Bede also who liued about the yeare 730. wryting vpon the Psalme 21. hath these wordes: Edent pauperes. &c. Pauperes, id est mundi contemptores, edent quidem realiter, si ad sacramenta referantur, et saturabunitur æternaliter, qui intelligent in pane et vino visibiliter sibi Proposito, inuisibile scilicet corpus verum et sanguinem verum domini, quæ verus cibus et verus potus sunt, quo non venter distenditur, sed mens saginatur. &c. That is, Poore men, to witte, despisers of the worlde, shall eate in deede really, if it bee referred vnto the Sacramentes, and shall bee filled eternally, because they shall vnderstand in bread and in wine, being visibly sette before them, a thyng inuisible, to witte, the true body and true bloud of the Lord, which are true meate, and true drinke, wherwith not the bellye is filled, but the minde is nourished.
[Back to Top]And thus in these wordes of Bede likewyse is to bee vnderstand, that no transubstantiation as yet in his tyme was receaued in the Church of England.
Long it were to stand vpon all particulares. Briefly to conclude, the farther the Church hath bene from these our latter daies, the purer it was in all respectes, and especially touching this barbarous article of transubstantiation. We will nowe drawe more neare our owne tyme
The material following on Haymo, a Benedictine monk and bishop, of the ninth century and Ratramnus of Corbie ('Bertram') from Heinrich Bullinger, De origine erroris libri duo (Zurich, 1568), fo. 120r-v. Ratrumnus was particularly important to Bullinger (and Foxe) because he did, in fact, explicitly attack what he regarded as carnal understandings of the Eucharist.
[Back to Top]By whose writynges it is euident, that the Church was infected as yet with no such phantasie of transubstātiatiō, neither did any almost, dreame of takyng away the substance of bread from the Sacramēt. For although Haymo, Remigius, Rabanus, & other whiche lyued in that age, do attribute to the Sacrament, the honorable name, and reuerence (as we also do) of the Lordes body & bloud: yet they exclude not from thence al substaunce of mele and bread, and leaue the bare accidences, as our new come Catholickes do, as by the woordes of Haymo doth appeare. Where hee following the wordes of Bede, sheweth also the cause, why it is so called by the name of the Lordes bodye. Quia (sayth hee) panis corpus confirmat, ideo ille corpus Christi congruēter nuncupatur: vinum autem quia sanguinem operatur in carne, ideo ad sanguinem Christi refertur. MarginaliaHaymo de Sermonū proprietate. lib. 5. cap. 11.That is: Because bread cōfirmeth the hart of man, therfore it is called conueniētly the bodye of Christ: and because wyne worketh bloude in the fleshe of man, thereof is it referred to the bloud of Christ. What can be more effectually spoken to proue the substance of bread there to remayne? For take away þe substance of bread and of wyne, what is in the accidences left, that can confirme mans hart, or ingender bloud in the fleshe? And therefore seyng there must nedes somethyng remaine, that must be referred to Christes body and bloud in that Sacramēt, either it must be the substaunce of bread and wyne, or els it can bee no Sacrament. And furthermore, speakyng of the visible things whiche are sanctified, how, and wherunto they be conuerted, he sayth: that by the holy Ghost they passe to a Sacrament of the Lordes body.
[Back to Top]And lykewyse the same Haymo in an other place, speaking of þe fruits of þe earth, that is, of corne & wine, declareth, how our Sauiour making of thē an apt mysterye, conuerteth them to a Sacrament of his body and bloud. &c. MarginaliaHaymo lib. 7. in ecclesiast. cap. 8.Lib. 7. in Ecclesiast. cap. 8.
Bertramus likewise, as he lyued in the same age, so in like sort he shewed his opinion therin, to þe like effect as Haymo did. For as Haymo writyng in these words declareth, quia aliud est Sacramentum, aliud virtus Sacramenti: sacramentum enim ore percipitur, virtute Sacramenti interior homo saciatur, MarginaliaHaym. ibid.that is: the Sacramēt is one thyng, & the vertue of the Sacramēt is an other thing: for the sacramēt is receaued with the mouth, but with the vertue of the Sacrament, the inward man is satisfied.
[Back to Top]Marginalia¶ An. 810.So after like maner, Bertram9 according to þe same, thus writeth
This is from John Bale, Scriptorum Illustrium maioris Brytanniae …Catalogus (Basel, 1557), p. 124.
MarginaliaRabanus Maurus Byshop of Mentze.
An. 800.We will now proceede
These passages on Rabanus Maurus are from Heinrich Bullinger, De origine erroris libri duo (Zurich, 1568), fos. 107r-v and 115v-116r.
Rabanus Maurus was archbishop of Mainz and died in 856.
And after followeth: For thys bread and drinke, signifieth the eternall societie of the head, and of the members together.
And agayne: For the Sacrament is one thyng, and the vertue of the Sacrament is an other thyng. The Sacrament is receaued with the mouth, with the vertue of the Sacrament the inwarde man is nourished: For the Sacrament is turned to the nourishment of the bodye, but by the vertue of the Sacrament, the dignitie of eternall lyfe is gotten.
[Back to Top]Wherefore, lyke as the same is turned into vs, when we eate of it: so also are we turned into the bodye of Christ, when we liue obedientlye and godly. &c. Who seeth not by these wordes of thys Byshop, what forme of doctrine was then in the Church receaued concernyng thys article of the Sacrament, much diuers from thys our grosse opinion of transubstantiation.
[Back to Top]With the sayd Rabanus also accordeth an other
These passages on Christian Druthmar are from Heinrich Bullinger, De origine erroris libri duo (Zurich, 1568), fos. 103r and 104v.
And a little before, the sayd Druthmarus sayeth: The Lorde gaue to hys Disciples the Sacrament of his bodye, to the remission of sinnes, and kepyng of charitie, that they alwayes remembring hys doing, myght doe that in figure, which hee shoulde doe for them. Thys is my bodye (sayth hee) that is, in Sacrament. Thys Druthmarus liued also in the tyme of Carolus Magnus, as witnesseth Abbas Spaynhemensis.
The abbot of Spanheim is Johannes Trithemius, author of a biographical dictionary of illustrious Germans. Foxe is repeating this citation from Heinrich Bullinger, De origine erroris libri duo (Zurich, 1568), fo. 104v. Christian Druthmar died after 850.
MarginaliaIoan. Scotus.
An. 880.After Bertramus, was Ioannes Scotus, or els, as some call hym, Ioannes Erigena, a man well accepted with Carolus Caluus, & afterwarde with Ludouicus Balbus, about the yeare of our Lord. 880.
This account of John Scotus Erigena is taken from John Bale, Scriptorum Illustrium maioris Brytanniae…Catalogus (Basel, 1557), p. 124.
See 1570, pp. 190-91, 1576, pp. 145-6 and 1583, pp. 144-45.