ments at Ferrières,' became at length a master passion and dominated his thoughts. It mattered not how pressing was the business in hand, he would not let business drive study out of his mind. He set before him the costly and laborious project of collecting a library of the Latin classics, and applied to all who could assist him, even to the pope (Benedict III.). He was thankful for the loan of codices, so that by comparison he might make a good text. He was constantly at work upon the classics and gives abundant evidence of the culture which such study produces, in his "uncommon skill in the lucid exposition of a subject."

"3

His WORKS are very few. Perhaps the horrible confusion of the period hindered authorship, or like many another scholar he may have shrunk from the labor and the after criticism. his collected works the first place is occupied by his

In

1. Letters, one hundred and thirty in number. They prove the high position he occupied, for his correspondents are the greatest ecclesiastics of his day, such as Raban Maur, Hinemar of Rheims, Einhard, Radbert, Ratramn and Gottschalk. His letters are interesting and instructive."

2. The Canons of Verneuil, 844. See above.

3. The Three Questions, in 852.7 They relate to free will, the two-fold predestination, and whether Christ died for all men or only for the elect. It was his contribution to the Gottschalk controversy in answer to Charles the Bald's request. In general he sides with Gottschalk, or rather follows Augustin. In tone and style the book is excellent.

1 Epist. 1, ibid. col. 433.

Epist. 35, ibid. col. 502.

Neander, vol. iii. p. 482. Ebert has a good passage on this point (l. e. p. 205-206). Also Mullinger, p. 165 sqq.

4 Epistolæ, Migne, CXIX. col. 431-610.

6"No other correspondence, for centuries, reveals such pleasant glimpses of a scholar's life, or better illustrates the difficulties which attended its pursuits." Mullinger p. 166.

• Canones concilii in Verno, Migne, l. c. col. 611-620.

1 Liber de tribus quæstionibus, ibid. col. 621-666.

4. Life of St. Maximinus, bishop of Treves.' It is in fifteen chapters and was written in 839. It is only a working over of an older Vita, and the connection of Lupus with it is questionable.'

5. Life of St. Wigbert, in thirty chapters, written in 836 at the request of Bun, abbot of Hersfeld. It tells the interesting story of how Wigbert came from England to Germany at the request of Boniface, how he became abbot of Fritzlar, where he died in 747, how he wrought miracles and how miracles attended the removal of his relics to Hersfeld and were performed at his tomb.

§ 172. Druthmar.

I. CHRISTIANUS DRUTHMARUS: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CVI. col. 1259-1520.

II. CEILLIER, XII. 419-423. Hist. lit. de la France, V. 84-90. BAHR, 401-403.

CHRISTIAN DRUTHMAR was born in Aquitania in the first part of the ninth century. Before the middle of the century he became a monk of the Benedictine monastery of old Corbie." About 850 he was called thence to the abbey of Stavelot-Malmédy, in the diocese of Liège, to teach the Bible to the monks." It is not known whether he died there or returned to Corbie.

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 1 Vita Sancti Maximini, Episcopi Trevirensis, Migne, CXIX. col. 665-680.

* Cf. Baluze (Migne, l. c. col. 425) and Ebert, l. c. p. 208.

Vita Sancti Wigberti, abbatis Fritzlariensis, Migne, l. c. 679–694.

♦ The monastery of Old Corbie was in Picardy, in the present department of Somme, nine miles by rail east of Amiens. That of New Corbie was in Westphalia, and was founded by Louis the Pious in 822 by a colony of monks from Old Corbie.

5 Stavelot is twenty-four miles southeast of Liège, in present Belgium. It is now a busy manufacturing place of four thousand inhabitants. Its abbey was founded in 651, and its abbots had princely rank and independent jurisdiction down to the peace of Luneville in 1801. The town of Malmedy lies about five miles to the northeast, and until 1815 belonged to the abbey of Stavelot. It is now in Prussia.

upon his Commentary on Matthew's Gospel,' a work distinguishel 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, verse 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). Verse 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.

