Ratramnus of Corbie

RATRAMNUS of CORBIE. - Benedictine theologian, the Body and Blood of Christ, indeed he sometimes states expressly that the substance of the bread and that of the wine become the substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord (PL 121, 140); he further affirms, with particular insistence, the objective reality of the external species and, from this point of view, his doctrine is superior to that of Paschasius Radbertus, although it remains inferior in establishing the substantial identity of Christ's eucharistic Body with the historical one; in fact, while affirming it incidentally, he is constantly concerned to demonstrate their accidental diversity (in the sense of the future scholastic question of the modus praesentiae).

This obscurity of language was the occasion of the damaging judgment that posterity passed on his eucharistic teaching. Already in the 10th century Erigerus of Lobbes (v.) saw in R. an opponent of Paschasius, and in the 11th century his work, under the name of Scotus Eriugena, was embraced by Berengar of Tours (v.) and rejected as heretical by the anti-Berengarian writers. In the following century Sigebert of Gembloux considered R. a defender of the eucharistic faith, and as such he was praised by Trithemius (15th century) and by St. G. Fischer (16th century). With the edition of Oecolampadius (Basel 1532) the Protestant appropriation began, which provoked the insertion of the work into the Index of the Council of Trent (1559); the theologians of Louvain (called duocenses) reacted in 1571, and above all Boileau, who defended its orthodoxy with erudition and acumen (1712). Present-day theology has been unfavorable to R., especially after Geiselmann, followed by Guadel, Amann and Peltier (v. bibl.). A convincing rehabilitation has been carried out by Fr. Gliozzo (v. bibl.).

Antonio Polanti