Despite the sound trouncing Anselm of Canterbury received at the hand of the Lutheran Gustaf Aulen in Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement,[1] the Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Committee on Historical Materials nonetheless included the following words in 1960 as part of the foreword to Anselm: Communion and Atonement[2] by George Hunston Williams, the great professor at Harvard Divinity School:
Author George Hunston Williams shows how one of the great worshiping scholars of the 11th century, Saint Anselm of Canterbury, links incarnation and atonement with Holy Communion. Today the New Testament emphasis on the Gospel in Word and sacrament generates new power in the life of the church. May this re-examination of medieval thought and devotion be a welcome and provocative contribution to the renewal. Publication of this study marks the 850th anniversary of St. Anselm's death and will augment appreciation of the great historical truth: Christians of all centuries since the Savior's sojourn on earth transcend the environs of their worship and work when they believe and know that their Lord is with them in His Word and in the sacred ordinances of His house.[3]
This sacramental "renewal" that the committee saw in the mid-twentieth century arguably continues at century's end, as well, particularly in the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion. The current writer is one among thousands of people who have been drawn to Anglicanism precisely because of the sacramental actions of the Church, where the Lord is truly met. And, like so many other former low-church Protestants, the current writer finds this meeting with God mainly in the Eucharistic celebration.
If the Eucharist is again that great "witness" to the truth of the Word-made-flesh, it seems appropriate to revisit this work by Williams, particularly given the fact that the subject of his book, Anselm, is one of the greatest and most influential Archbishops that the See of Canterbury has ever known. Therefore, in this article, we shall first note Williams's understanding of the theological shift from Baptism in the patristic period to Eucharist in the medieval period; second, explore how Williams handles the writings of Anselm; third, observe the conclusions of Williams's argument and give an evaluation of it; and fourth, use the lenses of Williams in order to make an examination of the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer.
Williams's Understanding of the Shift from Baptism in the Patristic Period to Eucharist in the Medieval Period
According to Williams, there is a definite shift in sacramental perspective that comes about as the patristic period moves into the medieval. Williams writes, "In the ancient church catechumens, after a prolonged ritual of exorcism, Baptism, and anointment (later differentiated as confirmation), went directly to participate in their first Communion, a foretaste of the Messianic or heavenly banquet."[4] This "Baptismal view" has the resurrection in mind, a mystery that contains a once-for-all quality. The theory of atonement that evolved out of it is, as Williams notes, more "universal in its scope, comparable to the escape from the Flood or the crossing of the Red Sea, and has stressed the cosmic and decisive character of Christ's liberation of mankind from death and the demonic."[5]
But, as Baptism in the medieval church became more and more a sacrament of infancy, receiving the Eucharist became much more infrequent and dissociated from the sacramental "events" in Baptism. What eventually filled the gap between infant Baptism and the Eucharist, according to Williams, was the sacrament of penance.[6] Unlike the cosmic scope of the "Baptismal view," the "penitential-Eucharistic view" of the medieval period was more rooted in, as Williams writes, "the spiritual calendar of the individual."[7] The collective quality of Baptismal initiation was no longer central as in antiquity.[8]
The question that is germane to both of these views is: to whom and for what must we atone? In the "Baptismal view" common in the patristic period, the devil can be described as one of the key players with two separate (but related) roles. Williams writes:
According to one view he (the devil) was paid a ransom because of his proper claims to his prisoners taken in the cosmic warfare over the souls of men, between himself and God. According to the other view the devil was fooled by God into encompassing the death of the one Man upon whom he had no claim, since Christ was sinless or altogether righteous according to the Law. Therefore the devil had to forfeit his right to put to death all other men insofar as they could, through sacramental "death" with him, pay individually for the punishment meted out to all the sons of Adam.[9]
Whether "paid off" or fooled, the devil was frequently seen in the patristic period as he from whom we are to be saved. For Williams, St. Athanasius of Alexandria provided an excellent example of this "Baptismal" theory of redemption.[10] In his De incarnatione Verbi Dei, "Athanasius interpreted redemption primarily in terms of the incarnation whereby the Word hallowed, by His presence in the one body, the fallen bodies of all the progeny of Adam."[11] In this theory as well as in all the other patristic theories of the atonement, "the primary sacramental means for the appropriation ... of the work of Christ (the putting on of Christ, the dying with Christ, the rebirth in Christ as the second Adam, the incorporation into Christ)," according to Williams, "was the sacramental ablution, death, and regeneration of Baptism."[12] It must be emphasized, of course, that the Eucharist was not unimportant in the patristic mind. But the Eucharist during this age of the Church, including "the historic action on Calvary evoked by the Eucharist, would continue to be conceived in terms drawn from the experience of Baptism."[13]
What of atonement in the medieval period? It is true, as Williams points out, that the devil still played a major role in the history of salvation, but instead of Christus victor as the operative motif, the center of the medieval theory is in "man's conquest of the devil through Christus patiens, with whose expiatory action of utter obedience even unto death the (baptismally qualified) believer identified himself in the repetitive sacramental re-enactment of Calvary on the altar."[14] The totality of the Incarnation no longer defined the sacramental psyche in the medieval period. Rather, says Williams, the crucifixion was the only operative motif, which reflected "the enhanced significance of repetitive private penance and daily monastic and private masses."[15]
Williams does note that this move from "Baptismal" to "penitential-Eucharistic" was not without reason. Baptism became increasingly disconnected from the liturgical year (particularly in its association with Easter) partly because of a high infant mortality rate. Although adults were still to be baptized on Easter and Pentecost, by the mid-eleventh century infants could be baptized at any time the parents so desired. But, "as the ritual of Baptism tended to be exclusively a sacrament of infancy, simplified, and routinized, many of its rich redemptive formularies were misunderstood, the ancient mythology forgotten, and the rites conflated and attenuated."[16] No longer were the extrinsically demonic renunciations as important. Instead, the intrinsically penitential cleansing from sins became the focus.
