POLL: Does Anglicanism consider the Eucharistic food itself to really be or have Christ's body?

Dear Rakovsky, I recommend you these articles:

http://anglicancleric.blogspot.hu/2007/01/articles-of-religion-of-church-of.html
http://catholicityandcovenant.blogspot.hu/2014/10/as-augustine-saith-reading-article-29.html

Saint Thomas Aquinas writes (De Sacramento Altaris, cap. XVII.):

"The first mode of eating the Body of Christ is Sacramental only, which is the way wicked Christians eat it, because they, receiving (sumentes) the venerable Body into mouths polluted by mortal sin, close their hearts with their unclean and hard sins, as with mire and stone, against the effect which conies from the influence of His virtue and goodness. . . These eat, and yet they do not eat. They eat because they receive (sumunt) sacramentally the Body of the Lord, but, nevertheless, they eat not, because the spiritual virtue, that is, the salvation of the soul they do not partake (non percipiunt). . . ." (St. Thomas cited by Hassert, in the first article.)

 

In his Disputations, Cranmer took the position that there was spiritual eating, ie believing, and there was physical eating, ie with the mouth, and while only the faithful partake, ie spiritually commune, neither the faithful nor the unworthy physically use the mouth to directly chew Christ's body, since it was absent from bread.

In Aquinas' and Augustine's view, both the worthy and unworthy do use the mouth and chew Christ's body "sacramentally", as Aquinas says above, ie in the sacrament, but only the worthy eat it in the spiritual sense of the word eat, ie believe.

Is your own position that only the faithful do physical and spiritual eating of the body, while the unworthy do neither, ie the unworthy chew and swallow bread with no presence in it?

 

Sorry? Dear Rakovsky, did you read the recommended articles?

My own position is that there is a real (not carnal, in the sense of cannibalism, but real) objective presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I do not think there is an actual contradiction between St. Augustine/St. Thomas Aquinas and Article XXIX (the title of the Article is perhaps mistakable). Eating and partaking are not necessarily the same.

In my opinion your problem is very theoretical and overcomplicated. The Eucharist is a mystery. What is important: Anglicans (except for some very "low" churchmen) believe in some form of real presence.

 

Racovsky, please note that Anglicanism is not Cranmerism. While Cranmer'a influence is incredibly strong and, because of it, enriching, he does not have the kind of place in our cown union that Luther has for Lutherans. He is on voice among many. We don't follow any one man. We follow the bible, under the tutelage of the Fathers.

 

Dear Hungarus,
You had begun your last message to me by quoting me as saying:
" Thus in Layman's and Stalwart's view, there is a real eating of Jesus' spirit body in the bread, but this only occurs for the faithful."
So I replied by asking if this was your understanding too.

Does that include the pieces of bread in the bellies of the unworthy?

When you say "perhaps mistakable", do you mean to say "perhaps mistaken", or are you discussing the concept of fallibility?
How do you interpret the title of Article 29, and why did the authors give that title?

The Episcopal Church USA website writes that Receptionist has always had a strong following, but that belief in the real presence does too, eg. because of the Oxford movement.
I would also be interested if you can find some central, big name Anglican theologians who taught the real presence.
NT Wright would count, except that my understanding of him is that his position leans rather to Virtualism, ie he teaches that just as believers eat the bread, so too do they commune with Jesus' body or perform a spiritual eating, eg believing, that has this effect.

 

Lancelot Andrewes is a pretty big name Anglican divine. Here is some of what he said in a response to a Roman Catholic:

"As to the Real Presence we are agreed; our controversy is as to the mode of it. As to the mode we define nothing rashly, nor anxiously investigate, any more than in the Incarnation of Christ we ask how the human is united to the divine nature in One Person. There is a real change in the elements"—(Responsio, p. 263)."

 

Yes, I understand. I mentioned him for reference above because he represents a central influence on this question at the church's founding, as the Episcopal Church website's entry on Receptionism says:

 

Study these texts, please:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/eucharist

"Christ's body and blood are really present in the sacrament of the eucharist and received by faith."

http://anglicaneucharistictheology....hard_Hookerc._1554_-_1600Anglican_Divine.html

>>Receptionism, it should be noted, is not opposed to any idea of a real presence. Crockett argues that: “ … ‘receptionism’ is a doctrine of the real presence, but a doctrine of the real presence that relates the presence primarily to the worthy receiver rather than to the elements of bread and wine.” (Crockett, 1989: 190).<<

 

Read please this article and its comments:

https://conciliaranglican.com/2016/...t-yes-anglicans-believe-in-the-real-presence/

 

Thanks. Can you tell me if Queen Elizabeth accepted the real presence? I remember vaguely that she did, but don't remember where.

