was an able dialectician and a popular teacher. He may be ranked among the forerunners of a
Christian rationalism, who dared to criticize church authority and aimed to reconcile the claims of
reason and faith.^723 But he had not the courage of a martyr, and twice recanted from fear of death.
Nor did he carry out his principle. He seems to have been in full accord with catholic orthodoxy
except on the point of the sacrament. He was ascetic in his habits and shared the prevailing respect
for monastic life, but saw clearly its danger. "The hermit," he says with as much beauty as truth,
in an Exhortatory Discourse to hermits who had asked his advice, "is alone in his cell, but sin loiters
about the door with enticing words and seeks admittance. I am thy beloved—says she—whom thou
didst court in the world. I was with thee at the table, slept with thee on thy couch; without me, thou
didst nothing. How darest thou think of forsaking me? I have followed thy every step; and dost
thou expect to hide away from me in thy cell? I was with thee in the world, when thou didst eat
flesh and drink wine; and shall be with thee in the wilderness, where thou livest only on bread and
water. Purple and silk are not the only colors seen in hell,—the monk’s cowl is also to be found
there. Thou hermit hast something of mine. The nature of the flesh, which thou wearest about thee,
is my sister, begotten with me, brought up with me. So long as the flesh is flesh, so long shall I be
in thy flesh. Dost thou subdue thy flesh by abstinence?—thou becomest proud; and lo! sin is there.
Art thou overcome by the flesh, and dost thou yield to lust? sin is there. Perhaps thou hast none of
the mere human sins, I mean such as proceed from sense; beware then of devilish sins. Pride is a
sin which belongs in common to evil spirits and to hermits."^724
By continued biblical and patristic studies Berengar came between the years 1040 and 1045
to the conclusion that the eucharistic doctrine of Paschasius Radbertus was a vulgar superstition
contrary to the Scriptures, to the fathers, and to reason. He divulged his view among his many
pupils in France and Germany, and created a great sensation. Eusebius Bruno, bishop of Angers,
to whose diocese he belonged, and Frollant, bishop of Senlis, took his part, but the majority was
against him. Adelmann, his former fellow-student, then arch-deacon at Lüttich (Liège), afterwards
bishop of Bresci, remonstrated with him in two letters of warning (1046 and 1048).
The controversy was fairly opened by Berengar himself in a letter to Lanfranc of Bec, his
former fellow-student (1049). He respectfully, yet in a tone of intellectual superiority, perhaps with
some feeling of jealousy of the rising fame of Bec, expressed his surprise that Lanfranc, as he had
been informed by Ingelram of Chartres, should agree with Paschasius Radbertus and condemn John
Scotus (confounded with Ratramnus) as heretical; this showed an ignorance of Scripture and
involved a condemnation of Ambrose (?), Jerome, and Augustin, not to speak of others. The letter
was sent to Rome, where Lanfranc then sojourned, and caused, with his co-operation, the first
condemnation of Berengar by a Roman Synod held under Pope Leo IX. in April, 1050, and attended
mostly by Italian bishops. At the same time he was summoned before another Synod which was
189 sq. ), dissenting from Coleridge’s charitable judgment, finds fault with Berengar’s "insolent tone of superiority" in addressing
Lanfranc, and with a "passionate feebleness" and "want of personal dignity" in his whole conduct. He thinks his success would
have been a calamity, since it would have involved the loss of the truth which was concealed under the doctrine of
transubstantiation. "Superstition sometimes guards the truth which it distorts, caricatures, and in part conceals." Coleridge wrote
a touching poem on Berengar’s recantation.(^723) As an "Aufklärer," Berengar is one-sidedly represented by Reuter, l.c. Comp. also Baur, in hisKirchengesch. des
Mittelalters, p. 66 sqq.
(^724) Neander III. 504. The Discourse is published in Martène and Durand, Thes. nov. Anecdotorum, Tom. I.