Friday, March 8, 2013

A matter of substance

This entry, our penultimate clue, will focus on a matter of genuine substance.
     The Host interrupts himself while speaking to the Pilgrim Monk. In a brief aside, he advises that if no one is listening, there is no point in telling a story. Then, he repeats the advice but gives it a clerical, a religious emphasis.

For certainly, as these clerics say,
Whereas a man may have no audience,
It helps nothing to tell his sentence.
And well I know the substance is in me,
If anything shall well-reported be.

Sentence, in Chaucer's day, referred to meaning or doctrine. The Host seems to ramble. That gets our attention. What does lack of an audience have to do with a report?
     For the surface story, "I know the substance is in me" is taken to mean "I have the capacity to understand," but that idea is not clear, nor particularly significant. "Substance," however, has great depth for medieval clerics, theologians. Fear not. Only two terms of theology will be dealt with, and their definitions are easily understood.
     "Substance" is a fundamental aspect of faith. Notably in the primary definition of substance, the OED says: "Essential nature, essence; esp. Theol., with regard to the being of God. the divine nature or essence." The Athanasian Creed (1325) says of Christ, "He is God, of the substance of the Father." In addition, and again in the first entry, the MED says substance is "used of the incarnate Christ."
     To declare substance being within the Host (the Eucharist) also confirms Transubstantiation. You could understand the term tran-substantia-tion as a changing of substance. A reading in the Divine Office states: "In [this sacrament] bread and wine are changed substantially into the body and blood of Christ." The Eucharistic Host, in the vocabulary of Scholastic Theology, uses two terms that, as I said earlier, are easily understood: accidents and substance.
     Accidents, in this special designation, refers to qualities (of bread) that can be seen, while the substance (the essence) mystically becomes the body of Christ. One need not accept the doctrine. You just have to understand that THAT was, and is, the Dogma of the Church.
     Chaucer wrote at a time of growing celebration of the presence of Christ within the Eucharist (the Real  Presence). As a parallel, Chaucer's imaginative allegory describes the accidents, the attributes of the Canterbury Host that can be seen. These overt qualities conceal the substance, Christ's divine nature. Chaucer's Host indicates this covert identity here, and wants the fact "well reported."

We've seen a series of clues inscribe Christ within the Canterbury Host. Why? Are we only to see the basic confirmation that Christ leads Pilgrims on their life journey? No. There is more. Our final "clue" penetrates a humorous overlay. When the hidden significance came clear to me--I shuddered.

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