PASCASIUS RADBERTUS. – Theologian and Benedictine abbot, born in the region of Soissons around 790, died at Corbie around 865. A monk and scholar at Corbie, in 882 he participated with his abbot Adalhard and Wala in the founding of the abbey of Corvey (New Corbie) in Germany. Elected abbot of Corbey in 844, he attended the Councils of Paris (847) and Quierzy (849). Around 851, due to internal difficulties, he retired as a simple monk to St-Riquier, from where he later returned to Corbie.
For his numerous hagiographical, exegetical, and theological works (PL 120), he holds an eminent place among the authors of the Carolingian Renaissance. Notable works include: *Vita s. Adhalardi*; *Epitaphium Arsenii seu vita Walae*; *Commentarius in Mt.*: the latter, P.’s most extensive work, a synthesis of his homilies and biblical courses in the monastic school, drawing on patristic texts, yet remains the most personal exegesis among his contemporaries; *Expositio in Ps. 44* (pious reflections on religious life); *Expositio in lamentationes Ieremiae*, on the evils of the Church in the declining Carolingian Empire; *De fide, spe et caritate*, important for the history of the treatise on the theological virtues; *De partu Virginis*, which combats the thesis of Ratramnus (v.) by asserting Mary’s virginity in childbirth; *Homilia de Assumptione B. V.*, known as the letter of St. Jerome to Paula and Eustochium (PL 30, 126-47); *Homiliae de Assumptione B. V.*, published among the works of St. Ildefonsus (PL 96, 239-68): the first three are probably by P., while the other four are disputed; *Historia de ortu S. Mariae* (among the dubious works of St. Jerome: PL 30, 388-15): a reworking of the Protoevangelium of James on the Virgin’s childhood.
The famous *Liber de Corpore et Sanguine Domini* was written in 831 at the request of Warin, abbot of Corvey, for the Saxon monks, and some excerpts circulated immediately as texts of St. Augustine; in 844, P. prepared a second edition (dedicated to Charles the Bald), which sparked a significant Eucharistic controversy (v. EUCHARIST; MASS), with opponents including Ratramnus and Rabanus Maurus (v.); P. reinforced his realism in chapter 26 of the *Commentarius in Mt.* and in the *Epistola ad Frudegardum de Corpore et Sanguine Domini* (cf. A. Wilmart, *Analecta Reginensia*, Vatican City 1933, pp. 267-78). The bold thesis of Geiselmann, according to which P. admitted only a symbolic change of the bread and wine (ontologically unchanged) into the Body and Blood made present through a reproductive action (almost a *creatio*), was skillfully refuted by Fr. Gliozzo (v. BIBLICA). The vigorous affirmation of the identity of the Eucharistic Body with the historical Body (the same Body that was born of the Virgin) is consistently explained by a total transformation of the elements into that pre-existing reality; thus, while P. may have overemphasized a kind of “transubstantiation” at the expense of the reality of the sensible species, he clearly moved in the theological direction later codified by the Council of Trent, and his work, despite uncertainties and imprecisions, must be regarded as the first treatise on Eucharistic theology.
