(2) Berengarius: De Sacra Coena adv. Lanfrancum liber posterior, first publ. by A. F. & F. Th.
Vischer. Berol., 1834 (from the MS. in Wolfenbüttel, now in Göttingen. Comp. Lessing:
Berengarius Turon. oder Ankündigung eines wichtigen Werkes desselben. Braunschweig,
1770). H. Sudendorf: Berengarius Turonensis oder eine Sammlung ihn betreffender Briefe.
Hamburg and Gotha, 1850. Contains twenty-two new documents, and a full list of the older
sources.
(3) Neander: III. 502–530 (E. Tr. Bost. ed.; or IV. 476–534 Germ. ed.). Gieseler: II. 163–173 (E.
Tr. N. York ed.). Baur: II. 175–198. Hardwick: Middle Age, 169–173 (third ed. by Stubbs).
Milman: III. 258 sqq. Robertson: II. 609 sqq. (small ed., IV. 351–367). Jacobi: Berengar, in
Herzog2 II. 305–311. Reuter: Gesch. der relig. Aufklärung im Mittelalter (1875), I. 91 sqq.
Hefele: IV. 740 sqq. (ed. 1879).
§ 125. The Two Theories of the Lord’s Supper.
The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper became the subject of two controversies in the Western
church, especially in France. The first took place in the middle of the ninth century between
Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus, the other in the middle of the eleventh century between
Berengar and Lanfranc. In the second, Pope Hildebrand was implicated, as mediator between
Berengar and the orthodox party.
In both cases the conflict was between a materialistic and a spiritualistic conception of the
sacrament and its effect. The one was based on a literal, the other on a figurative interpretation of
the words of institution, and of the mysterious discourse in the sixth chapter of St. John. The
contending parties agreed in the belief that Christ is present in the eucharist as the bread of life to
believers; but they differed widely in their conception of the mode of that presence: the one held
that Christ was literally and corporeally present and communicated to all communicants through
the mouth; the other, that he was spiritually present and spiritually communicated to believers
through faith. The transubstantiationists (if we may coin this term) believed that the eucharistic
body of Christ was identical with his historical body, and was miraculously created by the priestly
consecration of the elements in every sacrifice of the mass; their opponents denied this identity,
and regarded the eucharistic body as a symbolical exhibition of his real body once sacrificed on
the cross and now glorified in heaven, yet present to the believer with its life-giving virtue and
saving power.
We find both these views among the ancient fathers. The realistic and mystical view fell in
more easily with the excessive supernaturalism and superstitious piety of the middle age, and
triumphed at last both in the Greek and Latin churches; for there is no material difference between
them on this dogma.^702 The spiritual theory was backed by the all-powerful authority of St. Augustin
in the West, and ably advocated by Ratramnus and Berengar, but had to give way to the prevailing
belief in transubstantiation until, in the sixteenth century, the controversy was revived by the
Reformers, and resulted in the establishment of three theories: 1) the Roman Catholic dogma of
transubstantiation, re-asserted by the Council of Trent; 2) the Lutheran theory of the real presence
(^702) The Greek fathers do not, indeed, define the real presence as transubstantiatio orμετουσίωσις, but Cyril of Jerusalem,
Chrysostom, and John of Damascus use similar terms which imply a miraculous change of the elements.