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Gregory VII. or Hildebrand; who tore to pieces the Church of Rome with grievous schisms, cruel wars, and great slaughters. For the Roman Pontificate was come to that pass, that good men being put by, they whose life and doctrine was pious being oppressed, none could obtain that dignity, but they that could bribe best, and were most ambitious.
In that unhappy age the learned were at odds about the presence of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament; some defending the ancient doctrine of the Church, and some the new-sprungup opinion.
Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, (A.D. 1010.) was tutor to Berengarius, whom we shall soon have occasion to speak of, and his doctrine was altogether conformable to that of the Primitive Church, as appears clearly out of his Epistle to Adeodatus, wherein he teacheth, "That the mystery of faith in the Eucharist, is not to be looked on with our bodily eyes, but with the eyes of our mind. For what appears outwardly Bread and Wine, is made inwardly the Body and Blood of Christ; not that which is tasted with the mouth, but that which is relished by the heart's affection. "Therefore," saith he, "prepare the palate of thy faith, open the throat of thy hope, and enlarge the bowels of thy charity, and take that Bread of life which is the food of the inward man." Again, "The perception of a divine taste proceeds from the faith of the inward man, whilst by receiving the saving Sacrament, Christ is received into the soul." All this is against those who teach in too gross a manner, that Christ in this mystery enters carnally the mouth and stomach of the receivers.
Fulbert was followed by Berengarius, his scholar. Archdeacon of Angers in France, a man of great worth, by the holiness both of his life and doctrine.
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Berengarius stood up valiantly in defence of that doctrine which 170 years before, was delivered out of God's Word and the holy Fathers, in France, by Bertram, and John Erigena, and by others elsewhere, against those who taught that in the Eucharist neither Bread nor Wine remained after the Consecration. Yet he did not either believe or teach, (as many falsely and shamelessly have imputed to him,) that nothing more is received in the Lord's Supper, but bare signs only, or mere Bread and Wine; but he
