In 2006 the Revd Brian Douglas of Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, kindly supplied an article for the St Nicolas & St Andrew’s Parish Magazine, entitled ‘Case Study 3.5 Enraght’, which was a précis of the Enraght section of his PhD thesis entitled: ‘Ways of Knowing the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition: Ramifications for Theological Education’.
In 2013 the Parish of St Nicolas & St Andrew’s under went a name change to the Parish of Portslade & Mile Oak and moved online for disseminating information rather than in paper magazine form.
Fr Brian Douglas is now an Adjunct Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra. He teaches at St Mark’s National Theological Centre and is the Editor of the Journal of Anglican Studies.
Revd.
Prof. Brian Douglas is a prolific Anglican author, to name but a few
of his publications:-
A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology (two volumes) (2012)
The Eucharistic Theology of Edward Bouverie Pusey: Sources, Context and Doctrine within the Oxford Movement and Beyond (2015)
and The Anglican Eucharist in Australia: The History, Theology and Liturgy of the Eucharist in the Anglican Church of Australia (2021)
I
am grateful to the Revd Professor Brian Douglas BA
(Hons), BD, MTh (Hons), PhD, Dip Teach, for
granting permission to reproduce, the full version of the
'Case
Study 3.5 Enraght' from
Brian Douglas., ‘Ways
of Knowing the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition: Ramifications for
Theological Education (2006)’.
*******
 |
| Richard Enraght, an Anglican
priest, was imprisoned for illegal ritualist practices. The picture above appeared in the newspaper the Daily Post, in November, 1880, and shows Enraght at his cell door in Warwick Gaol. |
Richard W. Enraght
1837 - 1898
Anglican Priest and Prisoner of Conscience
Enraght’s views on the Eucharist are expressed in a work he wrote in 1872, entitled The Real Presence and Holy Scripture. This work will be used to assess Enraght’s theology of the Eucharist. Enraght’s purpose in writing this work was put forward the witness of Scripture to “the truth of the Real Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Eucharistic Adoration” (Enraght, 1872: 1). Enraght rejected both the figurative and symbolic views of the Eucharist and adopted the view that:
“ … the Catholic Church has, from the beginning, held the doctrine of the objective Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. By this is meant – (1) That Christ our Saviour makes Himself really present, both in His divine and human natures, in the Holy Eucharist; (2) That such Presence depends altogether upon the consecration, and in no wise whatever upon either the belief or the unbelief of the communicants.” (Enraght, 1872: 1-2).
Enraght here rejects the figurative view (where the bread and wine are merely tokens and reminders of a past event) and the symbolic view (where the presence of Christ is associated with the faith of the communicant, that is, receptionism), and adopts a realist view of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Both the figurative and the symbolism view are nominalist in that the sign and the signified are not identified with each. The figurative view does not associate the sign with the signified at all, apart from allowing the sign to be a reminder of a past event, while the symbolic view associates the signified with the faith of the communicant. The presence of Christ and whether any benefits is derived by the communicant through the consecrated elements in the symbolic view, depends upon whether the communicant has true faith or not.
Enraght also distinguishes what he calls the view of the Catholic Church, from that of the Roman Church. He says:
“ …. for several ages in the Roman Church the belief that, upon consecration, the substance of the bread and wine becomes transubstantiated and changed into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ; so that the bread and wine remain only in their accidents, - that is, their appearance, taste, smell, and so forth. Into the merits of this philosophical theory, current for a long time in the Roman Church, I need not enter. I will merely say in reference to it, that upon its truth or falsehood in no wise depends the truth or falsehood of the Real Presence.” (Enraght, 1872: 2).
Enraght then, is rejecting the nominalist views of a figurative and symbolical presence as well as the realist philosophical view of transubstantiation. The position that he adopts, called the view of the Catholic Church, is a realist view that asserts the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist but does not depend on the theory of transubstantiation to do so. The view that he posits for the Church of England is stated as follows:
“The Church of England believes she follows the ancient Church in holding that by and after consecration the bread and wine do not cease to be bread and wine; but that, by the miracle of consecration, they inexplicably become the Body and Blood of Christ, - that is, Christ himself, whole living Christ, both God and Man, for He cannot be separated from His Body and Blood. Further than this, she makes no attempt to explain the matter. Regarding the fact of the Real Presence, there is no difference of opinion whatever between the Church of Rome and England. The difference of opinion that exists is with reference to that further explanation of the mode and manner of the Presence which has been put forth by the Church of Rome.” (Enraght, 1872: 2).
