1 ABSTRACT Anglo-Catholics, and specifically those in the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), a Continuing or Traditionalist Anglican Church, have asserted that the only legitimate doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence is a “realistic” one. A Biblically, historically, and doctrinally sensitive examination, however, of Anglican formularies (the Articles of Religion, the Ordinal, and the Book of Common Prayer–representing the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Anglican Church) demonstrates that they do not teach this doctrine, that the Formularies were written purposely to exclude medieval “realistic” interpretations of the Presence, that the authentic Anglican doctrine of the Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is one of “dynamic symbolism,” and that a “realistic” doctrine of Eucharist is a 19th century innovation and importation into the Anglican Church. The Anglo-Catholic adoption of “Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament” is used as a test case, criticized, and found severely wanting. A positive appreciation and evaluation of the classic Anglican doctrine (following Ridley, Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Cosin, the Nonjurors, and the Wesleys) and its attendant spirituality is given.. The baleful effects of an overly “realistic” view of the Sacrament as adopted by Anglo-Catholics are traced in the pseudo-historical apologetics of the ACC; its infelicitous effects on the ACC’s relations to other Continuing Anglican churches and to other non-Roman Catholic groups are examined. A conscious re-dedication of the ACC to its Reformation heritage and doctrines is necessary, and a new dedication to bettering pan-Anglican and ecumenical relationships is required. SUGGESTED LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING Barber, Philip E. (Philip Ernest), 1937- Gifts and creatures : the Reformation doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence exhibited in the Anglican Lord’s Supper : a dissuasive from certain Anglo-Catholic Eucharistic doctrines and practices in a Continuing Anglican Church, particularly from Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament : including readings from medieval, Reformation, and modern sources on the doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence / Philip E. Barber III. 1. Anglican Catholic Church–Controversial literature. 2. Lord’s Supper–Anglican Catholic Church. 2 3. Lord’s Supper–Real Presence. 4. Lord’s Supper–Adoration–Controversial literature. 5. Transubstantiation–Controversial literature. 6. Traditionalist Anglican churches–Controversial literature. 7. Cranmer, Thomas, 1489-1556. 8. Aquinas, Thomas, Saint, 1225?-1274. BX6040 3 GIFTS AND CREATURES The Reformation Doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence Exhibited in the Anglican Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper A Dissuasive from Certain Anglo-Catholic Eucharistic Doctrines and Practices in a Continuing Anglican Church, Particularly from Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Including Readings from Medieval, Reformation, and Modern Sources on the Doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence. A Dissertation in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree Submitted to the Graduate Theological Foundation Philip E. Barber III M. Div., S.T.M. 25 January 2006 4 CONTENTS: Preface 4 TheArgument 13 Introduction: What do the proposed canons say? 18 I. Ten theses concerning the two proposed canons and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 24 II. What Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is not 33 III. Theological objections to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament 47 IV. “Realism” vs. “Dynamic symbolism” in the Eucharist 61 V. What is (wrong with) transubstantiation? Saint Thomas Aquinas vs. Thomas Cranmer 83 VI. The authentic Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist and of Jesus’ presence 111 VII. “But isn’t this Receptionism?” 121 Excursus on Eucharistic “Naive Realism” -- 136-143 VIII. Anglican eucharistic doctrine and liturgy since the Reformation 148 Excursus on the Epiklesis -- 152-156 IX. Romanticizing Medievalism, and other Anglo-Catholic myths 164 X. Status of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion 196 Excursus on the Marian Doctrines -- 205-217 XI. Status of the General Councils, and of (Western) Canon Law 219 XII. Where do we go from here? 235 5 XIII. Ten conclusions and ten suggestions 257 Epilogue 268 Endnotes 279 Readings 300 Bibliography 352 Curriculum vitae 367 6 PREFACE It is apparent to all that the Anglican world has been in a state of doctrinal, liturgical, and canonical crisis and turmoil ever since at least the 1970’s over the issues of ordination of women, modernization of language in the liturgy, surreptitious introduction of doctrinal change via that revised liturgical language, and, lately, the ordination of openly practicing