CHAPTER X
Summary of Alcuin’s work in France.—Adoptionism, Alcuin’s seven books against Felix and three against Elipandus.—Alcuin’s advice that a treatise of Felix be sent to the Pope and three others.—Alcuin’s name dragged into the controversy on Transubstantiation.—Image-worship.—The four Libri Carolini and the Council of Frankfurt.—The bearing of the Libri Carolini on the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
Having seen something in detail of the earnestness and faithfulness of Alcuin’s exhortations to the kings and bishops of his native land of England, and having learned from them to how sad a state things had fallen, especially in Northumbria once the nursery of saints, we must now turn to Alcuin’s work on the continent of Europe.
It may be well to state again the leading dates.
Ethelbert, or Albert, master of the School of York and afterwards archbishop, took Alcuin with him as a tonsured youth on one of his visits to France and Rome, and on that occasion he appears to have studied for a short time in French monasteries. The first letter of his that has come down to us is a letter to the abbat of St. Martin at Tours, where he was destined to spend the latest years of his life, about a fugitive monk whom he had rescued; it was written some eight years before he first settled in France. On his return from this journey he was ordained deacon by Albert, probably in 768, when he would be about thirty-five years of age. He was sent again to Italy by Albert, on a mission to Karl, the king of the Franks, and it would appear that Karl noticed him favourably. All this time he was working hard as master of the School of York. In 780 the new archbishop of York sent him late in the year to Rome for the pallium, and on his way back he again met Karl, at Parma, and Karl asked him to settle in France. He obtained leave of absence from York, and joined Karl in 782. His definite work was to govern the school at which the youths at the court of Karl, including Karl’s own sons, were taught; the king himself often being present as a learner. He then planned for Karl a number of schools in various parts of the country, all based on the model of the Palace school, which he had organized on the plan of the School of York. Then he took in hand the correction of the service-books, which had become seriously debased by ignorant copyists; his liturgical work produced such an effect that the service-books of the Middle Ages owed more to Gallican than to Roman influences. Tradition tells us that Alcuin himself wrote the Office for Trinity Sunday, at that time not fixed as now to a particular day. He found that the Holy Scriptures themselves had become debased by the same process of ignorant copying of manuscripts, and in his later years he was set by Karl to take seriously in hand the revision of the Scriptures. From 790 to 792 he had lived in Northumbria; but the aggression of heresy in Karl’s dominions had called him away again, and he had never returned. He was about fifty-eight years old when he finally left England, and he died in 804, at the age of sixty-nine.
The tendency towards attempting to define and explain the method in which Almighty power conducts its operations was a marked tendency of Alcuin’s time. He combated it, on sound principles. The whole matter, for example, of the union of the two natures in Christ, he reminded his readers, was supernatural; therefore, it could not be fitly measured by human analogies. To deny the perfect union of the two perfect natures in one Person was to impugn the Divine omnipotence; to claim to understand and to define the method and manner of the union was to impugn the infiniteness of the mystery.
It was to this tendency to inquire into and seek to fathom divine mysteries that the controversy about transubstantiation was due. That controversy came into being a full generation after the death of Alcuin; and one of the most prominent opponents of any approach to a materialistic view of the manner of the Real Presence was a pupil of Alcuin’s, Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz.
The heresy which reached such dimensions as to call Alcuin back from England to France was the heresy known as Adoptionism. It became prominent in the same manner, from the same tendency to pry into the divine secrets of operation, as did the theory of transubstantiation. The point was, how exactly did the human nature of the Son come into union with the divine nature? The answer given by Felix, Bishop of Urgel in Catalonia, was this—by adoption. Hence he and his followers were called Adoptionists.
The term Adoption had been applied to the Incarnation by some early Fathers, and indeed in the Spanish Liturgy, which Felix naturally used. It was used probably as equivalent to assumption—He took upon Him—that is, assumed—our flesh. This use of the word Adoption in their liturgy led Felix and his followers to take a large step beyond the equivalence to assumption. They carried it to its full meaning in ordinary affairs, and declared that the divine nature of the Second Person of the Trinity adopted the human nature into sonship, as Son. The so-called Athanasian Creed has in our English form, “by taking the manhood into God.” In the original Latin the word “assumption” is used, assumptione humanitatis in Deum.[167]
Catalonia was at that time a part of Karl’s dominions, and therefore he could operate upon Felix. But Elipandus, who supported Felix, was bishop of Toledo and primate of Spain under the Mohammedan dominion, and thus was beyond the reach of Karl. He was a man who, in his letters at least, used very abusive language.
