The Sacrament of the Altar

44 Pages·2014·0.87 MB·English

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The Sacrament of the Altar
A Book on the Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord's Supper
Preface to the English Edition
I wish to express my gratitude to the Reverend Dr. Robert D. Preus, president of Concordia
Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, who has made it possible for this book to reach its
readers. I also thank Mr. Edward L. Rye, Stockholm, who made the first translation of the manuscript,
the final version of which I myself have gone through.
The Rev. Professor Dr. Hermann Sasse, North Adelaide, South Australia, had helped me from the
very beginning of my career as a scholar. He rejoiced at the news of a future English edition of my
book, but he did not live to see it. To the memory of my beloved Hermann Sasse I dedicate this book.
Tom G. Hardt
No part of this document is to be further published or disseminated by any means without the express
permission of Erling T. Teigen, 314 Pearl St., Mankato MN 56001 (e-mail:
[email protected] ).
- CHAPTERS -
I. The Sacrament Is Founded On Scripture Alone
II. The Sacrament Is The True Body Of Christ
III. The Sacrament Does Not Coincide With The Omnipresence Of The Body Of Christ
IV. The Sacrament Means That Real Bread Is The Body of Christ
V. The Sacrament Is Achieved By The Reading Of The Words Of Institution
VI. The Sacrament Is The Body And Blood Of Christ--Not The Whole Christ
VII. The Sacrament Is Adorable And Extended In Time
VIII. The Sacrament Is A Means Of Grace
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I. The Sacrament Is Founded On Scripture Alone
The Christian doctrine of the Lord's Supper is sometimes treated on the basis of ideas derived from
the field of the psychology of religion. The doctrines of the various denominations are, in such cases,
categorized in such a way that belief in the Sacrament as the body and blood of Christ is considered
characteristic of what is termed the Catholic type of religion, which seeks support for its belief in the
tradition of the church, in the darkness of cathedrals, and in its devotion to the host. The teaching that
the Sacrament is a symbol, mere bread and wine, is deemed to be part of the Protestant type of
religion, with its belief in Scripture alone, a puritanical absence of tradition, and concentration on
personal religion. It is probably correct to assume that, even within the bounds of conservative
Lutheranism today, many an adherent of the doctrine of the Real Presence of the body and blood of
Christ in the Sacrament looks more or less in that way at the foundation of his faith. He finds it absurd
to think that Scripture alone is the basis of belief in the Real Presence. People like this want safer
ground under their feet: Mother Church, which has always taught the Real Presence. An affirmation
of the Real Presence founded on traditionalism should be confronted with a reminder that this is
dogmatically a very vulnerable position. During the Reformation, Luther's friend and helper, Philip
Melanchthon, was brought to waver in his faith about the Holy Presence, when he studied the
opponents' lists of quotations from the fathers of the church and saw how confusing the testimony of
the ancient church on the Sacrament could sometimes be.
At the famous disputation between Luther and his Reformed antagonist, Ulrich Zwingli, at Marburg
in 1529, this appeal to the ancient church was made in a modest way when Zwingli pointed out that a
certain latitude of views existed among the church fathers, and that that state of affairs could make it
possible for Luther and Zwingli to commune at the same altar. In a touching appeal, Zwingli asks
Luther for the hand of fellowship across the different interpretations of Jesus' words at the first
celebration of the Lord's supper. That hand is turned away by Luther, who, through references to the
possibly divergent opinions of tradition, was never brought to hesitate, unlike Melanchthon,
concerning the Real Presence and its exclusive claims to be true. What matters to Luther also here is
what Scripture, the Bible alone, testifies. In his lectures on the Psalms held in 1532, Luther states that
we stick to Christ's words about the Sacrament without questioning them, preferring them to any and
all human views and evaluations, even those of the ancient church.1 This does not mean that the
sometimes careless way the Reformed used quotations from the fathers was indulgently allowed to
pass. In other contexts, Luther, on exactly this point, could prove that the Reformed misunderstood
the texts of the fathers.2 But what is important is the fact that Luther, in principle, did not accept
dependence on anything but Scripture.
Luther dealt frequently with the problem which confronts us here. False institutionalism at the
expense of the truth, a characteristic of the church of councils and decretals, had resulted in neglect of
the purpose of the exegesis of Scripture with its necessarily exclusive alternatives of true or false.
