Amalarius of Metz was a pupil of Alcuin at Aix-la-Chapelle not earlier than 782. He became Bishop of Treves in 811. He died about 850. In his treatises On the Offices of the Church and Selections on the Office of the Mass he expounded an elaborate system of interpreting the prayers and ceremonies of the Eucharist as a symbolical presentation of the life and death and resurrection and ascension of our Lord, in such a way that one element of the Eucharistic sacrifice was the series of acts in which the Church made its own recollection and its commemoration before God of the whole incarnate life of Christ. The line of thought thus adopted has much in common with the idea of the elements before consecration as the image of the body of Christ current in the East in the eighth century and with the Eastern liturgical treatises of the thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It does not seem impossible that Amalarius may have been to some extent indebted to Eastern theologians. From 813 to 814 he was on an embassy at Constantinople; in 825 there was project of his being sent thither again; some interest taken by him in the East may have led to his selection for such work; and, since the earlier of the two treatises was not completed till 827, he may easily have been influenced in the writing of it by ideas learnt during his sojourn at Constantinople in 813 and 814. On the other hand there is nothing improbable in this way of regarding the successive stages of the Liturgy having been worked out as a natural result of beliefs common to the East and the West independently of any direct influence of Eastern methods or thought.
One of the letters of Amalarius seems to show that he did not regard the eating of the flesh of the Son of Man spoken of by our Lord in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel as equivalent to the reception of the Eucharist; for he explains the words “Except ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and shall have drunk His blood, ye shall not have life in yourselves” as meaning “Unless ye shall have been partakers of My passion and shall have believed that I died for your salvation, ye shall not have life in you.”
These two lines of thought did not hinder Amalarius from believing that at consecration the elements are made to be the body and blood of Christ, and that these consecrated gifts are a sacrifice which is accepted by God in heaven. Speaking of the Consecration and the prayers which follow it, he says:—
“Here we believe that the simple nature of the bread and of the mingled wine is turned (verti) into a spiritual (rationabilem) nature, namely of the body and blood of Christ.… In the Sacrament of the bread and the wine, as well as in my memory, the passion of Christ is present.… The priest adds in his oven name and in that of the people, ‘Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants and also Thy people, mindful of the so blessed passion of the same Thy Son Christ our Lord, and also of His resurrection from the dead, and also of His glorious ascension into heaven, do offer unto Thy excellent majesty, of Thine own gifts and bounties, a pure offering, a holy offering, a stainless offering’.… ‘The holy bread of eternal life, the cup of everlasting salvation.’ The bread of eternal life and the cup of everlasting salvation is Christ, or, as I said before, the bread is the pure offering, the holy offering, the cup is the stainless offering, and the bread and the wine are both because they make one body.… Then the prayer goes on, ‘Upon which vouchsafe to look with a favourable and gracious countenance, and to accept, as Thou vast pleased to accept the gift of Thy righteous servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and that which Thy high priest Melchizedek offered unto Thee, a holy sacrifice and a stainless offering’. The priest prays God the Father that, as in past time He deigned to look on the gifts of Abel and the sacrifice of the patriarch and also that of Melchizedek, so he will have regard to the present supplication, which had its beginning from the sacrifice of Christ. Then he prays that they may be received be saying, ‘We humbly beseech Thee, Almighty God, command these to be borne by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thy altar on high to the presence of Thy divine majesty, that all we who from this participation of the altar shall receive the most holy body and blood of Thy Son may be filled with all heavenly blessing and grace: through Christ our Lord’. The priest prays that the offering on earth may be accepted in the presence of the divine majesty, so that they who are to receive it may at the same time be made heavenly and filled with the grace of God. Wonderful and great is the faith of the hold Church, which … believes that the sacrifice on earth is carried by the hands of the angels into the presence of the Lord, and perceives that it may be eaten by a human mouth. For it believes that this is the body anal blood of the Lord, and that the souls of those who partake are filled with heavenly blessing by eating it.”
