Bicknell on Article XXXI: Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross

In substance dates from 1553. Only slightly altered later. decrees of Trent on this subject were not issued till 1562, hence the doctrine attacked is not official Roman teaching but popular mediaeval ideas. It asserts

(i) The uniqueness and all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of the Cross ; (ii) The falsity of any view that made each Mass a sacrifice indepen- dent of or additional to the sacrifice of the Cross.

§ 6. The Eucharistic Sacrifice.

(a) The New Testament says very little in detail about the Eucharist as a sacrifice, but it leaves no doubt, wherever it is mentioned, that the Church regarded it as such. In 1 Cor. 10%? St. Paul’s argument rests upon an identity of principle between the Christian Eucharist and the sacrificial meals of the Jews and

• To attempt to suggest what loss of grace the Church of Rome inflicts upon

its laity would be to indulge in speculation as unprofitable and unprovable as that on which the doctrine of concomitance is based,

heathen. He speaks of the ‘table of the Lord,’ which in Old Testament language is simply a synonym for ‘altar’ (Mal. 17 and 12° Ezek. 4122, 4416). In the Eucharist no less than in these sacrifices, those who eat, have communion with the altar, that is with God, who is represented by the altar. Hence the incon- sistency of attendance at the Christian Eucharist and at idolatrous sacrifices. ‘Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord*and of the table of devils.’ * So, again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we read, ‘ We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, who serve the tabernacle’ (131°). A sound scholarship forbids us to limit ‘ altar’ here to the actual table. But the reference to the Eucharist is unmistakable, and the words imply a sacrifice present comparable to those of the old covenant, of which the members of the new Israel partake as Israel after the flesh did of theirs.t So, too, when we turn to the accounts of the institu- tion the whole tone and structure are sacrificial. It is true, indeed, that the words ‘ Do this’ (rovTo zroere) in themselves mean no more than ‘perform this act.’ Attempts have been made to press the translation ‘ sacrifice this.’ In the Septua- gmt vovetv is undoubtedly used in the sense of ‘sacrifice’ or ‘offer’; but only when the context demands it. In itself it is as vague as the English verb ‘do.’ None of the early Fathers, with the single exception of Justin Martyr, understand the words here as meaning in themselves more than ‘ do this.’ Again, the word ‘remembrance’ (avauvyots) is employed in the Septua- gmt in a sacrificial sense (cp. Heb. 10°). But in this case also the word in itself is quite indeterminate. Who is reminded and of what he is reminded, depends solely upon the context. The fact, however, still remains that both the manner and circum- stances of the institution leave no doubt of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist. The ‘Body’ and ‘Blood’ mentioned in separation recall the pouring out of the blood in sacrifice. They are given not simply ‘to’ you, but ‘for you’ (Urep vuar), 2.¢. on your behalf. It is clear that our Lord’s Body and Blood are not only our spiritual food: they are that because they are first the sacrifice that prevails for us.t The words ‘ This is my

• See Goudge, ad loc. + See Westcott, ad loc.

t The phiase the ‘bread of God’ (Jn. 68%) may in itself be sacrificial (cp. Ley. 21°, etc., when it refers to the sacrifice as a whole, originally perhaps regarded as the actual food of Jehovah).

blood of the covenant’ (Mt. 2678) or ‘ This is the new covenant in my blood ’ (1 Cor. 11?) are an echo of the words of the covenant- sacrifice of Exodus 24 (quoted Heb. 92°), The whole service is the Passover of the new Israel.

In the early Church the Eucharist is from the first spoken of in sacrificial language.* It is called the ‘spiritual’ and ‘ un- bloody’ sacrifice. It is viewed by Irenaeus and the Fathers generally as the ‘ pure offering’ foretold by Malachi (1”). The heathen world was full of sacrifices. The Church could hardly have avoided explaining her worship in terms of sacrifice. The question still remains in what sense she employed them. Gradually the Church made clear to herself all that was implicit in the Eucharist from the first. She found in it at once the fulfil- ment and the correction of those imperfect ideas and aspirations that were embodied in Jewish and heathen sacrifices.

