A Frankish Dark Age Debate

Ratramnus was a monk of Benedict's Rule, one of the earliest Catholic orders, serving in an abbey in the Somme, which would later be one of World War I's bloodiest battles ever. Under the aegis of Charlemagne and the Frankish dynasties (who had expelled the Moors from Franconium, subdued the Lombards in Italy, decimated the pagan Saxons, and conquered the pagan duke of Bavaria, as well as looting the fabled fortified ring of the Avars), the Gallic Church was growing up, a church which would be one of the centers of Catholicism until the Great Revolution of 1789, which nationalized the church under Napoleon and appropriated all church property to the state.
Although we like to think of these time periods as intellectually barren, as well as physically miserable (which they were), Ratramnus and his opponent Paschasius Radbertus debated one of the critical mysteries of the Church in a dialectic that would be resurrected immediately after the triumph of the Reformation. The question was this: In what sense is Christ present in the Eucharistic meal of the Lord's Supper?
Ratramnus defended the Catholic position later articulated in terms of substances and accidents by Aquinas: namely, that although the bread and wine retained the outer properties of bread and wine (accidents), they became, under Consecration of the Host, the actual body and the blood of God (in substance). The "invisibilis substantia vere corpis et sanguis Christi".
This is the doctrine we call transubstantiation. The Catholics maintain that the elements are not equivalent to the historical Christ, not identical in every way. Nevertheless, the Host becomes the body and the blood of Christ.
Radbertus, on the other hand, claimed that it was "non alia plane caro, quam quae nata est de Maria et passa in cruce et resurrexit de sepulchro". Roughly translated, "none other than the Christ who was born, suffered, buried, and rose again". Berengarius of Tours in the 11th century, as well as Calvinists during the Reformation, particularly attacked this understanding of the elements, although the Calvinists also objected to Transubstantiation.
Why is all of this of any interest, let alone use, to the Reformed American Christian of today? What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem (Tertullian)? To delve into this is to put vain philosophy above Christ, and to worship a God of the Philosophers, and not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Blaise Pascal)! Isn't this like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Actually, our Reformed Fathers had the same debate and gave various answers. The Lutherans taught consubstantiation, while Calvin taught that it was a physical sign made efficacious by the Spirit, while others believed in a "spiritual" presence only.
Presbyterians today have resurrected the question in a different form in a vigorous debate http://www.paulperspective.com/, asking whether one can truly have any assurance outside of partaking of the Lord's Supper and attending orthodox worship services http://www.christkirk.com/Literature/ReformedIsNotEnough.pdf. One party seems justified until another skilled examiner steps up for the cross! Baptists discuss the same question under the paradigm of "if you are once saved, are you always saved?" It boils down to this: where does our assurance and means of grace come from? How you answer classifies you as either sacerdotal/legalistic, or grace-oriented/Gnostic. You know the saying: I am principled, he's stubborn, you're pig-headed. The question is neither moot nor ridiculous nor pointless. Nor, apparently, is it settled in Q.E.D. fashion.
It is interesting for Protestants to note that Ratramnus taught predestination to hell (although not to sin) and so did Gottschalk of Orbais http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06682a.htm, who was condemned by the Council of Orange. See this link for other arguments made by Berengarius which would have pleased the Reformers: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02487a.htm. All of this is to say that we don't like in a historical vacuum, nor were our spiritual ancestors dolts and gimps who slobbered over the Host like benighted heatherns. There were Reformers before the Reformation, and some of them were jolly good Catholics. Did you know that the Orthodox had a Jesus prayer for centuries before we invented the Navigators and simple prayers for Jesus to come into the heart?http://home.it.com.au/~jgrapsas/pages/Jprayer.html. It seems we may have reinvented the wheel, except, of course, we only have to say it once. Or so the Baptists say. And as the little old lady once said when the preacher explicated a Greek meaning of fine subtlety - "What are those Greeks doing messing with my Bible?"
Footnote: One should note that the Roman province of Gaul was one of the earliest areas of Christian civilization. Iraneaus of Lyons was a bishop in the second century who wrote Against the Heretics (Adversus Haereses -Gnostics), and there were many Christian martyrs in Gaul during the persecution. The Church held many important councils in these regions (for example, Orange), and Eastern monasticism was transmitted to the West through John Cassian and also Benedict's rule. France was the cradle of Western Christianity, though Rome was her head see. The Irish also came back into France following the Frankish invasions, and re-evangelized. France is to be regarded, especially following the repulsion of the Moors at Tours and the defeat of the Lombards and subjegation of the Saxons, as the center of the "West" as opposed to the "East". Although Orthodoxy in the East regards the early spread of the Gospel as genuine, they will not concede that the West remained Orthodox after the spread of Augustinianism. There is some basis to the critique: Augustine is to be regarded as the founder of a distinctively Western Church, with his doctrine of substitionary atonement and predestination. The Western Church insisted upon venturing out into the "secula", armed with the doctrine of predestination, which brought secular history under the redemptive aegis of the Church. The East has never accepted such "nonsense", and remains a distinctively monastic Church. In the West, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which seafaring Britons went out onto the silvery jewel of the ocean armed with predestinating Providence as their guide (see the last lines of Paradise Lost), was the crowning jewel of this eccelsiastical doctrine. Thereafter, the purely secular revolutions, in both East and West (1789 and 1917) extended the doctrine of redemption by blood to even the dirty souls of the savages, as well as the very atoms of Creation. For a very interesting treatment of this, see Charles Williams' Descent of the Dove and his idea of the Co-Inherence and substitution and exchange. The entire history of Western Christianity stands or falls on Augustine and Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, the corresponding extension of this universalism into every dimension of Creation (the Great Revolutions, including the revolt of Rome against the patriarchs), and the culminating doctrines of liberalism and tolerance (properly understood in the classical, Baroque sense). If substitionary atonement is not accurate, the West is completely invalid. I, for one, believe that it is legitimate, although perhaps not in its perfect flowering or proper balance. The Eastern Orthodox Church offers a corrective (but not an antidote) to Western deficiencies, and vice versa. However, I think Charles Williams may have been right to place the way of affirmation (delight and substitution in the Beloved as Dante followed Beatrice into Paradise) above the way of negativity, which is supposed to lead to a divinization of the ascetic as they directly experience God's energies (not His inconceivable essence). The West has refused to make such a distinction, and this leads to repeated attempts to extend God's grace, by the virtue of the All-Sufficient Substitution, to even God's enemies. Thus is explained Unitarianism, Universalism, Liberalism, and other such (perhaps) ill-timed extensions and Crusades. This accounts for Western decadence and dynamism versus Eastern monolithicism and "staticism". Readers interested in comparing may consult the difference between someone like Swedenborg and the thought of Father Seraphim Rose. Or, to be more fair, Saint John of the Cross or George MacDonald on behalf of the West. Or Charles Williams.