Infant Communion: The New Testament to the Reformation 9781463219802

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Infant Communion

Gorgias Liturgical Studies

54

This series is intended to provide a venue for studies about liturgies as well as books containing various liturgies. Making liturgical studies available to those who wish to learn more about their own worship and practice or about the traditions of other religious groups, this series includes works on service music, the daily offices, services for special occasions, and the sacraments.

Infant Communion

The New Testament to the Reformation

Mark Dalby

1 gorgias press 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2010

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ISBN 978-1-60724-405-9

ISSN 1937-3252

Published first in the U.K. by Grove Books, 2003.

Printed in the United States of America

Infant Communion The New Testament to the Reformation

by Mark Dalby Archdeacon Emeritus of Rochdale

Contents Abbreviations

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The Background: Baptism and Eucharist

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Rise and Practice The Early Centuries After Augustine

7 15

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Decline and Fall The Ending Easterns and Bohemians

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The Reformation The Continental Reformers The English Reformers The Roman Response Summary

29 32 35 38

Copyright Mark Dalby 2003

Introduction The communion of infants is different from the admission of children at, say, seven or eight. Both practices traditionally require baptism, and either may require confirmation/chrysmation as well. But infant communion never requires a measure of 'understanding', whereas child communion does. As yet there is no comprehensive history of infant communion. Several learned attempts were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but there were major gaps in their treatment and much that today needs amending. Thanks to the work of J D C Fisher and D R Holeton, many of these gaps have now been filled. I have drawn significantly on their work, as well as on an article of my own in CQR in 1966, but I have also sought to fill in more of the gaps. For reasons of space, I have concluded my study with the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, but hopefully one day I can extend it to our own times.

is by Dona McCullagh.

THE COVER PICTURE

ABBREVIATIONS Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout 1953ff. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnhout 1966ff. Corpus Reformatorum, Brunswick 1834-1900, Leipzig 1904ff. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna 1866ff Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum, H Denzinger, 32nd edn rev A Schonmetzer, Barcelona 1963. GCS Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der erstan drei Jahnhunderte, Leipzig 1897-1941, Berlin and Leipzig 1953, Berlin 1954ff. HBS Henry Bradshaw Society, 1891ff LW Luther's Works, ed J Pelikan and H T Lehmann, 56 vols, Philadelphia and St Louis, 1955ff. Mansi J D Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio. 53 vols, Paris and Leipzig 1903-27. MGH Monumenta Germaniae Histórica Legum Sectio II, 2 vols, Hanover 1883-97 Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, 7 vols, Berlin 1885-1920 PG Patrologia Graeca, ed J P Migne, 162 vols, Paris 1857-66. PL Patrologia Latina, ed J P Migne, 221 vols, Paris 1844-64. WA D Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Weimer, 1883ff. Biblical quotations are usually from the Revised Version Except where stated, the place of publication of books, journals, etc is London CC CCCM CR CSEL Denzinger

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Baptism And Eucharist: The Background The first clear witness to the baptismal eucharist is Justin Martyr c.1551, but later witnesses are sufficiently numerous and diverse as to suggest that its origins may well be much earlier. Gregory Dix traced it to Jewish initiation rites where proselyte baptism was followed by the offering of sacrifice2. F L Cross3 and Massey H Shepherd 4 saw baptismal eucharists underlying 1 Peter and Revelation respectively. Others have seen hints in Acts 9.18 where Paul after his baptism 'took food and was strengthened', Acts 16.34 where the newly-baptized Philippian jailor and his family 'set meat' before Paul and Silas, 1 Corinthians 10.1-4 where Paul relates to Christians the experience of Israelites who 'were all baptized into Moses' and who 'all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink', Hebrews 6.4 where enlightenment is followed by tasting the heavenly gift, and 1 Peter 2.2f where the new-born have tasted the goodness of the Lord.5 The similarity in inner meaning of baptism and the eucharist is as striking as the sequence. Some have seen them linked in the Lord's words, 'Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized?'6, and in the Johannine statement that from the side of Jesus 'there came out blood and water' 7 . But the link is clearest in Paul. The supper was a proclamation of the Lord's death8. But 'all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death', 'we were buried with him through baptism into death', and 'we have become united with him by the likeness of his death' 9 , so baptism too was a proclamation of the Lord's death10. Paul also brought them together in his concept of the church as the body of Christ11. Those baptized in the one Spirit into the one Christ were all baptized into one body in which they became members of him and of one another12. But that was not all, T h e bread

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12

Apologia i.65, ed A W Blunt (Cambridge, 1911) pp 97f. Confirmation, or Laying on of Hands?(1936) p 10; '"The Seal" in the Second Century'in Theology Vol LI (1948) p 7. 1 Peter—A Paschal Liturgy (1954). The Paschal Liturgy and the Apocalypse (1960) pp 77-97. Cf G Dix, The Theology of Confirmation in Relation to Baptism (Dacre Press, 1946) p 16; A H Couratin, 'Baptism: The Liturgical Pattern' in Church Quarterly §eviev) CLV1I (1956) p 400; A Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament (1958) pp 3 3 8 , 3 5 6 ; F L Cross, op.eil p 39. Mark 10.38, cf G W H Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit (1951) pp 38-40. John 19.34, cf C K Barrett, The Gospel according to St John (1958) pp 69, 462f. O Cullmarin, Early Christian Worship (ET 1953) p 118, sees six common features in John. 1 Corinthians 11.23-26. Romans 6.3-5. Cf W Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism (1948) p 137; Y B Tremel, 'Baptism—the Incorporation of the Christian into Christ', in A George et alii, Baptism in the New Testament (ET 1964) p 207. 1 Corinthians 12.12f, R o m a n s 12.5, cf Ephesians 1.22f, Colossiaris 1.24. 1 Corinthians 12.12-25, Romans 12.4-8; cf also Ephesians 4.4.

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which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? seeing that there is one bread, we, who are many, are one body; for we all partake of the one bread'. 13 T F Torrance concluded of the N e w Testament that 'again and again the language it uses about Baptism is interchangeable with that it uses about the Eucharist. Indeed, Baptism and Eucharist are just as parallel, and just as one, as in Christ and Christ in us'. They are two aspects of the one event, incorporation into Christ, and 'we may say, therefore, that strictly speaking there is only one sacrament, and that baptism and eucharist belong to this indivisible whole.'" There were of course differences. Baptism took place once; the eucharist was regularly repealed. Baptism was initial incorporation into Christ and his body; the eucharist was continual sharing. Baptism began the union; the eucharist renewed and sustained it. In John 3 baptism was birth, while in John 6 the eucharist was nourishment. But the essence of the baptismal eucharist lay not in its bestowal of a new gift, but in its provision for the immediate enjoyment, expression and strengthening of that union with Christ and his body which baptism as such had now established. The similarity between the two was equally clear to the fathers. They could use the same imagery for both 15 and could easily 'ascribe to one sacrament the effects generally attributed to the other' 1 6 . Ignatius of Antioch 17 and Cyprian 1 8 associated each with the passion; Theodore of Mopsuestia declared that w e commemorate Christ's death in each. 19 Firmicius Maternus attributed rebirth and renewal to each. 20 John Chrysostom 2 1 and Theodore 22 associated the Spirit with each. The differences remained, as when Cyprian contrasted baptism 'which indeed is once received, and is not again repeated' with the Lord's cup which 'is always both thirsted for and drunk in the church.' 23 Cyprian also spoke of the church as a mother 24 , and Chrysostom developed this, 'Just as a woman nurtures her offspring with her own blood and milk, so also Christ continually nurtures with his own blood those whom he has begotten.' 25 Theodore wrote similarly: in 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25

1 C o r i n t h i a n s 10.16f (RV margin). ' E s c h a t o l o g y and the Eucharist' in Intercommunion, ed D Baillie and J M a r s h (1952) p p 304f. Tertullian, De Allium xli.4 ( C C 2 . 8 4 4 ) , O r i g e n , hi Ceneiim Horn x.5 ( G C S 2 9 . 9 9 0 , D i d y m u s , De TrinUate i i . l 3 f ( P C 39.692) used nuptial i m a g e r y o f b a p t i s m , w h i l e C y r i l of J e r u s a l e m , Caicchesis Mystagogiea iv.1, ed F L C r o s s (1951) p p 26f, a n d T h e o d o r e t , Explanatio in Canticuin ii.3 (PG 81.128) used it o f (he eucharist. G W H L a m p e , op.cit p 40. For b a p t i s m , cf Ad Ephesios xviii.2, in J B I.ightfoot, Flic Apostolic Tattlers (1891) p 110; for the e u c h a r i s t , cf Ad Philadelphenses iv, ibid, p 124, a n d Ad Smyrnaeos vi ibid p 129. De Baptismo xix, e d E E v a n s (1964) p p 40f; Ep l x i i i . l 7 ( C S E L 3.ii.714) Ad Baptizandos v, ed A M i n g a n a ( C a m b r i d g e , 1933) p 78. De Err ore Profanum Rcligioniini ii.5, xviii.7 (CSF.L 211,104). Baptismal Instructions, Stavronikita ii.25-27 (ed A Wenger, Paris 1957, p 147-49; ET P VV H a r k i n s , 1963, p 5 1 - 5 3 ) w h e r e , having told c a t e c h u m e n s that the Spirit w o u l d d e s c e n d o n t h e m at b a p t i s m , he then s p o k e of the table w h e r e they w o u l d b e c o m e the Spirit's d w e l l i n g - p l a c e . . Baptizandos iv, v, ed M i n g a n a p 68, 71, w h e r e he s p e a k s o f the Spirit's d e s c e n t at b a p t i s m a n d ot feeding o n his g r a c e at the eucharist. Ep lxiii.8 (CSHL 3.ii.707). Dc Cathohcae Ecclesiae Unitale v ( C C 3.253). Baptismal Instructions, Stavronikita iii.19, ed W e n g e r p 162, ET I larkins p 62.

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baptism we were born, in the eucharist we were nourished from the same source.26 Methodius of Olympus saw nourishment as leading to growth. The eucharist was the way in which Christ provided that 'all those who are built on him, who have been born by the laver, may grow by receiving of his flesh and bones, that is to say, of his holiness and glory.'27 Baptism of course was still the source of union with Christ and his body28, but the eucharist expressed and deepened this union29, and Hilary of Poitiers explained, from Paul's reference to baptism in Galatians 3.27, that the unity of the faithful arose not from 'an agreement of will' but from 'the unity of the sacrament', and that the continuing reality of this natural union was maintained and intensified by the eucharist.30 John 6 could be interpreted 'spiritually' as well as 'sacramentally731, but though the sacramental reference was normally to the eucharist, this was not invariable. Cyprian first cited John 6.53 in a eucharistic context32, but then alongside John 3.5 as a proof that 'unless a man has been baptized and born again, he cannot attain to the kingdom of God ,'33 He probably saw baptism as a form of eating the flesh and drinking the blood, but from baptism his thoughts moved naturally to the eucharist; thus his next heading read, 'that it is of small account to be baptized and to receive the eucharist, unless one profits by it both in deeds and words.' John 6.53 was also associated with both baptism and the eucharist by Firmicius Maternus 34 and Hilary of Poitiers.35 The fathers thus recognized both the similarities between baptism and the eucharist and the differences. But they never suggested that there were requirements for communion—whether of age, faith or knowledge—which did not apply equally to baptism.

26 27 28 29

30 31

32 33 34 35

Ad Baptizandos v, ed Mingana p 71-79. Symposium iii.8 (GCS 27.36). Cf Irenaeus, Adversus Haercses iii.18.1, ed W W Harvey (Cambridge, 1857) ii.92f; Athanasius, Contra Ar ¡¡T/los iii.33 (PG 26.393); Chrysostom, In Ep ad Calatas Comm iìi (PG 61.656). C f Didache ix.f, ed Lightfoot p 220; Ignatius, Ad Philadelphenses iv, ed Lightfoot p 124; Cyprian, Ep lxiii. 13, lxix.6 (CSEL 3.Ü.711, 754); Chrysostom, In Matthaeum Horn lxxxiii (PG 5 8 . 7 4 3 0 , In Joannem Horn xlvi (PG 59.260), In Ep 1 ad Corinlhios Horn xxiv.2 (PG 61.200), In Ep 1 ad Timatheum Horn xv (PC, 62.586); Cyril of Alexandria, Adversus Neslorium iv (PG 76.193), In Joannem Comm x.2, x i . l l f (PG 74.341-44,'560-64). De Trinitate viii.8-16 (PL 10,2431-49), cf also Tractatus super Psalmos xci.9 (CSEL 22.3520. For 'spiritual' usage, cf Ignatius, Ad Trallianos viii, ed Lightfoot p 118; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.6.38-43 (GCS 12.112-116), ii.2.19f (GCS 1 2 . 1 6 7 0 , Slromata v. 10 (GCS 52.370); Tertullian, De Resurrectione Marinoni in xxxvii.3 (CC 2.970); Origen, In Nwneros How xvi.9 (GCS 30.152), cf also xxiii.6 (GCS 30.218); In Leviticum Ham vii.5 (GCS 2 9 . 3 8 6 0 , xiii.6 (GCS 29.477); In Matthaeum Comm series 85 (GCS 38.1960; In Joannem Comm xxxii.24 (GCS 10.468); Eusebius of Caesarea, De Ecclesiastica neologia iii.l2.5 (GCS 14a.l68). Testimonia ad Quirimtm i.22 (CC 3.25). Ibid iii.25 (CC 3.121). De Errore Profanimi Religionum xviii.7 (CSEL 2.104) where he ascribes to the eucharist the rebirth and renewal which in ii.5 (CSEL 2.77) he ascribes to baptism. De Trinitate x.18 (PL 10.357), but cf Tractatus super Psalmos xci.9 (CSEL 22.353) where believers 'enter into fellowship with Christ's flesh' at baptism.

