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.
CHAPTER XI
Karl and Rome.—His visits to that city.—The offences and troubles of Leo III.—The coronation of Charlemagne.—The Pope’s adoration of the Emperor.—Alcuin’s famous letter to Karl prior to his coronation.—Two great Roman forgeries, the Donation of Constantine and the Letter of St. Peter to the Franks.