laudable Practice

Resuming weekly readings from Cranmer's Answer to Gardiner (1551), we turn to Gardiner challenging Cranmer's account of our true feeding on Christ. This account, insists Gardiner, falls far short of catholic teaching: But the catholic teaching, by the Scriptures, goeth further, confessing Christ to feed such as be regenerate in him, not only by his body and blood, but also with his body and blood delivered in this sacrament by him indeed to us, which the faithful, by his institution and commandment, receive with their faith and with their mouth also, and with those special dainties be fed specially at Christ's table. Before proceeding to Cranmer's response, we might note how Gardiner uses the phrase "at Christ's table", suggesting that the use of 'table' with reference to the altar was not necessarily an inherently Reformed usage. In terms of Cranmer's response, he again declares that he does not disagree with Gardiner's statement that Ch...

And this shall suffice here, to show how Christ's intent was to give verily, as he did in deed, his precious body and blood to be eaten and drunken. Cranmer has no hesitation in  affirming  these words of his opponent in the Answer to Gardiner (1551). This is indeed what the Dominical and Apostolic words on the institution of the Eucharist declare: And when this true believing man cometh to the Lord's Supper, and according to Christ's commandment receiveth the bread broken in remembrance that Christ's body was broken for him upon the cross, and drinketh the wine in remembrance of the effusion of Christ's blood for his sins, and unfeignedly believeth the same, to him the words of our Saviour Christ be effectuous and operatory, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for thee; and, Drink of this, for this is my blood which is shed for thee, to the remission of thy sins. And as St. Paul saith, the bread unto him is the communion of Christ's body, and the wine, t...

From Sir Roger Twysden's  An Historical Vindication of the Church of England (1658), a statement of the Church of England's Reformed eucharistic theology: To apply this to our case; the Church Catholick hath ever held a true fruition of the true Body of Christ in the Eucharist, and not of a signe, figure, or remembrance onely, but as the French confession, que par la vertue secrete & incomprehensible de son Esprit, il nous nourrit & vivifie de la substance de son corps & de son sang [that by the secret and incomprehensible power of his Spirit he feeds and strengthens us with the substance of his body and of his blood] Twysden was a firm Episcopalian who opposed Parliament's assaults on the Church during the early 1640s, and was a committed Royalist during the civil wars. He helped draft the 1642 Kentish petition which supported the liturgy and episcopacy. An excellent recent study of Twysden's piety notes that he accepted Laudian reforms in the parish chu...

Each Friday of Lent, laudable Practice  has been presenting words from Jeremy Taylor reflecting on fundamental practices shared by the Christian traditions. Today we conclude this short series with the practice of preparing to receive the Holy Sacrament. These extracts are from The Worthy Communicant (1660). We might regard this devotional work as flowing from Hooker's eirenic eucharistic theology: clearly Reformed (Taylor: "these things are not consequent to the reception of the natural body of Christ, which is now in heaven; but of his word and of his Spirit, which are, therefore, indeed his body and his blood"), while regarding Reformed affirmation of "the participation of the body and blood of Christ" to be that "wherein all agree" (LEP V.67.6-7). This leads Taylor to follow Hooker in regarding "curious and intricate speculations" (V.67.3) as a hindrance to a warm sacramental piety. Instead, the intention of this work is "not to mak...

On this commemoration of the martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer, we turn to words from his Answer to Gardiner . It is, of course, fashionable - and, in some quarters, de rigueur - to minimise, if not ignore, Cranmer's influence on the Anglican tradition. The extract below, however, captures a pastoral ethos which has profoundly shaped the Anglican experience.  The words of Cranmer's liturgy - at prayer desk and in the pew, at Font and Table, in matrimony and burial - comfort us; we whose faith is "feeble and weak"(as Cranmer knew of himself); we who err and stray, "like lost sheep"; we who journey through "this transitory life". This flows from and gives expression to Cranmer's robustly Christocentric theological vision, the (comforting) realism of his Augustinian recognition of sin, and the assurance of his Reformed sacramental vision. We need to be comforted, assured of Christ's gracious and loving presence for us and within us, sustained ...

