Treasures from the Storeroom

Do we really know about religion in the Middle Ages? Gary Macy suggests that what most people believe about the Church of the Middle Ages is actually wrong or founded on the perspective of one figure, Aquinas. Now, after two decades of research, Macy explores the truth about medieval religion and the Eucharist in Treasures from the Storeroom, an intriguing look into the forgotten areas of our Christian heritage. Using a wide range of original sources for these articles, Macy discusses such topics as theology, devotion, ecclesiology, and historical methodology.

This collection of eight essays provides an important backdrop to the plenary address, "The Eucharist and Popular Devotion," presented at the 1997 national convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), since several themes raised in that address are actually summaries of the fuller arguments presented in these articles. By presenting them here as a whole in the form of a book, Macy offers readers a clearer, more systematic look at the themes raised in that address.

As comforting as it may be for today's theologians (and others) to pick and choose from the past so that history conveniently leads to their own favorite conclusions, Macy suggests that the Church’s true tradition is diversity. Writing to fellow scholars, he offers Treasures from the Storeroom as a text for classroom use and as simply interesting reading.

The chapters in Treasures from the Storeroom are “Introduction to The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period. A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians, c. 1080-c.1220,” “The Theological Fate of Berengar’s Oath of 1059. Interpreting a Blunder Become Tradition,” “Reception of the Eucharist According to the Theologians: A Case of Diversity in the 13th and 14th Centuries,” “Berengar’s Legacy as Heresiarch,” “The ‘Dogma of Transubstantiation’ in the Middle Ages,” “Demythologizing ‘the Church’ in the Middle Ages,” “Commentaries on the Mass During the Early Scholastic Period,” and “The Eucharist and Popular Religiosity.”

Gary Macy, PhD, teaches at the University of San Diego and is widely published in the areas of medieval theology and devotion.