I

Among the pioneers of the New Learning was John Colet. He was born about 1466, and some seventeen years later went to Oxford, perhaps to Magdalen College, at that time “essentially the home of the Classical Renaissance in Oxford”. After subsequent travels in France and Italy he returned to England about 1496, and was ordained deacon and priest. His work as a lecturer at Oxford probably began in the autumn of 1497 and ended in 1504, when he became Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1511 he was one of the judges for the trial of heretics in the diocese of Canterbury, and in the following year preached a notable sermon before Convocation on the ignorance and corruption of the bishops and clergy. In 1512 he founded St. Paul’s School and appointed William Lilly head-master and John Ritwyse surmaster. About the same time he was charged with heresy by Fitzjames, the Bishop of London, on the grounds that he had denounced the worship of images and large episcopal revenues, and that he had raised objections to the use of written sermons in preaching. The charges were dismissed as frivolous by Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1519 he died.

The references to the Holy Eucharist in the writings of Colet are marked by great caution and restraint. There is an entire absence of the subtle questions in which the schoolmen delighted; and the influence of the theology of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, then still supposed to be a writer of apostolic times, is clearly shown.

The treatise On the Sacraments of the Church, while dealing at considerable length with Orders and Matrimony and Penance, contains only very short statements on the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Communion, and Extreme Unction. In regard to the Sacraments in general a distinction is made, similar to that in St. Ambrose and other writers, that “in heaven” “all things are after a heavenly manner and in reality,” while “among us” they are “after the manner of an image”. On the Eucharist Colet says:—

“The Sacrament of Communion of flesh and blood in ordinary food, which is the Sacrament of union and unity, is the feeding and nourishment in common in Christ in supreme unity of those who have been confirmed and filled with the Spirit. For we are called that we may be cleansed and enlightened and perfected in spirit and nourished together and may live together and fight together and conquer together and be glorified together. This is the force of the love of spiritual men.”

Colet’s lectures on the First Epistle to the Corinthians contain the following passages referring to the Eucharist:—

“In the blessed cup and the broken bread is the health-giving communication of the real body and blood of Jesus Christ itself, which is received by many in order that they may be one in Him. Many are united in the participation of One and by being re-made for this very purpose, that we may be conformed to Christ and may be in Him. This is what he says, ‘We, who are many, are one bread and one body,’ all we, that is, who partake of the one bread and the one cup. The food on which we are fed is one, distributed to the whole society in order that it may be one body, that all men who are fed may be one in Him who is One, that is, in Him on whom they feed, not changing the food into themselves, but being transformed into Him by the food, as by the stronger. For thus is effected the conformity and unity of all, because Christ, being received by different persons, does not undergo change into the nature of those persons. For they who receive Him are not stronger than Him whom they receive; but the different persons, being re-made into one by Christ, who is the stronger, are happily united to that very Person on whom they feed.”

“The Supper of the Lord is the breaking of the bread and the distribution of His own most sacred body. Also, together with the bread there is the drinking of the blood of the Same, whereby the new covenant and league of God with men is preserved. For by the blood of holy offerings all things are consecrated and ratified. By the redeeming and sanctifying blood of the sacrificed Lamb, the spotless Christ, the league and new covenant of God with those who are redeemed and sanctified to God is consecrated. That is, if through Christ and in Christ, imitating Him, we serve God, then from the compact and league which is ratified by the blood of Christ we shall be fellow-sharers in the glory of the same Jesus Christ. Otherwise the league would be void. This Supper of the Lord, the eating of the bread and drinking of the cup, affords the commemoration and proclamation and representation of the death of Christ. For it is the breaking of the body and as it were the shedding of the blood. But the breaking and the shedding are in order that the chosen may feed on that Victim, so that, by Christ dying in them, they may live again in Him, that, having Jesus wholly in themselves, they may be wholly and completely in Jesus, being now incorporated and concorporated with Him by participation in His uniting and life-giving body, who at His Supper, the Supper of the Lord, bestows Himself wholly on us, that He may transform us wholly into Himself and may make us fellow-members with Him, so that there may be as it were one body in the union of Him as the Head with His own, the body having God wholly and being wholly in God, not only in their souls by the communication of deity but also in their bodies by the communication of His body, that we may be nourished into one body in Him. So He Himself, for He is the Church, feeds on Himself, and the Church is not fed on any other food than Christ Himself, all in Him being priests and fellow-sacrificers and fellow-guests on the same Victim, the Church itself, certainly Christ Himself, being fed and nourished on Christ Himself unto everlasting life. Jesus Christ was sacrificed and offered and died that we may feed on this sacrifice until He come, and that in feeding we may remember Him who died for us, being partakers of His death, that we may live in Him, being partakers of His life, that now we may be dead in Him and being raised from the dead may be alive in Him. Now we are in the temple, that we may all feed on the Victim, and may all be partakers of the altar of God, nay of God Himself who was offered on the altar of the cross, that, being crucified and offered together with Him and in Him, we may be sacrifices acceptable to God. So also the sharing in the Supper with the Lord is dying with Him.… He gave to His own His body, which was to be delivered up to death for them, of which He willed that they should partake in remembrance of His death, and that they should do this worthily, lest they should be guilty of the death of the Lord. If any eat unworthily, they kill Christ; if they eat worthily, they themselves live in Him who has died, and being dead in Him they live in Him.… The disciples ate Jesus, who was about to die, being themselves about to die in Him, that they may rise with Him, when He shall come. In later times all receive the same Sacrament, being all about to die together with Him in Him, that at His coming they may rise together with Him.”

