BOOK VI.
FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.
CHAPTER III.
BERENGAR.
A.D. 1045-1088.
IN the middle of the eleventh century a controversy
arose as to the manner of the Saviour's presence in the eucharist. On this
question the church had not as yet pronounced any formal decision, or proposed
any test of orthodoxy. A real presence of Christ was generally held; but the
meaning of this reality was very variously conceived. Thus, in England,
Aelfric, who is supposed to have written at the beginning of the century, and
whose homilies were read as authoritative in the Anglo-Saxon churches, had laid
down in these homilies the very doctrine of Ratramn—that the presence of Christ
is not material but spiritual. But in countries nearer to the centre of the
papal influence the opinions of Paschasius had by degrees won general
acceptance, and any deviation from them was now regarded as an innovation on
the faith.
In the beginning of the century, Leutheric, archbishop
of Sens, who had been a pupil of Gerbert, was called in question for
substituting for the usual form of address to communicants the words—"If
thou art worthy, receive". The scanty notices of Leutheric leave it
doubtful whether his offence consisted in holding that none but the worthy
could really be partakers, or in giving the Eucharist the character of an
ordeal; but, whatever it may have been, he was silenced by king Robert I, and
quietly submitted to the sentenced Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, a friend of
Leutheric, and one of the most eminent teachers of his age, while he maintained
that the Eucharist was a pledge, would not, with Paschasius, affirm its
identity with the body in which the Saviour was born and was crucified; and he
speaks strongly against gross and material misconceptions on the subject. It
is, however, doubtful in how far Fulbert would have agreed with the doctrines
which were afterwards propounded by his pupil Berengar.
Berengar was born at Tours about the year 1000, and
was educated under Fulbert, in the cathedral school of Chartres. His opponents
afterwards described him as having in his early days exhibited a passion for
novelty, as having despised books and criticized his teacher. William of
Malmesbury adds that, as Fulbert was on his death-bed, he singled out Berengar
from the crowd which filled the chamber, and, declaring that he saw beside him
a devil enticing people to follow him, desired that he might be thrust out. But
even the less improbable of these stories appears to be refuted by the tone in
which an old fellow-pupil of Berengar reminded him of the days when they had
studied together under the venerated bishop of Chartres. In 1031 Berengar
returned to his native city, where he became schoolmaster and treasurer of the
cathedral. The reputation of the school was greatly raised by him, and his
authority as a theologian stood high. Eusebius Bruno, bishop of Angers, out of
respect for his character and learning, bestowed on him the archdeaconry of
that city, which Berengar held without relinquishing his preferments at Tours.
It appears to have been in 1045, or soon after, that
Berengar began to make himself noted by advocating a doctrine which he
professed to have derived from Scotus Erigena, under whose name Ratramn’s
treatise appears to have been really intended. The earliest notices of the
novelties imputed to Berengar are contained in letters of expostulation
addressed to him by two other old pupils of Fulbert—Hugh, bishop of Langres,
whose deposition at the council of Reims for gross offences has been already
mentioned, and Adelman, schoolmaster of Liège, who afterwards became bishop of
Brixen. These writers entreat Berengar to abandon his dangerous speculations.
Adelman tells him that in countries of the German as well as of the Latin
tongue he was reported to have forsaken the unity of the church.
