BERENGARIUS (d. io88), mediaeval theologian, born at Tours, was educated in the famous school of Fulbert of Chartres. Later, as director of the cathedral school of his native city, he taught with such success as to attract pupils from all parts of France, and powerfully contributed to diffuse an interest in the study of logic and metaphysics, and to introduce the dialectic development of theology. The earliest of his writings of which we have any record is an Exhortatory Discourse to the hermits of his district, written at their own request and for their spiritual edification. It shows a clear discernment of the dangers of the ascetic life, and a deep insight into the significance of the August inian doctrine of grace. Sometime before io4o Berengarius was made archdeacon of angers. It was shortly after this that rumours began to spread of his heretical views regarding the sacrament of the Eucharist. Transubstantiation, he held, was contrary to reason, unwarranted by Scripture, and inconsistent with the teach ing of men like Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. He did not conceal this conviction from his scholars and friends, and through them the report spread widely that he denied the common doctrine respecting the Eucharist. His old school companion, Adelmann, archdeacon of Liege, wrote to him letters of expostulation in 1046 and 1048; and Bishop Hugo of Langres, wrote (about io49) a refutation of the views which Berengarius had expressed to him in conversation. Berengarius was not affected by their exhortations, and hearing that Lanfranc, the most celebrated theologian of his day, strongly approved the doctrine of Paschasius and condemned that of "Scotus Eriugena" (really Ratramnus), he wrote to him a letter expressing his surprise and urging him to reconsider the question. Lanfranc, who was then in Rome (io5o), brought the letter to the notice of Leo IX. with the result that Berengarius was excommunicated and ordered to appear before the Council of Vercelli which was to be held later on in the year. Before it assembled he was cast into prison, and only when it was too late were the bishop of Angers and other powerful friends able to procure his release. At the council of Tours (1054) he found a protector in the papal legate, the famous Hildebrand, who, satisfied with the fact that Berengarius did not deny the real presence of Christ in the sacramental elements, succeeded in persuading the assembly to be content with a general confession from him that the bread and wine, after consecration, were truly the body and blood of the Lord, without requiring him to define how. At the 1059 council of Rome, Berengarius signed a formula of faith drawn up by Cardinal Humbert and defining the real presence in an extremely realistic manner; but on returning to France he continued to attack the doctrine of transubstantiation, apparently without objection from either his civil or ecclesiastical superiors. Finally, Hildebrand, now Pope Gregory VII., summoned him to Rome, and, in the council of 1078, tried once more to obtain a declaration of his orthodoxy by means of a confession of faith drawn up in general terms ; but in the council of the following year Berengarius was forced to acknowledge a change of the bread into the body of Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary, and that the change was non tantum per signum et virtutem sacramenti, sed in proprietate naturae et veritate substantiae (not merely by sign and virtue of the sacrament but in the own nature and truth of substance). He was kindly dismissed by the pope not long after, with a letter recommending him to the protection of the bishops of Tours and Angers, and another pronouncing anathema on all who should do him any injury or call him a heretic. Berengarius again recalled his confession, but at the council of Bordeaux (Io8o), made a final retraction. He passed the rest of his life in retirement and prayer on the island of St. Come, near Tours, where he died in io88. He left behind him a number of followers.
The position of Berengarius in the Eucharist controversy rested on his theory that dialectic was par excellence the instrument for discovering truth, a theory which concerned the whole question of the relation between faith and reason and which meant that reason was to be the criterion in matters of faith. His objections to transubstantiation were chiefly metaphysical. Accidents, he argued, cannot exist without their substance, even by the power of God, and therefore, if the accidents of bread are present on the altar, their substance, and not that of the body of Christ, will be there. Besides, if Christ is present, and bread alone is seen, there is deception, for Christ, who is God, represents Himself other than He actually is. Again, if Christ is in heaven, as the Scriptures say, He cannot be on earth or on many altars, since nobody can be in different places at the same time. Moreover, we know that the body of Christ after the resurrection became in corruptible; therefore, it cannot be broken with the teeth or daily re-created. This reasoning Berengarius supports by the Bible and the Fathers.
He seems, however, to have admitted the real presence in the Eucharist, for he allowed that, after the consecration the elements undergo a conversio, not inasmuch as they lose the esse that they have, but in the sense of acquiring something else, that something being the real and invisible body of Christ which constitutes the res sacraments.
The position of Berengarius was not entirely new, for in the qth century, Ratramnus, a monk of Corbie, had rejected the sub stantial change in the elements and Eriugena had regarded the Eucharist as merely a memorial. As far as the Church was con cerned, the debates with Berengarius led to a clearer exposition of the nature of the change in tr L sacrament, and an enrichment of the terminology applicable to Eucharistic dogma.