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Be sure to read the First lecture First and the Second Lectures

I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

The year 1549 saw the convening of an important synod between the reform movements of Geneva and Zurich in an attempt to reach accord on the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. The result was the drafting of the Consensus Tigurinus whose main signers were John Calvin and William Farel, representing the views of Geneva, and Henry Bullinger, Zwingli's successor in Zurich. Yet despite this show of accord, the Zwinglian party actually found much of the objective language used in the Consensus hard to accommodate within their memorialist understanding of the Supper. As a result the Consensus was not actually published until 1551. This sets the date of its publication right in the midst of the eucharistic reforms occurring at the same time in England.1

By no means did the Consensus go unnoticed by England's ongoing reform movement. A thrilled Peter Martyr Vermigli, the exiled Italian reformer and "Zwinglian," wrote from England to congratulate Bullinger on his apparent accord with Calvin. States Martyr: "What you have mutually agreed upon respecting the sacrament of the eucharist is very gratifying to me." Yet in the same letter he betrays the fact that not all was well in England from his point of view: "...as far as my own opinion is concerned, I go along with you altogether, and scarcely deliver any other sentiments in this place...You would not, however, believe with what bitterness, obstinacy, perverseness and inflexibility of mind we are resisted by our adversaries, and especially on this very subject."2

While we have no direct evidence of what Archbishop Cranmer thought of the Consensus, we can be most certain that he took more than just a passing glance in its direction. Cranmer himself had been keen to recapture the idea of the Eucharist as the sacramentum unitatis (i.e., "the sacrament of unity") amongst the various branches of Protestantism. In broad outline, it is fair to assume that Cranmer, like Calvin and Bullinger, could have embraced the Consensus, specifically in its affirmation that the physical presence of Christ exists in heaven, and "that God may, by means of the sacraments, attest, represent and seal his grace in us." However, the Consensus remained frustratingly vague on the relation of the signs to the realities they signified, particularly on the point of whether or not the consecrated elements actually conveyed grace to believers. This is precisely where the on-going debates in England were most contentious.

There is little doubt that, held up to English scrutiny, the Consensus appeared to be ambiguous enough to accommodate a wide spectrum of positions. One could just as well affirm the instrumental role of the consecrated elements in the spiritual reception of Christ, as affirm that the elements merely pointed to the promises of Christ exciting faith in the believer to receive Him spiritually. Perhaps John Calvin's appraisal of what was and what was not accomplished by the Consensus is the most telling:

"We all confess, then, with one mouth, that in receiving the Sacrament in faith, according to the Lord's command, we are truly made partakers of the real substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ….[And yet] How this is done, some may deduce better and expound more clearly than others." 3

Scholars are left to wonder why Cranmer did not write to congratulate Bullinger, or even Calvin for that matter, on their supposed accord as the foreign visitors Peter Martyr and John Laski had done. What a glaring omission, unless of course Cranmer was not all that impressed with the Consensus in the first place! Moreover, when Cranmer finally did write to Bullinger in March 1552 (at the same time writing to Calvin and Melancthon) he proposed yet another "pan-Protestant" council to resolve the continuing controversy on the sacraments. Tellingly, Cranmer made no mention of the Consensus, let alone make any suggestion that it could be used as the basis for the newly proposed council.

II. THE ANGLICAN WAY: THE CHURCH AT PRAYER.

Anglicans have ample reason to praise and thank God each and every day that in His providence God prepared and placed Thomas Cranmer at the helm of the English Church during the tumultuous middle decades of the 16th century. As a result, Anglican eucharistic development down through the centuries has not (for the most part) suffered the gradual degeneration and impoverishment that characterizes the parallel development of eucharistic theology in its continental counterparts.4 Humanly speaking, we owe much to Cranmer and the language of his literary masterpiece: the Book of Common Prayer.

To summarize briefly the first address in this series: Prayer Book language employs the biblical paradigm of sanctification - i.e., "the setting apart to be holy." This, we noted, was how God acted in redemptive history: setting apart time, space (location), and physical things to communicate salvation to his people - supremely in the Incarnation in the fullness of time of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Common Prayer worship assumes and anticipates that God communicates his grace in the same manner in our worship, as the Church sets apart as holy: (1) Time - in the ordering of the liturgical year, (2) Space - in ordering of our churches and sanctuaries, and (3) Material things - in consecrating all that we use for the service of adoration of our Triune God. In this sense, God uses our liturgy as a means of grace; and thus we should come to realize that the GREATEST Sacrament of all is the CHURCH AT PRAYER.

