Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Discuss the theological controversy between Berengar and Lanfranc.…
Discuss the theological controversy between Berengar and Lanfranc.
Berengar of Tours (1000-1088)
Celebrated dialectician who was unconvinced by Paschasius Radbertus' position on the Eucharist
Paschasius Radbertus (c. 785-865) The bread and wine ‘truly’ become the body and blood of Jesus in the consecration and are identical to His historical body, though they maintain the semblance or appearance of bread and wine.
Emphasised that human beings are made in the image of God in their intellectual capacity
Very empirical in his approach
The senses judge whether or not something truly exists
Claimed that bread and wine are substances with accidental qualities. The accidents of bread and wine can only inhere in the substance of bread and wine
Saying "this is my body" does not make the bread and wine disappear because their accidents would have nothing to subtend to them
Radbertus' claim that the bread and wine become identical with the body and blood of Christ must be false
The Bread and wine are
symbols
or
metaphors
for the presence of Christ but cannot logically be the body of the resurrected Christ
From 1047 he lectured on the Eucharist and in keeping with his philosophical principles, he ignored the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
He argued that the body of Christ has been in heaven since the ascension and that it thus follows that it cannot both be in heaven and on thousands of alters simultaneously
The only connection the bread and wine can have with the body and blood of Christ is a symbolic one (an
'intellectual connection'
Condemnation
Berengar was summoned to Rome to sign a profession of his faith in the literal presence of Christ in the Eucharist, to which he agreed
When he returned to France, he retracted his profession and resumed the teaching of his earlier positions
The Council of Bordeaux condemned his position again. In 1080 they demanded he cease his teaching activity. This time he complied.
Berengar's position was condemned by various councils
He died in 1088
Lanfranc (c. 1005-1089)
Prior of Abbey of Bec in Normandy
Later became Archbishop of Canterbury
Opposed Berengar's position on the Eucharist
Argued that the substance of the bread and wine does truly change into the body and bloody of Jesus Christ and is just as much the body and blood of Jesus Christ as when he was born of Mary or died on the Cross, It is exactly the same, except that now it is in the form of bread and wine
it is meaningless to try to understand how this transformation takes place during the consecration using dialectics, because it concerns the efficacy (success) of God
The intellect is never able to grasp this, while faith can provide some insight
His
Libellus de sacramento corporis et sanguinis Christi
is clearly a refutation of the positions of Berengar, and repeats the doctrines of Radbert (Lanfranc did not write anything original in this regard)
Bread and wine refer to something that is present
Berengar's view is that they refer to something that is absent
THE EUCHARIST