- Nevertheless bread and wine are not empty, symbols, but in some sense the body and
blood of Christ which they represent. They are converted by being consecrated; for whatever is
consecrated is lifted to a higher sphere and transformed. They do not lose their substance after
consecration; but they lose their emptiness, and become efficacious to the believer. So water in
baptism remains water, but becomes the vehicle of regeneration. Wherever the sacramentum is,
there is also the res sacramenti. - Christ is spiritually present and is spiritually received by faith. Without faith we can have
no real communion with him, nor share in his benefits. "The true body of Christ," he says in a letter
to Adelmann," is placed on the altar, but spiritually to the inner man and to those only who are
members of Christ, for spiritual manducation. This the fathers teach openly, and distinguish between
the body and blood of Christ and the sacramental signs of the body and blood. The pious receive
both, the sacramental sign (sacramentum) visibly, the sacramental substance (rem sacramenti)
invisibly; while the ungodly receive only the sacramental sign to their own judgment." - The communion in the Lord’s Supper is a communion with the whole undivided person
of Christ, and not with flesh and blood as separate elements. As the whole body of Christ was
sacrificed in death, so we receive the whole body in a spiritual manner; and as Christ’s body is now
glorified in heaven, we must spiritually ascend to heaven."^743
Here again is a strong point of contact with Calvin, who likewise taught such an elevation
of the soul to heaven as a necessary condition of true communion with the life-giving power of
Christ’s humanity. He meant, of course, no locomotion, but the sursum corda, which is necessary
in every act of prayer. It is the Holy, Spirit who lifts us up to Christ on the wings of faith, and brings
him down to us, and thus unites heaven and earth.
A view quite similar to that of Berengar seems to have obtained about that time in the
Anglo-Saxon Church, if we are to judge from the Homilies of Aelfric, which enjoyed great authority
and popularity.^744
§ 130. Lanfranc and the Triumph of Transubstantiation.
The chief opponent of Berengar was his former friend, Lanfranc, a native of Pavia (b. 1005),
prior of the Convent of Bet in Normandy (1045), afterwards archbishop of Canterbury (1070–1089),
and in both positions the predecessor of the more distinguished Anselm.^745 He was, next to Berengar,
(^743) P. 157. The believer receives "totam et integram Domini Dei sui carnem, non autem coelo devocatam, sed in coelo
manentem," and he ascends to heaven "cordis ad videndum Deum mundati devotione spatiosissima."
(^744) Thus he says in the Homily on Easter day: "Great is the difference between the invisible might of the holy housel
[sacrament] and the visible appearance of its own nature. By nature it is corruptible bread and corruptible wine, and is, by the
power of the Divine word, truly Christ’s body and blood: not, however, bodily, but spiritually. Great is the difference between
the body in which Christ suffered and the body which is hallowed for housel. ... In his ghostly body, which we call housel, there
is nothing to be understood bodily, but all is to be understood spiritually." The passage is quoted by J. C. Robertson from
Thorpe’s edition of Aelfric, II. 271. Thorpe identifies the author of these Anglo-Saxon Homilies with Aelfric, Archbishop of
York, who lived till the beginning of the Berengar controversy (d. 1051), but the identity is disputed. See Hardwick, p. 174,
and L. Stephen’s "Dict. of Nat. Biogr." I. 164 sqq.
(^745) He was the first of the Norman line of English archbishops, and the chief adviser of William the Conqueror in the
conquest of England. See Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vols. III. and IV.; and R.C. Jenkins, Diocesan History of
Canterbury (London, 1880), p. 78 sqq.