Subsidiary Essay on the Eucharist, August 1525 . . . . . . uem y?
SUBSIDIARY ESSAY ON THE EUCHARIST
August 1525
(Z IV: 458-504)
Translated by Henry Preble Revised and edited by H. Wayne Pipkin
TSHR Y wo Y)
AEPHOUQMNM
B B CLE deg d ] aed 020 We SI — - | — a. es, ¥ a a , "i dft secta heit,
5 0 we or d 0 iade ne rdi, E B -
Introduction The Subsidiary Essay on the Eucharist, published in August, 1525, is one of the lesser known eucharistic treatises of Zwingli.
Nonetheless, it played an important role both in the development of the eucharistic controversies and in the refinement of Zwingli's own eucharistic thinking.
There were two events of significance in early
for the developing eucharistic controversy.
First, in March, Zwingli published his well-known Commentary on True and False Religion. [1] In the Commentary Zwingli included sections on the sacraments and on the Eucharist.
He asserted that he was going beyond his earlier writing, the Exposition of the 18th Article. [2]
Especially important in his later treatment of the Eucharist is the affirmation of Christ as the food of faith, the interpretation of "is" as "signifies" and the prominence given to John 6 in understanding the Eucharist symbolically.
The second event was the April discussion before the City Council in which the second secretary, Joachim am Grut, a pillar of the Catholic opposition in Zurich, accused Zwingli of heresy in his eucharistic views, while himself espousing a temperate
Erasmian Catholic view of the Eucharist.
The debate before the Council turned basically on Zwingli's exegesis of the words of institution and whether it was appropriate to interpret "is" as "signifies". [3] Am Grut also questioned Zwingli's figurative interpretation of passages such as "the seed is the word of God" and "the field is the world". The importance of tropes for understanding Scripture became a fundamental theme in Zwingli's eucharistic writing.
The decision of the Council was to abolish finally the Mass and to institute the Lord's Supper according to apostolic custom.
The vote was close enough to leavé Zwingli concerned and he fretted about the question even in his dreams.
In the early morning of April 13, Zwingli dreamed that the answer lay in the reference of Exodus 12:11 to the Passover.
This passage then
was discussed in the School of Prophecy and thereafter became an important feature of Zwingli's eucharistic understanding.
The reference to the dream became a matter of concern for other theologians and, as a result, many came to regard Zwingli with some suspicion because of it. [4] Clearly Zwingli was concerned about the Catholic opposition at Zurich.
His detailed response was the Subsidiary Essay.
It is to be understood, therefore, as directed not against Luther but against the moderate Erasmian Catholicism of Joachim am Grut and his followers.
Insofar as the political motif is present, this treatise is directed to internal Swiss questions vis-a-vis Catholic Inner
Switzerland.
In addition, whereas the earlier eucharistic writings of Zwingli focused on an attack on aspects of Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation and sacrifice, in this treatise Zwingli's thought itself became the focus of concern. Of necessity Zwingli had been forced to switch from the offensive to the defensive.
Published by Froschower in Latin in the fall of 1525, it was published in a German translation by George Binder the same year, and again in 1526. The treatise enjoyed an unexpected breadth of circulation, falling into the hands of friend and enemy alike.
Several references by colleagues of Luther and by Luther himself reveal the first energetic reaction of the Lutheran camp to Zwingli's eucharistic thinking. Thus, although directed primarily against Zwingli's Catholic opponents, this treatise became a major factor in the eucharistic conflict between Luther and Zwingli.
HWP NOTES 1.
Cf. Z 11:628-912 (tr. J 1143-343).
Z l|k:111-157.
An English translation is found in Volume | of this set.
See Kohler, l:98ff.
See Kohler, 110-111.
E91 Huldrych Zwingli wishes grace and peace from God to the Distinguished Gentlemen, Bartholomew May of the Council of Bern, Wolfgang and Claudius, his sons, and James and Benedict, his grandsons, and to his great-grandsons and entire family. [1] So great today is the audacity of false accusation under the pretext of serving Christ, most honorable sirs, that not a few both learned and pious men have been forced to hedge about on all sides anything that they inscribed to their friends, lest they should feel the bite of certain people who deny that a Christian can dedicate anything to another.
This custom is to be left to the impious and the unbeliever, for they are always obtaining something out of the well-to-do by persistent flattery. I am myself not clear upon which class one ought rather to bestow to klaiein ("one's lamentations")--those harmless flatterers, unbelievers though they be, or these governors and censors of everything, who after all are aiming at piety in their own way, even if they are most biting. As if in fact the apostles Peter, John, Paul did not dedicate such long letters publicly to whole churches or privately to friends that they may fairly be considered regular books, not only because of their size but also because of the grandeur and importance of their contents:
They wrote in such a way that their public letters benefitted all privately and their private letters benefitted all publicly.
They made a letter what might have been made a book.
So I might have made this whole booklet a letter instead of a book, preserving the same contents but not the same name.
But I do not care to use this defense with these people who accept no explanation except that they say with their usual bold recklessness,
"The apostles could do anything.
Whatever they did was right and pious."
I will accept their own theory while I send this little work to you. They say the reason why one may not indulge in such dedication is that those who do it are generally after something.
If, then, I show that I am not after anything, I may properly inscribe the work to you.
But, putting aside these Zoiloses, [2] lest I pursue them too closely, and someone may think they are of some account, [460] I will come to the real point.
When this subsidiary essay, such as it is, was getting ready to come forth, you seemed the only suitable people to whom to direct its first flight, for the odor of piety is so thoroughly yours that no time can take it away.
Moreover, the Church of Christ, also, has its models for posterity to observe and imitate, and how can these endure to posterity unless there be someone to commend them to the coming ages? Christ almost made it a law that the Magdalene's deed should come to all. people's knowledge through
the words of the apostles.
The apostles proclaim in their public letters those among the disciples especially distinguished for piety.
Now if I were commending you, most wise Bartholomew, because you long ago attained the rank of Councillor among the people of Bern, because you constantly display both wonderful wisdom and wonderful firmness, because you are surrounded by such cultivated children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, all devoted to you and obedient to your slightest wish, because now that you rest from your activities they give great promise of great achievement, and show in the flower of youth what they will be by and by when they have closed your eyes for the sleep of blessedness, because a numerous and comely progeny is growing up unto you from them, because an abundance of all material blessings attends you, because you are loaded with the applause of the crowd, then, I say, those bitter critics might fairly attack me for commending you on account of such empty trifles (pardon the term) which any wind may blow away, since nothing human is perfectly secure.
Moreover, since all persons proclaim your piety is so sound and your help so at the service of poor and struggling brethren in Christ, that it is clear you have not such a regard for the things I have mentioned, that you are in any way carried away by them.
Rather, you bear in mind that you should cling to him who gave them rather than to these things themselves.
Pious persons ought to be careful not to deprive coming generations of such an example.
