Métodos estadísticos

During his time as rector of the parish church of St. Giles Cripplegate, in London (1589-1605), Andrewes preached a series of sermons on the Eucharist.98 Within one of these sermons, following the text 1 Corinthians 12.13, Andrewes develops his Eucharistic theology within a call for visible unity within the Church. Following Paul’s argument from 1 Corinthians 10.16, Andrewes developed a

correlation that joined the unity of the Body in receiving the sacrament with the unity that is to be lived out in the Church. While Baptism was the means of regeneration and life that is given in the Spirit, the Eucharistic celebration was the means of remaining in the vine that baptism engrafts us within. According to Andrewes, the Eucharist is the sign of our separation from the world but it is not intended to be a cause of division amongst ourselves. Andrewes desired unity with the Reformed churches throughout the Continent, Rome, and the churches of the East while particularly working for unity within his own Church in England. Yet, as we have seen, there were parameters both liturgically and in polity that are to be rooted in the framework of the undivided Church of the first five centuries as the foundation of this unity. He refers to the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity, love and concord.99 The necessity of our being is to be in union with this Body. To be in the Church is to have

98

Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 515-21, 571-78, 594-600, 614-619. 99

life and salvation.100 So to be out of the Church is to not be saved at all; it is to be like a dried twig. If the branch is separated from the vine there will be no fruit.’101

The Eucharist is the means by which our lives are nourished and strengthened to bear fruit and remain in the vine. To not receive the Eucharist is to dwindle like a dry branch. It is for this reason that Andrewes critiqued the infrequent celebration of the Eucharist and particularly was against what he termed the novel practice of communing only once a year. One will therefore find in almost all of his sermons relating to the major feast days of the Church Year an exhortation to come and

partake of the mystery often.102 Without the Eucharist, the Church becomes irrelevant. Food is for the world and the world for food and in this one Eucharistic act we are joined together with all the saints throughout history and partake of this food that becomes our life. Therefore we must receive the bread and wine to confirm our faith in the body and blood of Christ as the seal of our eternal life in Him.103

Andrewes encourages frequent communion and sees denial of communion to be a very serious thing. On that basis he cannot understand the Roman practice of going to Mass and not partaking. This he sees as being tantamount to the judgement upon Cain as will be explained below. As regards the Roman practice of receiving under one species only, Andrewes understands Rome to be disobeying God’s institution of this sacrament of eating and drinking which maintains the blessed life given to us in baptism. The Spirit is united to these elements in a powerful way through God’s elevation of them that, for Andrewes, to deny the cup to the laity is to

100 _{Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 615.}

101 _{Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 616. ‘Whereby we see that all shall not be saved, but only they} that are gathered into the mysticall body of Christ, and as members of his body, doe live by his Spirit working in them.’

102 _{Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 616.}

103 _{Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 616, 617. Andrewes stated, ‘Now the mediation of these elements} are no lesse necessary to present and keep us as lively members of the mysticall body of Christ than bread and water are to maintain natural life.’

deny them access to the Spirit.104 It was to deny the faithful the Spirit, not because Andrewes denied that the whole Christ was in each element, but because it was a violation of the command to eat and drink. Andrewes argued that Paul, unlike the Adversary’s doctrine, spoke more generally about the Cup saying ‘Nos omnes potati sumus, not only the Clergy but lay men.’105

In a sermon preached at St. Giles on 26 Aug 1599, Andrewes referred to God's judgment upon Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, describing this as the ultimate curse that one might face this side of the Day of Judgment, inasmuch as it resulted in Cain's expulsion from communion with God and Adam's children. Food is denied Cain and his person is shown to be accursed by God ‘and hath no part in that blessed seed, in whom all the promises of God, touching this life and the life to come, are yea and amen.’106

To be removed from the sacrament is to be removed from the means of life and God’s favour. Thus it is the sacrament of unity where the spirit of contention and envy is to be driven far from us and by our unity in the sacrament we may know if we have life in the Spirit.

For Andrewes, the Eucharist is the Church and the Church is the Eucharist. It is the nearest we can come to paradise on this earth. It is the life of paradise. As the Eucharist communicates the charity of God to His people from above, the Church celebrates the law of charity to one another. This is the highest expression of that eschatological hope that shall be accomplished at the gathering of the quick and the dead. Yet, this eschatological hope is not something that is something far off but experienced both now and then.