Here then is Enraght’s expression of a moderate realist view. Sign and signified are clearly identified with one another. The manner of the presence is however, not carnal (immoderate realism) since Enraght states that the feeding which is received and which sustains us in the Eucharist is “after a heavenly and ineffable manner” (Enraght, 1872: 2). This does not imply any mere figurative or symbolic presence since Enraght also argues that in the Eucharist:
“ … we are renewed and restored to the image of God, not merely by the intercourse of our minds and spirits with God, or even by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, but by the very infusion into our fallen humanity of the perfect humanity of Christ.” (Enraght, 1872: 2-3).
The intercourse of mind and spirit, such as the symbolic view would imply, is not denied by Enraght, but another type of presence is affirmed as Enraght speaks of an ‘infusion’ of the humanity of Christ into the humanity of people by the means of the elements of the Eucharist. The notion of an ‘infusion’ suggests that the presence of Christ is much more objectively realist than any intercourse of minds or spirits.
Enraght goes on to consider the biblical evidence relating to the real presence. He cites the sixth chapter of the Gospel According to St John, the eleventh chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians and the tenth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews. In relation to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, Enraght argues that verses 27 to 58 “declare, in the plainest manner, that it is absolutely necessary for salvation to partake in the truest reality of our Lord’s Flesh and Blood” (Enraght, 1872: 3). At the same time he admits that some people argue that this sixth chapter of John’s Gospel has nothing to do with the Eucharist, while others acknowledge that any reference contained therein is only a figurative one. Enraght however, is of the opinion that “our Lord’s words are not figurative” (Enraght, 1872: 3). When Jesus says:,
“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6: 63, NRSV),
Enraght interprets this by saying:
“For if our Lord’s words, ‘The flesh profiteth nothing’, be taken with no qualification, they simply declare His incarnation, sufferings, crucifixion, atonement, and death in the flesh to have ‘profited nothing’, which cannot be.” (Enraght, 1872: 5).
Clearly Enraght is arguing that the expression, ‘ the flesh’, cannot be taken without some qualification. It is not a blanket statement referring to all works of Christ in ‘the flesh’, with the meaning that all these (incarnation, sufferings, crucifixion, atonement, death) are useless and ‘profiteth nothing’. When Jesus says therefore:
“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6: 53, NRSV),
Enraght asks, What is the meaning? Is there a real ‘eating’ implied or is Jesus merely speaking in a figurative or symbolical manner? Is this instance of ‘eating the flesh’ one that is useless? Enraght argues, with reference to the ancient Hebrews eating the manna in the wilderness journey to the Promised Land, mentioned by Jesus in his discussion with his disciples (John 6: 49), that:
“If our Lord does not mean that, for salvation and spiritual life, we must actually ‘eat Him’ albeit after a heavenly and supernatural mode of eating, the antitype in this chapter fails to answer to the type, the manna, in the most important particular. Believing in the manna and in the God who sent it, and going to it, and gathering it, would not have availed the Jews one jot for their bodily sustenance, unless they had also actually and really eaten it. Had they not eaten it, the most important purpose for which it was sent to them would have been neglected. They must eat it. They must incorporate it into themselves, or all else would be absolutely of no avail. It would have been, in truth, to ‘tempt the Lord their God’ who had given it them. Now the manna was so important a type of the Lord, that He has been preaching about it. Are we to believe, then, that, whereas to get any good from the type, it must actually be eaten, it is not so with the antitype? Hear our Lord Himself in several verses, and very especially in ver. 57 – ‘He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me’. This eating of the type was carnal; of the antitype heavenly and spiritual: but in both it is real. Otherwise, as we have said, the antitype fails fully to answer to the type. Unless we be incorporated into Christ by a real, albeit a supernatural, ‘eating’ of Him; believing in Him, and coming to Him, and taking hold of Him by faith, will not, He says, avail.” (Enraght, 1872: 5).
The distinction here seems to be eating carnally and eating in a spiritual and heavenly manner, but with the overriding notion of both forms of eating being real. Enraght is denying any immoderate realism in the Eucharist since he is not arguing for a carnal eating of Christ’s body and blood, but he is arguing for a moderate realism, where Christ’s body and blood is eaten in a real way (not carnal, but heavenly and spiritual). The distinction he makes here between ‘type’ and ‘antitype’ is an important one in terms of his reference to the ancient Hebrews in the desert. They ate both the ‘type’ (the sign) and the antitype (the signified) and the way that Jesus uses this in John 6, suggests to Enraght that Jesus’ meaning here in relation to the Eucharist, concerns both type and antitype also. The type (the signs of bread and wine) and the antitype (the body and blood of Christ) are, by analogy with the reference to the manna in the wilderness, said to be eaten in the Eucharist in a real way. It is the eating of both type (sign) and antitype (signified) as a real eating which places Enraght’s discussion within a moderate realism, where sign and signified are linked.
