The absence and/or
presence of the epiclesis in the Canon of the Mass, and its necessity,
is a contested subject amongst Anglo-Catholics: some orthodox Anglicans maintain
that only the Very Words of Christ, the Words of Institution, are necessary for
a valid consecration and that the epiclesis is unnecessary. Others maintain
that the epiclesis is indispensable. Different parties over the course of our Anglican
history have held different views, but all of them have been allowed to
maintain their views and all views on the subject have been tolerated as surely
within the ambit of the Church. The division of opinion goes back to the
earliest centuries and to the divide between West and East.
In the First Millennium
Undivided Church, it was generally held that the entire Eucharistic Prayer
consecrated the elements: there was no ‘moment’ or ‘spot’ of consecration. What
was merely bread and wine at the beginning of the Prex Mystica was
transformed and changed into the Precious Body and Blood of Christ by the end
of the Canon. There was no universal agreement in the ancient Church, even
within the East, on the controverted question of a moment of consecration. Individual
Fathers disagreed with one other, and thus the First Millennium consensus
turned to the entire Canon of the Mass as the locus for consecration. The
Holy Eucharist is divine Mystery, Our Lord in
mysterio made present mystically by
the Prayer of the Church. In the early Church,
the faithful were simply not preoccupied with finding an exact point in which
the reality of the Sacrament was accomplished. The Church saw the Eucharistic
Prayer as a single organic unit. In the Canon, the Words of Institution were
usually always included. The Church did not generally enquire into an exact
moment in which the Change occurs. It was held that all features of the Prex united together to comprise one act,
a moral and spiritual unity, which achieved consecration. It was only with the
advent of scholasticism in the Middle Ages did theologians begin to explore the
need for a minimal form necessary for the essence of the Sacrament.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem,
who offers a splendid example of early catechesis, plainly affirms: ‘Since then he himself declared and said of the bread, This
is my Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since he has himself
affirmed and said, This is my Blood, who shall ever hesitate,
saying, that it is not his blood? Consider therefore the Bread and
the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration,
the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to you,
yet let faith establish you. Judge not the matter from the taste, but
from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the Body and Blood of Christ have
been vouchsafed to you. Having learned these things, and been fully assured
that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ;
and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will
have it so, but the Blood of Christ.’ A precise moment of consecration is
not specifically or unequivocally identified, just the fact of the Real
Objective Presence and the Eucharistic Change. This line of defence and instruction
is the usual approach for most of the early Fathers, who almost always hold the
Prayer of Consecration to be one seamless entity containing both the Words of
Christ and an epiclesis.
Whereas some Latin
Saints such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine teach that the Verba
Christi alone consecrate the elements, some Eastern Saints such as
Saint Basil and Saint Gregory Nazianzus profess an opposing view - that the epiclesis is
consecratory. Interestingly, Saint John Chrysostom preached a sermon
in which he states that the Words of Christ alone suffice for consecration:
'The saying, 'This is my body', once uttered, from that time to the present
day, and even until Christ's coming, makes the sacrifice complete at every
Altar in the Churches.'
There is no doubt today
that all liturgies of the Primitive Church possessed some form of a Eucharistic
epiclesis, but the location of the epiclesis within the Anaphora and its role or
meaning varied widely from rite to rite. The fifth-century Canon of the Roman
Mass contained some kind of epiclesis after the Words of Institution, as we are
informed by Pope Gelasius. The Ambrosian-Augustinian teaching on the centrality
of the Verba led to a neglect and
eventual removal of this epiclesis from the Roman Canon in later centuries.
The
sixteenth century Church of England inherited the contemporary Latin
view that the Words alone effect the consecration, and because of
this inheritance, the 1549, 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662
English Prayer Books all present the Words
of Institution as effecting consecration. The 1549 has an
explicit epiclesis before the consecratory Words of Institution; the
other English Books have no explicit epiclesis at all. In this way,
the English BCP tradition, as opposed to the Scottish and American, possesses
the same theology and practice of consecration as the medieval Latin Rite and
its Gregorian-Roman Canon.
The English Book of
Common Prayer endorsed the then-common Western view that the consecration was
effected by the Words of Institution, and there is undoubtedly strong patristic
support for this perspective.
