III

It is of interest to turn from the great Dominicans Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas to the Franciscan doctors who inherited the traditions of Alexander of Hales. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were marked differences in the general temperament and outlook of Franciscans and Dominicans. In mental severity, in pure intellect, in calm and controlled reasoning faculties, in caution, the advantages for the most part lay with the Dominicans. The Franciscans were superior in originality, in freedom of thought, in intellectual sympathy. It would be a misrepresentation of a very grave kind to say that the Dominicans were not zealous or devout, or that the Franciscans were not disciplined; but it is true that restraint is a chief characteristic of the Dominican writers, and enthusiasm of the Franciscan. Among the Franciscans St. Bonaventura in the thirteenth century and Duns Scotus at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth to some extent fill the places which are filled among the Dominicans by Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas.

St. Bonaventura was born at Bagnorea in 1221. He became a member of the Franciscan Order in 1243 and General of that Order in 1257. In 1265 he declined the Archbishopric of York, offered to him by Pope Clement IV. In 1273 Pope Gregory X. made him Cardinal-bishop of Albano. He died at the Council of Lyons in 1274. He is known as the Seraphic Doctor. The doctrine which he held on the subject of the Eucharist may be seen in his treatise on the Sentences, and his book On Preparation for Mass. With these may be considered some passages in On the Instruction of the Priest in Preparing Himself for Celebrating Mass, and The Exposition of the Mass, works of doubtful authorship, which have been ascribed to St. Bonaventura by some writers. Considering the differences between the Dominican and Franciscan schools of theology, the agreement of the teaching of St. Bonaventura with that of St. Thomas Aquinas about the Eucharist is remarkable. On the questions, which furnished constant perplexity during the Middle Ages, whether the body of Christ could be eaten by a beast in the case of some accident to the consecrated elements and whether the accidents nourish the body, his decisions differ from those of St. Thomas. While it is true, he says, that the body of Christ “is inseparably united to the species so long as they can be considered a Sacrament and can be used by man,” in the event of the species being eaten by a beast they cannot be applied to human use, and “thus the Sacrament ceases to be, and the body of Christ ceases to be there, and the substance of the bread returns”; and he describes this opinion as “the more usual and certainly the more honourable and the more reasonable”. As to physical nourishment by reception of the Sacrament he thinks it the more probable opinion that the substances of the bread and wine return for that purpose. On other matters which relate to the presence and gift, his decisions so closely resemble those of St. Thomas that it is unnecessary to go through them in any detail; and it may be sufficient to quote as instances of his lines of thought and method of treatment passages on the effects of Communion and frequency of Communion, a short positive statement of his belief as to the presence of Christ, a prayer for use at the time of Communion, and a statement about the life of our Lord in the Sacrament.

Of the effects of Communion St. Bonaventura writes:—

“This Sacrament has not its efficacy in any one who does not approach it worthily. And to approach worthily consists in a man preparing himself as he ought. … Since this is the Sacrament of union, its first effect is … to unite more closely those who are already united.… It is said to unite more closely, because it makes him who approaches worthily more fervent, as a glowing coal, and also stronger, as good food. And, since it makes love more glowing, it aids in removing the ill effects of venial sin. Since it strengthens, it affords help for avoiding all wicked deeds. And, for both reasons, it helps in the increase of virtues and of love most of all.”

On frequency of Communion, he says:—

“If any one were always prepared, it would always be useful for him to receive this Sacrament, since in that case he would have a clean habitation for it, and would eat this food spiritually with honour and devotion. Because in the time of the primitive Church Christians were clean by their baptismal innocence and glowing with love through the gifts of the Spirit, it was right that they should communicate daily. When in many love grew cold and the baptismal purity was lost through sin, it was left to the decision and conscience of each one that he should receive when he saw himself to be rightly disposed, lest otherwise he should eat to his own condemnation. And, because men began to become negligent, it was needful that frequency should again be established by the supreme Pontiff. But, because many communicated frequently without preparing themselves well, Fabian established the custom that men should communicate on the three yearly festivals on which they are better prepared, and which they more eagerly look for, namely, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. And because as time went on men still prepared themselves carelessly at these three times, this was at last reduced to the Easter Communion, which is preceded by the time of preparation, namely, Lent. If, therefore, inquiry is made whether any one ought to communicate frequently, it should be said that, if he see himself to be in the condition of the primitive Church, it is praiseworthy that he communicate daily; if in the condition of the Church as it came to be, that is, cold and sluggish, that he communicate rarely; if he is in a middle state, he ought to act in a middle way, and sometimes to abstain so as to learn reverence and sometimes to approach so as to be inflamed with love, because honour and love are due to such a guest; and then he ought to incline in that direction in which he sees that he makes the better progress, which a man learns only by experience.”