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Rise And Practice The Early Centuries Direct evidence for infant communion in the first four centuries is slighter than that for infant baptism: as against fourteen witnesses for infant baptism, Jeremias adduces only three for infant communion.36 It is also later, and Tertullian's De Baptismo (20006), the first unambiguous witness for infant baptism, precedes Cyprian's De Lapsis (251), the first unambiguous witness for infant communion, by fifty years. On the other hand there is no evidence that the baptism-eucharist sequence did not apply equally to infants, and there is no mention of an infant not receiving communion at his baptism, or of a child making a 'first communion' some years later, or of any controversy attending the introduction of infant communion. If infant baptism goes back to New Testament times, so too may infant communion. ] } von Allmen states that 'we have an explicit attestation that the bread of life is meant for children also, since at the first miracle of the feeding of the multitude there were "about five thousand men, besides women and children"/ 37 G R Beasley-Murray suggests that converted households formed the nuclei of small churches where the Lord's Supper would have been regularly celebrated. He admits that where such households included infants and little children, 'it is more than likely that they were brought into the services', but, believing that they were not baptized at this stage, thinks it 'most unlikely' that they partook of the elements.38 But C H B Byworth, believing that they were baptized, argues that in the Old Testament children were seen as part of a family unit and had the same status as believers as their parents. New Testament writers treated them in the same way and, if their parents were Christians, as Christians themselves so that 'Where the Lord's Supper was part of a family meal to start with and held in the home, it is hard to see both why and how the children could have been excluded, at least among Jewish Christians.'39 M de la Taille pointed out that 'among the ancient pagans the custom of allowing infants to participate in idol-sacrifices was firmly established.'40 For the earliest period, however, the Jewish background is more important. There are obvious links between the eucharist and the passover meal, but there is disagreement as to the age when children first participated in this. It is generally accepted that participants had to be capable of eating an olive's bulk of the flesh41, but they could have still have been very young and Jeremias cited a Tosefta 36 37 38 39

40 41

For witnesses to infant communion, cf infra; for witnesses to infant baptism cf J. Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (ET 1960) pp 11-17. Worship: Its Theology and Practice (ET 1965) p 186, citing Matt 14.21. Baptism Today and Tomorrow (1966) p 122f. Communion, Confirmation and Commitment (Bramcote, 1972) p 17. Cf also P E Dale, 'Church and Sacraments in the New Testament' in Colin Buchanan (ed), Evangelical Essays on Church and Sacraments (1972) p 17, and W A Strange, Children in the Early Church (Carlisle, 1996) cf esp pp 103f. Mysterium Fidei (Paris, 1924) p 587 n.3. Mishnah, Pesahim viii.3.7, ed H Danby (Oxford, 1933) pp 147f.

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regulation that a piece of passover mazza should be put in the mouths of tiny children present at table to stop them going to sleep.42 P K Jewett stressed that the passover was originally a household celebration (Exodus 12.30, and the only requirement was 'sufficient maturity to eat solid food'; this excluded sucklings, but not other very young children. Moreover, there was no evidence that the questioning of the child was the occasion for his admission: T h e law of institution admitted him as soon as he could eat, whether he asked any question or not.'43 Against this, R T Beckwith emphasized that in the time of Jesus the passover was celebrated in Jerusalem and not domestically.44 In the second century BC participation had been enjoined only on males aged twenty and over.45 By the first century AD women and children also went to Jerusalem46, and women partook of the meal47, but the earliest evidence for minors partaking is in the Mishnah which probably relates to the period after AD 70 and even here there is no evidence of infants taking part, while 'as regards wine, the Bible seems to contain no instance of infants or children being permitted to drink it.' But Byworth replied that the Lord celebrated the Supper in a domestic setting, not in the Temple; that the Mishnah, which may have excluded actual infants but not very young children, is difficult to date; and that the youngest son, who had to ask the meaning of the service, must often have been very young, for 'if the son has not enough understanding, his father instructs him [how to ask].'48 A strong case for the participation of very young children, even older infants, was put forward in 1975 by Christian L Keidel.49 Literally translated, Exodus 12.4 ordered that each person in a household should partake 'according to the mouth of his eating', the phrase used later of eating the manna in the wilderness50, and this 'physical capability of eating was the only requisite for inclusion of Israelite babes and children in the Passover Feast.' As for wine, in Lamentations 2.11f infants and babes cry to their mothers, 'Where is bread and wine?' Exodus 12.47 enjoined the observance of the passover on 'all the congregation' of Israel, and Joel 2.16 includes 'the children, even nursing infants'. Keidel agreed with Jewett that 'A child's inquiry concerning the meaning of the Passover meal was never meant to be taken as a requirement for participation, but as an opportunity for instruction.' Admittedly, when the passover was celebrated in Jerusalem, only adult males were required to attend51, but women, children and infants still had the right to attend and it was wrong to infer from Luke 2.41-51 that Jesus at the age of twelve was attending for the first time. But Beckwith was not 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Tosefta Pesahim x . 9 , cited b y J J e r e m i a s , The Origins of Infant Baptism Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace ( G r a n d R a p i d s , M i c h i g a n , m i n i m a l r e v i s i o n o f his Infant Baptism and Confirmation published ' T h e A g e o f A d m i s s i o n to C o m m u n i o n ' in The Churchman LXXXV J u b i l e e s x l i x . 1 7 , e d R H C h a r l e s , The Apocrypha and l'sciidepigrapha ii.81.

( E T 1 9 6 3 ) p 39. 1 9 7 8 ) ; cf e s p p p 9 3 - 2 0 7 . T h i s w a s a in d u p l i c a t e d f o r m i n 1 9 6 0 . (1971) p p 21-23. of the Old Testament ( O x f o r d , 1 9 1 3 )

C f J o s e p h u s , Antiquities xi.4.8, ed Loeb (1926-65) 6.367; L u k e 2.41-43. C f J o s e p h u s , Jewish War v i . 9 . 3 , e d L o e b 3 . 4 9 8 ; M i s h n a h , Pentium v i i i . l , ed D a n b y p 146, Communion, Confirmation and Commitment ( B r a m c o t e , 1 9 7 2 ) p p 12f, citing Pesahim x.4, ed D a n b y p 1 5 0 . 'Is t h e L o r d ' s S u p p e r for C h i l d r e n ? ' in Westminster Theological Journal, P h i l a d e l p h i a , X X X V I I ( 1 9 7 5 ) p p 301-41, e s p p p 307-22. E x o d u s 1 6 . 1 6 , 1 8 a n d 21. D e u t e r o n o m y 16.16.

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convinced.52 He claimed that 'wine' in Lamentations could refer simply to bunches of grapes. He accepted that Exodus 12.14 seemed to suggest that children, though not infants, partook at the first passover, but he emphasised the subsequent restriction of the requirement to adult males and that the participation of women and children 'is not actually recorded between the institution of the passover and the first century AD' He argued that ^between the end of the second century BC and the latter half of the first century AD there was a marked change of practice'. By this time women and children, though not infants, often did partake (and Josephus regarded this as a natural and, he assumed, earlier practice) but they were not required to do so until the beginning of the second century and 'It may well be that Jesus was not accustomed to the presence of children at the passover meal, and he certainly seems to have given no hint that he intended them to be present either there or at the Christian passover meal which he instituted as a replacement. On the contrary, by making the merely traditional (and therefore dispensable) element of wine, which, quite properly, was not at that time given to children, into one of the instituted (and therefore indispenable) elements of his new ceremony, he gave a very intelligible token that he did not intend children to be present, or, if present, did not intend them to partake.' We cannot be certain here but, whatever the variations of practice in the span of Jewish history, if children's participation in the passover was (again?) becoming more common in the first century AD, this must surely have influenced Christian eucharistic practice. For reasons not specified Jeremias doubted whether infant communion was practised as early as the beginning of the second century53, but Jungmann believed it was implied by the reference to their baptism by Hippolytus at the beginning of the third century 54 , and he criticised J Baumgartler's attempts to argue otherwise. For this period a passage in Origen is sometimes cited against infant communion, most recently by Beckwith. Expounding Judges 5.2, 'For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, for that the people offered themselves willingly, bless ye the Lord', Origen wrote, 'Before we attain to the fruit of the heavenly bread, and are filled with the flesh of the immaculate lamb, before we are drunk with the blood of the true vine, which comes up from the stem of David, while we are children, and are nourished with milk, and speak of the first principles of Christ, like children we are under stewards and under the guidance of angels. But when now we have tasted the sacraments of the heavenly warfare and are filled with the bread of life, hear from the apostle's mouth how we are incited to battle.'5" 52 53 54 55

'The Age of Admission to the Lord's Supper' in Westminster Theological journal, XXXVIII (1976) pp 123-51, esp pp 130-51. The Origins of Infant Baptism, p 39. The Mass of the Roman Rile (ET, New York 1951-55) ii.385, n.81, and Handing on the Faith (ET 1959) p 291 n,12. Baumgartler's book, to which I have not had access, was Die Erstkoimnunion der Kinder (Munich, 1929); it was reviewed by Jungmann in Zeitschrift fur kalholische Iheologie LIV (1930) p 627f. In Judicum Horn vi.2 (GCS 30.500), for Beckwith, ciarts.cit.

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F E Warren sought to reconcile this passage with the later evidence of Cyprian by suggesting that 'infants received the Eucharistic elements, probably, once in close connection with their baptism, but did not become regular communicants till they were more advanced in years.'56 But there is nothing to suggest that Cyprian was referring specifically to baptismal communion, and, if Origen was referring literally to infants, either he had not yet heard of infant communion or he disapproved of it. In fact, however, Origen was arguing that we receive 'the first principles of the word of God' through the ministry of angels, as a schoolboy receives his elementary teaching from a junior master, and it was the angels who aided the Israelites as they prepared to cross the Red Sea. But the angels help us only with first principles. They are the leaders who take the lead, and, once people have offered themselves willingly and have been baptized and received the eucharist, they can dispense with the ministry of angels. The children concerned are not literal chi ldren but catechumens, and the contras t is not between infants who have not yet received the eucharist and adults who have, but between catechumens under the guidance of angels and believers armed by the Lord. Beckwith57 also cited the Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum as evidence against infant communion at this period: Honour the bishops, who have loosed you from your sins, who by the water regenerated you, who filled you with the Holy Spirit, who reared you with the word as with milk, who bred you up with teaching, who established you with admonition, and made you to partake of the holy eucharist of God, and made you partakers and joint-heirs of the promise of God.'58 The order here was 'surely significant', and 'The bishop's flock had first been baptized, then been reared with a long course of teaching, and finally, in maturity, been admitted to communion.' But the order is significant not temporally but rhetorically, and, as Ruth A Meyers replied, 'Beckwith is imposing his model of Christian initiation upon this text, whose context is not a description of the rites of initiation in the Syrian church, but rather a discussion of the role of the bishop.'59 A more relevant passage refers to the presence of little children old enough to stand but young enough to be distinguished from young people generally, and still under the charge of their parents. But it is impossible to be precise about the age of these children, and the text does not explicitly state (though it may imply) that they communicated. 60 The first indisputable witness to infant communion is Cyprian. In De Lapsis he spoke of infants 'carried or conducted in the arms of their parents' to idolatrous feasts during the Decian persecution, and of their saying on the day of judgement, 'We have done nothing; nor have we forsaken the Lord's bread and cup to hasten freely to a profane contact; the faithlessness of others has ruined us . . . so that, 56 57 58 59 60

Liturgy and Ritual of the Ante-Nicenc Church (2nd ed, 1912) p 116. art.cit', Westminster Theological ¡oitrnal XXXVIII p 126. ch. ix, ed R H Connolly (Oxford) p 94. 'Infant Communion: Reflections on the Case from Tradition' in Children at the Table, ed Ruth A Meyers (New York, 1995) p 149. ch.xii, ed Connolly, p 120

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while we were little, and unforeseeing, and unconscious of such a crime, we were associated by others to the partnership of wickedness.'61 The infants were carried in their parents' arms, they had not attained an age of understanding, and they had already communicated. Their defence against the charge of apostasy was not that they were not communicants, but that they had not been responsible for their actions. Later in the same book Cyprian spoke of a little girl, still under the care of a wet-nurse and too young to eat flesh, who was given bread mingled with wine before an idol. Her parents were unaware of this, and when the persecution ended (not more than eighteen months later) her mother brought her to the eucharist. When her turn came to receive the chalice she turned away her face and refused to drink, and when the persistent deacon forced the sacrament on her against her will, she sobbed and vomited, 'In a profaned body and mouth the eucharist could not remain... This much about an infant not yet of an age to speak.'62 Those who approve infant baptism but not infant communion are embarrassed here. In the eighteenth century, Wall thought that the child was probably aged four or five63 while Waterland asserted that 'it was a single instance, so far as appears, and of one particular church, the church of Carthage.' 61 More recently, and from a different viewpoint, Aland suggested that children were baptized only when, several years old, they had attained the necessary insight, and that then, despite their youth, they participated in the eucharist, 'a custom which is also attested by Cyprian'.63 But Cyprian spoke specifically of an infant 'not yet of an age to speak', and there is no suggestion that she 'had attained the necessary insight'. The fact that it was the chalice at which she revolted suggests that she was still sufficiently an infant as to be communicated only by a form of intinction. The next witness is from a Sicilian inscription sometime before 337: To Julia Florentina, a most sweet and innocent child, who had been made a believer, her parent raised this memorial. Having been born a pagan before daybreak on 5th March when Zoilus was Corrector of the Province, at the age of eighteen months and twenty-two days she was made a full believer at 2 am. She yielded her spirit at last, having survived for four hours with the result that she received the customary rites (consueta) once again."''1 The repetition proves that consueta could not refer to baptism, and Jeremias cites F C Dolger as having demonstrated that this was an esoteric term for the eucharist.67 61 62 63 64

65 66 67

De Lapsis ix (CC 3.225) (CC.234f). The History of Infant Baptism, ed H Cotton (Oxford, 18350 ii.9.15, pp 481-84. 'An Inquiry concerning the Antiquity of the Practice of Infant Communion as founded on the Notion of its Strict Necessity in Works, ed W Van Mildert (Oxford, 1843) vi.65. Baumgartler appears to have taken the same view of it as 'a particular African custom'; cf Jungmann's review referred to supra in n.54 Did the early church baptize infants? (ET, 1963) p 57. E Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin, 1925-31) i.296, inscription no 1549. Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries, p 90, citing F C Dolger, Der Heilige Fisch in den antiken Retigionen und im Chrislendtum (Munster, 1922) pp 515-35.