The relationship between sign and signified is further interpreted by Enraght in light of the relationship between Jesus and the Father. He argues:
“In ver. 57, our Lord declares, ‘As …. I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me’. That is, ‘As is the relation of My Father’s Divine Nature to My Divine Nature: so is the relation My Human Nature to the renovated humanity of the members of My Mystical Body, the Church’. By which our Lord declares that the mode by which He quickens and vivifies His Mystical Body is similar to that by which He Himself derives life from the Father in His Divine Nature. But the mode by which He derives life from the Father is by unity of nature. Therefore, if the parallel which He here draws is to have any real force and meaning, the mode and manner by which He vivifies His Mystical Body must likewise be by actual communication of nature, and not merely by the infusion into His people of the gracious sanctifying influences of His Holy Spirit. Consequently, ‘eating Him’ must mean the actually receiving Him into ourselves by His communication to us of His Human Nature, and cannot mean the merely looking to Him by faith, and trusting in Him, in order to receive from Him the gracious influences of His Holy Spirit.” (Enraght, 1872: 6-7).
What Enraght seems to be saying here, is an anticipation of the notion of instantiation, where the nature of Christ is instantiated in the bread and wine of the Eucharist and really received by those who communicate by eating the bread and drinking the wine of the Eucharist. As such Enraght’s argument has much in common with the philosophical underpinnings of moderate realism put forward in this project and based on the philosophical model of David Armstrong.
For Enraght then, when Christ says, ‘The flesh profiteth nothing’, the meaning is not a disparaging of the incarnation, or a denial of the real receiving of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Rather he “teaches His hearers that ‘the Spirit’, that is, His Divine Nature, must be united to His Human Nature, His Flesh, in order that it may be quickening, that is, life giving” (Enraght, 1872: 7). This hypostatical union of the Godhead with the Manhood is seen as the truth revealed by Christ in John 6, meaning that, “The flesh [only, or alone] profiteth nothing. It is the Spirit that quickeneth” (Enraght, 1872: 8). This means for Enraght that:
“This Real Presence the faithless ‘world’ cannot ‘see’, but the truly faithful ‘see’ it by faith. Christ in the Sacrament is ‘the hidden manna’ (Rev. ii. 17) – ‘hidden’ from the eye of the sceptical world, but ‘discerned’ (1 Cor. xi. 29) by the eye of faith. Our Lord, also, of course, means to include in these words the truth that a fleshly, merely carnal, unspiritual understanding of His teaching, whether on this or any other subject and occasion, will avail persons nothing for salvation. His words and teaching must be spiritually discerned. … He teaches that His Flesh gives us life, and saves us, by its union with His Divinity; and that we can savingly listen to His teaching, so as to learn from it how to be sacramentally united to Him, and, in consequence, be able to walk in His steps – not by a carnal hearing, but only through the assistance of the one Divine Spirit.” (Enraght, 1872: 8).
This implies then “that if His Body could ascend, it could surely also be pluri-present, and life-giving” (Enraght, 1872: 8). The real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharistic elements is one of these ‘pluri-presences’ that Enraght speaks of. It is also the idea of ‘pluri-presence’ that shows the moderate realism of his eucharistic theology. Such a presence is “not an earthly, cannibal sense [immoderate realism] but as setting forth heavenly, spiritual, supernatural truth and divine mysteries [moderate realism]” (Enraght, 1872: 9).
In his discussion of 1 Corinthians 10: 16, Enraght states that:
“ … the Bread broken is the communion (or communication to the communicant) of the Body of Christ, and the Cup blessed is the communion of the Blood of Christ. … The communication to the communicant of Christ’s Body and Blood depend, - not upon the faith of the receiver, but upon the consecration:- ‘The bread which we [the clergy] break’, and ‘the cup of blessing, which we bless’ alluding to the words and acts of consecration. Again, in the 14th chapter of this same Epistle, and the 16th and 17th verses, he again sets forth the Eucharistic or Consecration Prayer, the ‘Blessing’, as that which makes Christ to be present.” (Enraght, 1872: 10).
