Scripture and History: Mary and the Nature of Doctrine 219

Chapter 8 Scripture and History: Mary and the Nature of Doctrine

In claiming to represent the authentic tradition of Anglicanism, High Church men nonetheless had to clarify and define their theological position on two fronts. Against those who argued that their revival (or, better, creative adapta tion) of ritual and practice, that they claimed to be consistent with primitive tradition, was part of a ‘Romanizing’ agenda which would subvert the Pro testant character of the Church of England, they had to demonstrate a clear difference from the Roman Catholic Church. But on another front – and as chapter six implied – they also had to differentiate their position from that of Evangelicals, who claimed to be the true guardians of the Reformation. If, as the last chapter showed, in fact High Churchmanship did not constitute one undifferentiated tradition, but was patient both of theological development and of considerable internal diversity, nevertheless on both fronts it was obliged to substantiate what amounted to a coherent, common perspective. In this chapter I shall explore the Romeward tension, looking at the theological ‘border’ between High Churchmen and Roman Catholicism. In 1960 the Anglican philosopher Austin Farrer preached a sermon ‘On being an Anglican’, in the chapel of Pusey House, Oxford, which must have amazed his hearers. It began gently enough, with a teasing reference to a cor respondent to the Times who had announced his disillusionment with the Church of England, but halfway through, the tone changed. Human perversity had rent the unity of the Church with schisms and heresies, Farrer said. How could he, ‘truly and with a good conscience’, stay in the Church of God? His reply was unequivocal: ‘Only by remaining in the Church of England’.1 He put down two markers for his Anglican identity. One was stated briefly and with restraint: ‘I dare not dissociate myself from the apostolic ministry’. It was the other that must have startled his congregation:

I dare not profess belief in the great Papal error. Christ did not found a Papacy … Its infallibilist claim is a blasphemy, and never has been accepted by the oriental part of Christendom. Its authority has been employed to establish as dogmas of faith, propositions utterly lacking in

1 A. Farrer, ‘On being an Anglican’, in idem, The End of Man, p. 50.

historical foundation. Nor is this an old or faded scandal – the papal fact- factory has been going full blast in our own time, manufacturing sacred history after the event.2

Written close to the assembling of the Second Vatican Council, and from the standpoint of over half a century of improving Anglican-Catholic relations, Farrer’s words seem to have a harsh and polemical ring. They are all the more surprising, considering his seemingly impeccable Anglo-Catholic credentials.3 If we are to take seriously Farrer’s participation in the discussions and report on Catholicity published in 1947 by a group convened by Gregory Dix, it cannot be the case that Farrer’s objection to the ‘great Papal error’ involved objection to the concept of primacy per se.4 Rather, there were two basic points of offence: the concept and declaration of infallibility itself, and of course the two Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Farrer’s wariness of these dogmas was symptomatic of the attitude of most leading Anglo-Catholic theologians until recently. Far from sharing enthusias tically in the swelling amplitude of Marian devotion, as Pickering seemed to imply, the theological heirs of the Tractarians (and certainly of the older or ‘orthodox’ High Church tradition) were ambivalent about it.5 This chapter is an exploration of their ambivalence, largely through the lens of Farrer’s attitude to the Marian dogmas. It will aim, first, to place Farrer’s views in the context of the main streams of High Church theology after Pusey. In this way, it will dem onstrate something of the way in which, theologically, High Churchmen actually sustained and promoted a distinction between their understanding of Anglicanism and the charge, made by their opponents, that they represented a ‘Romanizing’ tendency in the Church of England. Then it will return to Farrer, identifying points both of continuity and of development. Finally, it will con trast and examine the new perspective on Mary that began to emerge among

2 Farrer, ‘On being an Anglican’, pp. 50–1. 3 See, for example, his participation in three of the most significant Anglo-Catholic publications of the mid-twentieth century: ‘Eucharist and Church in the New Testament’, in A. G. Hebert, The Parish Communion, pp. 73–94; ‘The Ministry in the New Testament’, in K. E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry: Essays on the History and Doctrine of Episcopacy; and co-authorship with E. S. Abbott, Gregory Dix, Michael Ramsey et alia, Catholicity: A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West. 4 ‘If such an institution as the ‘universal Church’ is to exist as more than a sentiment and an ideal … then some such central institution [as the Papacy] would seem to be more than just a convenience’: Abbott et al., Catholicity, p. 36. 5 ‘Anglo-Catholics made a great deal of the feast of the Assumption’: W. S. F. Pickering, Anglo- Catholicism: A Study in Ambiguity, p. 39.