On the presence of Christ in the consecrated Sacrament, he says:—

“When the words of Christ are uttered, the material and visible bread, giving honour to the coming of the life-giving and heavenly Bread as its true Creator, leaves its own place, that is, the visible species of the accidents, to perform the office of sacramental service; and as soon as it ceases to be there really exist under those accidents in a wonderful and ineffable way:—First, that most pure flesh and sacred body of Christ which, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, was the offspring of the womb of the glorious Virgin Mary, was hung on the cross, was laid in the tomb, was glorified in heaven. Secondly, since flesh does not live without blood, that precious blood which with happy result flowed on the cross for the salvation of the world is necessarily there. Thirdly, since there cannot be true man without rational soul, the glorious soul of Christ, exceeding in grace all virtue and glory and power, in which are stored all the treasures of wisdom and of the knowledge of God, is there. Fourthly, because Christ is true God and true Man, it follows that God is there, glorious in His majesty. All these four at the same time, and each wholly at the same time, are perfectly contained under the species of bread and wine, not less in the cup than in the host, and not less in the host than in the cup.”

A prayer for silent utterance in the heart at the moment of Communion is as follows:—

“My Lord, who art Thou, and who am I, that I should presume to place Thee in the foul sewer of my body and me soul? What hast Thou done to me that I should inflict this dreadful injury on Thee? A thousand years of tears would not suffice for once worthily receiving so noble a Sacrament. How much more am I unworthy, wretched man, who daily sin, and continue without amendment, and approach in sin. But Thy mercy is infinitely greater than my misery. Therefore, trusting in Thy goodness, I presume to receive Thee.”

On the life in the Sacrament he says:—

“The body of Christ is living; and, if living, organic; and, if organic, of quantity; therefore, if on the altar it be not withdrawn from life, neither is it from bulk.… The body of Christ or Christ there sees and hears, though He does not speak so as not to be outwardly discerned.… The external senses presuppose bulk: therefore He is there in bulk.… The body is in the host with its completeness and has its size in such a way that it is not there after the manner of size.”

On the elevation of the consecrated Sacrament immediately after consecration there is the following passage in the treatise The Exposition of the Mass:—

“It must now be considered why the priest in the Mass lifts on high the body of the Lord and shows it to the people who are present. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up by the priest in the Mass for many reasons. Of these reasons, the first and chief is to obtain the grace of God the Father, which we have lost by our sins.… The priest then at the altar lifts up the body of Christ, as if to say: O heavenly Father, we have sinned, and we have provoked Thee to anger. But now look on the face of Christ Thy Son, whom we present to Thee, and we call Thee from anger to pity.… The second reason why it is elevated is to obtain every good thing of which we are in need in the present life and in that which is to come.… The priest lifts up the body of Christ as if to say to those who are present, If ye wish to obtain what ye desire, have peace among yourselves, and love one another with mutual affection, because Christ by His death reconciled us to God and the angels, and through love He prepared for us eternal joys. Thirdly, the body of Christ is elevated to claim our right, which we have in heaven now in hope, and are to have at length in fact. Our right which we have in heaven is eternal life.… The priest at the altar lifts up the body of Christ as if to say, O ye angelical spirits, who are here present, be ye witnesses that eternal life is our right; and to establish this we lift up Him who gives us the right, Christ, who suffered for us. The fourth reason why the body of Christ is elevated is to show the power of God. For great is the power of God, because at the utterance of the words, This is My body, the bread is transubstantiated into the body of Christ. This is a change of the right hand of the Most High, and transcends all perception. Therefore the priest lifts up the body of Christ as if to say, Before ye saw bread on the altar, but now after the consecration ye see the real body of Christ. If therefore God has with so great power been able to make such a change, He is able to change us from guilt to grace, and afterwards to glory. The fifth reason why the body is elevated is to declare the wisdom of God; for by a wonderful and ineffable wisdom Christ shows Himself to us hidden.… Sixthly, the body of Christ is elevated at the altar to show His bounty. For what bounty is greater than that man should eat the bread of angels. Therefore the priest lifts up the body of Christ at the altar as if to say, O faithful ones of Christ, rejoice and behold; for this is the heavenly food of the angels, which the most bounteous King of heaven has granted to us, that ye may be filled with all grace and blessing.… Seventhly, the body of Christ is elevated to show the goodness of Christ. For what greater goodness is there than that Christ deigns to be a prisoner on the altar.… The priest lifts up the body of Christ at the altar as if to say, Lo, He whom the whole world cannot contain is our prisoner; therefore we must not let Him go until we obtain that for which we seek. Eighthly, the body of Christ is elevated to gladden the holy Church by the standard of the army.… The priest lifts up the body of Christ at the altar as it to say to the elect, … Behold our standard which for our sakes was emblazoned and portrayed on the cross. Behold, the Lord Jesus is in our midst. Ninthly, it is elevated that we may imitate and follow Christ.… The priest lifts up the body of Christ as if to say to sinners and other Christians, Behold the Son of God, who for us was stretched and raised on the gibbet of the cross; follow Him, that ye may suffer at least something for Him who suffered so much for us.”

