Abstract
Major issues of Richard Hooker’s time and place included matters of church architecture and decor, the significance of religious ceremony, ritual and festival days, the interpretation of Scripture and the proper ordering of society. Hooker’s hermeneutic, his interpretation of Scripture and life, was based on his understanding of how God communicated God’s self through Christ Jesus. The particular hermeneutic that informed his writings can be located in Hooker’s understanding of the Eucharist where the problem of the nature of Christ’s presence and absence is most directly raised. It is also the theological locus, according to Richard Hooker, where the issues surrounding interpretation are especially raised.1 Also, Hooker had a sacrament-centred view of ministry and the Christian community.2 This paper will outline Richard Hooker’s sacramental hermeneutic as it functioned theologically in the context of his particular discussion partners.
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References
Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical! Politie, W. Speed Hill, General Editor, The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, V.57.2; 2:245.11. “Sacramentes, by reason of there mixt nature, are more diverslie interpreted and disputed of then anie other parte of religion besides, for that in so greate store of properties belongine to the seife same thinge, as everie mans witt hath taken hold of some especiall consideration above the rest, so they accordinglie seemed one to crosse another as touchinge their several! opinions about the necessitie of sacramentes, whereas in truth theire disagreement is not great.”
Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker ( London: Unwin Hyman, 1988 ), 177
Jean-Luc Marion, “They recognized him; and he became invisible to them,” Modern Theology 18.2 (2002) 145–152
a His constant discussion partner is the negative theology of Jacques Derrida.
Denys Turner, “The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ: Negative Theology and Eucharistic Presence” in Catholicism and Catholicity: Eucharistic Communities in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Sarah Beckwith ( Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999 ), 34
Denys Turner, “The Darkness of God,” 35
Denys Turner, “The Darkness of God,” 35
Turner, “The Darkness of God,” 37
Heiko Augustinus Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1963 ), 276
Heiko Oberman, Harvest of Medieval Theology, 276
Lawes V.67.6; 2:334.30–335.10. “The reali presence of Christes most blessed bodie and bloode is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthie receiver of the sacrament. And with this the vene order of our Saviors wordes agreeth, first Take
and eat; then This is my bodie which was broken for you: first Drinke yee all of this, then followeth This is my bloode of the new testament which is shed for many for the
remission of synnes. I see not which waie it should be gathered by the woordes of Christ when and where the bread is his boodie or the cup his blood but onlie in the vene harte and soule of him which receaveth them. As for the sacramentes they reallie exhibt, but for ought wee can gather out of that which is written of them they are not reallie nor do reallie conteine in themselves that grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to bestowe.“
Lawes V.57.5; 2:247.17–22
Lawes V.57.4; 2:246.20. He further defines the sacraments as “not physical but morali instrumentes of salvation.” See 2:246.28.
Lawes V.67.11; 2:338.13–340.1 (my emphasis)
Lawes V.67.12; 2:342.31ff. “Let it therefore be sufficient for me presentinge my seife at the Lordes table to know what there I receive from him, without searchinge or inquiringe of the maner how Christ performeth his promise…”
Lawes V.57.1; 2:244.28–31. Bryan Spinks notes that the sacraments are not visual aids for Hooker. Bryan D. Spinks, The Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology: Sacraments and Salvation in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker
Lanham, Maryland, and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1999 ), 142.
Lawes II.8.7; 1:191.14–25
Lawes II.8.5, 6; 1:190.3–19. “If hereupon we conclude, that because the scripture is perfect therefore all thinges lawful to be done are comprehended in the scripture… Admit this; and what shall the scripture be but a snare and a torment to weake consciences, filling them with infinite perplexities, scrupulosities, doubts insoluble, and extreme despaires?”
Arguing against a confidence in the conscience of the individual over against human authority, Hooker writes: “… it hath alreadie made thousandes so headstrong even in grosse and palpable errors, that a man whose capacitie will scarcew serve him to utter five wordes in sensible maner, blusheth not in any doubt concerning matter of scripture to thinke his own bare Yea, as good as the Nay of all the wise, grave, and learned judgements that are in the whole world.” Lawes II.7.6; 1: 183. 13–18
James F. McCue, “The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar through the Council of Trent” in The Eucharist as Sacrifice (U. S. A. National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, 1967 ), 89–124
McCue, “The Doctrine of Transubstantiation,” 105
Bryan D. Spinks, Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology: Sacraments and Salvation in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker (Lanham, Maryland and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1999 ), 153
Lawes V.67.12; 2:341.7–15
At Lawes V.67.12; 2:341.1–7, Hooker offers an interpretation in a paraphrase of Christ’s words of institution: “This hallowed foode, through concurrence of divine power, is in veritie and truth, unto faithfull receivers, instrumentallie a cause of that mysticall participation, whereby as I make my selfe whollie theires, so. I gibe them in hande an actuall possession of all such saving grace as my sacrified bodie can yeeld, and as theire soules do presently need, this is `to them and in them’ my bodies…”
Lawes V.67.12; 2:342.3
Lawes V.67.3; 2:332.20–333.9. “Curious and intricate speculations doe hinder, they abate, they quench such inflamed motions of delight and joy as divine grace use to raise when extraordinarily they are present.”
Lawes V.67.6; 2:335.25–30
Lawes V.50.3. This is Spinks’s primary thesis regarding Hooker’s doctrine of the Eucharist. See Bryan D. Spinks, Two Faces of Elizabethan Anglican Theology, 109–158.
Lawes V.50.3; 2:208.8–209.3
Lawes V.67.12; 2:343.22–26
Lawes V.56.7; 2:240.9–13
Lawes V.56.7; 2:238.18–23
Lawes V.56.7; 2:239.5–6, 27–31
On the question of Christ’s “ubiquity” Hooker remarks as follows: “But neither is the manhood of Christ that subject wheunto universall presence agreeth,neither is it the cause originall by force whereof his person is inabled to be everie where present. Wherefore Christ is essentiallie present with all thinges in that he is verie God, but not present with all thinges as man, because manhood and the partes thereof can neither be the cause nor the true subject of such presence.” Lawes V.55.4; 2:229.17–23
Lawes V.55.8; 2:233.9–11
Lawes V.55.7; 2:231.20–31
Lawes V.56.10; 2:241.18–21
Lawes V.56.11; 2:243.4–9
Lawes V.72.2; 2:385.24
Lawes V.63.1; 2:290.24–31. This passage continues: “Therefore the first thinge required of him which standeth for admission into Christes familie is beliefe. Which beliefe consisteth not so much in knowledg as in acknowledgment of all thinges that heavenlie wisdome revealeth; thaffection of faith is above hir reach, hir love to Godward above the comprehension which she hath of God. And because onlie for believers all thinges may be don, he which is goodnes it selfe loveth them above all.”
Lawes V.63.1; 2:291.2–8
Lawes V.67.1; 2:331.12–16
Lawes V.67.12; 2:343.14ff.
as Lawes V.67.12; 2:343.16–19. “… this cup hallowed with sollemne benediction availeth to the endles life and wellfare both of soule and bodie, in that it serveth as well for a medicine to heale our infirmities and purge our sinnes as for a sacrifice of thanksgiving…”
Lawes V.56.11; 2:243.13
as Lawes V.56.9; 2:241.10
Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker ( London: Unwin Hyman, 1988 ), 176–177
Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?, 168–169
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Rasmussen, B.G. (2003). Presence and Absence: Richard Hooker’s Sacramental Hermeneutic. In: Kirby, W.J.T. (eds) Richard Hooker and the English Reformation. Studies in Early Modern Religious Reforms, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0319-2_10
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