VII

Hugh of St. Victor was born about 1097. He became Canon of St. Victor at Marseilles in 1118, and Master of the School of St. Victor at Paris in 1133. He died in 1141. He may rightly be regarded as the most eminent theologian of the University of Paris and of Western Christendom in general of his time. The doctrine of the Eucharist is dealt with at some length in his works The Sum of the Sentences and On the Sacraments. In The Sum of the Sentences he describes the Eucharist as the Sacrament in which “is taken not only grace but also He from whom all grace comes,” and as the means of union with Christ and of being freed from daily sins. There are three things in the Sacrament, first, the visible species of bread and wine; secondly, the real body of Christ which hung on the cross and lay in the tomb and is at the right hand of the Father; and, thirdly, the efficacy (efficacia) of the Sacrament, namely, the spiritual flesh of Christ and the virtue of the Sacrament. The “form,” or words by which the Sacrament is consecrated, he defines as the recital of the words “This is My body,” “This is My blood”. For the consecration three things are necessary, first, that there be a priest; secondly, that the priest say these words; and thirdly, that he apply the saying of the words to the consecration of the Sacrament as distinct from, for instance, saying them as part of an instruction. After the consecration, at which the substance of the bread is converted into the body of Christ without any increase being made in that body, the elements are not material bread and material wine but the real body and blood of Christ, though the species and taste remain as subsistences hiding the body of Christ, “which in its own form and nature really exists under them,” “lying hid invisibly on the altar under a form other than its own”. It is an error to hold either that the Eucharist is only a Sacrament of Christ’s body and not the very substance and reality of His body or that the substance of the bread is annihilated by the body of Christ coming to be under the species of bread, the truth being that the substance of the bread is not annihilated but is converted into the substance of the body of Christ. In each species Christ is whole, and there cannot be His body without His blood or His blood without His body; and, while the two species mystically show the twofold effect of the reception of the Sacrament in availing for both body and soul, the receiving in the two kinds must not be regarded as the making of two Communions and involving a repetition of the Sacrament. When the Sacrament is broken, Christ is not broken, since His body is now incorruptible and immortal and impassible; but those are not right who say that the breaking is in appearance only, it being better to say that the breaking is in regard to the species. All communicants, whether good or bad, receive the body and blood of Christ; but only the good receive the efficacy (rem) and virtue of it. Contrary to the opinion which afterwards became usual, Hugh inclines to the view that an excommunicate or avowedly heretical priest cannot validly consecrate. In discussing this question, he incidentally calls attention to the plural number used by the officiant in not saying “I offer” but “We offer,” and mentions that the offering is made “in the name (ex persona) of the whole Church”. The method of treatment adopted be Hugh in the treatise On the Sacraments is somewhat different; but the doctrine taught is the same. At the institution of the Sacrament Christ by His divine power changed the bread and wine into His own body and blood; and this same change takes place through the acts of His ministers. In reply to the question whether it was His passible or impassible, His mortal or immortal, body which Christ gave to His disciples, Hugh said that in matters of this kind it was better to reverence than to search into the secrets of God; that it ought to be enough for simple faith to know that He who is almighty gave what and as in His wisdom He willed to give; but that he inclined to the belief that, though the institution was before the resurrection, yet our Lord then gave His body in that immortal and impassible state which was ordinarily to belong to it after the resurrection, the ordinarily mortal state before the resurrection being taken by Him not of necessity but of will.” As in the treatise already referred to. Hugh here speaks of the three things in the Sacrament, the visible species, the reality of the body and blood, and the virtue of the spiritual grace; and of the faith and love without which the virtue and efficacy (res) cannot be received; and declares that “the mere reception of the body and blood without the effect” which depends on receiving worthily does not “impart salvation”. The Sacrament is the “sign” and “image” and “figure” as well as the “reality” of the body of Christ; “under the species of bread the real flesh of Christ is taken, and when His flesh is taken worthily there is also the gift of the reception and communion and participation of His Godhead”; at the consecration “the real substance of bread and the real substance of wine are converted into the real body and blood of Christ, the species only of the bread and wine remaining, the substance passing into substance”; the conversion is “not after the manner of union but after the manner of transition,” and the substance of the bread and wine is converted not annihilated. Christ remains unbroken and undivided though the species is broken and divided; and He is not hurt if the species is corrupted or defiled. In regard to questions such as those of an earlier time as to whether the body of Christ, after being received by the communicants, is subject to the ordinary processes of digestion, Hugh writes:—