Eventually, penance came into its own as an elaborate and subsidiary sacrament.[17] Not surprisingly, systematic definition of the Eucharist arose contemporaneously in theological debate and conciliar decision. Anselm's predecessor in Canterbury, Lanfranc, was instrumental in the anti-Berengarian Eucharistic controversy, paving the way for the formulation that would eventually be known as "transubstantiation."[18] If Christ is substantially present in the Eucharist, it is only natural that the Eucharist instead of Baptism would become the primary means of redemption. According to Williams, "this is because Baptism is now widely felt to possess only the power of Christ, whereas in post-Berengarian metabolism ... the Sacrament of the Altar possesses Christ substantially and hence makes possible a greater degree of participation in redemption in the measure that actual sacramental incorporation into Christ is superior to sacramental rebirth."[19] In other words, the "real presence" of Christ in the Eucharist supersedes the "symbolic presence" of Christ in Baptism.
Williams on the Writings of Anselm of Canterbury
The tendency towards the "real" rather than the "symbolic" also affected the idea of atonement. This is perhaps best shown in the writings of Anselm himself, who, according to Williams, was "the first fully and systematically to articulate this 'ecological' shift among the sacraments in terms of the theory of redemption."[20] From Williams's perspective, "the devil is in a sense replaced by God" in Anselm's Eucharistic theory.[21] Anselm writes:
God did not need to come down from Heaven in order to overcome the Devil. And [God did not need] to act against the Devil by means of justice in order to free man. Rather, God demanded of man that he overcome the Devil and that, having offended God by his sin, he make satisfaction by his justice. Indeed, God did not owe anything to the Devil except punishment; and man did not [owe the Devil anything] except to conquer him in return for having been conquered by him. But man owed to God, not to the Devil, whatever was required of him.[22] The renunciation of the demons of one's preconversion life was no longer a concern. Atonement was now seen as "the fulfillment of penance for one's post-Baptismal sins."[23]
It must be noted, however, that Anselm's Cur Deus Homo "has only two identifiable liturgical allusions, mentions penance at only one place, and does not use the terms 'Baptism' or 'Eucharist' at 'all."[24] For Williams to base his argument on just this treatise would be insufficient to say the least. Therefore, he rightly thinks it necessary to "bring in the related writings of Anselm,"[25] and begins his discussion with these first. We, in turn, will follow his lead before turning with full attention to the Cur Deus Homo.
Although known for his more rationalistic expositions, Anselm was a mystic of significant depth, the author of many prayers and meditations.[26] It is not surprising that it is from these writings that Williams draws the most information concerning Anselm's view of Baptism and Eucharist. In Meditation II, Anselm laments the "loss of virginity." Benedicta Ward, in the "Introduction" to her translation of this meditation does not think it improper to view it "in its natural sense, as the lament of someone, not necessarily Anselm himself, who has in some way sinned sexually, and sees this in terms of estrangement from Christ."[27] Williams also allows for this interpretation, but it is the imagery of Baptism that catches his eye. Anselm writes, "Once I was washed with the whiteness of heaven, given the Holy Spirit, pledged to the profession of Christianity, I was a virgin, I was the spouse of Christ."[28] It is clear from the rest of the meditation, however, that for Anselm this Baptismal purity has been lost. God who was "the kind spouse of my virginity" is now "the terrible judge of my impurity."[29] Anselm continues, "Ah, the misery of loss, the grief of loss: to have lost irreparably what ought to have been preserved forever. Alas, to have lost inconsolably that which is not only the loss of good, but the gain of torment."[30] Not only is Baptismal purity lost, but it seems that Baptismal purity can in no way be restored. But God's justice demands purity, so some other means must be given to regain that which was lost. Of course, Williams would have us believe that it is the Eucharist which is anticipated here as the necessary "cleansing."
Besides the aforementioned Meditation, Williams finds evidence for his argument in four of Anselm's Prayers.[31] In Prayer to St. John the Baptist, Williams finds the most that Anselm has to say "about Baptism and its relation to penance and indirectly to the Eucharist."[32] And it is not much. Although the prayer is directed to John the Baptist, at various points in his prayer Anselm petitions God, the following example being such a time:
[B]y the great merit of your Baptizer,
renew in me the grace of your baptizing.
Go before me with your grace; follow me with your mercy.
Give me back through the sorrow of penitence
what you had given through the sacrament of baptism.
Give to me who asks,
what you gave to him who knew you not.
Refashion the face that I have spoiled,
restore the innocence that I have violated.
You, Lord, were not involved in that sin
which you were born to bear.
