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ESSAY VIII

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. MONASTIC ORDERS.

AMONG the consequences which flowed from the growing superstition of the Christian schools, was the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which, beginning with an excess of devotion and awe at the commemoration of the Lord's Supper, had at length, at the instigation. of Paschasius Radbert, a monk of Corvey, become a perpetual miracle. According to this monk, the elements ceased entirely to be what they still seemed to be to the outward senses. The bread and wine, it was affirmed, were annihilated, being changed into the body and blood of the Redeemer. The bread and wine used in the sacrament, it is true, were to the researches of chemical science not different from any other bread and wine placed on a table for food or refreshment, but in the minds of Christians, the real body and blood of Christ. This doctrine gave rise to bitter controversy, sometimes assuming the shape of the free exercise of thought and enquiry upon subjects of large discourse to the free exercise of the human understanding, at other times opening the way to wild flights of imagination. Speculators sank often, when dwelling upon this dogma, into a materialism founded solely upon a very gross theory. Among those who took

part in these controversies were-Berenger of Tours, John Scotus or Erigena, and Lanfranc of Pavia. The following lines of Dryden contain that poet's argument in favour of transubstantiation :

Good life be now my task; my doubts are done:

What more could fright my faith than Three in One?
Can I believe eternal God could lie

Disguised in mortal mould and infancy?

That the great Maker of the world could die?
And after that trust my imperfect sense,
Which calls in question His Omnipotence?
Can I my reason to my faith compel,

And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel?
Superior faculties are set aside :

Shall their subservient organs be my guide?

The weakness of this argument, eloquently as it is expressed, arises from the fact, that the conversion of the bread and wine of the sacrament into the body and blood of Christ, is not affirmed in the New Testament. The Church of England has therefore justly declared, 'Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.' Such is the belief of Protestants; yet, although incredible to all but Roman Catholics, it would not be proper to speak, in the coarse manner of Swift in the Tale of a Tub,' of a doctrine which is deeply rooted in the minds of so great a portion of the Christian world.

This is properly the place to insert some account of the Monastic Orders. Bingham has divided the monastic age into three periods. In the first, there

were men and women who abstained from marriage, refused amusements, and practised severe fasts, but in the midst of society. In the second, hermits fled from. the Decian persecutions, and led a life of solitary privation. The third commenced with monastic institutions, and led to life in the deserts of Africa, and to the great monasteries and convents of Europe in the West. St. Pachomius, who is said to have been the founder of these institutions, is reported to have enlisted 9,000 monks. In the days of St. Jerome they had increased to 50,000; an Egyptian city, named Oxyrinchus, is said to have contained 20,000 nuns and 10,000 monks. Egypt had become the possession of monks; there the monastic system attained its extreme development, and practised its most severe austerity. St. Jerome was at once its leader and its panegyrist. St. Jerome was a man of much learning, of great virtue, and considerable abilities; yet his admiration for the life of the Egyptian hermits is revolting and almost incredible. He declares, with a fervour of approbation, that he had seen a monk who for thirty years had lived on a small daily portion of barley bread and muddy water; another, who lived in a hole, and never ate more in a day than five figs; a third, who cut his hair only on Easter Sunday, never washed his clothes, wore his tunic till it fell to pieces, and stared till his eyes grew dim.' His skin was like a pumice stone. St. Macarius carried about him eighty pounds of iron; he exposed his body naked to the

1 Lecky's History of European Morals from Constantine to Charlemagne, vol. ii. p. 424 et seq.

stings of venomous flies. St. Eusebius carried one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up well. St. Sabinus would only eat corn that had become rotten by remaining for a month in water. St. Marcian and others confined themselves to one meal a day, so small that they constantly suffered the pains of hunger. St. Besarion for forty years never lay down when he slept. The cleanliness of the body was regarded by these fanatics as a pollution of the soul. St. Athanasius relates how St. Antony, the patriarch of monachism, who lived to extreme old age, had never washed his feet.1

But enough of these monstrous practices. Tertullian, writing in the second century, to confute some charges made by pagans, declared that, unlike the hermits of India, Christians did not fly from the world, but mixed with pagans in the forum, in the public baths, and in the ordinary business of life.

With these social customs, the Christians of the West had persuaded the world to change its religion, and when monastic institutions travelled into Europe, bringing habits of intercourse and familiarity with business, they governed the world. In the twelfth century there were two roads to eminence and to fame. A young man of high birth and lively talents might shine in arms at tournaments, or rise to distinction in the polemical contests of theological display. St. Bernard was born of noble parentage in Burgundy. His father, Tecelin, was a man of high honour and

1 Lecky, vol. ii. p. 117.

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courage; his mother Alith was famed for her piety and charity. Bernard might have aspired to high military distinction or to the most eminent post in the Church. He enquired instead for the poorest, the most severe, the most inaccessible of monasteries. He found it at Citeaux, and the force of his example drew into monastic life his brothers, his sister, and even his father. From Citeaux he marched with a colony of monks to a valley in Champagne, where he led a life of harsh labour, hardly eating enough to keep him alive, and so mortifying his senses that they lost all perception of things within his sight, hearing, and taste. He suffered the direst extremity of famine, till the neighbouring peasants with reverential piety brought to him and his companions supplies of food. He called his monastery by the melodious name of Clairvaux. His miracles became famous, his name spread through France, Italy, Germany, England, and Spain.

The papal tiara was in dispute between Innocent II. and Anacletus II. Innocent appealed to France, and the king of France, by the advice of Bernard, decided in his favour. Henry I. of England hesitated. Thou fearest the sin of acknowledging Innocent,' said Bernard; answer thou for thy other sins; be that one upon my head.' Henry submitted; Germany and Spain followed the example of France and England. Innocent entered Italy; the Emperor Lothair and Bernard accompanied him to Rome, where Innocent rewarded the Emperor and his Empress by crowning them with solemn pomp in the Lateran church.

Bernard, while constantly sighing for the shades of