The brief expositions of Luke and John' are probably mere

1 Expositio in Matthæum Evangelistam, Migne, CVI. col. 1261-1504.

2" Studui autem plus historicum sensum sequi quam spiritalem, quia irrationabile mihi videtur spiritalem intelligentiam in libro aliquo quærere, et historicam penitus ignorare: cum historia fundamentum omnis intelligentiæ sit,” etc. Ibid. col. 1262, L 6, fr. bel.

* Ibid. col. 1476, 1. 16 and 3 fr. bel. ♦ Ibid. col. 1503-1514, 1515–1520.

notes of Druthmar's expository lectures on those books, and not the works he promises in his preface to Matthew.'

§ 173. St. Paschasius Radbertus.

I. Sanctus PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS: Opera omnia, in Migne, Tom. CXX.

II. Besides the Prolegomena in Migne, see MELCHIOR HAUSHER: Der heilige Paschasius Radbertus. Mainz 1862. CARL RODENBERG: Die Vita Walae als historische Quelle (Inaugural Dissertation). Göttingen 1877. DU PIN, VII. 69–73, 81. CEILLIER, XII. 528-549. Hist. lit. de la France, V. 287-314. BAHR, 233, 234, 462-471. EBERT, II. 230-244.

RADBERTUS, surnamed Paschasius, the famous promulgator of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, was born of poor and unknown parents, about 790, in or near the city of Soissons in France. His mother died while he was a very little child, and as he was himself very sick he was "exposed" in the church of Soissons. The nuns of the Benedictine abbey of Our Lady in that place had compassion upon him and nursed him back to health. His education was conducted by the adjoining Benedictine monks of St. Peter, and he received the tonsure, yet for a time he led a secular life. His thirst for knowledge and his pious nature, however, induced him to take up again with the restraints of monasticism, and he entered (c. 812) the Benedictine monastery at Corbie, in Picardy, then under abbot Adalhard. There he applied himself diligently to study and to the cultivation of the monastic virtues, and so successfully that he soon won an enviable reputation for ascetic piety and learning. He was well read in classical literature, particularly familiar with Virgil, Horace and Terence, and equally well read in the Fathers. He knew Greek and perhaps a little Hebrew. His qualifications for the post of teacher of the monastery's school were, therefore, for that day unusual, and he brought the school up to a high

1 Ibid. col. 1263.

1 From Pascha, probably in allusion to his position in the Eucharistic controversy.

3 Their abbess was Theodrada. Mabillon, Annales, lib. 27 (vol. 2, p. 371).

grade of proficiency. Among his famous pupils were Adalhard the Younger, St. Ansgar, Odo, bishop of Beauvais, and Warinus, abbot of New Corbie. He preached regularly and with great acceptance, and was strict in the observance by himself and others of the Benedictine rule.

In the year 822 he accompanied his abbot, Adalhard, and the abbot's brother and successor, Wala, to Corbie in Saxony, in order to establish there the monastery which is generally known as New Corbie. In 826 Adalhard died, and Wala was elected his successor. With this election Radbertus probably had much to do; at all events, he was deputed by the community to secure from Louis the Pious the confirmation of their choice. This meeting with the emperor led to a friendship between them, and Louis on several occasions showed his appreciation of Radbertus. Thus in 831 he sent him to Saxony to consult with Ansgar about the latter's northern mission, and several times asked his advice. Louis took the liveliest interest in Radbertus's eucharistic views, and asked his ecclesiastics for their opinion.

In 844 Radbertus was elected abbot of his monastery. He was then, and always remained, a simple monk, for in his humility, and probably also because of his view of the Lord's Supper, he refused to be ordained a priest. His name first appears as abbot in the Council of Paris, Feb. 14, 846. He was then able to carry through a measure which gave his monastery freedom to choose its abbot and to govern its own property.' These extra privileges are proofs that the favor shown toward him by Louis was continued by his sons. Radbertus was also present in the Council of Quiercy in 849, and joined in the condemnation of Gottschalk. Two years later (851) he resigned his abbotship. He had been reluctant to take the position, and had found it by no means pleasant. Its duties were so multiform and onerous that he had little or no time for study;

1 Privilegium monasterii Corbeiensis, in Migne, CXX. col. 27-32. Cf. Hefele, IV. 119.