Tractatus de apostasia

INTRODUCTION. XXXI II
ceases to exist (pp. 187—188). The third maintains that the Host is
not, but has Christ's Body. But this goes against Christ's own words
at the Last Supper (pp. 188— 190). The chapter closes with complaints
against the glossators, and a Wycliffian gloss of contrary opinions,
making them coincide with his own (pp. 190 — 193).
Chs. XV. and XVI. These chapters, which we must analyse
together, seem to be an answer to tracts written bv four opponents,
and especially to one who had made up a 'genealogy' of testimonies
against him, from his time up to Christ. They are perhaps the most
important in the whole book; not so much, however, the answers to
the authorities quoted, as what follows, towards the end of Ch. XVI.
The answers come first, and take up the whole of Ch.XV (pp. 193 — 206)
and a part of Ch. XVI (pp. 206 — 217). — (1) The Doctors of the
Sects are set aside: they contradict each other. (2) Grosseteste contradicts
himself. (3, 4) Lombard and Comestor are contradicted by the Sects.
(5, 6) Lanfranc and Guitmundus wrote against Berengarius, whose
error Wyclif detests. (7, 8) Gandofilus and Paschasius are mere make-
weights. (9) Arnulfus does not go into the question. (10) Bernard
is mistaken. 1
( 1) Anselm can be explained. (1 2) Innocent's words are
not a decree de fide; even were they so, we ought not to follow them.
A long debate about the Pope's authority follows, from Wyclif's
usual standpoint. (i3) (Beginning of Ch. XVI, and of the second
series of witnesses — writers of the first millenary) Raban Maur is
inconsistent. (14) So is Bede, unless explained. (i5) St. John Damascenus
is of Wyclif's mind: his expressions point either that way or to
impanation or consubstantiation, and these two last systems are not
admissible. Here our author gives by the way (p. 210) his definition
of transsubstantiation: a change from the exclusion of any entity but
bread to Christ's sacramental coexistence. (16, 17) Urso and Isidorus
may be quoted against the accident theory. (18)
Ambrose seems
against Wyclif in only two passages, which, if against him, would
be in favour of Berengarius. (19) Jerome teaches that Christ's word
"Hoc" means' bread. Here Wyclif remarks (p. 21 3) "I have often
confessed that Christ's very Body, numerically the same that was
born of the Virgin .... that same body and substance is truly and
really the sacramental bread, which the faithful perceive in the hands
of the Priest. Yet I venture not to say that Christ's Body is identically,
De Apostasia.
C