Rev. Dr. Derrick Hassert has written something on his blog, "An Anglican Priest" that I highly recommend. I agree with what he says and wish I had said it. Maybe I will.
"That Anglicanism is wholly 'protestant' is an extremely simplistic
assertion and hinges on the meaning of the term itself. However, so too
is the contention among some that the term 'protestant' doesn't apply to
Anglicanism in even the slightest sense. If asked if we Anglicans are
Protestant or Catholic some will say: 'We are Catholic, but not Roman--we are not Protestants.'
This is simplistic and historically erroneous, and any layperson with
an interest in reading would soon find very Catholic sounding Churchmen
of the 16th and 17th centuries embracing the term Protestant. (But my rector said it wasn't so!) What to make of it then?"
See the rest here.
30 comments:
Reformed, Restored or as some might find a case to claim, a Retained Catholic Church are more accurate, descriptive and helpful terms than Protestant for the Anglican Catholic ecclesiastical tradition.
Thank GOD for the KJV, the Articles, the Prayer Book and the vast array of divinely inspired hymns and music that Anglicans have wrought and offered to the Christian world.
Too bad more Brits don't appreciate, understand or enter fully into living out the beautiful life that these true riches inspires.
G.S. Smith
Being Catholic means (among other things) believing in transubstantiation, and being Protestant means not believing in transubstantiation. I am neither, for I humbly think that both branches of the Christian faith get it wrong. Transubstantiation is not how Jesus presented His Body and Blood. He did not say, these species transform/become/transfigure into my Body and Blood. He simply said, This IS my Body... this IS my Blood. To Him it was not a mystery. It was/is a reality. I accept it as such.
Susan
To burble before doing my 'homework', how is it that the description of "those who dissented from decision of Diet of Spires (1529)" (Concise Oxford Dictionary) took such a flight, became so broadly (self-)applied?
Semi-Hookerian
Susan:
Your definitions of "Catholic" and "Protestant," that you've given here, are entirely unique, something you hold and no one else does. Frankly, the Catholic Faith and Creeds of the Catholic Church existed long before the overly scholastic notion of transubstantiation was even dreamed up. And, the major emphasis of Protestant Catholics, or Reformed Catholics, is on the clear message of the Gospel without compromise or innovation. Transubstantiation is just one of those things that does not fit Apostolic doctrine, and cannot be squared with the ancient Fathers.
The Rev. Dr. Hassert writes, “ The English Reformation was built upon removing erroneous beliefs and practices” among which he notes ”transubstantiation”.
But the Ten Articles (1536) say that “under the form and figure of bread and wine […] is verily, substantially, and really contained and comprehended the very selfsame body and blood” which is further “in the very substance exhibited, distributed, and received”.
Is this compatible with Luther (in 1520), “content to know that the true body of Christ is there”, saying, “the bread and wine have no need to be transubstantiated, and Christ contained under the accidents”, but also “other men must be allowed another opinion”, adding “let them not press their opinions on us to be accepted as articles of faith”?
The Six Articles (1539) do, in any case, so “press”: “after the consecration there remaineth no substance of bread or wine, or any other substance, but the substance of Christ, God and man.”
Article XXVIII of the Thirty-nine Articles clearly reverses this: “Transubstantiation […] is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture” – apparently with the implication (contra Luther) that ‘other men must not be allowed another opinion’.
The Council of Trent (11 Oct. 1551, Canon 2) effectively agrees with the English Reformers in the Six Articles: not only is “Transubstantiation” called the description “most aptly” used, but “If any one […]denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood - the species Only of the bread and wine remaining […] let him be anathema.”