The Adoptionists held that it was a confusion of the two natures in Christ to say that Christ was proper and real Son of God not only in his Godhead but in His whole Person. The highest that could befall humanity, they maintained, was to be adopted into sonship with God; therefore Christ’s humanity is adopted into sonship. This adoption had three stages they said; the first at the moment of conception, the second at His baptism, the final stage at His resurrection. The Adoptionists professed to deny that they were Nestorians, that is, that they divided Christ into two Persons; but it was urged against them that if they did not divide Christ into two persons, their theory did, when it was pressed to its necessary consequence. That is the history of the origin of many of the heresies.
Various measures had been taken against the heresy of the Adoptionists, both by Karl and by the Pope, Adrian. In course of time Karl sent the treatise of Felix to Alcuin, who was at the time in England, and Alcuin returned to France, never again to visit his native country. Simeon of Durham tells us that the English bishops made him their representative for the refutation of Felix. As such, probably, in part, but also by the special wish of Karl, he attended the Council of Frankfort in 794, and though only a deacon, argued against Felix. Felix was condemned. Alcuin’s argument was at Karl’s request or command developed into a treatise in seven books; and he wrote also a treatise in three books against Elipandus.
We have these ten books. They fill 220 very closely printed columns in Migne’s series. The books against Felix are among the best and most independent of Alcuin’s dogmatic work.
This by no means ended the matter. In the year 798 Karl sent to Alcuin a treatise by Felix, which he desired Alcuin to refute. Alcuin’s reply has been the subject of so much controversy that it will be well to give it as literally as possible. The point is, the place assigned to the Pope as a judge of doctrine. I only quote that part of the very long letter.
Ep. 100. July, 798.
“I beseech you, if it please your piety, that a copy of the treatise be sent to the apostolic lord [that is of course the Pope] and another to Paulinus the patriarch [of Aquileia]; similarly to Richbon [of Trèves] and Theodulf [of Orleans] bishops, doctors, and ministers; that they may (singuli) severally answer for themselves.[168] Your Flaccus [Alcuin] labours with you in giving account of the catholic faith. Allow him sufficient time to consider with his pupils, quietly and carefully, the opinions of the Fathers, what each has said on such views as this subverter has set forth in his book. Then, at a time appointed by you, let the answers of the above several persons (singulorum) be brought to you. And whatever of opinion or of meaning in that book is found to be contrary to the catholic faith, let it be overthrown by catholic quotations. And if the writings of all [of the above] sound forth equally and concordantly in profession or defence of the catholic faith, it will be clear that one spirit speaks through the voice and heart of all; but if anything diverse is found in the words or the writings (dictis vel scriptis) of any one of them, let it be judged which is most in accord with sacred scripture and the catholic fathers, and give the palm to him who is most firm in the divine evidences.”
It seems to be perfectly clear that Alcuin’s plan was that he and his students should draw up a chain of passages from the Fathers, such as that which at an earlier stage he had himself sent to Felix;[169] that in this way they should spend the time till Karl had got answers by letter, or by the mouth of a messenger, or even at a personal interview, from each of the four, Pope, patriarch, and two bishops; and then that all the answers should be tested by the passages extracted from the writings of the Fathers. There is not the slightest sign of Pope Hadrian having a preponderant voice, or a voice on a doctrinal question more authoritative than that of the learned Bishop of Orleans. But if, as the Roman controversialist endeavours to maintain, the Pope was not included in the curious competition, and only the three others were to be counted, that is worse still for the position of the Pope; for Alcuin and Karl were to settle the matter without paying any attention to the Pope, indeed without considering anything that he might say. The Roman controversialist has to play tricks with the punctuation and with the Latin to separate off the Pope from the patriarch. There was no punctuation[170] in the letter, we must suppose; those who wrote in Latin as good as Alcuin’s could make a sentence clear in its meaning without commas and semicolons; and if the passage is read without stops the Pope is included, as he is also with any punctuation other than that of the Roman controversialist. But, as I have said, if he was included with the other three he was given a full chance of making his opinion felt on equal terms with that of each of the others; if he was not included, the verdict was to be final without him.
