What is your position on the presence in the food? Is there one single Anglican position?

[rakovsky]

Hello! I wish to best understand the Anglican position on the Eucharistic food in Anglicanism. I was long under the impression that Anglicans accept that the ritual food is or directly and specifically contains Christ. However, I've heard different answers from Anglicans on their own positions and so I wish to understand well what they believe and if there is an Anglican position on this.

1. The Articles of Religion were major documents in the Church of England's era of its separation from Rome, and include:

XXVIII. Of the Lord's Supper

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.


XXIX. Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper

The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.

In the above I've underlined some key phrases, opposing RC Transubstantiation, and suggesting that the "eating" is "only" in a spiritual manner and that the unfaithful do not actually eat the body.

Wikipedia's background on this was:

Convocation passed only 39 of the 42, and Elizabeth reduced the number to 38 by throwing out Article XXIX to avoid offending her subjects with Catholic leanings.[14] In 1571, the Article XXIX, despite the opposition of Bishop Edmund Guest, was inserted, to the effect that the wicked do not eat the Body of Christ.[15] This was done following the queen's excommunication by the Pope Pius V in 1570. That act destroyed any hope of reconciliation with Rome and it was no longer necessary to fear that Article XXIX would offend Catholic sensibilities.[15] The Articles, increased to Thirty-nine, were ratified by the Queen, and the bishops and clergy were required to assent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Nine_Articles

A key question I would have is how definitive the articles are of Anglicanism itself?

2. Cranmer's view
Cranmer was a founding and leading Anglican in the English Reformation. As I understand it, he was especially sympathetic to Calvin's or Zwingli's view.

3. The 1979 Episcopalian Catechesis. It states:

"The outward and visible sign in the Eucharist is bread and wine, given and received according to Christ's command. The inward and spiritual grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith."

Christians agree that only the faithful benefit from receiving Christ's body and blood, but in the Lutheran view, both the faithful and unfaithful receive that body and blood, as Christ said "Take eat, this is my body" and handed the apostles including Judas.

4. C.S. Lewis' view that Transubstantiation and the idea that the food is in itself only a symbol is unthinkable. C.S. Lewis is a famous Anglican writer and he wrote:

I don’t know and can’t imagine what the disciples understood our Lord to mean when, His body still unbroken and His blood unshed, He handed them the bread and wine, saying they were His body and blood…I find ‘substance’ (in Aristotle’s sense), when stripped of its own accidents and endowed with the accidents of some other substance, an object I cannot think…On the other hand, I get no better with those who tell me that the elements are mere bread and mere wine, used symbolically to remind me of the death of Christ. They are, on the natural level, such a very odd symbol of that…and I cannot see why this particular reminder – a hundred other things may, psychologically, remind me of Christ’s death, equally, or perhaps more – should be so uniquely important as all Christendom (and my own heart) unhesitatingly declare…Yet I find no difficulty in believing that the veil between the worlds, nowhere else (for me) so opaque to the intellect, is nowhere else so thin and permeable to divine operation. Here a hand from the hidden country touches not only my soul but my body. Here the prig, the don, the modern , in me have no privilege over the savage or the child. Here is big medicine and strong magic…the command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand.

I understand that C.S. Lewis is not a key "authority" in the same way that the articles might be. However, as I understand it, there was also a major movement in the las 200 years called the Oxford movement that was very sympathetic to the belief in Christ's presence specifically in the ritual food itself.

5. St. Augustine's views.
Since St. Augustine is mentioned in the Articles, I will quote him to better give his ideas. Here is the quote that Article XXIX referred to:
“This is the bread coming down from heaven, so that if anyone eat of it, he may not die. Yes, he who eats what belongs to the virtue of the Sacrament, not to the visible sacrament; he who eats within, not without; he who eats in the heart, not he who presses (the Sacrament) with his teeth” (Tract 26, n. 12,).

Christians have interpreted Augustine's ideas in different ways on this topic, so I will give some more quotes, first one used against Transubstantiation:

Augustine (354-430) said regarding John 6:63 "But He instructed them, and saith unto them, 'It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth." (Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 99:8)

For more quotes along this line, see: https://carm.org/early-church-fathers-communion

Here is another: "He [Christ] committed and delivered to His disciples the figure of His Body and Blood” (Augustine, on Psalm 3).

