Case Study 1.26
Herbert
George Herbert
1593 – 1633
Anglican Divine
George Herbert’s views on the Eucharist are to be found in his treatise called A Priest to the Temple, or the Country Parson, his character, and rule of holy life, which was published after his death in 1633. In chapter xxii of this work Herbert speaks of the parson and the sacraments. He says:
“The Country Parson being to administer the Sacraments, is at a stand with himself, how or what behaviour to assume for so holy things. Especially at Communion times he is in a great confusion, as being not only to receive God, but to break, and administer him. Neither finds he any issue in this, but to throw himself down at the throne of grace, saying, Lord, thou knowest what thou didst, when thou appointest it to be done thus; therefore do thou fulfil what thou didst appoint; for thou art not only the feast, but the way to it.” (Herbert, Priest to the Temple, chapter xxii, The Parson in Sacraments, online).
Herbert describes the sacraments as holy things, wherein he receives God, breaks and administers God. The language here is very realist. Obviously Herbert is of the view that God (we are to assume Christ) is present in the sacrament in a real way. Whether this is an immoderate or a moderate assertion of the presence is not clear from the context. It is necessary therefore that other writings of Herbert be considered in order to make a more adequate judgment of what he means by the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
In various poems Herbert gives some other clues about his theology of the Eucharist. In a poem from The Temple, called The Priesthood he says:
“But th’ holy men of God such vessels are,
As serve him up, who all the world commands:
When God vouchsafeth to become our fare,
Their hands convey him, who conveys their hands,
O what pure things, most pure must those things be,
Who bring my God to me!”
(Herbert, The Priesthood, edn. Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994: 19).
The priest is for Herbert the person who by his sacramental action makes Christ present (‘serves him up’). It is in the Eucharist that God becomes ‘our fare’ and it is by the hands of the priest that this occurs. The means by which God is brought to the communicant is therefore to be considered ‘pure’.
The purity of the Eucharist is confirmed in another poem called The Banquet where Herbert says:
“Welcome sweet and sacred cheer,
Welcome deare;
With me, in me, live and dwell:
For thy neatnesse passeth sight,
Thy delight
Passeth tongue to taste or tell.
O what sweetnesse from the bowl
Fills my soul,
Such as is, and makes divine!
Is some starre (fled from the sphere)
Melted there,
Are we sugar melt in wine?
Or hath sweetnesse in the bread
Made a head
To subdue the smell of sinne;
Flowers, and gummes, and powders giving,
All their living,
Lest the enemy should winne?
Doubtlese, neither starre nor flower
Hath the power
Such a sweetnesse to impart:
Onely God, who gives perfumes,
Flesh assumes,
And with it perfumes my heart.
But as Pomanders and wood
Still are good,
Yet being bruis’d are better scented:
God, to show how farre his love
Could imporove,
Here, as broken, is presented.
When I had forgot my birth,
And on earth
In delights of earth was drown’d;
God took bloud, and needs would be
Spilt with me,
And so found me on the ground.
Having rais’d me to look up,
In a cup
Sweetly he doth meet my taste.
But I still being low and short,
Farre from court,
Wine becomes a wing at last.
For with it alone I flie
To the skie:
Where I wipe mine eyes, and see
What I seek, for what I sue;
Him I view,
Who hath done so much for me.
Let the wonder of his pitie
Be my dittie,
And take up my lines and life:
Hearken under pain of death,
Hands and breath;
Strive in this, and love the strife.
(Herbert, The Banquet, edn. Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994: 168-170).
Several matters deserve comment in this poem. For Herbert it seems that the Eucharist is a ‘sweet and sacred cheer’ and that it contains more than can be seen (For Thy neatnesse passeth sight). What is received in the Eucharist is food for the soul since there is a ‘sweetnesse’ which fills the soul. This sweetness comes ‘in the bread’ and it has the power of God’s grace to overcome sin. The Eucharist therefore is an effective means of conveying God’s grace to the communicant and which ‘perfumes the heart’. God, in Christ is seen to be present in the Eucharist since the power of God ‘as broken’ is ‘here presented’. The elements of the Eucharist are described as the means by which the communicant has communion with God in the heavenly sphere. ‘Wine becomes a wing at last’ and receiving communion a person is able to ‘flie to the skie’ and see Christ (‘Him I view’). The idea of the heavenly presence of Christ is therefore presented. The presence of Christ is real and the elements of the Eucharist are effective means of grace. This seems to suggest that immoderate realism is excluded in Herbert’s theology of the Eucharist. Christ seems to be present in heaven and the means by which a person has communion with him is through the receiving of the bread and wine.
