PART I

IN the sixteenth century the history of Eucharistic doctrine in the West presents new features. These are closely connected with the circumstances of the time. Results of much thought and many events of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries now made themselves felt. The invention of printing, the development of literature, the new methods of art, the revived study of Greek, the fresh access to the Fathers and to the sources of Church history, the progress of criticism, all that is associated with the work of the Humanists and the New Learning, the discoveries of explorers, the expansion of trade, social unrest, class hatreds, the growth of individualism in politics,—all these combined to produce in the early years of the sixteenth century a condition of affairs without previous parallel. The movement towards a wider learning, a more accurate scholarship, a greater fidelity to history, which had been begun by Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century, had made great advance. In the first twenty years of the sixteenth century there are notable landmarks of the study of theology in the printing of the Complutensian Polyglot under the directions of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcala in 1514, the publication by Erasmus of the first edition of his Greek Testament at Basle in 1516, the editing by Erasmus of St. Jerome and other Fathers, and the publication in 1516 of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More.

In the activity of enterprise and investigation, of discovery and thought, of new knowledge and new methods, it was impossible that what was established and old should escape criticism and challenge. It was natural to the men who were feeling the movement of the age to examine and question everything which they found. In the vigour and joy of their fresh life, their wealth of discovery, their power of achievement, only the most balanced could hope to avoid the insolence and self-confidence which are among the chief notes of the time.

The characteristics of the age may be seen in the treatment of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. The appeal to Scripture, the use of history, the impatience of mystery, the love of change, the attraction of mechanical and materialistic arguments, are in varying degrees powerful influences on one side; on the other a steadfast conservatism, for the most part not less prone to be mechanical and formal, obtains different results from Scripture and tradition. Both at their worst are crude and impatient and overbearing; both at their best are eager to maintain what they believe to be the consequences of the life and work and revelation of Christ. Some of the most pleasing notes of character are seen in those whom it is difficult to place in any theological group.