Case Study 1.17
Bayly
Lewis Bayly
Died 1631
Bishop of Bangor
In 1612 Lewis Bayly published a work entitled The Practice of Piety. This work which devoted much space to the Holy Communion went through numerous editions, reaching its seventy-fourth edition in 1821 (Dugmore, 1942: 59) and was translated in several languages other than English (McAdoo and Stevenson, 1997: 60). In this popular work Bayly presents a nominalist conception of the Eucharist. He says:
“Christ in the action of the Sacrament, really giveth His very body and blood to every faithful receiver … in the same instant of time that the worthy receiver eats with his mouth the bread and wine of the Lord, he eateth also with the mouth of his faith the very body and blood of Christ. Not that Christ is brought down from heaven to the Sacrament, but that the Holy Spirit by the Sacrament lifts up his mind unto Christ.” (Bayly, The Practice of Piety, cited in Dugmore, 1942: 59).
Bayly’s view is described as “a more definitely Receptionist view” (Dugmore, 1942: 59). Christ is in the Sacrament but in its use only, not in the elements. There is a distinct distance applied between the sign and the signified. The reception of the body and blood of Christ is distinguished from the reception of the bread and wine. Christ is not ‘brought down from heaven to the Sacrament’, rather ‘the Holy Spirit by the Sacrament lifts up his [the communicant’s] mind unto Christ’. This is a nominalist separation of entities, where the bread and wine are on earth and the body and blood of Christ are in heaven. There is no instantiation of the nature of the body and blood of Christ in the elements in a realist sense, and the signified remains at a distance and separate from the sign.
Bayly argues that there is no change in the elements, saying:
“The Divine Words of Blessing do not change or annihilate the substance of the Bread and Wine; (for if their Substance did not remain, it could be not Sacrament) but it changeth them in use and in name: For that which was before but common Bread and Wine, to nourish Men’s Bodies; is after the Blessing destinated to an holy use, for the feeding of the Souls of Christians.” (Bayly, The Practice of Piety, cited in McAdoo and Stevenson, 1997: 60).
Any change related to the Eucharist is seen by Bayly to concern those who receive the Sacrament. McAdoo and Stevenson comment that “it is probably accurate to say that for Bayly the mystery of the eucharist is chiefly in the change it brings about in the lives of those who, through grace, seek ‘to lodge so blessed a Guest in so unclean a stable’”. (Bayly, The Practice of Piety, cited in McAdoo and Stevenson, 1997: 61). This view of change in the receiver seems to accord with some of the views of the early Reformers, such as Cranmer.
Lewis Bayly’s eucharistic theology seems to be firmly placed within a nominalist framework. Sign and signified are separate, self enclosed entities. His writings on the Eucharist do not seem to present any realist notions in regard to the Eucharist.
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