Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped David John Fuller, B Sc, B Th Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Glasgow December 2013 Copyright © David Fuller, 2013 Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 2 ABSTRACT In his book The Shape of the Liturgy Dom Gregory Dix coined the phrase ‘Eucharistic man’. In a speech to clergy Archbishop Rowan Williams remarked that Homo Eucharisticus, his Latinised version of Dix’s words, was, ‘a new human species who makes sense of the world in the presence of the risen Jesus at his table’. This thesis will seek to define what is specifically meant by the term Homo Eucharisticus and to indicate that, in a very real sense, Dix is Homo Eucharisticus, understood in his life, vocation, and his primary scholarship as it is centred on The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall demonstrate that Dix’s theology was Incarnational and that his Trinitarian understanding was based on the precept of a ‘Spiritual-Logos’. I shall examine these concepts in the context of Dix’s experience and personality. I shall assess the historical, intellectual and theological influences that helped to shape his life and vocation, and explore his Anglican identity as a priest, a scholar and a member of a religious community. I shall explain Dix’s creative understanding of the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist and determine that he was a noteworthy theologian of major significance. I shall include studies of his writings on the Ministry of the Church and his major liturgical works The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus and The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall present a reassessment of his liturgical scholarship and review his continuing importance in the Church of the twenty-first century. Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My greatest thanks must go to my supervisor, the Rev’d Professor David Jasper. Without his support, encouragement, suggestions and apt criticisms it is doubtful whether this project would ever have reached a conclusion. I have benefited enormously from his ability to guide me in the details of my researches while always helping me to keep the big picture in view. Whether in our many face-to-face meetings or through the media of telephone and e-mail he has proved to be a source of continuing inspiration and reassurance, especially in those dark days when I could not clearly see any end to this endeavour. My interest in Dom Gregory Dix had its origins in a series of lectures on Eucharistic liturgy given by the Rev’d Canon Geoffrey Williams, then Canon Chancellor of Blackburn Cathedral, to the altar servers in the 1980s. To my theological mentor for almost two decades, I owe much gratitude. I would like to thank the staff of the University of Glasgow Library for their assistance in locating obscure materials and providing copies when appropriate. Members of staff of the National Library of Scotland and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, have also proved most helpful in obtaining relevant texts, often from remote sources. My thanks are also due to the many who replied to my letters and e-mail enquiries and who provided insightful suggestions, helpful information and answers to my questions. They include: The Rev’d Jeremy Brooks; Dr Rachel Cosgrave; The Rev’d Canon Jonathan Goodall; Fr Antony Green, CR; The Rt Rev’d Dr Richard Holloway; Mr Oliver House; The Rev’d Professor David Jasper; The Rev’d Dr Simon Jones; The Rev’d Canon Dr Michael Kitchener; Mr Julian Reid; Ms Elizabeth Wells and The Most Rev’d and Rt Hon Dr Rowan Williams. I offer particular thanks to Archbishop Williams for, indirectly, suggesting the main title for my thesis. I am grateful to the Trustees of the Lorimer Bursary for financial assistance in helping to defray the costs of my studies. My family has been a tower of strength throughout my years of research. My wife has become used to being a ‘library widow’ and has never ceased to support me in this work, ever ready to be ignored yet again as I struggled with textbook and web site, blissfully unaware of her needs, or sometimes even of her presence. Our children have encouraged me at every turn. Our daughter, a mature student, has shared with me many of her study and research techniques, for which I thank her. It is to my wife that I dedicate this thesis. NB All Biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (1989) unless otherwise indicated. Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 4 To Jan Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 5 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, this dissertation is the result of my own work. It has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. David John Fuller STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it may be published in any format, including electronic, without the author’s prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. Copyright © David Fuller, 2013 Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 7 2 DIX AS PRIEST, MONK AND SCHOLAR 13 3 MAJOR TEXTS 27 3.1 Ministry in the Church 27 3.2 The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus 42 3.3 The Shape of the Liturgy 69 4 THE IMPACT OF DIX’S IDEAS 142 5 CONCLUSION 165 Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 7 1 INTRODUCTION In an address to clergy in the Diocese of Chelmsford, Archbishop Rowan Williams remarked that Dom Gregory Dix had conjectured a new human species, Homo Eucharisticus, a being who emerges, ‘in this regular activity of making sense of the world in the presence of the risen Jesus at his table’.1 Elsewhere Williams said: The Church’s mission in God’s world is inseparably bound up with the reality of the common life around Christ’s table, the life of what a great Anglican scholar [Dix] called Homo Eucharisticus, the new ‘species’ of humanity that is created and sustained by the Eucharistic gathering and its food and drink.2 This thesis will argue that Williams was correct in his definition, and that Dix may meaningfully be referred to as Homo Eucharisticus because his life was utterly grounded in the central reality of Christian Eucharistic worship. As I shall determine, his principal writings, on Holy Orders, The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus and The Shape of the Liturgy, have had special and continuing importance in liturgical studies across many decades, churches and continents. Dix’s short life occupied the first half of the twentieth century. Commenting on his death his great friend Kenneth Kirk described Dix as, ‘my closest and oldest friend, and the most brilliant man in the Church of England’. In a Church and century that encompassed such imposing figures as Charles Gore – first Bishop of Birmingham and founder of the Community of the Resurrection; William Temple – Archbishop of Canterbury, inaugurator of the British Council of Churches and authority on Christianity and Society; J A T Robinson – Bishop of Woolwich, significant New Testament scholar and author of Honest to God (1963) and Eric Mascall – a Thomist and defender of Catholic orthodoxy; it seems perhaps a little bizarre that Bishop Kirk should single out Dix for this exceptional accolade. These four, who do not exclusively represent the erudition of the Church of England, have been selected for their eclecticism and for their considerable diversity in a Church hierarchy that had Dix as a contemporary. Bishop Kirk was, himself, a notable scholar, having been Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford and 1 Rowan Williams, ‘The Church: God’s Pilot Project’, (Address to the Clergy Synod at Chelmsford, 5th April, 2006). Dix did not use the Latin phrase ‘Homo Eucharsiticus’. He wrote, ‘Over against the dissatisfied ‘Acquisitive Man’ and his no less avid successor the dehumanised ‘Mass-Man’ of our economically focussed societies insecurely organised for time, Christianity sets the type of ‘Eucharistic Man’ – man giving thanks with the product of his labours upon the gifts of God, and daily rejoicing with his fellows in the worshipping society which is grounded in eternity.’ See: Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, (London: Dacre Press, 1945), xviii f. 2 Rowan Williams, ‘Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread’, (Address at Lutheran World Federation Assembly, 22nd July, 2010). Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix – Reshaped 8 author of a number of important works. What, it could reasonably be asked, led to Dix receiving this great compliment? What did Kirk mean when he described Dix as ‘brilliant’, especially as ‘most brilliant’? Through his writings and his contacts with contemporary churchmen, Dix seemed to have made impacts on the Church of England far beyond his standing as an academic. Was he ‘the most brilliant man in the Church of England’ in 1952? He was, indeed, one of its most controversial, outspoken, disputational and combative members. The principal aim of my research has been to show Dix in a new light; to see him as a continuation of the broad Romantic heritage of Christian writers and to demonstrate that, while his academic researches may have been flawed in some respects, he had a fundamental, Catholic view of the Christian Church that was at the centre of his studies. He saw it as a world-wide whole, not as a set of loosely connected, purely utilitarian or national organisations.