Such exegesis had been replaced with a vague faith operating within patristic quotations of desirable
elasticity. The Evil Power infused into Christendom the notion that not everything had been revealed
to the apostles, that Scripture was insufficient as the only rule of faith, since, after all, its content was
subject to dispute. Thus the church was referred to the fathers. But such faith becomes a loose faith
with a vague profile, marked by the will to stick together within indefinite boundary lines, rather than
by the Biblical passion for truth, which is a battle fought for God himself. This is what happened to
the Father's plans: since they wanted to have Scripture without fights and struggles, they became the
cause of leaving Scripture entirely and ending up in purely human speculations. Then all disunity and
all dispute about Scripture ceased indeed, but that was a divine struggling, God fighting with the
Devil, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
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principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world."3 What happened at that
time is going to happen again after Luther's death: the apocalyptic finale which Luther describes
prophetically, turns out to be an institutionalizing which forms a parallel to that of the papacy.
Desperatio veritatis will reign, he says, a despair about the truth which makes us get tired of Scripture
and of trusting it,4 while the eagerness to observe human statutes will be all the greater. These factors
alone will be what holds together that church which is without faith and without Scripture.
In the controversies about the Sacrament, Luther finds among his adversaries just such a general
vagueness; he does not find primarily a doctrine which runs contrary to his own. Their unwillingness
to debate on the basis of Scripture leads to their being satisfied with making faces and using
arguments such as "This is unspiritual." In the controversy itself, his enemies reveal an
incomprehensible softness, a timidity that does not come from God: They operate with a weak, timid
conscience.5 These critical words which Luther voiced well suit the peculiar laxity which we can see
in Zwingli, despite his indisputable eloquence. In one of his books, Zwingli admits that he had not
carefully read Luther's latest book. Nonetheless, he undertakes its refutation. A friend of his had
informed him of the contents of Luthers book while they were going for a walk. This conversation
had to serve as compensation for the deficiencies in Zwingli's study of Luther.6 The reason for this
dogmatical disinterest is, as Luther accurately observes, the fact that his adversaries operate on the
basis of two general principles given by natural religions. These principles make any and all
discussions about individual Bible verses superfluous. These two principles, which raise the Christian
from the myopia of Bible study, are the following: first, the Real Presence is not of any use, viz.; it
cannot be proved that the Real Presence is a necessary part of the doctrine of justification; secondly,
the Real Presence is unworthy of God, for God neither can nor should be locked up in a little piece of
bread and, even less, be given to the godless or even fall on the floor.7
Luther very carefully analyzed these two cardinal errors of his opponent, especially the first. This
means that in the battle for the Lord's Supper which Luther carried on through the entire course of his
theological career, he explicitly condemned and anathematized the basic theory of modern Luther
research and of the modern Luther renaissance. This basic theory is often worded in roughly the
following way: Never think that you have grasped one of Luther's teachings until you have reached
the point where you can trace it back to the forgiveness of sins. Often with the unmistakable tones of
pulpit oratory, the doctrine of the Real Presence is, in such cases, traced back to the psychological
necessity of a concrete meeting with God in order to uphold fellowship with Christ. On all levels of
modern theology, we run up against this attitude to Luther's material. In the reader or hearer the
impression is necessarily created that either Luther was guilty of a grossly, monotonous schematic-
thinking in dealing with the words of Scripture or that the modern research scholar reveals such a
defect in dealing with Luther. Concerning this systematic motivation for the articles of faith, and for
the doctrine of the Real Presence in particular, Luther himself says: If they [his opponents] had
tolerable insights into the faith, and had at any time felt a spark of faith, they would know that the
highest and the sole virtue of faith is that faith does not seek to know why that which is believed in is
of use or why it is necessary. For faith does not wish to set up borders for God or call upon Him to
render account as to why, for what purpose, and for what necessary reason He commands a thing.
Faith would rather be foolish, give God the honor and believe His mere word.8 The question itself is
the work of the Devil: In like manner our mother Eve also had God's word for it that she was not to
eat of one particular tree. Then the enthusiast's false god came to her and said: Why did God give such
a command as that, as if he meant: What is the use of this? Why should this be necessary?9
At Marburg Castle this decisive difference with regard to Christian revelation became manifest during
the talks between Zwingli and Luther. In his first speech against Luther, Zwingli says: And finally
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you yourself concede that the spiritual eating [in accordance with John 6] gives consolation. And
since we are in agreement on this major point, I ask you for the sake of the love of Christ not to
accuse anyone of heresy on account of this difference [about the Sacrament]. The fathers did not
condemn one another rashly, even if they were not in agreement.10 In Zwingli's view this major
point, faith's eating, about which the parties agree, makes bodily eating unnecessary: When we now
have the spiritual eating, what is the use of bodily eating?11 Again and again, Luther's opponents
emphasize the fact that the Real Presence lacks systematic support in the doctrine of justification.