Ep. 11. July, 786.
Alcuin is drawn by the Romans into the controversy on Transubstantiation, which, as we have seen, had not commenced in his time. In a letter to Paulinus, the Patriarch of Aquileia, dated about 787, he requests his correspondent not to forget him in his prayers. “Store up my name in some treasure-house of your memory, and bring it out at that fitting time when you have consecrated the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ.” If that expression had been used after the long controversy on the subject, it would have been very much more important than at most it is. But it comes nearly fifty years before the controversy was raised by Paschasius Radbert of Corbie in his treatise De Corpore et Sanguine Domini (A.D. 831). Paschasius wrote that after consecration “there is nothing but the Body and Blood of the Lord”, a material statement which Ratramn at once controverted. It was Ratramn’s treatise, denying the carnal presence and maintaining a spiritual view, that had a dominant influence on Ridley and Cranmer. The more subtle refinement of the schoolmen of later times, which we know as transubstantiation, avoids the blunt materialism of Paschasius by distinguishing between an essential and a non-essential element of an existence such as that of bread; giving to the essence which cannot be apprehended by the senses the name of substance, and to the non-essential the name of accident. The change effected by consecration did not, in their view, affect the non-essential, the accident, the part that can be perceived by the senses; it affected only that which can not be so perceived, the essential, the substance. But all this is very far beyond any point which had been reached in Alcuin’s time, or was reached for some long time after him. From him we do not hear anything of substance and accident, of essential and non-essential. He presumably used the expression quoted as a simple and strong statement of his belief in a very real presence, which he and the men of his time unquestionably held, but did not attempt to define.
We have an interesting opportunity of realizing the true feeling of leading personages of Alcuin’s time in this matter of the Presence in the Eucharist, just where we might not have expected to find it, namely, in the controversy on the use of images, of which we must now see something. The Holy Eucharist is used as an illustration in this controversy. The Synod of Constantinople, which decided that the images of the Saviour must be destroyed, declared that the Eucharist is the only true image of the Saviour; meaning that the union of the divine grace with the earthly elements represents that union of Godhead and manhood in His Person which images failed to convey, inasmuch as images of the Lord could only set forth His humanity. The objection was raised by the opposition Council of Nicaea that none of the Fathers had applied the term imago to that which is His Body and His Blood; but otherwise they did not raise objection to the force of the comparison. If the modern Roman doctrine had been held by either side in the controversy, it must have shown itself in a declaration that a comparison was impossible, on the ground that the consecrated elements actually are, by a change of substance, that which an image can never be, namely, the very Body and Blood of Christ. The controversialists of the time would certainly have brought out, in one form or another, this vital point, if they had held it or even had only heard of it.
The controversy about images is so entirely a part of general Church History, that our mention of it must be only in relation to the part which Alcuin played in it. In the year 754 a Council at Constantinople had decreed the abolition of images, and this decree was carried out with terrible cruelty towards those who defended the images. In the year 787 a Council was held at Nicaea to re-establish the use of images of the Saviour and the Blessed Virgin, of angels and of saints, whether in painting or in mosaic or in any other suitable material, as objects of reverence, not as objects of that worship which is due to God alone. This decision restored peace between the East, which had previously condemned images, and the West, which had retained their use. The Pope, Adrian, sent the decrees to Karl, no doubt expecting that he would accept them. It was never quite safe to expect that Karl would do what he was expected to do.
The subject was not a new one among the Franks. They had held a mixed assembly of clergy and laity under Karl’s father in 767. There were present representatives of the then Pope, Paul I, and the iconoclast Emperor Constantine; and it is supposed that the decision, which is not recorded, was in accordance with the national feeling. That national feeling was guided by abhorrence of the abominations of the idol-worship of the pagans by whom they were surrounded. Karl himself strongly shared this feeling. He sent the decrees, which the Pope had sent to him, to Alcuin, who, as we have seen, was then in England. Alcuin made remarks on them in a letter, out of which grew a treatise in four books called the Libri Carolini, the chief author of which was Alcuin, who was no doubt assisted by other ecclesiastics. Probably Karl himself kept his hand upon the work up to the time of its publication. The general line of the treatise is that images are useful for ornament and historical remembrance, and therefore they must not be destroyed; but worship of them must not be required. We must bear in mind that the word image means any kind of representation, the Nicaean Council of 787, as we have seen, specifying paintings and mosaics. One of the points on which these Caroline Books condemn the iconoclasts is, that they do not distinguish between images and idols; but this is a less grave mistake, the Caroline Books declare, than that committed by the Nicaean Council, in confusing the use of images with the worship of them. The former error is attributed to ignorance; the latter—it was a severe remark considering that the Pope had forwarded the decrees—is attributed to wickedness. It may be well, in this connexion, to recall the fact that the imago, the image of our Lord, which was carried in procession by Augustine and his monks at their interview with Ethelbert of Kent, was not an idol, but a painting on a tablet[171]. We of the Church of England keep this meaning of imago, in the allowance of paintings and mosaics in our churches, quite separate from the idea of an idol, which we disallow.
