James Arcadi ⎮  Summer 2012

The Eucharist is the central act of Christian worship, and thus of central importance to the task of theology. Jesus Christ gave theologians, charged with explicating and making clear the words of Scripture, a difficult project when he instituted his Supper. Just what did Jesus mean when he said of bread, “This is my body”? How is the body of Christ related to the consecrated bread? How is Christ present in the Eucharist? Answering these questions have led to some of the most contentious debates in the history of Christian theology.

One answer to the last question comes from the first Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556, Archbishop 1532-1553). Cranmer was responsible for overseeing the theological shift in England from Roman Catholicism to Protestant Anglicanism. As “theologian-in-chief” under King Edward VI (r. 1547-1553), Cranmer worked to express Protestant Eucharistic theology through the composition of liturgies found in the first two Books of Common Prayer (1549 & 1552). The Eucharistic theology he expressed liturgically in the two Edwardian Prayer Books also found expression in two lengthy polemical works Cranmer composed in response to Roman Catholic detractors. By mining these sources, we can come to an explication of Cranmer’s view on the contentious issue of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

Let me offer, however, a few restrictions on what follows. First, there are many aspects to the doctrine of the Eucharist, it is a multifaceted (perhaps even infinitely-faceted) doctrine. At the heart of many of the sixteenth-century debates, however, is the issue of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Thus, Cranmer’s view on this issue will be the focus of my exposition. Secondly, I am not attempting to explicate the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist; Cranmer is just one voice among many in the history of the Anglican Church. Yet as a founding father of Anglicanism and as the primary author of those liturgies that have shaped (and continue to shape) Anglican worship, his is a voice that calls for our attention.

In a 1966 article on the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions, B. A. Gerrish introduces some helpful terminology with respect to describing a spectrum of perspectives on the Eucharistic presence.1 Here I present that terminology with some modification. Within the category of the mode of spiritual presence fall three manners: memorialism, instrumentalism, and parallelism. These three manners are not mutually exclusive and a theologian might utter statements that could be categorized in any of the three manners. Nevertheless, the categories are helpful to highlight particular nuances and emphases that theologians take in explicating the spiritual presence. A proponent of spiritual memorialism will emphasize the cognitive effect that the elements possess for aiding in remembering Christ’s death and the benefits procured therein. Instrumentalism is a manner of the mode of spiritual presence that holds that the outward event, the consuming the elements, gives rise to or causes the inward consuming of the body and blood of Christ. Finally, parallelism emphasizes two levels of eating in the Eucharist, one on the physical level and one on the spiritual level, which is not necessarily brought about through the act of consumption. The eating of Christ’s body is spiritual but is parallel to the eating that takes place physically. It is my contention that Cranmer’s mature view most closely resembles that of the manner of parallelism and to expositing his view that I now turn.2

I argue that Cranmer’s mature view most often stresses the manner of parallelism. This view stresses two levels of eating taking place in the Eucharist. The mouth consumes the physical bread, while the heart feeds on the body of Christ. In Cranmer’s writing, there seems to be an almost formulaic usage of two small words, “as” and “so” in the form of: “as [physical]…so [spiritual]…” This following lengthy passage illustrates this parallelistic formula:

Christ ordained the sacrament of his body and blood in bread and wine, to preach unto us, that as our bodies be fed, nourished, and preserved with meat and drink, so (as touching our spiritual life towards God) we be fed, nourished, and preserved by the body and blood of our Saviour Christ…for this cause Christ ordained this sacrament in bread and wine, (which we eat and drink, and be chief nutriments of our body,) to the intent that as surely as we see the bread and wine with our eyes, smell them with our noses, touch them with our hands, and taste them with our mouths; so assuredly ought we to believe, that Christ is our spiritual life and sustenance of our souls, like as the said bread and wine is the food and sustenance of our bodies. And no less ought we to doubt, that our souls be fed and live by Christ, than that our bodies be fed and live by meat and drink.3