However, Luther makes no attempt to produce any such pious explanation. Instead he summarizes his
views in one monumental sentence which is so important, that it can be said to surpass his triumphant
words, "This is my body," which Luther had written on the table with chalk. This sentence of
Luther's, which makes it possible to believe in the words This is my body, reads: Every article of faith
is in itself its own principle and requires no proof by means of another one.12
Luther gives us an extensive explanation of this sentence. Your argument is built up like this: Because
we have a spiritual eating [by faith], bodily eating [of the body of Christ in the Sacrament] is not
needed. I answer: we do not by any means deny the spiritual eating; indeed we teach and believe all
over that this is necessary, but that does not prove that the bodily eating is not necessary or
superfluous. I do not search for an answer to the question if it is necessary or not. That is not our
business. It is written: "Take, eat, this is my body" and thus one absolutely must so do and believe.
One must, one must . . . . If He commanded me to eat mud, I would do so. I would do so because I
know more than well it is for my benefit. The servant should not quibble about his Lord's will. One
must close one's eyes. The benefit Luther confesses he believes in is here, in principle, none other
than the benefit which consists of obedience to the will of God, which we can never penetrate. That
will can never be made the object of scrutiny according to some pattern. Oekolampadius, Zwingli's
co-worker answered Luther and said "Where is it written, Herr Doktor, that we are to go through
Scripture with our eyes closed?" In saying these words, what he attacks is not a paradoxical Biblicism
which persists in maintaining untenable positions for the sake of offence. He attacks scientific
exegesis which definitely refuses to force upon the Bible justification by faith as a systematic,
straight-jacket principle governing interpretation and which instead has no other aim but to let the
material speak: I abide with my text.13
The words must be heard in their naked form, Luther says repeatedly after the Marburg talks: "And
even if it were such an insignificant sacrament that it gave me no benefit and was unnecessary so that
neither grace nor help were given in it, [even if] it were merely God's command and law requiring us
to use it, by virtue of this divine power which we are bound to subject ourselves to and obey, this
would, on account of this covenant, compel and invite us not to despise it or deem it a superfluous or
a lowly thing, but rather to use it diligently with earnest and in faithful obedience and to honor it
highly, since nothing can be greater or more wonderful than what God bids and commands by His
Word."14
The concentration on obedience to God without would-be-pious looks to the left and right for
personal consolation and needs for salvation does not, of course, mean that Luther in any sense
wanted to deny that the Sacrament gives grace. We shall deal with that in another chapter. But the
conviction that the Sacrament is a means of grace does not have its place in the interpretation of Jesus'
words about bread and wine. What is decisively characteristic of Luther and of all truly Christian
theology is the fact that the doctrine can be put forth in the form of a loci i.e. arranged in such a way
that each doctrine in principle is prescribed by itself, independent of other doctrines. Luther's
pronounced admiration for Melanchthon's Loci15 shows that he considered this system exemplary.
The reason why Luther did not publish a similar little book for young people was merely because he
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lacked pedagogical skill, as he himself says. The contempt which many modern theologians, and
especially modern Luther scholars, show towards the loci method is based on the notion that
justification by faith is the threshing floor of faith, and on the conception of Luther's religion as one
single eruptive outbreak of one single experience of a psychological nature, which has to be found in
everything Luther ever said.
In this context it can also be said that Luther's view that the articles of faith are not interdependent, is
also reflected in his conviction that soul-murdering heresy can never be defined as limited to the
rejection of the central articles on salvation. Stubborn rejection of the miracle of the Sacrament leads
to damnation when correct instruction has been given. He that makes God into a liar in one of His
Words and blasphemes or says that it is unimportant if He is blasphemed and made out to be a liar,
blasphemes God in His entirety and considers all blasphemy a trifling thing.16 "They are bound over
to punishment and 'sin unto death' as St. John says. About their leaders I speak; the poor people
subjected to them may our good Lord Jesus help out of the hands of these murderers of souls. They, I
say, have received frequent exhortation."17 "They console themselves, I am told, with the fact that
they write a lot of books and that they are very busy in the church and with Scripture. To what avail?