The consecration is the means whereby the sign becomes the signified, such that, in the Gospel accounts of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, Enraght argues that “the Real Presence of Christ is plainly made to depend exclusively upon the consecrating words and actions, whether Christ Himself at the institution, or of Him working through His ministers at all subsequent celebrations” (Enraght, 1872: 10).
In reference to the eleventh chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, Enraght states that there is:
“ … overwhelming evidence for what is termed the objective Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist: that is, His Real Presence upon the Altar ‘under the form of bread and wine’, solely by and upon consecration, entirely independent of the belief or unbelief of the celebrant and communicants, and therefore of course existing external to the communicants previous to their reception of the Sacrament.” (Enraght, 1872: 10).
For Enraght the presence of Christ’s body and blood is seen to be ‘under the form of bread and wine’, thus linking the sign and the signified in a realist manner.
Enraght rejects the symbolism theory on the basis of 1 Corinthians 11, since he argues that if the Corinthians’ sin was that they did not discern the body and blood of the Lord and that they ate and drank unworthily, and that many of them were struck down and became sick from so eating and drinking, then how is it that the bread and wine can only be symbols? If such sin and effects are attached to the unworthy eating and drinking then the bread and wine of the Eucharist must really be the body and blood of the Lord, since a person who eats and drinks unworthily is guilty of not discerning the Lord’s body (Enraght, 1872: 10-11).
In rejecting the receptionist theory Enraght argues that since the theory teaches that the real presence of Christ is only to be found in the heart of the truly faithful receiver of the sacrament, and since consecration is not seen to bring about any change in the elements, apart from their use, then receptionism teaches that it is the faith of the true receiver and not consecration that makes Christ present. He then argues that in a hypothetical case where the celebrant and all the communicants were lacking in faith and therefore not true receivers, there could be no presence of the body and blood of the Lord, since there is no true faith in order to bring the presence about. If this was the situation at Corinth, which Paul condemns, then argues Enraght, how could anyone be guilty of not discerning the Lord’s body, if there was no body present due to a lack of faith. Enraght concludes therefore:
“His Presence cannot depend upon faith. … Whereas this passage distinctly implies that, at certain celebrations at Corinth, the communicants has not true faith, and yet takes for granted that Christ was Really Present in the Sacrament on those occasions. His Real Presence, then, must have been altogether distinct from, and independent of, the communicants and their state of mind.” (Enraght, 1872: 12).
The consequence of this argument is then that consecration (the words and acts of blessing the bread and cup) done by the minister, is the means whereby Christ is made really present in the Eucharist.
Enraght next discusses Hebrews, chapter 10, stating that the author of this letter affirms that the way back to God is through ‘the Blood’ and ‘Flesh’ ‘of Jesus’. Although the author does not specifically mention the Eucharist in this context, there is mention of the necessity of not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Enraght assumes that this ‘assembling’ is the Eucharist, since it was a distinctly Christian service at the time of the early church. He also argues that any ‘forsaking’ of the sacred assembly limits the opportunity for people to have the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ continually applied to them (Enraght, 1872: 13). Enraght is therefore arguing that the historic sacrifice of Christ and its benefits for people are made present (continually applied) in the context of the Eucharist. His view is confirmed, for him, by reference to the wording of this tenth chapter of Hebrews which refers also to the ‘flesh of Christ’ and ‘the blood of the covenant’. The view that Enraght is putting forward is essentially that of the moderate realist concept of eucharistic sacrifice. The benefits of Christ’s historic sacrifice are made present in the Eucharist (anamnesis or memorial remembrance) although there is no re-iteration of the sacrifice of Calvary in any carnal or immoderate manner.
Following the review of biblical evidence Enraght concludes his work by stating that:
“We conclude, therefore, that when our Lord ‘took bread and wine’ into His hands, ‘and gave thanks, and brake the bread’, ‘and blessed’ them, ‘and said, “This is My Body”, “This is My Blood”, “Do this in remembrance of Me”’, He meant what He said and did.” (Enraght, 1872: 15).
The analysis presented shows that Enraght saw “an objective Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament, and a real and actual participation of Him”. (Enraght, 1872: 15). The presence is not merely the receiving of virtues, powers, gifts and graces, nor is it dependent on the faith of the communicant, but the “Lord’s own sovereignty lovingly exercised in consecration”. (Enraght, 1872: 15). Enraght’s theology of the eucharistic presence and sacrifice of Christ is that of moderate realism.