Ratramnus

French writer and abbot

• Born: Early ninth century
• Birthplace: Near Amiens (now in France)
• Died: c. 868
• Place of death: Corbie, West Frankish Kingdom (now in France)

Ratramnus was one of the leading theological writers of the first Eucharistic controversy, and his treatise on the subject has been cited in subsequent occurrences of that debate.

Early Life

Little is known concerning the life of Ratramnus (ruh-TRAM-nuhs) except that he entered the Benedictine abbey of Corbie in about 825, was ordained a priest, involved himself in the doctrinal controversies of his time through his writings, and died about 868. All that is known of him comes from his own writings.

The abbey of Corbie, where Ratramnus spent his entire adult life, was located near Amiens in northern France. It had been founded in the seventh century by the Frankish king Chlothar III and his mother Bathilda and was set up under the Benedictine rule by a monk of Luxeil. By the ninth century, Corbie was held in high regard by scholars because of its scriptoria, library, and school. As a center for the study of the liberal arts, Corbie, like a number of other Carolingian monasteries, served as a bridge between the learning of the ancient world and the modern period in European history. Some of the earliest documents written in the Carolingian script were prepared there by monks assigned the task of copying Roman and patristic manuscripts.

The writings of Ratramnus indicate that he was an extremely well-read scholar, one who was held in high regard by his contemporaries, such as the bishops Hildegard of Meaux and Odo of Beauvais and the theologians Gottschalk of Orbais and Lupus of Ferrara. Pope Nicholas the Great called on him to write a treatise in defense of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. In addition, the Frankish king Charles the Bald on two occasions petitioned him to write tracts on doctrinal matters. Yet, were it not for his first treatise, De corpore et sanguine Domini (Concerning the Body and Blood of the Lord, 1549), written sometime between 844 and 850, Ratramnus would probably not be remembered, since he left no disciple to keep his memory alive.

Life’s Work

Ratramnus was drawn into the first Eucharistic controversy in the history of the Church when he was called on sometime between 844 and 850 by Charles the Bald to prepare a treatise on Eucharistic doctrine. Charles had already received a book on that subject written by Saint Paschasius Radbertus, abbot of Corbie, but because Charles disliked the abbot grave political differences existed between them it is likely that the king desired a treatise on the subject that would be significantly different. The choice of Ratramnus for this task indicates that he already had a reputation as a scholar and that his view on the Eucharist was known to be at variance with that held by his abbot.

Paschasius, a pupil of Saint Adalhard and Saint Wala, former abbots of Corbie, claimed that his treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini was based on the writings of many of the Greek and Roman church fathers, including Saint Ambrose, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and Gregory the Great. In his work, Paschasius considered two questions concerning the Eucharist: First, does the sacrament contain something hidden, which can be known only by faith, or is the whole reality present? Second, is the body of Christ that was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered and died on the Cross the same body that is received in the Eucharist by the faithful? According to Paschasius, there is a strict identity between the historical body and the Eucharistic body of Christ.

And therefore, O man, whenever you drink this cup or eat this bread, you should keep in mind that you are not drinking any other blood than the one that was poured out for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins, and that this is no other flesh than the one that was given up for you and for all and that hung on the Cross.

Paschasius believed that the substance of the bread and wine was changed into the actual body and blood of Christ although the elements retained the outward appearance as bread and wine. The presence of the historical body of Christ at many places at the same time in the Eucharist is explained by a creative act on the part of God on each occasion. The presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist is an objective reality; thus, even someone who received them in an unworthy manner would still receive the true body and blood of the Lord.

Ratramnus, in his treatise of the same title as that of Paschasius, attacked the latter’s position by making a distinction between the words figura and veritas. Figura denotes something that is set forth under a veil, as when Christ speaks of himself as the bread or the vine or the door. The word veritas, however, means the showing of a thing unveiled or as it really is, as when it is said that Christ was born of a virgin. The bread and wine exhibit one thing to the senses but present something altogether different to the minds of the faithful. Thus, there is no material miracle in the Eucharist; the elements are the same outwardly as before, but inwardly they are Christ’s body and blood. In their bodily nature, the elements are, even after consecration, bread and wine, but in power and spiritual efficacy they are the mysteries of the body and blood of Christ.

In addressing the second question as to the relationship between the historical and the Eucharistic body of Christ, Ratramnus argued that though there was a resemblance between the bodies, they were not identical as Paschasius had said. Although the historical body could properly be called “the real flesh of Christ,” the Eucharistic body was “the sacrament of the real flesh.” Existing between these two bodies was a difference “as great as that which exists between a pledge and the thing for which it is pledged, between an image and the thing of which it is an image, appearance and reality.” The believer does receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist but not as a historical and empirical reality. In maintaining this position on the Eucharist, Ratramnus could claim a long tradition that could be traced back to Augustine, while Paschasius was more clearly indebted to Ambrose.

