The Age of Reason - D. J. Medley (free novels .txt) 📗

will it ever err." Innocent III pertinently asks how he could confirm others in the faith, which is recognised as a special duty of his office, unless he himself were firm in the faith. But many writers, including Innocent himself, believed that it was possible for a Pope to err in some individual point, and that it was the duty of the Church to convert him. Thomas Aquinas, while holding it certain that the judgment of the Church Universal cannot err in these matters which belong to the faith, gives to the Pope alone, as the authority by whom synods are summoned, the final determination of those things which are of faith. Yet even he allows that in matters of fact, such as questions of ownership and criminal charges, false witnesses may lead the judgment of the Church astray.

[Sidenote: Kings and papal claims.]

We have seen that the Papacy did not attain its supremacy without encountering much opposition. But the protests on the part of bishops were unavailing, and they were themselves largely to blame for the height to which the papal power had grown. Such effective remonstrance as there was came from the Kings, though even they were often ready to invoke the papal aid to obtain an advantage against their own ecclesiastics or even their own subjects. Thus in England William II agreed with Urban II that no legate should be sent to the country unless the King was willing to receive him; while Henry II, in the Constitutions of Clarendon, lays it down that no one should appeal to Rome without permission of the King. But Henry's submission after Becket's murder nullified the Constitutions, and John's humiliating surrender made it difficult to object to the exercise of any papal power in England. During the minority of Henry III the papal legate was the most important member of the Council of Regency; and at a later stage, when Henry had quarrelled with his barons, he was glad to obtain the papal support against them. In Germany Hadrian IV complained that Frederick I used force in order to prevent any of his subjects from carrying their causes to Rome; and Otto IV was obliged to swear in 1209 that no hindrance should be placed to ecclesiastical appeals to Rome, a promise subsequently exacted also from Frederick II and from Rudolf.

Not dissimilar was the submission of Alfonso X of Castile, who set his seal to the papal encroachments; but his object was to obtain the support of Rome in his campaign against the local liberties in his kingdom. In his code of law known as "Siete Partidas" power was given to the Pope to deal as he liked with bishops and with benefices and to receive all appeals. On the other hand, St. Louis was not above a bargain with Rome. He refused to the Pope the tithes of the French Church for three years for the object of carrying on the war against Frederick II; but in 1267 he himself obtained the papal consent to take these tithes for the purpose of crusade.

CHAPTER XI DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH

[Sidenote: Number of the Sacraments.]

It was during the period covered by this volume that some of the most characteristic doctrines of the Roman Church were developed. In this development the whole sacramental system of the Church comes under consideration. The word "sacramentum" in the sense of a holy mark or sign (sacrum signum) was used with a very wide meaning as denoting anything "by which under the cover of corporeal things the divine wisdom secretly works salvation." Hugh of St. Victor, writing in the first half of the twelfth century, distinguishes three kinds of sacraments—those necessary for salvation, namely, baptism and the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ; those for sanctification, such as holy water, ashes, and such-like; and those instituted for the purpose of preparing the means of the necessary sacraments, that is, holy orders and the dedication of churches. Elsewhere he chooses out rather more definitely seven remedies against original or actual sin, namely, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, marriage, and holy orders; and after the twelfth century the Church gradually restricted the use of the word Sacrament to these seven. There was much disputing among the schoolmen on the need of institution by Christ Himself. Peter Lombard, and after him Bonaventura, denied this necessity; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas asserted it. But how account for extreme unction and confirmation? This is St. Thomas' explanation. "Some sacraments which are of greater difficulty for belief Christ himself made known; but others He reserved to be made known by the Apostles. For sacraments belong to the fundamentals of the law and so their institution belongs to the law-giver. Christ made known only such sacraments as He Himself could partake. But He could not receive either penance or extreme unction because he was sinless. The institution of a new sacrament belongs to the power of excellence which is competent for Christ alone: so that it must be said that Christ instituted such a sacrament as confirmation not by making it known, but by promising it."

[Sidenote: The Eucharist.]