Ibid xxv

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Apostolic Constitutions VIII refers to children four times, and specifically mentions them as communicants.68 It refers to paidia (children) rather than nepioi (infants), but book VI regards the two as interchangeable69, and the command, 'Mothers, take up your children', suggests that some at least were little more than babes. Children are mentioned again as communicants in Testamentum Domini, and it is claimed that the Syriac word used here means either infants or those under five.70 The communion of children of seven is attested by Timothy of Alexandria. Asked what should be done if, in ignorance, a catechumen—a child of seven or an adult—was present at the eucharist and communicated, he answered, 'He should be baptized, for he has been called by God'.71 Waterland argued that seven must have been the minimum age, 'otherwise, why should he so particularly have mentioned that age?' 72 But this does not follow, for younger children were probably under the care of their parents and would have stood out if approaching on their own or acting independently. With Augustine references to infant communion at last become plentiful and, referring to Cyprian, he spoke of the little girl's communion with no hint that it was at all unusual.73 But his principal references were in his anti-Pelagian works where the question is not the fact of infant communion but the degree of necessity attached to it. Augustine normally spoke of baptism as the means by which we become members of Christ's body: 'We should not have life, except we had become members of his body through a spiritual union; therefore we must both be born and born again.'74 The eucharist expressed the meaning of baptism and also the mystery of the church, 'If you then are the body and members of Christ, your mystery is laid on the Table of the Lord, your mystery you receive.75 It preserved and deepened the baptismal union and also renewed the baptismal covenant.76 Augustine sometimes accepted the broader interpretation of John è77—but not always. Around 411 he wrote De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione to refute the Pelagian argument that infants, being sinless, already enjoyed eternal life and that baptism was necessary only for the kingdom of God.78 John 3.5 spoke of the necessity 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

78

VIII 6.9,11.10,12.2,13.14, also 11.57.12, ed F X Funk (Paderborn, 1905) pp 481, 494, 494, 517,165. VI.15, ed Funk p 339, 'Baptize also your nepia . . . for he says, "Suffer the paidia to come unto me'", cf Matthew 19.14. Ed J Cooper and A J MacLean (1902) pp 76,178. Responses Canonica i . l , ed I B Pitra (Rome, 1864-68) i.630. Op.cit vi.65f. Ep. xcviii.3 (CSEL 34.5230. £p clxxxvii.9.30 (CSEL 57.108). Sermo cclxxii (PL 38.12460, citing 1 Corinthians 12.17 and 10.17. Epcxlix.2.16 (CSEL 44.363). Cf De Sermone Domini in Monte (c.393-96) vii.25 (CC 35.114); De Doctrina Christiana (397) iii.16.24 (CC32.92); In ¡oannis Evangelium Traclaius (416-17) xxv.12 (CC 36.254); De Civitate Dei (413-26) xxi.25 (CC48.794-96) For his use of John 6.53 in other contexts, cf Enarrationes in Psalmos xxxiii 1.8, 2.12 (CC 38.279, 290) and Contra Faustwn Manichaeum xii.8 (CSEL 25.336). Augustine, Sermo ccxciv.l.lf (PL 38.1336). Pelagius himself, though not all his disciples, later abandoned this distinction, cf Augustine, Ep clxxxvi.8.27 (CSEL 57.66f) and Contra julianum iii.1.4 (PL 44,703).

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of rebirth for entrance to the kingdom, but John 6.53 spoke of the necessity of eating the flesh of the Son of Man and drinking his blood for [eternal] life: The Lord says—not indeed concerning the sacrament of baptism, but concerning the sacrament of his own holy table, to which none but a baptized person has a right to approach: "Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall have no life in you." Will any man be so bold as to say that this statement has no relation to infants, and that they can have life in them without partaking of his body and blood—on the ground that he does not say, "Except one eat", but "Except you eat"; as if he were addressing those who were able to hear and to understand, which of course infants cannot do?' Anyone who took 'you' as particular rather than general would have to say that the Lord was speaking only to those whom he was addressing at that moment, and that now his statement was irrelevant even to adults. But the Lord said that the bread he would give was his flesh 'for the life of the world', and although infants alive today did not belong to the world then, they surely belonged to it now. It followed 'that even for the life of infants was his flesh g i v e n . . . and that even they will not have life if they eat not the flesh of the Son of Man.'79 He returned to this theme a few chapters later when he noted that in Carthage baptism was called 'salvation' and the sacrament of the body of Christ 'life'. This was derived 'from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition . . . that without baptism and partaking of the supper of the Lord it is impossible for anyone to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life'. Many scriptures, including John 6.53, testified that 'neither salvation nor eternal life can be hoped for by anyone without baptism and the Lord's body and blood', and it was 'vain to promise these blessings to infants without them.'80 In the first of these passages Augustine emphasized that the Lord spoke 'not concerning the sacrament of baptism, but concerning the sacrament of his own holy table', and in the second he three times distinguished baptism from 'the sacrament of the body of Christ', 'the supper of the Lord', and 'the Lord's body and blood'. He seemed to affirm categorically that communion was necessary to infants for eternal life. But in the same book he had already associated eternal life with baptism 8 1 , and he went on to affirm that baptism effected the incorporation of infants into the church and 'their union with the body and members of Christ'. He cited John 3.5, John 6.53, and other verses, and equated eating the flesh of the Son of Man with 'becoming partakers of his body'. He concluded that infants had eternal life only 'in the body of Christ, into which, that they may receive incorporation, they are washed in the sacrament of baptism.' 82 The reference to washing precludes the notion that 'the sacrament of baptism' here denoted the complete initiatory rite. Water-baptism secured incorporation into the body, and therefore life, and this contradicted what he had written earlier. But the contradiction could not have struck him as forcibly 79 80 81 82

i.20.26f (CSEL 60.250, citing John 6.51. i.24.34 (CSEL 60.330 i.16.21 (CSEL 60.21). iii.4.7f (CSEL 60.1330.

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as it strikes us. In the full rite to which he was accustomed83, baptism and the post-baptismal rites led immediately to communion and his thinking passed from one to the other as naturally as the rite did. As its simplest, his argument ran, 'You say that infants can have life without baptism, but the Lord says that they cannot have life without eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and only the baptized can—and do—do this'. But when he implied that they did this only in communion, his pen was running away with him. By his own teaching, infants partook of the body and blood of Christ in baptism. In 416 Innocent I declared at the Council of Milevis: 'It is very foolish to say that young children can be given the rewards of eternal life without the grace of baptism, for "except they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood they have no life in them." Those who argue that they can have life without regeneration seem to me to seek baptism vainly, since they teach they have in themselves what they believe is not conferred to them by baptism.'" This statement, with its equation of 'the grace of baptism', 'eating the flesh of the Son of Man' and 'regeneration', Augustine was quick to quote. If the Pelagians yielded to the apostolic see, or rather to the Lord himself who said that infants had no life unless they ate his flesh and drank his blood, which they could not do without baptism, they would admit that unbaptized infants could not have life. No catholic doubted that 'children who have not received the grace of regeneration in Christ and who lack the food of his flesh and the drink of his blood have no life in them.'85 The Pelagians were like the Manichaeans. Both refused to have infants delivered by Christ's flesh and blood, 'the one because they destroy that very flesh and blood . . . the other because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood.'86 Here again there was ambiguity, but though Augustine surely had the eucharist primarily in mind, in the last resort baptism was equally a sacrament of Christ's flesh and blood. Augustine repeated his argument monotonously87, but despite his continuing ambiguity it is clear that infant communion was the norm for him, and that he normally associated the partaking of Christ's flesh and blood with the eucharist. But he also saw baptism as a partaking of Christ's flesh and blood, and his thought could pass from baptism to the eucharist—and back again—in the course of a single sentence. Even if at times he contradicted himself, his consistent exposition of the positive benefits of baptism and of its relation to the eucharist makes it extremely unlikely that he intended to teach the absolute necessity of infant communion.88 83 84 85 86 87

88

C f Sermo c c c x x i v ( P L 3 8 . 1 4 4 7 ) . In A u g u s t i n e , Ep c l x x x i i . 5 ( C S E L 4 4 . 7 2 0 ) . Ep c l x x x v i . 8 . 2 8 - 3 0 ( C S E L 5 7 . 6 7 - 6 9 ) . F o r f u r t h e r r e f e r e n c e s to I n n o c e n t ' s s t a t e m e n t c f Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum ii.4.7 ( C S E L 6 0 . 4 6 7 ) a n d Contra juliamim i.4.14 ( P L 4 4 . 6 4 8 ) . Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum iv.4.4 ( C S E L 6 0 . 5 2 4 ) . De Gratia Christi et de Peccato Originali ii.18.19 ( C S E L 4 2 . 1 8 0 ) ; Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum i.22.40 ( C S E L 6 0 . 4 5 7 ) ; Contra julianum iii.l .4, iii.12.25 ( P L 4 4 . 7 0 3 , 7 1 5 ) ; Ep c c x v i i . 5 . 1 6 ( C S E L 5 7 . 4 1 5 ) ; Sermo clxxiv.6.7 ( P L 3 8 . 9 4 4 ) ; Opus hnperfecliim contra Julianum ii.30, iii.38, iii.44 ( C S E L 8 5 . 1 8 4 , 3 8 0 f , 3 8 5 ) . Twentieth-century writers w h o w o u l d dissent f r o m this c o n c l u s i o n include J. Tixeront, History of Dogmas, F T 1923-30, ii.415, a n d W A Van R o o , 'Infants D y i n g without B a p t i s m ' , Gregoriana»! X X X V (1954) p 465f.

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After Augustine Infant communion was now widely attested both in east and west.89 Leo I declared that 'even the tongues of infants do not keep silence upon the truth of Christ's Body and Blood at the sacrament of communion.' 90 Gennadius of Marseilles explained of the reconciliation of those baptized by heretics, 'If they are very small or dull of understanding, let those who present them answer for them as at baptism, and, reconciled with the laying on of hands and chrism, let them be admitted to the mysteries of the eucharist."" John the Deacon, describing the baptismal ceremonies which culminated in 'the approach to the table of the heavenly bridegroom', added 'all these things are done even to infants, who by reason of their youth understand nothing.'92 Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite spoke of 'children, not yet able to understand the divine mysteries' becoming 'recipients o f . . . the most holy symbols of the supremely divine communion.' 93 The practice was general, but the rationale varied. In the east the theological climate was gentle. Theodore of Mopsuestia denied that communion was given to infants for the remission of sins94, and Isidore of Pellusium, having explained why infants without sin were baptized, concluded that the baptized infant 'through participation in the divine mysteries is made one body with him, and is reckoned to be his flesh, and is united to him as the body to the head.'95 In the west, however, Augustine's anti-Pelagian polemic was maintained. Marius Mercator described the effects of baptism as 'salvation, redemption and renewal' and asked the Pelagians if it would really be no punishment for unbaptized children not to have these—'not "to eat the flesh of the Lord and to drink his blood"—concerning which sacrament the Saviour says, "Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you", which certainly and without any evasion no one presumes upon or is made a partaker of without baptism/ Since John 6.53 was 'of universal application'96, how could the Pelagians promise the life of the kingdom of heaven 'to little children who are neither born again of water and the Holy Spirit, filled with the flesh of Christ, nor drunk with his blood?' John 3.5 made it clear that 'he who is not baptized is separated from the kingdom of heaven, since he is deprived of that vital food and drink.'97 John 6.53 also made it clear that unbaptized infants were subject to predestined punishment.98 Another writer, possibly Faustus of Riez, saw John 6.53, coupled with John 3.5, as 'a clear and effective testimony against Pelagius' distinction between life and the kingdom', hence 'it should be clearly understood that everyone who 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

Cf, in addition lo passages cited in the text, for children in general communicating Gregory of Tours, In Gloria Marlyrum ix (MGH Scr. Mer, i.494), and Bede, Ep ii (PL 94.666). Ep lix.2 (PL 54.868). De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus lii (PL 58.993). Ep ad Senarium vii, ed A Wilmart (Vatican, 1933) p 177. Dc Ecclesiaslica Hiemrchia vii.3.11 (I'G 3.565). In Photius, Bibliotheca clxxvii (PG 103.5140. Ep lii.195 (PG 78.879). Subnoiationcs in Verba Juliani viii.Sf (PL 48.152f). Hypognoslicon v.5.10 (PL 45.16530, citing Mark 2.17. Ibid vi.6.8 (PL 45.1662).