In 1049, Berengar addressed a letter to Lanfranc,
master of the monastic school of Bee in Normandy. Lanfranc was born at Pavia
about the year 1005. He received a legal education and, while yet a young man,
became distinguished as an advocate. But the spirit of adventure led him to
leave his country; he travelled through France, attended by a train of pupils,
and, after having taught for a time at Avranches, was on his way to Rouen, when
he was attacked by robbers, who plundered, stripped, and bound him. In his
distress he made a vow to amend his life, and when, on the following day, he
was set free by some travellers, he asked them to direct him to the humblest
monastery with which they were acquainted. They answered that they knew of none
poorer or less esteemed than the neighbouring house of Bee (or Le Bec), which
Herluin, an old soldier who had turned monk, was then building. Lanfranc found
the abbot labouring with his own hands at the work, and was admitted into his
society in 1042. The poor and despised little monastery soon became famous as a
seminary of learning, and it is not impossible that, among the motives by which
Berengar was led to attack Lanfranc's doctrine, there may have mingled some
feeling of jealousy at this unexpected and successful rivalry of his own fame
as a teacher. In the letter which he now wrote, he expresses surprise that
Lanfranc should (as he heard) have espoused the Eucharistic doctrine of
Paschasius, and should have condemned that of Scotus as heretical; such a
judgment, he says, is rash, and unworthy of the "not despicable wit"
which God had bestowed on Lanfranc. He taxes him with insufficient study of the
Scriptures, while, for himself he professes to be still but imperfectly
acquainted with them. He proposes a conference on the point in question, and in
the meantime tells Lanfranc that, if he considers Scotus heretical, Ambrose,
Augustine, and Jerome must be included in the same sentence.
When this letter reached Bec, Lanfranc was absent; and
there is some uncertainty as to the next part of the story. Lanfranc states
that he had gone to Italy— apparently after having attended the council of
Reims, and in the train of Leo IX and that the letter, having been opened by
some clerks, brought his own orthodoxy into suspicion. To this Berengar answers
that it could not have had such an effect, inasmuch as it showed that the
opinions of the person addressed were different from those of the writer, and
agreeable to the doctrine which Lanfranc described as being generally held and
on the strength, chiefly, of this reply some modern writers have charged
Lanfranc with a complication of intrigue and falsehood, and have supposed that
he went to Rome for the express purpose of denouncing Berengar. If; however, we
look to probability only, without claiming any consideration for Lanfranc's
character, we may fairly see reason to question these inferences. Lanfranc
could not but have foreseen Berengar’s obvious and plausible answer, and would
hardly have provoked it, unless he were conscious that his own story was
nevertheless true. The mere rumour that a reputed heretic had written to him
would naturally raise suspicions; and it would circulate far more widely than
the contents of the letter. Nor was it necessary that Lanfranc should act the
part of an informer; for Leo had in all likelihood heard of Berengar while yet
bishop of Toul—situated as that see is in a district where Berengar’s opinions
had early excited attention, and on the direct road between the cities from
which Adelman and Hugh had sent forth their remonstrances; and it is now known
that the pope had spoken of Berengar’s alleged errors before leaving Rome for
his late circuit beyond the Alps.
A synod was held at Rome, where, after his letter to
Lanfranc had been read, Berengar was excommunicated—a suitable punishment, say
his opponents, for one who wished to deprive the church itself of its communion
in the Saviour’s body and blood. Lanfranc was then required to give an account
of his faith, which he did to the satisfaction of the assembly; and Berengar,
in order that he might have an opportunity of defending himself was cited to a
synod which was to meet at Vercelli in the following September. He was disposed
to obey the summons, although some friends urged on him that, according to the
canons, the pope’s jurisdiction was limited to the case of appeals, and that
questions ought to be decided in the province where they arose. But the king,
Henry I, to whom he applied as the head of St. Martin's monastery, instead of
aiding him in his journey, committed him to prison, seized his property, and
laid on him a fine which, according to Berengar, was greater in amount than all
he had ever possessed. Being thus detained from attending the council, he was
again condemned in his absence. A passage was read from the book ascribed to
Scotus, in which the Eucharist was spoken of as a figure, a token, a pledge of
the Saviour’s body and blood. On this, Peter, a deacon of the Roman church
(most probably Peter Damiani), exclaimed—“If we are still in the figure, when
shall we get the reality?”. Scotus was condemned, with his admirer, and the
book was committed to the flames. One of Berengar’s brother canons, who had been
sent by the church of Tours to request the pope's intercession for his release,
on hearing him styled a heretic, cried out to the speaker—“By the Almighty God,
you lie!”. Another clerk, indignant at the summary condemnation of Scotus,
protested that by such inconsiderate haste St. Augustine himself might be
condemned; and the pope ordered that these two should be imprisoned, in order
to protect them from the fury of the multitude.