The explanation of the elevation before the commixture in the same treatise is:—

“By the raising of the body of Christ above the cup and the signing of the cup with it is to be understood that by Christ death is conquered, life is restored, and glory is given.”

On the subject of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the actions of the priest are described in the treatise The Exposition of the Mass as mystically representing the actions of Christ; and in this treatise and in the writings of St. Bonaventura the prayers and ceremonies of the ordinary and canon of the Mass are viewed as a commemoration of the Incarnation and passion and resurrection of Christ, of the mysteries of the divine life, and of the union of the Church with Christ; by means of the Eucharistic rite the Church on earth is united to the worship in heaven and to the heavenly life of Christ; the bread and the wine are said to be significant of the body which suffered and the blood which was shed in the passion; the fraction of the consecrated host is described as a commemoration of the passion.

John Duns Scotus may have been a native of Northumberland or of Scotland or of Ireland. The date of his birth is uncertain. He was a member of the Franciscan Order. At the beginning of the sixteenth century he was teaching at Oxford. He was afterwards a teacher at Paris and at Cologne, where he died in 1308. He is known as the Subtle Doctor. The parts of his writings which treat of or bear on the doctrine of the Eucharist, like those which deal with other subjects, are marked by great complexity and subtlety, and a noticeable feature is the skill and care with which he elaborates arguments in support of positions which he does not himself adopt. As regards the Eucharist, there is little disagreement on points of importance between him and St. Thomas, although the minds of the two writers were evidently remarkably different. His reluctance to describe any notion as impossible may be illustrated by the facts that, though he himself accepts the doctrine of Transubstantiation as being the doctrine of the Church, he allows the abstract possibility of the presence of the body of Christ together with the bread in the consecrated Sacrament, and that, though he distinguishes between the natural mode of the presence of Christ in heaven and the sacramental mode of His presence in the Eucharist and describes the Eucharistic presence as not quantitative or dimensive or local, he maintains that it is possible in the abstract for the same body to be at the same time present locally in two different places, and for the body of Christ to be at the same time both in heaven and in the Eucharist in a natural manner. His lines of argument might often at first sight suggest that he looked on the Eucharistic presence as being of a carnal character; but such an impression is not supported by an examination of his own position and definitions, as may be seen by his statements that the body of Christ is present without any local movement and not carnally or locally but spiritually and by a different mode of existence than His natural existence in heaven. Some special interest attaches to his opinions about the words of consecration, the relation of the priest to the Church, and the relation of our Lord to the act of sacrifice in the Mass.

On the words of consecration, after saying that the words of the consecration of the body are “This is My body” with their meaning shown by their position in the rest of the canon, and alluding to a doubt about the difference of “This is the cup of My blood” from “This is My blood,” he writes:—

“There is a second doubt whether all the words from ‘In like manner’ to ‘Wherefore also mindful’ belong to the form which we use. It is commonly held that the words ‘Do this for My memorial’ do not in this way belong to the form. And this is proved because the words ‘Take this’ do not refer more to the blood than to the body; for Christ ordered the consecration to be made of the body as of the blood; therefore, if the words ‘Do this for My memorial’ belong to the consecration of the blood, by like reasoning they are part also of the consecration of the body; and in consequence, when the host is elevated, the body of Christ is still not there, and so there is idolatry, which is not to be said.… Perhaps there is no one who knows for certain, neither the bishop nor the ordained, what are the exact words of ordination to be a priest; and yet we must not say that no one has been ordained to be a priest in the Church. In like manner different priests use different words in administering the Sacrament of Penance, and it is not certain about any words exactly which they are, yet we must not say that no one is absolved in the Church. What advice, then, shall there be? I say that the priest intending to do what the Church does, reading distinctly the words of the canon from the beginning to the end, really consecrates; nor is it safe for any one, thinking himself very skilled in his own knowledge, to say, I wish to use exactly these words for the consecration of the blood; but it is safer to be simple and say, I wish to utter these words with the intention with which Christ ordained that they should be uttered, so that I say as of the form those which are of the form by Christ’s appointment, and for reverence those which are for reverence. But what is to be done if it happen that the priest dies before all the words have been uttered? Is the blood to be reckoned as really consecrated? I say here—as I said in a case previously considered, whether if some priest begins at this point ‘This is My body’ without saying completely the words that precede—that in all such cases we must adore only with a condition, if it is really consecrated. And are the words to be repeated? I say that they are not to be repeated without condition. But are they to be repeated with a condition? I say that in this case there is no such necessity as there is in the case of Baptism; because in that case, when there is a doubt about the baptism, there is a doubt about salvation. Therefore in that case it is sometimes lawful to baptise with a condition. But in this matter, if there is good ground for a doubt in any one of the cases mentioned whether the consecration has been completed, there is no danger threatening salvation if there is no repetition whether without condition or with a condition. What then is to be done? Is that matter to be kept for ever? I say that it is not, because it would become corrupted; but the priest after his Communion in his own Mass can receive that matter with a conditioned intention of this kind, If this is consecrated, I receive it as consecrated, but, if it is not consecrated, as not consecrated, as that about which there is uncertainty; and in this plan there is no danger, because he is fasting until he receives the wine of the ablution, and if it is not blood which he receives, he does no irreverence to the body and blood which he has already received, because immediately after the reception of the blood we receive mere wine at the altar.”

