Gregory Dix (1901–1952)

This is certainly the best-written book on the Eucharist in English. It remains also one of the most important, although some of Dix's conclusions have to be qualified considerably in the light of later research (especially in the early period): we can no longer rely on Hippolytus as a witness to early Roman use, and today's scholars are far less likely to see the emergence of "rites" coalescing from individual bishop's / sees' uses until rather later.

The immediate pressures which triggered its writing are now of little interest to anyone but historians of the Anglican Church, but the thrust of the argument in his introduction and his second-last chapter remains (unfortunately) still as relevant, even or perhaps especially in a post ASB / BAS (etc., etc.) world as they were when the book was written in the relatively close aftermath of the debacle of the 1929 BCP.… (mais)