The Eucharistic Vision of Guitmund of Aversa

Is there a connection between the appearance of Christ in the Eucharist and those that occur on the first Easter morning?

On the Feast of Corpus Christi, June 10, 2004, the late Pope John Paul II said of the great mystery of Christ in the Eucharist: “Christ gives his Body and Blood for the life of humanity, and all those who nourish themselves worthily at his table, become living instruments of his presence of love, mercy and peace.” In this statement, the Holy Father faithfully reaffirmed the Church’s time immemorial doctrine of the real presence, and echoed Christ’s self-proclamation as the Bread of Life, the food of the soul, the Christian’s strength as he travels on his pilgrimage back to the Father.

And as a pilgrim, what Christian would not greatly desire to walk the Emmaus road with the two other disciples, and have Christ explain the Scriptures to them as they travel along their way? What modern day disciple of Christ would not envy the Magdalene, who, while standing outside the tomb on that first Easter morning, merited to hear the Lord call her by name? Certainly, any Christian would be more than willing to accept all the chiding that Thomas did, just to probe and touch the wounds of the glorified Christ, newly resurrected, fresh from his conquest over sin and death!

Is there a connection between the appearance of Christ in the Eucharist and those that occur on the first Easter morning?

The Eucharistic Vision of Guitmund of Aversa

By Mark G. Vaillancourt

Yet all these things seem to belong to a privileged time and a chosen few who lived long ago when Christ appeared to his disciples in many convincing ways to prove to them that he was alive. Our Lord, however, has since ascended to the right hand of his Father, and we, as many Christians before us, await his triumphal return. But what if we could look at this reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, in a way that we too could sense his nearness, like the disciples on the Emmaus road, or touch the same body that the Magdalene or Thomas did? Suppose that one could see Christ in the Eucharist with the eyes of faith in a way that, although not recognizing Him at first, would nonetheless “come to know Him in the breaking of the bread?” (Luke 24:3)

Such a vision is one that I have called the species domini or an “appearance of the Lord”; for it interprets the doctrine of the real presence in a way that says that every faith-filled communion is a real, physical contact with the celestial Christ, of the same genre as those loving exchanges he had with his disciples during the forty days after his own resurrection. It is a vision, or rather, a doctrinal interpretation, however, that does not originate with me. Instead, the species domini is something that I have discovered as a commentator and translator on an obscure eleventh century eucharistic treatise entitled the De corporis et sanguinis Christi veritate in eucharistia libri tres (hereafter De veritate) by Guitmund of Aversa. 1 Guitmund, a Benedictine monk, was one of the principal defenders of orthodoxy during the Berengarian crisis. Like his mentor, Lanfranc of Canterbury, Guitmund sought to defend the doctrine of the real presence against the rationalist extremes of Berengarius of Tours. For Berengarius and his followers, the Eucharist did not offer any such an encounter, rather, for them, any presence of Christ in the Eucharist was only a symbolic one, or at best, spiritual, and it was most definitely not real. In his defense of the doctrine of the real presence, however, Guitmund proffered a vision of the eucharistic Christ that was akin to that of his post-resurrection appearances during those forty days between the first Easter Sunday and Ascension Thursday. To understand how such a vision could be doctrinally possible, and yes, even theologically probable, let us begin where Guitmund did, at the 1059 Council of Rome, and its famous confession of faith, Ego Berengarius of 1059.

Guitmund’s Doctrine of the Real Presence: Sensualiter non solo sacramentaliter

This eucharistic vision by Guitmund of Aversa, that is, the one that sees the Sacrament of the Altar as another post-resurrection appearance of the glorified Christ, has as its historical underpinnings the Berengarian controversy of the eleventh century. Indeed, so much has been written about the period that there seems little value in an article such as this to go over the matter again. Suffice it to say, however, that the period of the controversy that drew our author into the debate was one marked by the Berengarian party’s denial of the real presence, a presence that was traditionally understood to be the same presence of the historical body of Christ, now risen and ascended into glory. For the traditionalist of that period, the sacrament of the body of Christ was the real body of Christ, glorified and seated at the right hand of the Father. For a member of the Berengarian party, however, before the first Council of Rome in 1059, there was an insistence that the Eucharist was, as a sacrament, no more than a sacred sign. As a sacred sign, therefore, the Eucharist could not be the true body and blood of Christ in reality, but instead, only symbolically point to it. It was much like arguing over a chess board, and insisting that the board was white on black, and refusing to look at the possibility that it could also be black on white as well. So it was with Berengarius, for he refused to admit the possibility that the sign could also contain the reality that it signified, as if sign and reality were contradictory terms. It was a position that seemed to be gaining in the field of public opinion, and it was not until the Council of Rome in 1059 that the Church’s magisterium would annunciate its position. For it was in the profession of faith of 1059, where the Church taught that the Eucharist was just as much the real presence of the body of Christ, as it was the sacrament of the same. For it was at that council, with Pope Nicholas II presiding and all the bishops consenting, where Berengarius was forced to accept the position that: “the bread and wine that are placed on the altar are, after the consecration, not only the sacrament, but the true body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that they are in truth, sensibly and not only sacramentally, touched by the hands of the priests and are broken and chewed by the teeth of the faithful.” 2 And it is here where one finds the datum of faith from which Guitmund of Aversa would develop his doctrine of the real presence, and one that, rather than denying the sacramental reality of the Eucharist, instead, formed the basis for it.

