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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2011
In the received narratives of Anglican-Roman Catholic tensions in the nineteenth century, claims to a sacrificial priesthood are presented as an Oxford Movement development, and Apostolicae curae is treated as the ultimate Roman Catholic response. This article tells a very different story. Locating the origins of the preoccupation with sacrificial priesthood in the early nineteenth-century American Episcopal Church, and the central Roman Catholic response in the polemics of the archbishop of Saint Louis in 1841, the narrative is recast as an example of how theology done at the ‘margins’ affects the discourse at the ‘centres’ of ecclesial communities.
1 Apostolicae curae, para 25.
2 Ibid. para 29.
3 For just a sample of scholarship on the encyclical and subsequent debates see John Jay Hughes, Absolutely null and utterly void: the papal condemnation of Anglican orders, 1896, London 1968, and Stewards of the Lord: a reappraisal of Anglican orders, London 1970; Giuseppe Rambaldi, Ordinazioni Anglicane e sacramento dell'ordine nella chiesa, Rome 1995; R. William Franklin (ed.), Anglican orders: essays on the centenary of Apostolicae curae, 1896–1996, Harrisburg, Pa 1996; and André F. von Gunten, La Validité des ordinations anglicanes: les documents de la commission préparatoire à la letter ‘Apostolicae curæ’, Florence 1997.
4 James Hennesey, The First Council of the Vatican: the American experience, New York 1963, 244–50, 314–29.
5 Joseph Rosati to member of the Central Council of Propaganda Fidei, 14 Apr. 1842, Propagation of the Faith Collection, F128-6371-6390, University of Notre Dame Archives, Notre Dame, In.
6 Francis Clark, Eucharistic sacrifice and the Reformation, 2nd edn, Oxford 1967, 23–37.
7 Hughes, Absolutely null and utterly void, 28–45.
8 Stuart, Elizabeth, ‘The condemnation of Anglican orders in the light of Roman Catholic reaction to the Oxford Movement’, Heythrop Journal xxix (1988), 86–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 91–2.
9 Bruce E. Steiner, Samuel Seabury, 1729–1796: a study in High Church tradition, Oberlin, Oh 1971, 177–216.
10 Gordon Donaldson argued persuasively that Laud did not compose the liturgy of 1637 alone, but rather with broad participation of Scottish bishops and scholars, particularly Wedderburn, and the input of Charles throughout: The making of the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, Edinburgh 1954. Nevertheless, Laud's heavy-handed attempts to impose the Prayer Book on Scotland, and subsequent defence of it, warrant the nickname ‘Laudian’.
11 Edward P. Echlin sj, The Anglican eucharist in ecumenical perspective: doctrine and rite from Cranmer to Seabury, New York 1968, 165–203.
12 James David Smith, The eucharistic doctrine of the later nonjurors: a revisionist view of the eighteenth-century usages controversy, Cambridge 2000, 1.
13 Ibid. 6–35. Thomas Wagstaffe argued for the mixing of water and wine, appealing to Cyprian of Carthage in The necessity of an alteration: or, I. The mixture of the sacramental cup, London 1718, 46–50. The Usagers argued that the Holy Spirit conveyed all blessings, and so a true eucharist required the invocation of the Spirit over the gifts: Thomas Brett, A collection of the principle liturgies, London 1720, cited in Smith, Nonjurors, 19–23. For a eucharist to be a proper sacrifice, the elements had to be offered to God: Smith, Nonjurors, 27–30. The Usagers argued that the 1552 Prayer Book had removed prayers for the dead to avoid any hint of a ‘Romish’ doctrine of the sacrifice of the eucharist: Smith, Nonjurors, 30–5.
14 Echlin, Anglican eucharist, 193–20.
15 ‘CONCORDATE, or BOND OF UNION, between the Catholic remainder of the antient Church of Scotland, and the now rising Church in the State of Connecticut.’ The Concordate is reprinted in Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum (eds), Documents of witness: a history of the Episcopal Church, 1782–1985, New York 1994, 15–17.
16 Seabury agreed to use persuasion and argument to convince the American Church to accept, as far as possible, the communion office of the Scottish Church: ibid. 16.
17 Samuel Seabury, Communion office, or order for the administration of the holy eucharist or supper of the Lord: with private devotions recommended to the Episcopal congregations in Connecticut, New London 1786. The text is conveniently available in Samuel Hart, Bishop Seabury's communion office: reprinted in fac- simile, with an historical sketch and notes, 2nd rev. edn, New York 1883.