These times are so tumultuous and hard beset that when persons of some future age shall gaze upon them, if indeed anyone shall depict them, I doubt not they will stand thunderstruck as in the presence of some sudden and vast storm, especially since all the disturbance takes its rise ar hestias ("from the hearthstone") of them that advertise--since they find no buyer, I will not say sell themselves as ecclesiastics.
[461] This dumbfounded astonishment of posterity will be relieved by those exceptional examples rescued from the floods, for people will see that alongside the greatest wickedness the greatest virtue grew and fought. To you, therefore, I have determined to dedicate this little supplementary essay upon the Eucharist, not that it can worthily proclaim the glory you have in the gospel of Christ, but by just this fact that I have been freely permitted to inscribe to you a line of argument most offensive to the Roman party, I bear witness that you are such people as the words of the most learned ought to consecrate to all time. For there are some who violently reject the dedications of pious persons or of pious works.
When, therefore, a thing so odious to the Roman party proclaims your names upon its very front, all will learn the unbroken and the unshaken power of your faith and integrity.
Brightly gleams the face of truth.
It blinds the eyes of
the feeble-sighted so that they cannot bear to gaze upon it. Then the poor wretches strive not to cure the trouble, so as to be able to look like the healthy upon this pleasant light, but straightway cry out, "Away, away with the one who dares to bring forth this curse," that is, the light of truth. Therefore, whoever leaps forth to give help, and champions the light thus betrayed, will surely win the highest favor from the truth itself which is Christ. What, pray, is blinder, more dark or obscure than to suppose that in the symbolic bread of the Eucharist we eat the bodily flesh of Christ?
What more foolish than to concoct with human rashness fictions with which to defend your utter madness, especially since neither the apostles nor the early believers in Christ so interpreted the words of the Savior as to allow us to suspect anything of the kind in them.
But if you now bring out from the source of Scriptures that with which to set the truth most clearly even before the perceptions of sense, you expose yourself not to mockery and reviling but to manifold pains and deaths. If, then, some Theseus or Patroclus [3] should come forth who, far from deserting the cause, was ready to champion it, what could one call holier, more faithful, more worthy of a Christian?
There come forward in this time many whose impatience with idolatry makes them defend the truth. They teach that what is visible cannot be adored without impiety, that the flesh profits nothing [cf. John 6:63], that the bodily flesh of Christ cannot be eaten.
If we refuse our aid to these champions, we shall not escape the reproach of being sluggish servants [cf. Mt. 25:26-30; Lk.
19:22-26], especially since some, while understanding the matter, yet take care of their skins by maintaining their silence, [462] and others have drunk so deeply of the mandrake of the soul that neither blows nor taunts can rouse them to any spiritual understanding.
Let us stand by the truth! However the coming ages shall treat her, let us at least not fail her:
Fated to perish are the minds that rage for the sake of the flesh and find no salvation in the promise, but full of strength and destined to endure forever are those that cling to the abundant grace of the Crucified One.
For they shall have everlasting life.
Read, therefore, this little supplement of mine and judge it by faith, nor fear them, that trusting in certain giants of other views, promise themselves a pitiable victory.
I am well armed.
Christ keep you all safe:
Zurich, August 17, 1525.
SUBSIDIARY ESSAY
OR CROWN OF THE WORK ON THE EUCHARIST
by Huldrych Zwingli I know there will not be lacking people who, as soon as they see the title of this pamphlet, will say it is quite right to send a subsidiary force to back up a feeble band, but I have no intention of replying to their pleasantries for two reasons.
You can never say anything with such careful exactitude that they will not venture to ridicule it, and they upon whom the main army has not been able to make any impression will with difficulty yield to a subsidiary force.
Yet there are not a few who have been moved by my former treatise on the Eucharist so that they allowed into consideration a most evident thing, to which their ears were long since more closed than to incantations.
It is for these that this subsidiary essay is intended, that what is incomplete in the earlier work because of the speed and haste of its publishing may here be in some part made good. Part others will provide.
For I am the most unfortunate of men in publishing books, and that is brought about by the unkindness of the times.
These are daily dragging me out of silence and hiding places for thinking, and compel me to write, yet meanwhile they persistently deny me the leisure and time for ripening.
It follows that all my writings might more justly be called impulses than real books.
But thanks be to God who teaches me by this sign, as it were, to refrain from any passion for glory and publish everything in simple faith, so that the further it is removed from the refinement and pride of art the more mighty it will be [463] for magnifying His glory, by which it is made clear to all people that my weapons are not of the flesh but are powerful through God.
Having, then, quite a while ago dealt with the matter of the Eucharist along with other topics in my Commentary, [4] and having published the book, I afterwards
remembered certain things which I had intended to insert in the early part of the treatment of the subject. I also thought of certain new things which, if I had had time for really mature consideration, could not have escaped me as seasonable to put in before the end. In the meantime, various people have raised various objections, of which I shall deign to reply to those that either through their own obscurity or through the poisoning of the critics have seemed capable of producing an injurious effect.
But first of all I have determined to meet the slanders of certain people. For there are people who say that I published this exposition of Christ's words unseasonably, and there are others who call me a disciple of Carlstadt. [5] Let them hear, therefore, for Christ's sake, my reply to these strictures, which shall be as true as it is free from all bitterness.
I have been, for more years than it is now fitting to say, of this opinion concerning the Eucharist.
I have published it in correspondence and in the Commentary. [6] It was my purpose not to scatter it among the public heedlessly, lest I might be casting pearls before swine, but to wait until I had conferred much with learned and pious men, so that a cause regarded by nearly everybody as of the greatest import might, when it was at length put forth, both have many champions and turn away that noisy ill-will by which its mere mad outcries frightens pious minds from reading, listening, and judging in such cases. The deliberation progressed satisfactorily.
Those with whom I joined issue kept coming over to my side, nay, generally breathed in new life, like men freed from long imprisonment, who had come back from darkness and deep solitude into the light and arms of their friends.
It was then Carlstadt came out with his exposition, a very violent one, as even devoted Carlstadtians declared after carefully considering the exposition of the fathers that I have restored to its rights.
I have learned also that he determined to come to Zurich for no other reason than to confer with me upon a thing unfamiliar to the ears of the people, though the melancholic spirit of certain people so thoroughly frightened him away from association with me that he did not even call upon me. And he was so fortified and [464] strengthened by the drug that he did not confer at all with the ministers of the word upon this matter, either at Basel or at Strassburg.
Those people of whom I said a little while ago that they were imbued with a melancholic spirit, knew my view about the Eucharist, yet could not be induced by any argument to agree with it.
When, however, they saw Carlstadt's exposition, they flew to Basel, and carrying his books upon their shoulders filled not only the cities, towns and cantons but almost all the farm houses with them. The harvest did not come up to their expectations. Few [465] accepted the view, though people were, I think,
frightened away by nothing but the harshness and violence of the exposition. What could I do next, I who am set over the preaching of the word at Zurich, since a great part of the brethren approved the doctrine in the main?
