Hooker's Doctrine of the Eucharist

J. R. Parris

doi:10.1017/S0036930600003896

Hooker's Doctrine of the Eucharist

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

J. R. Parris

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‘The doctrinal history of the English Reformation’, writes J. Brilioth, ‘is only of secondary interest; it contains little creative originality, much imitation and compromise. But the problem of the Eucharist took a prominent place from the very start.’ Indeed, he postulates a ‘special Anglican Eucharistic type’, stemming from the Reformation period. It is with the formulation of the doctrine of the Eucharist in the writings of Richard Hooker that this study is concerned. Hooker is regarded as ‘par excellence the apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 and perhaps the most accomplished advocate that Anglicanism has ever had’. And since it is maintained that ‘the typical Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist was fashioned in the period between Hooker and Waterland’, Hooker's historical importance for the understanding of Anglican Eucharistic teaching is obvious. Not that Hooker's teaching was normative for his successors, for there were deviations both to the ‘left’ and, more notably, to the ‘right’, especially under the Caroline divines. But Hooker's influence was important for the evolution of the ‘central’ churchmanship that was to be most characteristic of the Anglican Church.

Type: Research Article
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1963 , pp. 151 - 165

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600003896 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1963

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^{page 151 note 1} Brilioth, Y., Eucharistic Faith and Practice, Evangelical and Catholic, tr. Hebert, A. G., S.P.C.K., London, 1934, p. 199.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 2} Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Cross, F. L., Oxford, 1957, p. 54.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 3} Dugmore, C. W., Eucharistic Doctrine in England from Hooker to Waterland, S.P.C.K., London, 1942; p. v.Google Scholar

^{page 151 note 4} ibid., p. 57. ‘The central Churchmen all believed in the spiritual reception by faith of Christ's body and blood; they maintained that there is no change in the bread and wine except in the sacred use to which they are appointed; that the sacrifice in the Eucharist is a “sacramental representation, commemoration and application of the real sacrifice on the cross’; that it is the crucified body of Christ now in heaven which is spiritually partaken, and that the wicked do not eat the body of Christ in the sacrament.’

^{page 152 note 1} op. cit., p. 199.

^{page 152 note 2} op. cit., p. 22.

^{page 151 note 3} The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker, arranged by The Rev. John Keble, 7th Edition revised by R. W. Church and F. Paget, 3 vols., The Clarendon Press, Oxford; 1888, vol.11, p. 172. (N.B. This volume contains Book 5 of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, which contains almost exclusively the material referred to in the exposition of Hooker's teaching. Henceforth this will be referred to according to the chapter and section in Hooker, as well as the page reference in vol. II.)

^{page 152 note 4} Stone, Darwell, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, 2 vols., Longmans Green and Co., London; 1909: vol. II, p. 239Google Scholar. Stone's work is of some importance for Anglicanism of the High Church variety, and he seems in his interpretation of Hooker to be allowing for support from Hooker, on the grounds of vagueness at crucial points of his teaching.

^{page 153 note 1} Here and elsewhere, unless specifically designated otherwise, the italics shown in quotations are Hooker's own.

^{page 153 note 2} lvii.1, p. 255.

^{page 153 note 3} lvii.3, pp. 256–7.

^{page 153 note 4} lvii.5, p. 258.

^{page 154 note 1} ibid.

^{page 154 note 2} lxvii.2, p. 349.

^{page 154 note 3} lxvii.6, p. 253.

^{page 154 note 4} lxvii. 1, p. 348.

^{page 154 note 5} lxvii.5, p. 352 (cf. lxvii. 7, 10, 11., pp. 354, 356, 358, on mystical union).

^{page 154 note 6} lxvii. 1, 2., p. 358.

^{page 155 note 1} Note, Paget, p. 355.

^{page 155 note 2} lxvii. 8, p. 355.

^{page 155 note 3} The question of the proper interpretation of the Eucharistic views of Zwingli and of Calvin is a separate and vexed one, which cannot be dealt with within the scope of this study. Nevertheless, it is important for our interpretation of Hooker to essay some remarks. For the view that Zwingli would not allow Christ's humanity to be present in the Eucharist, our authority is Bromiley, G. W., in the Library of Christian Classics, Vol. 24. Westminster Press, n.d., p. 183Google Scholar. For the belief that Calvin differed from Zwingli on the interpretation of the Eucharist, in a ‘high’ direction the following passage from Niesel, W., The Theology of Calvin, tr. Knight, H., Lutterworth Press, London, 1956, p. 215Google Scholar, is cited.

