PREFACE. THE history of this Tract is curious, from the varied treatment it has met with at the hands of the Romanists, as well as the influence it has exercised in our own Church. It was undoubtedly written in the middle of the ninth century at the request of Charles the Bald, who reigned from the year 840 to 877, to oppose the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which Paschasius about that time first propounded. Its author has gone under several names, Ratramn, Intramn, and Bertram.* The learned Cave, in his Historia Litteraria,t thus sums up the fate of this Tract: "All who have taken their first lessons in Theology know, how plainly, how learnedly he treateth the subject of the Eucharist in his book concerning the Body and Blood of Christ, and how clearly he rejecteth the dogma of Transubstantiation as it is explained in the Romish Schools. Wherefore the Papists from their desire to banish this tract to Anticyra, or rather to Orcus itself, (for it has been stamped with the black mark of condemnation by the Censors of Trent, and Louvain, by Sixtus Senensis, Bellarmine, Genebrard, Possevin, Gregory of Valentia, Gretzer, &c.) have attacked it with every instrument of hostility. Some endeavour to diminish the Author's reputation; others calumniate him as a heretic, desirous of change, as a monk kicking against his superiors. The staid manners of the man, and his fame untouched through so many ages, clearly refute this. Others loudly exclaim, that his work is corrupt and interpolated. Against this, the faith of so many ancient Manuscripts must be taken, and that of the Easter Homily by our own Elfric, who flourished in the year 960, which is borrowed almost word for word from the tract of Ratramn. Lastly, others would prove that John Erigena, and not Ratramn, is its author. What then? As if John Scotus were not his equal, both in age and learning. But in truth, the candid confession of John Mabillon easily convicteth this party; for he confesseth, that he found the name of * Moreri. Diction. Hist. tom. ix. + P. 530, ed. 1088. Ratramn* at the beginning of an ancient Manuscript 800 years old, in the monastery of Lobez. Indeed, Antony Sanders made mention of this Manuscript long before in his Catalogue of the Belgian Libraries, part i. p. 303. And in very truth, men, in other respects grave and learned, work wondrous hard at trifles, when they undertake to prove, that Ratramn in this Tract favours the doctrine of the Romish Church, or, at least, does not oppose it; from which, nevertheless, it is as far distant as the East is from the West. What can they produce worthy of so huge a promise? Let these new champions of Transubstantiation, as far as I am concerned, go on with it; let them transform Ratramn into Paschasius himself for I would as soon believe them to be one and the same person, as that Ratramn held on this point the same doctrine with Paschasius, and the Romish Church of the present day." Bellarmine against all authority, and without a shadow of proof, asserts that Ratramn was the innovator, and Paschasius the defender of the Catholic doctrine, when the fact is the very reverse. In his account of Ecclesiastical writers, he only makes incidental mention of Ratramn under the head "Paschasius," in these words: "He [Paschasius] was the first author who wrote in a copious and systematic way on the truth of the Lord's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, against Bertram, who first brought it into doubt." The Tract is now universally admitted to have been written by Ratramn, and in answer to Paschasius. The question then remains, whether he is to be considered as holding or denying the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Here the Romanists themselves are divided; at one time condemning him, at another time claiming him as making with them. Bellarmine's opinion is clear from his own words above quoted. The Tract also stands in the Index of prohibited books, made by the Council of Trent, A.D. 1559, and is retained in most of the succeeding Indices. One published at Strasbourg, A.D. 1609, has a curious judgment given by the University of Douay, and approved by the Censors. This Index is a reprint of a former Edition of 1571; from which Bishop Ridley's Biographer, in his account of Ratramn's Tract, gives the following version of the passage.§ "Although we care not greatly for this book of Bertram's, whether it be extant or no, yet because it is often printed, and read of many, and the heretics know by a catalogue of forbidden books that he was a Catholic Priest, and dear unto Charles the Great (i.e. the Bald), and because we comment upon other writers of the same age, and extenuate their errors oftentimes by a favour * This shews Ratramn was his real name. + See Dupin Biblioth. des Auteurs Ecclesiast. Siecle xi. P. 276. ed. Colon. 1613. § Ridley's Life of Ridley, p. 172. able construction of them, by the same reason we may allow Bertram, and acknowledge him; for their is nothing worthy of reprehension in him, setting aside a little obscurity in his style, and his ignorance in using some dark words and sentences, which, with marginal notes affixed, may manifest the true sense and meaning of the Author." Of this principle we find such instances as these; "invisible" is substituted for "visible," and "substance" explained by "accidents." After the genuineness of the Tract was put beyond all doubt by the discovery of the Manuscripts, M. Boileau, doctor of the Sorbonne, published an exact transcript of the Lobez Manuscript, and at the same time in an excessively loose French translation, "has made," as Dr. Hopkins says, "not so much a translation as a conversion of Bertram." In the Appendix to the