In the poem cited below, she seems to take opposing views. On one hand she asserts that she believes that it is his body when he says it, but later in the poem she repeats the Receptionist objection that Jesus is not actually a physical door even though he says that he is the door:

https://withalliamgod.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/elizabeths-poetic-case-against-transubstantiation/

I am looking for figures whom even nonAnglican mainstream Christians would easily recognize and identify with Anglicanism, like the Abp of Canterbury or the Queen or Cranmer or NT Wright.

 

Regarding these two quotes:

The above teaching reminds me of how one Anglican argued to me elsewhere that Christ is "really" "present" to the believer in the Supper, ie ritual, while His body is objectively up in heaven.

This is the Receptionist position, eg that of Cranmer. But that is not what AngloCatholics or the Oxford movement mean by the Real Presence. When the Oxford movement says Real Presence, they mean Jesus is objectively present in the bread, as I understood you yourself to mean in previous messages where you asserted the real presence.

What you have cited to me does not present information or arguments I am not already well aware of.

 

I also recommend you this website:

http://anglicaneucharistictheology.com/Anglican_Eucharistic_Theology/Welcome.html

 

I don't have any direct quotes from Elizabeth (other than the poem you mentioned), but just based on a biography I read it seems she did believe in the Real Presence. The same with King James I.
Interestingly, Lancelot Andrewes actually served under both, but found more favor with King James I.
By the way I highly recommend the writings/sermons of Andrewes. He's one of my favorite Anglican divines. And took a key part in the translation of the Bible that is much beloved even now...the King James Version

 

What a wearisome controversy.

Rakovsky, This is the danger one falls into when trying to study something based off of blogs. Seriously, who studies anything in such a way? The blog you cited is an absurd jumble of some one man's lone ravings, intermixed with Calvin, Ludwig Ott and a hodgepodge of undiscerned influences and his own personal preferences. The title of the Queen's own discourse, A Meditation how to discern the Lords Body in the Blessed Sacrament should have been all the evidence you needed that she believed one can discern the Lord's Body in the Blessed Sacrament!

Sure she says if The Lord physically gave his flesh at the last supper he would've had to divide some part of his physical self, which never happened. Thus he gave his Flesh in some other way than the physical, and her thinking is sound there, but that other means of his presence can be discerned in the Blessed Sacrament. What more is required?

 

The real presence is a mystery. There are some ways to interprete it but nobody can really - rationally - understand it. What is important is the "what", our partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ, not the "how".

Why is this theme so important for you? What do you want to hear/read here? I think this discussion is a "neverending story".

 

Thank you for the passage you quoted.
Article 29 is titled
XXIX. Of the Wicked, which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper.
Fr John notes that Art 29 says that the unworthy do eat the sign or sacrament of the body.
How does the "body of Christ" differ from the "sign/sacrament of the body"?
Does this mean as a matter of grammar that the first phrase refers to Jesus' body itself while the second phrase refers to symbols and rituals?

In article 28, it says that the eating is "only" in a "spiritual manner"and "the means" is "faith". Doesnt this lead to what the title of Article 29 says, that those without faith "eat not the body"?

Fr John makes this interpretation:
"In the article itself, we’re told that the wicked are condemned because they “eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.” So they eat [ what?], but they don’t partake."

However, this goes back to the question: Do they eat the objectively present body itself or do they only eat the sign or sacrament of it?

 

Hello.

I was not citing the blogger ramblings, only the poem by Elizabeth. I remember reading something where she seemed more explicit in favor of the real presence.

Receptionists argue that Yes, Jesus said "This is my body" and so they accept this as a true phrase, but then they add that such statements are not to be taken as if Jesus was actually in the bread, because sometimes he spoke metaphorically. Cranmer might have made this point in the Disputations, and I note that Q. Elizabeth wrote in her poem:

So this is why I was looking for something clearer about the real presence by her.

 

One reason the real presence is important is that it's a key issue for Orthodox, and I would like our Churches to reunite. To clarify, EOs basically hold to either the RC or Lutheran views, although Stalwart gave an interesting quote by St Cyprian in support of his interpretation that the unworthy do not eat Jesus' body in the bread with their mouth.

 

All Receptionists believe in the real presence.

 

Certainly a noble cause my friend.