(b) As we have already seen,f several] distinct ideas underlay the sacrificial worship of the Jews and heathen, and these ideas were not sharply defined. Sacrifice was a gift or tribute, an expression of homage. It was also a means of propitiation and a means of communion. Through the common sacrificial meal the union between the worshippers and their God was strengthened. All these ideas run into one another and find their expression in the Christian Eucharist.

(i) What the Church offers to God in the first instance is simply

bread and wine, as a token of homage and dependence upon ‘Him, and an act of thanksgiving for His mercies of creation and redemption. In Old Testament sacrifices thoughtful Jews had come to discern that the worth of a sacrifice in the eyes of God lay not in its intrinsic value, as if God needed man’s gifts, but in the spirit of the man who offered it (e.g. Ps. 50°17’, 511617, 6930-31), Jn early days the people brought their offer- ings to God in kind as an expression of thanksgiving. The bread and wine actually used in the Eucharist were taken from these offerings of the faithful. So to-day the oblations of bread and wine and the collection of money which takes place at the same point in the service are in origin and significance one and the same act. The connexion between them is preserved in so far as the bread and wine are the gifts of the whole congregation as being bought out of the alms.

(ii) Then in the prayer of consecration the Church in obedience to our Lord’s command performs in remembrance of Him those acts that He Himself performed at the Last Supper. We pray that our earthly oblations of bread and wine may by the power of the Holy Spirit be united with the heavenly oblation of our Lord. God, so to say, shows His acceptance of our offerings by giving them back to us charged with the fruits of our Lord’s passion, to be the spiritual food of His body and blood. In the early liturgies the effect of consecration is expressed indiffer- ently either as the descent to earth of the Heavenly Presence of our Lord or as the lifting up to Heaven of our gifts, there on the heavenly altar to be united with Him. The truth that they strive to express is that heaven and earth are made one.* So in the Holy Eucharist our Lord is present in His heavenly glory, to be the food of our souls, and since He is present, His sacrifice is present too. Our Lord presides at the Board not only as Host but as Priest. ‘He pleads by what He is.’ His presence in Heaven eternally intercedes for us, and His presence in the Eucharist is no less a presence of intercession. We, as His mem- bers, join with Him in presenting His sacrifice before the Father.

• Having with us Him that pleads above, We here present, we here spread forth to Thee, That only offering perfect in Thine eyes, The one true pure immortal sacrifice.’

Thus, what the Church does in the Eucharist is on a level, not with what our Lord did once for all on Calvary, but with what He is now doing in Heaven. That death can never be repeated. Through it He has become all that He now is. Our Lord’s historical acts ‘had value only as expressing and per- fecting His will, and they live eternally in the will expressed and “‘ perfected’’ through them: so that He offers Himself for ever. Through the commemorative thanksgiving the Church cooperates with the eternal act of His will and offers Him to the Father.’ f Our Lord, as the ‘Lamb that hath been slain,’ is an eternal and abiding sacrifice, interceding for us by His

• Cp. the language of the Leonine Sacramentary :

‘On Thy altars, O Lord, we thankfully offer earthly gifts that we may win heavenly : we give earthly things that we may receive eternal.’

• Article ‘Sacrifice’ in N.T. by F. E. Brightman, p. 768), Murray’s Bible Dictionary. The whole article should be studied.

presence in Heaven. In the Eucharist we on earth join with Him in pleading His sacrifice, even as He pleads it above.*

‘His manhood pleads where now it lives On Heaven’s eternal throne, And where in mystic rite (i.e. the Eucharist) He gives Its presence (7.e. the presence of His manhood) to His own.’