Through the influence of Bruno and other friends,
Berengar recovered his liberty. He protested loudly against the injustice done
him by the pope, who ought, he said, rather to have resented the imprisonment
of one who was on his way to the papal judgment-seat than to have taken
advantage of it in order to condemn him in his absence; and he desired an
opportunity of maintaining his opinions before a council.
It would seem to have been in 1051 that Berengar
appeared in Normandy, and was condemned by a council held at Brionne in the
presence of duke William; and in the same year a council was summoned to meet
at Paris for the consideration of his opinions. On this Theotwin, the successor
of Wazo in the see of Liège, addressed a letter to king Henry. After stating
that Berengar, in addition to his errors on the Eucharist, was accused of
“destroying lawful marriage” and of denying infant-baptism—charges which seem to
have been altogether groundless—he speaks of the difficulty arising from the
circumstance that Bruno, one of Berengar’s chief partisans, was a bishop, and
therefore subject to the pope's judgment alone; and he suggests that, in order
to overcome this difficulty, the king should not allow any discussion of the
question, but should proceed against the Berengarians as heretics already
condemned. The council was held in October; Berengar, deterred by rumours which
reached him, did not appear, and it is said that the assembly, not content with
condemning his doctrine and that of Scotus, decreed that he and his followers
should be forcibly seized, and, in case of obstinacy, should be put to death.
In 1054 Berengar was cited to appear before a council
which was to be held at Tours under Hildebrand, as papal legate. He looked
forward to this as an opportunity of vindicating himself, and, before the
meeting of the assembly, he showed the legate a collection of authorities for
his doctrine. To the charge of asserting that the elements after consecration
in no respect differed from what they were before it, he answered that such was
not his opinion; that he believed them, when consecrated, to be the very body
and blood of Christ. Hildebrand, satisfied with this statement, proposed that
Berengar should accompany him to Rome, and should there clear himself before
the pope; and that in the meantime he should give such explanations as might
satisfy the assembled bishops. These explanations were received with some
distrust; it was suggested that perhaps Berengar might say one thing with his
mouth and hold another thing in his heart. He therefore confirmed the sincerity
of his profession by an oath—that the bread and wine are, after consecration,
the body and blood of Christ. But the serious illness of Leo obliged Hildebrand
to return in haste to Rome, and the arrangement which had been made was not
carried out. The enemies of Berengar state that, being unable to defend his
heresy, he recanted it at Tours, and afterwards resumed the profession of it.
But this is a misrepresentation founded on their misconception of the real
nature of his doctrine. The controversy rested throughout the pontificates of
Victor and of Stephen, until 1059, when Berengar appeared at Rome before the
synod held by Nicolas II. This appearance would seem to have been voluntary; he
probably relied on the favour of Hildebrand, to whom he carried a letter from
his only lay supporter whose name is known to us—Geoffrey, count of
Anjou—requesting that the cardinal would not temporize, as at the council of
Tours, but would openly befriend the accused. But the majority of the council
proved to be strongly hostile, and Berengar’s friends were afraid to speak,
while Hildebrand was unwilling to imperil his own influence, and the cause
which he had most at heart, by encumbering himself with the defense of the
suspected hectic. Berengar complains that the council behaved to him not only
without Christian kindness, but without reason. They stopped their ears when he
spoke of a participation in the Eucharist; and, when he proceeded to argue in
the dialectical form, they desired him to produce authority rather than
arguments which they dreaded as sophisms. He reproached the pope for exposing
him to beasts, instead of instituting a deliberate inquiry by competent
persons; to which Nicolas only replied that he must blame Hildebrand. Finding
his attempts at a defence hopeless, Berengar desisted. A confession drawn up by
cardinal Humbert, and embodying a strong and unequivocal assertion of a material change
in the sacrament, was produced; and Berengar, overpowered (as he tells us) by
the fear of death and by the tumult of his opponents, took the document into
his hands, prostrated himself in token of submission, and cast his own writings
into the fire.