Bringing to a close this series of posts on the influence of Eastern theologians on Taylor's thought in  The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), we turn to a passing reference in the work's dedication: But in the Greek Churches [transubstantiation] could not prevaile, as appears ... in Cyrils book of late, dogmatically affirming the article in our sense. Taylor is here referring to the Eastern Confession of the Christian Faith (1629) by Cyril Lucaris, Ecumenical Patriarch 1620-38. Having previously come into contact with Reformed churches and theologians, Cyril sought to give expression to his understanding of agreements between Orthodoxy and the Reformed. Taylor's reference, of course, is particularly to Cyril's statement on the Eucharist: This is the pure and lawful institution of this wonderful Sacrament, in the administration of which we profess the true and certain presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; that presence, however, which...

Last week we considered how Section XII of Taylor's The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654) affirmed the East's theologies of sacramental change - "conversion, mutation, transition, migration, transfiguration" - as agreeing with the theology of the Church of England. Also evident in Section XII is evidence of Taylor's knowledge of some of the lesser of the Eastern patristic thinkers.  Taylor points to Ephraim, the 6th century patriarch of Antioch, quoting him to the effect that our partaking of the Lord in the Eucharist is spiritual, not in substance: St. Ephrem the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch, is dogmatical and decretory in this question, τὸ παρὰ τῶν πιστῶν λαμβανόμενον σῶμα Χριστοῦ καὶ τῆς αἰσθητῆς οὐσιας οὐκ ἐξίσταται φύσεως, καὶ τῆς νοητῆς ἀδιαίρετον μένει χάριτος: "The body of Christ, received by the faithful, departs not from his sensible substance, and is undivided from a spiritual grace." He adds the similitud...

The Comfortable Words are back. Well, perhaps I somewhat overstate. I have, however, noticed that both Ben Crosby (an Episcopal priest-theologian serving in the Anglican Church of Canada) and Justin Holcomb (Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida) have both been writing on the significance of the Comfortable Words. Mindful that the Comfortable Words were dismissed by the liturgical reforms of the late 20th century, and have no place in contemporary Anglican eucharistic rites, it is not without interest that they continue to attract serious theological reflection in 2024. Ben Crosby notes the significance of the Comfortable Words deriving from the Reformed eucharistic liturgies of Strasbourg and Cologne: The next time that you say or hear the Comfortable Words, remember that this well-loved text shows the clear connection between the Church of England and the Reformation on the Continent. This use of Comfortable Words as part of the absolution come to us from Cologne, from ...

Section XII  of Taylor's The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654) abounds with quotations from the Greek Fathers. Taylor demonstrates how the teaching of the Greek Fathers regarding the change effected in the bread and wine in the Holy Mysteries does not support transubstantiation; that is, "the passage and conversion of the whole substance, into the whole substance". He points to the terms used by "the Greek Church" to describe the change occurring in the Eucharist: When the Fathers in this question speak of the change of the symbols in the holy Sacrament, they sometimes use the words of μεταβολὴ, μεταρρύθμισις, μετασκεύασμος, μεταστοιχείωσις, μεταποίησις in the Greek Church: conversion, mutation, transition, migration, transfiguration, and the like in the Latin; but they by these doe understand accidental and Sacramental conversions, not proper, natural and substantial. Such change is also affirmed by the Greek Fathers - and ...

In Section XI of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), Taylor's use of Fathers of the Eastern Churches continues. He invokes them in the context of affirming that - in the words of the so-called Black Rubric - "the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here" (emphasis added). The first Eastern father to whom Taylor turns in this section is Theodoret of Cyrus: Christ as man according to the body is in a place and goes from a place, and when he comes to another place is not in the place from whence he came ... So Theodoret, Domini corpus incorruptibile resurrexit & impatibile & immortale, & divinâ gloriâ glorificatum est, & à coelestibus adoratur potestatibus; corpus tamen est, priorem habens circumscriptionem. Christs body even after the resurrection is circumscribed as it was before. And therefore as it is impious to deny God to be invisible: so it is profane, not to believe and professe...

