“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the
blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of
Christ?” (1 Corinthians 11:16)
The “Catholic
Dictionary” offers the following definition of concomitance:
The doctrine that explains why the whole Christ is present under
each Eucharistic species. Christ is indivisible, so that his body cannot be
separated from his blood, his human soul, his divine nature, and his divine
personality. Consequently he is wholly present in the Eucharist. But only the
substance of his body is the specific effect of the first consecration at Mass;
his blood, soul, divinity, and personality become present by concomitance,
i.e., by the inseparable connection that they have with his body. The Church
also says the "substance" of Christ’s body because its accidents,
though imperceptible, are also present by same concomitance, not precisely
because of the words of consecration.
In the second consecration, the conversion terminates specifically
in the presence of the substance of Christ’s blood. But again by concomitance
his body and entire self become present as well. (Etym. Latin concomitantia,
accompaniment.)
This doctrine relies on the belief that communicants are offered
Christ’s risen and ascended body and blood, and not his body and blood as given
for us at the cross. While no Christian would want to deny that our fellowship
is indeed with the living Christ who by His Holy Spirit makes Himself present
to us, and while it may be granted that in the Sacrament we are raised to
heaven, receiving a foretaste of the future, nevertheless “as often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1
Corinthians 11:26) This is in accordance with the words of Christ at the
institution: “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them,
saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which
is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) What is
offered to communicants is the blood shed for our sins, not the blood throbbing
through the veins of the risen and ascended Christ.
Reformed Catholics have therefore largely rejected the doctrine of
concomitance:
“We say and believe, that we receive the body and blood of Christ
truly, and not a figure or sign ; but even that body which suffered death on
the cross, and that blood which was shed for the forgiveness of sins.”
Bishop John Jewel (1522-1571), On the
Sacraments, cited in An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles by the Reformers –
the Rev. Thomas R. Jones (1849), 189
The dream of the Church of Rome, that he that receives the body
receives also the blood, because, by concomitance, the blood is received in the
body, – is ... not true, because, the eucharist being the sacrament of the
Lord’s death, that is, of his body broken and his blood poured forth, the
taking of the sacrament of the body does not by concomitance include the blood;
because the body is here sacramentally represented as slain and separate from
blood.
Jeremy Taylor [1613-1667], Ductor
Dubitantum or The Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures: Serving as a
Great Instrument for the Determination of Cases of Conscience in Four Books,
vol. 2 ed. by Alexander Taylor (Eugene: Or: Wipf and Stock, 2009), 544; cf. The
whole works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, vol. 13: Containing a
Continuation of the Rule of Conscience (1839), 28–29.
The following citations were gleaned by
following links from the Resources
on the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion on the Prydain blog.
The design of the sacrament is “to represent Christ to us as dead,
and in his crucified, but not in his glorified state.”
An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of
England – Bp. Gilbert Burnet (1699, although this revision by
James R. Page is dated 1842), 454-55.
“Now the Romanists do but trifle, when they say, that the blood is
with the body; since in the eucharist we commemorate, not the life of our Lord,
but his death, in which his blood was separated from his body.”
The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England –
Archdeacon Edward Welchman (1713 or shortly after that, although this reprint
is dated 1842)
“to partake of both body and blood, we
must receive both the bread and the wine”
An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England –
Bp. William Beveridge [1637-1708] (1830), 519. This exposition offers a good
number of citations from the earlier church.
“It is material to notice the reason assigned by our
Redeemer why all the Apostles were to drink of the Cup, “for this is my
blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
All, therefore, who stand in need of remission of sins, are to drink of the
Cup; that is, all mankind, laity as well as Clergy.”
The Churchman’s Guide in Perilous Times, – the Rev.
Thomas Pigot, A.M. (1835), 94; cf. Elements of Christian Theology (vol.2) – Bishop
George Pretyman Tomline (first published 1799; this edition 1843), 432
“our Lord appointed each of the elements by consecration to
communicate a particular blessing, and therefore those who deny the cup to lay
people deprive them, so far as lies in their power, of a portion of the benefit
of the sacrament.”
A Catechism on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of
England – the Rev. James Beaven, D.D. (1850), 94. Bp. A.P. Forbes
in An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1871)
seeks to define the deprivation, arguing that, “While the Sacrament under one
kind conveys all the graces necessary to salvation, the Chalice has a special grace of
its own – the grace of gladdening...that of the meat is to strengthen the weak”
(599).
cf. Sermons, explanatory and practical, on the Thirty-Nine
Articles of the Church of England, by the Rev. T. Waite (1826), 440