But on returning to his own country Berengar again
openly taught his old opinions, and they were widely spread by the agency of
poor students. He denounced the treatment which he had received from the late
council, to which (he said) he had gone, not as a culprit, but of his own free
will; he reflected severely on Leo, Nicolas, Humbert, and the Roman church; he
maintained that his own doctrine was that of St. Augustine, while the doctrine
of Lanfranc and Paschasius was no better than “a dotage of the vulgar”.
Lanfranc wrote to reproach him, Berengar rejoined, and a controversy ensued in
which the opinions of each party were brought out into greater distinctness
than before.
Lanfranc’s treatise Of the Body and Blood of
the Lord was written between 1063 and 1070. The work opens by blaming
Berengar for spreading his errors in an underhand manner, and for declining to
argue before competent judges. Lanfranc then gives an account of the
proceedings under Leo and Nicolas. He remarks on his opponent’s dialectical
subtleties. He asserts the doctrine of Paschasius, and supports it by
quotations from ecclesiastical writers. That the elements after consecration
are still styled bread and wine, he accounts for by saying that in Scripture
things are often called by the name of that from which they are made; thus man
is spoken of as earth, dust, ashes; or they are named after something which
they resemble—as Christ is styled a lion and a lamb. He represents Berengar as
holding the sacrament to be nothing more than a figure and a memorial.
Berengar replied in a treatise which, after having
been long unknown, has in late times been partially recovered, and has thrown a
new and important light on his opinions. He gives (as we have seen) a version
of the previous history different in many respects from that which had been
given by Lanfranc. His fault in the synod under Nicolas consisted (he says) not
in having sworn—(for that was not required of him)—but in having been silent as
to the truth. He had yielded to the fear of death and of the raging multitude,
and in behalf of this weakness he cites the examples of Aaron and of St. Peter;
to have adhered to the confession extorted from him would have been as if the
apostle had persisted in the denial of his Lord. There is something like
effrontery in the tone of contempt and defiance which Berengar assumes after
having submitted to such humiliations; but, while we cannot give him credit for
the spirit of a martyr, his words are a valuable evidence of the uselessness of
force as a means of religious conviction. He strongly protests against the
employment of swords and clubs and uproar by way of argument he declares
against the principle of being guided by the voice of a majority, while he yet
states that the supporters of his own views are very many, or almost
innumerable, of every rank and dignity. He defends his use of dialectics, and
denies the charge of despising authority, although he holds reason to be
“incomparably higher” as a means for the discovery of truth. He complains that
he had been condemned, not only without a hearing, but even without a knowledge
of his doctrines—especially at the council of Vercelli, when he had not set
forth his opinions, nor had attained to such clearness in them as persecution
and study had since brought to him. The doctrine which he lays down is very
different from that which was imputed to him; he distinguishes between the
visible sacrament and the inward part or thing signified it is to the outward
part only that he would apply the terms for which he had been so much
censured—sign, figure, pledge, or likeness. He repeatedly declares that the
elements are "converted" by consecration into the very body and blood
of the Saviour; that the bread, from having before been something common,
becomes the beatific body of Christ—not, however, by the corruption of the
bread, or as if the body which has so long existed in a blessed immortality
could now again begin to be; that consecration operates, not by destroying the
previous substance, but by exalting it. It is not a portion of Christ's body
that is present in each fragment, but He is fully present throughout.
On the side of Rome, the pontificate of Alexander II
was a season of peace for Berengar. The pope wrote to him in friendly terms,
urging him to forsake his errors; but, although he replied by declaring himself
resolved to adhere to his opinions, no measures were taken against him, and,
when he was persecuted by the nephews and successors of his old patron,
Geoffrey of Anjou, Alexander befriended him and interceded for him.
In 1075, under the pontificate of Gregory, Berengar
was brought before a council held under the presidency of a legate at Poitiers;
and such was the tumult that he hardly escaped with his life. About the same
time, Guitmund, a pupil of Lanfranc, and only second to him in fame as a
teacher, wrote against Berengar a dialogue Of the Verity of Christ’s
Body and Blood in the Eucharist. The tone of this work is very bitter.