18 Echlin, Anglican eucharist, 234–5. Where the Scottish service for the invocation asked God to bless the gifts ‘that they may become the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son’, the American Book retained a more receptionist understanding in this one place only: ‘that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his Death and Passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood’.
19 Seabury took this understanding of the eucharistic offering from John Johnson of Cranbrook, a theologian sympathetic to the non-jurors.
20 Samuel Seabury, ‘Of the holy eucharist’, in his Discourses on several subjects, i, Hudson, NY 1815, 151.
21 Ibid. i. 153–4.
22 Ibid. i. 156.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid. (emphasis original).
25 Ibid. i. 156–7.
26 ‘Concordate’, Documents, 16.
27 Robert Bruce Mullin, Episcopal vision/American reality: High Church theology and social thought in evangelical America, New Haven–London 1986, 22.
28 John Henry Hobart, A companion for the altar; or week's preparation for the holy communion: consisting of a short explanation of the lord's supper and meditations and prayers to be used before and during the receiving of the holy communion; according to the form prescribed by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, New York 1804, p. iii.
29 Ibid. 9–10 (italics original).
30 Ibid. 193–4.
31 Idem, Companion for the festivals and fasts of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, principally selected and altered from Nelson's Companion for the festivals and fasts of the Church of England with forms of devotion, 2nd edn, New York 1817.
32 Ibid. 5.
33 Ibid. 27–35. Of particular interest is that Hobart specifically addressed 1 Tim iv.14, ‘Neglect not the gift that is with thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the Presbyter’, which Presbyterians adduced for Presbyterian ordination. Against this he set 2 Tim i.6, ‘Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee, by the putting on of my hands.’ Hobart suggested (p. 27) that Paul ordained Timothy by the laying on of his hands with the consent of the presbytery. Here, he argued, American practice more closely approximated primitive practice than did the English, which required only the imposition of the bishop's hands.
34 Ibid. 34.
35 Idem, A collection of essays on the subject of episcopacy, which originally appeared in the Albany Centinel and which are ascribed principally to the Rev. Dr. Linn, the Rev. Mr. Beasley and Thomas Y. How, Esq., New York 1806, pp. iii–iv.
36 In the case of 1 Tim iv.14, concerning the laying on of hands of the presbytery, Layman noted that the Greek used the preposition meta, which he translated as ‘with the laying on of hands of the presbytery’. Turning to 2 Tim ii.16, Layman noted the use of the Greek preposition dia, that Timothy received the gift of God through the laying on of Paul's hands: ibid. 10.
37 Ibid. 17–20.
38 Idem, An apology for apostolic order and its advocates in a series of letters addressed to the Rev. John M. Mason, D. D. (1807), 2nd edn, New York 1844.
39 Ibid. 160.
40 Charles Daubeny, A guide to the Church: in several discourses, to which are added two postscripts, 2nd edn, London 1804, 70.
41 Ibid. 178.
42 John McVickar, The professional years of John Henry Hobart, D. D., being a sequel to his early years, New York 1836, 145–7.
43 Ibid. 366–7.
44 Ibid. 433–5.
45 Ibid. 473–6. In 1822 Norris wrote again to Hobart offering to begin a collection of books for the library of the General Theological Seminary, which Hobart had recently succeeded in establishing in New York: William Berrian, The posthumous works of the late Right Reverend John Henry Hobart, bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the state of New York: with a memoir of his life, New York 1833, i. 253.
46 Berrian, Posthumous works, i. 265–77.
47 Lambeth Palace Library, ms MXX 2185, fos 44, 45, cited in de Waal, Esther, ‘John Henry Hobart and the early Oxford Movement’, Anglican Theological Review lxv (1983), 327Google Scholar.
48 de Waal, ‘Hobart’, 327.
49 Berrian, Posthumous works, 278–84.
50 Ibid. 289–91. John Henry Newman met Hobart during his stay at Oriel. On 8 March 1824 he wrote to his sister Jemima that ‘Bishop Hobart of New York is in Oxford – I dined with him at the Provost's yesterday – he is an intelligent man and gave us a good deal of information on the affairs of the American Episcopal Church – he is however I fear dirty – so at least were his hands and neckcloth’: The letters and diaries of John Henry Newman, I: Ealing, Trinity, Oriel; February 1801 to December 1826, ed. Ian Ker and Thomas Gornall sj, Oxford 1978, 173.