Edition of 1688, Dr. Hopkins fully exposes Dr. Boileau's artifices. Whether Ratramn will bear the sense there put upon him may be seen from Cave's opinion above quoted, and the use which has been made of this Tract in our own Church, both before her infection with Romish errors, and at the time she freed herself from them. In the Appendix we have reprinted from Lisle Collection of Saxon Treatises, with one exception, mentioned page 63, the Saxon Homily of Elfric, Abbot of St. Alban's and also of Malmesbury, who flourished about the year 960. Its agreement with the tract of Ratramn is not only doctrinal, but very often verbal, as will be seen by comparing the sections of Ratramn to which we have referred. It was set forth, together with the two Epistles of Elfric, by Abp. Parker, with his own subscription, that of the Abp. of York and thirteen Bishops, under the title of "A Testimony of Antiquity, shewing the Ancient Faith of the Church of England, touching the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, here publicly preached, and also received in the Saxons time, above 700 years ago." This Sermon was appointed in the reign of the Saxons to be pronounced to the people before they should receive the Communion on Easter Day.* To come to later times. This tract of Ratramn seems to have formed a link in the history of the English Church, connecting us as well at the Reformation, as in Saxon times, with the views of Primitive Antiquity. The Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation was retained in our Church as embodied in the Mass book throughout the reign of Henry the VIII. Bp. Ridley was one of the first of our divines who returned to a sounder judgment on this point of doctrine. He passed the year 1545 in retirement at his vicarage of Hearne, whither he carried with him this Tract of Ratramn. He then first saw the unsoundness of the Romish Doctrine * See Strype, Parker, vol. i. p. 472. of Transubstantiation, without falling into the low views of the foreign reformers. This change of opinion he communicated to Abp. Cranmer about 1546; whereupon they both set to examine the subject with more than ordinary care,† and the primitive and Catholic doctrine was accordingly embodied in the first reformed Communion Service of 1549. Bp. Ridley himself thus acknowledged his debt to Ratramn before the Commissioners at Oxford, A.D. 1555. "Here I would beg you, Reverend Sirs, you Mr. Prolocutor, and you the other Commissioners, deign to understand that I do rest not only on those things which heretofore I have written in my former responsions and confirmations, but that I have also for confirmation of my opinion whatever Bertram hath writ, a man learned and orthodox, and ever accounted Catholic for these 700 years until this our age. His Tract, whoever will read and weigh, considering the age of the writer, his learning, godliness, allegations of ancient Fathers, and his manifold and weighty arguments, I cannot but very much marvel, how he can with a good conscience, if he fear God, speak against him in this matter of the Eucharist. This man was the first that pulled me by the ear, and forced me from the common error of the Roman Church, to a more diligent search of Scripture and Ecclesiastical writers on this matter; and these things I speak before God, Who knoweth that I lie not in what I say. There are two old English translations in the Bodleian, with the dates 1548 and 1549. There was a translation made in 1623 by Sir Humphrey Lynde, and reprinted in 1686. Dr. Hopkins, Canon of Worcester, published two editions of the text, with an English translation; the first in 1686, the latter in 1688, after Dr. Boileau's edition had appeared, with the Appendix before referred to. Our first intention was merely to revise the translation of Dr. Hopkins ; but as the work advanced, it seemed necessary to re-translate the Tract entirely. H. W. * Ridley's Life of Ridley, pp. 163, 165. + See Strype, Cranmer, 368. The original is given in Ridley's life of Ridley, App. p. 685. HERE BEGINNETHI THE BOOK OF RATRAM N ON THE BODY AND BLOOD OF THE LORD. touching 1. You have bidden me, O glorious Prince, to make known to your Majesty, what I think touching the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ. A command no less worthy of your magnificent and princely estate, than difficult for my poor ability. For what can be more worthy of a Prince, than to take care that he himself be Catholic in his judgment, concerning the sacred mysteries of Him, Who hath deigned to commit to him his kingly throne, and to endure not that his subjects should think diversely concerning the Body of Christ, in the which it is certain that the whole sum of Christian redemption doth consist? II. For whilst some of the faithful say, that the mystery of the Differences Body and Blood of Christ, which is daily celebrated in the Church, Christ's is performed under no figure, or veil, but with the naked exhibition Blood in of the Truth itself; others testify, that these things are contained rist. under the figure of a mystery, and that it is one thing, which appeareth to the bodily senses, and another, upon which faith gazeth. then clearly no small diversity of judgment among them. And though the Apostle writeth to the faithful, "that they should all think and 1 Cor. i., speak the same thing, and that there should be no schism among them;" yet by no small schism are they divided, who give utterance to such diverse opinions touching the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ. There is Body and the Eucha 10. consulted. III. Wherefore your Royal Highness, being provoked with zeal Ratramn for the faith, and with no easy mind pondering on these things, and |