A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Savior Christ

by Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury (1533-1556) in the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was deposed under Mary Tudor and burned at Oxford as a heretic. The charges brought against him were based chiefly on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper expounded in this book. The core of Cranmer's teaching was that the sacrament was essentially spiritual in nature. The body of Christ was not present in a physical or carnal way, as the Church of Rome taught by its doctrine of transubstantiation. Cranmer based his position on Scripture, in particular St. John's Gospel, where, he showed, Christ meant eating and drinking His body and blood to be understood as receiving by faith the benefits of His death for sins. To think of eating and drinking Christ's actual body and blood with the mouth is, he argued, a gross misunderstanding; the purpose of the sacrament is to satisfy spiritual hunger. The Roman doctrine, he maintained, was also contrary to the true Catholic teaching of the two natures of Christ - His humanity and His divinity. In the creeds we confess that Christ has ascended bodily into heaven, not to return to earth in that manner until the last day. The true Catholic faith, therefore, requires us to believe that He is not present with us in the nature of His humanity but that He is present in the nature of His deity. To teach, as the Church of Rome does, that He is present bodily in the sacrament is to deny this teaching of the creeds, to assert a heretical doctrine of the one nature of Christ and to deny His real humanity. For this reason Cranmer called his book 'A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament'. The errors of Rome also extended to the notion that the sacrament was a sacrifice offered by the priest to take away sins. Cranmer refuted this from the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers.

Genres: Theology, Christian, History

290 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Thomas Cranmer was born in 1489 in Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England. His parents, Thomas and Agnes (née Hatfield) Cranmer, were of modest wealth and were not members of the aristocracy. Their oldest son, John, inherited the family estate, whereas Thomas and his younger brother Edmund were placed on the path to a clerical career. Today historians know nothing definite about Cranmer’s early schooling. He probably attended a grammar school in his village. At the age of fourteen, two years after the death of his father, he was sent to the newly created Jesus College, Cambridge. It took him a surprisingly long eight years to reach his Bachelor of Arts degree following a curriculum of logic, classical literature and philosophy. During this time, he began to collect medieval scholastic books, which he preserved faithfully throughout his life. For his master's degree he took a different course of study, concentrating on the humanists, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Erasmus. This time he progressed with no special delay, finishing the course in three years.[7] Shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College

A leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I, Cranmer helped build a favorable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for publishing the first officially authorized vernacular service, the Exhortation and Litany. When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer wrote and compiled the first two editions of the "Book of Common Prayer."

Cranmer was tried for treason and heresy after Mary I, came to the throne. Imprisoned for over two years, he made several recantations but, on the day of his execution, he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Roman Catholics and a martyr to Protestants.

Reviews

[David Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a hardcover version published in 1928. In this book, Cranmer, as the title suggests, seeks to articulate and defend the "True and Catholic Doctrine" of the Eucharist against the "Sundry Errors" of the "Papists". This work is divided into 5 main books (or sections). In the first section he lays out an articulation of the true doctrine of the Eucharist, and in the 4 following sections he addresses the Roman doctrines of (1) transubstantiation, (2) the presence of Christ in the supper, (3) the nature of the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ, (4) and the nature of "sacrifice" in the eucharist. He uses something of a scholastic approach, stating the subject clearly, providing the opposing position, presenting his own position (and supporting it with biblical and patristic authorities), and refuting the opposing position by showing that they have both misinterpreted the Scriptures and the Fathers, and that their position goes against even the light of nature.
In the first book, we find a summary of the doctrine of the Eucharist. He looks at what is meant by the "eating" of the body of Christ, the effect of the sacrament when rightly consumed, and a summary of the Roman errors. He supports his claims by appealing first to Scriptures, then to reason, third to the early church fathers (up to the 5th century), and, finally, by showing that any of the fathers which the "Papists" use in their attempt to refute the Reformed view have been either misinterpreted or not fully quoted.
In the second, third, fourth, and fifth books, Cranmer first explains what is taught by the Roman church on each of the subjects mentioned above. He then argues that they are in error by showing that the Bible does not teach the doctrine in question and that the church fathers also deny the Roman approach. He then considers all of the authorities used by the Roman church, and shows them to be wrongly used.
It is impressive to note both his knowledge of Scriptures and of the Fathers. He clearly read widely, and is able to call not only upon Scriptures, but also upon the likes of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, John Chrysostome, Augustine, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Athanasius, Jerome, and many more. He quotes from many of their works. He also seeks to show, via the use of natural reason, that the Roman interpretation of Scriptures, and doctrine of the Eucharist, can not possibly be the right reading of the text, nor in accord with Reason. Cranmer's argument, in essence, is that the Scriptures, Reason, and the early Church Fathers all teach the very thing that he and many of the other Reformers are saying; therefore, it is the Reformers, and not the church of Rome, which hold to the true Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This is important for a number of reasons, not the least being that it shows that the early Reformers did not divorce themselves from church history, but were drawn to Reformation because of their deep knowledge of Church history and the early church fathers. True Reformed theology is also truly Catholic (but neither Roman nor Papist).
To say more about Cranmer's work would lead one into the actual arguments. I would encourage anyone interested in this debate to read Cranmer's work for themselves.

[Darren]

I can't really give this one a star rating. There were parts I liked but disagreed with, other parts I both agreed with and liked, and some that I couldn't really understand the difference between what Cranmer was fighting for and against.

Good book.

[Kyle Tomlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one who holds a Lutheran understanding of real presence in the Sacrament, I can’t say that I’m convinced by Cranmer’s argument here. That said, he does make some good arguments against transubstantiation and it is interesting to see how he comes to his own conclusions about the Lord’s Supper. The real value in reading this book is that it gives a good picture of the Reformational Anglican understanding of the Lord’s Supper, particularly as expressed in the historic Books of Common Prayer.

[Wesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The value of this book lies in its arguments against transubstantiation, not so much in his articulation of a “spiritual presence” in the Sacrament. In attempting to dispel any notion of Real Presence, he bites off more than he can chew (get it?). It’s understandable that this would be his impulse given his historical context so I think he should be absolved in that regard.

[Rev James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a very good argument against the idea of receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus in communion. No reference at all to the Greek. A lot to the Latin, which especially then is not the best understanding of the Bible. If this was based on the Latin Vulgate, would not be a very scholarly study.