Commenting
on the precarious position defenders of Concomitance and the refusal of the
chalice to the laity placed themselves into, Ian Christopher Levy (associate
professor of theology at Providence College) wrote the following:
A central demand within the larger Hussite
movement was the restoration of the chalice to the laity so that they too could
receive communion under both kinds—hence the term “utraquism.” And the
examination of the debate over the chalice reveals the strange turn that
arguments about authority were taking in the fifteenth century. Those who proposed refusing the chalice to
the laity were in the unenviable position of defending a practice that is
notably at odds with the established practice of the early church and the
explicit testimony of the church fathers. Indeed, defending the refusal of
the chalice to the laity is especially dangerous precisely because it implies that the church fathers had been
in error and had not fully understood the injunctions of Holy Scripture. But
to question the authority of the fathers in matters of biblical exegesis was
all but anathema in the Middle Ages . . . The debate over the chalice points to
one of the greater ironies in the larger discussion of authority. For in this instance
opponents of the chalice were placed in the position of having to defend a
practice that they themselves admitted had only the most tenuous grounding in
the ancient tradition. Indeed, the fathers at Constance acknowledged that the
laity had received the chalice for centuries. Hence the anti-Utraquists are forced, not merely to wrangle over biblical
passages with little patristic support, but even to denigrate the practice of
previous generations. This is the most interesting turn of events, for it had
always been “the orthodox” who called out “the heretics” for having forsaken
the path trod since apostolic times.
Not it seems that the heretics are more traditional than the orthodox. (Ian
Christopher Levy, Holy Scripture and the
Quest for Authority at the End of the Middle Ages [Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, 2012], 178, 187-88, emphasis added)
As with so
many other topics, including the Immaculate Conception and the dogmas relating to the Mass itself (e.g., it being a propitiatory sacrifice), Rome is to be found wanting when examined at the bar of history.
