The Literal Sense of Scripture in Albert and Aquinas’s Eucharistic Theology

Abstract

Both Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas place value on the literal sense of scripture. This paper compares their teaching and use of the literal sense in Eucharistic texts in regard to 1) their explicit teaching about the senses of Scripture, 2) their understanding of Old Testament Sacrifices, 3) selected passages of systematic Eucharistic theology where the familiarity of bread and wine imagery provides a temptation to overlook Old Testament context, and 4) the interpretation of the Eucharistic discourse in John 6. While their theology of the literal sense is similar, Albert is more influenced by the looser styles of earlier monastic theology, which results in a rich and imaginative but less precise reading than Aquinas.