Lord, take away the sin that I have contracted in living.[33]
From this eloquent passage, Williams concludes, "Anselm does not make the connection specific between repentance and the Eucharistic taking away of his sins, but the foregoing passage evokes the liturgical and subjective present of the Agnus Dei of the Mass far more than the historic cry of John the Baptist."[34]
In Anselm's Prayer to the Holy Cross, we again find the idea that the purity of Baptism must be regained somehow. The prayer ends with the following:
I beseech you, wash me by baptism from the sins
in which I was conceived and born,
and cleanse me again from those that I committed
after I was reborn,
so that by you I may come to those good things
for which man was created,
by the might of the same Jesus Christ our Lord
who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.[35]
Another fascinating element in this prayer that Williams elucidates is the references to Christ's descent into hell, The Prayer reads:
By you hell is despoiled,
by you its mouth is stopped up to all the redeemed.
By you demons are made afraid and restrained,
conquered and trampled underfoot.
By you the world is renewed and made beautiful with truth,
governed by the light of righteousness.
By you sinful humanity is justified,
the condemned are saved,
the servants of sin and hell are set free,
the dead are raised to life.[36]
At first glance, this appears to be very much the harrowing of hell theme found in the Christus victor motif of the patristic "Baptismal view." Williams thinks otherwise. He writes, "[E]ven in his several references to hell Anselm has in mind not so much Christ's harrowing of hell after the crucifixion as the daily descensus upon the altar whereby 'the demons are terrified, vanquished, and crushed,' and the penitents in purgatory as well as on earth are eventually redeemed."[37] For hell to be kept in check, as it were, the sacrifice of Christ must be continual.
Williams finds Anselm's Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ to be the most explicit about Eucharistic redemption. It reads:
Thank you for the good gift
of this your holy Body and Blood,
which I desire to receive, as cleansing from sin,
and for a defence against it. ...
Make me, O Lord, so to perceive with lips and heart
and know by faith and by love,
that by virtue of this sacrament I may deserve to be
planted in the likeness of your death and resurrection,
by mortifying the old man,
and by renewal of the life of righteousness.
May I be worthy to be incorporated into your body
"which is the church",
so that I may be your member and you may be my head,
and that I may remain in you and you in me.[38]
The Eucharist has now become the crucial act of redemption, incorporating those elements of salvation originally found in Baptism. Williams argues that it is through "the Eucharistic nutriment" that "the means of a gradual transformation of the believer's temporal body into the eschatological body" is made possible.[39] Also, Williams points to the movement from corporate imagery (found in Baptism) to "the language of individualistic assimilation into the Eucharistic body."[40] And it is the assimilation into the crucified humanity of Christ that is the result.[41]
Anselm gives "the fullest indication of the relationship between the act of atonement on Calvary and the sacramental system"[42] in A Meditation on Human Redemption, actually a supplement to his Cur Deus Homo. In it we find this overtly Eucharistic understanding of salvation:
Taste the goodness of your Redeemer, be on fire with love for your Saviour. Chew the honeycomb of his words, suck their flavour which is sweeter than sap, swallow their wholesome sweetness. Chew by thinking, suck by understanding, swallow by loving and rejoicing. Be glad to chew, be thankful to suck, rejoice to swallow.[43]
We find similar ideas later in the same meditation, comparing Christ's obedience unto death, signified by the chalice, with our obedience:
[H]e (Christ) was made "obedient to the Father", "even unto death", and "as the Father gave him commandment, even so he did", and "the cup that the Father gave him, he drank". This is the perfect and free obedience of human nature, in that Christ freely submitted his own free will to God, and perfectly used in liberty the good will he had received, without any compulsion. ...
See, Christian soul, here is the strength of your salvation, here is the cause of your freedom, here is the price of your redemption. You were a bond-slave and by this man you are free. By him you are brought back from exile, lost, you are restored, dead, you are raised. Chew this, bite it, suck it, let your heart swallow it, when your mouth receives the body and blood of your Redeemer. Make it in this life your daily bread, your food, your way-bread, for through this and not otherwise than through this, will you remain in Christ and Christ in you, and your joy will be full.[44]
For Anselm, we are incorporated into Christ's merit of obedience on Calvary by the merit of the repeating of the Eucharistic sacrifice.[45] And, as the last sentence of the above quote makes clear, it is through the Eucharist that we are made partakers of Christ.
But what of the Cur Deus Homo itself? As already mentioned, the lack of liturgical language is striking. But, for Williams, there are two parables included in the Cur Deus Homo that reflect Anselm's eucharistic understanding: the parable of the dirty pearl and the parable of the magnanimous king. In the parable of the dirty pearl, Anselm, in his supposed conversation with Boso, one of his students, compares God to a rich man who had a pearl of great value in his hands. But Anselm asks what this king would do with this pearl if it were knocked from his hands into the mire. For Anselm, the king would be a fool not to cleanse the pearl before storing it in its proper receptacle. Therefore, Anselm asks:
Anselm: Would not God have been doing a similar thing if without there being any cleansing (i.e., without there being any satisfaction) He had brought man--stained by the mire of sin and going to remain in this condition forever--back at least [sic] into Paradise, from which he had been cast out? For in Paradise man, who was to join the company of the angels, was originally being held sinless in God's hand, as it were. And God permitted the Devil (for if God had willed to prevent the Devil, the Devil would not have been able to tempt man), incited by envy, to thrust man (who nevertheless consented) into the mire of sin.