In Colet’s abstract of the treatise of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite On the Hierarchy of the Church, which appears to be as much an expression of his own opinions as a statement of the substance of the teaching of the pseudo-Dionysius, the following are the most important passages referring to the doctrine of the Eucharist:—

“The holy food of the Eucharist is given for union with the body, for the nourishment of the member, by which it is understood both that he is in the body and that in the body he is fed and spiritually nourished. No one is perfectly a member of the body of Christ until he is a partaker of the Holy Communion and the life-giving nourishment. By partaking of this he is united to the body.… The washing cleanses, the subsequent anointing with chrism gives enlightenment and brightness, the Eucharist completes and perfects in the perfect Christ, in whom all things are perfect, in whom nothing can be which is not perfect.”

“This Communion in the body and blood of Jesus Christ is the consummation of all Sacraments. All Sacraments indeed lead to communion, but they are nothing in comparison with this, in which is marvellous participation and union of life, since many become one in the One whom they receive. For this men are prepared by other Sacraments, which go before in order that they may be completed by this. All Sacraments accomplish this, that there is unity and likeness and simplicity in men. In this we make progress through other Sacraments; by the Eucharist and Communion we are perfected.”

“The people and the less taught multitude are well and suitably instructed, in the one bread and cup which are set forth and in the reception by all of the same food, that being fed and nourished by One they are all made one in concord and brotherly peace under God the Father at the Table of God, and that they may understand that, as there is one and like bread and a one and like cup which all taste, so they themselves ought all to be one and like with one another, and to be bound together in unity of love, which is the bond of peace. This Communion has also the venerable representation of the Last Supper of the Lord with His disciples, in which He gave Himself to be eaten by them, that they all might be united in Him, and being incorporated in Him might be made one.… The Saviour being set forth under the species of bread and wine, afterwards follows the commemoration of the saints, that they being united to Jesus may be understood to be one with Him.… In the early Church in the Mass the subordinates of the celebrant partook with Him of the sacrificed Christ; before their eyes he sets forth the consecrated Sacrament; he divides the holy bread into portions, and administers together with the cup, and so multiplies One to many that he may unite many in One.… Jesus … came forth from the hidden place to the sight of men, the Invisible was made visible, the One was made in some way many, that He might draw together all things to His purpose. And this is the mystery which the bringing forth of the one bread and cup from the hidden and secret place and the showing and administration and reception of them signify; for thus we may understand that, as the things of sense being one are multiplied to bring about union, so the Invisible, even Jesus, being One is multiplied to bring about the uniting of multitudes in Him.”

In the doctrinal and devotional matter prefixed to the Latin Accidence which Colet wrote for the use of the boys of St. Paul’s School a short statement on the seven Sacraments contains the sentence about the Eucharist that—

“By gracious Eucharist, where is the very presence of the Person of Christ under form of bread, we be nourished spiritually in God”; under the head of “Houselling” it is said—

“As often as I shall receive my Lord in Sacrament, I shall with all study dispose me to all cleanness and devotion”; and under the head of “In sickness” it is said—

“When I shall die, I shall call for the Sacraments and rites of Christ’s Church betimes, and be confessed and receive my Lord and Redeemer Jesu Christ.”