As His members we identify ourselves with our Head. As “in Christ,’ we hold up before the Father His Cross and Passion,

*It is important to notize two ambiguities that lurk under the expression ‘the finished sacrifice of Christ.’ The word ‘sacrifice’ may mean either “the act of sacrificing’ or ‘the victim sacrificed.’ If it is used in the first sense our Lord’s sacrifice is an act that lies in the past. If it is used in the second sense ‘ our Lord is our sacrifice,’ He is the ‘ Lamb as it had been slain.’ Again, the word ‘finished ’’ may mean no more than ‘ past,’ ‘no longer going on,’ as, ¢.g. a day is ‘ finished’ when it comes to an end. But it may also mean “completed,’ ‘able to do its work,’ as, e.g. a house is finished when we can live in it. More than half the controversies about the Eucharistic sacrifice have turned. on a confusion in the use of these two words. In one sense we rightly speak of the finished sacrifice of Christ, meaning that He has died and risen and ascended and will never die again. In another sense, no less rightly, we regard our Lord Himself as an abiding sacrifice. Through all that He has accomplished, He has become the perfect instrument of our redemption. He is for all eternity ‘the Lamb that hath been slain’ (ws éopayyuévov, Rev. 58), i.e. alivethrough death. ‘He is’ (not was) ‘the propitiation for our sins’ (1 Jn. 2?). It is through the living and glorified Christ, not simply through what He once did, but through what He now is, that we have access unto the Father (Eph. 216-18) Jn other words, His sacrifice is finished in taat we can now enjoy all its benefits. The one view that contradicts all Scripture teaching is to maintain that our Lord’s death is in any sense repeated.

Certain teachers of very different schools of thought have used language that implies that in the Eucharist we feed on the Body and Blood of the dead Christ : that we go,in the words of Bishop Andrews, ‘ad cadaver,’ or in the words of a leading Evangelical teacher, that ‘The res sacrament is not Christ as He now is, but Christ’s Body and Blood as separated in Sacrificial Death for our sins. In other words, at each communion ‘by the omnipotency of Christ’s word the actual moment of His redemptive death upon the Cross is made to be present again to faith.’ Such a view would seem to demand a new miracle at each Eucharist no less than the doctrine of Transubstantiation demands it. Further, it rests on an unreal distinction between the sacrificed and the glorified Body. There is but one Body of Christ, that which has passed through death to glory. His “Body is not vexpiv but érpayuevov. The view in question is anxious to safeguard the immediate connexion between the Eucharist and Calvary. But it rests on a false antithesis. The Crucifixion and the Ascended Life of our Lord are in tne most intimate connexion. The latter derives its saving potency solely from the former. It is as He that ‘ became dead and liveth ’ (Rev. 118) that Christ is our Saviour. Just as the saving efficacy of the Cross lives on in the living Christ, so in the Eucharist our faith rests not on a single act of past time but on an eternal present. (For a full discussion see Moberly, Problems and Principles, No. 5.)

as being the realization of that antagonism to sin and filial obedience to the Father’s will, which we would fain attain, but from which we know ourselves to fall short. We claim the forgiveness won for us. We thank God for the great act of re- demption. We ask God, as it were, to look upon Christ as being that which by His grace we hope one day to become. Thus, through Christ we dare to enter into communion with the Father. He is our at-one-ment. Through Him we can enjoy that fellow- ship with God that ancient sacrifices aspired to achieve. And through Christ we offer our prayers and thanksgivings for our fellow-members in His Body and plead His death for all the faithful living and departed.

(iii) Not only do we commemorate all that our Lord has done for us, but in and through Him we offer ourselves to the Father. Our Lord in Heaven presents to the Father not only Himself but His Body, the Church. We, as parts or ‘members’ of Christ, filled anew by the act of communion with His life, join with Him in offering ourselves, ‘ our souls and bodies.” We in and with Him intercede for the whole Church, and offer to God the whole body of the faithful living and departed and ourselves as part of it. This is the culmination of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Not the mere presentation of Christ’s sacrifice as something done for us or outside us, but rather our own self-identification with that sacrifice. In the language of St. Augustine, ‘ The whole redeemed city …is offered as a universal sacrifice to God by the high priest, who offered nothing less than Himself in suffering for us, that we might become the body of so glorious a head.’ The priest who celebrates the Eucharist does not act simply as an individual, but as the minister and representative of the whole Body of Christ—not only the particular congregation gathered within the walls of a building, but the whole body of the faithful living and departed. Without our own self-oblation the Eucharistic sacrifice is incomplete. ‘This is the Christian sacrifice, the many become one body in Christ. Ard it is this that the Church celebrates by means of the Sacrament of the Altar… when it is shown to her that in what she offers she herself is offered.’