Adrian made a long but feeble reply to the Caroline Books. The great Frankish Council of Frankfort, in 794, which had the double character of an imperial diet and an ecclesiastical synod, and was presided over by Karl in person, held in strong terms the views of the Caroline Books; indeed, it appears to be far from certain that they were published before the Council was held. Alcuin, though he had not proceeded beyond deacons’ orders, was admitted to the Council on account of his learning. The Council spoke with contempt of the Greek synod; showed no regard to the Roman view; refused both adoration and service of all kinds to images. It was a tremendously independent blow to the Pope as an arbiter of faith and morals. But Karl was much too important a person in the eyes of the Pope to be quarrelled with, and Adrian remained on excellent terms with him. Adrian died in 796, when his successor Leo sent the keys of the Confessio of St. Peter and the standard of the City of Rome to Karl, and begged him to send some of his chief men to Rome, to bind the people of Rome by oath to subjection and fidelity to the Pope.
These Caroline Books are so important in their unexpected bearing on the current belief on the nature of the real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, that we must look into their phrases with some little care.
In the second book of the four Libri Carolini Karl deals with the question of the adoration of images. In the twenty-seventh chapter he argues against the temerity and absurdity of those who presumed to compare, as of equal importance, images and the Body and Blood of the Lord. He quotes these absurd persons as saying that “as the Body and Blood of the Lord passes across from the fruits of the earth to a remarkable mystery, so images pass across to the veneration of the persons whom they represent”. No one of Karl’s arguments against this parallel or equivalence gives the slightest indication of a belief or idea on his part that in consecration there is a change of substance. He says, “The sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord is effected by the hand of the priest and the invocation of the divine name to the commemoration of His passion and to the grant to us of our salvation by the same mediator between God and men”; whereas images are completely made by skilled workmen, &c. For the consecration, the vested priest, mingling the prayers of the people standing round with his own prayers, with groaning of spirit makes memorial of the Lord’s Passion, of His resurrection from the dead, and of His most glorious ascension into Heaven, and entreats that these may be borne to the sublime altar of God by the hands of an angel and into the sight of His Majesty; the painter of images merely looks out a suitable place to execute his works, and paints them that they may look beautiful. Thus any one who attempts to compare on equal terms images and the Body and Blood of the Lord strays very far from the path of truth, of reason, and of discrimination. The commemoration of His most sacred Passion is not in the works of artificers, but in consecration of His Body and Blood. That elect vessel Paul the Apostle says that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood is not to be put on an equality with all sacraments, but is to be set before almost all sacraments, when he says, He that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks his own damnation. Nothing of that kind is said of those who will not adore images. Karl sums up the discussion by stating concisely ten points of vital difference between the Lord’s Supper and images. For our present purpose we need only take the ten points as they relate to the former. Our purpose is to consider how far the points stated can indicate a belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and how far they square better with that reticent doctrine of a Real Presence which is consistent with the formularies and the services of our own most truly Catholic Church of England. These are the ten points: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood (1) is effected by the invisible operation of the Spirit of God; (2) is consecrated by the priest by the invocation of the divine name; (3) is carried by angel hands to the sublime altar of God: (4) by it sins are remitted; (5) it has no growth or diminution of power; (6) it is confirmed by new antiquity and ancient newness; (7) it is the life and the refreshment of souls; (8) it leads by eating thereof to the entrance of the heavenly kingdom; (9) it cannot be abolished from the Church by persecution: (10) without reception of it no one is saved.