In another poem called The Holy Communion, Herbert speaks again of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He says:
“Not in rich furniture, or fine aray,
Nor in a wedge of gold,
Thou, who for me wast sold,
To me dost now thy self convey;
For so thou should’st without me still have been,
Leaving within me sinne:
But by the way of nourishment and strength
Thou creep’st into my breast
Making thy way my rest,
And thy small quantities my length;
Which spread their forces into every part,
Meeting sinnes force and art.
Yet can these not get over to my soul,
Leaping the wall that parts
Our souls and fleshy hearts;
But as th’ outworks, they may controll
My rebel-flesh, and carrying thy name,
Affright both sinne and shame.
Onley thy grace, which with these elements comes,
Knoweth the ready way,
And hath the privie key,
Op’ning the souls most subtile rooms;
While those to spiritis refin’d, at doore attend
Dispatches from their friend.
Give me my captive soul, or take
My bodie also thither.
Another lift like this will make
Them both to be together.
Before that sinne turn’d flesh to stone,
And all our lump to leaven;
A fervent sigh might well have blown
Our innocent earth to heaven.
Thou hast restor’d us to this ease
By this thy heav’nly bloud;
Which I can go to, when I please,
And leave th’earth to their food.”
(Herbert, The Holy Communion, edn. Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994: 43-44).
Herbert’s poem expresses the view that Christ is present and conveyed (‘To me dost now thy self convey’), not in rich or golden things, but in the ordinary elements of bread and wine. The presence of Christ is able to be fully in the person who receives (‘Which spread their force in every part’) and to deal effectively with sin (‘Meeting sinnes force and art’). The elements convey what they signify (‘Onley thy grace, which with these elements comes’) and are the means of grace in the life of the person who receives them. The idea of the heavenly communion is again mentioned (‘My bodie also thither’) and it is in this communion that a person is joined to Christ (‘Them both to be together’). Clearly the Eucharist is distinguished from other earthly food in the final verse and so the implication of the poem is that the presence of Christ in the elements is not a fleshy or immoderate presence, yet a real presence, to ‘which I can go’. It must be assumed then that Herbert’s theology of the Eucharist is that of moderate realism.
In The Invitation, Herbert speaks of the communicant being invited to come and receive communion. He says:
“Come ye hither all, whose taste
Is your waste;
Save your cost, and mend your fare.
God is here prepar’d and drest,
And the feast,
God, in whom all dainties are.
Come ye hither all, whom wine
Doth define,
Naming you not to your good:
Weep that you have drunk amisse,
And drink this,
Which before you drink is bloud.
Come ye hither all, whom pain
Doth arraigne,
Bringing all your sinnes to sight:
Taste and fear not: God is here
In this cheer
And on sinne doth cast the fright.
Come ye hither all, whom joy
Doth destroy,
While ye graze without your bounds:
Here is joy that drowneth quite
Your delight,
As a floud the lower grounds.
Come ye hither all, whose love
Is your dove,
And exalts you to the skie:
Here is love, which having breath
Ev’n in death,
After death can never die.
Lord I have invited all,
And I shall
Still invite, still call to thee:
For it seems but just and right
In my sight,
Where is all, there should be.”
(Herbert, The Invitation, edn. Wordsworth Poetry Library, 1994: 167-168)
The presence of God in Christ in the Eucharist is spoken of in this poem (‘God is here prepar’d and drest’). The presence of Christ is seen to be real (‘And drink this, Which before ye drink is bloud’) and (‘God is here In this cheer’). The Eucharist is seen to be an effective means of grace (‘on sinne doth cast the fright’). The communion with Christ is a heavenly experience and not a fleshy or earthly one (‘exalts you to the skie’), but nonetheless there is a presence on earth in the Eucharist (‘Where all is, there all should be’). Once again the poem suggests that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of moderate realism.
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