Guitmund repeats, with additions, the charges of error which had been brought
by Theotwin; he asserts that Berengar denied the possibility of our Lord's
having entered through closed doors; it was, therefore, no wonder if he and his
followers disbelieved the miracles of the church. The most remarkable passage
of the book is one in which the writer draws a distinction between various
kinds of Berengarians. All, he says, agree that there is no essential change in
the elements; but some deny any presence, and allow only shadows and figures :
some—which is said to be the "very subtle opinion" of Berengar
himself—admit that the Saviour’s body and blood are really and latently
contained in the elements, and are, so to speak, impanated; others,
who are strongly opposed to Berengar, maintain that the elements are changed in
part, and in part remain; while others, again, admit the entire change, but
think that, when unworthy communicants approach, the bread and wine resume
their natural substance.
BERENGAR AT ROME.
Berengar was once more cited to Rome. The pope
received him kindly, and, at a council in 1078, endeavoured to provide for his
escape by a confession, which, while it avowed a change in the Eucharistic
elements, would have permitted him to retain his own opinions and against the
authority of Lanfranc he cited that of Peter Damiani. Berengar remained at Rome
nearly a year; but the opposite party was vehement, and he was required to
undergo the ordeal of hot iron. While, however, he was preparing for it by
prayer and fasting, the pope intimated to him that the trial was not to take
place; a monk, whom Gregory had desired to address himself by special devotion
to the blessed Virgin for instruction on the subject, had received a revelation
that nothing ought to be added to the declarations of Scripture, and that
Berengar’s doctrine was sufficient. But his opponents pressed for stronger
measures, the imperialists broadly impeached the pope’s orthodoxy, and Berengar
was alarmed by a rumour that Gregory, to save his own reputation, was about to
imprison him for life. At the Lent synod of 1079, which consisted of a hundred
and fifty bishops and abbots, Berengar was required to sign a confession that
the elements are “substantially” changed into the real, proper, and life-giving
body and blood of Christ. A bold evasion suggested itself to his
mind—that substancially might be interpreted to mean while
retaining their substance!—and he professed himself ready to subscribe. In
answer to a question whether he understood the form in the same sense as the
council, he said that he understood it agreeably to the doctrine which he had
privately explained to the pope some days before. Such a speech was not likely
to be acceptable to Gregory, who thereupon told him that he must prostrate
himself in token of unreserved submission, and must own that he had hitherto
sinned in denying a substantial change. Berengar, in fear of anathema and of
violence, obeyed—as God (he says) did not give him constancy and, after having
been charged to refrain from teaching, except for the purpose of recovering
those whom he had misled, he was dismissed with a commendatory letter,
addressed to all the faithful, in which the pope ordered that no one should
injure him in person or in property, and that no one should reproach him as a
heretic, forasmuch as he had been acknowledged as a son of the Roman church.
After returning to France, Berengar regretted his late
compliance, and once more openly professed his real opinions. In 1080, he was
summoned before a council at Bordeaux, where his statements seem to have been
accepted; and in the same year Gregory wrote to desire that the archbishop of
Tours and the bishop of Angers would protect him against the count of Anjou,
who had been incited by his enemies to persecute him. Berengar was allowed to
spend his last years unmolested in an island of the Loire near Tours, where he
died in 1088. The latest of his known writings is a letter addressed to a
friend on the occasion of Gregory’s death, in which he speaks of the pope with
regard, expresses a conviction of his salvation, and excuses his behaviour
towards himself.
The memory of Berengar was reverenced in the district
of Tours, and there was, down to late times, a yearly solemnity at his tomb.
Hence it has been argued that he finally renounced his heresy, having, as was
supposed, been converted by Lanfranc’s book. But the groundlessness of that
supposition has been abundantly shown by the discovery of his answer to
Lanfranc; nor is there any reason to question the statement of his contemporary
Bemold that he persevered in his opinions to the last.
The recovery of his treatise, and of other writings,
has placed his doctrines in a clearer light, and it is now acknowledged, even
by writers of the Roman church, that, instead of supposing the Eucharist to be
merely figurative, he acknowledged in it a real spiritual change, while he
denied that doctrine of a material change which has become distinctive of their
own communion.
