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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
This article examines some of the links between the nineteenth century Tractarian leader Edward Pusey and the Romantic poets, particularly Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in relation to eucharistic theology, especially Pusey's 1836 ‘Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’. Pusey's sacramental theology was affected by the Romantic poets in the expression of moderate realism which also played an important part in the Oxford Movement. Like the Romantic poets, Pusey saw nature as pointing to and conveying the presence of God and this had clear connections for Pusey to a moderate realist sacramental theology where the presence of the divine was known through the material: things like bread and wine and water.
1 Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) was the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University from 1828–1882, a Canon of Christ Church and the leader of the nineteenth century Oxford Movement. In these roles he exerted a huge influence over the religious scene in England in his lifetime and beyond.
2 See Douglas, Brian, Pusey's Eucharistic Theology (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
3 Brilioth, Yngve, The Anglican Revival. Studies in the Oxford Movement (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925), p. 56Google Scholar.
4 Liddon, Henry, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey: Doctor of Divinity, Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford. 4 Volumes. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1893), I, p. 41Google Scholar.
5 Letter of Pusey to Maria Barker, January, 1828. Manuscript in Pusey House, Oxford.
6 Letter of Pusey to Maria Barker, January, 1828. Manuscript in Pusey House, Oxford.
7 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 41.
8 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 41.
9 Forrester, David, Young Doctor Pusey: A Study in Development (London: Mowbray, 1989), p. 11Google Scholar.
10 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 44.
11 Forrester, Young Doctor Pusey, p. 11.
12 Hare, Julius, The Mission of the Comforter, With Notes, ed. Plumtree, E.H. (London: Macmillan, 1877), p. 382Google Scholar.
13 Moderate realism implies that signs are linked with what they signify in a real but not fleshy manner. For a detailed discussion of moderate realism see Douglas, Brian and Lovat, Terence, ‘The Integrity of Discourse in the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition: A Consideration of Philosophical Assumptions’, Heythrop Journal, 51 (2010), pp. 847–861CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 For more information on the role of imagination in the work of the Romantic poets see: Swiatecka, M. Jadwiga, The Idea of the Symbol: Some Nineteenth Century Comparisons with Coleridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Barth, J. Robert, The Symbolic Imagination: Coleridge and the Romantic Tradition (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; and Harter, Joel, Coleridge's Philosophy of Faith: Symbol, Allegory and Hermeneutics (Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2011)Google Scholar.
15 Pusey, Edward, An Historical Enquiry into the Causes of the Rationalist Character lately predominant in the Theology of Germany. Part II. Containing an Explanation of the views misconceived by Mr Rose and further illustrations (London: Rivington, 1830), p. 42.Google Scholar
16 Edward Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament. Unpublished manuscript of 1836 Oxford University lectures in Pusey House, Oxford, p. 6.
17 Alf Härdelin, Alf, The Tractarian Understanding of the Eucharist (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1965), p. 61Google Scholar.
18 Keble, John, The Christian Year. Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year (London: Church Literature Association, 1827/1977)Google Scholar.
19 Keble, John, Keble's Lectures on Poetry, 1832‐1841 (trans. Francis, E.K.) 2 Volumes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912)Google Scholar.
20 Brilioth, The Anglican Revival. Studies in the Oxford Movement, p. 71.
21 Keble, The Christian Year, p. 42.
22 Keble, Lectures on Poetry, II, p. 481.
23 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, pp. 16–17.
24 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 254.
25 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 34.
26 Jasper, David, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker (Allison Park, Pennsylvania: Pickwick Publications, 1985), p. 9Google Scholar.
27 Jasper, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker, p. 9.
28 Jasper, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker, p. 10.
29 Jasper, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker, p. 12.
30 Jasper, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker, p. 12.
31 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 15.
32 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 15.
33 Härdelin, Tractarian Understanding of the Eucharist, pp. 62–63.
34 Allchin, A. M., ‘The Theological Vision of the Oxford Movement’, in Coulson, John and Allchin, A. M., eds., The Rediscovery of Newman: An Oxford Symposium (London and Melbourne: Sheed and Ward and SPCK, 1967), p. 56Google Scholar.