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware in The Orthodox Church (1963)has an interesting brief survey of Orthodox uses of the term “transubstantiation” (pp. 290-92), saying “while Orthodoxy has always insisted on the reality of the change, it has never attempted to explain the manner of the change: the Eucharistic Prayer in the Liturgy simply uses the neutral term metaballo, to ‘turn about’, ‘change’, or ‘alter’.” He also quotes Met. Philaret’s Longer Catechism, “authorized by the Russian Church in 1839”, which, in explaining “the word transubstantiation”, says, it “is not to be taken to define the manner […] for this none can understand but God; but only thus much is signified, that the bread truly, really, and substantially becomes the very true Body[…] and the wine the very Blood”.
In the nineteenth of his Letters to Malcolm (1964), C.S. Lewis offers a thoughtful personal consideration of the matter, which includes “the very last thing I want to do is to unsettle in the mind of any Christian […] the concepts […] by which he finds it profitable to represent to himself what is happening when he receives the bread and wine. I could wish no definitions had even been felt to be necessary; and still more, that none had been allowed to make divisions between churches.”
Semi-Hookerian
Father Hart--Thanks for posting this on the Continuum. I get more responses to my work on your site than I do on my own. DH+
The problem with insisting that there is a "change" from bread/wine to His Body/Blood is this: Christ never said any such change occurs. What we simpletons assume in order to verify our frail and limited perceptions is not necessarily God's Truth. To be born again is to become like a child. Children most often accept what they are told. Christ said, This IS my Body. Accept it as a child of God.
Should we put our own spin on His eternal Word?
Thank you, Semi-Hookerian, for quoting C S Lewis.
Susan
Susan, you are adding two plus two and getting zero.
That a change occurs upon the consecration (or epiclesis, if you prefer) is the only possibility, otherwise there would be no sacrament. If no change happens why would I not buy a loaf of Wonder Bread, tell my buddies, "Hey let's eat the body of Christ" and claim real presence. "Yeah, man, two or three of us gathered in his name so our Peanut butter sandwich is the body of Christ. Cool, man!"
If you believe that the bread is the body of Christ then you believe a change happens, whether you want to admit it or not. Being an Anglican does not give us license to willfully take on the worst attributes of nominal aphasia. That curved yellow fruit is a banana. That host is the body of Christ. Before the consecration it is bread, after body. That's a change and a change very explicitly supported in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, not to mention the Fathers, and every orthodox Christian.
A is A. A is now B. bread is bread. Bread is now Body. That's a change. You cannot deny it without doing grievous harm to scripture, tradition, and reason.
Can anyone tell me where Christ said, "I will give you my Real Presence in the bread and wine"? Is that scriptural? Where exactly does the expression "Real Presence" appear in the Bible? Is it one of those expressions like "Trinity" that is not named as such, but evident from the Gospel?
I wonder how many people here actually know what transubstantiation is versus thinking they know what it is?
I've seen here in the past referring to substance as a physical thing, which is precisely opposite of what it means, unless we, too, mean that Christ is physically present.
When the Romans say that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, they are not declaring how bread and wine become the body and blood, only saying that it does become so. It has to specify "substance" because substance is what-the-thing-is, its nature. Accidents are the attributes of particular instances (instantiations) of a substance. You, Susan, are the substance "man." You have accidents: female, sitting down, reading, at 8 o'clock.
So here's the Roman breakdown:
Substance: Bread
Accidents--
Place: altar
Time: during mass, prior to consecration
Shape: round
Color: white
Taste bland
Number: many (priest's host and communicants' hosts)
And so on....
After the words of consecration:
Substance: Body of Christ (remember, substance is what-the-thing-is)
Accidents--
At the altar, after consecration, round, white, bland
There is no hocus pocus. There is no over-defining. There is nothing anti-scriptural here. Jesus said This (bread) is his body, he gave the apostles the commission to enact that change from bread to body and to do so in memory of him, and we have done it in perpetuity since then.