homosexuals. Various waves of dissidents felt themselves increasingly marginalized and, in many cases, forced out of the Anglican Communion as a result of these changes. The first wave of churches resulting from this series of crises in the mid-1970’s constitutes the “Continuing Church” or “Traditional Anglicans,” holding tenaciously to the pre-revised liturgies. A goodly portion of those who left were Anglo-Catholics of one variety or another, and they took advantage of their expulsion to normalize in their new jurisdictions certain doctrinal and liturgical practices distinctive of themselves as a party different from, not only Protestants in general, but also from other Anglicans. In addition, apologetic claims were made that such Anglo-Catholic distinctives (centering usually about the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, and the ministry) were not only legitimately in accord with the 7 primitive Apostolic and Catholic church, but that these doctrines and practices not held by other Anglicans had nonetheless always been held in the C of E before, during, and after the Reformation, despite their absence from (and often explicit rejection in) the Prayer Book, the Ordinal, or the Articles of Religion. Anglo-Catholics found themselves in a state of denial concerning the Reformation nature of the C of E, and of Anglicanism in its train. This paper undertakes a case study of one of these doctrines, the Real Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, as it has played itself out in one of those ecclesial bodies, the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC). We will find that an exaggeratedly “realistic” doctrine of the Real Presence figures greatly in almost every problematic area of the ACC and by extension of any other Continuing church of Anglo- Catholic propensities. The case study or test case is expressed primarily in terms of quite polemical assaults on the Anglo-Catholic position, and of assertions of the viability of the Reformation or classical Anglican stance. This kind of polemic, familiar to all from the genre of “controversial theology” that figured so largely in the struggles between Catholics and 8 Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, diminished in volume considerably after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but never died out altogether. The opponents now engaged in trench warfare, exchanging sniper shots and harassing fires, rather than indulging in frontal assaults, but each side defined itself largely in opposition to the enemy’s lines of fortification. Anglican theology as it became increasingly self-conscious and self-confident was no stranger to this kind of polemic. Many of the authors whom we shall be quoting and examining: Cranmer, Ridley, Jewel, Hooker, Laud, Taylor, and Cosin, excelled in this controversy and polemic. The polemics were directed primarily against the Roman Church, but also against Anabaptists and Spiritualists. Lacking was any extensive polemic against the Lutherans, mainly because other, more frontline Reformed churches were handling that. Later controversies came to the fore against Puritans, sectaries, Huguenots, and Non-Conformists, in the years of the Civil Wars, Royalist exile, and Restoration.. Anglican polemicists and apologists of the 16th and 17 centuries frequently wrote on the Eucharist, a very controversial topic. Their doctrines may be thought of as prolegomena 9 or commentaries on Articles XXVIII through XXXI of the Articles of Religion, and are abundantly attested in the excerpted attached Readings, especially in their most intensely concentrated form in Readings III A, B, and D (Cranmer); IV A and G (Ridley); V I.A, B, and E (Jewel); VII A, B, and D (Hooker); and X (Cosin). These theologians with almost perfect unanimity: (a.) decisively rejected the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation; (b.) asserted the continued existence of Bread and Wine in the eucharistic elements in the Lord’s Supper; (c.) denied the natural or corporal presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the elements as a result of the priest’s consecration; (d.) affirmed that the (undoubted) presence of Christ in the Supper was due solely to his Word of promise and of institution; (e.) claimed that the presence was not to be understood literally or locally or physically or chemically, but figuratively (by way of metonymy or synecdoche) and spiritually (according to the Spirit’s making us partakers of the ascended Christ through faith) so that we might “feed on him in [our] hearts by faith with thanksgiving”; (f.) confessed that there was a true and real but spiritual communion of the believer with Christ in the Supper, ordained and given for the forgiveness of one’s sins, 10 preservation of body and soul unto everlasting life, confirmation of being a living member of Christ’s body in fellowship with the saints, encouragement in knowing his [Christ’s] and the Spirit’s indwelling in the believer, and being