One of the things Lancelot Andrewes is known for is his playing with words and tossing them around to create all sorts of pictures and illustrations as he develops his points in his homilies. Actually, it can become quite frustrating reading at times as you just want him to get on with his point. But, I think his tendency to quibble about words and phrases spills over into his polemics with Saint Robert Cardinal Bellarmine as well. In a defence of Eucharistic adoration, i.e. for Andrewes adoring Christ in the Sacrament, he says to Bellarmine the following:
We ourselves also truly adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries, with Ambrose: but we worship not it but who is praised on the altar. Namely the Cardinal wrongly asks what should be worshipped there he ought to ask who should be worshipped: with Nazianzus, he [the king] says him, not it. Nor do we chew the flesh, unless we have previously adored, in line with Augustine. And yet none of us adores the Sacrament.
Now does anyone besides me think this is a silly argument to have? Is it not a quibbling over words of who or what is being adored before
manducamus? It seems that way to me. I am presently looking at Ambrose and I will see if he has Ambrose right here. For the time being, I simply think this should not be a stumbling block but how can words trip us up!
One of the things Lancelot Andrewes is known for is his playing with words and tossing them around to create all sorts of pictures and illustrations as he develops his points in his homilies. Actually, it can become quite frustrating reading at times as you just want him to get on with his point. But, I think his tendency to quibble about words and phrases spills over into his polemics with Saint Robert Cardinal Bellarmine as well. In a defence of Eucharistic adoration, i.e. for Andrewes adoring Christ in the Sacrament, he says to Bellarmine the following:
17 comments:
Father, this provided a much-needed late night or early morning smile! I need to get to bed soon before I respond foolishly...[smile]
Fr - Mine was a little unfair - so I've taken it off.
As I understand it it is impossible to separate the outward sign of the Sacrament from the inward reality and still have a sacrament. Thus, to worship the sacrament is to worship Christ for the Sacrament IS Christ.
Not long ago I priest I knew insisted that in his parish the Adoremus be sung as "Let us adore christ Our Lord in the most holy Sacrament". I wonder now if he picked up that idea from Lancelot Andrewes
I think it really depends exactly what your sacramentology is. If you are a substantianist (whether trans or con) then I can see how worshipping the elements *is* worshipping Christ. But if you take a more Cranmerian or Transignificationary stance, then one might take the view that any form of veneration or worship of the elements is idolatorous.
So for those of us who take the view that Christ is truly present through the elements but not in the elements themselves, the notion of adoration needs to be carefully handled (especially if we work in Evangelical environments!!!)
"... those of us who take the view that Christ is truly present through the elements but not in the elements themselves ..."
Setting aside the word "truly" and what it means in this context -- personally, I think that in this context "truly" means nothing -- the statement is an admirable statement of Calvin's eucharistic doctrine (although Calvin would have added "for the elect"). It is a teaching that would satisfy neither the Latin Church nor the Eastern Church, nor Luther and orthodox Lutherans, nor most (if not all) of the of the Eastern and Western Fathers alike, who would hold it for inadequate -- and it would not satisfy Zwingli, Bullinger, Cranmer and most Reformed Reformation theologians, who would find it excessively "popish." It might satisfy Jewel, and it might satisfy Hooker. Would Andrewes find it satisfactory?
In the end, I think I agree with Al Kimel, that how one treats the consecrated eucharistic elements shows more about the "heart" of one's theology, than how one formulates one's beliefs about it. If one rejects the adoration of the eucharistic elements as the Body and Blood of Christ, or the rejection of the Body and Blood of Christ "in, with and under" those elements, then in my view one's theology is simply unCatholic and heretical.
William Tighe
Professor Tighe, I agree and that point is made in the work I sent you early in the morning hours. Since then, I have put the following from Andrewes' notes on the BCP.
In his notes on Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer, Andrewes gives us an illustration of this as he quotes from Augustine concerning what is done at the reception of the Eucharist.
He writes, ‘When they receive it to say, Amen. And although Schismatics balk at the rite of genuflexion, what other gesture should there be for those praying except supplication?’
A really good discussion! I think that - as usual - Bill Tighe & Kimel et al are right. While not oversimplifying things, or saying that philosophical theology has no uses, or that the debates of the 16th & 17th centuries were over trifles, I am reminded of a remark of my old Bishop, John Hazlewood, who, when attacked for persisting with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at Synod Evensong each year, remarked to the satisfaction of most that "the only people with valid objections are those who deny that the presence of Jesus is in some way related to the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper."
Now that clearly wouldn't have worked in the Diocese of Sydney, but it works with the vast majority of Anglicans. +Hazlewood believed that if people learned to love adore the Lord at Benediction, their particular theories or theologies of his Presence didn't matter all that much. He, of course, had a brilliant theological mind; but his canny and pastoral approach made more people into catholics than all the argument in the world.
Indeed, there are many Roman Catholic priests in western countries like Australia who would just love to get the majority of their parishioners back to the point of believing "that the presence of Jesus is in some way related to the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper."