They had all come to know in their hearts from faith and my preaching how extraordinary it is to look for flesh and blood here, when Christ has said that his teachings about his flesh and blood are spirit and life, and yet so violent an expositon was not acceptable to them.
What, I say, could I do? Push them back into the old labyrinth contrary to my opinion in this matter, especially after I had seen the views and exposition of the fathers?
I was driven to disclose forthwith the trope there is in the Lord's words, and I did it so successfully that the brethren understood almost before I had explained it, though they had recoiled violently from Carlstadt's exposition.
This is the kind of disciple of Carlstadt I am. Not that I deprecate the use of the name of a man almost everywhere unknown, except insofar as I dislike all names of sects.
I, who fill the position of minister of the gospel, ought more than others to refrain from stamping people with the names of sects, since there is such an abundance of people who dare to make of bad repute, by means of hated names of sects and men, the purest teaching and ministry of the gospel itself.
This is, I think, answer enough to the first slander also.
How could I have come forth at a better time than when this matter was involved in an actually dangerous controversy?
Nay, how could I have seasonably kept silence when the fire of contention had already begun to blaze?
I had not promised to keep back this old opinion forever, but only so long [466] as should be necessary to guard against offenses and avoid an uproar. I am not ignorant of how the enemies of Christ abuse the simplicity of the people to provoke disturbances.
There was also the promise of the Commentary, for I had undertaken with God's help to finish that for the spring fair at Frankfurt. Ought I then to have concealed what I really believed, or to have pretended what I by no means believed? Certainly I am not ignorant of the fact that a Christian Proteus [7] should be all things to all people, but I know also that divine providence lays his bonds upon us in such a way that whether we will or no, we are forced to bring out what makes for his glory and the use of pious minds, even if very great danger threatens us.
I brought out, therefore, this true view of our thanksgiving, just when the situation demanded it, when Carlstadt was making a vigorous race indeed but altogether off the course. [8] Whoever, therefore, splashes me with his name simply show their own unfairness.
For who is so mad as not to see that I should never have come to Carlstadt's view if I had not learned from other authors that there is a trope in the Lord's words here, not an amphiboly nor an apostrophe nor a metabola? [9] But I come back to the subject.
I have not thought it worthwhile to go deeply again into what I have brought out in the Commentary.
| hope enough has been done for the really pious and strong in the faith who trust themselves to Christ in the deluge of today, as Noah once entrusted himself and his people and the remnant that was to survive the perishing world to the wonderful ark..[Cf. Gen.
7:1-9.] They that trust in Christ no longer demand Christ according to the flesh, for they know that the flesh profits absolutely nothing if you eat it. [Cf. Jn. 6:54, 63.] But at the same time it does not escape them that it profits very much if you believe that Christ was offered up in the flesh for you, [467] and trust in him.
This is the cork by which they swim away. By this ark are they saved.
They know that when Christ yielded up his life upon the cross, the veil of the temple was rent in two for this [cf. Mt. 27:51; Mk.
15:38; Lk.
23:45], that the believers might see all things laid bare and open that before had been wrapped in shadows and darkness.
For when the light is at hand, that is, the thing itself which was prefigured by forms like shadows, it is not right that any darkness be left, unless indeed the light is so faint that it cannot penetrate such heavy obscurity. This is so untrue of Christ that no mind can conceive him as mingled with any darkness.
Yet what darker obscurity was ever heard of, pray, than the notion that flesh and blood are eaten in that celebration (panegyric) in which the bread and wine are consumed?
What nations, what peoples, what cities have anywhere since humankind was made, I will not say invented or accepted such an argument, but reported it as invented or accepted?
They, therefore, who trust in Christ, know that salvation rests upon this thing only--that they trust--and that salvation has nowhere been promised for eating.
For what is written [Jn.
6:56], "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him," they know is spirit and life, and they know that they abide in Christ by faith and, on the other hand, have him in themselves as a present giver of comfort and peace.
Since, therefore, salvation has not been promised to carnal eating, they care nothing for this flesh, satisfied to believe that it was offered up for us, and to trust in him who was offered up in it. They know that flesh sits at the right hand of the Father and moves not thence until it comes back for the final reckoning with the whole world. [10] Salvation depends upon faith, not upon corporeal eating, and not upon the faith by which you imagine that you believe any imaginings of your own, but upon that by which you trust in the Son of God laid out on the cross for you. It has not, I say, seemed best to repeat what has been said at some length in the Commentary on this matter, since in the minds of the truly pious this doctrine is now securely established, that bodily flesh is not eaten here, but that there is a trope in Christ's words.
That this may be made plainer I will first pass to the
points that escaped my notice when I was writing the Commentary.
To these I shall add those which afterwards occurred to me. Finally I will make answer to certain criticisms.
Two points escaped me, one concerned with the express words of Christ, the other consisting of an argument or line of reasoning deduced from his words.
The words of Christ are those given in Matthew 26:29 where, after instituting the Eucharist, he says, "But I say [468] unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."
By these words Christ calls "wine" or "fruit of the vine" that very thing which he had just named figuratively his blood.
Nor can it be argued that a new discourse was begun with this, since the conjunction "but" forces us to look to the preceding words and makes the meaning, "You, indeed, have eaten bread and drunk wine as a symbol of commemoration, but I did not drink and will not drink of it until it is filled with new wine in my Father's kingdom."
And that Christ did not drink is clear from Luke [cf. Lk.
22:17, 18] who no doubt for this reason says that he did not allow himself to touch the wine before he instituted this festival and the Eucharist, in order that it might be plain that he abstained from wine when going to the altar just as much as in old times the priests had abstained from it when about to make offering.
We see that Origen [11] held this view in his Homily 7.] on Leviticus.
Whether, therefore, it was before ordaining the commemoration or immediately after the apostles had eaten the symbol that he declared he would abstain from wine, he certainly calls what they had drunk "wine". He never would have done this if, according to our visionary notions, he had given physical blood to be drunk or the apostles had believed that such was handed them or drunk by them.
For what uncertainty and confusion would have arisen in their minds if he had not called "wine" as soon as they had drunk it what he had just named as blood.
Would not every one of them have said to himself, "Please, wine is not blood.
Why, then, did he call it 'blood'?"
It is, therefore, plain from the very calmness of the disciples that they understood Christ's language rightly, but symbolically.
Nor ought it seem to anybody absurd that the disciples, at other times rather dull, immediately understood this form of speech. They were accustomed both to Christ's language and to the symbol of commemoration.
They had lived so closely with Christ that they could, by this time, estimate the force of his words from a mere gesture. They had celebrated the passover so often that what was instituted here had at once for them some likeness to the passover, where also the words "For it is the passover" [Ex. 12:11] had been used figuratively--of which a little later.
We clearly see, therefore,
that what he had given them to drink was called "wine" by Christ himself, and that the disciples thought they drank wine, not blood.