Consequently, any theological discussion that would even attempt an explication of the mystery of Christ's Presence in the Lord's Supper must begin with the greater mystery of Christ in the Church. This is where Cranmer began, and we detect from his writings that he was even fond of defining the term "sacrament" itself along this more all-encompassing line:

And sometimes by this word 'sacrament' I mean the whole ministration and receiving of the sacraments, either of baptism or of the Lord's Supper: and so the old writers many times do say, that Christ and the Holy Ghost be present in the sacraments; not meaning by that manner of speech, that Christ and the Holy Ghost be present in water, bread, or wine (which be only the outward visible sacraments) but that in the due ministration of the sacraments according to Christ's ordinance and institution, Christ and his Holy Spirit be truly and indeed present by their mighty and sanctifying power, virtue, and grace, in all them that worthily receive the same.5

Cranmer's reference to the "old writers" provides us with a glimpse of his grasp of the early fathers. Indeed, this statement may have been prompted by Cranmer's awareness that the term most often employed by the early fathers to describe the sacrament was not "the Mass" (the term preferred by Roman Catholics), or the "Sacrament of the Altar" (the term preferred by Lutherans) or even "the Lord's Supper" (the term the Reformed preferred); but rather "Eucharist," that is to say, the "Thanksgiving."

Technically speaking, the term "Eucharist" does not refer to the sacramental elements, per se, but to the Great Prayer that is at the heart of the Divine Liturgy of the Church.7 In Cranmerian terms, Christ and his Holy Spirit are "truly and indeed present by their mighty and sanctifying power, virtue and grace in the ministration" - that is to say, in the Church's eucharistic action which begins with the Church "lifting up our hearts unto the Lord" and ends with the offering of "ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice" unto God.8

Within this Eucharistic action we consecrate (i.e., set apart for a holy use) common bread and wine to be holy mysteries9 in which we commemorate and show forth the saving work of Christ - his "one oblation of himself once offered…in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension…rendering unto God our most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same."10 Pleading on the basis of this finished work of Christ, we implore God to grant the Church "remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion."

In reality, the "setting apart" of the elements is God's action in the Eucharist, not ours. Thus they are "blessed and sanctified" by His Word and Holy Spirit. (Certainly this is expressed in clearest terms in the invocation of Cranmer's first book.) Morevover, through the dual-agency of His holy and life-giving Word (i.e., the recitation of the Institution Narrative) and of His holy and life-giving Spirit, we may are made worthy "partakers of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood." (Certainly expressed in clearest terms in the invocation of Cranmer's second book!) But these elements are not set apart in isolation or as ends in themselves. Rather they are set apart as "mysteries" within and for the community that is set apart as the "mystical body" of God's Son, the "blessed company of all faithful people." It is "in these holy mysteries" that we so feed upon Christ's flesh and drink His blood "that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood; that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us."11

III. THE ANGLICAN WAY: A REAL REAL PRESENCE.

All important here is how Cranmer actually understood the term consecration. So states Cranmer:

Consecration is the separation of any thing from a profane and worldly use unto a spiritual and godly use...therefore when usual and common water is taken from other uses, and put to use of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then it may rightly be called consecrated water, that is to say, water put to an holy use...Even so, when common bread and wine be taken and severed from other bread and wine to the use of the holy communion, that portion of bread and wine, although it be of the same substance that the other is from that which is is severed, yet it is now called consecrated, or holy bread and holy wine.12

Did Cranmer or did he not then believe in a real presence in the Supper? Let him speak for himself: "I never said of the whole supper, that it is but a signification or bare memory of Christ's death; but I teach that it is a spiritual refreshing, wherein our souls be fed and nourished with Christ's very flesh and blood to eternal life." In another place he writes, "For the sacramental bread and wine be not bare and naked figures, but so pithy and effectuous, that whosoever worthily eateth them, eateth spiritually Christ's flesh and blood, and hath by them everlasting life."13

Are the sacramental elements important? Absolutely, for without them there can be no sacrament. Again, the words of Cranmer are clear at this point: "As in our spiritual regeneration there can be no sacrament of baptism, if there be not water...even so the supper of the Lord can be no perfect sacrament of spiritual food, except there be as well bread and wine, as the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, spiritually feeding us, which by said bread and wine is signified." And Again:

For as in every part of the water in baptism is whole Christ and the Holy Spirit, sacramentally, so be they in every part of the bread broken, but not corporally and naturally, as the papists teach.

Notice how Cranmer relates the two Dominical sacraments. If the "whole Christ" and his Spirit are conferred in Baptism (as indeed Cranmer affirmed) then Christ's Body and Blood must be conveyed in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Yet no one would suggest that water is transubstantiated into the Holy Spirit, nor does it follow that bread and wine must be transubstantiated into flesh and blood. Rather the realities are conveyed through their due "ministration." As one English poet has aptly stated, the sacraments are "the scaffolding of the Spirit."

