With this examination of the relationship between faith and reason in mind, we now turn to Baldwin’s Eucharistic theology proper. This appears primarily in two sources, his first tractate and the treatise De sacramento altaris (hereafter SA, to distinguish it from William of Saint-Thierry’s treatise by the same name). Bell argues that the tractate is formed from two sermons that have been edited together. He is less sure of the provenance of the first, but believes that the second is an address to priests from Baldwin’s tenure as bishop.41 SA comes from the time of Baldwin’s abbacy, and
between Bell and Leclercq we can date it from 1175–1180.42 Like Isaac’s De officio
missae, SA was written at the request of a bishop seeking insight into the mystery of the
Eucharist. In this case, it was Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, who asked Baldwin to write some instructions on the true sacrifice to strengthen the faith.43 Baldwin’s work
focuses on this theme of sacrifice, beginning in the New Testament and looking back to the Old. It traces how the truth and grace of the new covenant is given in bread and wine, and how the same had been prefigured in the paschal lamb, manna, and other signs.
39 “Bona cecitas est, in seipso magna non uidere, et que scire non licet, pie ignorare. Propterea in celestibus
mysteriis et diuinis sacramentis, omnis impia dubitatio a corde nostro procul pellenda est, omnis curiosa inquisitio compescenda est, ut fides, que habet ueritatis conscientiam, habeat etiam piam ignorantiam” (Sermo 4.35).
40 “Sed de fide nunc agitur, que multis modis a Deo temptatur, et in hoc sacramento maxime ad
probationem exercetur” (Sermo 4.7).
41 Baldwin of Forde, Spiritual Tractates, 1986, 1:65 n.1.
42 Leclercq, “Introduction,” 9–10; Bell, “Baldwin of Ford and Twelfth-Century Theology,” 136. 43 SA, 70–72.
Leclercq reckons that most of Baldwin’s scriptural sources come from the daily office and the missal. He frequently employs the Psalms, and almost all the fragments of the Old Testament or New Testament on which he comments appear in the missal, either in the canon or in the gospels and epistles, especially in Easter and in the prophecies and readings of Holy Saturday. The fact that these latter appear on the night of the Lord’s Passover from death to new life indicates to Baldwin that they have a Eucharistic cast. Hence, Leclercq concludes, we can consider the work to be a mystagogy similar to that of the Greek Fathers, but also a liturgical commentary. Above all, it is a scriptural
commentary—a work as much about the Bible as about the Eucharist—that examines these two forms under which the Word of God is given to us. We know the Eucharist by Scripture’s testimony, and the grace of the Eucharist helps us find in the Bible a doctrine that makes us participate better in the Eucharistic sacrifice.44 In a sense, SA is an
exegetical manual for Scripture that will be primarily encountered in the liturgy and interpreted in light of its place in the liturgy, even as that Scripture, in turn, gives the liturgy its meaning. In the Mass, word and worship are understood through each other.
Baldwin draws on the Fathers as well, but to a much lesser extent than William. The Rule of St. Benedict, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hilary, Ambrose, and Jerome are in the background, as is Augustine. Among his contemporaries, Baldwin borrows from John of Fécamp and derives his understanding of the cenobitic or common life, in part, from Aelred. As with William, there are resonances with Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, but it is difficult to establish a definitive link. Perhaps Baldwin’s greatest influence, in terms of
44 Leclercq, “Introduction,” 33, 42–43. Leclercq also notes that Baldwin tries to adopt the style of the Bible
as his own: “Il s’efface devant la parole de Dieu, il parle le langage commun de toute l’Église. Il écrit en style biblique, non content d’emprunter à la Bible ses expressions, il pense avec elle, comme elle, et sur le même mode: son style intérieur est celui de la Bible” (Ibid., 25).
his method of exegesis, comes from Origen.45 Baldwin quotes two passages of Origen’s
seventh homily on Exodus and makes other clear references to Origen’s exegesis of the second Passover, manna, and the Sabbath.46 Medieval theology often builds on patristic
theology, continuing to work out what the latter began. In this way, SA uses Origen’s method to better understand how the Old Testament prefigures and is understood in light of the New, how the same truths are revealed more deeply over time under different signs.