Here are some by Augustine that have been used to support the Catholic/Lutheran view:

• "What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that THE BREAD IS THE BODY OF CHRIST AND THE CHALICE THE BLOOD OF CHRIST." (Sermons 272)
  
  
• [Jesus] received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, and gave us the same flesh to be eaten unto salvation. But no one eats that flesh unless he first adores it… and not only do we not sin by adoring [His flesh], we do sin by not adoring (Explanations of the Psalms 98, 9).

• "Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side... whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament." Sermon 3, 2;
  
  
• "How this ['And he was carried in his own hands'] should be understood literally of David, we cannot discover; but we can discover how it is meant of Christ. FOR CHRIST WAS CARRIED IN HIS OWN HANDS, WHEN, REFERRING TO HIS OWN BODY, HE SAID: 'THIS IS MY BODY.' FOR HE CARRIED THAT BODY IN HIS HANDS." (Psalms 33:1:10)

I am not defining for Anglicans what the Anglican view is, but am trying to better understand how they define it themselves, and to see how Anglican laity tend to think on the issue. For example, is there an actual "official" position defining Anglicanism, and what portion of Anglicans would feel which way?
=======================================================

Note in the poll: Please choose the answer that you best identify with. I tried to define each viewpoint on the relationship of the Eucharistic food to Christ's body as best as I could. Some of the definitions didn't fit in the space.

So when I say "Yes, I'm Anglican & accept either the position of Transubstantiation or Luther, but haven't decided", I mean that the respondent hasn't chosen whether the Lutheran or Catholic position is correct, but thinks that at least one of them is.

For Calvin's view, I mean that communion is only of a purely spiritual nature whereby the believer's spirit is united with Jesus' body that is only up in heaven.

For Zwingli's view, I mean that there is not a specific direct presence of Jesus in the bread itself as opposed to anyplace else on earth, and the Eucharistic ritual is not an actual communing of the believer with Jesus' body that is in heaven, or it's not an actual unique form of spiritual communion beyond what happens when "two or more are gathered".

 

[Deegie]

Given our lengthy dialogue in another thread, I'm rather surprised you left out the option "I'm Anglican, and I don't really care how it happens."

 

[rakovsky]

Given our lengthy dialogue in another thread, I'm rather surprised you left out the option "I'm Anglican, and I don't really care how it happens."

I know. I suppose that goes under "Anglican - Other". I ran out of spaces.
Thanks for your writing.

 

[SteveCaruso]

Other – Sorta like Deegie. I believe in the real presence, but I do not try and understand the mechanism and leave arguing out the specifics up to harder-core theologians than myself.

 

[Feuerbach]

"Anglican, accept Calvin's view. Food = symbol w/out specific presence, commune in heaven"

 

[Albion]

Anglican...Other.

Accept the explanation given by the Anglican Articles of Religion.

 

[rakovsky]

Anglican...Other.

Accept the explanation given by the Anglican Articles of Religion.

"Food = symbol w/out specific presence, commune in heaven"
Agree/disagree?

 

[rakovsky]

Anglican...Other.

Accept the explanation given by the Anglican Articles of Religion.

Cranmer seems usually put in the Calvinist or Zwinglianist (memorialist) camps, or somewhere between them. I'm not sure how those camps would differ from the Articles.

"The “Cranmer was a Zwinglian” meme originated with Gregory Dix, and Dix was wrong. The more recent studies of Cranmer’s Eucharistic doctrine put him more squarely in the camp of Calvin (“true presence”) rather than of Zwingli (“memorialist”)."​

https://foolishnesstotheworld.wordp...vin-or-zwingli-in-his-views-of-the-eucharist/

"Nevertheless, there was in Cranmer's thought a greater tendency than in Calvin's for the bread to appear superfluouss. Whereas Calvin tried to link the bread and the reality n intimate but not intrinsic connection, Cranmer tended to divide them, so that the function of the Sacrament lay in its affective, rather than effective character."​

Evangelical Eucharistic Thought in the Church of England, By Christopher J. Cocksworth

 

[Albion]

"Food = symbol w/out specific presence, commune in heaven"
Agree/disagree?

Disagree. I made my choice from your list of alternatives. Are you trying to round up votes for the Calvinist position?

 

[CanadianAnglican]

I reject Transubstantiation as a philosophical explanation of how Christ is present in the Eucharist, and view it as a divine mystery. But Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. I'm not sure if that's Anglican-Other or what.