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lacks the protection of baptism lacks not only glory but life.'99 Pope Gelasius pointed out that John 6.53 allowed no exception, 'nor has anyone dared to say that a child could be saved without this sacrament or brought to eternal life.' With the forgiveness of original sin, children 'attain eternal life through baptism', but without this forgiveness, they could have no life, for to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and to drink his blood was 'wholly impossible except to the baptized'.100 If Augustine himself could not sustain his position consistently, it was hardly to be expected that lesser minds could do so. Some were driven to ascribe an absolute necessity to the eucharist, but when Fulgentius of Ruspe was asked about a catechumen baptized in emergency who had died without communion 'whether this [lack] would be harmful, and if so to what extent', he replied that no one should be worried by John 6.53 about baptized believers who because of speedy death 'are unable to eat the Lord's flesh and drink his blood'. They should realize 'that this is done in that washing of holy regeneration', for it is by baptism that 'believers are made members of our Lord Jesus Christ and partakers of his body through the unity of the church'. He continued, ' "We who are many are one bread, one body". Everyone begins to be a partaker of that one bread when he begins to be a member of that one body, for when any member is joined to Christ the Head in baptism, a living sacrifice is truly offered to G o d . . . . He is made a member of the Body of Christ; and how can he not receive what he himself is, when he has become a true member of that body, the sacrament of which is in the sacrifice?' The fathers, he claimed, taught this without the slightest doubt, and a sermon which he attributed to Augustine settled the matter: 'There is no room for anyone to doubt that each of the faithful is made a partaker of the body and blood of the Lord when he is made a member of the body of Christ in baptism, and that he is not separated from that communion of the bread and cup if he departs this life in the unity of the body of Christ before he eats the bread and drinks the cup. In the same way, he is not deprived of the participation and benefit of that sacrament when he is himself what it signifies.'101 Fulgentius' interpretation of Augustine now became normative. It was cited by Bede who used John 6.53 at one time exclusively of the eucharist102, but at another time of both the sacraments103. Because the water of baptism derived from the side, i.e. the flesh, of Christ, baptism was a participation in that flesh or body, and he spoke again of 'all nations receiving the body of Christ in baptism'.104 Communion whether for infants or adults was not essential to salvation if they lacked it through no fault of their own. 99 De Corpore et Sanguine Christi vii (PL 30.274). 100 Ep vii (PL 59.370. 101 Ep xii.ll 24-26 (CC 91.377-81), citing 1 Corinthians 10.17. Augustine's sermon, which he quoted at length, seems to have been based on no cclxxii. 102 In Genesim iii, on Genesis 14.18-20 (CC 118A.190). 103 In Gencshn l, on Genesis 2.3 (CC 118A.38), citing John 19.34. 104 III Pentateuchum Comm iii.6 (PL 91.341).

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But infant communion remained normative, and Ordo Romanus XI ordered that after baptism 'all the infants receive communion'. It added that care should be taken that after their baptism 'they do not take food or be suckled before they communicate'105 and, since occasional accidents were inevitable, in 675 the Eleventh Council of Toledo laid down that no censure should be passed on infants who were unable to retain the eucharist.106 The Gregorian Sacramentary ordered that 'If the bishop is present, the infant must be confirmed with chrism immediately, and then communicated; and if the bishop is absent, he must be communicated by the presbyter " 0 7 , and this baptismal communion of infants was widely attested in the liturgical documents. 108 The Carolingian bishops sought to expound its significance. Alcuin said that the neophyte 'is confirmed (confirmatur) with the body and blood of the Lord, that he may be a member of that head who suffered and rose again for him.'109 Jesse of Amiens repeated this and also cited John 6.53f110, as did Magnus of Sens who added that 'when someone is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he is fed with the body of the Lord and made to drink of his blood that, brought into the body of Christ, he may abide in Christ and Christ in him."" Amalarius of Treves explained that 'he is confirmed with the body and blood of the Lord.. .so that we may confidently say "As many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ".'112 Theodulf of Orleans wrote more strongly, To obtain this life, we are baptized, we eat of his flesh, and we drink of his blood, for we can in no wise enter into his body unless we are initiated with these sacraments.' He too quoted John 6.55f, and added the same words as Magnus. He also spoke of strengthening and, citing 1 Kings 19.8, explained that the newly-baptized was nourished by the body and blood of Christ 'so that in the strength of that food he might c o m e like Elijah to the m o u n L of God, that is Christ'.113 Leidrad of Lyons also saw the baptismal eucharist as a strengthening rite. He referred to Psalm 104.15 and explained that the baptized must be led to the Lord's Table to 'take bread which strengthens man's heart and wine which gladdens him'. He then cited John 3.5 and 6.53 and added, 'All agree that without the body and blood of the Son of Man they cannot have l i f e . . . the flesh of Christ was given for the life of men, and they will not have eternal life unless they eat it.'" 4 The benefits which the Carolingians ascribed to the eucharist were membership of Christ and his body, putting on Clirist, feeding on him, abiding 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113

114

n,103f, ed M Andrieu (Louvain, 1931-61), ii.446f. canon xi, Mansi xi. 144. Supplementum Aniancnse n,1088f, ed J Deshusses (Freiburg, 1971) p 379. Cf, eg, Slowe Missal, ed G H Warner (HBS 32,1915), p 18; Leofric Missal, ed F E Warren, Oxford 1883, p 238; Magdalen College Pontifical, ed II A Wilson (HBS 39,1910), p 178; Liber Ordinum, ed M Ferotin, Paris 1904, col 35; Missal of Robert oflumieges, ed 11 A Wilson (HBS 11, 1896) p 100. Ep exxxiv, exxxvii (MGH Ep iv. 203, 215). ' Ep de Baptismo (PL 105.791). De Myslerio Baptismatis (PI. 102.984). Ep de Baptismo xlvh, ed J M Hanssens (Vatican, 1948) i.248, citing Gal 3.27. De Ordine Baphsmi xviii (PL 105.239). Note that Theodulf used consmnmetur and Magnus used communiccntur where Alcuin, Jesse and Amalarius used confirmatur; on the confused terminology of this period, cf J D C Fisher, Christian Initiation: Baptism in the Medieval West (1965) pp 146-48. De Sacramento Baptismi IX (PL 99.866).

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in him, being strengthened by him, and enjoyment of eternal life. But they did not associated these exclusively with the eucharist. Theodulf wrote, 'We rise with Christ when stripped of all our sins we come up from the font'115, and as Rabanus Maurus said succinctly, 'Every preceding sacrament is confirmed in them by the body and blood of the Lord.'116 Paschasius Radbertus explicitly denied that the newly-baptized were harmed if prevented from communion by sudden death; they were one body with Christ who was himself life, and they had not by sin forfeited this life.117 This was also the view of Hincmar of Rheims who quoted Fulgentius.118 This was a subtle position, and a stricter doctrine now began to re-emerge. A Carolingian canon (c.810-13) ordered 'that the presbyter should always have the eucharist ready that when anyone becomes infirm, or a child becomes sick, he may immediately communicate him, lest he die without communion' 119 , and this canon was included in several later collections.120 The statutes of Riculsus of Soissons bade priests 'take great care that the baptized receive the eucharist, that is the holy communion, soon after baptism', and again quoted John 3.5 and 6.53.121 The Excerptiones of Egbert of York stated that those who baptize 'ought always to have the eucharist with them, though they travel to places far distant'122, and Elfric of York also ordered his priests to 'give the eucharist to children when they are baptized'.123 In 1025 the synod of Arris spoke of 'the very great necessity of receiving this food' and emphasized that 'eternal life is promised only to those who worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ.'124 More specifically, Bernold of Constance, citing both John 6.53 and Augustine, criticized those 'who think the viaticum to be unnecessary for dying infants, even though the Lord said generally to all that it pertained to them.'123 Around 1070 an Irish bishop, Domnald, asked Lanfranc of Canterbury whether the English and continental churches indeed maintained the absolute necessity of infant communion. Lanfranc denied this: 'We believe it is very necessary for all men generally of every age, whether living or dying, to fortify themselves by receiving the body and blood of the Lord. But in no sense do we believe (which God forbid!) that if baptized people die at once before they take the body and blood of Christ, they will perish everlastingly.' 115 116 117 118 119 120

121 122 123 124 125

De Ordine Baphsmi xiii (PL 105.232). De Clericomw Imlitutione i.29 (PL 107.313). De Corpore d Sanguine Domini xix.4 (PL 120.1328). De Cavendis Vitus et Virtulibus Exercendis x (PL 125.925).. Capitularia lxxxi.16 (MGH Leg Sec II i.179). Walter of Orleans, Capitula vii (PL 119.7340; Regino of Prum, De Ecclesiasticis Disciphnis i.69 (PL 132.205); Burchard of Worms, Deaeta v. 10 (PL 140.754); Ivo of Chartres, Panormia i.147 (PL 161.1079), Decretum ii.20 (PL 161.165). canon viii (PL 131.18). xcv. Cotton MS K2, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, in ] Johnson, English Canons (Oxford, 1 8 5 0 0 1.235. Ep 'Quando dividis Chrisma', in H Soames, The Anglo-Saxon Church (4th edn 1856) p 262. cap. ii, Mnnsi xix.431. De Sacramentis Moricnium Infantum ii (PL 148.1273), citing Augustine, De Peccatorum Merihs et Reiuissione, i.20.27 (CSEL 60.26).

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He quoted Mark 16.16, Ezekiel 36.26,1 Peter 3.21 and Galatians 3.27, and observed that all commentators referred these verses to baptism. John 6.53 was not of general application as far as physical eating was concerned, for many martyrs had died before baptism and an infant was not separated from the company of the faithful if he died immediately after baptism. The verse should be interpreted as Augustine had interpreted it, in other words, 'Each of the faithful who is able to grasp the meaning of the divine mystery eats and drinks the flesh and blood of Christ not only physically with his mouth but also with the love and affection of his heart, i.e. by loving and by holding in pure and sweet awareness that Christ took flesh for our salvation, was crucified, rose again, and ascended, also by ¡initiating his steps and by sharing in his suffering.' 126 This answer showed once again that a firm statement of the necessity of the eucharist was not deemed inconsistent with an even firmer repudiation of any notion that the baptized were condemned if, through no fault of their own, they died without it. Some were unhappy about this apparent minimizing of the eucharist, and William of Champeaux declared of infants that 'as it is impossible for any to enter into life without baptism, so it is impossible for any to enter it without this life-giving viaticum.But the traditional view prevailed. Ivo of Chartres 128 and others 129 cited Fulgentius (whose words were now commonly ascribed, via Bede, to Augustine), and the school of Anselm of Laon taught that the receiving of the Lord's body was necessary to eternal life, and that it should be given to infants 'on the same day as their baptism, if necessary, or on the following Sunday', though if they died without it they would not be in peril. ,:i0 Robert Paululus, concluding his exposition of baptism, stated that 'in all these ways the new man is conceived in the womb of mother church, brought forth, completed, and joined to the whole body of the church, i.e. made a member of the body of Christ.' If he survived, he should therefore receive the sacraments of unity, i.e. the body and blood of Christ, as should infants too, though John 6.53 was fulfilled in baptism and no one should doubt their salvation if they unavoidably died without the

126 Ep xxxiii (PL 150.5320, citing De Doclrina Christiana and In Joanuis Evangetium Tractatus. 127 De Sacramento Aham (PL 163.1039). Ci also Rupert of Dentz, De Operibus Spiritus Sancti iii.l, 25 ( C C C M 2 4 . 1 9 0 5 , 1 9 3 2 0 , citing Mark 16.16, and Cnium in joannem VI.56 (CCCM 9.342). 128 Decretum ii.l (PL 161.135). 129 William of St Thierry, De Sacramento Allarb viii (PL 180.3540; Gratian, Decretum de consecratione dist iv.l31f, ed A Friedberg (Leipzig, 1879), i,1404f; Peter Lombard, Sententiae IV dist ix.l, ed Collegium Bonnventurne (Quaracchi, 1916), ii.794; Robert I'aululus, De Officiis Lalesiasticis i.20 (PL 177.392) 130 n.xlii in D.O. Lottin, 'Nouveaux fragments theologiques de l'ecole d'Anselme de Laon', Recherches de Theologie ancienne et médiévale XI (1939) p 319. It was stated here that after the baptismal communion, further reception could be delayed for a long time, and for other twelfth-century writers who argued that the baptismal communion satisfied the obligation for two—four years, cf A Landgraf in Zeitschrift fur katholische théologie LXVI (1942) p 127, cited by ] A Jungmann, Handing on the Faith, p 292.

