The Eucharistic Controversy

There is a moment when writing a paper/doing a study between the time one knows exactly how to answer a question and not knowing if there is even an answer. This moment happened concerning the Eucharistic understanding in the Middle Ages. The undisputable parts of the Eucharistic mystery were not the subject of this moment but rather how to describe them best. The term “transubstantiation” was coined at the height of this controversy after Aristotle's works resurfaced after the loss of much history in library burnings and brought the Church the answer.

The famous case that culminated in the resolve of the controversy involved Berengarius of Tours (AD 999-1088).[1] Berengarius, a materialistic empiricist and head of the Cathedral School of Tour in Paris tried to clarify what is meant by Eucharist, in terms of predicable truth.[2] He was a quick thinker and concerned his master with his intellectual ambition.[3] Due to his famed position, he attracted a large following, and likewise a significant opposition.[4] Berengarius observed that empirical study revealed bread and wine, not flesh and blood. Initially, his opponents, could not answer his hesitations with success. Councils were called to resolve the controversy. At the Council of Tours in 1055 and again in Rome in 1059, Berengarius was coerced into signing the following profession: “The bread and wine on the altar after the consecration are not only the sacrament but the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and that they are such not only sacramentally but sensibly and not only sacramentally but in reality to be handled and broken by the hands of the priests and to be chewed by the teeth of the faithful.”[5] The word “sensibly” however was the point of discontinuity. This proved to be unsatisfactory to Berengarius, who understandably wrote his interpretation of Eucharistic theology after the fact. Thus, the metaphysical discontinuity had become an argument of polemics. After a century, the term “transubstantiation” was coined for clarity and appeared in the first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).[6] This preceded Thomas Aquinas and was coined out of need; however, the theology of the term had not yet been developed. Thomas Aquinas then developed its principles.[7] Thomas Aquinas developed the theology of transubstantiation through his Aristotelian system. Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics considers two aspects of a thing: substance and accidents. “In Aristotle’s mature ontological system, as presented in the Metaphysics, individual substances are taken to be combinations of matter and form, with each such substance being constituted by a particular parcel of matter embodying, or organized by, a certain form.”[8] Though matter and form are by no means the same as accidents and substance, they make up both the accidents and substance.[9] The objective distinction between accidents and substance must be general and cannot be specific, since there must be something of the substance within the accidents, similar to the essential quality of the matter to the form, and the form to the matter.[10] Since the form is particularly essential to an object, much of the form is substantial.[11] The matter, then, tends toward the accidental properties though the matter itself is something essential.[12] Therefore, accidents are, at least, the sensible/empirical things of an object which may be absent without completely undermining the nature of the object, and substance is, at least, the nonsensible quality of the thing that involves its purpose and form thereby.[13] In the case of a four-legged, simple table, the substance and accidents are present according to the form of a table with the matter of wood. The accidents of such a table would be its qualities such as color, its legs, its top, its matter (in the sense the form of table can be applied to many materials), etc. At the removal/change of any of these accidents, the object remains a table, despite the lessening/changing of the matter and likewise something of the form. However, anything that causes a table to lose its form eliminates something of its essence/substance, its “tableness”. Thus, to remove all of the legs is to reduce what was a table to matter without the form of a table and that which no longer serves the purpose of a table. Using this system of metaphysics, Thomas brought forth a comprehensive definition of transubstantiation. The hysteria of the arguments abated and the problem met its solution to be further implemented by the teachings of the Church.

In conclusion, the answer to the unanswered question came in a moment. We don't always see the value of deriving a term in a society where even our words lose their meaning. It seems this situation above any other reveals the implications of a given term in our understanding of realities that elsewise are unintelligible mysteries. Having terms such as "transubstantiation" not only are significant in themselves but they also conduct precisely the meaning given by a sentence. The meaning of terms is essential to communication i.e the conveyance of meaning. Having terms like these allow us to maximize our use of language to convey the deepest mysteries of the faith. This also corresponds to loving others since if "I love you" is only as I understand it, then what shall it mean to those I "love"? In the same way, what would the Platonic expression of the Eucharistic mystery have meant to empiricists? Indeed, not what we mean!

A compilation/synthesis of the two Pange Lingua Hymns:

On the night of that Last Supper,
Seated with His chosen band,
He, the Paschal Victim eating,
First fulfils the Law's command;
Then as Food to all his brethren
Gives Himself with His own Hand.

Thus God made Man an Infant lies,

   And in the manger weeping cries;

His sacred limbs by Mary bound,

   The poorest tattered rags surround;

And God's incarnate feet and hands

   Are closely bound with swathing-bands.

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
By His Word to Flesh He turns;
Wine into His Blood He changes:
What though sense no change discerns.
Only be the heart in earnest,

FN:

1. George Sauvage. "Berengarius of Tours." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid; Roch A Kereszty. Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eucharistic Theology from a Historical, Biblical, and Systematic Perspective, pg. 131.
6. Paul Halsall. “Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215.” Internet Medieval Source Book. Fordham University, February 1996, Canon 1.
7. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, Q. 75-78 , at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.
8. E. Jonathan Lowe. "BODY, SOUL, AND SELF." Rivista Di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 103, no. 2 (2011), 203.
9. S. Marc Cohen, “Aristotle on Substance, Matter, and Form - UW Faculty Web ...,” UW Faculty (University of Washinghton, 2004), https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/Metaphysics.pdf, 7.
10. Patrick J Connolly. “Thomas White on the Metaphysics of Transubstantiation.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 56, no. 4 (December 2018), 526.
11. S. Marc Cohen, “Aristotle on Substance, Matter, and Form - UW Faculty Web”, 7.
12. Ibid.
13. Patrick J Connolly. “Thomas White on the Metaphysics of Transubstantiation.”, 526.