As the physical, so the spiritual; as the receiver eats bread and wine, so she is spiritually fed with the body of Christ; as one sees bread, so one ought to believe that Christ sustains souls; as bodies are fed by food, so are souls fed by Christ. The physical eating parallels a spiritual eating; the mouth parallels the heart. Richard Buxton comments, “The whole sense of Cranmer’s positive doctrine seems to be that as we eat the bread and wine, so we are reminded that it is Christ’s body and blood that feeds our souls; and, if we worthily receive, we are so spiritually fed by Christ’s body and blood at that time, and continue to be while we dwell in him.”4

Let us look to a few more quotations from Cranmer’s writings that will illustrate his adherence to this manner. It is important to note that Cranmer’s expression of his Eucharistic theology comes in a polemic engagement with the manner of transubstantiation. Yet, we can still discern his positive explication of the nature of Christ’s presence. For instance, Cranmer writes:

And although Christ be not corporally in the bread and wine, yet Christ used not so many words, in the mystery of his holy supper, without effectual signification. For he is effectually present, and effectually worketh not in the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them, to whom he giveth his own flesh spiritually to feed upon, and his own blood to quench their great inward thirst.5

and likewise:

as we see with our eyes and eat with our mouths very bread, and see also and drink very wine, so we lift up our hearts unto heaven, and with our faith we see Christ crucified with our spiritual eyes, and eat his flesh thrust through with a spear, and drink his blood springing out of his side with our spiritual mouths of our faith.6

For Cranmer, the “as…so…” formula represents an explication of the bi-natured outward/inward aspect of the sacramental action. The outward physical eating corresponds to an inward spiritual eating. As Cranmer indicated, in the Eucharist there are “two things, to eat the Sacrament and to eat the body of Christ.”7 These two things coincide; they are parallel with one another, but they are not identical with one another.

Perhaps an illustration will help to exposit this position. If I were to buy a car from my friend Tom, I would receive the title to the car as well as the car itself. But let us imagine that the transaction whereby I give Tom money and he gives me the title to the car takes place in his kitchen; the car being located on the street in front of the house. Does the distance between the car and me diminish my status as owner of the car? No, rather, it would seem that in a parallel form, as the title were signed and given over to me, the car became mine, even if it continued to be located a distance from my person. The “spiritual” reception of the car coincides with the “physical” reception of the signed title. This is analogous to how Cranmer interpreted the relationship between the Sacrament of the Body and the body of Christ itself.

Cranmer elucidated a position that emphasizes what is going on internally in the heart, not in the physical mouth or the ceremony. In the receivers is where the spiritual feeding takes place. The spiritual reality parallels or coincides with what is occurring figuratively on the physical plane. To Cranmer’s mind, this was the locus of a pastoral explanation of the Eucharist:

[W]hen [the priest] ministereth to our sights Christ's holy sacraments, we must think Christ crucified and presented before our eyes, because the sacraments so represent him, and be his sacraments, and not the priest's… at the Lord's holy table the priest distributeth wine and bread to feed the body, so we must think that inwardly by faith we see Christ feeding both body and soul to eternal life.8

Once more, indulge another quotation that clearly shows Cranmer as endorsing the mode of spiritual presence by the manner of parallelism:

Faithful Christian people, such as be Christ’s true disciples, continually from time to time record in their minds the beneficial death of our Saviour Christ, chawing [sic] it by faith in the cud of their spirit, and digesting it in their hearts, feeding and comforting themselves with that heavenly meat, although they daily receive not the sacrament thereof, and so they eat Christ’s body spiritually, although not the sacrament thereof. But when such men for their more comfort and confirmation of eternal life, given unto them by Christ’s death, come unto the Lord’s holy table, then, as before they feed spiritually upon Christ, so now they feed corporally also upon the sacramental bread. By which sacramental feeding in Christ’s promises their former spiritual feeding is increased, and they grow and wax continually more strong in Christ, until at the last they shall come to the full measure and perfection in Christ. This is the teaching of the true catholic Church, as it is taught by God’s word.9

Where does one look for Christ in the Eucharist? Not in the elements, not in bread or wine. But in the hearts of all who faithfully receive those elements.