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eucharist.131 Radulphus Ardens agreed. Although communion was given to newly-baptized children on the basis of John 6.53 lest they die without a necessary sacrament', if they did die without it they would not be damned. All Christians must communicate sacramentally if time and place allowed, yet 'the good man who is within the body of Christ by faith and charity receives the body spiritually even though he does not receive it sacramentally.'132

131 De Officiis Ecclesmslicis i.20 (PL 177.392). 132 Html li, In Die Sancto Paschae (PL 155.1850); Radulphus too cited John 6.56 and Augustine, In ¡oannis Evangelium Traclatus xxv.12 (CC 36.254). For others who distinguished between sacramental and spiritual eating, cf Guibert de Nogent, De Pignoribus Sanctorum i.l (PL 156.613) (cf also i.2.1 (PL 156.616) for the c o m m u n i o n of a very young child) and Algerius, De Sacrainenlis Corporis el Sanguinis Dominici i.20f (PL 180.7970;

20

3

Decline And Fall The Ending Infant communion was also attested in the twelfth century by Paschal II133, Gilbert de la Poiree134, Bernard of Sainctes135 and the Roman Pontifical which ordered, 'If the bishop is not present, they are to receive communion from the priest. Children not yet capable of eating and drinking are to receive communion by means of a leaf or a finger dipped in the blood of the Lord and placed in their mouths, while the priest says: "The body with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in eternal life. Amen"." 36 Other writers confirmed that communion was now given to infants only in the species of wine which they normally sucked from the fingers of the priest: 'they can naturally suck', Paululus explained, and, as William of Champeaux and Paschal II added, 'they cannot swallow bread'. But Paululus was careful to counsel communion in the species of wine only when it could be administered without danger of dribbling or vomiting, and again he quoted Augustine via Fulgentius. He noted that some ignorant priests were retaining 'the form but not the reality' by giving infants unconsecrated wine.137 Others were giving them unconsecrated hosts, and a Parisian canon of 1198 stated, 'Priests are strictly charged in no way to give hosts, even though unconsecrated, to children.'138 Infant communion was still the official norm, but its position was increasingly precarious and early in the thirteenth century Thomas of Chobham explained that, 'Some say that because the eucharist gives an increase of grace it should be given to infants in the liquid form of the blood of the Lord or in the form of bread softened in water, because if it were withheld from them there would be a loss of grace and they would enjoy a lesser reward in heaven; thus anyone who withholds the eucharist from them is guilty of sin. 'But others say that the eucharist should not be given to children because of the danger of their vomiting it and because there would not be any advantage to them unless they swallowed it. T3ut some eminent men say that in receiving the eucharist nothing matters but the taste, and a child experiences the taste as when he is bidden before baptism, "Receive the salt of wisdom". It is clear that he does not swallow the salt, and that the exorcism is effected in him by the tasting alone. It would therefore be better to give the eucharist to every child with such caution that if, after tasting it, he rejected it, what he rejected should be burnt with fire as it says in Exodus.' 139 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

Ep d x x x v . Ad Pontiuw Cluniacensetn Ablmtam ( P L 1 6 3 . 4 4 2 ) . Ep ad Matthaeum Abbatam ( P L 1 8 8 . 1 2 5 6 ) . Decreta ¿i, ed ] L e c l e r c q , Revue du moyen age latin II ( 1 9 4 6 ) p 1 6 8 . n . x x x v i i . 2 9 , e d M A n d r i e u , Le Pontifical Romain du Moyen-Age (Vatican, 1 9 3 8 - 4 1 ) i.246. C f J A J u n g m a n n , The Mass of the Roman Rile, i i . 4 1 1 - 1 4 c a n o n x x x i x , Mansi x x i i . 6 8 3 . Sunrna Confessor urn, e d F B r o o m f i e l d ( L o u v a i n , 1 9 6 8 ) p p 104 f. T h e b i b l i c a l r e f e r e n c e is to E x o d u s 1 2 . 1 0 .

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When in 1215 the fourth Lateran Council formally imposed the obligation of Easter communion on 'each of the faithful' it specifically limited this to those who had attained 'years of discretion' and said nothing of infants.140 Infant communion now declined rapidly1"" and local councils and synods afford clear evidence of this: Treves, 1227. 'Let no priest give unconsecrated hosts to little children and other persons for the Body of Christ, for this should in no way be done. And let no priest give the Body of the Lord to little children or to a sick person, for they are not able to retain the Body of the Lord or food.'142 Rouen, 1235. 'Priests are forbidden to give hosts in any way to children under the age of seven.'143 Sisteron, c.1244-50. 'Let priests advise their parishioners to teach their children of seven and above Pater Noster and Credo, a n d . . . on Easter Day to receive the Body of Christ, having first confessed.'144 Bordeaux, 1255. 'Priests are enjoined in no way to give consecrated hosts to children for communion on Easter day, but rather blessed common bread. This also applies to others who are forbidden to communicate.'145 Clermont, 1268. 'We forbid priests to give unconsecrated hosts to children, except on Easter Day, in place of blessed bread.' 146 These canons refer apparently only to the host, and Treves offered the traditional reason for its denial: 'they are not able to retain the Body of the Lord'. This did not necessarily forbid the chalice for it referred equally to the sick, but Rouen's heading, 'That the eucharist should not be given to children under seven', was a prohibition of all infant communion. Sisteron implicitly forbade the communion of children under seven, and Bordeaux explicitly linked children with others 'forbidden to communicate'. By allowing blessed bread147 as a substitute, however, Bordeaux overlooked the original reason for the denial of the host, and this suggests that the original reason was no longer the main one; Clermont suggests the same by allowing not only blessed bread but at Easter even the unconsecrated hosts forbidden elsewhere. The canons were strangely silent about the chalice. Paululus had counselled administering the chalice only when it could be done without danger of vomiting, Thomas of Chobham knew of some who opposed infant communion because of this danger, and there were now many who opposed the giving of the chalice to any lay people because of the danger of spillage. But if even the chalice was to be denied to infants, there must be good reasons for affirming that this would not be detrimental to them. William of Auxerre offered one reason when he described the eucharist as 1 4 0 c a n o n x x i , Denzinger n.812 p 264. 1 4 1 C f A . V i l l i e n , The History and Liturgy 101-08. 1 4 2 c a n o n iii, Mansi xxiii.28. 143 144 145 146 147

of the Sacraments

( E T 1 9 3 2 ) p p 3 4 4 - 5 6 , a n d J D C Fisher, op.cH

c a n o n xix, Mansi x x i i i . 3 7 5 . c a n o n x v i , in E M a r t e n e a n d G D u r a n d , Thesaurus Novus Anecdotoruni ( P a r i s , 1 7 1 7 ) iv.1082. c a n o n v, Mansi x x i i i . 8 5 8 . c a n o n vi, Mansi x x i i i . 1 1 9 2 . O n b l e s s e d b r e a d , cf ] A J u n g m a n n , The Mass of the Roman Rite, i i . 4 5 2 - 5 5 .

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"bread to some and milk to others'. He cited Paul in 1 Corinthians 3.2f, 'As babes in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food', and Augustine, 1 am the food of grown men (cibus grandium), believe (crede) and you will eat me', and he concluded, 'Little children receive the body of Christ, and it is nothing to them but milk'. It was confirmation which strengthened everyone, little children and grown men alike'.148 There was an ambiguity in the concept of strengthening. Theodulf of Oreleans and Leidrad of Lyons, drawing on different Old Testament passages, had spoken of the eucharist in terms of strengthening. The scholastics accepted this but also drew on Faustus of Riez who associated confirmation with strengthening149, and William's argument that the strengthening of confirmation was sufficient for infants, i.e. that they did not also need the eucharist, was a strong one. Initially theologians sought to distinguish between different kinds of strengthening150, and the sheer variety and ingenuity of these distinctions, which could be further refined or even combined, illustrates that the confusion was a real one. Alexander of Hales in a general discussion of the eucharist had cited the passage from Augustine which William of Auxerre had previously cited, but he read correctly cresce (grow) rather than crede, and he was followed by Hugh of St Cher151, Herbert of Auxerre152 and Richard Fishacre.153 The implications of 'Grow, and you will eat me' were obvious, and St Thomas in his Scriptum super Sententiis used cibus grandium to argue that 'Children are not yet grown in faith, therefore communion should not be given to them.' He explained further, T h e eucharist ought not to be given to children who lack the use of reason and cannot distinguish between spiritual and physical food. Some Greeks take a different view, but wrongly since for the receiving of the eucharist there is required an actual devotion which such children cannot have. But it can be given to children who are already beginning to have discretion, even before they are of perfect age, at about ten or eleven, if they show signs of discretion and devotion.' 148 Summa Aurea in K F Lynch, The Sacrament of Confirmation in the Early-Middle Scholastic Period (New York, 1957) pp 8, 11; the quotation from Augustine is from Confessions vii.10 (CSEL 33.157). 149 Cf Horn xxix.1-4 ( C C 101.337-39) 150 Some said that confirmation strengthened in its own right, while the eucharist strengthened onlv incidentally. Others said that confirmation strengthened the intellect while the eucharist strengthened the emotions. T h e s e suggestions were mentioned, and rejected, by Hugh of St Cher, Cominentarius in IV Lihrum Sententiarum, in Lynch, op.cil p 15. Alexander of Hales said that confirmation strengthened man to resist evil, while the eucharist strengthened his love of good, Clossa ill Quattuor Libros Sententiarum IV dist vii.3, ed Collegium Bonaventurae, Quaracchi 1951-57, iv.129; cf also Hugh of St Cher in Lynch, op.cit. p 15. Guerric of St Quentin said that confirmation gave strength for external confession, while the eucharist gave strength for interior confession and for love, Quaestiones de Sacramentis, in Lynch, op.cit, p 23f. This became the most popular explanation, cf William of Melitona, De Sacramento Confirmationis, in Lynch, op.cit p 118-22, and Bonaventura, Commentaria in Quatuor Libris Sententiarum IV dist vii dub 2, Opera Omnia, ed Collegium Bonaventurae (Quaracchi, 1882-1902) iv.l76f; Bonaventura gives a convenient summary of the varying views. T h o m a s Aquinas said that confirmation strengthened faith while the eucharist strengthened love, Scriplum super Sententiis IV dist vii, expositio textus, ed M F Moos (Paris, 1947) iv.299, and that confirmation strengthened the head while the eucharist strengthened the heart, Summa Theologiae iii.71.9, ed T Gilby (1974-76) 57.216f, quoting Ezekiel 3.8 and Psalm 104.15. 151 Cominentarius in IV Libruni Sententiarum, in Lynch, op.cil p 68f. 152 Summa Abbreviata, in Lynch, op.cit p 61 f. 153 Cominentarius in IV Libruni Sententiarum, in Lynch, op.cit, p 68f.

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His justification for this was twofold. Firstly, baptized children acquired a right to receive the body of Christ, but not immediately, 'just as they also have the right to receive an inheritance, although they do not take possession of it immediately'. Secondly, Through baptism the first motion of spiritual life is given, therefore baptism is necessary to salvation and should be given to children. But through the eucharist the completion (complementum) of spiritual life is given, therefore the eucharist should be given to those who are capable of the perfection (perfectionis) which is attained through actual devotion.' He also argued that Augustine's statement that those who lacked the body and blood of Christ could not have life referred not to sacramental eating but to the reality of the sacrament, i.e. to the unity of the church.'54 Bonaventura argued similarly that John 6 'should be understood of spiritual eating, which is through faith and charity and without which no adult is saved; this is also true in a sense of a child by virtue of his incorporation (quantum ad incorporationem)."55 St Thomas repeated his teaching in his Lectura super Evangelium Joannis156 and expanded it in his Summa Theologiae. It was the reality of the sacrament, the unity of the mystical body, which was essential to salvation, and baptized infants, ordered in the direction of the eucharist and desiring it through the church's intention, duly received its reality.157 Those who had formerly had the use of reason should be communicated on the strength of past devotion unless there was danger of vomiting, but children who had never had the use of reason should not be communicated because there has not been any preceding devotion'. 158 St Thomas's whole position is unsatisfactory, and his ignorance of history is amazing. He quotes Augustine's cibus grandium without recognizing that Augustine was a strong advocate of infant communion and, while aware that the Greeks communicated infants, seems quite unaware that the west had also communicated them until very recently. He demands strong faith, the use of reason, the ability to distinguish between the spiritual and the physical, signs of discretion and an actual devotion, but he does not realise the novelty of these demands. But his comments on the general withholding of the chalice are illuminating, 'On the part of the receiver, the greatest reverence and care are called for lest anything happen that would dishonour such a mystery. This could happen in receiving the blood, which if incautiously taken might easily be spilt. Because of growth in numbers of Christian people, including old and young and children, some of whom have not discretion enough to use due care in taking the sacrament, it is the prudent custom in some churches for the blood not to be offered for reception by the people.''515 1 5 4 I V dist ix a . 5 q . 4 , ed at i v . 3 9 4 - 9 7 , c i t i n g D i o n y s i u s , De Ecclesiastics Hierarchia ii.2.7 ( P G 3 . 3 9 6 ) a n d A u g u s t i n e , Contra dims ep Pelagianorum i.22.40 ( C S E L 60.457). 1 5 5 Commentaria in Quatuar Libris Sententiarum IV d i s i i x . l a n d x x i . 2 a . 2 q . l . Omnia Opera, iv.201, 2 9 5 . 1 5 6 v i i . 2 f (on J o h n 6 . 5 3 0 , e d P R C a i ( T u r i n - R o m e , 1 9 5 2 ) p p 182f. 1 5 7 iii.73.3, ed Gilby, 5 8 . 9 - 1 2 , cf a l s o iii.65.4, e d G i l b v 5 6 . 1 5 4 - 5 7 . 1 5 8 iii.80.9 , e d G i l b y 5 9 . 7 0 - 7 3 . 1 5 9 i i i . 8 0 . 1 2 , ed G i l b y 5 9 . 8 2 - 8 5 .