And even thus to be recollected at this feast by the Holy Communion into that blessed union, is the highest perfection we can in this life aspire unto. We then are at the highest pitch, at the very best we shall ever attain to on earth, what time we newly

104 _{Andrewes, Apos. Sacra, 618.} 105

Andrewes, Apos. Sacra. 618. More to follow on this debate in a subsequent chapter. 106

come from it; gathered to Christ, and by Christ to God; stated in all whatsoever He hath gathered and laid up against His next coming. With which gathering here in this world we must content and stay ourselves, and wait for the consummation of all at His coming again. For there is an ecce venio yet to come.107

So then, the Eucharist is a feast that is given by the Shepherd to gather His people again to Himself. There is a two-fold purpose in the gathering of Andrewes’

Eucharistic theology that not only involves a covenant renewal between man and God but also between the members of the Body with one another. The symbols of the Eucharist make up the reality of what they are to give in the gathering and eating.

And as to gather us to God, so likewise each to other mutually; expressed lively in the symbols of many grains into the one, and many grapes into the other. The Apostle is plain that we are all “one bread and one body, so many as are partakers of one bread,” so moulding us as it were into one loaf altogether. The gathering to God refers still to things in Heaven, this other to men to the things in earth here. All under one head by the common faith; all into one body mystical by mutual charity. So shall we well enter into the dispensing of this season, to begin with.108

Andrewes spoke of the fullness being given to us in Christ and that the sacraments determine the richness of the liturgy. He said, ‘No fullness there is of our Liturgy or public solemn Service, without the Sacrament. Some part, yea the chief part is wanting, if that be wanting. But our thanks are surely not full without the Holy Eucharist, which is by interpretation thanksgiving itself.’109 It is the Eucharist that is not only the covenant that frees us from the demands of the Law, but more so, it is the very ‘Cup of salvation’ in which the

Cup is the Blood, not only of our redemption of the covenant that freeth us from the Law and maketh the destroyer pass over us; but of our adoption, of the New

Testament also which entitles us and conveys unto us, testament-wise or by way of legacy, the estate we have in the joy and bliss of His Heavenly Kingdom whereto we are adopted.110

It is well-known that Andrewes prays the liturgy of the Church and speaks the Church’s language in his writings and sermons. Like Chrysostom (347-407) or Basil

107 _{Andrewes, Works. I., 283} 108 _{Andrewes, Works, I., 282-283.} 109

Andrewes, Works, I., 62. 110

(329-379), Andrewes viewed the Eucharist as the sacrament of the Spirit. For Andrewes, receiving the Spirit was the summit of the Eucharistic celebration. The Eucharist and the Church are interdependent upon one another and it was the Spirit that held the two together. Andrewes gives us a hint of his focus on the Spirit in the Eucharist that is much like the prayer following the epiclesis in the Liturgy of Basil where he prays, ‘And to unite us all, as many as are partakers in the one bread and cup, one with another, in the participation of the one Holy Spirit:..’.111 One could possibly presume that we have a hint of Calvin’s influence on Andrewes but it is not necessarily the case. It is understood that the Orthodox Church and the Western Latin Rite Church have debated whether it is the words of institution or the epiclesis that brings about the change in the elements. Andrewes is not establishing an either/or alternative nor is he necessarily echoing Calvin’s emphasis on the Spirit over against Rome. For Andrewes, the Spirit is the means by which the sacrifice of oblation is accomplished. It is for this reason that Lossky explains the insights of all that is involved in Andrewes’ theology that retains the Spirit as the summit of his Eucharistic thought. Lossky writes,

So far as the manner of the union between Christ and the elements is concerned, one can no more understand or explain it, that is submit it to human reason, than one can the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ. Andrewes thus rejects the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation, on the one hand because it seeks to explain the unfathomable mystery, and on the other and above all—something that is entirely characteristic of his thought—because it verges on monophysitism and thus destroys the Chalcedonian purity of the Christological dogma. As for explanations of a 'receptionist' or 'virtualist' tendency, Andrewes dismisses them, implicitly but quite clearly, by saying that when, with St Paul, we call the Eucharist 'spiritual food' (I Cor. 10:3-4), it is because in it we receive the Holy Spirit. It is clear that for him spiritualiter indeed means pneumatikw/j. Now, if the Latin term has had a tendency, in the course of the centuries and in passing into European languages, to distance itself from Spiritus, the Greek adverb, in the whole of Christian literature in that language, immediately evokes Pneu/ma.112

111_{The Orthodox Liturgy being the Divine Liturgy of S. John Chrysostom and S. Basil the} Great, (London: SPCK, 1939), 75. See also, Nicholas Lossky, Lancelot Andrewes, (1991), 284,-285, 340-341.

112

The role of the Spirit in Andrewes’ Eucharistic theology will be looked at much closer in subsequent chapters where Andrewes’ uniqueness is established.