Articles

The Eucharistic Complex in the High Middle Ages

Boyd Taylor Coolman

Abstract

Boyd Taylor Coolman examines the "Eucharistic complex" of the High Middle Ages, a multifaceted framework integrating liturgical experience, metaphysical presence, and salvific effect. Standardizing the distinctions between sacramentum tantum (sign), res et sacramentum (reality and sign), and res tantum (reality only), medieval theologians such as Hugh of St. Victor and Thomas Aquinas linked Christ’s sacramental body to his historical, celestial, ecclesial, and eschatological existence. This synthesis effectively held together symbol, substance, and grace.

Citations

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 2.32 (PL 149:1458C; Vaillancourt, 151).

Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones I, Opera Omnia S. Bernardi, ed. J. Leclercq et H.M. Rochais (Editiones Cistercienses, 1966), 4:394.

Paul J.J.M. Bakker, La Raison et la miracle: Les doctrines Eucharistiques (c. 1250–1400), 2 vols. (Nijmegen, 1999).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.7 (PL 176:467A–B; Deferrari, 309).

Gary Macy, “Reception of the Eucharist According to the Theologians: A Case of Diversity in the 13th and 14th Centuries,” Theology and the University, ed. John Apczynski, Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the College Theology Society, 1987 (University Press of America, 1990), 15–36.

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.7 (PL 176:467B; Deferrari, 309).

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 4.

Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ,” in The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Sister Benedicta Ward, SLG (Penguin Classics, 1973), 100–101, at 101.

Summa theologiae III, q. 79, a. 5.

Otto of Luca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:143A)

Alger of Liège, De sacrificio missae (PL 180:855C).

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1089B)

Joseph Goering, “The Invention of Transubstantiation,” Traditio 46 (1991): 147–70, at 147, 158.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1.

Burr, “Eucharistic Presence and Conversion in Late Thirteenth-Century Thought,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 74.3 (1984): 1–113, at 106–7.

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:933B)

Summa theologiae III, q. 79, a. 1 ad 2.

Augustine, Confessiones 7.10.16.

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 1.8 (PL 149:1432CD; Vaillancourt, 101).

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 2.2 (PL 149:1446B; Vaillancourt, 129).

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 3.51 (PL 149:142B; Vaillancourt, 214).

Summa theologiae III, q. 79, aa. 5 and 7.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 5 ad 2.

Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (University of California Press, 1988).

James T. O’Connor, The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist (Ignatius, 2005), 1–25.

canon 43 of the Decretum Gratiani, completed c. 1142

Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum (PL 207:999)

Lanfranc of Canterbury, On the Body and Blood of the Lord, trans. Mark G. Vaillancourt, Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, vol. 10 (The Catholic University of America Press, 2009).

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology, 600–1300 (University of Chicago Press, 1980), 185.

Ratramnus, De corpore et sanguine domini 49.46

Ambrose, De sacramentis 4.14.82

Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Jerome, Commentariorum in epistolam ad Ephesios 1 (PL 26:451A).

De civitate Dei 10.20.

Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum (PL 207:859D–860A)

Pamela Jackson, “Eucharist,” in Encyclopedia of Augustine, 330–34.

de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum

De Lubac, Catholicism

Ivo of Chartres, Sermon 5 (PL 162:557A)

Alger of Liege, Liber de misericordia et justitia (PL 180:885A–C)

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 5.

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:141B).

Summa theologiae III, q. 74, a. 1.

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 2.2 (PL 149:1446B; Vaillancourt, 129).

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1.

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1091B)

The anonymous Eucharistic Tract and Questions in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 32, para. 1 (ed. Goering, “Invention,” 164)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 4.

Summa theologiae III, q. 79, a. 1 ad 2.

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (Ignatius, 1988), 88–89nn22–23.

Ambrose, De mysteriis 9.53 (SC 25:186–88), in Pelikan, Growth, 193.

Augustine, De Trinitate 4.13.17.

de Lubac, Catholicism, 97–98.

Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber de sacramento altaris (PL 204:730D)

Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber de sacramento altaris (PL 204:650A)

Joseph P. Wawkow, “The Heritage of the Late Empire: Influential Theology,” in A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, ed. Ian Levy and Gary Macy (Brill, 2011), 59–91.

James T. O’Connor, The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 5.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 6.

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 2.2 (PL 149:1446B; Vaillancourt, 129).

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:116D).

Decretum Magistri Gratiani, Decretal 3, De consecratione. d. 2, c. 42, Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg (Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879), 1:1328–29.

Ralph of Ardens, Homily 47 (PL 155:1835D)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 4.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 5.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3 ad 3.

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1091B).

Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast.

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1089A)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3 ad 3.

Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelium 26.11 (CCSL 36:265) and 15 (CCSL 36:267), in Levy, Wyclif, 125–26.

Peter Lombard, Sentences

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 6.

Gregory VII, Registrum 6.17a, in Das Register Gregors VII, ed. Erich Caspar (Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1923), 2:426–27.

