Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Sacrament of the Eucharist · Book II: On the Real Presence, from the Testimonies of the Fathers
Chapter 35: Testimonies of the Fathers of the Tenth Age: Stephen of Autun and Fulbert of Chartres
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. IV, De Sacramento Eucharistiae, Book II: On the Truth of the Body of the Lord in the Eucharist, from the Testimonies of the Fathers. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
Stephen, bishop of Autun, who flourished about the year of the Lord 950 (as John Garetius testifies), says thus in his book On the Sacrament of the Altar, chapter 15 (this book exists in volume 4 of the Library of the Holy Fathers): “And so it is our faith, and truly to be believed, that when the priest utters these words, This is my body, it is no longer earthly bread, but that bread which came down from heaven, the mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ.”
Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, a most holy and most learned man, flourished at the end of this tenth age. For Adelmann, bishop of Brescia, in his epistle to Berengarius, indicates that he and Berengarius were of old, in their youth, disciples of the holy old man blessed Fulbert, whom he calls his Socrates. If, then, Fulbert was an old man when Berengarius was a youth, it is necessary that Fulbert flourished before the year of the Lord 1000, since it is established that Berengarius began to appear with his heresy about the year of the Lord 1040.
This most holy man, then, in his epistle to Adeodatus, which is wont to be examined with the books of Paschasius, speaks thus: “Because His body, which He once offered for us as a price, He was a little after to take up from our sight into heaven, lest, the body being taken up, we should be defrauded of a present safeguard, He nonetheless left us the saving pledge of His body and blood—not the symbol of an empty mystery, but, by the Holy Spirit compacting it, the true body of Christ, which by daily veneration, under the form of a visible creature, a secret power invisibly works in the sacred solemnities. And below: It is unlawful to doubt but that, at whose nod all things suddenly stood forth from nothing, by an equal power in the spiritual sacraments the earthly matter of bread and wine, transcending the nature and merit of its kind, is changed into the substance of Christ, since He Himself says: This is my body; This is my blood.”
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XXXV. Testimonia Patrum X. aetatis , Stephani Eduensis , et Fulberti Carnotensis. Stephaniis Episcopus Eduensis, qui floruit circa annum Domini 950 (ut Joannes Garc- tius testatur) sic ait in lib. de Sacramento altaris, cap. 15. (Exstat hic liber tom iv. Bi- bliothecee sanctorum Patrum). « Itaque fides nostrq est, et vere credendum est, quod sa¬ cerdote proferente, ha?c verba : IIoc est cor¬ pus meum, jam non est panis terrenus, sed ille panis, qui de coelo descendit, mediator Dei, et hominum Jesus Christus. » Fulbertus Episcopus Carnotensis vir san¬ ctissimus, et doctissimus floruit ad finem hu¬ jus decima? retatis. Nam Adelmannus Epi¬ scopus Brixinensis in epistola ad Berenga- riurn indicat, se et Berengarium discipulos olim in adolescentia fuisse sancti senis B. Fulberti, quem suum Socratem appellat. Si igitur Berengario adolescentulo Fulbertus senex erat, necesse est Fulbertum floruisse ante annum Domini 1000, siquidem constat Berengarium circa annum Domini 1040. cum sua hseresi apparere coepisse. Hic igitur sanctissimus vir in epistola ad Adcodatum, quae excuti solet cum libris Pa- schasii, sic loquitur : « Quia corpus suum, quod semel pro nobis offerebat in pretium, paulo post a nostris visibus sublaturus erat in coelum ; ne sublati corporis fraudaremur praesenti munimine, corporis nihilominus, et sanguinis sui pignus salutare nobis reliquit, non inanis mysterii symbolum sed compa¬ ginante Spiritu sancto corpus Christi verum, quod quotidiana veneratione sub visibilis creaturae forma invisibiliter virtus secreta in sacris solemnis operatur. Et infra : Dubitari nefas est, ut ad cujus nutum cuncta subito ex nihilo substiterunt ; si pari potentia in spiritualibus sacramentis terrena materies pa¬ nis, et vini naturam, et meritum generis sui transcendens, in Christi substantia commu¬ tetur, cum ipse dicat : Hoc est corpus meum ; Hic est sanguis meus. » »