The Real Presence

It is hard for the modern reader to conceive of the idea of “chewing the body of Christ” with one’s teeth, yet the whole argument after 1059 revolved around just that, i.e., that a real, physical encounter with the glorified body of Christ occurs in the reception of Holy Communion. The actual word in the Latin text is atteri, and Guitmund will most skillfully distinguish the term to make it clear that the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is also a physical one. This physical aspect of the real presence derives from Guitmund’s understanding of the body of Christ on the altar to be identical with the glorified body of Christ in heaven, all that differs is the mode of presence. To be concise, Guitmund’s view is essentially this: although Christ is locally present in heaven, he is also truly present at the same time on the altar. 3 This “identity principle,” as I call it, allows Guitmund to say many things about the Eucharist that would seem quite outlandish to us today. For instance, Guitmund will ask rather boldly: “Why is it not right for Christ to be chewed by the teeth?” The objection itself, as Guitmund sees it, can admit of only two prospects: either it is not possible for God to will such a thing, or even if he could, it would be beneath his dignity to do so. To the first, like all orthodox theologians of his day, Guitmund adduced the all powerful will of God, for if God has willed it, there is nothing on the part of created reality that can resist it, and as the psalmist says, “whatever God wills to do, he does, both in heaven and on earth” (Ps. 134: 6). To the second, harkening back to Philippians 2:6-11, Guitmund counters with the humility of Christ, for would he who “was crushed [atteri] by the rods of the infidel, the crown of thorns, the cross, the nails, the lance, by all the extreme irreligiosity that was within them” refuses, for the sake of the same faithful, to endure that which was less worthy, namely, to be crushed by their teeth? 4 Guitmund replies in the negative, for if Christ subjected himself to the extreme humiliation of the passion, when he permitted his body to be crushed by sinful men, then it only stands to reason that he would also allow it to be touched by the faithful for their salvation.

But if atteri means “to touch more forcefully,” then Guitmund will ask in a most subtle fashion, “why cannot Christ be touched?” And it is precisely at this juncture in his treatise that the tactile aspect of the species domini starts to surface; for Guitmund asks, “was not Christ touched by Thomas and the holy women after his resurrection?” Guitmund then goes on to say that “if the body of the Lord could be touched by the hands of Thomas the Apostle and the holy women after the resurrection, why can it not be touched by the teeth of the faithful today, either lightly or more forcefully (that is atteri) — there seems to be no reason to prevent it.” 5 here Guitmund, in his theology of the real presence, identifies the presence of Christ in the Eucharist with the Easter presence of the resurrected and glorified Christ. For Guitmund, that same body can neither be harmed, nor suffer death again. For “the flesh of the resurrected Lord retained what was of its nature, and lost what belonged to that flesh in its infirmity.” 6 Based on that same identification, Christ can be pressed by the teeth of the faithful in the Eucharist with all the strength that is in them, and they can never harm or wound him, for the flesh of the glorified Christ, characterized by impassibility, is now impervious to any form of injury or suffering. 7

No doubt such a notion, i.e. chewing the flesh of Christ, seems like an objectionable idea, not from the datum of faith, but rather, from the testimony of the senses. Guitmund is quick to remind us, however, that if the senses are sometimes deceived in even the most common occurrences of daily life, such as the proverbial oar in the water, they are also deceived in this. So when he must speak about the partition of the host in the fractio at Mass, or when the host itself is dispersed by the grinding of the teeth in communion, Guitmund resorts to the analogy of the voice or the soul to explain how one reality, in this case the glorified body of Christ, can be whole and entire in several places at once. For just as the voice can touch many ears at once and have its message undivided, or just as the soul can be whole and entire in the whole body and every part of the body at once, so it is the same for the flesh of the glorified Christ in the Eucharist. And Guitmund’s understanding of the subject has so completely captured the tradition, that his final summation of this doctrine has become standard in eucharistic theology ever since:

