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Martin Luther and the Eucharist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

John Stephenson
John Stephenson
Affiliation:
Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota 56560, U.S.A.
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Extract

Several years before the mode of Christ's eucharistic presence became a controverted issue which would presently provoke a lasting schism among the Churches of the Reformation, Luther could unaffectedly propound the traditional dogma of the bodily presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar as a necessary consequence of the evangelical quest for the sensus grammaticus of the words of institution. The same exegetical method which led to his reappropriation of the doctrine of the justification of the sinner ‘by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith’ obliged him to confess that ‘the bread is the body of Christ’. Already here, in the mordantly anti-Roman treatise On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther has laid his finger on the model in terms of which he will understand the real presence to the end of his days: the consecrated host is the body of Christ, just as the assumed humanity of jesus Christ is the Son of God. The displacement of the scholastic theory of transubstantiation by the model of the incarnate person illustrates the Reformer's allegiance to the Chalcedonian Definition: ‘Luther is really replacing Aristotelian categories by those derived from Chalcedonian christology, to which he remained faithful: “unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably”.’ While the doctrine of the real presence moved from the periphery to the centre of Luther's theology and piety as the 1520s wore on, his conception of the modality of the eucharistic presence remained constant throughout.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 447 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1983

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References

1 WA 6. 509, 8–13; 511, 18–21. Luther's writings will here be quoted from Werke, D. Martin Lulhers. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau und Nachfolger, 1883–1948)Google Scholar. References will be given as WA followed by the relevant volume, page and line numbers. Quotations from the Weimar Edition of Luther's correspondence (Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1930–78) and table talk (Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912–21) will be given similarly, after the abbreviations WABR and WATR respectively. Quotations from the Lutheran Confessions will be made from Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche (8th ed.Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979)Google Scholar, the abbreviation BS being followed by reference to the appropriate page number and lines.

2 WA 6. 511, 34–512, 2.

3 Drewery, Benjamin: ‘Martin Luther’, A History of Christian Doctrine (Cunliffe-Jones, H. ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1978), p. 349.Google Scholar

4 Kolde, Theodor: Analecta Lutherana. Briefe und Actenstücke zur Geschichle Luthers (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Parthes, 1883), p. 72Google Scholar. cf. Sasse, Hermann: This is my body (revised ed. Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1977), p. 105, n. 21.Google Scholar

5 Quoted in Anton, Karl: Luther und die Musik (3rd ed. Zwickau: Johannes Hermann, 1928), p. 59f.Google Scholar

6 WABR 11. 259, 5–9. cf. Peters, Edward F.: ‘Luther and the Principle: Outside of the Use There is no Sacrament’, Concordia Theological Monthly XLII, 10 (1971), pp. 643–652Google Scholar, and Verinus, Titus: ‘The Moment at Which the Sacramental Union Begins’, Una Sancta XVII, 3 (1960), pp. 12–18.Google Scholar

7 WA 30 I. 53, 23.

8 WA II. 445. 34–446, 12; 447, 5–10.

9 WATR 5. 308, 9–19.

10 BS 56, 2–10 (Confessio Augustana, art. iv).

11 The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (3rd ed.London: Mozley, 1854), p. 118.Google Scholar

12 op. cit., p. 110.

13 Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (2nd ed.Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), p. 105.Google Scholar

14 op. cit., p. 106.

15 ibid.

16 op. cit., p. 128.

17 Summa Theologica III, qu. 75, art. 1.

18 WA 11. 434, 19–29.

19 WA 18. 164, 31–178, 7; and 26. 445, 21–498, 31.

20 BS 709, 44–710, 2 (Large Catechism, 1529).

21 Summa Theologica III, qu. 75, art. 1.

22 WA 26. 382, 25–383, 1.

23 WA 26. 395, 26–35.

24 ibid.