Cranmer’s parallelism is no more clearly pronounced than in the Prayer Book of 1552’s words of administration, the very moment when the faithful receive the Sacrament. As the minister delivered the bread, he was to say, “Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.” Here the two-levels of eating are succinctly stated, as the mouth feeds on the bread, so too ought the heart to feed on the actual body of Christ. The often repeated “as…so…” parallel formula is conceptually present in the climax of the liturgy: as you “take and eat” this bread, so do you feed on the body of Christ in your heart.

Cranmer’s mature view on Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is to endorse the mode of spiritual presence, emphasizing the manner of parallelism. Christ is not corporally present in the elements. Rather, Christ is in the hearts of those who faithfully receive the elements. In parallel form, as the faithful eat the bread with their mouth, so does the heart feed on the body of Christ. This is the view that Cranmer would hold to until the very end of his life, it is in some fashion enshrined in the early Eucharistic liturgies of the Anglican Church, and thus commands, at least, our attention, if not our assent.

Footnotes

1) B. A. Gerrish, “The Lord’s Supper in the Reformed Confessions,” Theology Today 23 no. 2 (1966): 224-243. See also Gerrish’s study of Calvin’s Eucharistic thoughts, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic theology of John Calvin (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993).

2) In his article, Gerrish categorizes Zwinglian confessions as memorialistic, Calvinist as advocating instrumentalism, and Bullinger’s work, especially the Second Helvetic Confession, as showing parallelism. The accuracy of said categorization is not relevant to our study, for we are merely appropriating his terminology to aid in expositing Cranmer’s view. Gerrish does briefly discusses some of the English formularies and terms the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563/1571) as “cautiously Calvinistic,” something vaguely between, or containing both, parallelism and instrumentalism. He finds the 1662 Anglican Catechism as “faithfully Calvinistic” and thus endorsing instrumentalism. See 236-237 for discussion. See also Gerrish’s rather hasty treatment of Cranmer in Thinking with the Church: Essays in Historical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 249-255. Diarmaid MacCulloch concurs with categorizing Cranmer in the category of parallelism. See Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1996), 614-616.

3) Thomas Cranmer, The Answer of Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. against the false calumniations of Dr. Richard Smyth in The Remains of Thomas Cranmer, D.D., ed. Henry Jenkyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833), II:303, emphasis added. Similarly, “as with our corporal eyes, corporal hands, and mouths, we do corporally see, feel, taste, and eat the bread and drink the wine, being the signs and sacraments of Christ’s body, even so with our spiritual eyes, hands, and mouths, we do spiritually see, feel, taste, and eat his very flesh and drink his very blood,” Jenkyns, II:441. A most striking literal-parallel phrase cannot go unnoticed, when Cranmer discusses that the true feeding on Christ is when the faithful person takes the benefits of Christ’s work in salvation and “earnestly considereth in his mind, chaweth [sic] and digesteth it with the stomach of his heart, spiritually receiving Christ wholly into him,” Jenkyns, II:427.

4) Richard Buxton, Eucharist and Institution Narrative: A study in the Roman and Anglican traditions of the Consecration of the Eucharist from the Eighth to the Twentieth Centuries, Alcuin Club Collections n. 58 (Great Wakering: Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1976), 57. See also Peter Brooks, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist (London: Macmillan & Co LTD, 1965), 100-102.

5) Answer, 34-35; MacCulloch, 615.

6) Answer, 318.

7)  Francis Gasquet and Edmund Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer: An examination into its origin and early history with an appendix of unpublished documents, 2nd ed. (London: John Hodges, 1891), 399.

8. 8)Answer, 366; MacCulloch, 615.
   

9. 9)Jenkyns, III:130