The following passages bear on the relation of the priest to the Church and of our Lord to the act of sacrifice.

“The Mass avails not only by virtue of the merit or work of him who works but also by virtue of the sacrifice or work wrought. Or, it avails not only by virtue of the personal merit of the priest who offers but also by virtue of the merit of the whole Church, in the person of which the sacrifice is offered by means of the minister of all; otherwise the Mass of a bad priest, who has no personal merit in that act but only demerit, would be of no avail to any one in the Church, which is unfitting by the common judgment, and rightly, according to the words ‘The bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world’; for, whenever Christ offers as High Priest, the bread which He gives, that is, His flesh, is the life of the world.”

“The good to be rendered by virtue of the sacrifice does not correspond exactly to the good contained in the Eucharist; for that good is equal when the Eucharist is reserved in the pyx; and yet it is not then of equal value to the Church as when it is offered in the Mass, whether this be called indefinitely the offering of the Eucharist or the consecration or the reception or the oblation or some action of the priest in the person of the Church. Therefore beyond the good contained in the Eucharist the offering of the Eucharist is required. This is not accepted unless there be the acceptance of one who offers.… As the Eucharist is not fully accepted exactly by reason of what is contained in it, but there is need that it be offered, so neither is it fully accepted when offered except by reason of the good will of some one offering it, yet not exactly by reason of the will of the celebrant himself, for this pertains to personal merit, not to the virtue of the sacrifice, nor immediately by reason of the will of Christ Himself offering, for, though Christ is here offered willingly in the sacrifice, yet He does not here immediately offer sacrifice, as is said ‘Nor yet that He should offer Himself often’ and ‘Christ was once offered,’ that is, by Himself offering; otherwise it would seem that the celebration of one Mass would be of equal value to the passion of Christ, if He who offered immediately and He who is offered were the same in the Mass as in the passion. But it is certain that the Mass is not of equal value to the passion of Christ, though it has a very special value in so far as there is in it a very special commemoration of the offering which Christ made on the cross.… The Mass is both a representation of the offering on the cross and a means of pleading through it, that is, that through the offering of the passion God will accept the sacrifice of the Church.… The Eucharist when offered is accepted not by reason of the will of Christ as immediately offering but by reason of the will of the whole Church, which has a finite power of merit. So let it be that it is accepted by reason of the will of Christ as offering, that is, ordaining the offering, and giving to it value and acceptance, yet that it is not of equal value to the passion of Christ and is not accepted as the passion of Christ, and so that its merit is finite, to which the good which is due by virtue of the sacrifice corresponds. But, since it is accepted by reason of the will of the whole Church, is it of both the Church triumphant and the Church militant? Not so; rather, the sacrifice is peculiar to the Church militant, as also is the Sacrament in which it is a sacrifice.”

In this teaching of Duns Scotus about the Eucharistic sacrifice may be observed some of the characteristic features of the Franciscan theology, a revolt against what seemed hardness and stiffness in the Dominican doctrines, a desire to bring together the acts of the priest and the acts of the Church, a keen regard for the value of human merit which was thought by the divines of the Thomist school to amount to a tendency to Pelagianism. There may also be seen an eagerness to protect the unique character of the death of our Lord on the cross. It may be suggested that, if the Scotist theologians had kept more clearly in view the connection of the Eucharistic sacrifice with the heavenly offering of our Lord, they might have been saved from some difficulties which led them to dissociate the offering of the Mass from the acts of Christ.