(c) In such thoughts as these we find the Church making explicit to herself the wealth of meaning contained in her chief act of worship. It was her supreme act of homage, the com-

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memoration of the atoning sacrifice of Calvary, the means of Communion. All that the old sacrifices prefigured found its fulfilment here. There is little or no attempt to construct any formal theological statement of the Eucharistic sacrifice till quite a late date. Even the earlier Schoolmen refrained from precise definitions on the subject. The corruption of doctrine attacked in our Article may be said to start from certain informal statements of Thomas Aquinas. These combined with current tendencies of popular religion to produce a debased and dis- proportionate teaching of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Not only did he define sacrifice as ‘something done for the honour properly due to God in order to appease Him,’ * but he asserted that it involved a change of some kind in the object offered, as ‘ that animals were killed, that bread is broken and eaten and blessed.’ + This a priori view is quite out of touch with history. It isolates the act of sacrifice and attempts to treat it independently of the results attained by sacrifice. We can hardly wonder if the fruit of such treatment is an abstract and one-sided theology. The study of the Eucharistic sacrifice got, as it were, shunted on to a very barren side-track. The absorbing question came to be, if Christ is the victim in every Eucharist, what change does He undergo in each offering, so that it may rightly be termed a sacrifice ? Thomas Aquinas was far too good a theologian to suppose that the sacrifice of Calvary was in any sense repeated or added to in the Eucharist, but his definition of sacrifice was the parent of theories that came dangerously near such teaching.

Again, current practice lent itself to a distorted theology. By every analogy communion is an essential part of sharing fully in the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the first days of the Church every Christian attended the Eucharist as a matter of duty at least every Sunday and communicated. We hear first of non- communicating attendance at the close of the second century. Tertullian mentions those who on days other than Sunday did not wish to break their fast, and so were present at the service and took away the Lord’s Body for private communion at home. Again, Clement of Alexandria contemplates its being left to the conscience of persons present to receive or not: but he states that such permission was only the practice of some. The habit of non-communicating attendance only became general when

• Summa, III. 48. 3. + Summa, Ila, Tae, 85. 3. ad. 3.

Christianity had become popular and the world had invaded the Church. Many Christians no longer desired to make the effort of frequent communion, nor indeed were spiritually capable of it. St. Chrysostom found it necessary to condemn the habit of sub- stituting mere attendance at the Eucharist for communion, and allowed it only to those in the final stage of ecclesiastical penance. Otherwise he insisted that those who felt themselves unworthy to communicate ought to go out with the penitents. The same condemnation is found elsewhere, as, for instance, in the ‘ Apos- tolical Canons.’ It is clear that the Church was being faced with a real problem, how to deal with the lowered standard of personal holiness in ordinary Christians. The problem was solved by allowing non-communicating attendance. This, at least, preserved the Lord’s service as the chief service on the Lord’s Day. Even so, those present were said to ‘assist at the prayers ’ rather than ‘assist at the Sacrifice.’ As time went on infrequency of communion on the part of the lay-folk tended to increase. The well-meant attempt of the Lateran Council to enforce a minimum of once a year was perverted into a restriction of communion to once a year. This inevitably tended to thrust into the background the great truth that the Eucharistic sacrifice culminates in the self-oblation of the whole Church. Stress was laid rather on the priest’s part, and the priest was no longer regarded as the representative of the whole priestly body, but only as the representative of Christ. This tendency was furthered by the withdrawal of the cup from the laity.

Again, the Eucharist was at the first the common sacrificial meal of the united Christian brotherhood. Not till the fifth century do we hear of the possibility of more than one Eucharist in the same Church on the same day with rare exceptions. About 445 Pope Leo wrote to Bishop Dioscorus of Alexandria, pointing out that this rule might prevent some from offering the sacrifice, and urging him to bring Alexandria into line with Rome, where there was more than one celebration in a day in the same Church —‘as often as there was a congregation to fill the Church.’ The condition is worth notice. Gradually in the West there developed the ordinary method of the Middle Ages. Many priests cele- brated daily. In many churches Masses were multiplied.*

*In the East every Church has still only one altar. The Eucharist is cele- brated on Sunday and festivals.

