doctrine of merely external signs was the primitive and original doctrine of the Church, how was it possible that it should suddenly have given rise to the doctrine of Transubstantiation? Would not this have been a dangerous leap in the dark, such as the human reason never takes, even in its most unaccountable wanderings from the truth? And, in order to avoid taking it, should we not in our own case have approached the doctrine of Transubstantiation by a more consistent, if less direct course? Should we not have gone on from merely external signs to pregnant signs, as we will call them for the sake of brevity, or to such as are full of meaning and hidden virtue? And, having assumed this much, we should then have passed from signs to reality. The process would then be this: First came the belief in merely external signs; next, the belief in signs possessing a virtue; and finally, a substituting for any sign whatever the reality or the thing itself. Now the question arises, how did it come about that the transition was made from the first to the second stage without exciting comment or being the occasion of a controversy, while the transition from the second to the third, effected, as we are told, by Paschasius, was the occasion of much trouble and quarreling? This is the more remarkable, since the former would have been more offensive than the latter to the faith and religious feelings of the people. Now, as it is absolutely certain that the first leap in this supposed course of intellectual gymnastics was not the occasion of either protest or controversy, it is but natural to infer that no such course ever took place at all, and that the doctrine of the Church was from the beginning what it is to-day."

This reasoning will acquire the full force of positive proof when it is recollected that there are historical facts which go to show that if there was one thing of which the faithful were more suspicious than of another, it was the introduction of any new dogma or teaching. Thus, for example, they indignantly protested against those who denied the divinity of Christ; rose in tumult when an attempt was made at Constantinople to abolish the use of the expression “Mother of God;" and obstinately resisted the substitution of the

word hedera for cucurbita, the one to which they were accustomed, in a new translation of Jonas iv. 6.

§ 206. Second Controversy on the Eucharist, Occasioned by the Writings of Berengarius of Tours.

I. Lanfranci lib. de Euchar. sacr. ctr. Berengar. (1063–1070), Bas. 1528, and oftener (Opp. ed. d'Achéry, Par. 1684, f., ed. Giles, Oxon. 1844 sq., 2 V., and in Migne, Ser. Lat., T. 150). Hugo, Episcop. Lingonens. (Langres), Tractatus de corpore et sanguine Christi. Deoduinus, Episcop. Leodiens. ep. ad Regem. Durandus, Abb. Troarnens., de corp. et sang. Christi. Guitmundi, Archiep. Aversani, de corp. et sang. Christi veritate in Eucharistia, lib. VIII. (collected in Max. Bibl. SS. PP., T. XVIII.; Bibl. Patr. Col., T. XI.) Berengar. lib. de s. coena ctr. Lanfranc. lib. posterior. (edition announced by Stäudlin, and partly published in six programmes, Götting. 1820 sq.), complete, but very incorrect, edition by A. F. and T. Th. Vischer, Berol. 1834; fit for use only with the Appendix by Grotefend, written down already by Schönemann, head librarian of the ducal library at Wolfenbüttel. The Acts in Mansi, T. XIX. Harduin, T. VI., Pt. I. Adelmanni de Verit. corp. et sanguin. Dom. ep. ad Bereng. (Bibl. PP. Colon., T. XI., p. 348; Max. Bibl., T. XVIII., p. 438), most complete ed., C. A. Schmidt, Brunsv. 1770. Bernaldus Constant. (1088), de Bereng. multipl. condemnatione. (Matth. Riberer, Raccolta Ferrarese di opuscoli scientifici, Venez. 1789, T. XXI.) Sudendorf, Berengarius Turonensis, a collection of letters (22) referring to him, Hamb. 1850.

II. Roye, Vita, haeresis et poenitentia Bereng., Andegavi, 1656. Mabillon, de Multiplici Ber. damnat. (Analect., T. II.) Lessing, Berengarius of Tours, Brunsvick, 1770. (Lessing, complete works, ed. by Lachmann, Vol. VIII., p. 814 sq.) Stäudlin, Berengarius of Tours (Stäudlin and Tzschirner, Archives, Vol. III., p. 1); see Reuter, de Erroribus, etc. See above, p. 570. Will, Restoration of the Church, nro. 2. Hefele, Hist. of Counc., Vol. IV., p. 703 sq.

