Druthmar (Cristiano of Stavelot)

DRUTHMAR (CRISTIANO OF STAVELOT). - Benedictine exegete, b. at the beginning of the 9th century in Aquitaine, d. ca. 870, probably at Stavelot. He was formed in the monastery of Corbie, then a fervent center of studies. Sent to the monasteries of Stavelot and Malmédy (diocese of Liège), governed by the same abbot, he held there with honor the office of master.

The fruit of his teaching were the commentaries on Matthew, Luke and John (of the latter only fragments remain), which, printed by Jakob Winpheling at Strasbourg in 1514 and then by Menard Malderus at Hagenau in 1530, sparked a lively controversy between Catholics and Protestants over the passage of Matthew concerning the Eucharist, all the more so since Sixtus of Siena attested that he had seen at Lyon a manuscript (now lost) where the disputed text had a perfectly Catholic meaning. The Protestants until recent times (e.g., Dümmler) judged D. a precursor of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and some Catholics (e.g., Vernet and Geiselmann) admitted that D. indulges in an accentuated symbolism. Quite different seems the judgment to be given today, even while holding as authentic the eucharistic text, a bit rough, which Lebon proposes in replacement of the one edited by Migne (PL 106, 1474-77). D., raised at Corbie precisely in the years in which the famous eucharistic controversy between Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus took place, sided in favor of Ratramnus, assimilated his doctrine and phraseology. Now impartial criticism becomes ever more favorable to the orthodoxy of the mordant adversary of Paschasius, because the terms spiritualiter, figura, sacramentum, which abound under the pen of Ratramnus and of D., are harmonized, in a complete system, with the truth of the real presence. In any case the commentary of D. on Matthew is notable for its fidelity, more unique than rare in those times, to the literal and historical sense as the foundation of further allegorical considerations.

Antonio Piolanti