Mid-January, 1528 (Part 3)

Professor Martin Luther resumes work on his Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper. Having replied point-by-point to treatises by the “sacramentarians,” [1] Luther, in Part Two, turns to a detailed analysis of four passages of Scripture relevant to understanding the Lord’s Supper. [2] In today’s Quotation, taken from the introduction to Part Two (paragraphs 363 – 365 of the treatise), Luther concludes his summary of the argument thus far.

Quotation:

[continued from the previous post] Yet I have tried — even if nothing but bread and wine were present in the Supper — and I would still try, simply for my own satisfaction, to express the fact that Christ’s body is in the bread. I could, however, really say nothing more clear and distinct than this: “Take, eat, this is my body.” For if the text stood thus: “Take, eat, in the bread is my body,” or, “With the bread is my body,” or, “Under the bread is my body,” then it would have begun to rain, to hail, to snow Enthusiasts, who would exclaim: “Behold there, do you hear? Christ does not say, ‘This bread is my body,’ but ‘in the bread, with the bread, under the bread is my body.'” And then they would exclaim: “Oh, how gladly would we believe if he had said, ‘This is my body,’ which would have been distinct and clear. But now he actually says in the bread, with the bread, under the bread, and so it will not follow from these that his body is present.” Thus there would have been a thousand evasions and prevarications devised about the words in, with, and under, with greater plausibility and much more obstinacy than now.

Yet they dare to say: “Where does it stand written that the body of Christ is in the bread?” just as if they were ready to believe, if we could prove it. And yet they will not believe when we have proved more cogently that the bread is the body of Christ, which indeed is expressing more forcefully and more clearly the presence of his body, than such a text as, “In the bread is my body.” But they act deceitfully, and pretend that God must furnish a text just as they may direct him. Yet even if he did so, they would still not receive it, since they do not receive this one.

Now since we have proved convincingly enough that neither the figure of Zwinli, nor the sign of Oecolampadius can be sustained, we have, in doing so, confirmed that, in their literal sense, every text dealing with the Lord’s Supper must yield our interpretation. And although I have abundantly discussed these texts in my little book against the heavenly prophets, [3] to the present day, the Enthusiasts have produced nothing to refute my arguments there, except barren, frivolous sophistry from their own imaginations, without a single quotation from Scripture, but constructed entirely out of their own imagination about figures and signs. Now, all this, together with their figures and signs, has toppled to the ground, and my book maintains its force, as you yourself may read and infer from the sexterns, G, H, I, K, etc., [4] I will, however, discuss the same texts again successively, in order to confirm our interpretation. [to be continued in the next post]

Notes

[1] Sacramentarian was Luther’s term for those who took a spiritualistic or symbolic understanding of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s supper and thus denied the “real presence” of Christ as understood by the Wittenberg Reformers. Luther specifically rebuts arguments put forward by Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Schwenkfeld, Krautwald, and Wycliffe.

[2] The passages are Matt. 26:26ff.; Mark 14:22ff.; Luke 22:19ff.; and 1 Cor. 11:26-29.

[3] Against the Heavenly Prophets (Jan., 1525). For excerpts, see “Jan., 1525 (Part 1) – (Part 3).”

[4] “Sextern” is a term from bookbinding. It is a set of six sheets printed front and back, gathered together, and folded in two to be bound together as a 24-page section of a book. The sexterns Luther mentions correspond to pp. 56 -87 of LW vol. 37, or approximately the second third of That These Words of Christ, “This Is My Body,” etc. Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics (1527).

A page from near the beginning of the section of “That These Words of Christ …” mentioned by Luther above. However, in this printing (by Gabriel Kantz, Zwickau, 1527), the section starts in the middle of Quire D. The Quires here are 16 pages each.