Boso: I dare not deny that there would be a similarity if God were to do this. ...
Anselm: Therefore, believe most assuredly that without satisfaction (i.e., without voluntary payment of the debt) God cannot forgive unpunished sin and the sinner cannot arrive at happiness--not even such happiness as he had before he sinned. For without satisfaction it would not be the case that man is really restored--not even restored to such a state as that in which he was existing prior to his sin.[46]
Williams admits that the image of washing the pearl suggests Baptism, but the inclusion of satisfaction (as seen in the above quotation) "surely suggests penance rather than Baptism."[47] And, of course, this sacramental satisfaction is made possible by the Eucharist, not Baptism.
The second parable, that of the magnanimous king, according to Williams, is even more specific in its allusions to the sacraments.[48] Anselm writes:
There is a king against whom all the inhabitants of one of his cities--except for one sole inhabitant, who is nevertheless of their race--so sinned that none of them is able to perform that [meritorious work] in virtue of which he would escape condemnation to death. But this inhabitant who alone is innocent has such great favor with the king that he is able--and has such great love for the guilty ones that he is willing--to bring about reconciliation for all who will trust in his plan. He will reconcile them by means of a service which will be especially pleasing to the king, and he will do this on the day determined in accord with the king's will. Now, not all who are to be reconciled are able to be present on that day. Therefore, because of the magnitude of this service, the king grants absolution from all past guilt to all those who either before or after that day acknowledge their desire both to obtain pardon on the basis of the work done on that day and to assent to the agreement then contracted. And [the king grants that] if they sin again after this pardon, they will be pardoned anew through the efficacy of this agreement, provided they are willing to make an acceptable satisfaction and thereafter to mend their ways. Nevertheless, [all of this occurs] in such way (sic) that no one may enter his palace until after the execution of the service on the basis of which his guilt is pardoned.[49]
Careful reading of this parable shows, like the other, that "the principal sacramental action whereby one enters the Kingdom is through penance and the Eucharist, that it is by means of the Eucharist that the believer becomes progressively part of the heavenly body (the Church Triumphant)."[50]
The Conclusions of Williams and an Evaluation
From examples such as those cited above, Williams asserts it is clear that in Anselm "the older Baptismal experience of dying and rising with Christ has been emotionally displaced by the Eucharistic experience of consuming the crucified and risen body of Christ and absorbing each day more of that celestial body in a process of devout consumption and imitation of Christ which is to be completed only when He Himself comes in glory."[51] Sacramental action now refers primarily to the Eucharist, not Baptism.[52] But, he adds, it is only in proper behavior and the action of the Sacrament of the Altar that we are able to participate in the merits of Christ's "renewed act of universalized obedience, sacrifice, iustitia, and satisfactio."[53] But, the merits of Christ are repeatedly and individually merited to the individual such that the Eucharist actually becomes the individual participant's own payment "of due honor to God in worship through daily incorporation in the self-sacrificing corpus on the altar."[54] Williams sees this shift in terms of divinity and humanity. He writes:
Whereas in the ancient church, especially in the East, saturated with the theology of the mystery religions, one had sought to become participant in the divinity of Christ and thereby to recover immortal life lost in the fall from Paradise, or to recover the divine image in the pure gnosis forfeited by the presumptuous grasp for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Anselm seems to be thinking primarily of participating sacramentally in the sinless humanity of the God-man in order to recover the pristine justice of human nature corrupted by Adam's willfulness, and especially to wipe out all personal sins contracted after Baptismal regeneration.[55]
The full history of Christ in his humanity is not Anselm's emphasis, though, according to Williams. Redemption is essentially cruciform to the almost complete exclusion of anything else in the life of Christ. And, for Williams, this is reflected in Anselm, since "we do not usually think of the Cur Deus Homo as making anything of the action of the Deus-homo before the death on the cross."[56]
Williams sees in Anselm a sacramental theology that was appropriate for his time owing to the displacement of the once-for-all Baptismal understanding of patristic Christianity. As the Christus victor theology of the atonement evolved into the idea of "progressive incorporation in the Homo patiens slain on the altar for the sins of the whole world," Anselm brought about a "readjustment in the formulation of a doctrine of the atonement fully consonant with the matured sacramental system of the church."[57] The Cur Deus Homo, therefore, needs to be understood as "a valid transcript of the innermost yet representative experience of a devout monk bishop of the late 11th century."[58]
In spite of the fact that the Cur Deus Homo contains no explicit reference to Baptism or Eucharist, it nonetheless becomes clear that Williams has hit upon an interpretative framework for Anselm's writings which in turn allows us more fully to understand that very age. Williams enables us to enter Anselm's world so that his writings become more human, as it were, rather than viewing them as scholasticism without life. In fact, as Williams concludes, it is the very body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist that informs these writings.[59]
Yet, the lack of reference to Williams in modern Anselmian scholarship is very apparent.[60] Perhaps his importance for all studies of Anselm cannot be maintained, but surely such an argument deserves more attention than it has received.
Williams's argument is not just interesting for students of ecclesiastical history or of liturgical theology. In fact, there is great relevance for today, since the situation has not changed that much in 900 years. Williams is right to warn us of reading too much of the full scholastic system of the thirteenth century back into Anselm. Nonetheless, the current writer cannot help but wonder if Williams's argument contains an interpretative key not only for Anselm's age, but for ours as well.