 

[Albion]

I reject Transubstantiation as a philosophical explanation of how Christ is present in the Eucharist, and view it as a divine mystery. But Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. I'm not sure if that's Anglican-Other or what.

As I read the choices, it looked to me that Anglican-Other was the one that would apply to that particular POV.

 

[rakovsky]

Disagree. I made my choice from your list of alternatives. Are you trying to round up votes for the Calvinist position?

When I said specific presence, I meant specific presence in the bread.

 

[Albion]

Perhaps you mean "objective" presence, i.e. literal, carnal, physical presence. In any case, I can't imagine why the official Anglican position was left off the list of choices when you made room for ten alternative views. And the POV taken by "Canadian Anglican," which is quite common among Anglicans, was also omitted.

 

[Padres1969]

Given our lengthy dialogue in another thread, I'm rather surprised you left out the option "I'm Anglican, and I don't really care how it happens."

I answered Anglican-Other for this reason. This is basically my feeling on it. Christ is there as a Real Presence in the Eucharist, but as to how he gets there or the exact form his presence takes, it's a sacred mystery that I'm not inclined to try and explain, nor do I really need an explanation.

 

[Feuerbach]

I am the one person who voted "Calvin's view..." and I have to admit that I did so because upon reading the possible responses and the phrasing of the op, it seemed the closest to expressing that it was as described in the Articles of Religion. If that had been an option, I would have chosen it, but I went with Calvin because I just don't like voting "other"

 

[rakovsky]

Perhaps you mean "objective" presence, i.e. literal, carnal, physical presence. In any case, I can't imagine why the official Anglican position was left off the list of choices when you made room for ten alternative views.

Because I am trying to figure out exactly what that position is, eg. how it's different from the other views.
According to Deegie and Canadian Anglican, the articles are not necessarily "the" official view, so this is what I am trying to find out.
If you feel the Articles contradict the Calvinist view, then how so?
I previously cited authors who think he was either Calvinist or Zwinglian on the question.

And the POV taken by "Canadian Anglican," which is quite common among Anglicans, was also omitted.

He said he "view(s) it as a divine mystery. But Christ is truly present in the Eucharist." How is that different from Calvin's view, or for that matter the Orthodox one? Helfrick said that the PCUSA think it's a divine mystery with Jesus present in the ritual too.[/S]

 

[rakovsky]

Interesting note about the Articles on whether they support the food actually being/containing Jesus' body:

AN INTRODUCTION TO DOGMATIC THEOLOGY - By CLAUDE BEAUFORT MOSS, D.D.LONDON - S.P.C.K 1965 Holy Trinity Church Marylbone Road London NW 1 says:

Chapter 58
I. Anglican Teaching

Article 28 says:

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper,
only after an heavenly and spiritual manner: and the means
whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.

The author of this article, Bishop Guest, has left it on record that he inserted the word "given" in order to assert that the bread and wine become by consecration the Body and Blood of Christ.
The rubric, dating from 1662,
which distinguishes between the consecrated bread and wine which are to be consumed in the church,
and the unconsecrated bread and wine which "the Curate is to have to his own use",
shows that the English Church teaches that the bread and wine are changed by the consecration.
[In 1574 a priest who, when the consecrated wine failed, went on with wine which had not been consecrated, was condemned by the court and imprisoned for a year.

Chapter 59
The Anglican Communion is not committed to any particular doctrine of the Eucharist beyond what was said in the last chapter.
The outward visible signs, the bread and wine, are really bread and wine.
The Body and Blood of Christ are really the Body and Blood of Christ.
To deny either truth is "to overthrow the nature of a sacrament".
That is rejected by the Anglican Communion, and that alone.

VIRTUALISM, the theory held by Cranmer and Waterland, is the theory that what we receive is not the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ but its virtue or power.
We receive the outward sign and the effect but not the Body and Blood themselves.
This theory has been held by many in the Anglican Communion but does not seem to be consistent with the teaching of the Church Catechism that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper, still less with the word "given" in Article 28.

RECEPTIONISM is the theory that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ when we receive the bread and wine, but that they are not identified with the bread and wine, which are not changed.
The climax of the service is therefore not the consecration but the communion of the people.
This was the teaching of Calvin...
The consecrated elements are not specially sacred any more than the water in baptism, and no provision is made for their consumption.
Some passages from the Fathers are quoted in defence of this theory, but other passages from the same Fathers exclude it.
The general teaching of the early Church gives no support to Receptionism, nor is it known in the Roman or Eastern communions.
But it has been widely held in the Anglican Communion since the Reformation,
and at some periods it has been completely dominant.
As we have seen, it is not consistent with the word "given" in Article 28
or with the rubric directing the consumption of the consecrated elements.
But it has always been regarded since the Reformation as a tenable opinion in the Anglican Communion.