They adulterate the Word of God and His Sacrament and they do not want to listen. But he that does
not hear God will in turn not be heard by Him; 'his prayer shall be abomination,' Prov. 28:[9]."18 That
is why Luther, as a servant of Christ, pronounces condemnation over those who have condemned
themselves. This condemnation does not take a detour via a conclusion that denial of the Real
Presence would logically lead to other, even worse heresies. Such demonic logic does indeed exist,
and Luther points this out. But this is not what gives such great weight to Luther's powerful anathema
against Zwingli and those who consciously dishonor the Sacrament. "And even if they boast that they
believe in this article about the person of Christ and talk about it a lot, don't believe that. They lie in
everything they say about this. With their mouths they do indeed say so (just as the demons in the
Gospel call the Lord the Son of God) but 'their hearts are from me,' Matt. 15:8. That is certain. Just as
the Jews swore by the living God, but their talk was false, the prophet says.... For it is certain that he
does not rightly believe in an article of faith (after having been exhorted and instructed), he does not
believe in any one article with the right earnest and faith."19 Here we see the background for the
solemn damnamus, we condemn, contained in the Lutheran Confessions in their doctrinal articles
following the usage of the synodical decrees of the ancient church. Here the confessions, like Luther,
distinguish between seducers and the seduced: "However, it is not our purpose and intention to mean
thereby those persons who err ingenuously and who do not blaspheme the truth of the divine Word,
and far less do we mean entire churches inside or outside the Holy Empire of the German Nation. On
the contrary, we mean specifically to condemn only false and seductive doctrines and their stiff-
necked proponents and blasphemers."20 "The ban is thus directed not against the many pious,
innocent people ...[who] go their way in the simplicity of their hearts, do not understand the issues
and take no pleasure in blasphemies against the Holy Supper as it is celebrated in our churches
according to Christ's institution and as we concordantly teach about it on the basis of the words of His
testament. It is furthermore to be hoped that when they are rightly instructed in this doctrine, they
will, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, turn to the infallible truth of the divine Word and unite
with us and our churches and schools."21 Nevertheless, despite all this tender feeling towards the
simple people who, during Holy Week 1525 had to say good-bye to Jesus Christ in the Holy
Sacrament of the cloister church of Zurich22 the whole sharpness of real Biblical curse remains
against those who knew their Lord's will and did not act according to it.
For Luther, that explicit will of God is to be found clearly and unambiguously in Jesus' declaration at
the first celebration that the bread and wine in this meal are the body and blood of Jesus. Also the
heathen of ancient days as well as the Jews, who for centuries have accompanied Christianity with
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constant criticism against, among other things, the Sacrament, have all, through their accusations of
cannibalism, confirmed this circumstance common both to faith and to unbelief, to wit, that the
Christians' Sacred Meal takes place by virtue of words which declare that bread and wine are Jesus
body and blood.23 A Jew or Turk who denies the truth of revelation must nonetheless find that
Christian faith is just precisely the Real Presence.24 The fact that Luther was involved in polemics
about the Sacrament should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Luther always considered the
doctrine of the Real presence easy.
In this respect, Luther gets unexpected support from his opponents who concede that the factual
wording of the words of institution would seem to teach the Real Presence. This is, they think, the low
and carnal meaning, which he who is spiritual elevates to the spiritual level required by generally
valid, systematic norms. It is here that the many well-known symbolic interpretations, which often
contradict one another, come in. For Luther, however, this flight away from the obvious and self-
evident remains an unnatural thing, and it is for him unnatural that his opponents thus admit that they
have corroboration for their views, not in the text, but somewhere else.25 Perhaps Luther's strongest
argument against a symbolic interpretation of the Sacrament is the one in which he wonders how the
Reformed think Christ should have expressed Himself to teach the Real Presence, if that was what he
wanted to do. By virtue of the principles established by the opponents, they can turn every expression
into symbolism. This excludes the Real presence a priori so completely, that even the linguistic
means of expressing even a hypothetical Real Presence have been blown to pieces.26
This allegorizing by principle has, Luther says, also other, equally catastrophic effects, e.g., the
transformation of the account of creation to a symbolic understanding. Christianity could thus be
compelled to adapt itself to heathen philosophy and natural science, teaching like Aristotle and Pliny
that the world is eternal and that there never was any such thing as the first human being named
Adam.27 This would seem to be the inevitable result of a spiritual interpretation of the words of
institution.