While he may borrow from Origen, scholars agree that Baldwin is no Origen. Didier calls him a second-rate author who reveals the interests and spirit of his times, a tad harsh but not entirely misplaced.47 Leclercq is more gentle: “Baudouin de Ford n’est
pas un théologien subtil.”48 But scholars also agree that Baldwin is not interested in the
theological debates of his day or in producing a great work of speculation. His treatise is not polemical, though it does touch on two controversies of his day. First, the question of the Greek objection to the Western use of unleavened bread, to which Baldwin (like other Latin authors) replies that Christ himself used unleavened bread, and that even though the Truth has come, signs such as unleavened bread still have a role to play. Second, Baldwin argues for the orthodoxy of the term transubstantiation, which we will examine in greater detail below.49
But even as he defends its use, Baldwin is not interested in investigating the finer points of Eucharistic change, the real presence, or the essence of sacrifice; as Leclercq
45 Ibid., 43–44; Baldwin of Forde, Spiritual Tractates, 1986, 1:26–27; Krisak, “Baldwin of Forde’s
‘Sacrament of the Altar’: Its Contribution to a Medieval Understanding of the Eucharist as Sacrifice,” 88– 89.
46 Baldwin of Forde, Le Sacrement de l’autel, 1:64–67. 47 Didier, “Le De sacramento altaris de Baudouin de Ford,” 59. 48 Leclercq, “Introduction,” 12.
puts it, he is content to state the fact of the Mass. Instead, Baldwin focuses on the reasons why Christ instituted the Eucharist, the way in which the Eucharist meets human needs, and how we should read the institution narrative.50 He seeks the transformation of his
reader by helping him better receive Christ in Scripture and the Mass. Hence Bell concludes that SA may be seen as “a call for spiritual reform, for a return to the gospel text . . . a call for a return to the theory and practice of faith at a time in history when faith and charity were conspicuously absent. It is a work which looks beyond the conflicts of the Fathers to the text of the scripture, and which looks beyond the
complexities of ecclesiastical and secular politics to the words of Christ.” In this way, it is more similar to Baldwin’s tractates and De commendatione fidei than to technical Eucharistic treatises, such as those of Guitmund of Avesa or Alger of Liège.51 Baldwin’s
call to return to Scripture has a goal typical of monastic theologians. He is interested less in understanding the mystery of the Eucharist, how it is accomplished, than in seeking its connection to other mysteries in the Christian Mystery and the end to which they all lead: union with the Triune God in this life and the next.52 His response to the Eucharist is
admiratio, wonder and astonishment. Wonder at the mysteries that faith makes present
enkindles charity and desire for that union which is its end.53
50 Leclercq, “Introduction,” 12–15.
51 Bell, “Baldwin of Ford and the Sacrament of the Altar,” 234.
52 Leclercq, “Introduction,” 17; Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, 211, 222.
53 On this point Leclercq is worth quoting at length: “Baldwin of Ford often describes his attitude in the
presence of the Eucharist by these two words: stupor et admiratio. He is surprised, rapt, as in an ecstasy, in a state which partakes both of the immobility caused by astonishment and the spontaneous élan provoked by enthusiasm; he never grows accustomed to the sublime realities on which his glance lingers; his wonder never diminishes; he marvels at the mystery Revelation proposes for contemplation, and he also marvels at the fact that men believe in it in the Church: he marvels at the faith. His admiration rewards and, at the same time, stimulates his faith, and these two dispositions of the soul augment each other mutually. They awaken the intelligence and all the other faculties of man: reflection and understanding are benefitted by admiration and, in turn, foster charity and all the other virtues, and mystical experience and asceticism flow from them. The thought of Christ, his words, his works, and his sacraments may produce two reactions in