‘… Calvin joins issue with the Reformers of Zürich and their friends (in that) Zwingli refused to entertain the notion that faith receives anything through the sacraments. He thought that such a doctrine violated the honour of God and implied a false view of faith. … Zwingli thinks that the Lord's Supper has merely the significance of enabling the believing congregation through the use of the signs to remember vividly the saving work of God, to confess its faith thereby and vow to pursue a Christian manner of life.‘

^{page 156 note 1} Particularly is this true in regard to ‘instrumentalism’ and ‘receptionism’. See below, pp. 161 and 162 respectively.

^{page 156 note 2} Already here there is a hint of ‘receptionism’, which is important to Hooker's account of the Eucharistic presence.

^{page 156 note 3} lxvii.2, pp. 349–50.

^{page 156 note 4} lxvii.6, p. 353.

^{page 156 note 5} Ixvii.g, p. 355.

^{page 157 note 1} ibid. The reference is to John 6.63. It was also used in the same connexion by Zwingli against Luther at Marburg.

^{page 157 note 2} lxvii. 11, p. 357.

^{page 157 note 3} ibid., p. 358.

^{page 157 note 4} lxvii. 12, pp. 359–60.

^{page 157 note 5} lxviii.8, p. 373.

^{page 157 note 6} Paget, vol III, p. 498.

^{page 158 note 1} Both Paget and Stone are protesting about Hooker being used in the controversies of their own day. Perhaps it may not be irrelevant to ask whether they were not affected by the Tractarian controversy and its aftermath in the English Church, and therefore had a stake in an interpretation of Hooker that would at least neutralise him as an opponent, even if they could not claim him for their side of the debate. See, Paget, An Introduction to the fifth Book of Hooker's, Treatise, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1899, pp. 172–173.Google Scholar

^{page 158 note 2} See above.

^{page 158 note 3} lxvii, 11, pp. 357–8.

^{page 158 note 4} See below, p. 162, for receptionism.

^{page 158 note 5} lxvii. 12, p. 359.

^{page 159 note 1} lxvii.6, p. 353.

^{page 159 note 2} Note, pp. 353–4, quoting Bellarmine with approval: ‘It is a matter of faith to believe that sacraments are instruments whereby God worketh grace in the soules of men, but the manner how he doth it is not a matter of faith.’

^{page 160 note 1} lxvii. 1, 5, pp. 348, 352.

^{page 160 note 2} lvii.4, p. 257.

^{page 161 note 1} lvii.5, p. 258.

^{page 161 note 2} lxvii.5, 6, p. 352.

^{page 161 note 3} lxvii.7, p. 355.

^{page 161 note 4} op. cit., p. 17.

^{page 161 note 5} Niesel, op. cit., p. 218.

^{page 162 note 1} Receptionism is defined in Cross, Oxford Dictionary, p. 1142, as ‘A form of Eucharistic teaching according to which, while the bread and wine continue to exist unchanged after consecration, the faithful communicant receives together with them the true body and blood of Christ.’

^{page 162 note 2} lvii.5, p. 258.

^{page 162 note 3} lxvii.2, p. 349.

^{page 162 note 4} lxvii.6, p. 352.

^{page 162 note 5} op. cit., p. 239—‘of set and deliberate purpose he (Hooker) abstained from expressing his own opinions as to whether the body and blood of Christ are present in the consecrated elements or are only communicated to the souls of receivers.’

^{page 162 note 6} See above, p. 158.

^{page 162 note 7} A doctrine ‘which denied that any change in the elements took place, but maintained that the faithful received the power or the virtue of the body and blood of Christ …,’ Cross, op. cit., p. 469.

^{page 162 note 8} lxvii. 12, pp. 361–2.

^{page 163 note 1} lxvii.11, p. 358.

^{page 163 note 2} lxvii-3, p. 350.

^{page 163 note 3} See above, pp. 158, 162.

^{page 163 note 4} lvii.3, p. 257.

^{page 163 note 5} lxvii.4, p. 351.

^{page 163 note 6} lxvii.12, p. 361.

^{page 164 note 1} lxvii.2, p. 349.

^{page 165 note 1} Dugmore, op. cit., p. 19, and see above, p. 161. Hooker's account goes beyond virtualism in that he allows for some change in the elements, while denying that this takes place externally to the soul of the believer. Later thinkers, and particularly the Non-Jurors, followed out his hint in an attempt to find an acceptible alternative to transubstantiation, for example in the doctrine of the Epiclesis.

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