In spite of the deep sense of the spiritual realities which transcend material things shown by Amalarius in these and other passages in his writings, he evidently felt much difficulty in reconciling his belief in the Eucharistic presence with the material surroundings of consecration and Communion. A habit of his, which perhaps may have seemed less strange to him and his contemporaries than it would to an Englishman of the twentieth century, of spitting after he had received the Sacrament gave scandal to some who thought that this practice involved irreverence; and, when he knew this, his defence of himself included the following statement:—
“When the body of the Lord has been received with good intention, I must not discuss whether it is invisibly taken up into heaven, or is kept in our bodies till the day of burial, or is breathed out into the air, or passes out from the body with the blood, or goes out though the passages, as the Lord says, ‘Everything which goeth into the mouth passeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught’. This alone must be my care that I take it not with the heart of Judas, and that it is not despised but most healthfully discerned from common food.”
And in the work On the Offices of the Church it is difficult to be sure whether his meaning is that there is an actual division in our Lord’s body in the Eucharist and that He has three distinct bodies, or whether the allusion is simply to a mystical division and to three different aspects of His body. Thus, he writes:—
“Threefold is the body of Christ, that is, of those who have tasted death and are about to die. The first is that holy and stainless body which was taken from the Virgin Mary; the second is that which walks on the earth [i.e., the Church militant]; the third is that which lies in the tomb [i.e., departed Christians]. By the particle of the offering which is placed in the cup the body of Christ which has now risen from the dead is signified; by that which is eaten by the priest or the people that which still walks on the earth; by that which is left on the altar that which lies in the tomb.”
In his later work, Selections on the Office of the Mass, which may have been written after the controversy shortly to be mentioned, though he speaks of the unity of Christ’s body, he still seems unable to shake off the idea of some kind of division in it.
“As there are many churches throughout the world because of the differences of place, and nevertheless there is One Holy Catholic Church because of the unity of faith, so also the many offerings which are made because of the supplications of those who offer are one bread because of the unity of the body of Christ. For, if you ask why the whole of the oblation is not placed in the cup since it is clear that the Lord’s whole body rose, the answer is that in part it is about to rise, in part it now lives, so that it dieth no more, in part it is mortal and yet is in heaven.”
On the assumption that his statements were intended to assert an actual division in the body of Christ, and that some of his mystical interpretations of the ceremonial of the Mass involved a return to Jewish ideas, Amalarius was bitterly attacked by Florus, a deacon of Lyons and Master of the Cathedral School there; his teaching was brought before the Council of Thionville in 835 and the Council of Qiercy-sur-Oise in 838; and at the latter council some kind of condemnation was passed upon it. An unfavourable view involving strong disapproval has been taken of his opinions by a theologian of so great insight as Dr. Vacant; but when his teaching is considered as a whole it is perhaps more likely that assertions, which, if literally and materially meant could not be defended, were intended to be of a mystical nature, and that Dom Morin is right in saying, “The heresy of which Florus accused him on the subject of the threefold body of Christ cannot be taken seriously”.
Florus the Deacon, who died about 860, was himself the author of a treatise entitled On the Explanation of the Mass, which was probably written at an earlier date than his attacks on Amalarius. Many sentences in this work are identical with sentences in the fourth book of the Confession of the Faith ascribed to Alcuin, from which quotations have already been made. This may be due to the Confession of the Faith being not by Alcuin but later than the book by Florus, or to both writers having incorporated phraseology ordinarily current in the eighth and ninth centuries. In this treatise and in the writings against Amalarius the belief of Florus as to the means and effect of consecration is made very clear. The consecration is accomplished by the operation of the Holy Ghost at the recitation of the words of institution; by virtue of consecration the elements are made to be the body and blood of Christ; this work is effected not in any material fashion but in ways wholly spiritual.
“By the action of the power of the Holy Ghost the oblation, … although it is taken from mere fruits of the earth, is made the body and blood of the only begotten Son of God by the ineffable power of the divine blessing.”
“In these words [i.e., the recital of the institution] without which no language, no place, no city, that is, no part of the Catholic Church can make, that is, consecrate the Sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, the Lord Himself gave to the Apostles, whence the universal Church might continually celebrate the memory of its Redeemer; and the Apostles gave them generally to the whole Church. By the power and words of Christ, then, the consecration is always made, and will be made. It is His word which hallows the heavenly Sacraments. He speaks daily in His priests. They perform the office; He works by the majesty of divine might.… He Himself by the power of the Spirit the Paraclete and the heavenly blessing makes” “these holy sacrifices” “to be His holy body and blood.”