The author appears to imply that the bread and wine directly and really are themselves the body and blood of Christ or contain them. For this he points to the articles' author's statement that the bread and wine are the body and blood and that the word "given" was shown to mean this. In the book's view, to say that Jesus' body is "given" in the supper refers to the idea that the bread itself, which is "given", is actually Jesus' body, as opposed to Calvin's view that the bread itself is a symbol.

Personally, I find only two views as rationally tenable about the bread: (1) Either the bread is directly and actually Jesus' body or contains it, (RC, Orthodox, Lutheran view) or (2) the bread in itself is only a symbol of the body, not actually Jesus' body.(Zwingli/Calvin view).

The author is saying that with Bishop Guest's comment about "given", Anglicanism's articles teach (1). But for me this makes dilemma. Normally author's intent is crucial, but in this case we also have Cranmer being a major figure taking view #2, and the articles themselves would tend to support #2 in light of the controversies over "spiritual eating(believing as Calvin interpreted John 6)" vs. "physical eating"
The articles say that the body is taken "only" after a heavenly and spiritual manner. This could imply that it's taken not by physical eating. But still, that is not totally clear either. By saying only a heavenly and spiritual manner, it linguistically could mean that believers should eat it with a spiritual attitude, not a fleshly attitude of physical hunger. This is because manner could mean an attitude or approach. For example, do you have a positive, spiritual manner in life or do you have a negative, beastly manner? Did Jesus give people spiritual teachings or carnal ones? In one sense the answer is lofty, spiritual, heavenly only. But in another sense, he did give carnal, fleshly teachings, in the sense that he taught about giving his real flesh for the world and he had an incarnation.

So linguistically I could argue either way whether view 1 or 2 is in the articles, but it would look to me like by calling it "only a spiritual manner" that it supports #2. Yet here we have Bishop Guest's comment that he added "given" to show that the bread itself was Jesus' body. And how does the word "given" about the body show that we are talking about the bread at all, unless "given" is meant "physically given... in the supper".

But to mean "physically given" "only in a spiritual manner" and not in a "physical manner" at all would be a contradiction that would be extremely hard to resolve. The only way to do so would be to mean that it is not a distinction of purely spiritual vs purely physical form of giving that is intended, but a spiritual vs. carnalistic, unworthy distinction about one's approach.

I tend to think that the next article 29 clears up the dilemma by picking #2. Article 29 was introduced later and said that the Wicked do not eat the body. But in the belief of #1, the wicked do eat the body and this is why under #1, 1 Cor 10-11 says that those who take it unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of Jesus, ie. because they directly contaccted it in an unworthy manner.

 

[rakovsky]

Also interesting:

The Report entitled Doctrine in the Church of England (DCE) was published in 1938. It was the Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922.

Proposition 6:

“The external signs are not arbitrary or irrational, but symbolise the promised gift which by means of the sacrament is pledged to and bestowed upon those who receive it with faith.” (DCE, 1938: 128)....
Comment: ...Bestowal is a little more realist but it is not clear whether the bestowal is by means of the sacrament, in the sense of pledge or promise, or whether bestowal indicates by means of the external signs. There is a suggestion here too of the efficacy of the sacrament being dependent on the faith of the recipient. Is the signified grace present (pledged or bestowed) before the reception or the signified grace only available through the act of faithful reception? There seems no way of knowing clearly what this proposition means, nor does it seem possible to know whether this proposition is expressing a realist identification of sign and signified or a nominalist separation of the two.

...


