James DeKoven: continuity with the High Church tradition
The response did concern me because the aim of laudable Practice is not to undermine the prayer or piety of others. Rather, the aim of this blog is to explore, reflect upon and celebrate the coherence of the classical Anglican tradition. As I mentioned in the first post introducing this blog, reflecting on the Eucharistic theology of the pre-1833 High Church tradition - of which E.H. Browne said, "The doctrine of a real spiritual presence is the Anglican doctrine, and was more or less the doctrine of Calvin" - is a key part of this.
The purpose of Monday's post was to demonstrate how a rejection of Tridentine teaching and practices regarding eucharistic adoration does not lead to an impoverished eucharistic theology or practice. Taylor, echoing Calvin, shows how Reformed eucharistic theology involves a rich experience of adoration in the Sacrament.
James DeKoven - the "American Keble" and leading Ritualist - was mentioned in the Twitter conversation as a defender of Eucharistic adoration in Anglicanism. As with Keble's On Eucharistical Adoration (1858), DeKoven did represent a break with the High Church tradition. As Nockles notes, while at first there was no move from "the pre-Tractarian consensus", as the Tracts progressed, the Tractarians "diverged from earlier Anglican Eucharistic teaching", criticising the views of both Hooker and the Laudians as inadequate.
Even then, however, Tractarian Eucharistic teaching was nuanced and, in particular, distanced itself from Roman theology and practices. DeKoven's famous speech on Ritualism at the 1874 PECUSA General Convention is an excellent example of this.
Responding to a speech from an anti-Ritualist at the Convention, urging others to declare "I abhor and detest the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation", DeKoven declared: "I feel certain that any well-trained Churchman could do as he desired". This was a common Tractarian theme, echoing classical Anglican critique of transubstantiation. Thus Keble referred to it as "indevout rationalism" and described it as "corresponding to Eutychianism".
Alongside this rejection of transubstantiation, DeKoven also rejected the practices associated with Eucharistic adoration in the Roman tradition. He said of Eucharistic processions - "where the Host is carried aout the streets" - that it was "a practice which I believe to be a terrible evil", an expression of "erroneous or false doctrine". Similarly, elsewhere, he stated "that the practice of the Church of Rome as to Reservation for purposes of worship, is forbidden by the Church of England". As with Keble in On Eucharistical Adoration, the only outward act which DeKoven defended as an essential expression of Eucharistic adoration was kneeling to receive the Sacrament:
I would prefer to permit the children of the Church some warmer expression of their internal adoration, yet if this Church thinks it best to limit it to kneeling, I am satisfied.
Having rejected transubstantiation, DeKoven went on to define his own understanding of the Lord's presence in the Sacrament:
a man may hold that Christ's Body and Blood, and so Christ's human nature, and so Christ Himself, is in sacramental union with the bread and wine after consecration, not by transubstantiation, not by impanation, not by consubstantiation, not by a view which is largely held in our Church, and which is known as identity of substance: but in sacramental union with the holy elements, and so, not adoring the external elements, may yet pay his reverent homage to the Son of God, whom he believes to be present in His own Sacrament.
He continued:
I hold that Christ is in sacramental union with the consecrated elements, and that presence is called "real," to show that it is not a mere figurative or virtual presence, and the presence is called "spiritual," to show that it is not a physical or carnal or corporal presence.
What is perhaps most significant about this definition is what follows, when DeKoven defines the Virtualism of the Old High Church tradition:
Or again, a man may hold in our Church, and if he does so he can claim very venerable authority for it,—and I am free to say that the difference between this view and the other is rather a difference of words than of things—he may hold that Christ our Lord is personally present by His Divine Person in the Holy Eucharist. He may hold that Christ's human nature is present there, first by way of conjunction, secondly by way of cooperation, and thirdly by way of force and efficacy; and holding that Christ in His Divine Person is there, and there to give us His own Body and Blood, though that body and blood be not in the mind of this person connected with the elements, he too may adore Christ present in the Eucharist.
DeKoven emphasises the difference between his understanding of the Lord's Presence in the Eucharist and that of the Virtualism of the High Church tradition - itself, as Browne, notes, "more of less the doctrine of Calvin" - is "rather a difference of words than of things". There are grounds for affirming DeKoven's judgement at this point. For example, his reference to "sacramental union" can be compared with Calvin's insistence that "the internal substance of the sacrament is conjoined with the visible signs". Similarly, DeKoven's emphasis that "the presence is called 'spiritual'" echoes Taylor's account of "the doctrine of the church of England, and generally of the Protestants" - "We say that Christ's body is in the sacrament 'really, but spiritually'". Reformed concerns also find an echo in DeKoven denying any local presence in the Eucharist:
I hold that Christ is there [pointing to the sky]; I hold that He is here; I hold that He is there locally; I hold that He is here spiritually.
What can we then take from DeKoven's speech? Firstly, he stood in continuity with the classical Anglican tradition and the Formularies in rejecting transubstantiation. Put simply, he believed that the elements remained after consecration. Secondly, he rejected forms of Eucharistic adoration particularly associated with Roman teaching and piety, including processing the Host and Reservation for the purposes of adoration. Again, this stood in continuity with the classical Anglican tradition and the Formularies. Thirdly, while open to other ceremonies associated with veneration of the Sacrament, he required nothing more than that already contained in the BCP - kneeling to receive the Sacrament. Fourthly, in common with the High Church tradition's Virtualism, he rejected notions of "a local, physical, carnal Presence in the elements".
His Eucharistic theology was, in his own words, "rather a difference of words than of things" when set alongside the Virtualism of the High Church tradition. Furthermore, it rejected and did not call for Roman forms of Eucharistic devotion and piety. For DeKoven, the native piety of Anglicanism sufficed.
holding that Christ in His Divine Person is there, and there to give us His own Body and Blood, though that body and blood be not in the mind of this person connected with the elements, he too may adore Christ present in the Eucharist.
It is testament to the richness of this Eucharistic teaching that the Ritualist DeKoven could recognise it as a call to adore the Crucified, Risen and Ascended Lord in the Sacrament.
(The first illustration is a sketch of James DeKoven. The second is of William White, first presiding bishop of PECUSA, administering Holy Communion.)
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