For centuries following Chrysostom, the prevalent ideas of the real presence in the eucharist were not only vague, but widely dissimilar, ranging from the border of a just spiritualism to a gross materialism, but with growing tendencies to the latter, until, at length, the more material tlie conception came to be of an actual and repeated sacrifice, the more it seemed to impress minds wholly uninstructed in Scripture truth. For a long period inquiries into the nature of the sa- cred mysteries were regarded as presumptive ; but when, at length, sjieculation arose, the most startling theorists excited tlie most attention. It was to Pas- chasius Radbert, a monk of Corvey (A.D. 831), that the Roman Church was indebted for the first clear state- ment of what came afterwards to be known as the doctrine of transul)stantiation. Although Paschasius did not employ that term, he fully set forth the idea which the term was afterwards invented to express. He taught that the substance of the bread and wine was actually annihilated, notwithstanding the corporeal form remained, in passing into and becoming the body and blood of the Redeemer — the actual body and blood of .lesus Christ, which had been resuscitated in the res- urrection, and which was now midtiplied in countless numbers of times and places. He did not shrink from following out this theory to its grossest consequences, sustaining it by the narration of various miracles, such as the host bleeding and assuming the human form. It is not to be supposed that Paschasius originated this theory; his task was that of formulating it from the still cruder notions of the average popular and priestly mind of his day. But, dark as were tlie times in which lie lived, his theory, when reduced to a connected state- ment, was too gross to pass unchalleni;eil. A protract- ed discussion arose, known in ecclesiastical history as the First Eucharistic Controversy.
Against tlie theory of Paschasius, Frudegard, a monk of anotlier order, and Ratramnus, another monk of Cor- vey, urged sundry arguments, and quoted many passages
from the fathers, especially from Augustine, showing that the body of Christ in the eucharist could not be the same botiy as that in which he was born, suffered, and rose again. Ratramnus, in fact, wrote a learned work entitled Be Corpore et Sanguine Domini, in which he modestly but ably controverted the positions of his abbot, Paschasius. The latter had strongly urged those views of the sacrifice of the mass that had prevailed from the time of Gregory the Great. On the other hand, Ratramnus designated the eucharist as being only a commemorative celebration of Christ's sacri- fice, b;' remembrance of which Christians should make themselves capable of partaking of the divine grace of redemption. Rabanus Maurus, John Scotus Erigena, and others also wrote in opposition to the theory of Radbert. Thus the controversy was protracted into the lOth century, but with a constantly increasing ten- dency to reject and silence all opposition to the extrem- est views as heretical. See Transubstantiation.
Notwithstanding the popular drift in the line of transubstantiation, Berengar of Tours (q. v.), about the middle of the 11th century, opened, by his acute and able opposition to the theory of Paschasius Radbert, what has been denominated the Second Eucharistic Controversy. His position was that the substance of the bread and wine was not changed by the consecra- tion, but only their efficacy, thus maintaining a dynam- ic, as against an actual change. His chief literary op- ponent was Lanfranc (q. v.), but his ecclesiastical oppo- nents were legion. In the apparent consciousness that he could not be answered, he was summarily arraigned by popes and prelates, before councils and synods, and forced repeatedly to renounce his doctrines on pain of death. As often as he was able to escape from the power of his persecutors, he recanteil his successive re- nunciations of his doctrines respecting the sacraments, until he at length found a refuge in France, where he was permitted, at the age of ninety, to die in peace. His views found many adherents, both in France and (iermany, who came to be known and proscribed as Be- rengarians.
A synod of Rome in 1079 confirmed the doctrine of Paschasius Radbert ; and, although for some years af- terwards that doctrine was maintained by the use of other terms, it at length found definite expression in the term Iransubstantiation, which is said to have been first used by Hildebert of Tours (about 1134). Steps were now successively taken bj' which discussion was checked and opposition in the Church practically silenced. Pope Innocent III, at the Lateran Council of 1215, made trun- subsfanfiation (q. v.) an unchangeable article of the Ro- man Catholic faith; pope Urban IV, in 1'2G-1, instituted the annual festival of Corpus Christi; and pope Clem- ent V, in 131 1, reduced the doctrine in question to a li- turgical forin. By these means, not only the theolo- gians and the clergy of the Church, but also the masses of tlie people, were committed to the actual deiticatiou of the host, or consecrated wafer. The withholding of the cup from the laity was deemed a logical sequence of the doctrine of transubstantiation of more controlling influence than the exjiress command of Christ with ref- erence to the cup— "Drink ye all of it." The precept quoted was thenceforward conveniently limited to the clergy.