51 ‘American Episcopalian controversy’, British Critic xxxi (May 1824), 524–44Google Scholar at pp. 525–9. Bishop Philander Chase of Ohio had come to England at nearly the same time as Bishop Hobart with the purpose of raising money for a theological college. Hobart and Chase had exchanged letters before leaving for England. The British Critic had obtained copies of the letters, published as pamphlets. Hobart claimed that the General Theological Seminary in New York, which he had helped establish, had the support of the General Convention of the American Church, while Chase's enterprise did not. The reviewer thought it forward of Chase to expect the generosity of the English Church while it had no institutions of its own for theological education in places like Quebec and the West Indies. The reviewer also criticised Chase's churchmanship, stating that he wanted to exchange Episcopal clergymen for Methodist preachers.
52 Ibid. 540–4.
53 Berrian, Posthumous works, 309.
54 John Henry Hobart, The United States of America compared with some European countries, particularly England: in a discourse delivered in Trinity Church, and in St. Paul's and St. John's chapels, in the city of New-York, October, 1825, 2nd edn, New York 1826.
55 Ibid. 18–27.
56 Ibid. note r, 27–9.
57 Ibid. 31.
58 Reprinted in Bishop Hobart: a review of Bishop Hobart's sermon entitled ‘The United States of America compared with some European countries, particularly in England’ contained in the London Quarterly Review for June 1826 with two answers to the same, New York 1826.
59 Ibid. 18.
60 Ibid. 1.
61 Ibid. 6.
62 Ibid. 14.
63 Ibid. 27–32.
64 Ibid. 27.
65 Ibid. 28.
66 Ibid. 30–1. Peter Nockles has argued that English reaction to Hobart's sermon prevented Oxford Movement authors from citing him: The Oxford Movement in context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760–1857, Cambridge 1994, 89.
67 Hugh James Rose, The commission and consequent duties of the clergy: in a series of discourses preached before the University of Cambridge in MDCCCXXVI, London 1828.
68 Ibid. 1–22.
69 Ibid. 112, 117.
70 Ibid. 140.
71 Ibid. quoting Hobart, Apology, 160.
72 Rose, Commission, 2nd edn, 226–51.
73 Ibid. 246–51. This section of the appendix essentially replicated the eighteenth-century defence of Anglican orders marshalled by the French Roman Catholic priest, Pierre Le Courayer: Dissertation sur la validité des ordinations des Anglois, et sur la succession des évêques de l'église anglicaine, Bruxelles: S. T. Serstevens, 1723, passim.
74 Peter B. Nockles, ‘Rose, Hugh James (1795–1838)’, ODNB; http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24094 (accessed 12 July 2008).
75 John William Burgon, Lives of twelve good men, 5th edn, London 1889, ii. 158, quoting William Palmer.
76 Nockles, ‘Rose, Hugh James’. Rose asked Newman to contribute a history of the councils of the Church but when Newman did not conform to his understanding of High Church doctrine, Newman published it independently as Arians of the fourth century.
77 Nockles, ‘Rose, Hugh James.
78 Burgon, Twelve good men, ii. 154.
79 [Edward Bouverie Pusey], Tract 81: catenae patrum no. iv: testimony of later English writers to the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice, with an historical account of the changes made in the liturgy as to the expression of that doctrine, London n.d., repr. in Members of the University of Oxford, Tracts for the times, iv, London 1838. Each tract is paginated individually.
80 Tract 81, 1–61.
81 Ibid. 38.
82 Ibid. 41.
83 Ibid. 409–10.
84 Edward Bouverie Pusey, ‘The holy eucharist a comfort to the penitent’, in Nine sermons, preached before the University of Oxford and printed chiefly between A.D. 1843–1855 and now collected into one volume, Oxford 1859. Each sermon is paginated individually.
85 Ibid. 24–7; cf. Samuel Seabury, An earnest persuasive to frequent communion, New Haven 1789, 11–13.
86 Pusey, , ‘Holy eucharist’, 21–2; cf. Samuel Seabury, ‘Of the holy eucharist’, Discourses, i. 151Google Scholar. This language followed Seabury's so closely as to make coincidence unlikely.
87 Pusey, ‘Comfort’, 28–9; cf. Seabury, Persuasive, 22–4.
88 [Arthur Philip Perceval], Tract 35: the people's interest in their minister's commission, London n.d., repr. in Tracts for the times, i, London 1833, 1; cf. Hobart, Companion for the festivals, 9–10.
89 Tract 35, 2–3.
90 Hobart, Companion for the festivals, 193.
91 Tract 35, 2; Hobart, Companion for the festivals, 194.
92 Arthur Philip Perceval, An apology for the doctrine of apostolical succession: with an appendix, on the English orders, New York 1839.