In Section X of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), Taylor demonstrates how the eucharistic language of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem cannot be understood to entail transubstantiation. He begins by addressing Cyril's concluding statement in the fourth lecture (9): the Roman doctors pretend certain words out of St. Cyril's fourth 'mystagogique catechism,' ['On the Mysteries'] against the doctrine of this paragraph: "Be sure of this, that this bread, which is seen of us, is not bread, although the taste perceives it to be bread, but the body of Christ: for under the species of bread, the body is given to thee; under the species of wine, the blood is given to thee" ... St. Cyril bids you not believe your sense. For taste and sight tells you it is bread, but it is not. But here is no harm done. For himself plainly explains his meaning in his next catechism. 'Think not that you taste bread and wine,' saith he. No, ...

In Section IX of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), we see further evidence of Taylor's commitment to 'breathing with both lungs' by again turning to Origen.  The key part of this Section is a commentary on Origen's eucharistic theology: we might regard it as part of Taylor's contribution to the ' Origenist moment in English theology '. He sees in Origen an understanding of the Eucharist which coheres with that of the English Church - "say we too" - in which heavenly and earthly, spiritual and material realities are affirmed, with the Lord's body "eaten in a spiritual sense", for "this is the plain and natural sense of the words of Origen": he plainly distinguishes the material part from the spiritual in the sacrament, and affirms, that "according to the material part, that meat that is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, enters into the mouths, descends into the belly, an...

In Section V of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), we continue to see Taylor quote extensively from theologians of the Christian East and point to the liturgies of the Eastern Churches. The opening paragraph of this Section quotes from Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, to demonstrate the reality of the bread and wine in the Eucharist: St. Cyril of Alexandria; "called bread his flesh." Theodoret saith that "to the body he gave the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of his body. The pairing is, of course, interesting, as Theodoret challenged Cyril's Christology. This in itself is suggestive of how Taylor generously viewed the Christian East as embracing both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian theologians and churches. Another extract from Theodoret - "In the exhibition of the mysteries he called bread his body, and the mixture in the chalice he called blood" - appears, as do words from the Byzantine John M...

In Section IV of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), Taylor continues to invoke the teachings of the Greek Fathers and practice of the Eastern Churches. Addressing the matter of how consecration of the holy Eucharist is effected, Taylor points to the East against the late Latin and Tridentine view that the Words of Institution are "wholly called 'words of consecration'": The Greek church universally taught, that the consecration was made by the prayers of the ministering man Justin Martyr calls it "nourishment made eucharistical by prayer;" and Origen calls it "bread made a body, a holy thing by prayer;" so Damascene, "by the invocation and illumination of the Holy Ghost," "they are changed into the body and blood of Christ." But for the Greek church the case is evident and confessed.  Having called upon Greek Fathers to support the view that it is the whole Eucharistic prayer that is cons...

In Section III of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), Taylor continues to 'breathe with both lungs', invoking fathers and theologians of the East alongside the West.  Discussing John 6, refuting that there "our blessed Saviour taught the mystery of transubstantiation", alongside the Latin Fathers Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine, Taylor quotes Athanasius, Origen, and Theophylact (who died in the early 12th century): St. Athanasius ... saith, "The things which he speaks, are not carnal but spiritual: for to how many might his body suffice for meat, that it should become the nourishment of the whole world? But for this it was, that he put them in mind of the ascension of the Son of man into heaven, that he might draw them off from carnal and corporal senses, and that they might learn that his flesh, which he called meat, was from above, heavenly and spiritual nourishment. For, saith he, the things that I have spoken, they ...