What transubstantiation does not do is explain how the change occurs only expresses the fact of its occurrence. Look, if anyone believes that he is kneeling before a piece of bread, offering a piece of bread to the Father, and consuming a piece of bread, then that person is simply not small-c catholic, because we have always and in every place, except for heretics, believed that we consume the body and blood of Christ, not bread and wine. That would be idolatry, which is what ahistoric Protestants (for lack of a better term) say we are doing.
Browsing the Rev. Dr. Hassert's blog, I encountered his interesting selection of excerpts from Bishop Nicholas Ridley on the Eucharist (who discusses his own understanding of "change").
Checking for Ridley in the Index of Stephen Neill's Anglicanism (1958), I found a footnote ref. to H.C.G. Moule, Bishop Ridley on the Lord's Supper (1895) - which is presumably his ed. of Ridley's A brief declaration of the Lord's Supper, happily available at the Internet Archive.
Neill also writes (p. 66) that Ridley "seems to have been the first to convince Cranmer that, in the light of the new knowledge of the Bible, the definition of the presence of Christ in the Holy Communion in the scholastic terms of 'accident' and 'substance' was no longer acceptable, and that an new formulation had to be found."
He further interestingly quotes (p. 94) from Latimer's words at his trial, lest anyone "suppose me [...] to make nothing else of the sacrament but a bare and naked sign", adding the "sense of Ridley's answer was the same".
Susan, your observations also remind me a bit of the late Professor Sir Michael Dummett's essay, "The Intelligibility of Eucharistic Doctrine" in William J. Abraham and Steven W. Holzer, eds., The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honour of Basil Mitchell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987) - though I do not remember the details as sharply as I would like!
Might "change" be generally supposed in that Our Lord's saying, "This is my Body" would seem to imply something new (distinguishing it from before He said it), yet not merely illustrative?
Semi-Hookerian
Susan,
Christ never said “Trinity” either but I think some things logically follow even if they are unsaid in the scriptures. The wheat in the bread we use was grown somewhere, harvested, ground, baked into bread….. etc. At some point its substance has to transform is it becomes Christ’s body and blood.
I can’t imagine an alternative. The substance of a particular piece of bread was ALWAYS Christ’s body and blood?
V/R,
Bruce
Cranmer, in his "Defence", quotes Augustine:
"Now the saying of Christ, 'Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall have no life in you', seemeth to command an heinous and a wicked thing; therefore it is a figure, commanding us to be partakers of Christ's passion, keeping in our minds to our great comfort and profit, that his flesh was wounded for us."
And Chrysostome...
And yet more plainly St. Chrysostome declareth this matter in another place, saying: "The bread, before it be sanctified, is called bread; but when it is sanctified by the means of the priest, it is delivered from the name of bread, and is exalted to the name of the Lord's body, although the nature of the bread doth still remain."
"The nature of bread," saith he, "doth still remain," to the utter and manifest confutation of the papists, which say that the accidents of bread do remain, but not the nature and substance.
Cranmer sums up:
And therefore St. Ausgustine saith, Contra Maximinum, that "in the sacraments we must not consider what they be, but what they signify. For they be signs of things, being one thing, and signifying another."
From Article 28:
"The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith."
- Jack
RC Cola,
God is everywhere, in everything, and everything exists solely because of Him. How do you know that He is not somehow hidden in the bread before it is consecrated? After all, His Holy Spirit can be hidden in us. I do not mean to demean consecration; I am only proposing that whatever the process may be, change as we understand the word may be a far cry from what actually occurs. Supernatural events are beyond the natural man to define, in my humble opinion.
Christ's Godhead was hidden in His Manhood, yet still there. There was no conmixture of His natures - they existed without becoming each other.
Susan
Why we have creeds, confessions and catechisms... so that Christians will know what the Church confesses to be true. As individuals we are free to hold various opinions on various topics, but when it comes to affirming truth our safest and surest ground to stand upon are those standards given by the Church for the Church, not going beyond nor ignoring their clear meaning.
It took me many years to learn that simple lesson.