As regards the manner of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, the Report lists three ways that this has been seen over time to occur: real presence; receptionism and virtualism. Real presence “teaches that the bread and wine in some sense really or actually become through consecration the Lord’s Body and Blood” (DCE, 1938: 168) with the manner of the presence being spiritual and not fleshy. Receptionism is the “teaching that, though the Body and Blood of the Lord are really received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper, yet their presence is real in the hearts of the recipients only, and not in the elements prior to reception” (DCE, 1938: 169). Christ’s body and blood are present only in a figure with the presence of Christ associated with the reception and not the elements. Christ is said to be present in the Eucharist, not in the elements, but as the unseen host, present only to those who receive him with faith. Virtualism is described as being intermediate between real presence and receptionism. The virtualist “maintains that a spiritual change in the elements themselves is effected through consecration” (DCE, 1938: 170). The bread and the wine therefore do not become the body and blood of Christ in substance(as if they were being identified with the natural body and blood of Christ on the cross) but in spiritual power, virtue and effect. This means that through consecration the bread and wine are endowed with spiritual power or virtue which make them the sacramental body and blood of Christ, but not the natural body and blood of Christ. The problem with virtualism seems to be that it:

“ … is not always stated in the same way. Sometimes the language of Virtualism suggests Receptionism, whereas more often it attributes a kind of sacredness to the sacramental signs which is only intelligible on the assumption that the Lord’s presence is specially associated with them.” (DCE, 1938: 170).​

... Both real presence and virtualism as moderate realism reject immoderate notions of presence and when combined with concepts such as transvaluation (see Temple Case Study – 4.17) the expression of the manner of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist becomes much more precise. Receptionism implies a nominalism in relation to signs and signified, in that the sign is not linked to the signified in any real way or in the sense of virtualism. Any linking is between the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the act of reception.
...

http://anglicaneucharistictheology...._Doctrine_in_the_Church_of_England,_1938.html
Bestowal being an uncertain term reminds me of the question of "given" in Article 28.

Under virtualism, the bread is not actually Jesus' body, but has the same spiritual effect and power, so it's "virtually" or "practically" so. For what it's worth, I could imagine a Receptionist or Calvinist accepting that the bread has the same practical or virtual effect as Jesus' body in that it "affects" and "effects" the process of communion. However, the Report above distinguishes the two concepts on that very basis. As such, I am doubtful that virtualism and receptionism are necessarily in conflict.

Panther and the Hind: A Theological History of Anglicanism
By Aidan Nichols
Hooker followed Calvin's so called sacramentarian theory, which Calvin himself believed to be the teaching of the Latin fathers... According to this theory, the relationship between the sacramental sign and the divine action is one of parallelism. The sacramental elements show to our senses what God is actually effecting at the moment when the sacraments are celebrated. In terms of philosophical theology this theory is described as occasionalist, the sacraments are the occasions on which God acts and makes himself present, but they are not true instrumental causes of that action.

 

[rakovsky]

Receptionism

The belief that the eucharistic elements of bread and wine are unchanged during the prayer of consecration but that the faithful believer receives the body and blood of Christ in receiving communion. This was the prevailing eucharistic theology in the Reformation era of Anglicanism. The Articles of Religion state that the bread and wine of the eucharist are the body and blood of Christ "to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same. . . ." Article XXVIII, Of the Lord's Supper (BCP, p. 873). Thomas Cranmer held a receptionist understanding of the eucharist, which informed his work on the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books. This historic receptionistic language is still retained in Eucharistic Prayer I of Rite 1. However, Anglican eucharistic theology has tended to hold in balance both an objective change of some kind in the eucharistic elements to become the body and blood of Christ and the subjective faith of the believer who receives the sacrament. The words of administration of the 1559 Prayer Book joined language from the 1549 BCP that identified the sacrament as the body and blood of Christ with more receptionistic language from the 1552 BCP that urged the communicant to receive the sacrament "in remembrance" of Christ's sacrifice. This combination was continued in the 1662 BCP, and in subsequent American Prayer Books (see BCP, p. 338). The balance of objective and subjective theologies of the eucharist is also presented by the Catechism, which states that "The inward and spiritual grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith" (BCP, p. 859). The receptionistic language of Eucharistic Prayer I in Rite 1 is not found in the other eucharistic prayers of the BCP.

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/receptionism

This article opposes objective and symbolic-only natures of the body in the food.

 

[rakovsky]

Perhaps you mean "objective" presence, i.e. literal, carnal, physical presence. In any case, I can't imagine why the official Anglican position was left off the list of choices when you made room for ten alternative views. And the POV taken by "Canadian Anglican," which is quite common among Anglicans, was also omitted.

Yes, thanks for the clarification. I made a new poll with that as the option. The Church of England 1938 report said that there were three options - real presence in the bread, virtualism/ie that it's effectively and virtually the body, and receptionism. So I gave these options - symbolic, effective vs. objective real presence in the bread.