Thus, with the caution and restraint and mysticism which mark the writings of Colet on this subject he appears to have joined the acceptance of the main features of the traditional theology of the Church. It is not altogether easy to conjecture what his attitude would have been towards the Eucharistic controversies of the sixteenth century, if he had lived until they began, though it is probably not too much to say that he would have been afraid alike of theories which might seem mechanical or carnal and of contentions which might endanger the belief that the consecrated elements are the body and blood of Christ.

Another pioneer of the New Learning was the Frenchman Jacques Lefèvre, usually known as Faber Stapulensis, who was born at Etaples in Picardy about 1440 or somewhat later. He was a member of the University of Paris, and afterwards studied in Italy. For a considerable part of his life he was a teacher of arts; and he translated many of the works of Aristotle into Latin. Later he devoted himself to the study of theology. In 1512 he published a Latin translation of the Pauline Epistles, including the Epistle to the Hebrews, with a commentary; and in 1523 he published a new French translation of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, which however was ordered to be burnt by the authorities in France in 1525. In 1536 he died at Nérac. The commentary on the Pauline Epistles contains incidental references to the Eucharist, in which Lefèvre lays stress on the need of communicating worthily if the reception of Communion is to benefit the soul, shows his belief in the presence of Christ in the Sacrament, and speaks of the Eucharistic sacrifice as a memorial of the one sacrifice of Christ and an opportunity for approach to His heavenly offering.

“But a man will say, ‘We have received the Holy Ghost, we have been baptised in Christ, we have partaken of the body and blood of Christ; therefore we shall be made partakers of the Gospel, therefore we shall receive the incorruptible crown’. Not so; the reality may be known from the figure; if we have fallen into evil and gluttonous desires, into covetousness which is idolatry, or into any other kind of idolatry, into fornication, if we provoke Christ by unbelief, if we murmur against His providence, if we do such unlawful and unholy deeds, although all those mysteries are ours, yet we shall not receive that crown and we shall not in any wise enter the kingdom of God.… The things which happened to the Jews are types and figures; the Jews are a figure of the people of Christ; the cloud, of the Holy Ghost; the sea, of Baptism; Moses, of Christ as lawgiver; the manna, of the body of Christ as heavenly bread and the food of life; the stream which flowed from the rock, of the blood of Christ as life-giving drink.… Because the completion of prayer and of all divine grace is union to God, and that union to God and in God is accomplished by means of the spiritual reception of the body and blood of Christ, therefore to that participation of the divine body and blood which completes all we must approach with the greatest reverence, purity, and holiness.… With great reverence must we approach this most august mystery.… Who dare approach to touch the Holy of holies unless he be clean, to receive the king of kings unless with awe, the Judge of all unless with fear?… If you were to receive as a guest an earthly king, and your own king too, and should not prepare his dwelling place or take pains to adorn it, but should put him in a mean place, … would you not appear to despise the royal dignity, and thus to be guilty of treason?… But He is more to be revered than all the kings of the earth, and His majesty not only by men but also by all angels and powers in heaven and hell. Of how great an offence are you guilty, if you do not receive Him with all the worthiness of which you are capable; for with the worthiness of which He Himself is worthy not heaven nor earth nor any creature can receive Him.”

“Our High Priest is in heaven.… He is so really our High Priest that all things are done by Him, even at our altars. He was Man, and He is Man; on behalf of men He is both in heaven and on earth. In heaven, that He may give unveiled glory to those of heaven; on earth, that He may lead us strangers to immortality in heaven by His immortal food.… He is near at hand on our altars, that no one may despair of pardon because of distance from the High Priest. He is God, that He may spare and have mercy. He is King, that He may reward and bestow grace. He is Brother, that He may embrace. Let us flee then to the throne of His majesty; with the body, to Him who is near at hand before as on the altars, with the mind to His seat above the heavens, where He sits on the right hand of the Father of mercy.… Christ not for His own sins (for He did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth) but for the sins of the whole world satisfied by one offering, His one self and the one occasion being more powerful than innumerable sacrifices repeated an infinite number of times. Therefore those things which are done daily in the ministry of His priesthood are not so much repeated offerings as the memorial and remembrance of the one same sacrifice, of that which was offered once only.… Once did He make satisfaction for all. Neither does it contain any other mystery than the memorial of that divine and all-saving offering and satisfaction through the presence of the body and blood formerly offered.… Christ once entered into heaven; and that once endures even to the end of the world; for He has never gone out and will not go out, except when going out without leaving He will come to judge the world. But having once entered into the holy of holies on high, He abides present before the face of God offering Himself without intermission for the salvation of all even unto the end of the world.”