Susan has suggested a new kind of Predestination. In terms of sacramental theology, we cannot say bread and wine is the Body and Blood of Christ unless and until it is consecrated.
I hope we can discuss larger implications of Dr. Hassert's article.
With all due respect, Fr Hart, I am not suggesting a new kind of Predestination. There is nothing new under the sun. The temporal and Eternal co-exist, separately yet without conmixture. Just as Jesus said, This is my Body, so a Priest re-presents His Body in Communion. I am suggesting there is no change. I am suggesting the "I Am" IS in the bread, just as Christ declared. The Eternal IS in the temporal because Christ said it is. And when a Priest declares it, the laity accept the Truth of it. The Sacrament is not lessened by this Truth. It is the Presence of God being revealed by Christ and His Priests, and the Power of it is lit by one's faith.
Susan
Susan has asked, "How do you know that He is not somehow hidden in the bread before it is consecrated?" Fr. Hart has merrily (and/or mischievously?) remarked, "Susan has suggested a new kind of Predestination."
Perhaps she is rather implying the need to have a balanced apophatic and kataphatic appproach in 'Eucharistic theology' as in 'Theology proper'!
It certainly seems worth thinking about 'Sacramental Presence' (so to put it) in the context of Divine Omnipresence, and of the distinct Presence of the Sustainer sustaining His creatures.
For, one cannot, so far as I can see, escape addressing the joint issues of dangers of artolatry and of failing to render 'latria' where, when, and how due.
Semi-Hookerian
P.S. I think a Eucharistic discussion is not the worst way of discussing, in part, "larger implications of Dr. Hassert's article."
Dr. Hassert's quote: "At the Reformation the Church of England became protestant in order to become more truly and perfectly Catholic." William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham 1826-36.
I agree with this statement. In fact, the 16th century reformers, be they of England or the Continent, considered themselves very much catholic. They were reforming the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church which had gone astray.
It's a fair to argue whether the Continental Reformed/Protestant/Catholics went too far or whether the Church or England didn't go far enough. But I think they all saw themselves as Catholics faithfully reforming and returning to the faith once delivered.
So, an 'Amen' from this corner as to Dr. Hassert's conclusion:
Is Anglicanism Protestant or Catholic? Ideally it is both, in the best sense of both terms.
Susan:
That's all very interesting, but unless and until the bread and wine are consecrated, we treat them as mere bread and wine. After consecration we see them as holy. The collective wisdom of the Church teaches that something happens, something mysterious, but something marked in time.
Fidelity to the ancient beliefs about the sacrament, about the Gospel and salvation, etc. are all part of the large scope of this thread.
Susan:
That's all very interesting, but unless and until the bread and wine are consecrated, we treat them as mere bread and wine. After consecration we see them as holy. The collective wisdom of the Church teaches that something happens, something mysterious, but something marked in time.
Fidelity to the ancient beliefs about the sacrament, about the Gospel and salvation, etc. are all part of the large scope of this thread.
Fr Hart said,
"After consecration we see them as holy."
You are precisely correct, in my opinion, for whatever little it may be worth. The operative words in your statement are WE SEE. Where then, has the change occurred... in the bread and wine, which IS the Body and Blood of Christ because Christ declared such to be so (as do His Priests during consecration, by His Authority), or in us? I submit that the change has occurred in us, for our eyes have been opened to the Truth of His Divine Presence in the bread and wine. How do we recognize It? Not with our mortal and corruptible eyes, By the power of His Grace working in us.
"Speak the word only..." Christ need only speak, and it is so.
Our corruptible bodies are cleansed by His incorruptible Body/Blood, that we may be in Him, and He in us. WE are sown in corruption, and raised in incorruption. 1 Cor 15:52-53 - In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Susan
Is it possible that, at the point of consecration, Our Lord uses the words and actions of his agent the priest, (and perhaps the co-operation of the Holy Ghost), to make his Body into that Bread, and his Blood into that Wine, so that in eating that Bread, which remains bread, and drinking that Wine, which remains wine,we are fulfilling his commandment?