Of these seven sacraments the one round which the whole doctrine and discipline of the Church increasingly centred was, of course, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist. The view generally held in the Church was that of St. Augustine, which finds a place in the homilies of Aelfric and in the controversial work of Ratramnus of Corbie (died 868). According to this view, Christ is present in the consecrated elements of the sacrament really but spiritually. "The body of Christ," says Ratramnus, "which died and rose again and has become immortal, does not now die: it is eternal and cannot suffer." But the tendency of the Middle Ages was to materialise all conceptions however spiritual; and Ratramnus had written to controvert Paschasius Radbertus, Abbot of New Corbie, who had applied these materialistic views to the Eucharist. "Although," he asserts, "the form of bread and wine may remain, yet after consecration it is nothing else but the flesh and blood of Christ, none other than the flesh which was born of Mary and suffered on the cross and rose from the sepulchre." During the two succeeding centuries this theory of the corporeal presence gained so much vogue in the Church that when Berengar of Tours taught in the cathedral school of his native city the doctrine of Ratramnus, he was condemned unheard at a Synod at Rome in 1050. But he gained the favour of Hildebrand, who was then at Tours in 1054 as papal legate, and was content with the admission "panem atque vinum altaris post consecrationem esse corpus et sanguis Christi"; and relying on his protection Berengar went to Rome (1059). Here, however, his opponents forced him to sign a confession in conformity with the materialistic view. His repudiation of this as soon as he got away from Rome began a long controversy, the champion on the materialistic side being Lanfranc, then a monk of Bee in Normandy, to whom Berengar had originally addressed himself. Lanfranc held the position that the consecrated elements are "ineffably, incomprehensibly, wonderfully by the operation of power from on high, turned into the essence of the Lord's Body." In 1075 the matter was discussed at the Synod of Poictiers, and Berengar was in danger of his life. Again Pope Gregory, as he had now become, tried to stand his friend, and at a Synod at Rome in 1078 to get from Berengar a confession of faith in general terms. But the violence of Berengar's enemies made compromise or ambiguity impossible. Again Berengar repudiated the forced confession; and Gregory only obtained peace for him until his death in 1088, by threatening with anathema any who molested him. Berengar's objections to the doctrine of Paschasius were shared by all the mystics, who held a more spiritual belief. Thus, St. Bernard distinguishes between the visible sign and the invisible grace which God attaches to the sign; and Rupert of Deutz declares that for him who has no faith there is nothing of the sacrifice, nothing except the visible form of the bread and wine.

[Sidenote: Transubstantiation.]

But apart from these writers the trend of opinion and inclination told entirely in favour of the materialistic school of thought. To the ordinary folk the miraculous aspect of the doctrine was a positive recommendation to acceptance. And the word Transubstantiation, even though it did not necessarily imply a materialistic change, undoubtedly became associated in men's minds with that idea. As early as the middle of the ninth century Haimo of Halberstadt had said that the substance of the bread and wine (that is, the nature of bread and wine) is changed substantially into another substance (that is, into flesh and blood). But the word "transubstantiate" is used first by Stephen, Bishop of Autun (1113-29), who explains "This is My Body" as "The bread which I have received I have transubstantiated into My Body." Sanction was first given for the use of the word in the Lateran Council of 1215. In the confession of faith drawn up by that Council it is asserted that "there is one Universal Church of the Faithful, outside of which no one at all has salvation: in which Jesus Himself is at once priest and sacrifice, whose Body and Blood are truly received in the sacrament of the altar under the form of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the Body and the wine into the Blood, in order that for the accomplishment of the mystery of the unity we may receive of His what He has received of ours. And this as being a sacrament no one can perform except a priest who shall have been duly ordained according to the Keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself granted to the Apostles and their successors."

[Sidenote: Resulting Changes.]

This "mystery of the unity" became, on the one side, the subject of a long and intricate controversy on the method by which the change in the elements was effected, while on the other side it lent itself to much mystical meditation. Of neither of these is there space to give illustration; but the hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is familiar to English readers under the form of "Now, my tongue, the mystery telling," blends the two sides with astonishing success. It is a mistake to describe the view of the sacrament thus sanctioned by the Church as either more "advanced" or "higher" than the older view. It was merely more elaborate, and as being such it led on to certain definite results or changes in custom.

Thus, in the first place, hitherto children had partaken of the sacrament. This had come partly from the teaching of the need of the sacrament for salvation, partly from the early custom of administering communion directly after baptism. The fear of profanation now caused the gradual discontinuance of children's communions, and in the middle of the thirteenth century they were definitely forbidden.

[Sidenote: Refusal of cup to laity.]

A far more important change, and for a similar reason, was the refusal of the cup to the laity. St. Anselm is responsible for the dictum (afterwards accepted by the whole Church) that "Christ is consumed entire in either element"; from this came the inference that there was no need for the administration of both. The heaviness of a single chalice made the danger of spilling its contents so great that several chalices were used. This, however, only increased the chances, and various methods were adopted with a view to minimising the difficulty. Sometimes a reed was used; later on, bread dipped in wine was administered, as was already usual in the case of sick persons or children; or even unconsecrated wine was given. Some of these methods came under papal condemnation; and the withdrawal of the cup found powerful apologists in Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas. But the administration of both elements continued to be fairly common until far on into the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Adoration of the sacrament.]

A third result of the new views is to be seen in the extension of the doctrine and practice of adoration of the sacrament. The rite of elevation existed in the Greek Church at least as early as the seventh century, but was not adopted by the Latins until four centuries later. In either case, however, it was only regarded as an act symbolical of the exaltation of Christ. But following on the sanction of the doctrine of transubstantiation by the Lateran Council, Honorius III in 1217 decreed that "every priest should frequently instruct his people that when in the celebration of the Mass the saving Host is elevated every one should bend reverently, doing the same thing when the priest carries it to the sick." A logical outcome of this was the foundation of the festival of Corpus Christi