HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Eucharist, Transubstantiation, Homily
6 Mar 2020
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Document Summary
For the medieval christian, that saving sacrifice could be experienced directly through re- actualization in the eucharist. The communion ritual was regarded as bearing the real presence of christ"s salvific body and blood: not a metaphor. During the carolingian and early medieval eras, latin christians had already hashed out debates about the eucharist. The orthodox view was that the bread and wine really did become body and blood: transubstantiation. Theologians like thomas aquinas used aristotelian philosophy to describe how the eucharist worked. Via transubstantiation, the substance of the body and blood became present, even as the accidents of bread and wine remained: centrality of the eucharist. While common christians may have only had sporadic and annual access to the eucharist, it retained sacramental centrality. Since to receive it was to enter into the presence of the incarnate lord whose sacrifice redeemed humankind: eucharist and mass. The mass was rooted in the eucharist above all.