And it is exceedingly strange that we have all been so deluded in regard to this speech of Christ, "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, etc." [Mt. 26:29] [469] that no one has made it out, when from this one fact we might have recognized the truth in this matter, as one can a lion from its claw. [12]
The other thing that escaped my notice before is an argument drawn from Christ's own words in Matthew 26:27-28 and Mark 14:24. Luke's words [Lk. 22:20] I have examined in the Commentary. [13] These words are, "Drink all of this, for this is the blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
Here I will note only the word to, which is equivalent to qui est ("which is") It is clear to all who have a moderate knowledge o of Greek that protaktikoi, that is, "prepositive words" coming after the particular word to which they refer pass over into hypotaktikous, that is, "enjoined words", or what we call relatives, although generally relatives in Latin have not so much force as these subjoined prepositive articles, except perhaps the one word ille when used as a relative.
For prepositive Greek words of this sort, provided they are placed later than the words to which they belong, are used for qui est or quod est or the like, without a repetition of the word to which reference is made, while Latin relatives only recall the word to which they refer without including the force of the substantive verb. [469:18] When, therefore, in Matthew the designation of the symbolic cup is after this fashion: touto gar esti to haima mou to tes kaines diathékés, to peri pollón ekchynnomenon [Mt.
26:28] etc., that is, "Hoc enini <est Sanguis meus, qui est novi testamenti, qui pro multitudine effunditur" ("for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many, etc.". The second word to here has the force of qui est, so that Christ's whole remark means, "For this (the cup, namely that he was offering, as is easily seen if you examine carefully this conjunction gar, that is, enim ("for") and the word to, qui ("which") with haima, sanguis ("blood") before it) is my blood, which blood of mine is the blood of the new iesu. miermtoemwhichbiatueisiwuidtwobesortarvasyiteis, shed tion imany.!'
Here, therefore, this word to, qui est ("which is"), supplies a solid basis for my argument in this way: "The blood of Christ, insofar as it was shed, is the blood of the new testament."
But when Christ offered the cup, his blood had not yet been [470] shed.
Therefore he did not offer them the blood of the testament to drink.
It becomes clear, therefore, that this cup was not the blood of the testament, nor the testament itself, but a symbol of the testament.
The first remark or proposition, namely, "The blood of Christ, insofar as it was shed, is the blood of the new testament," gains strength in this way.
Christ himself explains
by his own words that this is the meaning when he says [Mt. 26:28], "which is shed for many for the remission of sins." The reason or purpose, therefore, of the shedding of blood is the remission of sins?
It is. But the free remission of sins through the blood of Christ is the new testament, as Jeremiah 31:31 foretold and Paul explains in Hebrews 8:8 and 9:15 and Colossians 1:14.
It follows, therefore, that the blood of Christ became the blood of the testament only when it was shed for us. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator,
Hebrews 9:16. The second proposition, namely, when Christ offered the cup, his blood had not yet been shed, is confirmed in this manner.
In Luke 22:15, Christ says, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer."
Since, therefore, he had not yet suffered, his blood had not yet been shed.
For that he should die and suffer for us, and that his blood should be shed for us, are equivalent expressions, as I have abundantly shown elsewhere, and as may be seen from Romans 6:10, Hebrews
9:12 and 1 Peter 2 and 3. No doubt, therefore, the third proposition also, which, for example, is gathered from these:
"therefore Christ did not offer them the blood of the testament to drink" stands so firm and unshaken that no skill and no force can overthrow or undermine it. Hence today we drink not the blood itself of the testament, but a symbol of the blood of the testament.
But lest someone find in another part a chink to break in by, saying, "Although we do not here drink the blood which the Jews drained on the cross, we yet drink that by which he lived.
For he says, 'For this is my blood."
Since, therefore, it had not then been shed, and yet his words cannot be vain, it must be that blood is drunk, albeit, perhaps, only that by which he lived"--lest, I say, shameless contentiousness should hope in this way to make itself a path to physical blood, these words of Christ must be well weighed:
"of the new testament".
[471] For since they are not willing to admit a trope here, they are forced to confess that what is drunk is the blood of the testament.
Since, therefore, the blood of the testament did not yet exist, because it had not yet been shed, they will be forced to confess that this speech of Christ is altogether vain and self-contradictory.
And what can be said that is more wicked, impure and abominable?
And yet it is impossible to avoid being driven into this hole if one does not admit a trope.
For when they stubbornly insist that this word est should be taken hyparktikos, that is, substantively, so as to mean that what was offered really was the blood of Christ, this is opposed by what follows, namely that this blood was not the blood of the testament, for it had not yet been shed.
It will follow, therefore, at the same time, that there was no blood there, for if the blood of the testament was not given then, absolutely no blood was given. For it is only this blood that is said to have been given then, if this word est is
taken in the substantive sense, as they persist in saying.
And this could not be given because it had not been shed, and it was not the blood of the testament unless it was shed.
So distinctly is it proved from these words of Christ that the blood of the testament was not given to the disciples at that time, however much my opponents rely upon these words for claiming physical blood.
I know that many darts can be thrown against me here, but they are vain. For instance, these words:
"Although the blood had not yet been shed, it was shed in a little while and it could have been brought to pass by the hidden power of God that the apostles drank the shed blood, though it had not yet been visibly shed.
All things are present to God," are a kind of extravagant tale or unsuitable place of refuge. But what reason is there, pray, why we are not willing to make up our differences and come to an agreement with the trope rather than weave an endless chain of contention?
Everyone knows that a contentious person never lacks for an answer, yet everyone of clear and solid faith also knows that, however we pretend the contrary, such answers savor of quarrelsome shamelessness rather than unstained piety, even if we perjure ourselves by the altars of all the gods of heaven or hell. For if there is any remnant of truth in the human heart, we shall openly confess that this notion of physical flesh and blood has never been free from suspicion in our sight. When, therefore, certain people leap forward so shamelessly to champion it, they seem to mock at the judgement and faith of all, just as if nobody could see what faith was, or blindness, trickery, and philautia ("self-love").
But if we accept the trope, we now sail into port. [14] Everything is clear and secure, and neither faith nor the common humanity nor the spirit of Scripture, which is full of tropes, raises the least difficulty. [472] Let us, therefore, depart from destructive strife, which, when united with her pernicious sister, obstinacy, would sooner see all things fall to destruction, even the truth itself, than give in. Let us see, therefore, how Christ's words square, if we admit the trope.
"This cup is a figure or symbol of my blood, which is the blood of the new testament because it is shed for the sins of many."
We find such tropes frequently in Scripture, and I will now speak briefly about them.
You find in the Holy Scriptures instances where things typified take the names of the things typifying them or the like.
Thus when Christ says that he is the vine [cf. Jn. 15:5], he who on account of a certain likeness of characteristics may be represented by a vine as a sort of symbol is kata metaphoran ("metaphorically") called "the vine", though he was not really a vine if you insist upon the material substance of the vine, while he is very thoroughly the real vine of which we are the branches
in that we flourish in him and by his grace, and unless we are in him, wither and dry up and cannot bring forth any fruit. [Cf.
Jn.