Hence the consecrated elements are of utmost importance in the Prayer Book tradition. But don't miss the point made earlier: the sacramental species mean nothing outside of their use by the Church in prayer. The end for which Divine presence is promised in the sacramental ministrations of the Church is not that Christ's flesh and blood may indefinitely reside in consecrated elements, but rather that Christ, in the fullness of His Deity and Humanity, may dwell in consecrated hearts. Only by virtue of Christ's indwelling presence in the community of faith, specifically in the context of her public prayers and devotional life, can the sacraments effect anything, or be channels or tokens of Divine presence. Hence, by virtue of the Church's great prayer - our Eucharist - the bread and wine actually become the tangible existence of the spiritual reality behind them.

IV. OVERALL SUMMARY.

If the sacramental paradigm presented in this series of addresses holds true, then we should expect it to be in full accord with the great dogmatic definitions of the Christian faith, particularly the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation as defined by the first four ecumenical councils.15 The term employed by theologians to summarize the culmination of these counciliar definitions is the Hypostatic Union. Simply put, the Hypostatic Union teaches that Christ, who was and is God, became Man. However, in becoming Man, Christ did not cease to be God, nor did he at all violate, change, alter, or annihilate the human nature that He assumed.

The principles of mystery and sanctification considered in this series of lectures are nothing less than the principles upon which we understand the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, Christ was conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, thereby assuming a physical existence - a human nature. In other words, the God who by very definition is without time, space, or physicality assumes time, space, and physicality in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. The intangible becomes tangible, though without change or confusion to either nature, Divine or Human.

We conceive of the sacramental mystery in the very same way. The miracle in the sacrament of Holy Communion does not lie in the transformation of bread and wine into flesh and blood, wherein the natures of the former are utterly annihilated and replaced by the latter.16 Rather the miracle in the Eucharist lies in the Divine word spoken, whereby Christ according to His own institution becomes bread and wine FOR US, without ceasing to be what He is, and without altering, violating, changing, or annihilating the nature of the consecrated elements of bread and wine. How this is done is beyond all further explication, for ultimately it is mystery. Any attempt to explain mystery runs the risk of excluding mystery altogether, which in the final analysis is to go beyond Scripture. For Christ did not say, "This is my body in such and such a way," but rather, "This is my body...this is my blood."

1. The first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549 and the second in 1552. It was in the interim that Cranmer entered into his lively literary debate on the Eucharist with Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.

2. Peter Martyr Vermigli was invited by Cranmer in 1548 to come to England during of the Interim imposed by Charles V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Martyr came to England via Strasbourg where he had assisted Martin Bucer in the Reform movement there.

3. This quote is taken from Calvin's 1555 Petit Traicte.

4. This degeneration is especially apparent in modern evangelicalism.

5. This quote is taken from Cranmer's Defence.

6. What is not generally known is that as a patristic scholar Cranmer was unmatched in his day.

7. In the East, this part of the liturgy is called the "Anaphora" (which is Greek for "Lift up," that is to say, "your hearts.") The Western tradition refers to it as the "Canon" (i.e. the "rule.")

8. I much prefer the English "lively sacrifice" over the American "living sacrifice." Notice as well how "our selves, our souls, and bodies" is plural while the "reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice" is singular.

9. Recall the definition of the term mystery: "unexplained reality."

10. This phraseology comes from the 1549 rite and is also found in the 1928 American BCP.

11. The original version of the Prayer of Humble Access actually included the words "Grant us therefore….so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son and to drink his blood in these holy mysteries."

12. This quote is taken from Cranmer's Answer to Stephen Gardiner.

13. This would later be termed the doctrine of Real Presence in usu sacramenti; that is to say, Christ is truly present for the believer in the Church's use of the Sacrament.

14. On one occasion in my last parish (Christ Church, Exeter, UK) I happened to catch a glimpse of a certain eccentric parishioner as he slipped a consecrated wafer into his shirt pocket. Following the service, I confronted the fellow who, after some hesitation, finally confessed to taking the wafer. He went on to explain that he had set up a makeshift altar in the main room of his two-room flat where he intended to "reserve" the sacrament for personal veneration. I proceeded to gently explain to him that the consecrated elements could be of no private benefit or effect to him if their use was taken outside of the context of the Church at prayer. This, of course, does not preclude the legitimate use of the reserved sacrament for extended-communion to the sick, which by very definition is the extension of the Eucharist of the whole Church.

15. For Anglicans, the Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) hold a particular value as the four councils consistently employed in the Anglican tradition as tests of Christian orthodoxy.

16. It is interesting to note how the Roman theory of transubstantiation bears more than just a passing affinity to the ancient heresy of the 5^th century abbot Eutyches who had been condemned at the council of Chalcedon (451). Eutyches' Christological formula was "two natures" (Divine and Human) before the incarnation, but only "one nature" (Divine) afterwards. Rome's theory of sacramental conversion is practically the same: two natures (body and bread) before conversion, one nature (body) afterwards.
    

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