24

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FALL

Here important medieval themes—reverence, caution, mystery and discretion— come together. The ending of infant communion was not a direct result of the general withholding of the chalice from the laity: St Thomas opposed all infant communion, but this general withholding was only 'the prudent custom in some churches'. But the two were related in that the reverence, caution and mystery which allied with the doctrine of concomitance to justify communion in one kind also militated against infant communion. It is no coincidence that infant communion began to decline only a century or so after the Berengarian controversy on the eucharistic presence, and that this decline was intensifying as the dogma of transubstantiation was being promulgated. Despite St Thomas's comments on the chalice, the new demand for discretion and devotion was dictated not by any practical necessity but by the full flowering of that extreme reverence for, or fear of, the sacrament expressed long since in Cyril of Jerusalem's 'holy and most awful' (phrikodestatos).m Eager as the late medievals were for 'the discretion of faith', they deferred communion to witness not primarily to this but to the awefulness of communion. So far as there was a sequence, it would seem to be one of higher doctrine, greater reverence, scruple about the dangers of vomiting or dribbling, the discovery of convenient 'proof-texts', and the denial of infant communion. But none of this was understood at the time. The discretion of faith was now affirmed as the real reason for the denial, and two local councils make this clear: Liege, 1287. 'Let unconsecrated hosts which are called blessed bread be given to no one, not even to little children. And let not children be communicated before they are deemed to have the discretion of faith, at about the age of ten.'161 Cambrai, 1300-10. 'Let not children be communicated until they are deemed to have the discretion of faith, until the age of ten.'162 Liturgical books now bore witness to the denial, and in England the Sarum manual ordered an infant to be communicated after baptism only 'if his age demands it'.163 Occasionally there were exceptions as in a thirteenth-century Ambrosian manual.164 A fourteenth-century Amiens pontifical165 and fifteenthcentury Ambrosian texts166 may also represent the use of churches 'jealous of their ancient traditions, and sufficiently eminent to be able to maintain them in spite of what was happening elsewhere'167, but it seems more likely that they illustrate 'how many rites are only maintained in books as a memorial and in 1 6 0 Catechesii

Mysiagogica

1 6 1 c a n o n v . 4 4 , Mansi 1 6 2 Ciinon de eucharistia,

v.9, e d C r o s s , p 3 3 . xxiv.899. i n J H a r t z h e i m , Concilia

Cermamae

( C o l o g n e , 17S9-63) iv 73.

1 6 3 E d A J C o l l i n s ( H B S 9 1 , 1 9 6 0 ) p 3 7 ; c f a l s o Y o r k , e d W C, H e n d e r s o n ( S u r t e e s S o c i e t y , 1 8 7 5 ) p 17, S a r u m ' s a c c e p t a n c e o f s p i r i t u a l c o m m u n i o n is i l l u s t r a t e d b y t h e f a c t t h a t t h e p r i e s t d i d n o t c o m m u n i c a t e a s i c k a d u l t i f t h e r e w a s f e a r o f v o m i t i n g o r o t h e r i r r e v e r e n c e , b u t s i m p l y s a i d to h i m , ' B r o t h e r , i n t h i s c a s e t r u e f a i t h a n d g o o d w i l l s u f f i c e y o u : o n l y b e l i e v e , a n d y o u h a v e e a t e n ' , ed. p 110. 1 6 4 E d M M a g i s t r e t t i ( M i l a n , 1 9 0 4 ) 1.147. 1 6 5 E d V L e r o q u a i s , Let Pontificau.x 1 6 6 C f M M a g i s t r e t t i , La Lihtrgia 1 6 7 J D C F i s h e r , op.cit

ManuscrHs ddla

chiesa

des bibliotheques Milanese

nel Arolo

p 106.

25

piibliqnei

de Franc?

(Paris, 1937) i.lf.

IV ( M i l a n , 1 8 9 9 ) p 2 5 .

cil

INFANT

COMMUNION

order to omit nothing known and practised of old time'.168 The only traces of infant communion to survive more generally were the customs of giving unconsecrated wine to them and of processing to the altar after baptism.169 Easterns and Bohemians Infant communion was now mentioned in the west only when its practice—by Easterns or Bohemians—was being attacked. Nicholas of Lyra repeated against the Greeks that 'actual devotion and reverence are required which are lacking in children'170, and Benedict XII included among Armenian errors their teaching that 'if the sacrament of the eucharist has not been given to a person, he has not been baptized.'171 But at a synod at Sis in 1344 the Armenians denied that they taught the absolute necessity of infant communion 172 , and the Greek John Bessarion explained that if through unavoidable necessity baptized infants were deprived of communion by sudden death, 'they are partakers of the sacrament no less than if they had communicated, for they are members of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.'173 The east had adhered to infant communion without a break. The Bohemian practice, which has been treated in great depth by David R Holeton174, was a revival of what had been lost. In the later fourteenth century, Matthias of Janov adopted a sacramental interpretation of John 6 and also emphasized 'the one body' of 1 Corinthians 10.17. While not formally urging infant communion, he was aware of earlier practice and saw baptism as leading normally to communion.175 But John Huss still interpreted John 6 primarily of spiritual eating. Sacramental eating, though necessary for adults, was not in itself necessary 'since little children are saved without it'.176 In 1414 Jaboubek of Stribo, influenced by the 'all' in the institution narrative177 and by the sacramental interpretation of John 6, restored the chalice to the laity

168 A Villien, op.cit p 350. 169 A m o n g the innovations alleged against Laud in the seventeenth-century was that of 'carrying children from the baptism to the altar so called, there to offer them up to G o d ' , cf 'Proceedings of some Worthy and Learned Divines' in E Cardwell, A History of Conferences (3rd edn, Oxford, 1849) p 273. 170 Expositi in Biblia, In J o a n n e m 6 (Rome, 1 4 7 1 0 torn iv, no pagination. 171 'Errores Armeniis imputati' lviii, Libellus 'Cum dudum', Denzinger n.1016 p 299. 172 Mansi xxv.1236. 173 De Sacramento Eucharistiae (PG 161.496). Cf also Nicholas Cabasilas, Sacrae Liturgiae Interpretatio (PG 150.457-60). 174 Cf Infant Communion—Then and Now (Bramcote, 1981) pp 9-13 and 'The C o m m u n i o n of Infants and Young Children' in . . . and do not hinder them, ed G Muller-Fahrenholz ( W C C , Geneva, 1982) pp 64f. But his magnum opus is La Communion dcs Tout-petits Enfants: Etude du Mouveinent Eucharistique en Bohcme vers ta fin du Moyen-Age, (Rome, 1989). Written in French and published in Italy, an English edition is long overdue. It is the only critical study of the Bohemian revival and it raises indirectly a variety of issues related to contemporary debates; these were perceptively noted in a review by Kenneth Stevenson in journal of Theological Studies, Oxford, NS XLII (1991) pp 387-89. 175 Infant Communion—Then and Noio, p 9; La Communion des Tout-petits Enfants, pp 63-66. 176 De Corpore Christi v.5 and Super IV Sententiarum IV dist ix.3 in Opera Omnia, ed V Flajshans (Prague, 1903-08) i.2.29 and ii.2.560. 177 Matthew 26.27.

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D E C L I N E AND F A L L

and founded the Utraquists178, but Andrew of Brod, his principal opponent, adhered to the spiritual interpretation and quoted St Thomas against infant communion. 179 Jaboubek responded that John 6 should be interpreted both spiritually and sacramentally, and although infants would not be finally rejected if not communicated, this was no excuse for denying them the sacrament, for by virtue of their baptismal 'innocence, holiness and grace' they were especially fitted. 180 This initial controversy 181 included the absurd charge that infant communion was a Pelagian invention, but in 1417, having refuted the objection based on the requirement for self-examination in 1 Corinthians 11.28, Jaboubek actually revived the practice182, and in 1418 it was approved by a synod at Prague which urged that infants should receive in both kinds if at all possible—although if the infant was likely to vomit his communion should be postponed.183 A further decree in 1421 urged frequent communion in both kinds on all the faithful, 'adults and infants'.1*4 The theologians examined biblical, patristic and medieval writings185, but laypeople celebrated in song186 and Holeton cites one of their songs in English translation: You gave us his body to eat, 'From the mouths of small children His holy blood to drink. And of all innocent babes What more could he have Has come forth God's praise done for us? That the adversary may be cast down' Let us not deny it to little children Nor forbid them When they eat Jesus' body.

Praise God, you children You tiny babes, For he will not drive you away. But feed you on his holy body.187

Of such is the kingdom of heaven As Christ himself told us, And holy David says also: 178 Cf H Kaminsky, A History of the Hussiti• Revolution (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1967) esp pp 97-140, and W R Cook, 'The Eucharist in Hussite Theology'in Archiv fur Rcfonnationsgeschichte, Gütersloh LXVI (1975) p 25-28. 179 Disputa Academica contra communicationem plebis sub utraque specie, in H. von der Hardt, Magnum Oecumenicum Constantiense Concilium (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1697-1700) lii.392-95, 406f. 180 Vindiciae pro communione plebis sub utraquc specie, contra Brod um 1.2, in H von der Hardt, ibid iii.41937. 181 Cf P Zorn, Historia Eucharistiae Infanliuni (Berlin, 1736) p 185; F Palacky, Documenta Magislri ¡oanitis Hus (Prague, 1869) pp 673f; H Kaminsky, op.cit pp 253f, and, most importantly, D R Holeton, IM Communion des Tout-petits Enfants, pp 85-105. 182 Cf D R Holeton, ibid p 114-29. 183 Cf F Palacky, op.cit p 678; H Kaminsky, op.cit p 260f.; D R Holeton, op.cit p 135. 184 I Cochlaeus, Historia Hussttanim v, (Monza, 1549), p.188; cf also F G Heymann, John Zizka and Hussite Revolution (Princeton, 1955) p 493. 185 Cf D R Holeton, op.cit p 247-93. 186 D R Holeton, op.cit p 202-22. 187 D R Holeton, Infant Communion—Then and Now, p 13.

27

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COMMUNION

By the 1433 Compacta of Basle many Utraquists were reconciled to Rome, but in 1437 some, still dissatisfied, petitioned Rome to 'grant us the liberty we desire of communicating little children'. They argued that the abolition of infant communion would create 'a great and intolerable scandal', but Rome replied that the practice was 'expressly excluded by the Compacta' and that communion was to be given only to those of years of discretion.188 In 1441 a Utraquist synod at Cuttemberg described it as 'in no way contrary to the Christian faith to administer this sacrament to infants if their parents desire it'189, but in 1443 at another conference at Cuttemberg infant communion was rejected by those who objected that infants could neither proclaim the Lord's death nor examine themselves. Those who still remained apart from Rome were adamant: 'There is no reason why this food should not be given to infants as well as to adults, for salvation is no less for the one than for the other, and without this food no one can have eternal life.'190 But Rome refused to compromise, and in 1451 Aeneas Sylvius, later Pius II, reaffirmed that John 6 related to spiritual rather than sacramental eating. He quoted Paul's demand for self-examination and accused the Bohemians of 'dishonouring the most holy sacrament and despising Paul by their inviting of infants'.'91

188 O Gratius, Fasciculus rerum expelendarum et fugiendarum (ET E Brown, 1690) i.319-21; J Cochlaeus, op.cit viii, pp 306-10. 189 n.xvi in J. Lenfant, L'Histoire de la Guerre des Hussiles et du Concik de Basle, xx (Utrecht, 1731) ii.55. 190 Ibid xxi, ii.78-81. 191 Ep exxx, contra Bohemos et Tabor itas de Sacra Communione sub Una Specic, Omnia Opera (Basle, 1571) p 671; cf 1 Corinthians 11.26-29.

28

4

The Reformation The Continental Reformers With his emphasis on infant faith192, Luther was not wholly unsympathetic to infant communion. He noted that Cyprian had given both elements to children and, 'although—for reasons of its own—that has now ceased', Christ had the children come to him and would not allow anyone to hinder them.193 But John 6 did not refer to the sacrament. If it did, Christ 'would be condemning all infants, all the sick, and all those absent or in any way hindered from the sacramental eating, however strong their faith might be', but in fact, as Augustine had proved, 'even infants eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ without the sacrament, that is, they partake of them through the faith of the church.'194 He did not regard the Bohemians as heretical, but he did not approve their practice' 95 , yet when Paul spoke of self-examination 'he spoke only of adults because he was speaking about those who were quarrelling among themselves, and he does not here forbid that the sacrament of the altar be given to children.'196 In 1524 a Bohemian synod at Prague reaffirmed that communion could be given to infants after baptism if their parents requested it, but their practice was attacked by the anabaptist Clemens Ziegler197, and, at a meeting with German evangelicals at Slavkov in 1526, the Bohemians present accepted the distinction between 'spiritual' and 'outward' communion and agreed that the latter should be given only to 'those who by faith know by how to proclaim the death of the Lord and to discern his body.' Oswald Glaidt, an anabaptist commentator, explained that the Bohemians had been unable to proved their practice from scripture and could only ask, 'If one allows baptism for small children, why should one not permit also this sign of grace?, to which the evangelicals had replied that baptism was 'a sign of the beginning of the Christian life', while the supper was given 'to proclaim the Lord's death' which 'small children, fools and the like can never do'.198 In Zurich, Zwingli urged communion in both kinds and produced liturgical examples of both species being given to 'children and adults', though he added that he approved only of communion in both kinds and not of infant

1 9 2 Ep c c c c l ( W A B r 2 . 4 2 5 ) ; Concerning Rebaptisai (LW 4 0 . 2 4 2 f ) ; The Adoration 3 6 . 3 0 0 0 ; Taftenpostille, 1 5 2 5 : Evangelium auf den 3 Sonnlag nach Epiphanias, 1 7 . i i . 8 0 O , c i t e d b y ] W a r n s , Baptism (ET 1 9 5 7 ) p p 142f. 193 194 195 196 197

A Treatise on the New Testament x x x v i i i (LW 3 5 . 1 1 0 0 . C f C y p r i a n , De Lapsis De Caphvitate Babylonien Ecclesiae Praeludium (WA 6 . 5 0 2 ; LW:36 1 9 0 . Ep d c l x x v i i i , to N i c h o l a s H a u s m a n n , 1 5 2 3 (WA Br 3 . 1 8 2 0 . Tischreden c c c l x v , 1 5 3 2 ( W A T i s c h r e d e n 1.157; LW 5 4 . 5 8 ) Ein fast schon buchlin, S t r a s b o u r g 1 5 2 5 , c i t e d b y J K Z e m a n , The Anabaptists Moravia 1526-1628 ( T h e H a g u e , 1 9 6 9 ) p 119 n.208. 1 9 8 J K Z e m a n , op.cit p p 9 1 - 9 6 .