15:1-5.] Since, therefore, the vine displays a sort of type and image of God it becomes the name of that which it typifies, and Christ is called "the vine" metaphorically on account of kinship of characteristics, as has been said.
You can, on the other hand, find instances where the things that typify put on the names of the things typified, as when "sheep" is put for "the pious", or "wolves" for "the wicked" or for "tyrants" [Mt. 10:16], "the field" for "the world", "the enemy" for "the devil", the "reapers" for the "angels" in Matthew 123:38, 39. Of this kind of metaphor all the Scriptures and all discourses are full. [15] We cannot comfortably employ even everyday speech without them, calling one man a "pillar" or "the prow" or "stern" of the ship of state, another a "scourge", or a "devastating storm", or a "Catiline" or "Maelius". [16] When, therefore, you say that Camillus is a pillar of the city, or that [473] Cicero is the crowning ridge of the city you evidently speak figuratively. [17]
For neither is a real, that is, a material pillar or ridge. Suddenly stupid people jump up and cry that the thing was not said by analogy or figuratively, but that Camillus was really a pillar, and men more senseless than stocks and stones make a statue of one, a gable-end or ridge-pole of the other.
So also this, "The rock was Christ" is not to be understood in the sense that Christ is a rock made of stone, but since a rock has a certain likeness or resemblance to God, Christ is substituted for the name "rock". And when they say, "Christ was really a rock", they desire to impose upon our simple-mindedness. For this word "really" is ambiguous.
It is sometimes used of that which is in substance or essence of so and So, or as they say, essentially so and so, and sometimes of that which is so and so kath' hyperbolen, that is, by preeminence or beyond the ordinary. When, therefore, I say that. a statue is really of stone, I mean that it is stone in substance.
I do not thus mean that Christ is really a rock, that is, a rock in substance, but is really a rock, that is, beyond all rock in firmness, solidity, stability.
But it is doubly a trope when I say, "is really a rock", and there are two tropes in this expression, "Christ is really a rock"--hyperbole and metaphor.
Thus, therefore, faith or the fellow-feeling of the faithful cannot deny that the typifier has in the expression in question borrowed the name of the typified. [474]
This ought not to seem absurd to anyone, namely that a symbol or type should be used for the thing it typifies or of which it is a symbol, so that when we make commemoration in this festival by these symbols, bread and wine, of the body of Christ, his real, material body slain for us, and of his blood shed for us, we call the bread his body and the wine his blood because Christ called them so, and the disciples are clearly seen to have understood the matter so. Hereupon a certain person contradicts
in a pamphlet so excellent that if it had been offered to Sylla [18] it would have received a large reward from him, on condition that its author write no more--contradicts, I say, in this way:
"This is metonymia ("metonymy") whence this word est ("is") cannot be understood as significat ("signifies") but must be taken as hyparktikos, that is, in the "substantive sense".
What can you do with that kind of person, who in trying to defend himself by figures of speech which he does not understand, denies that a speech is figurative or tropical, when according to his own testimony there is a figure there?
Is not metonymia ("metonymy") a trope?
Come, let us see what metonymy really is, that you may yourself see, my fine fellow, that you do not understand your own cawing.
There is a metonymy according to Plutarch [19] in the life of Homer, whom you, no doubt, have never even greeted from afar, when an expression which properly applies to one thing signifies something else through some relation or connection between the two.
Thus we call wheat or bread "Ceres", wine "Bacchus" or "Lyaeus", because Ceres was the author of one [475], Bacchus of the other, and this implies an anaphora, that is, a relation, connection or analogy between them. But if in the expressions "This is my body" and "This is my blood" there is a metonymy, you obtain nothing, except, as it is said in trying to avoid Scylla, you fall into Charybdis. [20] For in your wish to deny that est is used for significat you make clear by your metonymy that the symbols bread and wine are no more themselves the flesh and blood of Christ than wine and bread are themselves Bacchus and Ceres. These are called so because Ceres taught to cultivate wheat as Bacchus taught the cultivation of the vine, and so also Christ instituted the Eucharist. Therefore these symbols, the bread and wine, are called Christ, the body of Christ, the blood of Christ, by metonymy, not because they are those things, for example, Christ's body and blood, but because they were instituted by Christ.
I called the figure a metaphor, because this trope is of the widest accessibility both in the case of nouns and in the case of verbs.
When, therefore, I say that the trope in our expression should be explained as a metaphor, I make it free to you to explain by metaphor the nouns or this verb est or both. Take the nouns firsts) "This is) my body," that is, "This bread is a symbol of my body." Now take the verb, "This is my body," that is, "This bread signifies my body, that is to say, given for you." Finally explain both noun and verb tropically:
"This is my body," that is, "This bread signifies a symbol of my body," that is, "not otherwise than like a symbol, for I do not want to say a symbol of a symbol, it will constantly recall to you the memory of my body which has been offered up for you." And when you explain the expression by metonymy, do not both expositions aim to show that the bread and wine are in no way the body and blood but signs of these?
Except that you say there is a metonymy where, properly speaking,
there is no metonymy.
But now I will draw in my sails [21] as far as this argument is concerned.
We can, I say, discover from the very words of Christ that they must be explained by. tropes, as has now been shown in regard to the offering of the cup. He used such words that, unless you admit a trope, you are forced to confess that the words are not merely obscure but contradictory, vain and utterly inconsistent.
While, on the other hand, if you admit a trope, everything is clear and easy to understand, and nothing is left which causes trouble.
So much for the argument which is based on Christ's words spoken upon offering the cup.
If they compel us to admit a trope here, as they certainly do, [476] there is nothing further to say of the words spoken upon handing the bread. For they are a part of one and the same institution. Therefore, passing over these, I go on to the other points.
And the points that occurred or were suggested to me as new are dlso two, of which one is testimony of Scripture, the other an argument based on Scripture, but I will reverse the order and put the argument in the first place here.
It is not mine, but Heinrich Engelhardt's, once Doctor of Pontifical Law, now a poor disciple of Christ, [22] who when we were discussing on April 1l before the Council of the Diacosii, that is the Two Hundred, the question of the abolition of the Mass and adoration of the bread and wine, a certain clerk [23] (whether he be white or black it is not now my purpose to say) happened to get up and cry out in this fashion:
"I do not, Gentlemen of the Council, occupy a rank or place that would entitle me to speak before you if a subject, however important, were under discussion that had to do with the administration of the state, but since the cardinal point of the salvation of souls is at stake here and faith itself in peril, I think it is every man's right to speak out what he thinks.
I, therefore, firmly believing that in this bread real body and real blood are eaten, bear witness that I hold this opinion and shall not suffer myself to be torn from it, and I hope that you, Gentlemen of the Council, are not going to drive me in any way into Zwingli's opinion.
And you, Zwingli," he said, "have most vigorously withstood the subtleties of the sophists, but now, to say plainly what I think, you seem to be trying to ensnare us again with the scoffing of the sophists."