We can also say that there is as much of Him in a little portion of the host as in the whole host. Just as one reads about the manna, that neither those who gathered more had more, nor those who gathered less had less. The whole host is the body of Christ, therefore, as each and every separate particle is the whole body of Christ. Furthermore, three separate particles are not three bodies, but only the one body. Nor do the particles even differ among themselves as if they were a plurality, since one particle contains the entire body, just as the other particles do. And so they should not now be called many particles, but rather, one integral and undivided host, even though it seems to be divided because of the priestly office. 8

And it is at this juncture, where one has to reconcile the appearances of bread and wine on the altar with the sacramental character of the Eucharist, that one sees Guitmund’s true theological genius and unique understanding of the real presence.

The Eucharist as a Sacrament

In the De veritate, Guitmund offers no specific definition of the meaning of the word “sacrament”; instead, there are varying levels of thought on the concept. For Guitmund, the Eucharist is more than anything else a mysterium, as the word is found in the Vetus Latina (Eph. 5:32 and 1 Tim. 3:16) and applied by St. Paul to the glorified Christ’s relationship with his Church. It is part of that sacred rite “celebrated by the priest,” belonging to a “spiritual” reality, that is “sacrosanct,” in a way that calls for a response of “faith” from the Christian. He also admits of a qualified description of the Eucharist as a “sacred sign.” It is qualified, however, because pure eucharistic symbolism, devoid of any true reality of the presence of Christ, was the very position of his opponent.

And although the Church herself calls it a “sacramentum, that is, a sacred sign”; Guitmund is also most certainly not afraid to call the Eucharist “figure” and “sacrament.” 9 It is a sign, however, as Christ himself was a sign, that is, of our redemption. And here, one sees Guitmund’s unique understanding of the sacramental character of the Eucharist, an understanding that is predicated on the sign value of Christ’s own humanity. For Guitmund, the “food of the altar of the Lord” can be called a sign because Christ himself was a sign. Instead of placing the sign value of the Eucharist in opposition to the doctrine of the real presence, therefore, Guitmund sees it as radiating from it:

Since Christ Himself was our price, He is the sign of this exchange to us, that is, of our redemption. We are not foolish to believe from a similar reasoning, therefore, that the food of the Lord’s altar effects our salvation because of the power of the Divinity that dwells fully within it, and because it is our price, we believe that it also signifies our salvation. 10

Thus, just as Christ’s own proper body that he assumed from the blessed Virgin, is “a sign, figure and sacrament of his body, which is the Church,” so it is, that because of the presence of that body dwelling under the appearances of bread and wine, the Eucharist is also the same. Consequently, for Guitmund, the Eucharist derives its sign value from the real presence of Christ within it, and not in opposition to it. The “appearances” of bread and wine, then, are signposts that point to the presence of Christ’s humanity, a humanity that is itself a sacred sign that points to the mystery of the divinity dwelling within it. In fact, a careful examination of the De veritate shows that the symbolic character of the Eucharist, rather than contradicting the real presence, emanates from it. For Guitmund, the eucharistic notions of “sign” and “presence” are not mutually exclusive terms, instead, in the Eucharist, one finds that the former is dependent upon the latter, and, just as Christ’s own body was a sacrament, so the Eucharist itself derives its own sacramental sign value from the real presence of that same body dwelling within it:

But if it were found anywhere that the Eucharist is called a sacrament of the body itself, in which the Word of God has been clothed (which clearly never or hardly ever occurs); how would that thwart our position? In what way would it shake our faith? Can a sacrament never be that reality of that of which it is a sacrament? 11

The symbolic character of the Eucharist, then, is one where the sign radiates from the real presence, and does not deny it, so that the appearances of bread and wine only point to Christ, the same Christ who was himself a sacrament or sacred sign.

Guitmund holds this sacramental view of the Eucharist, primarily because of his understanding of the substantial change that takes place at the consecration, where the bread and wine on the altar change into the real and true body of Christ. In Guitmund’s eucharistic change theory, therefore, the accidents of bread and wine that remain are now the new reality of the appearance of the Lord, or as I have called it, the species domini.