Luther asks his opponents just where the allegorical nature of the words of institution is supposed to
have been proclaimed. Of course, Luther knows of a vast number of parables in Scripture. But in all
of these it is clearly said that they are parables, either in such a way that it is directly stated that a
parable is to follow, or by clarification through other passages of Scripture. For instance, it is made
clear that Christ is not a botanical vine, but the God-Man who is thus to be considered a spiritual vine:
"I am the true vine" (John 15:1).28 In connection with the institution of the Sacrament, there is no
proclamation given to the effect that the Supper is a parable. Since Scripture contains no further
interpretation of the Sacrament, the words of institution stand alone without intermediaries. For this
reason they must be taken literally. Of course, this does presuppose that Scripture as such is intended
to be understood and that the person speaking is not some whimsical person whose words and actions
are incoherent, some kind of person who, without premeditation just throws out statements with a
veiled meaning. A sterling summary of that attitude is found in the Lutheran Confessions which dwell
on the circumstance that Jesus in this sad, last hour of his life...selected his words with great
deliberation and care in ordaining and instituting this most venerable sacrament. These words are
Jesus last words, His will and testament, filled with consideration and the desire for clarity. This is a
Sacrament which was to be observed with great reverence and obedience until the end of the world
Jesus knows that the eyes of all the faithful, until the end of the world, are directed at His lips that
night.29 That is why Jesus spoke so unambiguously. He is the unambiguous God who already in the
days of the Old Testament was a God of clarity. There is, of course, no more faithful or trustworthy
interpreter of the words of Jesus Christ than the Lord Christ himself, who best understands his words
and heart and intention and is best qualified, from the standpoint of wisdom and intelligence, to
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explain them. In the institution of his last will and testament and of his abiding covenant and union, he
uses no flowery language but the most appropriate, simple, indubitable, and clear words, just as he
does in all articles of faith and in the institution of other covenant-signs and signs of grace or
sacraments, such as circumcision, the many kinds of sacrifice in the Old Testament, and Holy
Baptism.30 The ministers of the new testament standing before the altar are guided by directives that
are no less clear and unambiguous than those given to Aaron before the mercy seat. In both
testaments, God's servants are to take God at His words.
With the above we have stated the most essential things about Luther's interpretation of the words of
institution. A closer study of his refutation of the Reformed symbolism leads to the polemics he was
forced to engage in. His arguments there are an overabundance, not prerequisites for achieving
certainty as to the real meaning of the words of institution. It is not necessary to know all about those
controversies in order to have met what convinced Luther of the gift of the Sacrament of the Altar.
Provided that this is kept in our thoughts, a few of the arguments Luther used in this context will be
taken up here. For instance, Luther points out that if the symbolic interpretation, according to which
the bread is not Christ's body, was correct, Jesus words, "This is my body," would be a sentence
without any meaning at all. The words, "Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me," would give the
entire content of the whole Sacrament.31 Furthermore, Luther wonders what sense the sentence, to
the effect that the bread signifies the body, is supposed to have. What he demands is not the demand
of systematic theology for a Real Presence. He demands that Jesus' words must be sensible, must
make sense. Why would the Church until the end of the world have to be informed of such a flat
allegory?32 Where, by the way, does the resemblance and similarity between bread and the body of
Christ lie? The Passover had an evident resemblance to Christ being slaughtered for the salvation of
many. What reason would there be to replace this splendid sacrament of symbolism with the plain and
incomprehensible bread symbol?33 The similarity cannot be found in the very action of the
Sacrament (the breaking), because the explanatory words refer to the elements present, not to an
act.34 Above all, Scripture says that the body of Christ was not broken. The chalice, the content of
which was not poured out in parallel with the breaking of the bread, has even less similarity of any
kind.35 Luther also shows that the breaking of bread is a common action when bread is eaten and
lacks symbolical significance. Thus all speculation about the breaking of the bread was once and for
all disposed of within Lutheranism. By the way, it not only lacks foundation in Scripture, but also
support in the ancient church.36
Luther naturally concedes that there are cases of a symbolical use of language in the Bible. Vine
means, in accordance with a common, simple, linguistic usage, a certain kind of plant; but in symbolic
usage (tropus) it means something else. "I am the vine," thus means that the usual word, vine, is given
a higher dignity and means a spiritual vine, Christ the life-giver. In the expression "The seed is the
Word of God," it is shown that seed in the parable was used as a new word, designating spiritual seed,
the Gospel which bears fruit. In all such cases the usual word receives a higher dignity: the tropus
word does not, of course, point back to the old word. Reformed symbolism would, however, create
the strange situation that the concept "my body" in the words of institution would get the meaning
sign for my body, i.e., it would be given a lower dignity and point back to a reality which was more
full. This goes entirely against Scripture's form of symbol words.37 However, all such reasoning is
and remains completely superfluous. No one can prove that the Sacrament is symbolic and that the
words should be taken in any other sense than in their usual, everyday, literal meaning.