“Perhaps again you inquire in thought what becomes of the body of Christ after it has been taken and eaten. Such are the thoughts of men that they are ill disposed to rest where search should least be made. Your heart then asks you, What happens to the body of Christ after I have taken and eaten it? Listen then. Do you seek for the bodily presence of Christ? Seek it in heaven. There is Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father. He willed to be for a time with you when and as long as was necessary. He granted to you for a time His bodily presence that He might raise you to His spiritual presence. He came to you bodily and for a time gave you His bodily presence in order that through it His spiritual presence might be found, which should not be taken away. So through the flesh which He took He came of old into the world, and according to His bodily presence for a time lived among men, that He might rouse them to seek and find His spiritual presence. Afterwards, when the dispensation was completed, He departed according to His bodily presence and remained according to His spiritual presence.… So now in His Sacrament He comes to you for a time, and He is in it with you bodily, that you through the bodily presence may be roused to seek the spiritual presence, and may be helped to find it. When you hold His Sacrament in your hands, He is bodily with you. When you take it in your mouth He is bodily with you. When you eat and taste it, He is bodily with you. Lastly, while you exercise sight and touch and taste on it, He is bodily with you. As long as the natural senses are bodily met by the Sacrament, His bodily presence is not taken away. When the bodily sense has ceased to perceive the Sacrament, then His bodily presence is no longer to be looked for, but His spiritual presence is to be kept.… Hereafter if you seek the bodily presence of Christ, seek it in heaven. Seek it there where it was before He began to be with you bodily through His Sacrament, and whence He did not depart when He came to you.”

In The Mirror of the Mysteries of the Church, a work formerly ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor but now usually thought to be by some other writer, the teaching on the conversion of the elements in the Eucharist into the real body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin and suffered on the cross and rose from the tomb and ascended to the right hand of the Father, is much the same as in the writers of the twelfth century generally; and the doctrine of Hugh of St. Victor on the different effects of the reception of the body and blood of Christ in good and bad communicants, and on the gift of the bodily presence being a means towards the realisation of the spiritual presence, is closely reproduced. There are passages of some interest on both species being the one body of Christ, on the failure of logic in regard to the Eucharist, and on the sprinkling of Christ’s blood, the last of these resembling language used by Hildebert of Tours.

“Both bread and wine are converted into body and blood. But it is beyond me to define whether each is converted into both. Yet it is safer to say that the bread is converted only into the body, and the wine into the blood, than that each is converted into both, unless this should seem to contradict our belief that under each species both are taken. But this is not a difficulty, if we examine the matter more closely. For under the species of bread both body and blood can be and can be taken, not because the bread has passed into both, but because, where the body is, it is one and is not divided and is not taken in a divided fashion, and yet the species under which it is taken are separate, but they are at the same time both the body and the blood, though we speak in a divided fashion in regard to the different species.… Though it is usually said that the body of Christ is taken, yet whole Christ is taken, and not a part under the species of bread and a part under the species of wine, but whole here and whole there, not a part in a part but whole in a part.… However many parts you make, it is whole in each separate part. Marvel not at this; it is the work of God.”

“It was His own body and His real body which He then gave to His disciples and which is now taken and eaten at the altar, the same, I say, as that which was born of the Virgin and is now immortal in glory at the right hand of God. A marvel indeed! The flesh which is eaten below remains unbroken in the heights. Why are you springing up with your logic? What are you thinking of in this, you sophist? Why are you here hunting for arguments? That would be to sprinkle dust on the stars. Your logic does not reach so high.”

“The high priest of old entered the Holy of Holies with blood once in the year; and Christ ‘through His own blood entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption’. So the minister of the Church enters with blood into the Holy of Holies as often as, bearing in mind the memory of the blood of Christ, he begins the mystery, who recalls the passion of Christ not only in mind but also by the sign of the cross, when he marks the sign of the cross at the beginning of the canon.… The high priest, as the law ordered, sprinkled both the altar and the outward sanctuary with the appeasing blood; and Christ sprinkles the Father with blood as often as He appeases Him through the flesh which He took. He sprinkles the altar as long as He is restoring the number of the angels. He sprinkles the outward sanctuary while He marks men and reconciles to the Father the things which are on earth. The priest also sprinkles men, because by means of this sacrifice he appeases God and pleads for pardon and so sprinkles on us. For when he cleanses us he increases the number of the citizens of heaven. And when he names the altar on high he makes mention of the Holy of Holies.”

The book entitled On the Ceremonies, Sacraments, Offices, and Observances of the Church, which was formerly ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor, is now usually thought to have been written by Robert Paululus about 1178. As in other writings of this period, the prayers and ceremonies of the ordinary and canon of the Mass are here regarded as the mystical representation of the Incarnation and death and resurrection and heavenly life of Christ. The signing of the elements with the cross is mostly taken as a mystical reference to the work of the Holy Trinity in effecting the consecration, towards which this action is partly an instrument and partly a witness, though not without allusion also to Christ and His wounds. The bread and wine are said to be changed and transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. It may be worth while to quote passages on the effect of consecration, on some aspects of the offering of the sacrifice, and on the mystical meaning of the ceremonies of the elevation and covering of the consecrated elements and the commixture.

