Tractatus de apostasia

XXXVI INTRODUCTION.
of expounding it. If the bread remained and there was only a figure
of Christ in the Host, Berengarius had, consistently with his principles,
to deny that this was in any sense a real presence; 1
it was only
nominally Christ. Wyclif's theory, on the contrary, gave reality to
the figure itself. Hence there is no tergiversation nor insincerity in
his protestations that it is
really and even substantially Christ;
nothing can be more hearty than his condemnation of Berengarius;
for, condemning him, he condemns the whole philosophical school
of sign-worshippers.
I think I cannot do better than to quote in conclusion some
remarks made to me by Mr. Matthew,
in a recent communication
on the subject.
"The truth is that Wyclif would like to avoid saying how
Christ's Body is present. Christ's institution makes it clear that He
is in the Sacrament otherwise than by that universal immanence by
which He is in all things. If his opponents would would let him, he
would be content to say Christ was present sacramentally (as he does say
sometimes). 'In signo' but not 'ut in signo' means that although His
presence is figurative, it is not simply a
figure, but has a special
efficacy. What that is precisely he cannot tell, and loses himself in
trying to express it. He is sure that the current explanations are
carnal and wrong, but does not know how to replace them. See
Arnold's Select Works of Wyclif, III, 426."
.... "There is a very good summary of his view in Lechler
(Germ, ed.), I, 626; but neither Lechler nor anyone else can get a
satisfactory and clear exposition, for the simple reason that Wyclif did
not know what it was, though he thought he knew what it was not."
.... "He would have liked .... Queen Elizabeth's quatrain:
1 The
'Christ was the Word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word doth make it,
That I believe and take it'."
writer of the article Berengarius in the Encyclopaedia Britannica says
that he did not deny the real presence of Christ. But it is clear, from his whole
doctrine, that he must have meant something quite different from what is meant
here: v.
g. a
reality
of grace, present in the soul, &c.