Williams passes no judgment on the medieval sacramental development in the life of Church, other than the admittance that Anselm finally produced a theology that fit the practice of the church at that time. And surely it is fair to say that, in the West, the "penitential-Eucharistic view" as outlined by Williams is still the dominant motif by which ecclesiology is viewed, whether we have a high view of the Eucharist or not.
The 1979 Book of Common Prayer in Terms of the Foregoing
Certainly a concern of the current writer is: just exactly where does the Episcopal Church fit into 'all of this? As already admitted, it was the very "penitential-Eucharistic view" that drew me into Anglicanism in the first place, even after receiving adult baptism elsewhere! There was something about worship that only seemed "right" when it culminated in the Eucharist, but, as Williams shows, the "Baptismal" view was the interpretative habit of mind that informed the Eucharistic celebration during the patristic period. Can we discern what the habit of mind of the Episcopal Church is at the end of the twentieth century? Let us take a brief look at the American Book of Common Prayer (1979), for, as Anselm's sacramental presuppositions informed his own position, perhaps the same can be said of the Episcopal Church.
The Preface from the first American Prayer Book of 1789 is contained in the 1979 version, and still "sets the tone" for the rest of the Prayer Book, even for this one at the end of the twentieth century. In it, we read:
It is a most invaluable part of that blessed "liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," that in his worship different forms and usages may without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire; and that, in every Church, what cannot be clearly determined to belong to Doctrine must be referred to Discipline; and therefore, by common consent and authority, may be altered, abridged, enlarged, amended, or otherwise disposed of, as may seem most convenient for the edification of the people, "according to the various exigency of times and occasions" (BCP, 9).
It is clear that the Episcopal Church, by definition, allows for the development of doctrine and worship "as may seem most convenient for the edification of the people." Such a breadth allows for the reinterpretation of sacramental practice if indeed it is found no longer edifying. We can rethink and even rewrite our framework if need be.
Do the rites of Baptism and Eucharist as found in the 1979 Prayer Book give us any inclination as to what the "official" view of the Episcopal Church now is? As to a definition of Baptism, the rubrics assert, "Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble" (BCP, 298). Both a "Baptismal" as well as a "penitential-Eucharistic" view, to use Williams's terms, would agree with this statement. Perhaps the foregoing statement would even tend to favor a "Baptismal" framework since the bond which is established is "indissoluble," thereby hinting at a once-for-all victory actualized in Holy Baptism. The next rubric, however, leans more toward a "penitential-Eucharistic" framework, in that "Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other feast" (BCP, 298; emphasis mine). The Eucharist is still the dominant motif within which Baptism is seen.[61]
The rite of Holy Baptism itself, though, is, not surprisingly, very "Baptismal" in the patristic sense outlined by Williams. Included are the renunciations of Satan, evil and sin, either said by the candidate for baptism or by the parents and godparents on the candidate's behalf, as well as affirmations of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, in whom the candidate puts her whole trust, promising to follow and obey her Lord (BCP, 302-303). The whole congregation, along with the candidate, reaffirms The Baptismal Covenant, which is the Apostles' Creed broken into three questions based upon God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (BCP, 304-305). The Thanksgiving given over the Water of Baptism is perhaps the most telling:
We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.
We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (BCP, 306-307).
After Baptism, the newly baptized is marked with the sign of the cross (sometimes with Chrism) with the words, "N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever" (BCP, 308). To be led "from the bondage of sin into everlasting life" and "marked as Christ's own for ever" sounds very much like the Christus, victor understanding of reality. When the newly baptized are welcomed by the congregation, the people say, "We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim the resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood" (BCP, 308). Although sharing in his eternal priesthood could indeed be interpreted as a reference to the Eucharist, there is no indication in this statement by the congregation that a "penitential-Eucharistic" view is what defines the Church, or else it seems we as a congregation would want to welcome the newly baptized into such a "system."[62]
And what of the Eucharist? First, we shall briefly look at Eucharistic Prayer I and II in the Holy Eucharist: Rite I, followed by the Holy Eucharist: Rite II--Eucharistic Prayers A, B, C, and D. Rite I may not be as familiar to most Episcopalians anymore, since the switch to Rite II has been widespread. Nonetheless, it is worth a look. For Eucharistic Prayer I (Rite I), we find the following:
And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.
And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion (BCP, 335).
The first of these two petitions does not hint particularly in one direction or another, except for the idea that those receiving the Eucharist are "partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood." The second petition, however, more clearly aligns itself with a "penitential-Eucharistic" view, in that we ask God to grant the merits of Christ's death to us in this sacrifice, so that we "may obtain remission of our sins." Eucharistic Prayer II (Rite I) follows very closely the words of institution found above, but with important differences. The paragraph that most closely parallels the second of the two paragraphs above reads:
And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies. Grant, we beseech thee, that all who partake of this Holy Communion may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction; and also that we and all thy whole Church may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord (BCP, 342-343).
Gone is the idea of meriting remission of our sins through the body and blood of Christ. Of the two, this prayer is more compatible with a "Baptismal" view.
