According to David Grumett, systematic theology has often neglected the material aspect of the Eucharist, removing it from the lived faith of Christians. The Eucharist, he affirms, connects flesh-and-blood Christians with the flesh-and-blood Christ, drawing them into his life, death and resurrection. Offering a ‘constructive theology’, rather than systematic, this book connects doctrine and liturgy while aiming for ‘an embodied sacramental realism rooted in material life’ (p. 12). This is also an antidote to secular materialism, whether the Marxist determinist or consumer capitalist varieties: the Eucharist is a remedy for postmodern alienation from material existence and the resulting fragmentation of communities and even society itself (p. 190).
Identifying himself as ‘an Anglican with Roman Catholic leanings’, Grumett seeks a diachronic and ecumenical account of eucharistic materiality. Lay perspectives and practice are woven in thoroughly. Controversially, the author argues that the transformative power of the Eucharist is most clearly seen ‘precisely when the ecclesial boundaries within which the Eucharist is typically assumed to be restricted are transgressed’ and that ‘the Eucharist cannot be the Church's sole possession’ (pp. 6–8).
In the first chapter, the material elements themselves – grain, salt, oil, water, leaven, wine – and the processes of baking and fermentation are wonderfully explored, drawing on their rich symbolism and social contexts, embedded in liturgical practices, vernacular folk traditions, and world mythologies. Sometimes a point is not pressed home consistently. For instance, having unpacked the symbolism of fermented wine, which is essential to the nature of the sacramental sign, the author strangely accepts the consecration of non-alcoholic ‘wine’ (p. 255). Also, having criticised De Lubac for his ‘excessively narrow ecclesial lens’, Grumett prefers to connect the materiality of the Eucharist with ‘the life of the secular material world’ (p. 8); and yet this book self-confessedly amounts to a denial of any purely ‘secular’ materiality after all (p. 301). Among dozens of fascinating nuggets, one learns that Lanfranc's monks recited psalms and wore albs and amices while baking, except the one holding the iron moulds – lest, in the imagery of Ps 104:4, this minister become a flaming fire (p. 53, n. 180); and the East Syrians hold that their holy leaven (malka) can be traced back to the very loaf given by Christ to the Beloved Disciple at the Last Supper.
Chapter Two looks at actions, including silence, lay participation, liturgical action and postures. Among many valid points, however, the argument that allegorical interpretation is preferable to sacrificial, depends on an unhelpful and unnecessarily sharp dichotomy (p. 79). Chapter Three covers familiar ground for Grumett, with Leibniz, Blondel, and Teilhard de Chardin marshalled to show Christ as the bond of creation, and the whole world as God's altar.
The central fourth chapter, on flesh, substance and eucharistic change, is rich in references but unconvincing in its conclusions (Grumett rejects transubstantiation in favour of consubstantiation). Nowhere is a definition of ‘matter’ attempted, quite wisely, but neither is the degeneration of Aristotelian terminology acknowledged nor the modern spectre of physicalism exorcised. Crucially, ‘substance’ means something completely different for Aristotle/Aquinas than for scientists today and even the nominalists who misinformed Luther's reception of Aquinas. The accidents properly include all ‘physical’ components (in our modern sense), which remain after consecration: there is rather a substantial (not formal) change (non est formalis sed substantialis) which is entirely supernatural (omnino supernaturalis), wholly by God's power (sola Dei virtute effecta), and grasped by faith alone (sola fide) (ST III qq. 75–76). Admittedly, transubstantiation is but a description, not an exhaustive explanation; it safeguards the mystery without giving up on rationality. In the end, only the Thomistic-Tridentine doctrine achieves the right synthesis of realism and sacramentality, affirming a real, unique, sacramental, miraculous, substantial, personal presence, which is not local or natural (physical). Without this robust metaphysics, Grumett undervalues transubstantiation and unfortunately allows the charge of ‘cannibalism’ to linger unrefuted. Conversely, the serious metaphysical pitfalls of rival explanations – impanation, annhilation/replacement, consubstantiation and other theories of remanence – are not satisfactorily addressed.
More valuable is the fifth chapter on death and resurrection, in which Grumett surveys the intriguing nexus of burial practices, graveside Eucharists in the early Church, viaticum, relics and altars, and the role of the Spirit in resurrection faith. He convincingly argues that the Eucharist is not an autonomous mystical talisman against death but rather the means of incorporation into the resurrection life of Christ. Chapter Six turns to the social bonds formed and nourished by the Eucharist. Starting with stories of secret Christian communities in Soviet Kazakhstan, one reads about reservation and reception at home (often sustained by women); lay participation and reception (ideally frequent, as the Fathers and Trent clearly advocate); ancient eucharistic exchange between churches (the fermentum); and the sharing of eulogia (blessed bread). There are warnings about consumer and commodity culture, even exposing the mass production of altar breads themselves. The seventh and last chapter shows the centrality of the Holy Spirit, examining epicleses, reservation practices (e.g. hanging pyxes) and baptismal rites. Here Grumett draws especially on Calvinist theologies of ascension in the Spirit, as well as Anglican and Orthodox perspectives.
With such a kaleidoscopic array of references, some minor slips are inevitable. For example, the Donatists precisely did not renounce their faith under persecution (p. 44); a scruple spoon adds water, not wine (p. 64); Manichaeans postulate an evil origin of matter, so their theodicy is arguably easier (p. 127); Vatican II did not ‘direct’ but merely permitted liturgy in the vernacular (p. 296); and Bulgakov said that matter becomes ‘permeable for the divine power’, not ‘impermeable…’ (p. 294). But these are minor scruples. Holding together so many strands is a work of impressive intellectual curiosity and fairmindedness. Weaknesses in one section are often compensated by fuller treatment in another, always drawing widely on very recent scholarship. Grumett's instinct for the Incarnation remains the positive basis for eucharistic faith and practice well grounded in our material reality – a timely weapon against the irrepressible hydra of Manichaeism.