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of the Sacrament (LW o n M a t t h e w 8.1-13 (WA X X V (CC 3.225)

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communion.199 But to his argument that scripture contained no express prohibition of infant baptism Hubmaier, a German anabaptist, replied, Then I may also baptize my dog and my donkey, circumcise little girls, mumble prayers and hold vigils for the dead, call wooden idols St Peter, or St Peter and St Paul, take infants to the Lord's Supper . . . For it is not prohibited anywhere in explicit words that we do these things.'200 Hubmaier now pressed the point that infant communion followed logically from infant baptism: 'All arguments which you use that one should baptize children will also force you to let them come to the Supper. For they are of God and theirs is the kingdom of heaven, as you say, Acts 2.43. Since also children were among the three thousand and were baptized according to your speech, so were they also with them in the breaking of bread, Acts 2.46. Likewise, it is not forbidden anywhere by Christ that the Bohemians take their children to the Supper. Note what a new carnival of misery your unfounded contradiction sets up.' 20 ' Other anabaptists argued similarly 202 but Zwingli was not impressed. Circumcised infants had not partaken of the passover and, although in Acts 'infants were counted among believers and were baptized', only those who were of such age and understanding as to be fitted for it shared in the breaking of bread.203 Zwingli's disciple, Vadianus, claimed that 'The supper requires commemoration and thanksgiving, and none can approach it profitably unless he can discern and examine himself.' Infants could do neither of these and were rightly excluded. Cyprian had been wrong to give them communion as were the Bohemians now, though infant communion would be right 'if that new doctrine were true which asserts that the sacraments of themselves confer grace to recipients who do not place any obstacle.'2W Bullinger, Zwingli's successor at Zurich, also used infant communion to illustrate how even Augustine had 'shamefully erred' in teaching that the eucharist was as necessary as baptism for infants' salvation. But it was clear from 1 Corinthians 11.28 that the eucharist was 'for them to receive that are of perfect age, and not for infants.'205 Bucer cited Cyprian and Augustine as witnesses to infant communion206, but it had 'worn away not without a cause'207, and it was unnecessary in that 'We are incorporated into him in holy baptism, and clothed with him, and become his 199 Auslegung des IS Artikels (CR 8 9 . 1 3 2 0 , citing Mattew 26.27. 200 On the Christian Baptism of Believers, c.6. ET H W Pitkin and J H Yoder, Ballhasar llinnbaier, Theologian ofAnabaplism (Scottdale, Pa, 1989) p 136. 201 Dialogue wilh Zwingli's Baptism Book (ET) ibid p 213. 202 Cf the 1531 testimony of A d a m Andersbach in P Wappler, Die Tauferbewegung in Thuringen von 25261584 (Jena, 1913) cited ] S Oyer, Lutheran Reformers against Anabaptists (Hague, 1964) p 81. 203 In Catabaptistarwn Strophas Elenehus (CR 9 3 . 9 6 0 . 204 Aphorisnwrum de Eucharistiae Consideration (Basle, 1536) pp 14f, 3 9 f . 205 Decades iv.10, v.8f, Works, ed T Harding (Cambridge, 1849-52) iii.398, v.379f, 427-30. 206 Metaphrasis et Enarratio in Ep ad Romanos (Basle, 1562) p 162. 207 Consultation of Hermann von Wied, ET J Dave in J D C Fisher, Christian Initiation: The Reformation Period (1970) p 57.

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members, and begin to live in him and to have him for our head, remaining and living in us, and already we are of his flesh and bones.' 208 Calvin first referred to infant communion in the second (1539) edition of his Institutio, where he explained against Anabaptists why infant baptism was right and infant communion wrong. Baptism was 'an entrance and a sort of initiation into the c h u r c h . . . through which we are reborn as children of God', while the supper was for 'older persons who, having passed tender infancy, can now take solid food.' This distinction was clear in scripture, 'With respect to baptism, the Lord there sets no definite age. But he does not similarly hold forth the Supper for all to partake of, but only for those who are capable of discerning the body and blood of the Lord, of examining their own conscience, of proclaiming the Lord's death, and of considering its power.' This being the case, 'Why 7 , he asked, 'should we offer poison instead of life-giving food to our tender children?'. He completed his argument by repeating Zwingli's parallel between the Supper and the Passover 'Circumcision, which is known to correspond to our baptism, had been appointed for infants. But the Passover, the place of which has been taken by the Supper, did not admit all guests indiscriminately, but was duly eaten only by those who were old enough to be able to inquire into its meaning.' 209 In the 1543 Institutio Calvin admitted that Cyprian and Augustine had attested infant communion, but it had 'deservedly fallen into disuse'. 210 Later he likened the error of those who had once seen the absolute necessity of the eucharist in John 6.53 to those who still saw the absolute necessity of baptism in John 3.5.211 Admittedly, our spiritual union with Christ was 'not of the soul alone, but of the body also, so that we are flesh of his flesh' 212 , but John 6.53 related not to the Supper 'but to the continual communication which we have apart from the use of the Lord's Supper'. The Bohemians were in error here, for Christ's ordinance forbade young children to partake of the Supper since they could neither know nor celebrate the remembrance of his death. 213 But Calvin declared both that 'baptism is an engrafting into the body of Christ' 214 and also that 'we are engrafted into the Lord's body' at the Supper 213 , and in 1553 the unorthodox Servetus repeated that if infant baptism was right, so too was infant communion. If infants were 'new creatures', they must be fed with spiritual food. Christ called all his people to the Supper, it was monstrous for someone not to eat after being born, and, if all Christians were brothers, to keep children from the Supper was to refuse to recognize them as such. 216 208 209 210 211 212 213 214

Confcssiode S Eucharistia (1544) in Scripla Anglicana, ed C Hubert (Basle, 1577) p 700. xi.50 (CR 29.988-90); (1559) IV.16.30, CR 30.997f; (ET J T McNeill and F L Battles, 1961) ii.l352f. xi.50 (CR 29.988f). Vera Ecdesiae Reformandac Ratio, appendix (CR 35.682). Comm in 2 Ep ad Cor 6.15 (CR 77.398). Comm in Ev joannis 6.51-53 (CR 75.152-54). Comm in 1 Ep ad Cor 12.13 (CR 77.501); cf also Comm in 1 iarmoniam Evangelicam, on Matt 3.13 (CR 73.125). 215 Comm in 1 Ep ad Cor 10.16 (CR 77.463). 216 Christianismi Restitutio (Nuremberg, 1790) pp 564-68.

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In the 1559 Institutio Calvin was still confused as to the exact relationship between baptism and the Supper, and he described the Supper as 'a help whereby we may be engrafted into Christ's body, or engrafted, may grow more and more together with him.'217 But he had no doubt that Servetus was wrong. Infants were admitted into Christ's flock by baptism which 'suffices them until as adults they are able to bear solid food.' Souls were not fed only by the outward eating of the Supper, and 'to infants Christ is nonetheless food, though they abstain from the symbol.' God expressly required examination in the Supper, and Christ admitted to it 'none but those who are already prepared to celebrate the remembrance of his death.' That infants whom Christ had vouchsafed to embrace should abstain for a time did not prevent them from belonging to the body of the church.218 Only Musculus questioned the rejection of infant communion. He accepted that the fathers had communicated infants on the basis of a sacramental interpretation of John 6 which he himself rejected, but infant communion as a practice and John 6.53 as its basis were different things, and there were three grounds on which the practice could be defended: First, that the sign should not be denied to one who is a partaker of the thing signified. Secondly, that Christ is the Saviour of his whole body, i.e. the church, and that infants belong to the fulness of the ecclesiastical body. Thirdly, that Christ himself said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.' In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul was speaking only to those who were in danger of eating and drinking unworthily; the children of believers, incorporated into Christ at baptism and worthy through his grace, did not fall into this category and were not therefore bound by the requirement of examination. But Musculus had no wish to cause controversy and he accepted that the restoration of infant communion might be inconvenient on many grounds. He was content that prudent and learned men should debate the matter.219 The English Reformers Infant communion was normally mentioned only when it might embarrass opponents. Thus in 1521 Henry VIII contrasted Luther's indignation at the refusal of the chalice to the laity with his acquiescence in the refusal of both kinds to infants, 'I am surprised that Luther is so fiercely indignant that one form was taken from the laity, since he is not at all disturbed that both forms are withheld from infants. He cannot deny that infants received communion at one time, and if this custom was rightly dropped—even though Christ says, "Drink ye all of it"—and if no one doubts that there were serious 217 IV.17.33 (CR 30.1035, ET ii,1407f); cf also Sermon iiirl'Ep a Tite 1.7-9 (CR 82.443). 218 IV. 16.31 (CR 30.998-1001, ET ii.1353-58); cf also Defemw Orthodoxae Fidei contra Pmdigiosus Michaelis Serveti (CR 36.483-86, 491-95). 219 Loci Communes Theologian Sacrae (Basle, 1560) pp 471-73; cf ET by J Man, Common Places of Religion (1563) f.318-19.

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reasons for dropping it, even if no one remembers them now, why may we not also think that it was for good and just reasons, though now unknown, that the custom was abolished whereby the laity at one t i m e — though perhaps not for long—used to receive the sacrament under both forms?' 220 More complained similarly 221 , while the reformer Frith complained that by interpreting John 6.53 of the eucharist, More 'is fallen into the error of Pope Innocent, which likewise understanding this text upon the sacrament caused young children and infants to receive the sacrament, as though they had all been damned which died and had not received it.' 222 More seriously, Peter Martyr, in lectures on 1 Corinthians delivered at Oxford from 1548, explained that many had decided that the eucharist should not be given to infants, because they could neither commemorate and proclaim the Lord's death nor examine themselves. Nonetheless, it had been given them by Cyprian and Augustine and was given them today by the Greeks and Bohemians. The argument of those who gave it was that children were baptized who were not yet capable of belief but who would believe when they were able to, and that they should therefore be given the eucharist since they would similarly proclaim the Lord's death and examine themselves when they were able to. For himself Martyr concluded, 'I will not argue strongly for either side. I dare not condemn the ancient church where this custom flourished in the time of Cyprian and Augustine, but I cannot disapprove of what we ourselves do. 223 But no one followed Martyr. Hooper thought it unlikely that Cyprian had communicated children, but added tha t, even i f he did, 'I will not follow Cyprian, but the institution of C h r i s t ' N i c h o l a s Ridley, explaining why the vulgar tongue was not so necessary in baptism as in the supper, declared, 'Baptism is given to children, who by reason of their age are not able to understand what is spoken unto them, (in) what tongue soever it be. The Lord's Supper is and ought to be given to them that are waxen.' 22 " 1 Bradford repeated that there were two sacraments, 'one of initiation, that is, wherewith we be enrolled, as it were, into the household and family of God . . . the other wherewith we be conserved, fed, kept, and nourished to continue in the same family.' He added, T trow it to be more to be begotten than to be nourished', and he rejected infant communion since baptism itself was a partaking of Christ's flesh and blood. 226 Edmund Guest explained even more explicitly that at baptism faithful infants 'eat his body and drink his blood as really we do at his Supper'. 2 2 7 220 Assertio Seplem Sacrameniorum, cap iv, ed L O ' D o n o v a n (New York, 1908) pp 220f. 221 Responsio ad liitherum ii.5i, ed I M I ieadley, Yule Edition of the Complete Works V I (1969) pp 384f. 222 A Book of the sacrament of the Rod if and Mood of Christ, Works, ed J Rixe (1573) p 123. Cf Innocent, hp. 182 (CSFX 44:720). 223 In 1 ad Cor Ep 11.24, (2nd edn, Zurich, 1367) f,160r. 224 Answer to the Bishop of Winchester's Rook, in Early Writings, ed.S Carr (Cambridge, 1843) pp 172t; cf ,ils!> Sermons upon Jonas v, ibid p 321. 225 Conferences, in Works, ed H Christmas (Cambridge, 1841) pp 140f. 226 Sermon on the lord's Supper, in Writings, ed A T o w n s e n d (Cambridge, 1848-53) i.82, 88-90. 227 Treatise against the Private Mass, ed HC, Dugdale, in The Life and Character of Edmund Ceste (1840) Appendix I, p 116.