Jay
All in all, an excellent discussion of an excellent article, but we should not forget this close to the anniversary of the Martyrdom of King Charles that "those who came back from Geneva" (to quote Bishop Cosin) gradually closed down the full obedience of the first Elizabeth's prayer book so that the Eucharist was stripped of its usual ornaments and ceremonial till it was hardly celebrated at all with the exceptions of the Chapels Royal the Royal peculiars and the cathedrals. It would seem that too many of the Reformers immediate heirs hardly believed in the necessity of Holy Communion with the end result being the English Civil War and the abolition of the Church of England and the outlawing of the Book of Common Prayer with the result that a false concept of the "Protestant" overwhelmed among many the necessity of all things truly Catholic as well as the recognition that for Anglicans both are and will always be necessary.
A Eucharist celebrated without the ancient vestments is just as valid as one without - St Boniface did it in Germany long before the Reformation - but since 1559 the prayer book has required them however much bishops and priests conspired to prevent their use. this is why their 19th century recovery made possible by the Tractarian Movement and the work of the Cambridge Camden Society was and is so important. Man believes what he sees and those that took away the ancient vestments and ceremonial intended that a discontinuity with the ancient Church should be seen even if it were not true.
Our job as Anglicans in the 21st century is to restore the fullness of prayer book worship, a fullness presaged in Luke 2:42, "and they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and prayers." If we fail there will be no one to fully represent in our day and time the wholeness, the catholicity of the Church of the first five centuries.
Canon Tallis
Jay,
It is my understanding that God is Omnipresent. Recall Christ's words in Matthew 25:35-45: "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and cloth you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.'
It is my opinion that the Roman Catholic Church, by feeding the Eucharist exclusively and only to Roman Catholics in good standing according to Roman Catholic laws, is in grievous disobedience of Christ's teaching above. But this is just my opinion. God IS the Judge.
If I, a baptized Christian and an Anglican Catholic, walk into a Roman Catholic Church because I am hungry and in need of the Eucharist, I will not be fed because I am not an official member of their exclusively-righteous flock. But not to worry... I will not do so. For Roman Catholic laity are only allowed the Body and not the Blood, and therefore the Roman Catholic Church is in disobedience to the Sacrament of the Eucharist as instituted by our Lord. Why go where I will not be washed by His Blood?
Susan
Susan to Jay (7:45 AM) raises an interesting (group of) question(s). Which (if any) of the 'Continuing Anglican Churches' retained Canon B15A of the Canons of Church of England (by which "There shall be admitted to the Holy Communion [...] baptized persons who are communicant members of other Churches which subscribe to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,and who are in good standing in their own Church")?
Which (if any) retains an analogous Canon of another 'Anglican' Province's Canons?
Or, again, which have formulated any analogous Canon(s)?
Whom (ecclesially-speaking) does which of the 'Continuing Churches' admit to the Holy Communion?
Semi-Hookerian
An obvious part of that answer is in the BCP: "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, meekly kneeling upon your knees."
Fr. Hart,
A cheering word to baptized ears in this Kikuyu centenary!
(But do(es) any less "obvious part" or parts call for setting out?)