Glossa Ordinaria (Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria, vol. 4.325).

Honorius Augustodunensis, Sacramentarium (PL 172:793D).

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 6.

Paschasius Radbertus, On the Body and the Blood of the Lord: With the Letter to Fredugard, ed. and trans. Mark G. Vaillancourt, Corpus Christianorum in Translation 34:2020.

Mark G. Vaillancourt, “Guitmund of Aversa and the Eucharistic Theology of St. Thomas,” The Thomist 68 (2004): 577–600, at 580n13.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 1.

Summa theologiae III, q. 74, a. 1

Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 5 ad 2: “The accidents which are discerned by the senses are truly present,” and these “suffice for [the sacrament’s] signification,” since the “the nature of the substance is known by its accidents” (Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 2 ad 3).

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:140B)

Phillip Cary, Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia, 2.2 (PL 149:1446B; Vaillancourt, 129).

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 3.

Summa theologiae III, q. 76, a. 4 ad 1.

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:130C)

Alger of Liège, De sacrificio missae (PL 180:856A)

Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber de sacramento altaris (PL 204:650A)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 6.

Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis) 2.8.7, trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Medieval Academy of America, 1951), 308 (PL 176:466C).

Ralph of Ardens, Homily 47 (PL 155:1835D)

Arnold of Bonneval, Liber de cardinalibus operibus Christi

Thomas Aquinas, In Epistolam ad Corinthios I, XI, 729: “spirituale alimentum.”

Eucharistic Tract and Questions in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 32, para. 4 (ed. Goering, “Invention,” 164)

William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea (ed. Ribaillier) 4.7.3: 152.83ff.

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:116D–117A)

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:917B)

Joseph W. Goering, “The Invention of Transubstantion,” Traditio 46 (1991): 147–70, at 151.

Damien van den Eynde, Les définitions des sacraments pendant la première période de la théologie scolastique (1050–1235) (Antonianum, 1950), 70.

Decretum Gratiani, canon 45: “How the body of Christ which hung upon the cross is received and how it is not” (in Levy, Wyclif, 179).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.7 (PL 176:467A–B; Deferrari, 309).

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 1 ad 1.

Durandus of Troarn, Liber de corpore et sanguine Christi (PL 149:1414).

Lanfranc, Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini 15 (Vaillancourt, 58–59).

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:140B)

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:933B)

Arnold of Bonneval, Liber de cardinalibus operibus Christi (PL 189:1642D–43A)

Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica IV, q. 11, m. 2, a. 1. §§1 and 2 (Ad Claras Aquas, 1924–48).

Joseph de Ghellinck, “Eucharistie au XIIe siècle en Occident,” 5/2:1233–302, at 5/2:1290–93.

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Expositionis in Psalmos (PL 194:696).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.14 (PL 176:472B; Deferrari, 315).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.14 (PL 176:472B; Deferrari, 315).

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:1179B)

Alger of Liège, De sacrificio missae (PL 180:855D–56A).

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:116D–17A)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 1, s.c.

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:933C)

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1088B)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 4.

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:1180C–D)

Mark G. Vaillancourt, “The Eucharistic Realism of St. Augustine,” in Studia Patristica, vol. 70 (Peeters, 2013), 569–76.

Jonathan Ciraulo, “Sacramental Hermeneutics: Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana in the Berengarian Controversy,” in Studia Patristica, vol. 98 (Peeters, 2017), 495–507.

Ralph of Ardens, Homily 47 (PL 155:1834B–C)

De Lubac’s primary thesis in Corpus Mysticum

Ivo of Chartres, Sermon 5 (PL 162:557A).

Rupert of Deutz, De Trinitate et operibus eius (PL 167:378C-D).

Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam Judaeorum (PL 207:859CD).

Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber de sacramento altaris (PL 204:650A).

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia, 2.35 (PL 149:1459C; Vaillancourt, 153).

Victorine Summa sententiarum (PL 176:140A), likely written in the second quarter of the twelfth century and attributed to Otto of Lucca

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia, 2.34 (PL 149:1459B; Vaillancourt, 153).

Lanfranc, On the Body and Blood of the Lord 18, p. 66).

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:141B):

Decretum Gratiani, canon 34: “After consecration it is not the substance, but the species that remain” (in Levy, Wyclif, 178).

Gary Macy, Banquet’s Wisdom (OSL, 2015), 79.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 4.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1 ad 3.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1 ad 4.

Summa theologiae III, q. 76, a. 4

Summa theologiae III, q. 76, a. 1 ad 1.

John Duns Scotus, Sent. IV, d. 10, q. 2; 197

Otto of Lucca, Summa Sententiarum (PL 176:142D).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.9 (PL 176:466D; Deferrari, 310–11).

Lothario of Signi, De sacro altaris mysterio (PL 217:868C–D).

