answers, the answer being that digestion changes the material composition of the host so that it is no longer “in the form of bread” and at that point is no longer the Body of Christ.

OK. I’ll give it three stars for effort ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ but that sort of mental gymnastics hurts my head. It’s one reason I flee from theology.

edit here it is
"The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ really present under the appearances of bread and wine; if the appearances cease to be present, then the sacrament no longer exists, and so the Real Presence ceases."[7]

 

Magnificent.

 

I really don't think Jesus of Nazareth had any of this kind of debate in mind when he said what he said at the last supper. The bread and the wine were clearly not his body and blood at the instant that HE said those words and He clearly knew that they were not physically parts or all of Him.

He so often spoke in figures of speech that even his disciples at the time would have assumed correctly that Jesus was using a figure of speech and establishing a symbolic memorial ritual around which his church on earth could focus and express its cohesive dependence by remaining living branches in the vine of life, which is himself.

I see no necessity for a belief in a physical presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist, apart from ensuring it be regarded with due reverence by all gathered round it. The Eucharist celebrated and consecrated every Sunday is no more essentially the physical body and blood of Christ than it was the night he first spoke those words. A physical presence is no more essential in those elements, to any individual's salvation than it would be in a vine planted on the wall of the church. Both would equally symbolise the reality of Christ's relationship with his redeemed disciples.

I have no objection to theological musings on this subject, I just object to it being turned into a dispute among those who fail to see the irony of generating 'division' over a sign and symbol instituted precisely by its founder, to express the spiritual unity and connectedness within His household of faith.

It is very sad indeed that anyone should have to suffer such an indignity from fellow servants of The Master. You have my sympathy and you deserve an apology from them.
.

 

What's gained, by discarding the idea of physical presence, is a more correct, more orthodox understanding. And that is always a good thing!

If you can imagine a sect preaching transubstantiation, confected by lay ministers, you can probably also imagine what other errors they would be teaching. Since we don't want Christianity to run into a ditch, we don't want to encourage ideas that can lead in a wrong direction (as transubstantiation has done, quite plainly).

 

I have gone back and reviewed the relevant passages in the following sources (in order of publication):

• Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5
• Bishop Gilbert Burnet, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England
• Bishop Edward Harold Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal
• Rev. W.H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology
• Rev. E.A. Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology

Every one of these sources (1) denies, on the basis of Articles 28-29, that Christ is present in the elements, (2) affirms that the "real presence" is only in the soul of the believer, and (3) treats this view as being aligned with that of Calvin, as opposed to Zwingli or Luther.

 

If you read John Jewel or Thomas Cranmer on the sacraments, they don’t quote Calvin a single time, nor Luther, nor anyone living. But they do quote the Church Fathers about a hundred times.

It’s not our similarity to his view, but rather his similarities to our view, that I would take. If Calvin had an Anglican view of the sacraments, then that’s fine, makes no difference for me, since we had nothing to do with him. There isn’t a single letter extant where Cranmer says, oh that Calvin, lemme go crib from his view on the sacraments.

 

Cranmer seems like an odd choice to use here. Have you read Cranmer's letters to Calvin? After Trent firms up the Roman position on transubstantiation, he corresponds with Calvin pretty extensively so they can, and I quote Cranmer here, "also ourselves come to an agreement upon the doctrine of this sacrament".

Even if his published writings quote the Church Fathers, the background documents we also have as he was compiling his arguments are fleshed out in detail in discussion with Calvin.

 

Right, so you wouldn't object to us saying that Calvin took the Anglican doctrine of the sacraments, after discussions with Cranmer?

 

I would suggest, with respect, that you're possibly making too much of Jewel's reliance on patristic sources, and not enough on his alignment with other contemporary Reformed leaders. Here is an excerpt from a letter of Jewel to Henry Bullinger, dated March 5, 1563:

I do not wonder that your Hercules* of Tubingen, the forger of monstrosities, is now triumphing at his ease: I wonder whether he is able to confine himself within the ample limits and regions of his Ubiquitarian** kingdom. Should he make any attack upon our departed friend***, and his writings come to my knowledge, unless some of you should be before hand with me, I shall think it my duty to reply to him, as far as my engagements will permit; if for no other reason, at least to let the world know, that England and Switzerland are both united against these Ubiquitarians.
* Brentius
** Lutheran
*** Peter Martyr
​

The impression I have received from reading the early Anglican divines is that their use of patristic writings was as much polemical as it was constructive. The English Reformers, as far as I can tell, weren't looking to the Church Fathers to tell them what their Eucharistic doctrine or practice should be. In the commentaries I referred to above, they consistently establish what they understand the doctrine of Scripture to be, and then strive to show to what extent (1) the writings of the Fathers agree with their interpretation, as well as (2) to what extent the Fathers may have unwittingly paved the way for the Roman Catholic doctrine they are refuting. It is abundantly clear that they were as much committed to sola Scriptura as their Continental counterparts, as was attested in Articles 6, 20, 21, and 34. At no place in the 39 Articles are the Church Fathers cited as an authority or a source of doctrine for the Church of England.