The variety increases as we move to Holy Eucharist: Rite II. The four Eucharistic Prayers are variations on a theme, but it is in the variations that we find quite a breadth. Eucharistic Prayer A, along with "B", is one of the two most commonly used forms in the Episcopal Church today. Of the four, Eucharistic Prayer A has the most in common with a "penitential-Eucharistic" view, although it is certainly not as clear as in Rite I. We read in the Prayer of Thanksgiving from "A":
We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer you these gifts.
Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom (BCP, 363).
The focus here is clearly on the Passion of Christ, particularly in the crucifixion, but, as already mentioned, it is ambiguous as to which view it favors.
Eucharistic Prayer B, however, has a richer understanding of the full Incarnation, which would tend to place it closer to a "Baptismal" view:
We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of Israel to be your people; in your Word spoken through the prophets; and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son. For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world. In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life (BCP, 368).
Here we have the understanding that Jesus Christ recapitulates in himself the history of salvation (cf. Ephesians 1:10). The context of this Eucharistic Prayer, then, is much broader than "just" the crucifixion. But, later in the same prayer, we read:
We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts that they may be the Sacrament of the Body of Christ and his Blood of the new Covenant. Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. ... (BCP, 369).
If not for the phrase "that we may be acceptable through him," it would be our conclusion that this is a "Baptismal" type of eucharistic prayer. But, if the acceptability of us to God is rooted in the Son's sacrifice shown in the Eucharist, then it is quite possible that it is the "penitential-Eucharistic" view that is in mind here. However, it lends itself to ambiguity.
Eucharistic Prayer C is perhaps the most unfamiliar to the regular Episcopalian, with its imagery of "interstellar space" (BCP, 370). Yet, the ambiguity of Prayers A and B is less so here, as we receive a fairly clear "Baptismal" view. The opening words of institution cover the whole sweep of salvation history, including creation, right up to Christ. Of Him, we read:
And so, Father, we who have been redeemed by him, and made a new people by water and the Spirit, now bring before you these gifts. Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord (BCP, 371).
Although it will be our opinion that it is Eucharistic Prayer D that is closest to the "Baptismal" view, no prayer explicitly refers to Baptism as "C" does, as evinced by the above quotation, where we are "made a new people by water and the Spirit." The Eucharist is here seen squarely within Baptism, not vice-versa, as would be the case in the "penitential-Eucharistic" view.
Eucharistic Prayer D nonetheless contains the overall thrust of the "Baptismal" view more fully than any of the other forms. It reads:
We acclaim you, holy Lord, glorious in power. Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love. You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures. When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.
Father, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.
And, that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all (BCP, 373-374).
As Williams describes, it is divinity that is the intent of the "Baptismal" view, and these words, although quite confident in Christ's humanity, nonetheless express the idea of participation in His divinity. In other words, because of Christ's humanity we are able to participate in his divinity. This is the "Baptismal" view. The Eucharist is certainly "the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the Body and Blood" of Jesus Christ (BCP, 375), but there is no hint that we therefore participate in the humanity of Christ, but that rather, owing to the humanity, we participate in the divinity.
From the foregoing examination, it is fair to say that the American Prayer Book contains a mix of both the "Baptismal" and the "penitential-Eucharistic" views as given to us by Williams. This indicates the multi-faceted nature of Eucharistic faith that is found in the 1979 Prayer Book. As these various prayers are lifted up to God in the life of the Church, it may well be that the theology of Anselm, as Williams has explicated it for us, and as it is found in the 1979 Book, affords the Episcopal Church a unique opportunity to bring out the best of both views under consideration, to offer a comprehensive via media between them.
Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (London: SPCK, 1950), 100-112.
George Hunston Williams, Anselm: Communion and Atonement (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1960). This book is a slightly enlarged and further documented revision of "The Sacramental Presuppositions of Anselm's Cur Dens Homo," Church History, XXVI, 3 (September 1957), 245-274.
"Foreword," Williams, 4.
Williams, 6.
Williams, 10. Williams's use of gender-exclusive language must obviously be read in the context of 1960 when he was writing.
Williams admits that he is simplifying the patristic understanding by giving it the label "Baptismal." He does this purposefully, however, in order to sharpen the contrast between Baptism and Eucharist, which, "in contrast to the other sacraments, are in a way 'competitive' symbols of the redemptive action of the crucifixion and the resurrection; and although both are dominical and apostolic, each from the beginning might claim to be the pre-eminent, if not the exclusive, sacramental means of appropriating the work of redemption." Williams, 9-10. Williams argues convincingly that the habit of mind operative in each period corresponds to one of the two "primary" sacraments more fully, such that the idea of "exclusivity" is not inappropriate.
6 Williams, 6.
7 Williams, 10.
8 Williams comments, "[I]n the ancient church most theologians looked back upon the redemptive action of Christ on Calvary through eyes sharpened by the extended rite of believers' Baptism. Inextricably bound up with the rite were their various classical Baptismal formulations of salvation which centered in God's conquest of the devil through Christus victor, to whom the believers joined themselves in the solemn renunciation of Satan and a sacramental death." Williams does note, however, that Baptism was sometimes purposefully postponed "in order to keep its healing and vivifying waters for the cleansing of the fully exfoliated sinfulness of maturity." Williams, 11.
