Medieval, Reformation, and Scholastic – The Doctrine of the Holy Supper
Posted by Reformed Reader on March 18, 2008
Though not mentioned in volume one of Muller’s PRRD, the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper throughout church history proves Muller’s point [see my last post]: the reformers and following scholastics did not outright reject 100% of medieval theology. Did the Reformers reject the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation? Certainly. Did they reject all previous medieval teaching on the Lord’s Supper? Certainly not! The 9th century theologian [Bertram] Ratramnus is proof. In his booklet On the Body and Blood of the Lord (De Corpore et Sanguine Domini Liber), Ratramnus explains the Lord’s Supper as a spiritual feast on the body and blood of Jesus.
“The bread shows one thing outwardly to man’s senses; and proclaimeth another thing inwardly to the souls of the faithful. Outwardly, the form of bread, which it was before, is presented; its colour exhibited, its taste perceived; but inwardly a far different thing is signified and that much more precious, much more excellent, for it is heavenly, for it is divine; that is, Christ’s body is shewn forth, which is beheld, is taken, is eaten, not by the bodily senses, but by the gaze of the believing soul…. Likewise the wine…”
“…It is plain that the Bread and Wine are in a figure the Body and Blood of Christ. As to outward appearance, neither the nature of the flesh is recognized in that Bread, nor the fluid of blood in that Wine; yet after the mystic consecration, they are no longer called bread or wine, but Christ’s body and blood.”
“Whence they are called the Body and Blood of Christ, because they are received not as what they outwardly appear, but as they are made inwardly by the operation of the Spirit of God.” (Ratram, On the Body and Blood of the Lord [London: Oxford, 1838], 5-6, 24.).
This sounds like Heidelberg Q/A’s 75-80 & Belgic Confession of Faith 35; Turretin also utilizes Ratramnus to bolster his section on the Lord’s Supper, which in turn also stands right in line with Calvin’s emphasis on the Spirit’s work in the Supper (see Turretin’s Institutes, III.479, 501, 504).
Note: this tractate of Ratramnus can be found on Google books – in English and Latin.
shane lems
sunnyside wa
Ian said
That is unless you hold to the position of Radbertus who won the debate and is the beginning point for the standard Medieval views of the Western church. What makes Ratramnus “medieval” is nothing more that time.