The view of the Eucharist set forth and defended in the eleventh century by Berengarius was an out-and-out heresy. Berengarius was born at Tours, was educated by Fulbert of Charters, and, after quitting school, taught secular branches for a time in his native city. A skillful dialectician, and possessing considerable knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, he soon rose to eminence, and became, in the year 1031, Scholasticus, or Director of the Cathedralschool of Tours, and in 1041 was appointed Archdeacon at Angers. On the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, he adopted the teaching of Scotus Erigena, to whose

1

1On the life of Berengarius, Hist. littéraire de la France, T. VIII., p. 197 sq.

authority he openly appealed,' and pursuing the rationalistictendency2 of his mind, which had early developed itself, he pronounced, still more distinctly and emphatically than his master, against the doctrine of Transubstantiation. He held that no change whatever, in the strict and proper sense of the word,3 was effected in the material elements of the Eucharist, and that the only change they underwent was precisely the same as that which takes place in the matter of the other Sacraments through the form of prayer used in each. Thus, for example, as a Divine virtue or influence is imparted to water or oil by the sacramental form, and operates through them, so also in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the bread and wine become the medium or channel of this virtue, but in themselves are essentially what they were before the sacramental act was performed. It is true, Berengarius admitted in words that a change takes place in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; that the true Body of Christ is present, and that there is an oblation of the Body of Christ in the Mass; but his only purpose in doing so was to give an orthodox color

1 Berengarius Joannis Scoti lectione ad hanc nefariam devolutus est sectam. (Flor. Franc. hist. fragm.) But Berengarius himself acknowledged that he was a partisan of Erigena: Si haereticum habes Joannem, cujus sententias de eucharistia probamus, habendus tibi est haereticus Ambrosius, Hieronymus, Augustinus, ut de caeteris taceam. (Ep. ad Lanfranc., in Harduin, T. VI., Pt. VI., p. 1016.) Cf. Pagi ad Baron. annal. a. 1050, nr. VII. Berengarius also made use of the same false method, in treating positive doctrines of the Church, that had been used by Erigena. For Lanfranc, de Eucharistia, c. 7, addressing him, says: Relictis sacris auctoritatibus ad dialecticam confugium facis. Et quidem de mysterio fidei auditurus ac responsurus, quae ad rem debeant pertinere, mallem audire ac respondere sacras auctoritates, quam dialecticas rationes. Therefore, exactly as magister Florus had complained of Scotus Erigena, see p. 429, n. 1.

2 Bp. Guitmund thus refers to the studies of Berengarius: Cum juveniles adhuc in scholis ageret annos, ut ajunt, qui eum tunc noverant, elatus ingenii levitate, ipsius magistri sensum non adeo curabat, libros insuper artium contemnebat. And, further down, he goes on to say: Cum per se attingere philosophiae altioris secreta non posset, neque enim homo ita acutus erat, sed ut tunc temporis liberales artes intra Gallias pene obsoleverant, novis saltem verborum interpretationibus, quibus etiam nunc nimium gaudet, singularis scientiae sibi laudem arrogare et cujusdam excellentiae gloriam venari qualitercunque poterat affectabat.

3 Guitmund says, 1. c.: Nam Berengariani omnes quidem in hoc conveniunt, quia panis et vinum essentialiter non mutantur.

ing to his innovations, to give them a Catholic exterior, and to avoid openly assailing the received doctrine of the Church. Hence he clothed his errors in the accepted language of Catholic theology, and proposed openly what in his heart he denied. For, while using an orthodox phraseology, he really meant only that Christ is spiritually present in the elements, and that a certain efficacy or virtue is imparted to them by the faith of the individual. That this was in truth the opinion of Beren