And he made much other complaint as to the matter, and as he thought, cleverly and weightily. Then
I answered those of his remarks which seemed worthy of answer, for example, that no one had ever been forced to faith at Zurich or to anything.
Nor was it sophistical for anyone to explain the word est ("is") by significat ("signifies")--he had said this was sophistical. When, I say, I had made answer to the points that [477] have something of strength, he gave himself to this weapon, "This is what I believe and what the words 'This is my body' say. Est is a substantive verb; therefore it cannot have any other meaning than that bread
is flesh," and similar objections which the devotees of the flesh make.
Then, I say, Heinrich, a man of weighty judgement, said, "Listen a bit. I will show you abundantly from the Holy Scriptures that the bread cannot be the body of Christ."
Then he talked in this fashion, or thereabouts:
"Gentlemen of the Council, if in any matter we have ever been perniciously in error, it has been the case in the adoration of the Eucharist, and not only perniciously but also foolishly.
For since by Christ's own admonition, who bids us examine the Scriptures [cf. Jn. 5:39], we ought to interpret Scripture by Scripture, what reason, pray, why we should not traverse the whole Scripture of the New Testament to make clear the various ways in which the body of Christ is spoken of in this passage? Now we find that there is altogether a threefold mention of Christ's body in the sacred writings. First we find that natural body spoken of which was born of the Virgin, by which he hungered and thirsted, felt heat and cold, was glad or sad, and which was finally slain upon the altar of the cross for us. Secondly, the body raised from the dead and purified from defects, which he presented miraculously to his disciples to touch.
Finally, his mystical body, the Church.
Let us consider carefully, therefore, which of these bodies is given here to the disciples.
Not the first one, the natural body, for in that case it could not be eaten without being chewed and ground up by the teeth like other foods, and from this kind of eating Christ himself turned us away in John 6:63, when in answer to the Jews who were thinking of the eating of a material body while he was speaking of the trust to be put in himself, he said, 'The flesh profits nothing."
By this he was wishing particularly to show the error of their delusion as to corporeal eating.
He profits nothing in this way, either ground by the teeth or digested by the stomach.
Besides, if the disciples had eaten him in this fashion, they must have eaten in a different way from us, for when they ate he had not yet been slain on the cross. Furthermore, how could he have been eaten in the body who was to be stretched bodily upon the cross?
Since, therefore, he says himself that he profits nothing swallowed in the body, it is established that the words 'This is my body' should on no account be understood of the natural body so that the bread is the body. For the body profits nothing in this fashion, since it is flesh. Nor were they able to have understood concerning the body in the second manner.
First because the disciples would not have eaten him in the way we do, for when they ate he had not yet been slain, much less [478] raised from the dead. Secondly, because this body, which by rising from the dead he made absolutely pure and undefiled, he took to heaven where he sits at the right hand of God until that day when he will judge the world, waiting until his enemies be made his footstool, Hebrews 10:13.
As to the mystical body which is the Church, the words of Christ cannot be understood of it. Were it so, the words 'This is my
body' would have no other meaning than 'this bread is my Church'.
For the Church is not given for us, and there immediately follow the words 'which is given for you'.
Since, therefore, Christ was given for us, not the Church (for what is the Church but ourselves?), we may infer that there is a trope in these words, and that they cannot be understood in any way as applying to the carnal body of Christ."
The aforementioned clerk objected that Christ was born of a virgin and that this was just as repugnant to our feeling as was the carnal eating.
I made answer at the time briefly, but since I am going to treat the objection more at length later, I will say nothing on the point now.
But inasmuch as I have begun to touch upon the story, and it all makes for my purpose, I will continue it further.
After the altercation with the clerk, the Council decreed that after dinner four councillors--Leo, Megander, Myconius, and I--should hold a conference with Heinrich Engelhardt, and thoroughly [479] ventilate the important matter. [24] And this was done chiefly for the purpose of satisfying in every respect certain noisy people.
We discussed the question for some time from various points of view, but (lest someone accuse me of betraying secrets)
I will only say the result of the whole discussion was that on the next day, April 12th, the entire subject was again brought before the Council.
I wil speak here in passing about the usage in regard to the Council of the Two Hundred, on account of which some people revile us because we allow things which ought to belong to the whole Church to be managed by two hundred, when the Church of the whole city and neighboring territory numbers seven thousand more or less. [25] Let these people, therefore, understand this:
I who am set over the preaching of the word at Zurich have previously given free warning to the Two Hundred that I suffer the things that belong to the jurisdiction of the whole Church to be put in their hands for decision only on condition that their deliberations and decisions be under the guidance of the word, also that they themselves do not occupy the place of the Church except insofar that the Church itself has by silent consent thus far kindly accepted their enactments or decisions.
I have published the same view among the entire Church.
I have reminded the people at this time, when some are carried away by the most senseless feelings which they yet desire to have regarded as the Spirit, if it please the gods, certain things cannot safely be entrusted to the general congregation.
Not that I am afraid that the Most High God will fail to direct his Church, but that the occasion for contention should not be brought in while the subject is still in its early stages.
I have, therefore, advised the people to entrust the decision in external things to the Two Hundred on the condition that everything be ordered according to the rule of the word, promising at the same time that if they began to scorn the authority of the word, I would immediately come forward and [480] proclaim it. The Church has until this day consented, though it published no decree upon the matter.
By the quiet and calmness which it has thus far manifested, it shows its consent so clearly that one may be sure that it would take it very ill if anyone should try to block the advance of the gospel by cunning inquisitiveness.
It knows at the same time that we ought so to use these things for the honor of Christ and ourselves, and that Christian peace shall be maintained.
Whatever, therefore, comes up in regard to changes in rites and ceremonies is referred to the Council of Two Hundred, not without precedent, for Antioch sent only two to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas, and did not itself pronounce judgement as it had the right to do. [Cf. Acts 15:2ff.] The reason was that it feared unrestrained contention which is apt to be the more violent the bigger the assembly. That the Two Hundred act in these matters not in their own name but in that of the Church appears from this: that whatever is determined upon among us, for example, in the matter of images, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the like, they leave free to the churches in the towns and the outlying territory, where, doubtless, since the churches are-not so very large, they. see that there is no great reason to fear a flaming up of contentiousness. The plan has worked in such a way you can easily tell it is from God.
Thus, before everything, I have been accustomed to instruct the multitude well in the questions which were to be considered by the Council.
Consequently, it has happened that whatever the Two Hundred together with the ministers of the word ordained had already been decided in the minds of the faithful.
Afterwards I have approached the Council of Two Hundred that in the name of the whole Church they might order carried out what circumstances demanded, so that all things should be done at the right time and with propriety.
Therefore it has happened that the evil of contentiousness has been kept away from the Church at large simply because of its very large numbers and the recklessness of impulsive feelings, and was relegated to a place where it could be listened to without danger and overcome. For the ears of magistrates and judges become hardened to quarreling and strife.
This is the way we employ at Zurich the Council of Two Hundred, our highest power, in place of the Church.
Now I return to the subject in hand.
