The Eucharist as a Hermeneutical Lens in the Preaching of Peter Chrysologus

Abstract

[Figure: see text] Peter Chrysologus, the bishop of Ravenna in the first half of the fifth century, tended to read the texts of the gospels through a eucharistic lens. Like other patristic writers, Peter viewed the same realities of faith operating in both the gospel accounts and in the liturgy of the Church. This article explores that relationship under three aspects evident in his homilies, especially in Sermons 33–36 about the woman with the twelve-year hemorrhage (Mark 5:21–43). Peter views the pericope under the three continuities of desperation, presence, and faith. Peter sees the Church’s faith, like the woman’s, as arising out of desperation or the hopelessness of finding a cure for its wounds. Yet, the same presence tapped by the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment can be touched in the Eucharist because the same presence that was present in the first century is operating in the liturgy of the fifth century. What is not so evident is that Peter’s audience will exercise the same faith as this desperate woman. In his highest expectations, Peter hopes that his own congregation will touch the Eucharist and so be healed like the hemorrhaging woman. While Peter never formulated a doctrine of the Eucharist per se, his proclamation assumes a profound continuity between the life of Christ and the sacramental life of the Church.