Ratpert of Saint Gall

RATPERTO di SAN GALLO. - German writer, native of Zurich, lived in the second half of the 9th century, d. around 895.

He composed in Latin the chronicle of his monastery from its origins to 883, dwelling especially on the struggles waged until 817 for the free election of the abbot and subordination to the king, against the rights of the bishops of Co-

born at the beginning of the 9th century, died c. 875. A monk at Corbie around 825, he Paschasius Radbertus (v.), of Gottschalk of Orbais, and a friend of Lupus Servatus of Ferrières (v.). He took an active part in the religious controversies of his time, earning a fine reputation as a theologian (PL 121, 9-346).

The De Praedestinatione Dei libri duo (850) is a caustic attack, on the occasion of an inquiry by Charles the Bald, against CRESIMA (v.) in favor of the predestinarianism of Gottschalk of Orbais. The De nativitate Christi, while affirming the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary, presents an explanation (per uteri iannam) rejected by P. Radbertus and contrary to Catholic tradition. Of greater value is the Contra Graecorum opposita libri quattuor, concerning the consultation made by Pope Nicholas I to the bishops regarding the new attitudes of the East after the revolt of Photius (867). R. defends with erudition and acuity the Filioque, ecclesiastical celibacy, and the primacy of the Pope. The Epistola de cynocephalis (cf. also MGH, Epistolae, VI, pp. 149-61: with other letters) is an original reply to Rimbert, future Archbishop of Bremen, concerning the monsters discussed by St. Augustine in De Civitate Dei (16, 8). In the De Anima (ed. A. Wilmart, in Rev. bénéd., 24 [1931], pp. 207-33), addressed to Charles the Bald, he demonstrates the spirituality of the soul with personal arguments that compromise its substantial union with the body; the work was attacked in the theological circles of Hincmar of Reims. Lost is his book on the legitimacy of the liturgical expression Te trina deitas unaque possimus (cf. Hincmar of Reims, De una et trina deitate: PL 125, 475, which combats the justification published by R.). R. is above all famous for his treatise De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, written (after 856) at the request of Charles the Bald and dedicated to him, perhaps as a counterpart to the homonymous work of P. Radbertus, or, more probably, as a personal solution to the Eucharistic problem emerging from two contrasting theological currents ideally reconstructed: some affirmed that in the Eucharist everything takes place manifestly, without figure or external veil, whence the Body of Christ is palpable and subject to corruption (a materialistic conception that prefigured stercoranism); others, instead, maintained that these realities are contained under the veil of mystery, whereby one thing appears to the senses and another is believed by faith (a spiritualistic conception). R., more than P. Radbertus (v.), seems to attack a crude theory, perhaps widespread among the faithful, and therefore he leans toward the spiritualistic conception, occasionally letting slip statements that seem to compromise the real presence. However, a detailed examination allows us to assert that R. remained within the line of orthodoxy, since he admits a true and invisible mutation of the Eucharistic elements, whereby they become, after the Consecration, a totally different reality, namely

stanza. He also wrote metric and rhythmic rhymes in the vernacular, one of which, in honor of St. Gall, has come down to us only in a Latin translation made at the beginning of the 11th century "in order not to let it fall into oblivion." R.'s chronicle was continued by Ekkehard IV up to 971 in his Casus S. Galli.

Bruno Vignola