93 Even more tellingly, Perceval made the same distinction between the Greek prepositions meta in 1 Tim iv.14 (with the laying of the hands of the presbytery) and the instrumental dia in 2 Tim i.6 (by means of the laying on of my [Paul's] hands) made by Hobart in Companion for the festivals and Apology: Perceval, Apology, 34–5; cf. Hobart Companion for the festivals, 27, and Hobart, Apology, 155–6 n. ‡. Hobart stated that dia with the genitive denoted an instrumental cause, while meta with the genitive denoted ‘with, together with’.
94 Perceval, Apology, 125–55.
95 See Kenneth L. Parker, ‘Francis Kenrick and papal infallibility: how pastoral experience in the American missions transformed a Roman ultramontanist’, in Kenneth Parker, Peter Huff and Michael Pahls (eds), Pluralism and tradition: essays in honor of William Shea, Lanham, Md 2009.
96 Francis Kenrick, Diary and visitation record of the Right Reverend Francis Patrick Kenrick, Lancaster, Pa 1916, 187.
97 Anon., Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia, 24 July 1841, 70. In a letter to the editor the following week, a learned reader described dusting off a 250-year old book to find reference to what he considered a curious and specious argument: Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia, 31 July 1841, 74.
98 The list is too long to replicate, but the findings are striking. As a point of comparison, from the late sixteenth century to 1840 only forty works on this subject have been identified.
99 Francis P. Kenrick, Letter on Christian union, to the Right Rev. B. B. Smith, Philadelphia 1836, and The primacy of the apostolic see, and the authority of general councils vindicated, Philadelphia 1838.
100 Roman Catholics in the United States were aware that a High Church party led by Seabury and Hobart made claims to catholicity in doctrine and practice, and dated back at least to the 1780s. Yet Francis and Peter Kernick appreciated the symbiotic relationship between the American Episcopal Church and the Oxford Movement, and sought to exploit issues that might cast doubt on their claims to catholicity: Ryan, Edwin, ‘The Oxford Movement in the United States’, Catholic Historical Review xix (Apr. 1933), 33–49Google Scholar, esp. pp. 33–6, 49. See also Hugh Nolan, The Most Reverend Francis Patrick Kenrick, Philadelphia 1948, 372–80.
101 Evidence of the fraternal collaboration can be found in Francis Kenrick's brief Latin article, published in 1841, which cites sources that Peter Kenrick mined for the outline of his argument ‘De ordinationibus anglicanis’, in Migne, Theologiae cursus completus, Paris 1841, xxv.59–64. Milner's End of controversy and Francis Mason's Of the consecration of the bishops in the Church of England (1613) stand out as key works employed by both Francis and Peter Kenrick.
102 Peter Kenrick, The validity of Anglican orders examined, Philadelphia 1841, pp. vii–xi. While The Churchman's Library, a series founded by Hobart, did not republish La Courayer's book, an Oxford publisher did: Pierre La Courayer, A dissertation on the validity of the ordinations of the English, and of the succession of the bishops of the Anglican Church, Oxford 1844.
103 Kenrick, Validity, 13, 159.
104 Ibid. 159. The work to which Kenrick referred was written by Peter Talbot, who also used the name John Lewgar: John Lewgar, Erastus senior, [London] 1662.
105 M. A. Tierney (ed.), Dodd's church history of England, London 1839, ii. 38. Hugh Davey Evans provides evidence that suggests that Cardinal Pole and Paul iv recognised priests of the Edwardine era as illicitly, but validly ordained: Essays to prove the validity of Anglican ordinations: in answer to the Most Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick, Baltimore 1844, 235–8.
106 Francis Mason, Of the consecration of the bishops in the Church of England with their succession, iurisdiction, and other things incident to their calling: as also of the ordination of priests and deacons: fiue bookes: wherein they are cleared from the slanders and odious imputations of Bellarmine, Sanders, Bristow, Harding, Allen, Stapleton, Parsons, Kellison, Eudemon, Becanus, and other romanists: and iustified to containe nothing contrary to the Scriptures, councels, Fathers, or approued examples of primitiue antiquitie: by Francis Mason, batchelour of diuinitie, and sometimes Fellow of Merton Colledge in Oxeford, Oxford 1613 (RSTC 17597), esp. p. 208. This work went through several reprintings into the eighteenth century. It should be noted that in a non-polemical context even Nicholas Ridley affirmed the sacrificial character of eucharistic celebrations: Works, Oxford 1841, 317. While arguments based on apostolic succession can be found in Richard Bristow's work as early as 1574, the Edwardine forms were not part of the polemic: A briefe treatise of diuerse plaine and sure wayes to finde out the truthe in this doubtful and dangerous time of heresie conteyning sundry worthy motiues vnto the Catholike faith, Antwerp 1574 (RSTC 3799), 90b–95b.