When, therefore, on the twelfth day of April, I went back to the Council and worked to have the mass altogether abolished, our clerk stepped forth again and sang the same song, adding that I had, to be sure, taught that the word "is" in Christ's utter-
ance here was used for "signifies"
[481] but had hardly proved by testimony of Scripture that it should be so understood.
The expressions "The seed is the word of God", Luke 8:11, and "The field is the world, the enemy is the devil, etc.", Matthew 13:38, 39, had nothing to do with the case, for Christ spoke in these instances parabolice ("in parables")--the learned gentleman decked out his German speech with this ornament--but not so when he said, "This is my body."
I answered him briefly in this way (and I make the same answer now to those who care for contention rather than truth, and have the audacity to hunt out in so plain a matter a tangled and dark spot in which to hide, displaying their own ignorance like our clerk, and saying that in the aforesaid passages Christ spoke in parables and there is a trope hidden in them): no one can deny that Christ put forth two parables, one in Luke 8 on the seed of the word, the other on the seed of the devil in Matthew 13.
In these passages no one can help seeing that the language is figurative throughout the whole text of the parable.
When the parable is finished, the disciples ask in one passage, "What is this parable?" and in the other, "Explain to us the parable of the tares."
Christ, first saying, "it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, etc.", thereupon discloses the parable and shows what each thing signifies.
Who then is so dull and stupid as to say there is a parable where Christ is avowedly explaining the parable?
And when he says, "The seed of which I spoke to you just now is the word of God, etc.", who is so senseless as to say that the parable is still going on, when by the perfectly clear words of Christ and the disciples, it has been so evidently broken off? If there is a parable here also, where, pray, is the parable of the seed and the tares explained?
Yet these people raise an outcry all the same, that it must be a parable, because the field is not the world nor a seed the world; therefore, the utterance cannot help being a parable.
This was just what I wanted, that you should display your ignorance, namely that you do not know the difference between a parable and a trope. A parable is an analogy or a comparison.
A trope is the transferring and changing of a word from its natural meaning, and the adaptation of it to another having some affinity with it, as a plant is transferred from its native soil to another. [26]
It is a parable when in Matthew 25:14
Christ says, "As a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods, etc."
For this shadows forth the ministry and urgent promulgation of the word.
It is a trope when he says, [482] "You ought, therefore, to have put my money at the exchangers,"
[Mt.
25:27] by which he signifies that they to whom that office had been entrusted ought to have persevered with the word.
It is a parable when he says [Mt.
13:47f.], "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea, etc."
It is a trope when he says [Jn.
15:5], "I am the vine, you are the
branches."
So also there is a parables when he says [Mt.
13:3], "A sower went out to sow his seed, etc."
It is a trope when he says [Lk. 8:11], "The seed is the word of God." No seed, for example that of wheat or barley, is the word, but the seed of which he had spoken was the symbol of the word. Nor can anyone properly say that these examples from Scripture do not apply here because in them Christ is speaking in a parable. For he had already finished the parable and was plainly showing what he had intended by it.
So also in our passage, "This is my body," the word "is" is put tropically for "signifies", so that the sense is "This signifies or typifies that my body has been given for you," or "This is a symbol of my body that has been given for you."
I answered, I say, to this effect, though less at length than here, and, putting away contentiousness, left the Council.
The Council promulgated a decree [27] in the name of the whole Church after this fashion or thereabouts:
"You shall celebrate the Eucharist hereafter, God willing, according to the institution of Christ and the apostles.
The weak who are still in a crude state of faith may, simply on this account, employ the old way.
The mass shall be altogether abrogated, abolished, done away with, and shall not be performed even tomorrow."
Presently, and may it prove of happy issue, the whole Church gave thanks, save only a few of the weaker and more ignorant--to say nothing really harsh--who could not yet even bear to gaze upon the brightness of the new light.
Christ Jesus, God and human, the true light, enlighten us all, so that whoever is under illusion may plainly see what is true.
Not the smallest part of my labor was still left--the bringing forward of illustrations not combined with any parable. I began, therefore, to reflect and to go over everything again, yet no other illustrations occurred to me than what are given in the Commentary, [28] or whatever came to mind was like those.
But when the thirteenth day was at hand (I am telling what is true--so true that though I would gladly hide it, my conscience compels me to utter what the Lord has imparted to me--though I know very well to what insult and ridicule I shall expose myself) when, I say, the thirteenth day of April was at hand, I had a dream that I was again, to my great annoyance, contending with the hostile clerk, and that I had been struck so dumb that my tongue refused to fulfill its function and I could not speak what I knew to be true.
This distress seemed to oppress me terribly, as dreams do sometimes mock us in the treacherous night (for it is nothing deeper than a dream that I] am telling, as far as I am concerned, though it is no slight thing that I learned through a dream, thank
God, to whose glory alone I speak of this.) Thereupon apo mechanes ("as by supernatural power") an adviser seemed to stand beside me (he may have been black or white, I cannot remember, [29] for it is a dream I am telling) who said, "Why do you not answer
him, sluggard, what is written in Exodus 12:11, 'It is the passover,' that is, 'the passing over of the Lord'?"
As soon as I had had this vision [484] I awakened and leaped out of bed. I examined the passage in the Septuagint, first from every point of view, and spoke upon it to the best of my ability before the whole people.
When this sermon was heard, it scattered all the mist from the eyes of all the candidates in theology who, as I shall tell a little later, had thus far found something of a stumbling block in the parable matter.
It happened that on those three days, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, Christ's passover was attended as I have never seen it, and the number of those that looked to the garlic and flesh pots of Egypt
(Num. 11:4-5] was far smaller than I had expected.
But now I will take up the passage itself.
Not to make too long a story which I had yet reasons for introducing here, there is another illustration from.
Scripture, which occurred to me after the publishing of the Commentary, contained in Exodus 12:11, to this effect, "with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand: you shall eat it in haste; it is the passover, that is, the passing over of the Lord."
In order to treat this passage more satisfactorily, I wish to go into the matter of the passover somewhat deeply.
Paul writes in Hebrews 10:1 that the law had had a shadow of good things to come.
Now, since among all the shadows and the things perfected in Christ none more plainly correspond to each other than the passover of the ancestors and the offering of Christ upon the cross, it happens that none of the apostles and none of the doctors hold any other view than that the passover is a most clear foreshadowing of the death of Christ.
Christ himself is the true passover by which the sanctified are perfected unto eternity, that is, by which believers are freed from the slavery of sin and enter into heaven.
Hence Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, etc." Christ himself also shows this by both word and deed, saying two days before passover, "You know that after two days will be the feast of the passover, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to be crucified" [Mt. 26:2] meaning thereby that at this passover the lamb that takes away the sins of the world was to be slain.
It is as though he said, "You know that after two days the feast of the passover is here.
This is the passover at which the Son of Man will be slain."
During the eating of the feast he thus displayed the depth of his feelings [Lk.
22:15]:
"With desire [485] I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer."