9 Williams, 12.
10 Williams, however, did not think that Athanasius's view was the only theory of salvation during the patristic period. Rather, as he wrote in one of his footnotes, "In the course of patristic reflection several interrelated 'Baptismal' theories of salvation emerged, all of them, of course, resting on Biblical texts but growing out of diverse preoccupations and experiences of ancient Christians, namely: Redemption as purification from sin, as reconciliation with God through Christ's fulfillment of the Law, as initiation into membership in the chosen race, as advance participation in the kingdom of Christ, as dying to the world and proleptic resurrection in and with Christ, as restoration of the divine image of paradisic man, as illumination, as deification, as joining Christus victor in the cosmological combat with Satan, as redemption from the devil, and as eternal election. ... All of these emphases in the ancient conception of Christian salvation, not by any means mutually exclusive, were grounded in or presupposed the initiatory, cleansing, and redeeming rite of Baptismal regeneration." Williams, 13-14, n. 15.
11 Williams, 15-16. Williams thought Athanasius's treatise to be the nearest patristic parallel to Anselm's Cur Deus Homo.
12 Williams, 17.
13 Williams, 18. G. W. H. Lampe noted, "'Had St. Paul heard the phrase the Blessed Sacrament ... he would have thought it meant Baptism'. There is some truth in the joke; for in the early Church's missionary situation, apologetic and evangelistic writing (which includes a very high proportion of early Christian literature) naturally focused its attention on the sacrament of conversion and 'illumination', the mystery, of rebirth to eternal life, the initiation of which the subsequent course of the convert's entire life in the Church was a fulfilment and working out." G. W. H. Lampe, "The Eucharist in the Thought of the Early Church" in Eucharistic Theology Then and Now (London: SPCK, 1968), 34.
14 Williams, 12.
15 Williams, 13.
16 Williams, 19.
17 Not that the patristic period was uninterested in penance. Rather, it was again the sacrament of (adult) Baptism that was the actual sacrament of penance, as well. The two could not be dissociated in antiquity. Williams, 20.
18 Williams, 22-23.
19 Williams, 24. The Romanesque style did not perfectly reflect the "Baptismal view" (as perhaps the icon would to the Eastern Orthodox), but changing piety and iconography of the late 11th and 12th centuries in the West nonetheless reflected each other, as "the regal figure of the Romanesque crucifix was beginning to show the lineaments of the Gothic Man of sorrows." Williams, 25. Besides this general shift in piety and iconography as well as the aforementioned re-understanding of Baptism, Eucharist, and penance, Williams lists the "restatement of the relationship of God the Father to God the Son in terms of philosophical realism over against nominalism" as yet another background element in order properly to understand Anselm's contribution, albeit that Anselm was largely responsible for this restatement of the doctrine of the Trinity. Williams, 25.
20 Williams, 25. Williams also referred to Anselm's works as "a rationalization or rather a reflection of the altered functions of the sacraments in the life of the church." Williams, 26.
21 Williams, 13. G. R. Evans comments that the question of whether the Devil had any actual rights over humans was a question current in the academic debate of Anselm's time. She thinks it possible that Jews were aware of "contemporary Christian theological speculation, even, in a loose sense, part of the academic community, if we may call it that." G. R. Evans, Anselm (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989), 74.
22 Anselm of Canterbury, Why God Became a Man II. 19 in Anselm of Canterbury, Volume 3, trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1976), 135. All figure references to Anselm's Cur Deus Homo shall come from this edition unless contained in a quote by some other author.
23 Williams, 13.
24 Williams, 46-47. G. R. Evans notes that, owing to the anxiousness of some, Anselm published the Cur Deus Homo sooner than he would have liked in order to avoid confusion on what his position was. Evans writes, "One result has been that the work is shorter than he would have wished. He had wanted to develop a number of things he has left unsaid." Evans, Anselm, 71.
25 Williams, 27.
26 cf. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm, trans. Sister Benedicta Ward (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1973).
27 "Introduction," Prayers and Meditations, 74-75.
28 Anselm of Canterbury, Meditation II in Prayers and Meditations, 225. All future references to Meditation II will come from this volume.
29 Meditation II, 225.
30 Meditation II, 225.
31 Williams writes, "All of them (the Prayers) were composed in the I-style of personal prayers of the priest which were beginning to find their place in the missal as a result of the spread of private masses." As all the parts of corporate worship were taken up "by the one celebrant in his devotional isolation, it was natural that many private orationes should be composed, some of them destined to find a permanent place in the growing missal." Williams, 30-31.
32 Williams, 31.
33 Anselm of Canterbury, Prayer to St. John the Baptist in Prayers and Meditations, 132.
34 Williams, 32.
35 Anselm of Canterbury, Prayer to the Holy Cross in Prayers and Meditations, 105. All future references to Prayer to the Holy Cross will come from this volume.
