The Book of Isaiah is a wonderful work that is preserved from antiquity both in its Hebrew and its Greek version. It is a history written and reworked by many generations, covering the following periods: the Assyrian period (ca. 911–605 B.C.E.), the Neo-Babylonian period (ca. 625–539 B.C.E.), and the Persian period (ca. 550–333 B.C.E.).1

In the middle decades of the ninth century, Charles the Bald, the West Frankish Carolingian ruler, received two treatises on the subject of the Eucharist. Paschasius Radbertus (ca. 790–ca. 865) and Ratramnus (d. after 868), both monks from the royal monastery at Corbie in Neustria, composed treatises entitled De corpore et sanguine domini.1 That these were the very first Latin Christian treatises devoted solely to the Eucharist and, further, that they came to different conclusions, has attracted well-earned scholarly scrutiny from almost immediately after their appearance. I would like to return to the question of the difference between their views. Specifically, I will show that the doctrinal differences between the two treatises have their roots in different approaches to, or—perhaps better—interests in, sacraments in general. The two authors do not take opposed positions on the topic of the sacraments, or even mutually contradicting positions on the Eucharist, rather they choose to emphasize different aspects of the sacrament, different guiding themes which suggest to each different lines of analysis. Paschasius sees sacraments primarily as instruments of unity, while Ratramnus views sacraments principally as salvific tools. This recognition yields two insights. It recalibrates analysis of the eucharistic tracts, foregrounding the contemporary concerns of the authors, while deliberately deemphasizing the subsequent theological controversies and scholarly debates into which the treatises were drawn. For both Paschasius and Ratramnus, distinctive approaches to sacraments color not only their analyses of the Eucharist, but also their approaches to larger political and social questions. This recognition also emphasizes the vibrance and creativity characteristic of the Carolingian theological milieu, too often dismissed as a supposedly derivative and unoriginal era in Christian theology. To these ends, the paper will proceed in four stages. First, I situate my question in the long historiography of the Corbie eucharistic treatises. Second, I briefly set the authors and their treatises in historical context. Third, I compare their ‘sacramental’ theologies of the Eucharist, underscoring both Paschasius's emphasis on its horizontal or communal significance and Ratramnus's stress on its vertical or salvific importance. Fourth, I trace how each author's particular sacramental interests remain consistent across their other projects with ramifications for their theological and social opinions.

I have inherited a paradox. As the inaugural holder of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association chair, I am accountable in some sense to a man who once told the graduates of this school to “cast behind [them] all conformity” to what they had learned at school, relying on themselves rather than on the institutions of “historical Christianity.” But I am also accountable to one of those institutions—indeed, to the very denominational tradition that Emerson was leaving behind when he urged our students to “acquaint men at first hand with deity.”1 This level of institutional accountability in a Harvard chair has few precedents. Among my colleagues, only Francis Schussler Fiorenza has the name of a denomination in his title, and while the Charles Chauncy Stillman chair of Roman Catholic studies may contain its own paradoxes, I am guessing that the pope was not as intimately involved in its creation as Unitarian Universalist president Bill Sinkford was in the funding of the Emerson chair.

Since the publication of Philip Hallie's book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed,1 and the release of Pierre Sauvage's documentary, Weapons of the Spirit,2 many North Americans have become familiar with the rescue efforts carried out in the French Vivarais-Lignon plateau during World War II. It is difficult to know the exact number of persons sheltered, and indeed this statistic has become a point of contention among historians, with some arguing that 700–1000 Jews were rescued, while a few of those who experienced and contributed to the effort estimate 3500 (in addition to approximately 1500 others).3 It is true that during the war a variety of individuals and groups in France assisted people at tremendous risk, but the number saved in the plateau, even if it does hover around 1000, is nonetheless striking.4 The residents of this region welcomed individuals and families from throughout France and Europe, providing food, housing, and assisting many over the border into Switzerland, some 300 kilometers away. Moreover, some local residents participated in the manufacture and distribution of false papers, a crime under Vichy law, but the provision of which aided in the survival of hundreds of persons during the period.5 Although not all of the inhabitants of the plateau were active in the armed Resistance, they resisted nonetheless by resolutely disobeying the Vichy authorities as well as the Germans. These people were the minority throughout France, for while some citizens actively collaborated with the Germans, the vast majority simply waited out the war, neither collaborating nor particularly opposing the changes brought by the Vichy government and the subsequent German occupying forces.6

The Nicene Creed and the subsequent development of Trinitarian orthodoxy have been regarded by many as essential to the apostolic faith of the churches. For example, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed without the filioque clause was made the starting point of the World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order study program entitled, “Towards the Common Expression of the Apostolic Faith Today.” Not so well known, however, is the existence of a growing movement of Pentecostal Christians globally that seeks to preserve the apostolic faith of the churches in significant measure by rejecting the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed along with the Trinitarian dogma that historically it had supported. Commonly called Oneness or Apostolic Pentecostals, they are estimated to have from 14 to over 17 million followers globally and growing rapidly in Mexico, China, and the United States.1

Modern medicine owes many of its founding principles to a spiritual heritage. However, passage through the Enlightenment and entry into a secular, pluralistic health context have yielded an estranged relationship between care of the body and care of the soul.1 Scientific medicine now holds the primary role in care of the body while religious communities are solely responsible for care of the soul. The needs of both body and soul are in many respects served well by this specialization and division of labor, but ultimately, of course, human experience is not susceptible to such a simplistic dichotomization. The lack of integration of spiritual and material care of the human person in contemporary life has led to increasingly evident tensions, most notably in the mechanization and isolation of the experiences of illness and dying.2

Sin appears to be enjoying a recent surge of popularity, and not just among the religious. From Oxford University Press's popular series on the seven deadly sins to Alan Jacobs's Original Sin: A Cultural History,2 these books address a contemporary ambivalence about the traditional religious language of sin, even as they make a case for the continuing relevance of historical conceptions of sin. To this body of literature, Gary Anderson's Sin: A History is a distinguished addition. Like the books mentioned above, it is written to be accessible to a lay audience. Unlike them, however, it is much more explicitly theological and built on a much deeper scholarly foundation. While Anderson's title is provocative, it is possibly misleading. The issue of sin is protean, and much of the recent literature has focused on the moral psychology of sin. That is not Anderson's area of concern. Rather, his focus is specifically on the operations and implications of a key metaphor for describing the relationship that sin creates between a person and God. The metaphor in question is that of sin as debt. The history that Anderson traces is the emergence and development of this metaphor both in Jewish and in Christian theology and religious practice.

To sin or transgress, according to one dictionary definition, is to go beyond a limit, to cross what is supposed to be a clear border. In this sense, one can say that Gary Anderson has succeeded in writing a very sinful book. Like Sennacherib as the rabbis describe him, Anderson is (he “erases boundaries between nations”)—only I use this phrase to describe Anderson in rather a more positive sense than the rabbis intended it when they applied it to the Assyrian emperor.2 Throughout this book we are discussing, Anderson crosses boundaries between academic disciplines: biblical criticisms that study the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Qumranic scholarship, rabbinics, patristics, the study of both medieval Catholic and early Protestant theology. He crosses boundaries within some of these fields, as well: for example, by attending to modern Israeli biblical scholarship in a way that is, alas, all too rare among non-Jewish scholars in North America and Europe; or by showing scholars of rabbinics what they can learn from the study of the New Testament, especially when that study is conscious of its roots in medieval and early modern theology. Most importantly, Anderson tears down artificial barriers that separate historical, philological, descriptive scholarship on the one side from constructive theology and inter-religious dialogue on the other.