It is instructive in this connection to note also that in theBook of Common
Prayerof 1552, as well as in the subsequent revision of 1559, there is a
dramatic shift in the liturgical sequence of the administration of the commu-
nion. In the revised order, the worshippers’ reception of the sacramental
elements occurs at precisely that moment in the liturgy where, according to the
medieval Sarum rite, the host was elevated by the priest, signifying thereby
the moment of transubstantiation and where also, in the earlier 1549 liturgy,
the priest was still directed by implicitly‘theurgical’rubrics to take the bread and
cup‘into his handes’. In both the Sarum and 1549 rites the blessing of
the elements is followed by a lengthy sequence of prayers which intervene
between consecration and reception. According to the rubrics in the rites of
1552 and 1559, however, the administration of the communion elements
follows immediately upon the minister’s utterance of the dominical words of
institution—‘do this in remembraunce of me’. This revised order for reception
of the sacrament serves to underline vividly through the dynamic action of the
liturgy the difference between these two alternative accounts of sacramental
‘presence’, namely between the traditional scholastic interpretation of an onto-
logical‘real presence’and an Erasmian interpretation offigural signification;
Jewel’s subtle dynamic account of presence seeks to avoid the extremes of
Zwinglian memorialism and ontological realism. His is a stance now commonly
identified as‘instrumental realism’.^60
Jewel’s Erasmian approach to the distinction between a literal and afigura-
tive interpretation of sacramental‘presence’shifts the locusof ‘presence’
decisively away from the physical elements of the sacrament and transfers it
to the inner, subjective experience of the worshipper.^61 Consequently, sacramental
‘presence’is reinterpreted as a‘figural’or dynamic conceptual synthesis of word
and elements situated within the subjective forum of the consciences of worship-
pers; and thus‘real presence’comes to be viewed as inseparable from an intern-
alized, spiritual‘cognition’of the consecrated host—in other words,metanoia.^62
The Challenge Sermon is crucially significant for reinstating the Erasmian
emphasis of the Edwardine divines—especially of Cranmer, Vermigli, and
hartes, to see whether we be dissemblers or no, and whether we be dispatched from dissimulation
if we fynde any sparke therof, we are not worthy to come vnto that banket of Jesus Christ.’(^60) See Brian Gerrish,Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin(Minneapolis,
MI: Fortress Press, 1993).
(^61) The‘realist’words of 1549—‘this is my body’—are replaced in 1552 with the memorialist
formula‘eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart, by faith,
with thanksgiving’. The primary locus of presence is relocated away from the external elements
and made inseparable from the worshipping subject.
(^62) It is perhaps interesting in this connection to note that in the BCP of 1552, as well as in the
subsequent revisions of 1559 and 1662, the administration of the communion occurs at precisely
the stage in the liturgy at which the elevation of the host had previously occurred—i.e. the
moment of transubstantiation—thus serving to underline vividly the difference between the two
divergent liturgical accounts of presence.
Erasmian Humanism and Eucharistic Hermeneutics 111