"Given, taken, and eaten": on how not to read Article 28

For instance, the Belgic confession specifically refutes that in Communion Christ is received by the mouth. But a plain reading of Chrysostom or Cyril of Jerusalem plainly shows they believed precisely this. The 39 Articles do not disavow it. 

True it is, that the animating spirit of the Articles, tends in the direction of Reformed teaching. No doubt. But at the level of the letter, there is room within them to believe the catholic faith as the early fathers held it. And there are little clues hidden here and there, that such a belief is not just possible but warranted, such as the crucial word, “given” in Article 28: “The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.” If the presence of Christ were not somehow affixed to the elements of bread and wine, there could be no way of defending that it is given. In strict receptionism, it is not given by the priest at all, but only received by the faithful communicant; the unfaithful receiving nothing of Christ.

The above is an extract from a defence of Tract XC, 'A Better Intentionalism: Toward a More Transparent Tractarian Historiography', on The North American Anglican.  Over the next few days laudable Practice will respond to some of the wider arguments, but in terms of an initial response these comments on Article 28 do highlight key issues.

There is, of course, a long and utterly unconvincing Tractarian tradition of engaging in, as Nockles states, "a certain misrepresentation of old High Church eucharistic theology".  'A Better Intentionalism' unfortunately stands firmly in that tradition, both with its dismissive reference to "strict receptionism" and its rather incoherent reading of Article 28.

To begin with, the description given of "strict receptionism" - "the unfaithful receiving nothing of Christ" - is the teaching of Article 29:

THE Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ ...

Are we really to think that Article 28 does not require what Article 29 explicitly declares?

What, then, of Article 28 itself?  Interestingly, 'A Better Intentionalism' does not quote in full the relevant section from the Article, omitting the final sentence:

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.

Let's begin with the word which 'A Better Intentionalism' suggests undermines a Receptionist reading of Article 28: "given".  Does "given" mean that "Christ is received by the mouth"?  If it does, someone should inform John Calvin:

all the benefit which we should seek in the Supper is annihilated if Jesus Christ be not there given to us as the substance and foundation of all - Short Treatise on the Supper of the Lord, 4.

Christ is therein given us for food - Institutes, IV.17.42.

Herein lies the problem with asserting a weak, empty understanding of Receptionism (rather than the rich, vibrant doctrine and piety of High Church Receptionism): you end up being surprised by the Reformed assertion that Christ is truly "given" in the Sacrament and thus misread it as suggesting "Christ is received by the mouth".

The point of the "heavenly and spiritual" eating, by faith, of Article 28 is that it denies a carnal eating in the mouth.  The Council of Trent recognised this in its anathemas:

lf any one saith, that Christ, given in the Eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be anathema.

Against this, we see in Cranmer the meaning of Article 28:

They [the Papists] say, that Christ is received in the mouth, and entereth in with the bread and wine: we say, that he is received in the heart, and entereth in by faith - A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine, III.1.

Likewise, Jewel:

For we affirm, that Christ doth truly and presently give His own self in His Sacraments ... in His Supper, that we may eat Him by faith and spirit, and may have everlasting life by His Cross and blood. And we say not, this is done slightly and coldly, but effectually and truly. For although we do not touch the body of Christ with teeth and mouth, yet we hold Him fast, and eat Him by faith, by understanding, and by the Spirit - The Apology of the Church of England, II.

And then there is Jeremy Taylor, contrasting "the doctrine of the church of England, and generally of the Protestants" with Roman Catholic teaching:

we affirm, that Christ is really taken by faith, by the Spirit, to all real effects of his passion; they say, he is taken by the mouth - The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, I.13.

Notice too the reference to "Chrysostom and Cyril of Jerusalem" in the extract from 'A Better Intentionalism'.  In A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine and A Treatise of the Sacraments, Cranmer and Jewel respectively offer an alternative reading of both Fathers.  What is particularly interesting, however, is the stark absence of any reference to Augustine at this point in 'A Better Intentionalism'.  One would have thought it impossible to talk about the teaching of Articles 28 and 29 without referring to Augustine, mindful of the delight Reformers such as Cranmer took in quoting from him:

Why dost thou prepare thy belly and teeth? Believe, and thou hast eaten ... And St Augustine meant as well at the supper as at all other times, that the eating of Christ's flesh is not to be understanded carnally with our teeth (as the letter signifieth), but spiritually with our minds.

Put simply, a meaningful reading of Article 28 cannot propose that the Article does "not disavow" that "Christ is received by the mouth": this is the very purpose of the Article, and is attested by its use of self-evidently Reformed theological discourse and motifs.

There is a twofold significance to the misreading of Article 28 in 'A Better Intentionalism'.  The first is that, as with Tract XC, it undermines the authority of the Articles of Religion.  If Article 28 can be read to affirm teaching which the Article was quite clearly composed to reject, it is impossible to envisage the Articles of Religion having any meaningful place within contemporary Anglicanism, as a key means of restoring a robustly Augustinian theological centre.

Secondly, the suggestion that "Christ is received by the mouth" is a necessary part of a 'catholic' Eucharistic doctrine, in contrast to a "strict receptionism" regarded as - in Jewel's words - "a cold ceremony only, and nothing to be wrought therein (as many falsely slander us we teach)", dismisses centuries of rich, vibrant Anglican Eucharistic teaching and piety, regarding this as mere memorialism rather than the mystical feeding upon the Lord's Body and Blood in this feast upon a sacrifice.  What is more, mindful of how much contemporary Anglican Eucharistic teaching and practice reduces the Sacrament to a fellowship meal, dismissing Article 28 and the teaching and piety flowing from it - a teaching and piety particularly embodied in the pre-1833 High Church tradition - cuts off contemporary Anglicanism from a coherent, attractive, and compelling source of sacramental renewal.