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Cranmer made no explicit reference, but many of his statements on baptism were illustrative of the eucharist228 and he would have deemed infant communion both unnecessary and inappropriate. It would have been unnecessary because no one had ever taught before that Christ had the sacrament in mind in John 6; he referred there rather to 'the spiritual eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood by faith'229, and, in any case, 'infants, when they are baptized, do eat the flesh of Christ'230. It would have been inappropriate because although in both sacraments we receive 'Christ himself, whole body and s o u l . . . this is done in divers respects; for in baptism it is done in respect of regeneration, and in the holy communion in respect of nourishment and augmentation.'231 To exalt the eucharist was often to reduce baptism, and he complained to his adversary Gardiner, 'Your saying is no small derogation to baptism' and 'you diminish here the effect of baptism'.232 Becon was aware that some fathers had demanded that infants should receive the eucharist as soon as they were baptized, 'lest that they, departing without it, should fall from the favour of God, and so perish', but he stressed that John 6 was to be understood spiritually not sacramentally and that the fathers had 'grated too hard' on John 6.53.231 Similarly, Jewel saw the infant communion attested by Cyprian and Augustine as 'a great abuse; for by the doctrine of St Paul, the holy mysteries ought to be given unto none but only unto such as be able to understand the meaning thereof, to judge the Lord's body, and to declare his death'.234 He emphasized again that infants were already partakers of Christ's flesh by virtue of their baptism.235 But his opponent Harding stated that the church had always taken 'Drink ye all of this' as a command addressed only to priests, and asked, if the cup were necessary to all, 'How is it come to pass that our adversaries themselves (who pretend so strait a conscience herein) keep it from infants and young children, until they come to good years of discretion; specially whereas the custom of the primitive church was that they also should be partakers of this sacrament?' They had no better reason to keep infants from the cup than anabaptists had to keep them from baptism, and 'if they allege their impotency of remembering the Lord's death, the anabaptists will likewise allege their impotency of receiving and understanding doctrine, that Christ's institution in this behalf seemeth to require.' Jewel replied that this was a childish objection. Although infants were sometimes admitted to communion in the primitive church, 'afterward, upon good advice, they were justly removed from it; because that, being in that age, they were not thought able to examine and prove themselves according to the doctrine of St Paul, and so to eat of that bread 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235

C f Disputations at Oxford, Works, ed J E C o x ( C a m b r i d g e , 1 8 4 4 - 4 6 ) i.404, 4 0 6 , 4 0 8 - 1 2 , 4 1 7 f . Answer to Gardiner, ed.cit i.25. Disputations at Oxford, ed.cit i.412. Answer to Gardiner, ed.cit i.45, cf a l s o i.92. Answer to Gardiner, ed eit, i.25, 3 4 , cf a l s o 1.45. Catechism, Works, e d J Ayre ( C a m b r i d g e , 1 8 4 3 f ) ii.223f. Sermon preached at Paul's Cross, Works e d J A y r e ( C a m b r i d g e , 1 8 4 5 - 5 0 ) i.6. Defence of the Apology, Works iii.67; cf a l s o Controversy wilh M Harding, Works i. 131 f, 1 4 0 f , 4 5 0 , 4 7 3 f , 5 2 9 .

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and to d r i n k of that cup. In the like sort in the law of Moses, notwithstanding all men-children were commanded to be circumcised, yet none were admitted to eat the passover but only such as could demand what it meant.' 236 Nowell reaffirmed that by baptism 'we are born again' and by the holy supper 'we are nourished to everlasting life'237, while Calfhill complained that 'within two hundred year after Christ, there were crept into the Church many idle ceremones', including infant communion, which even Rome now rejected though it was regarded in Augustine's time 'as requisite' as their baptism. 238 But these were mere repetitions of points made many times before, and there was no serious discussion. The Roman Response Francesco Alvarez, a Portugese explorer in the 1520s, told the Ethiopians that their infant communion was 'very dangerous and in no way necessary' 239 , and initially the theologians were equally opposed. Cajetan noted three possible interpretations of John 6: faith in the death of Christ, which was the literal sense; faith in the sacrament of the eucharist, which though 'true in itself' was not intended here; and sacramental eating, which had given rise to the Bohemian error and was contradicted by the custom of the church. In any case, sacramental eating presupposed natural eating just as sacramental birth presupposed natural birth, and even if the passage had referred to sacramental eating, infants who could not eat natural food would not be bound by it.2*1 It might have been expected that Cochlaeus, an historian of the Hussites, would have agreed with Cajetan on 'the Bohemian error', but on infant communion he seems to have been converted by them, and in 1537 he wrote a book De Patrocinio Paroulorum arguing extensively from scripture and the fathers against its denial. 241 He was loath to publish it, however, if it might embarrass the church, and among those who counselled caution was Reginald Pole: T o u say that you have many quotations from the fathers which show that this was once the custom of the church. If you were talking about the Greeks I would certainly agree. Even today their church observes this custom, and children receive the eucharist at the same time as they receive the grace of baptism. . . . It may be that you have found traces of this custom among Latin writers—and pious ones at that—and no doubt there were some; nonetheless I think you should be careful to be discreet in 236 Controversy -with M Harding, Works i.229-30; cf also i.249-51 for I larding's admission thai infant communion had been abrogated 'upon good consideration', and for their further controversy as to whether the little girl mentioned by Cyprian had been communicated onlv m one kind. 237 Catechism, ed G E Corris (Cambridge, 1833) p 85. 238 Answer to Martiall, ed R Gibbings (Cambridge, 1846) pp 212f. 239 Narrative of the Portugese Embassy to Abyssinia ¡520-1527, xxu (FT Lord Stanley of Alderlev, Hakluyl Society 64, 1881) pp 48f. 240 In Quatuor Lvangelia el Aela Aposlolonnn Cotnmcnaria, Omnia Opera (I.eyden, 1639) iv..333t. Cf also his Comuientarius in Summam Theoiogicam ¡ii.80.12, in Opera Omnia (Rome, 1882ft) xii.245f. 241 Patrocimum Parvitlornm; the work was eventually published in 1930 in Concilium Tndentinuin (ed Societas Goerresiana, Freiburg 1901ft) xii (Tractates 1, ed V Schweitzer) pp 166-208, cf esp ppl 84-208.

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your appraisal. The danger is that while we wish to protect children, we will not help their cause by this argument, and—what we wish least of all—we may gravely injure the Roman church, the mother of all churches, which does not follow this custom. For if the practice is as necessary as your argument seems to imply, its abrogation by the Roman church cannot be excused without admitting its gravity.'242 In 1548 the Council of Augsburg explicitly forbade communion 'below the years of discretion', which has been taken—almost certainly mistakenly—to mean that it still persisted there.243 More important, in 1551 the question was considered at the Council of Trent. A summary of the reformers' teaching submitted to the theologians attributed to them the opinion that 'It is of the law of God to give communion to the people and to little children under both kinds.' 244 The quotations which followed referred only to communion in both kinds and made no mention of little children245, but many of the theologians commented on infant communion, and though the majority now interpreted John 6 in terms of sacramental as well as spiritual eating they still recommended condemnation of the statement.246 Among the bishops, one pointed out that there was no need to mention infant communion 'since it has already been condemned and is not now maintained by any of the heretics.'247 Another argued that while the statement was false in its assertion of necessity, the council should not condemn the practice since Augustine and others would be involved in such condemnation. 248 The majority, however, simply declared their opposition to infant communion, though the canon which was proposed condemned only the assertion that it was necessary by divine law.249 When the council resumed in 1562 the theologians were again asked whether infant communion was necessary by divine law.250 After long debate25' their formal reply rejected its necessity, since otherwise the sufficiency of baptism would be denied, and also its usefulness, since there was no loss of grace to be replaced. Some argued that it would increase grace, but the majority denied this on the ground that infants could not examine themselves, discern the Lord's body or commemorate his passion. As to the past, some said that communion was first given to children to counter the heathen practice of giving them things sacrificed 242 Epistolae Reginald! Poli, ed A M Quirini (Brescia, 1744-57) iv.7. 243 Canon xix, Mansi, xxxii.1311. J D C Fisher, Baptism in the Medieval West p 106, suggests that 'ihe practice still persisted there even at that late date'. But the prohibition occurs in a comprehensive exposition of the 1215 Lateran decree which was probably occasioned by general irregularities in the administration of the sacrament. The reference to children is extremely brief and the context suggests strongly that it was included only for the sake of completeness. Cf also the 1609 Council of Narbonne, caps 2 and 18, Mansi xxxiv.1481, 1496. 244 A Theiner, Acta Genuina SS Oecunieniei Concilii Tridentini (Zagreb, 1874) 1.489. 245 They were taken inexactly from Luther's Formula Missae et Communionis (WA 12.217, LW 53.35) and from the 1530 Canfessia Auguslana (CR 26.2930. 246 A Theiner, op.cit i.490-501. 247 Ibid i.509, cf also i.513. 248 Ibid i.512, cf also i.527. 249 Ibid i.525. 250 Ibid ii.7. 251 Ibid ii.7-30.

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to idols, while others said it was given to preserve them from injury or the entrance of demons. On John 6, those who saw sacramental eating enjoined said that it did not apply to children, for Christ had been speaking only to those who understood him and who, unlike children, enjoyed the use of reason.252 The 1551 canon was now put forward again in much the same form253, but some bishops again stressed that they should not appear to condemn the fathers254, and the canon was amended to condemn not the necessity of infant communion but only its necessity to salvation.255 A doctrinal statement based on the theologians' report was also issued, and this confirmed that the Lord's precept could not apply to infants who were unable to eat, discern, communicate or adore. The fathers were not to be condemned, but rather the economy of the church was to be commended for allowing in early times things which under the Spirit's guidance she had now abolished.256 After a final debate257, both statement and canon were approved in an amended and abbreviated form. The statement now read, 'Little children who lack the use of reason are not bound by any necessity to the sacramental communion of the eucharist, for having been regenerated by the laver of baptism, and incorporated into Christ, they cannot at that age lose the grace of sonship which they have acquired. But antiquity is not to be condemned if in some places it once allowed that custom. For as those most holy fathers had a probable cause for their conduct in the circumstances of their times, so assuredly it must be believed without controversy that they did it without regarding it as necessary to salvation.'258 The canon omitted the previous reference to necessity 'to salvation', and simply condemned any who said 'that the communion of the eucharist is necessary for little children before they have reached years of discretion.'259 The council's catechism published in 1566 declared that from the law of the eucharist 'those are excepted, who, by reason of their tender age, have not yet attained the use of reason'; they were unable to discern the eucharist from common bread, approach with piety, or 'take and eat'. In some places they had once been given the eucharist, but 'as well for the reason already assigned, as for others most consonant to Christian piety' this had long been discontinued.260 It was around this time that the eirenic Cassander replied again to the familiar argument that infants should be admitted to both sacraments or to neither. He accepted that, recognizing baptized infants as members of the body of Christ, the church had at one time given them communion, but even then it had 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

Ibid ii.36f. Jbid ii.39. Ibid ii.40-45, esp p 42, 44. Ibid ii.45. Ibid ii.47. Ibid ii.47-51, 54f. Doctrina de communionc sub utraque specie et parvulorum iv, Denzinger n. 1730, p 406. Ibid, cánones de communione sub utraque specie et parvulorum iv, n.1734 p 407. Catechismus ex Decreto Conciiii Tridenlini ii.4 q.lix-lxi (ET ]. Donovan, Dublin nd [c.1829]) pp 219f.

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recognized that they were incorporated by baptism into the body of Christ and thereby made partakers of his body and blood, and that, if they died without the eucharist, they still enjoyed the reality of that sacrament. He supported his argument from Augustine who, he claimed (wrongly), had persuaded later fathers that baptismal participation in Christ's body and blood was sufficient for infants and that the eucharist 'could not decently and properly be administered at the same time alongside it' but should be given only to adults who could examine themselves and discern that body. But he admitted that there were still learned catholics who, while deferring to the judgment of the church, would argue for the practice on the grounds that Paul's requirements of examination and discernment were not applicable to infants who were cleansed by virtue of their baptism, purified by Christ's blood and admitted into the fellowship of his body.261 Summary Most sixteenth-century writers were strongly opposed to infant communion, and referred to it only to embarrass opponents. Protestants used it against Romans to question the authority of the fathers, Romans used it against the reformers to challenge their biblical literalism and Anabaptists used it against the reformers to charge them with inconsistency. Only Musculus, Martyr, Cochlaeus and some of the Tridentines considered it in its own right. Historically, both sides knew that infant communion had been practised by Cyprian and Augustine and was still practised by the Bohemians and the Greeks. But they showed no awareness that it had ended in the west only in the thirteenth century, and that its ending was linked with that extreme reverence for the consecrated elements which also manifes ted itself in the withholding of the chalice from the laity. The reformers deplored both of these, yet their dismissal of infant communion and their insistence on prior instruction supports the claim that at many points they were much more children of their times than they realized. On the question of necessity, both sides believed that baptism included in itself a partaking of Christ's flesh and blood, and that communion was not strictly necessary for a baptized infant who already enjoyed the 'reality' or 'gift' of the sacrament. The reformers were vulnerable when the Romans challenged them that, if 'all' must of necessity partake of the chalice, then 'all' must include infants. But the Romans were equally vulnerable in that, although they had patristic precedent for a more sacramental interpretation of John 6, there was a marked contrast between their assertion that the Lord's command applied only to those who were old enough to understand it, and Augustine's anti-Pelagian arguments in which he apparently denied this. They were also on dangerous ground when they ordered the faithful to reject 'without controversy' the notion that the fathers had deemed infant communion necessary to salvation. Augustine and Innocent both wrote at times as if they did believe this and, although we have argued that

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