36 Prayer to the Holy Cross, 103.
37 Williams, 33. Williams continues by making a fascinating connection between Christ's descent into hell and Christ's self-immolation at the altar which is worth quoting at length: "After the priest prays that he himself might personally merit, through the body and blood of Christ on the altar, that God accept the remission of all his sins, he goes on in another prayer to allude to Christ's descent ad infima mundi, as distinguished from ad inferna (mundi). By Christ's continuous descent He enables the priest to officiate at His self-immolation for those also qui in locis purgatoriis sunt and are consequently, apart from the altar, unable to make the oblation themselves except as the ecclesia militans is sacramentally linked with the ecclesia patiens of purgatory. It is surely an indication of a tremendous shift in the idea of redemption that whereas in Christian antiquity Christ descended once for all into hell between the crucifixion and the resurrection and delivered the righteous dead of the Old Covenant from the shades either by preaching or by forcing the gates of hell in harrowing it, He now reiterates His descent as He also repeats His immolation on the cross and, in continuously descending ad infima mundi, reduces and mitigates by His action on the altar the pains of purgatory through the personal communion on the part of the officiating priest in the mass for the dead." Williams, 33-34.
38 Anselm of Canterbury, Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Prayers and Meditations, 100-101.
39 Williams, 35-36.
40 Williams, 36.
41 Williams again finds Anselm's writings reflected in the liturgical actions and attitudes of the clergy of Anselm's day. He writes: "The sense of experiential, personal incorporation is all the more remarkable for the reason that as priestly communicant Anselm would ordinarily be expected to be mindful of the whole body of the faithful, past, present, and future, rather than to be preoccupied with his own incorporation by means of the mass into them and into the glorified body. Yet Anselm in this, as in so many of his utterances, is here reflecting the general shift in Eucharistic piety in the monasteries and minsters." Williams, 36.
Anselm, according to Williams, also "occupies a place of some importance in the evolution of Marian doctrine," as evinced by his Prayers to St. Mary. It is Anselm who first gave the technical use of Mary as mediatrix in the West. Williams states, "Clearly Anselm's conception of the role of Mary in redemption and in the dispensing of sacramental grace is germane to our theme. And it need scarcely be mentioned that her role in a penitential-Eucharistic theory of redemption is naturally greater than in a Baptismal theory, for she was remote from the Baptism of Christ at the Jordan but prominent at the crucifixion; and at the marriage of Cana, interpreted eucharistically, it was Mary who instigated the miracle of transubstantiation." Williams, 37-38.
42 Williams, 44.
43 Anselm of Canterbury, Meditation on Human Redemption in Prayers and Meditations, 230. All future references to Meditation on Human Redemption will come from this volume.
44 Meditation on Human Redemption, 234-235.
45 Williams, 56.
46 Why God Became a Man I.19, p. 85.
47 Williams, 47.
48 Williams, 47.
49 Why God Became a Man II. 16, p. 120.
50 Williams, 49.
51 Williams, 50.
52 Elsewhere, Williams writes, "We have seen that Anselm belongs to the group who responded theologically to the attenuation of Baptism and the accentuation of the Eucharist. Baptism, from having been the unique sacrament of incorporation in the body of Christ in the ancient church, was in Anselm demoted to serving as the ablutionary preparation therefor (sic), or at best was regarded as a contingent incorporatio imperfecta to be followed by Eucharistic incorporatio perfecta." Williams, 58.
53 Williams, 51. Alister McGrath notes, "The essential point ... is that Anselm considers, presumably on the basis of the established satisfaction-merit model of the penitential system of the contemporary, church, that the payment of a satisfaction by the God-man would be regarded by his readers as an acceptable means of satisfying the demands of moral rectitude without violating the moral order of creation." Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 60.
54 Williams, 52. James Gollnick writes, "[The restoration of man's fallen nature] is a renewal of the flesh such that this flesh possesses the disposition toward justice. This follows from the notion of a natural will (a will of the flesh) that corresponds directly to the disposition of the personal will. In this view the flesh of Christ becomes the vehicle for the disposition toward justice. In his doctrine of the eucharist, Anselm takes seriously the theoretical possibility that if Adam had been confirmed in justice, his reproductive nature (flesh) would have extended righteousness to all of his race. Because Adam sinned, justice was not extended. But now, in the eucharist, justice is extended to men. In this case, however, it is not the flesh as reproductive nature which extends justice to men but rather it is the flesh as eucharist which performs this function." James Gollnick, Flesh as Transformation Symbol in the Theology of Anselm of Canterbury: Historical and Transpersonal Perspectives (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), 196.
55 Williams, 52.
56 Williams, 53.
57 Williams, 64.
58 Williams, 65.
59 Gollnick agrees, stating, "The eucharist is ... the heart and all-pervading motif of Anselm's theology." Gollnick, 200.
60 For example, the following volumes on Anselm contain no reference to Williams in their indexes: R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Jasper Hopkins, A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972); G. R. Evans, Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); G. R. Evans, Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
61 The position of the Catechism, found in the back of the Prayer Book, seems to encompass both views under discussion. Holy Baptism is "the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God," Also, "the inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God's family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit." BCP, 858. As for the Eucharist, it is called a sacrifice "because the Eucharist, the church's sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, is the way by which the sacrifice of Christ is made present, and in which he unites us to his one offering of himself." And, the benefits we receive from the Lord's Supper "are the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life." BCP, 859-860.
62 It is worth noting that only a bishop or priest is given the "right" to administer Baptism, except in the case of emergencies. BCP, 313-314.
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By Patrick T. Gray
Patrick T. Gray is currently a Th.D. candidate at The General Theological Seminary in New York, and a postulant for ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of Massachusetts. This essay was awarded the prize for the 1998 Janet and Charles Harris Student Essay Competition.
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