In his De
Sacramentis, Saint Ambrose of Milan unambiguously attributes the
consecration to the Words of Institution: 'Thus the Word of Christ consecrates
this sacrament.' - ‘If the blessing of a
human being had power even to change nature, what do we say of God’s action in
the consecration itself, in which the very words of the Lord and Saviour are
effective? If the words of Elijah had power even to bring down fire from
heaven, will not the words of Christ have power to change the natures of the
elements? You have read that the words of Christ have power to change the
natures of the elements. You have read that in the creation of the whole world,
he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created. If Christ
could by speaking create out of nothing what did not yet exist, can we say that
his words are unable to change existing things into something they previously
were not? It is no lesser feat to create new natures for things than to change
their existing natures. The Lord Jesus himself declares: ‘This is my body.’
Before the blessing contained in these words, a different thing is named; after
the consecration a body is indicated. He himself speaks of his blood. Before
the consecration something else is spoken of; after the consecration blood is
designated. And you say: ‘Amen,’ that is: ‘It is true.’ What the mouth utters,
let the mind within acknowledge; what the word says, let the heart ratify.’
Saint Augustine of Hippo
taught, 'If the word be joined to the element, it becomes a sacrament.' For
Augustine, the Eucharist, like other sacraments, is a 'visible word' or 'word
made visible.' The Word added to the matter becomes the Body and Blood of
Christ in the Mass. This view is taken up and utilised by the entire Latin
Church by the fifth or sixth century.
The introduction into post-reformation Anglicanism of the
doctrine that the epiclesis is necessary for Eucharistic consecration transpired
via the emphases and liturgical renewal of the Non-Jurors in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Scotland and England. These Non-Juring
patristic theologians and historians, who dubbed themselves the 'British
Catholic Church' or the 'Catholic Remnant of Britain,' felt that the Eastern
sequence of Institution, Oblation, and Invocation was the
most authentic and primitive, and thus restored this structure to their
Anglican Eucharistic rites. From henceforth there is a divide between the
English Prayer Book tradition and the Scottish-American. It was the
position of the Usager Non-Jurors, from whom we received the Scottish Rite of
1764 adapted to be the American Canon of 1789, that the epiclesis was
absolutely necessary for a valid consecration. Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first
American bishop and himself a Usager in the tradition of the Non-Jurors,
maintained that the 1662 English Canon was inadequate and he refused to employ
it. The default theological position of the 1928 American Canon requires the
Institution, Oblation, and Invocation for a proper consecration of the Body and
Blood of Christ – according to rubric.
Historically, the entire
Anglican Communion agreed that at a minimum, a validly ordained priest always
validly celebrates the Eucharist so long as he employs the Words of Institution
from Our Lord and real wheaten bread and fermented grape wine in the
consecration, with the intention of doing what Christ instituted. It was
maintained that this is all that the New Testament and the universal Tradition
require.
The aforementioned
agreement of Anglicanism is demonstrated by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral,
which document, accepted by the Lambeth Conferences of 1888 and 1920,
affirms on behalf of the whole Anglican Communion that Baptism and the Supper
of the Lord must be 'ministered with unfailing use of
Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.'
What presents us with a challenge today is that the Scottish and
American Churches ultimately adopted the order for the Prayer of Consecration
as used in the Eastern Churches. The 1928 American Mass follows the Scottish
Order with the Invocation (epiclesis) after the Words of Institution and the
Oblation (anamnesis). The 1928 English Deposited Book and the 1929 Scottish
Prayer Book have also accepted the Eastern liturgical praxis.
It must be noted that
the Eastern tradition does not agree within itself on precisely how the
epiclesis consecrates in relation to the Words of Christ: one school of thought
professes that the epiclesis alone consecrates the elements without reference
to the Words. Another party holds that both the Words of Institution and the
epiclesis together must be employed in the Eucharistic Prayer. The Synod of Jerusalem
1672 declares, ‘The Holy Eucharist is
instituted by the essential Word and sanctified by the invocation of
the Holy Ghost.’ Saint Mark of Ephesus writes, ‘Not only by the sound of
the Lord's words are the divine gifts sanctified, but also
by the prayer after these words, and by the consecration of the priest in
the strength of the Holy Ghost.’
The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus of Rome (AD 215) shows
us that the use of an epiclesis after the Words of Institution was a very ancient Roman Rite
sequence. It was the intention of Hippolytus to preserve and conserve a more
ancient expression of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Church of Rome, one which
was in the third century falling into desuetude and being replaced by other
forms. In his effort to maintain this old rite, Hippolytus would establish
himself as an antipope in opposition to the official hierarchy….
A comparison of the Eucharistic Canon of the 1928 American Book with the
Anaphora of the primitive Roman Rite as given by Saint Hippolytus reveals that
the parallels are remarkable. Both Anaphoras are offered to God the Father through
God the Son, both are introduced with a thanksgiving for redemption, then move
to the Institution Narrative, immediately followed by the Oblation and the Invocation
(epiclesis), and conclude with a doxology.