Father Steele, I'm looking forward to the completion of your work and its publication. I've always thought that what Andrewes et al often SEEM to be against is not necessarily what they WERE against, especially if it is true that some of the Carolines thought they were defending a proper understanding of the Fathers and even the Angelic Doctor over and against the Council of Trent!
It is excellent that you are putting the hard work into the kind of research this particular angle deserves.
Blessings
+David
Forgive me but I have to say that I am not clear as to what William Tighe means when he says "with, in and under". Was it ARCIC I or ARCIC II which said, "Before the consecration it is correct to say 'That is bread'. After the conseration it is correct to say that is the body of Christ." The point is that "with, in and under" each leave us with their own questions but "is" is about as clear as it gets.
A former Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Great Britain not surprisingly rejected transubstantiation but was emphatic that the elements are chnaged "though and though." Surely any definition which rejects the notion that there is a mutation of the elements is not Catholic.
Andrewes believed that at the consecration the elements were forever changed and not only did he say it was the body and blood of Christ but also the bread of life and cup of salvation. On that basis he agreed with the reservation of the sacrament to carry it to the sick. He also genuflected at the consecration for adoration (I have that in his notes on the BCP). Where it stopped for him was due to his understanding of Eucharistic sacrifice, which came with a command to eat. He believed the command was to eat and to drink as a fulfillment of the Eucharistic sacrifice per Lev. 3 and the peace offering which all the assembled were required to eat just as they were at the Passover.
Eucharistic adoration was something that went beyond the Eucharistic sacrifice. In that sense, he maintained the theology of the early Fathers entirely without the devotion of the Medieval Church. One could hardly say his practises and understanding at this point weren't Catholic. I think it is difficult for us to understand the political climate of the day regarding Catholicism for those who wanted to return England to a more Catholic way due to the Reformation happening on the Continent. Andrewes was one of those as he refers to those who refuse to genuflect as Schismatics. But as much realism as he could muster in his descriptions like, before chewing the flesh we adore as Augustine, he could hardly expect to keep his life for very long if he said, 'OK chaps let's say transubstantiation.'
I am happy to have Eucharistic devotion and adoration [I do it and offer benediction] but is it something any of us would go to the flames over in that anti-papal climate?
By "in, with and under" I was referring to the standard Lutheran formulation of the Presence ("consubstantiation" is a term that most Lutherans have always rejected as "vain philosophy").
Luther and many early Lutherans practiced adoration of the consecrated elements after the recital of the Words of Institution and before their consumption. Lutherans abandoned this practice in the 17th century when Melanchthon's view that the "sacramental union" of the bread and wine with the Body and Blood only began when the elements entered the mouth(s) of individual communicants, and never took effect in the bread and wine that was not consumed, came to be canonized in scholastic "Lutheran Orthodoxism."
William Tighe
You guys really have to get a life. If one asked why Chiristianity is in such deep decline in the West, it would be difficult to produce any more salient evidence than the present discussion (which, incidentally - or not so incidentally - is altogether alien to everything we know about Jesus Christ). Bill Tighe's contribution just about takes the biscuit for prissy silliness, though, admittedly, the competition is extremely hot.
veri tenax has a bit too much time on her [his] hands and one wonders about coming around and calling someone prissy who cannot even use their real name.
It's generally called cowardice, Jeff, and aside from displaying the traits of a coward, veri mendax seems a bit deranged.
I think it's important to address Peter Ould's comments because they do make an important pastoral point, and they appear to have been forgotten.
There are many within Anglicanism who could be considered catholic-leaning (I realize that that's a theologically problematic term, but bear with me), who have a moderately-high to high vision of the liturgy and sacraments and authority in the church, but are in the main, evangelical churchmen. I have encountered a number of Anglican groups in California who fit such a description, and they have a very high regard for symbolism (most of them seem to be of a charismatic bent) and understand that through the Holy Spirit the enduring symbols of the Church are often a living connection to the substance they point to. They are willing to SEE the elements as the real body and blood of Christ, but they resist any effort to get specific about where and how we find Him there. Many of them are influenced by the "higher" Reformed teaching on the Eucharist, but they are also very respectful and pay some heed to Anglo-catholic teaching. They also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation (though generally not a proper respect) for the Roman Catholic Church.
Given all of the above, would it not be important to treat the ambiguities of their sacramentology as more an appreciation of the mysteries of Christ and His Church than a rejection of catholic teaching? We should respect their reasonable desire to avoid the dangers of medieval theology, even if they are captive to certain religious ideologies and generally don't understand what the Reformation has cost all of us.
I have to admit that part of my point of view is probably based on the fact that my sacramental perspectives were nearly the same when I first became an Anglican 12 years ago. I see many of them as taking the same journey that I did (and I suppose, as Cardinal Newman did), although I was blessed to be in contact with people who kept making sure that I was getting immersed in the Eastern Fathers, and this became my own personal commitment. God used this to put me on the fast track, so to speak, to Anglo-catholicism. I'm not sure that these folks are generally getting enough of that same kind of spiritual food to help them unlearn their protestant habits of mind.
Oh, come on, Jeff, Bill Tighe, it's perfectly obvious who I am. Try not to be obtuse.
I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think I knew who wrote it.
WJT
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