Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/247

CHAP. X touching the former set forth in the works of Augustine and his Pelagian adversaries. And the substance of the discussion as to the eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ had permeated countless tomes, both Greek and Latin, from the time of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (d. 202); and yet neither as to the impossible topic of Predestination, nor as to the distinctly Christian mystery of the Eucharist, had the Latin Church authoritatively and finally fixed doctrine in dogma or put together the arguments. The ninth century with its lack of elastic thinking, and its greater need of tangible authority, was compelled by its mental limitations to attempt in each of these matters to drag a definite conclusion from out of its entourage of argument, and strip it of its decently veiling obscurities. Thereupon, and with its justifying and balanced foundation of reasons and considerations knocked from under, the conclusion had to sustain itself in mid air, just at the level of the common eye.

Such, obviously, was the result of the Eucharistic or Paschal controversy. The symbol, all indecision brushed away, hardened into the tangible miraculous reality. Radbertus, Abbot of Corbie, who was so rightly named Paschasius, was the chief agent in the process. His method of procedure, just as the result which he obtained, was what the time required. The method was almost a bit of creation in itself: he put the matter in a separate monograph, De corpore et sanguine Domini, the first work exclusively devoted to the subject. This was needed as a matter of arrangement and presentation. Men could not endure to look here and thither among many books on many subjects, for arguments one way and the other. That was too distraught. There was call for a compendium, a manual of the matter; and in providing it Paschasius was a master mechanic for his time. Inevitably the discussion and the conclusion took on a new definiteness. It is impossible to glean and gather arguments and matter from all sides, and bring them together into a single composition, without making the thesis more organic, tangible, definite. Thus Paschasius presented the scattered, wavering discussion—the victorious side of it—as a clear dogma reached at last.