Every closer study of the symbolic interpretation of the Reformed shows that what faces us is a flight
from facts. The different exegetical details in their interpretations are derived from easily accessible,
general principles taken from the legacy of spiritualism which, like a shadow, has followed
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Christianity throughout history. Faced with the Biblical fact that the body and blood of the Creator,
sacrificed and smitten, rest on the Christian altar, there arises in every age a spontaneous protest,
formulated by Zwingli: The soul eats "spirit and therefore it does not eat meat."38 A modern
Reformed scholar has commented on Zwingli's words apologetically: This is not flat rationalism, but
rather a testimony of how the Spirit is tied to God (Gottesverbundenheit des Geistes).39 Perhaps one
could agree, but then it must be stressed that it is not a matter of flat rationalism in the sense of
atheism. However, what does occur in Zwingli is a pious rationalism which, in Luther's eyes, is a
greater enemy of the Biblical truth than heathen rationalism, which must admit the unambiguity of the
words of institution.
1WA 40:3, 32, 28 (etiam vaeteris ecclesiae).
2WA 23:129.4ff., 109.29 ff., 219.22ff. (LW 37:109f, 125, 146).
3WA 23:67.34ff. (LW 37:15).
4WA 23:71.3 ff. (LW 37:17).
5WA 23:73.10. (LW 37:19).
6 Walther Koehler, Zwingli und Luther I, Leipzig 1924, 646, 652.
7WA 19:486.10 ff., WA 23:157.26 ff. (LW 36:338; LW 37:70).
8WA 23:249.22ff. (LW 37:128).
9WA 23:249.37ff. (LW 37:129).
10 Walther Koehler, "Marburger Religionsgespraech," Schriften des Vereins fuer
Reformationsgeschichte, 48/1, Leipzig 1929, 7. Most easily accessible is the Marburg Colloquy in
Herman Sasse, This is my Body, Minneapolis, 1959, 215-272, 2nd ed. Adelaide, 1976,173-220.
11 Koehler, "Marburger Religionsgespraech," 13.
12 Koehler, "Marburger Religionsgespraech," 34.
13 Koehler, "Marburger Religionsgespraech," 13.
14WA 30ii:601.7ff. (LW 38:104).
15WA TR 5:5511.
16WA 23:85.1ff. (LW 37:26).
17WA 54:148.21ff. (LW 38:296).
18WA 54:155.9ff. (LW 38:303).
19WA 54:158.14ff. (LW 38:308ff).
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20The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore A. Tappert, Philadelphia 1959, 11, (Preface).
21 Tappert, 118.
22 Sasse, This is my Body, 132, 2nd ed., 105.
23WA 26:406.27ff. (LW 37:272).
24WA 26:496.34ff. (LW 37:359).
25WA 26:445.20ff. (LW 37:304), WA 26:270.18ff. (LW 37.168).
26WA 26:452.35ff., 451.21ff., 447.14ff. (LW 37:309, 306).
27WA 23:91.10ff., 26:406.20ff. (LW 37:30; LW 37:272).
28WA 23:103.15ff., 26:275.21ff. (LW 37:38, 174f.).
29 Tappert, 577 (SD VII, 44).
30 Tappert, 578 (SD VII, 50).
31WA 26:389.31ff. (LW 37:261).
32WA 26:390,.23ff. (LW 37:262).
33WA 26:395.18ff. (LW 37:264).
34WA 26:391.26ff. (LW 37:262).
35WA 26:398.1ff. (LW 37:266).
36WA 26:397.21ff., Die deutsche Thomas-Ausgabe, Summa Theologiae, 30:467 (LW 37:266).
37WA 26:380.20ff. (LW 37:253f.).