“The bread of the most holy oblation is the body of Christ, not by way of matter or in visible appearance, but by spiritual power and might. For the body of Christ is not produced for us in the field, nor does His blood grow on the vine, nor is it pressed out in the threshing-floor. Mere bread is made from the fruits of the earth, mere wine is distilled from grapes; to these comes the faith of the Church which offers them, there is added the consecration of the mystic prayer, there is added the outpouring of divine power; and so, wonderfully and in ineffable manner, that which is naturally bread and wine of earthly growth is spiritually made the body of Christ, that is, the mystery of our life and salvation, in which we behold one thing with the eyes of the body and another thing with the gaze of faith, and partake of not only what we receive with the mouth but also what we believe with the mind.… The body of Christ, as has been said before, is not in visible appearance but in spiritual power.”
The work of Florus, On the Explanation of the Mass, contains many allusions to sacrifice. The true sacrifice was foreshadowed among the Jews, was offered on the cross, is pleaded in heaven, and is commemorated in the Eucharist, wherein the Church makes its memorial of the passion and enters into the heavenly worship.
“Between Godhead alone and manhood alone there mediates the human divinity and divine humanity of Christ, who even offered Himself for us in the passion.”
“By that unique sacrifice, in which the Mediator was slain, are heavenly things made one with earthly, and earthly with heavenly.”
“He performed for us the office of priest when on the altar of the cross He offered to God the Father the stainless offering of His flesh.”
“The Mediator of God and men, God above us, Man for our sakes, by means of His manhood pleads for us to the Father, by means of His Godhead hears and accepts us with the Father.”
“Our holy fathers in the Old Testament offered to the one God and Creator of all things victims which He Himself willed should be offered to Him, promising through the likeness in these the real Victim, through whom He reconciled us to Himself by the remission of sins in Christ Jesus our Lord, so that a likeness foreshadowing the reality of the sacrifice was offered to Him, to whom was to be offered the reality itself set forth in the passion of the body and blood of Christ. Before the coming of Christ the flesh and blood of this sacrifice were foreshadowed in likeness by means of victims, in the passion of Christ they were set forth in the reality itself, after the ascension of Christ the memory thereof is celebrated in the Sacrament.”
“The Church offers this sacrifice wherein Christ is shown forth as having already suffered, who is the real Priest because He offered Himself as a real sacrifice on our behalf.”
“This sacrifice of praise, that is, the offering of the Lord’s passion, … the devotion of the faithful offers for themselves and for all their own … both for the living and for the dead.”
“This is the real offering, in which the Son is offered, in which the Father is reconciled, and well pleased with the living offering appoints our days in His peace.”
“He takes away the sins of the world and washes us from our daily sins in His blood, when at the altar the memory of His blessed passion is renewed.”
“That the hearts of the faithful may become heavenly, and, as they have borne the image of the earthly, may bear also the image of Him who is of heaven, … they ought to be cleansed not with the gore of brute beasts but with the spiritual gore of the blood of Christ, who … offered Himself through the Holy Ghost without spot to God. For this is daily renewed for us in the Sacrament of the body and blood of the Son of God.”
“The priest begins to utter the prayer by which the very mystery of the Lord’s body and blood is consecrated. For so is it right that in that hour of so holy and divine action the whole mind should be withdrawn by the grace of God from earthly thoughts, and that the Church with the priest and the priest with the Church should in spiritual desire enter into the heavenly and eternal sanctuary.”
“No one with carnal thought is to suppose that there is in heaven a material altar, made from a heavenly or super-heavenly body, but rather … we are to understand that the heavenly altar of God is reasonable and spiritual in the chosen and reasonable creature, that is, angelic and human, which in the holy angels, from the time that it was made, upraised in the contemplation of their Creator and wholly united in the spirit of peace, is a real and heavenly altar of God, from which God receives the perpetual sacrifice of praise and offering of joy, to the unity of which altar the whole multitude of chosen men are joined now by faith, and hereafter by the sight of the vision of God.”
In the course of his treatise Florus takes some pains to explain that the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered to the Son and the Holy Ghost as well as to the Father by virtue of their co-equal Godhead.