We give
thanks to you God,
through your beloved son Jesus Christ,
whom you sent to us in former times
as Saviour, Redeemer, and Messenger of your Will,
who is your inseparable Word,
through whom you made all,
and in whom you were well-pleased,
whom you sent from heaven into the womb of a Virgin,
who, being conceived within her, was made flesh,
and appeared as your Son,
born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin.
It is he who, fulfilling your will
and acquiring for you a holy people,
extended his hands in suffering,
in order to liberate from sufferings
those who believe in you.
Who, when he was delivered to voluntary
suffering,
in order to dissolve death,
and break the chains of the devil,
and tread down hell,
and bring the just to the light,
and set the limit,
and manifest the resurrection,
taking the bread, and giving thanks to you,
said,
Take, eat, for this is my body which is broken
for you.
Likewise the chalice, saying,
This is my blood which is shed for you.
Whenever you do this, do this in memory of me.
Therefore, remembering his death and
resurrection,
we offer to you the bread and the chalice,
giving thanks to you, who has made us worthy
to stand before you and to serve as your
priests.
And we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit
to the oblation of your Holy Church.
In their gathering together,
give to all those who partake of your holy
mysteries the fullness of the Holy Spirit,
toward the strengthening of the faith in truth,
that we may praise you and glorify you,
through your Son Jesus Christ,
through whom to you be glory and honour,
Father and Son,
with the Holy Spirit,
in your Holy Church,
now and throughout the ages of ages.
Amen.
The Anaphora of Saint
Hippolytus is much briefer than the Canon of the American Rite. Neither Eucharistic
Prayer contains an explicit intercession for the living or the faithful
departed because the Prayer for the Church or the general intercession occurs
earlier in the Mass. Saint Hippolytus, although Bishop of Rome, was Greek-speaking
and cultivates an early Eastern liturgical tradition in his ministry and
writing. The original text of the Apostolic Tradition was in Greek, and
reflects an Eastern origin.
Bishop Walter H. Frere, CR, Bishop of Truro, a
staunch defender of the Eucharistic Canon of the 1928 Deposited Prayer Book of
the Church of England, desired a restoration of the Eucharistic Anaphora based
on Eastern theological and structural lines. It is fascinating to know that
Bishop Frere was one of the very, very few English Anglo-Catholics who
supported the 1928 Proposed Book and especially its Canon: most Anglo-Catholics
in England in the early twentieth century despised the epiclesis in
the new liturgy (holding to the English BCP/ Latin view that the Very Words of
Christ alone consecrate) and forged an alliance with the Evangelical party to
see the Deposited Book defeated. Walterus Truron loved the Eastern tradition
and rightly saw the Ecclesia Anglicana as the western expression of that
orthodoxy so magnificently manifested in the Eastern rite.
Based on the preceding evidence, we may say that particularly for
the American Church, so long as the Mass is celebrated according to text, ceremonial,
and customary of the 1928 Book and the authorised Missals, one is
free to prefer any number of opinions regarding any specific 'moment of
consecration.' Every priest is bound to use those liturgical rites
authorised by one’s ecclesiastical authority, that is, the Bishop Ordinary
and the Canons. The later Scottish-American Rite, it can be argued, may be
superior in terms of reference to the most ancient liturgies, and, one may
assert, is even more authentic, but the original English Rite, most
recently revised in 1662, is the mother liturgy of Anglicanism and remains
authoritative for many orthodox Anglicans throughout the world. All classical
Prayer Book liturgies are valid for the effect of Eucharistic consecration, but
may not always equally achieve the fullness of theological and doxological
expression.
Our dilemma is part of the good Anglican muddle,
not the false 'comprehensiveness' of the Elizabethan Settlement failure. Our complexity
comes from the fact that we are a genuinely Catholic and hybrid Church, a
hybrid of East and West, with a liturgy which quite
ingeniously incorporates both Eastern and Western features in the format
of the Church's official worship. The disagreement over the role of the Eucharistic
epiclesis has existed in Anglicanism since the seventeenth century and is
likely to continue well into the future. Patience and tolerance are called for
on all sides of the debate. Those who hold to the solum Verbis Christi position
have a long history behind them - especially in the Western Church of late
antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the Church of England during and after
the reformation. Those who hold to the necessity of the epiclesis have the
entire Eastern Church and many examples from the most original and primitive liturgies
behind them. The good news is that regardless of one's view, traditional
Anglicans continually receive the greatest gift ever bestowed upon mankind, the
True Body and True Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the form of bread and
wine in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
