\ 127. THE THEORY OF KATRAMNUS. 553
1073, on the 26th of April iu the diocese of Soissons.1 The book of Katramnus, under the supposed authorship of Seotus Erigena, was twice condemned in the Berengar controversy (1050 and 1059), and put in the Tridentine Index of prohibited books.2
NOTES.
In connection with this subject is the subordinate controversy on the delicate question whether Christ, admitting his supernatural conception, was born in the natural way like other children, or miraculously (clauso utero). This question troubled the pious curiosity of some nuns of Vesona (?), and reached the convent of Corbie. Paschasius Radbertus, following the lead of St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, defended the theory that the holy Virgin remained virgo in partu and post partum, and used in proof some poetic passages on the hortus conclusus and fons signatus in Cant. 4: 12, and the porta clausa Domini in Ezek. 44: 2. The whole incarnation is supernatural, and as the conception so the birth of Christ was miraculous. He was not subject to the laws of nature, and entered the world " sine dolore et sine gemitu et sine ulla corruptione carnis" See Radbert's tract De Partu Virginis in his Opera, ed. Migne, col. 1365- 1386.
Ratramnus, in his book De eo quod Christus ex Virgine natus est (in D'Achery, " Spicilegium," I., and in Migne, Tom. 121, col. 82-102), like wise taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, but assumed that Christ came into the world in the natural way (" naturaliter per aulam virginearn" or "per virginalis januam vulvse"). The conception in utero implies the birth ex utero. But he does not controvert or name Radbert, and uses the same Scripture passages for his view, He refers also to the analogy of Christ's passing through the closed doors on the day of the resurrection. He quotes from Augustin, Jerome, Pope Gregory, and Bede in support of his view. He opposes only the monstrous opinion that Christ broke from the womb through some unknown channel (" monstruose de secreto ventris incerto framite IK minis in auras e.risse, quod non est nasci, sed eruntpi." Cap. 1, col. 83). Such an opinion, he thinks, leads to the docetic heresy, and to the conclusion that " nee yere natus Christus, ncc vere genuit Maria"
1 See the Ada Sanct. Holland, ad 26 Apr., with the Vita of Pasch. Radb. by Sirmond, and the Martyrol. Bencd. with the Vita by M£nard.
* Notwithstanding this prohibition, Mabillon, Nntalis Alexander, and Boileau have defended the catholic orthodoxy of Ratramnus, with the apologetic aim to wrest from the Protestants a weighty authority of the ninth century. See Gieseler II. 82, and J. G. Muller in Wetzer and Welte (first ed.) VIII. 170 eq.
554 FOUETH PERIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
§ 128. The Berengar Controversy.
While the doctrine of a corporeal presence and participation of Christ in the eucharist made steady progress in the public opinion of Western Christendom in close connection with the rising power of the priesthood, the doctrine of a spiritual pre sence and participation by faith was re-asserted by way of re action in the middle of the eleventh century for a short period, but condemned by ecclesiastical authority. This condemnation decided the victory of transubstantiation.
Let us first review the external history of the controversy, which runs into the next period (till 1079).
BERENGAR (c. 1000-1088), a pupil of Fulbert of Chartres (d. 1029), was canon and director of the cathedral school in Tours, his native city, afterwards archdeacon of Angers, and highly esteemed as a man of rare learning and piety before his eucharistic views became known.1 He was an able dialectician and a popular teacher. He may be ranked among the fore runners of a Christian rationalism, who dared to criticize church authority and aimed to reconcile the claims of reason and faith.2 But he had not the courage of a martyr, and twice recanted from fear of death. Nor did he carry out his principle. He seems to have been in full accord with catholic orthodoxy except on the point of the sacrament.. He was ascetic in his
1 During and after the eucharistic controversy he was charged with vanity, ambition, and using improper means, such as money and patronage, for the spread of his opinions. See Hefele, IV. 742. Card. Hergenrother (I. 707) calls Berengar oberftachlich, eitel, ehrgeizig, verwegen and neuerungssiichtig. Arch bishop Trench (Lectures on Medieval Church History, p. 189 sq.), dissenting from Coleridge's charitable judgment, finds fault with Berengar's "insolent tone of superiority" in addressing Lanfranc, and with a "passionate feeble ness" and "want of personal dignity" in his whole conduct. He thinks his success would have been a calamity, since it would have involved the loss of the truth which was concealed under the doctrine of transubstantiation. "Su perstition sometimes guards the truth which it distorts, caricatures, and in part conceals." Coleridge wrote a touching poem on Berengar's recantation.
a As an '' Aufklarer," Berengar is one-sidedJy represented by Keuter, I. c. Comp. also Baur, in his Kirchengesch. des Mittelalters, p. 66 sqq.