This development was partly due to a desire to suit the conven- ience of the congregation, more largely to the growing custom of saying Masses for special purposes. It received a great impetus by the growth of the doctrine of Purgatory. The whole system of chantries and the traffic in ‘ solitary Masses’ were the result of this doctrine. The Mass came to be viewed chiefly as a means of delivering souls from Purgatory. Once again this increase in the number of Masses led to a diminution in the number of persons required to take part, until in ‘ Low Mass’ all that remained was concentrated in the hands of the priest.*

So the idea of the Eucharist was externalized. The neglect of communion fixed attention on the moment of Consecration. Excessive attention was paid to the question of the relation of the elements to the presence of Christ. The consecration itself became regarded as the sacrificial act performed by Christ through the priest. The words of consecration were in danger of being viewed as a magical charm in obedience to which the miracle of transubstantiation took place. The priest came to be regarded, not as the organ of the whole priestly body, but as an individual possessed of certain wonderful powers. So the corporate aspect of the Eucharist was obscured. Again, as a result of the mechani- cal view of sacrifice, each Eucharist was regarded as having, so to say, a special value of its own and as purchasing an instal- ment of salvation. The more Masses that were offered, the greater amount of benefit was secured. Here again the influence of Thomas Aquinas was unfortunate. He asserted that the Sacrifice of the Mass was efficacious in winning blessings for all who had a right disposition. This is capable of a per- fectly right interpretation, but it was perverted into the teaching that the sacrifice of the Mass apart from Communion could automatically obtain blessings for those on whose behalf the priest intended to offer it, whatever their moral state. So attainment of salvation became little more than a question of getting sufficient Masses offered for oneself either in one’s lifetime or after death. To meet the demand a worthless class of priests sprang up who earned their living simply by saying Masses.

*Here again the East shows its conservatism. Low Mass is unknown. The East preferred to maintain the full dignity of the Eucharist and to be content with fewer celebrations.

Again, in later mediaeval teaching we find an idea that, while the sacrifice of the Cross availed only for the forgiveness of original sin, that of the Mass was instituted to make satis- faction for actual sins. This opinion was condemned in the Con- session of Augsburg, which had influence on our Article XXXI. The Roman party repudiated any such teaching, and certainly after attention had been drawn to it the doctrine was not repeated. But the idea in question is found in sermons ascribed wrongly to Thomas Aquinas and was probably held by Catha- ninus, a bishop who was present at Trent. The existence of the sermons, whoever composed them, is proof that such a doctrine was taught.

(d) The Church of England at the Reformation endeavoured to get back to a truer view of the Eucharist, one that preserved the due proportion of things, and was in complete accord with Scripture and primitive teaching. Hence the emphasis on communion as an integral part of Hucharistic worship, and the attempt, not altogether successful, to restore frequent com- munion. So this Article has its eye throughout on mediaeval abuses and on the attempt of the Council of Trent to shelter them as far as possible.

The offering of Christ once made, is the perfect redemption, propitiation and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual: and there 1s none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. This assertion of the atonement, similar in language to the opening words of the Prayer of Consecration, is only made here, as the structure of the Article shows, to be ground of the subsequent condemnation. It is based on Heb. 727, 914, 628 101° where the death of Christ once for all (€azra€) is contrasted with the repeated sacrifices of the Jewish system (cp. Ro. 61°). Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly (vulgo) said that the priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. The language is most carefully chosen. There is no denial of the EKucharistic sacrifice, but of current popular perversions of it, as embodied in the practical system of worship during the Middle Ages. The plural ‘ sacrifices ’ condemns any idea that each Eucharist is in any sense a repetition of the sacrifice once offered on Calvary or an addition to it, or that by multiplying Eucharists blessings

