| He was a very superior scholar for his age, well versed in Greek and with some knowledge of Hebrew. Hence his epithet, the Grammarian (i.e. Philologist). His fame rests upon his Commentary on Matthew's Gospel,1 a work distinguished for its clearness of statement, and particularly noticeable for its insistence upon the paramount importance of the historic sense, as the foundation of interpretation. To such a man the views of Paschasius Radbertus upon the Lord's Supper could have no attraction. Yet an attempt has been persistently made to show that in his comments upon Matt. 26:26-28, he teaches transubstantiation. Curiously enough, his exact language upon this interesting point cannot be now determined beyond peradventure, because every copy of the first printed edition prepared by Wimphelin de Schelestadt, Strassburg 1514, has perished, and in the MS. in possession of the Cordelier Fathers at Lyons the critical passage reads differently from that in the second edition, by the Lutheran, Johannes Secerius, Hagenau 1530. In the Secerius text, now printed in the Lyons edition of the Fathers, and in Migne, the words are, 26:26, Hoc est corpus meum. Id est, in sacramento ( This is my body. That is, in the sacrament, or the sacramental sign as distinct from the res sacramenti, or the substance represented). Matt. 26:28, Transferens spiritaliter corpus in panem, vinum in sanguinem ( Transferring spiritually body into bread, wine into blood ). In the MS. the first passage reads: Id est, vere in sacramento subsistens ( That is, truly subsisting in the sacrament ); and in the second the word spiritaliter is omitted. The Roman Catholics now generally admit the correctness of the printed text, and that the MS. has been tampered with, but insist that Druthmar is not opposed to the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist. | |