A Joyful Feast of the Presentation, to each and all is the wish of
Semi-Hookerian
From a recent posting on Prydian:
"Whence was it, tell me, that the greater part of the seed was lost? Not on account of the Sower, but of the soil which received it, that is, of the soul which did not hear. This happened not only to the seed, but to the draw-net, which also brought in much that was unprofitable. Now He utters this parable by way of training and instructing His disciples not to despair, although those that perish should be the majority of those that receive their word. For this befell the Master also; and He, while He thoroughly foresaw that it would happen, desisted not from sowing. But how, it will be asked, was it reasonable to sow on thorns, on the rock, on the way-side? A husbandman would be rightly blamed for doing so; for it is impossible that the rock should become soil, or the way-side and thorns be other than they are; but in the case of reasonable beings this is not so, for it is possible for the rock to be changed and become rich soil, and the way-side to be no longer trodden down nor left open to all passers-by, but to be a fruitful field, and the thorns to disappear, and the seed to enjoy full security. For had this not been possible, He would not have sown thus. But if this change did not take place in all cases, this was not by reason of the Sower, but of those who did not wish to be changed. For He has done His part; and if they cast away what came from Him, that is no fault of His who exhibited such great benignity.
–St. Chrysostom, Hom. xliv. on St. Matthew."
I submit this in defense of my earlier proposal regarding the Eucharist: it is we who change when WE SEE by faith His Body/Blood upon consecration of the bread/wine. God, the Eternal One, never changes.
Susan
The Rev. Dr. Hassert contrasts (variously) “today's use of the term” and “the historic and correct use” and gives (sensibly, I would say) as his opinion, “ we should follow the language of the Anglican divines, using both terms correctly and explaining the meaning in a clear manner to avoid confusion” – though (following the full content of his post) I would substitute something like ‘various’ or ‘any and all’ for his “both”.
For, (with an nod to Canon Tallis) many outside – and presumably not a few within – ‘Anglicanism’ are engaged in exclusively appropriating terms.
As Lewis (setting out to discuss Sixteenth-century controversial literature) wrote in 1954, “To call one party Catholics implicitly grants their claim; to call them Roman Catholics implicitly denies it” while “ ’Reformation’ is a term equally ambiguous” since “Reform of the Church, in some sense or other, was desired by innumerable laymen and many clergy of all parties. The controversy was fought about ‘Reformation’ in a different, almost a technical sense: about certain changes in doctrine and order. To call these changes ‘reformation’ again begs the question” (OHEL vol., p. 157).
For example, I have encountered many ‘confessors of the Heidelberg Catechism’ (so to put it) who avidly recall ‘Reformation Day’ but largely exclude Luther et suis (and English Reformers and Anglicans as well, for that matter) from what they mean by ‘Reformed’, who would never immediately think of those who refused the ‘Filoque’ in 1054 when they refer to ‘orthodox Christians’ (for that is a description of themselves, fairly exclusively in practice), and who are rather complicated as to ‘catholic’, for that refers to themselves as well, yet they often translate the Creeds with some other word when they come to ‘catholicam’ or ‘katholikÄ“n’.
The Rev. Dr. Hassert quotes Father Moss that the “Anglican Church […] I is Protestant, in the old sense (emphasis added), negatively because it rejects the papal claims to supremacy, infallibility, and universal jurisdiction, and the decrees of the Councils of Trent and the Vatican."
But, we may note, so do those others who appropriate the name “Orthodox”, but few, if any, of whom would accept the description “Protestant”.
Such are some of the burdens (properly taken up) involved in attempting to use terms correctly and explain them in a clear manner, in this 450th Anniversary of both the Heidelberg Catechism and what The Prayer Book Dictionary (1912: happily available at the Internet Archive) calls (p. 51) The Thirty-eight Articles of 1563.
Semi-Hookerian
Susan (9:33 AM),
I do not know that anyone thinks they are contending 'Christus Totus' (Who is from the Conception 'Christus Deus') changes in 'becoming' distinctly Present, though many (if variously) think Bread and Wine 'change' to 'become' Body and Blood.
Analogous, the Son is not said to 'change' (Essentially or Personally) in 'becoming' Man.
Nor (so far as I know) 'Christus Deus', in leaviing the sealed tomb, entering the closed room, or, after the Ascension, appearing to Saul on the Damascus road.
Semi-Hookerian
Although I am just a humble layman, I am asked as an Anglican, "are you Protestant or Catholic?" I usually reply, "yes..."
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