107 Hugh James Rose takes care to rebut this argument in the second edition of his Commission and consequent duties of the clergy, London 1831, but he was responding to the polemical exchanges of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not to recent Roman Catholic attacks (see esp. pp. 245–51).
108 John Milner, The end of religious controversy, Dublin 1827, 155–6.
109 The only other references to this issue are seven brief summaries of the argument, and most of these cite Le Courayer as their source. Three are nineteenth-century editions of eighteenth-century histories: Daniel Neal, The history of the Puritans, Portsmouth, NH 1816, i.106; George Weller, A reply to the review of Dr. Wyatt's sermon and Mr. Sparks's letters, Boston 1821, 32; Edward Hatton, Memoirs of the Reformation of England, London 1826, 243–5; Henry Soames, The history of the Reformation of the Church of England, London 1827, iii. 526–7; John Talbot Shrewsbury, Reasons for not taking the test for not conforming to the established Church, London 1828, 301; Dodd's church history, ii, pp. ccxcv–ccxcvi; Jeremy Collier, An ecclesiastical history of Great Britain, London 1840, v. 301.
110 Although the pamphlets cited are not available to this writer, they are the only pamphlets Butler published in 1841, and appear to be the subject of William Broughton's 1843 rebuttal: Thomas Butler, Substance of a lecture delivered by the Rev. Thos. Butler, D. D., Liverpool 1841, passim, and Lecture delivered on Sunday 2, 1841, Liverpool 1841, passim. The global character of nineteenth-century Anglicanism is evidenced by the fact that it was William Grant Broughton, bishop of Sydney, who published a defence of the validity of Parker's consecration against arguments made by Butler. Though identified as ‘part 1’, Broughton did not publish the second part of his argument. Nothing in his responses addresses an argument based on the deficiency of form in the Edwardine Ordinal: A true account of the Anglican ordinations, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, part 1, Sydney 1843, passim.
111 Pusey, Tract 81, 38.
112 Kenrick, Validity, 157.
113 Ibid. 164; Tract 81, 17.
114 Kenrick, Validity, 165.
115 Ibid. 163–4.
116 Although White ordained Hobart, the two took very different positions on this subject. Early in his career Hobart depended on Samuel Seabury for his own view of eucharistic sacrifice. After the publication of Companion to the altar, William White wrote to Hobart to persuade him to moderate his position. Thereafter, Hobart referred to the eucharist as a ‘pledge’ of grace, rather than as the vehicle of grace. White's letters to Hobart on the subject have been published in A voice from the past: two letters from Bishop White to the Rev. John H. Hobart, Philadelphia 1879. See also Mullin, Episcopal vision, 74, and Kenrick, Validity, 166–7.
117 Kenrick, Validity, 170.
118 Ibid. 160–1 (italics original).
119 Ibid. 162.
120 John Fuller Russell, Anglican orders valid: a refutation of certain statements in the second and third chapters of ‘The validity of Anglican ordinations examined, by the Very Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick’, London 1846.
121 Evans, Essays, 15.
122 Ibid. 205.
123 Ibid. 232.
124 J. Spencer Northcote, The fourfold difficulty of Anglicanism, London 1846, 96. For the date of his conversion see John Beaumont (ed.), Converts from Britain and Ireland in the nineteenth-century, Port Huron, Mi 2007, 72.
125 E. C. Harington, The succession of bishops in the Church of England unbroken, London 1846, 40–118.
126 Le Courayer, On the validity of the ordination of the English.
127 John Bramhall, The works of the most reverend father in God, John Bramhall, D. D., Oxford 1844, iii. 3–234.
128 Peter Talbot [John Lewgar], Erastus senior, London 1844; Sydney 1848.
129 William White, Commentaries suited to the occasions of ordination, New York 1848, 207.
130 Francis Kenrick, The Kenrick–Frenaye correspondence: 1830–1862, Philadelphia 1920, 253.
131 von Gunten, La Validité des ordinations anglicanes.
132 For a recent Anglican contribution to and summary of this conversation see Kenneth Stevenson, Accept this offering: the eucharist as sacrifice today, Collegeville, Mn 1989. For a Catholic contribution see Michael McGuckian sj, The holy sacrifice of the mass: a search for an acceptable notion of sacrifice, Leominster 2005.