could automatically be multiplied. So, too, the plural ‘ Masses’ makes plain that the idea condemned is that each Mass possesses a supplementary value of its own. Again, the plural ‘ priests ’ emphasizes the condemnation of this idea. So it is not ‘the sacrifice of the Mass’ but the ‘ sacrifices of masses’ that is condemned : not any formal theological statement of doctrine,— for such did not exist, but popular errors (quod vulgo dicebatur). The decrees of the Council of Trent bear evidence of a double purpose. As theologians they wished to preserve themselves from making the sacrifice of the Mass a repetition of that of Calvary. As ecclesiastical statesmen they did not wish to upset established ideas and practice. Hence on the one hand they distinguished between the bloody oblation of Calvary and the unbloody oblation of the Eucharist. The latter was instituted to be the representation of the sacrifice on the Cross, till Christ should come. Through this unbloody offering the fruits of the bloody offerimg are received. On the other hand, they spoke of the sacrifice of the Mass as ‘truly propitiatory,’ a phrase capable of an innocent but also of a perverted meaning,* especially as it is elsewhere called ‘a true and proper sacrifice’ (verwm et pro- prium sacrificium). From this dubious teaching of the Council of Trent have arisen two types of Roman teaching, the one minimizing, the other exalting, the Sacrifice of the Mass. Both, however, are hampered by the unsound tradition based on the teaching of Aquinas, which regards the destruction or physical modification of the victim as the essential part of sacrifice and connects the Eucharistic sacrifice, not with our Lord’s Heavenly priesthood, but with His death on the Cross placed in an unreal isolation. The dominant school in the Church of Rome hold

• ‘Now undoubtedly there are two senses in which an act may be said to be propitiatory. The act of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross had an original propitiatory power … all the power that any action of man can have for this end is a derived power, derived from Christ’s sacrifice, from which any other sacrifice, the Eucharistic one included, borrows its virtue and without which it would be wholly null and void. ‘There is then an original propitiation and a borrowed propitiation, a first propitiation and a secondary one. Why did the Fathers of Trent, when they had all human language at their command, deliberately choose to call the sacrifice of the Mass vere propitiatorium ? They may have said that it was vere propitiatoriwm in the secondary sense ; but no man can fail to see the misleading effect of such language and that nothing could have been easier to the divines of Trent, had they chosen, than to draw a far more clear distinction than they did between the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacrifice on the Cross’ (Mozley, Lectwres and Theological Papers, p. 216).

that in some sense Christ suffers change or destruction in each Mass and that the Eucharist is m virtue of this act a distinct sacrifice in itself. Christ is regarded as in each Mass under- going a new humiliation, a new self-emptying.* As we saw, the latest Roman denial of our orders is based on our rejection of any such view which makes the sacrifice of the Eucharist additional to that of Calvary. As long as it is taught, in however refined a view, the protest of our Article will not be out of date. We need to get back to broader and truer notions of sacrifice. As we have seen, the culminating point of animal sacrifice was not the death of the victim but the presentation of the ‘ blood which is the life’ before God. The death was not the climax, but rather the means through which the life was set free. So, too, a sacrifice does not necessarily involve a change or destruction of anything. The ‘ meal offering’ and the shewbread were both sacrifices, and they are typical of a multitude of similar sacrifices found all over the world. The root idea of sacrifice is found to be communion rather than propitiation. The Roman inter- pretation of the sacrifice of the Eucharist rests on the later and debased mediaeval theology. Against it we appeal to a nobler and wider conception of sacrifice, more faithful alike to history and to Scripture. The chief books have been mentioned. For history of the doctrine :

Article ‘ Kucharist ’ in Hastings’ #.R.2.

Gore, Body of Christ, 43-4.

Kidd, Later Mediaeval Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

Waggett, The Holy Eucharist, pp. 69-74. See also Milne, The Doctrine and Practice of the Eucharist.

STATE

Notes

• See, for instance, Gore, Body of Christ, p. 157. + Pp. 107-108. 2K
• Cp. Gore, B.C. Claims, p. 175, and Dom Chapman’s reply.