“At these words ‘This is My body’ the food of the body is made spiritual food by the operation of divine power and human love, surpassing all human reason; the power of boundless majesty descends on the bread and wine; we receive the real divinity and humanity of Christ, who reigns in heaven, as truly as we can obtain from the sun the real substance of fire by a small ball containing crystal.”

“The golden altar [in the Jewish tabernacle] signifies the altar of faith in the heart that is purged by penitence, and bright and clear with the testimony of a good conscience.… On this altar the priest, now dead to the world but living to God, no longer the old Melchizedek, flesh born of flesh, but the new man, spirit born of spirit, offers the invisible offering of flesh and blood through the oblation of earthly food. For what is more fittingly said to be offered on the altar of faith than that most holy sacrifice which is perceived only by faith, and only through faith profits, and through the merit of faith is accepted?… Beyond the veil was the ark of the covenant, and on it the mercy seat.… The ark signifies the manhood of Christ, which is beyond the veil, because Christ has ascended beyond the heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father.… The mercy seat on the ark is the propitiation of God on Christ.… Or the mercy seat is the mercy of God by which He is propitious to His people.… To this ark, to this mercy seat, the new priest … earnestly desires to approach.… The priest with his mind raised to heaven, but recognising his own weakness, seeing with the eyes of his heart the angels standing on the mercy seat as ready to aid, prays that his sacrifice may so be uplifted thither that he himself may be joined and united to God, and through spiritual union may be made one spirit with Him.”

“After the oblation of the real and perfect sacrifice on the same altar of faith he offers the sacrifice of prayer, and seeks something still higher, for whom nothing is enough until he is united to God in heaven through the body of Christ and joined to the Godhead through the manhood. For he who has set up a ladder for himself desires to ascend it.… Since to that supreme altar on high of the invisible mercy seat, as being in the presence of the majesty of God, where the eternal High Priest stands before God the Father, he cannot yet ascend as he would, as he himself shows when he bends himself before the visible altar, he prays that by the hands of the angel, that is, his own guardian angel, his sacrifice may be borne thither, so that he may receive the virtue of the Sacrament itself, and through the body of Christ, which is in heaven and is received on earth from the visible altar, he may attain to the supreme mercy of God and may be counted worthy to be united with Him.”

“That the priest may show how through Christ the minds of the faithful attain to the glory of the Trinity, he depicts as fully as he can the mystery of the passion. After the signs of the cross he raises on high with both his hands the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, and then puts it down, which signifies the raising of the body of Christ on the cross and the laying of the same body in the tomb. Wherefore also he covers the cup with the pall of the corporal, which signifies the wrapping in the linen cloths. For up to this point the cup has been covered for the sake of security, but now it is covered for the sake of the mystical significance.”

“The third part [that is, of the consecrated bread when broken at the solemn fraction at the close of the Lord’s prayer], which is placed in the cup, is the propitiation for the living; and that flesh mingled with the blood atones for the work of flesh and blood. Of the other two parts one is the propitiation for the faithful departed, who need our prayers, who are still detained in penalties; the other is the giving of thanks for those who are already triumphing. Yet Pope Sergius speaks differently on this. For he considers that the commixture of the body and blood signifies the union of the body and soul of Christ which took place at the resurrection.”

Another book formerly ascribed to Hugh of St. Victor but now usually thought to be by a different writer is that entitled On the Canon of the Mystic Libation and its Parts. This book may be by John of Cornouailles, and, if so, may have been written about 1170. In it the bread and wine are said to be translated and transformed into the body and blood of Christ; the substance of the bread and wine is said to pass into and become His real bode and blood; our Lord is described as consecrating and making His flesh and blood from bread and wine. The need of receiving worthily, if there is to be spiritual profit, is very strongly emphasised; and the last sentence of the book is that “we shall be counted worthy to be delivered by the healthful sacrifice after death, if before death we ourselves have been a sacrifice to God”. The Eucharist is viewed as a commemoration of the passion and resurrection and ascension; and the prayers and ceremonies of the canon of the Mass are interpreted with a wealth of mystical significance indicative of the attributes and acts and gifts of God and the qualities needed in those who are to communicate worthily. To give one instance of this mystical interpretation, the bread and wine and water are said to be significant of “the efficacy (res) and virtue” of the Sacrament as denoting faith and hope and love, without which there cannot be profitable reception; of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; and of purity, strength and activity, and a right intention, which again are needed for a right approach to the altar.