Arnold of Bonneval, Liber de cardinalibus operibus Christi (PL 189:1642D)

Marilyn McCord Adams, Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist: Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:142D–43A).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.7 (PL 176:467A–B; Deferrari, 309)

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1089B): “…divinitatis participes efficimur, quia Deus in nobis, et nos in Deo manemus.”

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:1182B–C)

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:118B).

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:140B–D)

Gregory IX, Liber Extra, compiled by Raymond of Peñafort and published in 1234.

Summa theologiae III, q. 76, a. 8.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 1.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1 ad 2.

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 1.8 (PL 149:1430C–D; Vaillancourt, 97).

Gieselmann, Die Eucharistielehre de Vorscholastik (Schöningh, 1926), 407–44.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 2.

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:140B): “Quia sicut panis ex multis granis efficitur unus, vinum ex multis racemis in vinum confluit; ita ex plurimis membris Ecclesia, quae est corpus Christi, adunatur.”

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1 ad 4.

Summa theologiae III, q. 75, a. 1 ad 3.

Gary Macy, “The ‘Dogma of Transubstantiation’ in the Middle Ages,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45 (1994): 11–41.

Summa theologiae III, q. 76, a. 1 ad 3.

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:143D–44A):

Guitmund of Aversa, De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in Eucharistia 1.18 (PL 149:1435A; Vaillancourt, 106).

Alger of Liege, Liber de misericordia et justitia (PL 180:885A–C)

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:142D).

Peter of Blois, Contra perfidiam judaeorum (PL 207:859C)

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1088D).

Boyd Taylor Coolman, Knowing God by Experience, 218-34.

Mark G. Vaillancourt, “Sacramental Theology from Gottschalk to Lanfranc,” in Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, ed. Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering (Oxford University Press, 2015), 187–200.

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:119A–B)

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:1180C–D).

Ralph of Ardens, Homily 47 (PL 155:1834C)

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:917D)

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 4.

Arnold of Bonneval, Liber de cardinalibus operibus Christi (PL 189:1643D)

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1091D)

Joseph P. Wawrykow, Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (Westminster John Knox, 2005), 133–35.

Henri De Lubac’s primary thesis in Corpus Mysticum.

Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale 3.6 (PL 213:117D–18A).

Baldwin of Canterbury, Liber de sacramento altaris 2.2.2 (SC 93:226), in Pelikan, Growth, 188.

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1088A)

Alger of Liège, De sacrificio missae (PL 180:856A).

Summa theologiae III, q. 83, a. 4 ad 9.

Ivo of Chartres, “Sermon 5,” Sive opusculum de convenientia veteris et novi sacrificii (PL 162:555D)

Summa theologiae III, q .82, a. 9 ad 2.

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1088B).

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3.

Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3.

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism, 93ff.

Otto of Lucca, Summa sententiarum (PL 176:143A).

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Liber contra duas haereses (PL 149:1180C–D).

Hervaeus of Bourg-Dieu, In epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 181:917B)

Thomas Aquinas, Officium corporis Christi “Sacerdos,” “Antiphona ad Magnificat.” “O sacrum convivium. In quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis eius, mens impletur gratia, et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.”

Thomas Aquinas, Officium corporis Christi “Sacerdos,” “Antiphona ad Magnificat.” “futurae gloriae nobis pignus ...

John of Fecamp, Confessio fidei (PL 101:1090D–91A).

Hugh of St. Victor, De Sacramentis 2.8.8 (PL 176:467D; Deferrari, 310).

Canonis Missae Expositio (Gabrielis Biel, Canonis Misse Expositio, ed. Heiko A. Oberman and William J. Courtenay, with the cooperation of Daniel E. Zerfoss. Pars quarta. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, Band 34. Abteilung für abendländische Religionsgeschichte. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1967) 85)

Nicole Bériou, Béatrice Caseau, Dominique Rigaux (eds.), Pratiques de l’Eucharistie dans eglises d’orient et d’occident (Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2009).

Edward J. Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. Robert J. Daly (Liturgical, 1999).

Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, trans. Gemma Simmonds with Richard Price and Christopher Stephens, ed. Laurence Paul Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons (University of Notre Dame, 2006).

Josef Geiselmann, Die Eucharistielehre der Vorscholastiker (Schöningh, 1926).

Joseph de Ghellinck, “Eucharistie au XIIe siècle en Occident,” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 5/2 (Letouzey et Ané, 1913), 1233–302.

Ferdinand Holböck, Der Eucharistische und der mystische Leib Christi in ihren Beziehungen zueinander nach der Lehre der Frühscholastik (Officium Libri Catholici, 1941).

Hans Jorissen, Die Entfaltung der Transsubstantiationslehre bis zum Beginn der Hochscholastik (Münster, 1965).

Ian Christopher Levy, John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence, and the Parameters of Orthodoxy (Marquette University Press, 2003).

Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament according to the Theologians c. 1080–c. 1220 (Clarendon, 1984).

David N. Power, The Eucharistic Mystery: Revitalizing the Tradition (Crossroads, 1992).