In addition to his major writing on the Eucharistic questions, Ratramnus wrote several other treatises at the request of friends and influential men. In 849-850, he wrote an essay De praedestinatione (on predestination), dedicated to Charles the Bald but written in defense of his friend Gottschalk, who was under attack for his views by Hincmar, bishop of Reims. In 853, Ratramnus wrote De nativitate Christi (concerning the birth of Christ). In this controversy, he once again had Paschasius as an opponent. The abbot had written a work in which he not only defended the idea of the virgin birth of Christ but also argued that Christ had not been born like other men, that his birth had taken place without the sorrow or pain that were the consequences of the curse placed on Eve for her sin. Ratramnus, while agreeing that Mary was “virgin before giving birth, virgin while giving birth, virgin after giving birth,” nevertheless insisted that Christ’s birth was like that of other men, for to say otherwise was a threat to Christ’s true humanity, and it was theologically necessary that Christ be both God and human.

In 863, at the request of Odo, bishop of Beauvais, Ratramnus wrote an essay in which he challenged the heretical view of a monk who claimed that there existed a single spirit that was shared by all humans. His final treatise was written in 867 at the request of Pope Nicholas I . Entitled Contra graecorum opposita (against the opposition of the Greeks), it was one of several written on the subject by Frankish clergymen, but it was by far the fullest and most logically argued. In this work, Ratramnus defended the claims of the bishop of Rome to primacy over the whole Church against the rival claims of the patriarch of Constantinople. With this work, the pen of Ratramnus was stilled by death, which came around the year 868, although there was no eulogy to record the precise date.

Significance

Despite the high regard of his contemporaries, had it not been for his role in the Eucharistic controversy, Ratramnus would likely have been forgotten soon after his death. During the next two centuries, his book on the Eucharist received only sporadic attention, while that of Paschasius won great favor among the influential thinkers of that time. In the middle of the eleventh century, another Eucharistic controversy erupted when Berengar, head of the school of Tours, promoted the Eucharistic views of Ratramnus although erroneously attributing the book containing them to John Scotus Erigena. Ratramnus’s book was condemned and destroyed under the name of Erigena at the synod held in Vercelli in 1050.

With the definition of the doctrine of transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which in general affirmed the Eucharistic position of Paschasius, it might be thought that Ratramnus’s treatise would have been relegated to oblivion. In the course of the Reformation, however, many of the reformers (with the notable exception of Martin Luther) embraced the ideas of Ratramnus as anticipations of their own Eucharistic views. His book was printed for the first time in 1549 and was widely circulated in Protestant circles; in 1559, the censors of the Council of Trent placed it on the Index of proscribed books. By the twentieth century, a number of Catholic theologians had concluded that Ratramnus was not clearly heretical in his views and may indeed have been closer in his Eucharistic views to Augustine than had been traditionally thought.

Bibliography

Bynum, Caroline Walker. “The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages.” Church History 71, no. 4 (December, 2002): 685-715. The author discusses “blood piety” in the Eucharistic tradition in Europe and also argues that there is “an asymmetry between the body and blood symbols themselves” in this same tradition.

Fahey, John F. The Eucharistic Teaching of Ratramn of Corbie. Mundelein, Ill.: Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary, 1951. A text devoted exclusively to the Eucharistic views of Ratramnus. Contains a very useful historical introduction. Supports the view that Ratramnus may have been closer to the orthodox view of the Eucharist than traditionally thought. Extensive bibliography.

Harnack, Adolph. History of Dogma. Edited by Alexander Balmain Bruce. Vols. 5 and 6. New York: Dover, 1961. This translation of the classic German work, written between 1886 and 1890, is extremely useful but rather esoteric. Provides an excellent background to the writing of Ratramnus. Bibliography.

Morrison, Karl F. Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300-1140. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. Valuable for explaining the political and religious climate existing in the Frankish kingdoms at the time Ratramnus was writing. Extensive bibliography.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Growth of Medieval Theology, 600-1300. Vol. 3 in The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. This work has become the standard for the exposition of Christian doctrine. All of Ratramnus’s writings are discussed and evaluated. Draws extensively on primary sources. Excellent bibliography.

Radding, Charles M., and Francis Newton. Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics in the Eucharistic Controversy, 1078-1079: Alberic of Monte Cassino Against Berengar of Tours. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Discusses the Eucharistic controversy of the eleventh century in which Ratramnus’s work was reintroduced and promoted by Berengar. Includes bibliography and index.