38 Koehler, "Marburger Religionsgespraech," 15.
39 Koehler, Zwingli und Luther II, 138.
II. The Sacrament Is The True Body Of Christ
Faced with the sentence "The Sacrament is the true body of Christ," one may indeed ask what is
meant by an intensification like the word "true." If we speak of the body of Christ, we cannot
reasonably be speaking of any other body than the one that was born of Mary, nailed to the cross and
arisen from the grave. This is "true," and it ought to be impossible to mean anything else. But just as
the word presence must be defined as real presence, and just as in the Nicene Creed, Christ must be
referred to as true God, so Christian experience with the work of error makes it necessary to speak of
Christ's "true" body. For centuries speculative minds have found ways to empty words of their
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meanings. From the very beginning the church was surrounded by a heathen philosophy, Platonism,
which divides existence into two levels: the sphere of visible things and that of their real kernel, the
idea, a shadow world behind things. (The Platonists themselves were of the opinion that the physical
world was a shadow world in relation to the non-sensuous existence.) In the teaching on the
Sacrament of the Altar which is called Augustinian after the church father, St. Augustine, it is,
following the thinking described above, a question of a presence of the idea of the body of Christ,
which has an almost independent reality in relation to the physical body of Christ in heaven. The
medieval church sometimes used the concept substance in the same sense. Especially within the
school based on Thomas Aquinas, this concept was used to designate the invisible something of
things, a something which is the essence but which has no extension, is not visible and cannot be
weighed. The body of Christ which is present in the Sacrament of the Altar becomes the substance of
the body of Christ. The difficulty of thought involved in the notion that the whole body of Christ
could be contained in its entirety, not only in the little host, but also in a most minute particle of it, is
thus easily solved but at the price of the physical concretion of the body of Christ. The substance is
declared to be non-local; the same substance is in all of the air in space just as it is in a little bit of air.
In like fashion the illocal and invisible substance of the body of Christ can, of course, be contained
anywhere. The doctrine of transubstantiation, so-called--a concept which in itself allows for the most
divergent interpretations and is by no means unambiguous--means for Thomas that the invisible
substance of the visible bread, lacking existence in space, is replaced by the equally invisible and
illocal part of the body of Christ which is called its substance. Since it is a question of spiritual
realities outside space, this change of substance does not in any way mean that the body of Christ is
tied to any place. The remaining external properties of the bread merely convey a relation to space
which is not precisely described: through the mediation of alien dimensions.40 If, then, those external
properties of the bread should cease to exist, it would no longer be possible to speak of a presence of
the substance of the body of Christ. The latter would not cease to exist on the altar or in any other
place; it would never have been there through a genuine existence of its own. It exists as a substance
entirely exempted from spatial conditions.
That this reasoning has disastrous consequences for the Real Presence is evident from the following
discussion in Thomas. It is important for the modern reader to restrain his spontaneous judgment that
the next example used is based on superstition. It is through the position towards a certain occurrence
within medieval popular devotion, with all its deficiencies, that light will be thrown upon questions
far more serious than the one of the scripturalness of the occurrence itself. It is commonly said that
the heart of medieval devotion is expressed in the belief in the so-called Mass of St. Gregory, the
miracle in which Jesus became visible in the host. According to tradition, this occurred once when St.
Gregory the Great celebrated mass. Similar occurrences were mentioned as having happened in many
quarters; sometimes the suffering Man of Sorrows was seen, sometimes it was the newborn Babe.
Confronted with such accounts, Thomas had to deny their possibility: Jesus is not at all present in the
Sacrament in such a way that He could possibly be seen, even through a miracle. If the bread has
ceased to exist as the accounts propose to say, then the body of Christ has lost the one and only
mediate tie-up with space. Furthermore, substances are accessible only to the intellect. If the veil of
the species of the Sacrament falls, the concealed Savior, whom faith yearns to behold, is not unveiled.
If the pious account is true, St. Thomas' system falls instead, and this he must prevent. He looks for a
way out of his dilemma in various ways. In one case, he presumes that God has effected a certain
perception in the eyes of those who saw the miracle, i.e., an objective hallucination. Thomas' major
thought must not, in any case, be disturbed: that the substances as such are not visible or accessible to
any of the senses or to the imagination, but only to the intellect, the object of which is "that which
is."41 For Thomas the reality of the Sacrament exists only in the ideal world of thought.
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