It would also be anachronistic to refer to Calvin as holding "an Anglican view of the sacraments". Calvin first published his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, decades before the Articles of Religion were subscribed and published. Richard Hooker, the chronologically first commentator I mentioned in my post above, hadn't even been born yet. The relation of dependence was clearly of England upon Zurich, and later Geneva, not the other way around. A letter from Bishop Robert Horne to Henry Bullinger, dated December 13, 1563, contains the following statement:

Of the books you mention in your second letter, I have received three upon the same arguments, against the Ubiquitarianism of Brentius; which subject a certain Englishman has undertaken as you desire, and by the divine assistance will treat with zeal and eloquence, that it may be manifest to every one that the people of England entertain on these points the same opinions as you do at Zurich.​

 

Of course.

 

Another point on this issue, which was brought to mind when I was reading something from Thomas Cranmer:

"as the fathers had the same Christ and Mediator that we have (as you here confess), so did they spiritually eat his flesh and drink his blood (as we do), and spiritually feed of him; and by faith he was present with them (as he is with us), although carnally and corporally he was yet to come unto them"

It's this last point that jogged my memory to pull up this thread again. The good Primate here of course refers to the doctrine of the Second Coming. That significant moment where for the first time since Christmas, that he will be with us in the flesh again. But if transubstantiation is true, then the Second Coming becomes rather yawn-inducing. Yes the judgments will still happen, but in terms of his presence, it's nothing new or better. "Yawn."

So just as the Incarnation is severely diminished by transubstantiation, so the Second Coming does the same on the back end. Neither the incarnation nor the second coming are the singular moments of human history to the same extent as for us, if transubstantiation is true.

 

That’s an interesting observation. Argument against transubstantiation is very new to me, so the whole history of it is sort of terra incognito. I suppose in a sense there is some diminishing, as you say, in the distinction between Christ’s physical presence here on earth between Incarnation-Eucharist-Ressurection-Second Coming, since it is literally the same corpus that is God-with-us. So maybe there’s something in that. I’m not sure I would say “diminishing”, but maybe “leveling” since I don’t think the Incarnation or Second Coming can be lessened in some way.

Still, there are unique distinctions between those things. In the Incarnation God first assumed our humanity… a unique event in history. In the Resurrection, Jesus defeated death forever, again a unique event. The Second Coming will be attended by resurrections of the faithful, judgement, and the end of time; also unique. In the meantime Jesus remains with as Eucharist, so that when he says “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” he means he is physically here with us.

There’s the objection that Jesus is not with us physically, since physically he sits at the right hand of the father, and so can only be here spiritually. That seems a strange argument to suggest God can’t be in more than one place at once. I’m not sure why that would have to necessarily be so.

 

The quote doesn't say "unto the end of the world" but specifically "unto the end of the age." Most commentators interpret that as the destruction of the Temple, the ceasing of all propitiatory sacrifices, and end of the Old Covenant. Truly the end of an age, the end of the old testament, the end of an era.

And in any case, he couldn't have meant being with us physically unto the end of the world, because later on he has the great discourse on the Holy Ghost:

John 14:25
-“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

 

one property of Jesus is that, unlike the Father and the Holy Ghost, is that he has a physical body.

So if the Holy Spirit has been sent to us, then we do have with us God’s presence as a spirit. What would be the purpose then of a (simply) spiritual communion with Jesus?

It seems to me that Jesus’ physical presence in the Eucharist is then a more compelling idea, since God, the Holy Spirit, is already sent to us. The material presence fleshes this presence out, so to speak.

all this makes me wonder if there has been a Eucharistic theory that the real presence is bread and flesh, wine and blood rather than an either/or. I’m sure some council has already decreed that to be here set someplace or another.

 

That is the philosophical approach of the modern Lutheran eucharistic doctrine. That is also why they object to the old label of 'consubstantiation.' The substance of bread and body are not the same, nor is one replaced, but they are united. Then one typically encounters the phrase "in, with, and under" which is suitably ambiguous to need hundreds of pages of unpacking - or you can use it and accept the mystery, as Bucer was prone to do.