35 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ‘The Stateman's Manual’, in White, R. J., ed., The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor: Lay Sermons (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 3–114Google Scholar.
36 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 10.
37 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 17.
38 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 17
39 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 29. Note that this language is very similar to Pusey's own language of a ‘channel of His Blessed Presence to the soul’ which Pusey used in his later sermon of 1842 entitled, The Holy Eucharist: A Comfort to the Penitent.
40 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, pp. 29–30.
41 George Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord: E.B. Pusey's ‘Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’, PhD Thesis, Durham University, 2012, p. 176. Available at Durham E‐Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6373 (accessed 28 April 2015).
42 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Aids to Reflection, ed. Beer, John (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1993), p. 206Google Scholar.
43 See discussion of type and archetype in Douglas, Brian, ‘Pusey's “Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament”: Implications for Eucharistic Theology’, International Journal of Systematic Theology, 14 (2012), 2, April, pp. 194–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 92.
45 See Pickstock, Catherine, After Writing. On the Liturgical consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 66Google Scholar. Here Pickstock talks of infinity paradoxically invading the finite in the Eucharist.
46 See in particular Armstrong, David, A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a detailed treatment of how Armstrong's philosophical analysis can be applied to eucharistic theology see Douglas, Brian, A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 1, pp. 31–39Google Scholar.
47 A nominalist analysis focuses on the enquiring mind and propositional statements while at the same time denying any real link between signs and what they signify. See Douglas, A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology, 1, pp. 58–60 for a fuller discussion of the nominalist analysis.
48 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 93.
49 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 15.
50 Coleridge, ‘The Statesman's Manual’, p. 30.
51 Allchin, ‘The Theological Vision of the Oxford Movement’, p. 63.
52 Allchin, ‘The Theological Vision of the Oxford Movement’, p. 64.
53 Newman, John Henry, Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. The Two Versions of 1864 and 1865 (London: Oxford University Press, 1913), p. 195Google Scholar.
54 Newman, Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, p. 68.
55 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 16.
56 Jasper, Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker, p. 143.
57 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord: E.B. Pusey's ‘Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’.
58 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection.
59 Coleridge, ‘The Stateman's Manual’. This work is sometimes known as Coleridge's Lay Sermons, the first of which was published in 1816 and the second in 1817.
60 Edward Marshall, Notes on Pusey's Lectures on Prophecy, 1836‐1837. Unpublished manuscript in the library of Pusey House Oxford.
61 Marshall, Notes on Pusey's Lectures on Prophecy, 1836‐1837, pp. 53–54.
62 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, pp. 237–238.
63 Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, I, p. 7.
64 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 76.
65 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 4.
66 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, pp. 117–118
67 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 215.
68 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 225 and p. 229.
69 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 234.
70 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 216.
71 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 118.
72 Pusey, Edward, ‘All faith the Gift of God’, in Christian Faith and the Atonement: Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford in reference to the views published by Mr Jowett and others (Oxford: Parker, 1856), pp. 1–36Google Scholar.
73 Pusey, ‘All faith the Gift of God’, pp. 3–4.
74 Pickstock, After Writing, p. 118.
75 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 119.
76 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 218.
77 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 234.
78 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 239.
79 Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, pp. 60A–61.
80 Snook, “Thy Word is All, if we could Spell”: Romanticism, Tradition, Aesthetics and E. B. Pusey's Sermons of Solemn Subjects. Master of Arts Thesis, McMaster University, Canada, 2001, pp 8‐9. Online at: https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/12225/1/fulltext (accessed 28 April 2015).
81 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 177. Here Westhaver is quoting from Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 8.
82 Hedley, Douglas, Coleridge, Philosophy and Religion. Aids to Reflection and the Mirror of the Spirit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 128CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
83 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 178.
84 Westhaver, The Living Body of the Lord, p. 178. Here Westhaver is quoting from Pusey, Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament, p. 123.