The Eucharist as a Species Domini

For Guitmund, the Eucharist is simply another appearance of the Lord that one reads about in the Scriptures, where Christ, appearing to his disciples after his own resurrection, went unrecognized by them, like Mary at the tomb or the pilgrims on the road to Emmaus:

For when Mary Magdalene, weeping at the tomb of the Lord, saw the Lord Himself — was it not Jesus? But because she was deceived by the eyes, instead of seeing Him, did she not think instead that she was seeing the gardener? Or, when on the day of his own resurrection, He explained the Scriptures to two of his disciples while they were walking along the way — was it anything other than Jesus Himself, acting as if he were a pilgrim? For it is written: “Their eyes were held that they might not recognize Him.” 12

Thus in the Eucharist, because of the miracle of transubstantiation, the former realities of bread and wine become really, truly and substantially the body and blood of the Lord. What remains after this wondrous change, therefore, are only the “appearances” of bread and wine, now a new manifestation of the same celestial, glorified Christ. In this change, however, there is no local motion, instead, Christ “is wholly in heaven while his whole body is truly eaten upon earth.” 13

And it is here that one asks the question, is there in fact a connection between this appearance of Christ in the Eucharist and those that immediately followed that first Easter Sunday morning? If one adopts the theological opinion of Pierre Benoit, the answer is yes. For if one holds to Benoit’s opinion, 14 that is, that Christ entered into his heavenly glory on Easter itself, then all of those post-resurrection appearances of Christ were from heaven, and the Ascension marked the final close of those apparitions. Thus, Our Lord appearing to Mary as a gardener at the tomb was an apparition from heaven; Christ appearing to the two disciples as a pilgrim while on the road to Emmaus was an apparition from heaven. Furthermore, when Thomas touched the wounds in his hands, and Mary clung to his feet, that body touched by Thomas and Mary on earth was in fact from heaven.

One must make the proper distinction, however, if he wishes to capture Guitmund’s vision. Christ has continued to appear from his proper place in heaven to the faithful upon the earth, only now it is not in the form of a gardener or a pilgrim, but instead, as bread and wine. This post-ascension appearance of Christ, however, is not de coelo, that is, it does not entail any departure from heaven to come to earth (as Benoit postulates happened during those forty days), instead, the species domini is an appearance of Christ that is ex coelo, that is, it originates from heaven without local motion or bodily descent. Thus in the Eucharist, because of the real presence of Christ within it, Christ can be touched by us now as Thomas and Mary touched him then, only now Christ comes to earth without ever leaving heaven, and in so doing, strengthens us on our pilgrimage back to him:

[For] as long as we stand with Mary weeping at the tomb of the Lord, mortifying ourselves and announcing the death of the Lord until He comes; as long as we are traveling along the way apart from the Lord; as long as we are laboring upon the sea of this age and the wind of temptation is against us; as long as we walk by faith and not by sight: although the Lord would always console those weeping at his tomb, although He would always explain the Scriptures to those who travel along the way, although He calms those troubled upon the sea, although He would always be present with us in the ship of Holy Church “until the consummation of the age;” nevertheless, we do not have the means to discern Him except in the guise of a pilgrim, especially with the eyes of flesh, even though it is in fact nothing other than He Himself whom we would have in these sacraments. 15

This is the Eucharistic Vision of Guitmund of Aversa, and one that merits further reflection by us today as we celebrate this special year of the Eucharist. It is a vision of the resurrected Christ who is with us now as he was with his disciples then, and all that we need to see him are the eyes of faith.

NOTES

1 See Mark G. Vaillancourt, “Guitmund of Aversa and the Eucharistic Theology of St. Thomas,” The Thomist, 68, 4, October 2004, for a theological comparison of Guitmund’s Eucharisic theology with that of St. Thomas Aquinas. 2 DS 690 3 Guitmund uses the term substantialiter, a word, that in his mind means “of the same reality,” a term that carries with echoes from the fourth-century Trinitarian debate about the divinity of Christ and Nicea’s “of the same substance of the Father.” 4 De veritate 1, 11. 5 De veritate 1, 10. 6 De veritate 1, 14. 7 De veritate 1, 13. 8 De veritate 1,16. 9 De veritate 2, 30. 10 De veritate 2, 31. 11 De veritate 2, 38. 12 De veritate 1, 23. 13 De veritate 2, 51. 14 See Pierre Benoit, “The Ascension,” Jesus and the Gospel, 1 (New York: Seabury, 1973), 209-53. 15 De veritate 1, 23.

Reverend Mark G. Vaillancourt is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He earned his Ph.D. in historical theology at Fordham University. He was a parochial vicar at the churches of St. Charles and St. Patrick on Staten Island, N.Y., and served as an assistant to the Vocation Office of the Archdiocese, as well as the spiritual director to Cathedral Preparatory Seminary. Currently Fr. Vaillancourt is the chaplain and member of the religion faculty at St. Joseph by the Sea High School on Staten island, and faculty member for the Institute for religious Studies, Dunwoodie, N.Y.

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