Ratramnus of Corbie

Monk of Corbie · Ninth Century

Ratramnus was a monk of Corbie, the same house of which Paschasius Radbertus was abbot. When Charles the Bald asked his opinion on the Eucharist, he wrote a reply, On the Body and Blood of the Lord, that examined Radbertus’s teaching without naming his own abbot.1

Ratramnus held Augustine’s view that Christ’s presence in the Supper is spiritual. The bread and wine, he taught, are not the very body and blood of the historical Christ but mystic symbols of remembrance, received by faith.2 He also taught Gottschalk and shared his Augustinian convictions.

His book failed to turn the tide toward Radbertus. In 1050 the Council of Vercelli, thinking it the work of John Scotus Erigena, condemned it to be burned.3

His Legacy

Ratramnus’s treatise came back to life at the Reformation. When it was printed in 1532, Leo Jud’s German translation “was used by the Zürich ministers in proof that the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was no novelty.” Rome answered in kind: the Council of Trent called it a Protestant forgery, and in 1559 it was put on the Index of Prohibited Books. Its authenticity is now accepted.4

Medieval Theologians

Notes

  1. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 4, Mediaeval Christianity, A.D. 590–1073 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885), “Ratramnus,” CCEL. ↩
  2. Michael J. Vlach, “Historical Theology I: A.D. 100–1600” (course notes, TH 507, The Master’s Seminary, Fall 2007), “Ratramnus” and “Eucharist.” Summarized. ↩
  3. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 4, “Ratramnus,” CCEL. Summarized; Vlach, “Historical Theology I,” “Gottschalk.” ↩
  4. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 4, “Ratramnus,” CCEL. ↩