The Lord’s Supper in the Middle Ages

Several factors come into view when discussing the medieval debates over the eucharist.  Throughout this time, two general views developed: the metabolic and the symbolic.  The metabolic view thought that the bread and the wine actually became the body and blood of Christ.  In the eucharist, a perpetual sacrifice occurs for the remission of sins.  The symbolic view does not see a transformation of the elements, but rather views the eucharist as a memorial to the finished work of Christ and the elements as symbolic of Christ’s body and blood.

These general categories are developed through the history of the church as theologians try to explain the practice and apply it to the church.  Cyril of Jerusalem held to a metabolic view.  He saw the eucharist as a sacrifice that remitted sins and would be beneficial for the sanctification and purgation of the believer.  We see the overlap between the eucharist and the medieval doctrine of the Christian life at this point.  Dionysius the Areopagite proposed a three phase Christian life that moved from illumination to purgation and then to union.  Cyril and others apply the eucharist to purgation.  Later, Radbertus develops this idea.  He proposes a metabolic view, but just like Cyril, does not provide an explanation for how the bread and wine transform into body and blood.  Cyril and Radbertus are in ways proto-transubstantiation thinkers.  However, they did not have access to Aristotle and were not working with those particular philosophical categories.  It was not until Thomas Aquinas in the 13th c. that the metabolic view had a philosophical explanation.  Radbertus was focused on the miracle, but this proved to be unsatisfactory to many.

Jerome, who thought the best way to facilitate purgation was by separation from the world, saw the eucharist as helping this process along.  He, however did not see the eucharist metabolically, but as a symbolic memorial.  Later, Ratramnus followed this thinking in rejecting Radbertus’ metabolic formulation.  As Cyril and Radbertus can be seen as proto-transubstantiationists Jerome and Ratramnus might be viewed as proto-Zwinglians.  For them, the memorial is helpful for the believer’s life, but no real union or presence of Christ exists in their conception of the eucharist.

Berengerius, however, developed a third strand of thinking.  Though not holding to a metabolic view, he nevertheless saw a real union and presence of Christ in the Supper.  This might vaguely be seen as a proto-Calvinist formula.  What is interesting here is that the conception of union progresses beyond Dionysius’ scheme so that it at least occurs alongside purgation/sanctification.  This notion of the eucharist appears more compliant with the later Reformed doctrine of soteriology.  Once the Reformation occurred, real union can occur even prior to sanctification.

These controversies became especially important because worship became sensible.  Berengerius’ rejection of Radbertus’ scheme was based on empirical categories.  For Berengerius, if the elements tasted like bread and wine, that is what they were.  Given the lack of education and the unfamiliarity with Latin (the language of the worship service), the common churchgoer needed worship to incorporate elements that appealed to the senses.  Icons and relics appealed to the sight, incense to the smell, and music to the hearing.  The eucharist, then addressed taste and touch.  Along with various thoughts on the Chrisitan life, it can be seen how the debate becomes much more than philosophical and doctrinal.