25 Summa Theologica III, qu. 75, art. 1.

26 WA 23. 193, 10–11.

27 Summa Theologica III, qu. 75, art. 1.

28 WATR 5. 318, 1–3.

29 WA 18. 633, 7–12.

30 See, e.g., WA 18. 212, 11–13; 23. 87, 32–5; 117, 6–12; 193, 4–16.

31 WA 26. 478, 31–3.

32 WA 30 III. 132, 2–5.

33 See, e.g., WA 39 I. 391, 3–4, 10–15; 40 I. 75, 29–76, 5; 78, 14–16, 24–6; 37. 456, 28–30, 33–4; 25. 106, 26–34.

34 WA 25. 107, 4–8.

35 WA 43. 73, 3–4.

36 WA 43. 71, 32–7.

37 WATR 5. 385, 1–4.

38 BS 57–8.

39 Traité de la Sainte Cène; quoted from Three French Treatises (ed. Higman, Francis M.. London: Athlone Press, 1970), p. 106, 6–11.Google Scholar

40 cd. cit., p. 130. 6–10.

41 WA 19. 461, 2.

42 WA 56. 168, 25–8.

43 WA 23. 129, 31.

44 WA 18. 206, 18–20; 211, 14–18. For an appeal to Eph. 4.10b, see WA 19. 491, 17–18.

45 WA 23. 143, 23–32.

46 WA 26. 332, 18–23; 334. 26–335, 28; 336, 8–27.

47 WA 18. 211, 14–18; 212, 11–16; 19. 491, 25–29; 23. 133, 19–28; 151, 1–5, 10–14; 26. 341, 3–12.

48 WA 23. 151, 14–32; 19.492, 19–26, cf. Grass, Hans: Die Abmdmahlslehre bei Luther und Calvin (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1954), p. 63.Google Scholar

49 WA 6. 358, 14–24; 515, 17–26.

50 WA 7. 695,6–7.

51 WA 7. 54, 31–55, 6.

52 WA 17I. 174, 21–175, 10.

53 WA 23. 193, 4–16.

54 WA 23. 185, 11–26.

55 WA 23. 187, 21–2.

56 WA 23. 257, 24–31.

57 See, e.g., Institutio IV, 17, 2.

58 See The Lord's Supper (tr. Preus, J. A. O.. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1979), p. 168Google Scholar: ‘The fact is that in addition to a spiritual union the Son of God in His holy Supper in the nature which He has assumed from us, namely in the very substance of His body and blood, wishes to join Himself to us in a most intimate way, as a head is joined to its members.’

59 See Loci Theologici XXI (De Sacra Coena), ch. XX (De Fine et Fructu Sacrae Coenae), 212: ‘… fines eucharistiae = … 2. insitio in Christum et spiritualis nutritio ad vitam aeternam’.

60 WA 18. 193, 3–4.

61 WA 23. 203, 7–11.

62 WA 23. 189, 8–15.

63 WA 23. 193, 28–33.

64 WA 23. 151, 17–32.

65 WA 23. 195, 3–5.

66 BS 711, 39–42 (Large Catechism, 1529).

67 BS 721, 14–22.

68 WA 23. 229, 25–30; 233, 21–35; 235, 9–21; 235, 35–237, 1; 237, 8–16.

69 WA 23. 203, 19–30. cf. also 205, 9–16, 17–25; 255, 14–29.

70 WA 23. 259, 4–10. On the bodily benefits of believing reception of the sacred body and blood, cf. Chemnitz, Martin: The Lord's Supper, pp. 163–170, 188f., 191Google Scholar. cf. also Gerhard, Johann: Loci Theologici XXI, ch. XX, 213Google Scholar: ‘Ut ergo de resurrectione corporis ad vitam aeternam certi redderemur, ideo Christus vivifico suo corpore in sacra coena nos pascit, efficaciter confirmans fidem et spem nostram, quo illud ipsum corpus nostrum, in quo peccatum et mors in hac vita habitant, ex pulvere terrae ad vitam aeternam sit suscitandum, quia vivifico Christi corpore est nutritum.’ cf. also Sasse, Hermann: This is My Body. Luther's Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (posthumous, revised ed. Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1977), pp. 313–316.Google Scholar

71 ‘Gedanken am Vorabend des Reformationsjubiläums von 1967’, In Statu Confessionis II (Berlin and;Schleswig-Holstein: Verlag die Spur GMBH & Co., 1976), p. 267.Google Scholar