1Owing to the vacillating character of Berengarius and his frequent changes of mind, there is some doubt as to what was precisely his doctrine on the Eucharist. Two different opinions are ascribed to him: 1. That he denied Transsubstantiation, but admitted the Real Presence in the Eucharist; in other words, that he held a doctrine similar to that of Lutheran impanation. 2. That he denied the Real Presence, and, like Zwinglius at a later day, put a figurative interpretation upon the form of consecration. Relative to the first opinion, we have the words of Martène and Durand (Thesaur. nov. anecdotor., T. IV., p. 99): "Ex hoc loco et ex superius dictis patet, Berengarium realem, ut ajunt, Christi praesentiam admisisse in Eucharistia, sed transsubstantiationem praesertim eum negasse, id quod probat multisque exemplis demonstrat noster Mabillonius in praefat. ad saecul. VI. ord. Bened." And Guitmund relates: "Multum in hoc differunt (Berengariani), quod alii nihil omnino de corpore et sanguine Domini sacramentis istis inesse, sed tantummodo umbras haec et figuras esse dicunt. Alii vero dicunt, ibi corpus et sanguinem Domini revera, sed latenter contineri, et ut sumi possint, quodammodo, ut ita dixerim impanari. Et hanc ipsius Berengarii subtiliorem esse sententiam ajunt." But Adelmann (Director of the School of Liége, and in 1048 Bishop of Brescia), 1. c. that the second opinion contains the true doctrine of Berengarius, who, he says, held only a figura quaedam et similitudo. But the following words of his own prove the true position of Berengarius: "Non minus tropica locutione dicitur: panis, qui ponitur in altari, post consecrationem est corpus Christi, et vinum sanguis, quam dicitur, Christus est leo, Christus est agnus, Christus est summus angularis lapis."

But the following words of Berengarius, taken from the third fragment of his epist. ad Adelmannum, are still more significant. He had already said in his treatise, De sacra Coena, that the whole Body of Christ was delivered up to death, ita habeas totum integrumque Christi corpus accipi (per sacramentum altaris), and that since the Body of Christ, being now in Heaven, in a condition of invisible unity, no visible manifestation of it can take place, and consequently, when the eating of His Body is spoken of, it should be understood in a spiritual sense to mean that the participant raises his mind and heart up to the Body of Christ in Heaven. He adds: Since, according to the words of Holy Writ, the Body and Blood will remain in Heaven until the end of the world, none of the faithful can presume to say, "se ad refectionem animae suae accipere nisi totam et integram Dei sui carmen, non autem coelo devocatam, sed in coelo manentem, quod ore corporis fieri ratio nulla permittit, cordis, að

garius is still further proved by his assertion that the Body of Christ, after His resurrection, could not possibly pass through the closed doors of the apartment in which the apostles were assembled; thus showing that he was either ignorant of or denied the properties of the spiritualized and glorified body.

The immediate occasion of the breaking out of this controversy was a correspondence between Berengarius and his former friend, Lanfranc, then Scholasticus of the cloister of Bec, in Normandy, and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury. Berengarius had hoped to find Lanfranc favorable to his own views; but, learning the contrary, he reproached him for having rejected the doctrine of Scotus Erigena as heretical, and for defending that of Paschasius Radbert, and closed his letter by inviting the monk of Bec to discuss the subject with him before a number of judges.

Lanfranc was then absent in Rome, and Leo IX., having received intelligence of the contents of the letter, called two synods (A. D. 1050)-the one at Rome, and the other at Vercelliat both of which Lanfrane was present, to consider the teachings of Berengarius. After a careful examination, they were condemned, and the works of Scotus Erigena burnt. As Lanfranc had become suspected of favoring the views of Berengarius, he availed himself of the opportunity presented in these two synods to clear himself of the suspicion. He wrote, besides a refutation of the condemned errors, a history of the origin and purpose of this correspondence, and explained his other relations with Berengarius. He takes occasion in this work to give a clear and forcible exposition of the Church's teaching on the Sacrament of the altar; and, in reply to the objection of Berengarius, that some of the early Fathers of the Church frequently called the Eucharist species, similitudo, figura, says very appositely in the twentieth chapter, "that no one could even now adequately describe the Sacrament

videndum Deum mundati, devotione spatiosissima, nulla indignitate, nullis fieri prohibetur angustiis." It is impossible also, says he, and most unworthy of the Divine majesty, to receive Christ entire ore corporis, ac per hoc Christi corpus totum constat, accipi ab interiori homine, fidelium corde, non ore. Cf. Bellarminus, de sacra Eucharistia, lib. III., c. 18.