By this he sought to do away with the old festival and institute a new one, substituting for the commemoration of the deliverance of a single people from bondage to Egypt the commemoration of the redemption of the world from the power of the devil and
of death.
He was slain in the very midst of the feast, that even the unbeliever might see that everything was regulated by the providence of heaven.
Since, therefore, no one denies that the festival which was in old days celebrated in memory of deliverance in the flesh passed over into our Eucharist, that is, the thanksgiving by which we express our joy--not that the flesh has been set free, but that the world has been reconciled with God through his Son--no passage from the Old Testament ought to be examined more for light upon the force and meaning of Christ's language than this in which the passover of old was instituted.
For in the sacred writings similar things are somehow expressed in similar language.
Thus when, in Genesis 18:9-12, Sarah is slow to believe that she is to be a mother, the Lord says, according to the Septuagint version, "Is anything impossible to the Lord?" With the same words afterwards the divine Virgin Mary is told that she and her kinswoman Elizabeth are to give birth:
"for with God nothing shall be impossible." [Lk. 1:37] But why do I labor to bring forth illustrations when both testaments are here before us and one was the shadow of the other, and those men of old looked at everything through figures? Let us then, letting everything else go, compare the words about the old lamb with those about the new and everlasting one, that this matter we are disputing about may be clear.
When God had shown in Exodus 12:11 what sort of lamb or sheep they were to slay and in what manner, he added finally, "and you shall eat it in haste; for it is the 'passover, that is, the leaping or passing by of the Lord."
The word "for" is used here to give the reason why it was to be divided in haste, since he had said "You will eat it in haste." This word I think was brought over from here and put into Christ's words by the Romanists when they said "For this is my body." Would that they had not at that same time passed over the force of the preceding "is" in regard to the symbol itself of the leaping:
This word "is" is used in this passage without any suspicion of parable, for the causal conjunction "for" requires that this be understood in its proper signification--and yet not in a substantive sense even if what had gone before had been a parable. For it gives the reason why the passover is to be distributed in haste.
If, therefore, we insist upon understanding "is" in a substantive sense, what, pray, can be said that is more ridiculous?
For how could a lamb be a leaping when the leaping had not yet been made? For that passing by or leaping by which the first born of the Hebrews and not of the Egyptians were spared did not follow until the next night.
Who, therefore, will be so slow, not to say dull or obstinate, as not to see [486] that "is" is used in this passage for "signifies"
Oretor Sit asva. symibol" of "iti issacfigure-of speech"
Thatlamb; eaten by all the descendants of the Hebrews, signifies nothing else than that their fathers had been passed over when the Lord
ZZ slaughtered all the first-born in Egypt.
"Is", therefore, cannot be understood in any other way than that mentioned, namely as for "it is a symbol" or "figure".
Thus, the meaning is, "You will eat it in haste, for it is a symbol or figure of the Lord's passing over."
That this is so the Lord's own words bear witness, in which he gives the method of teaching posterity about that benefit and symbol in the same chapter, thus [Ex. 11:26,
27]:
"And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You will say to them, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, when he passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, striking the Egyptians and delivering our houses."
Lo, he now calls "sacrifice"
"passover'", that is, "passing over of the Lord" what he had shortly before called "the passover".
It is not because it was the passover, but because it was the sacrifice or symbol of the passover! What reason is there now, pray, why some people's minds are unwilling to admit the same trope in the ordination of the new and eternal thanksgiving? Everything agrees and corresponds so thoroughly that he who is unwilling to yield seems to wish to destroy and not to build up.
A commemoration is instituted in the one case and in the other.
In the one it is of deliverance in the flesh, in the other of reconciliation unto the Most High God.
In the first case the symbol of commemoration was instituted before the thing had been accomplished of which it was to be the symbol in the fleeting ages.
So in the other was instituted the symbol of the killing of Christ for us before he was killed, which was yet to be in ensuing time the symbol of his having been killed.
There was instituted in the evening the figure of the deliverance which followed on the morrow. The type of the thanksgiving was instituted in the evening, though the reconciliation itself did not follow until the next day, when Christ the true herald proclaimed that all was finished.
The Egyptians ran about in the old days, trying everything in vain as their slaves were escaping; when Christ died, the sun and the earth, the stones, the veil of the temple and the underworld itself were convulsed.
[Cf. Mt. 27:51-53, Mk.
15:38, Lk.
23:45.] The former were indignant that their slaves abandoned their tasks, the latter that savage murderers had slaughtered the Son of God, who had reconciled his runaway slaves with the Lord of Heaven.
The one went down in the deep like stones, the other came forth from the depths to be witnesses to the vivification of their souls.
When in the earlier case the lamb had been devoured in the evening, in the middle of the night the angel of the Lord began to slay the first-born of the Egyptians and to pass over Israel. In the latter, when the bread and the wine had been consumed in the evening, in the dead of night the Onlybegotten of God, our First-born, was taken, that the devil might be bound and death itself swallowed up, while God's avenging
justice spared those whose hearts had been sprinkled with the blood of Christ.
But why do I attempt to compare the shadow with the substance in detail, when, [487] as soon as the name "passover" is heard, the faithful heart takes in the commemoration of Christ's death? Why, then, are we so bold as to deny in the light the trope that we see so plainly in the shadow, especially when the admission of the trope makes all things plain, while its denial obscures all things and makes all things troubled, confounded and hopeless? For who has never stumbled in this darkness?
Or, rather, who has not always stumbled?
We sometimes hold Eris favorably [30] which we want to have considered divine zeal, not foreseeing what an opportunity for protecting itself we leave to the kingdom of the papists by this monstrous opinion.
But here certain brawlers try to make the simple think the argument is punctured by this little pin-thrust: in the Hebrew the word est does not appear in this passage, as also in Genesis 41:26, "the seven good cattle are seven fruitful years," the word "are" does not appear.
What wonder that all things are full of dissension, when everyone ventures thus to impose upon the untaught as suits his own whims, and that by the kindness of languages as if one had a right to abuse them for the defense of nonsense?
Thus, being jackdaws, we would make ourselves eagles.
We have scarcely learned the name of a language, and we boast of it as if we had spent all our life in the study of it, and, what is most reckless and shameless of all, we would make the untaught believe that those who are more learned than we, are ignorant of the language.
Suppose the Hebrew does not have the word "is" in the one passage, the word "are" in the other. Neither does the Greek have "is" in that passage, but esti, nor does the German have "is" but ist And in the (Uer passage; Genesis 41:26, neither the Greek nor the German has "are" but eisi, and sind respectively.
If there are not in the Hebrew words équivalent toss andW ares, why, pray, do we look for a knot in the bulrush? [31]
As if everybody not ignorant of the Hebrew tongue did not know that the words hu [HU'] and hif [HI'] and hemma [HEMMAH] and henna
[HENNAH] are constantly used for ipse or ipsum est, ipsa est or ipsi or ipsa sunt, ipsae sunt when they are not combined with a verb:
Thus if the evangelists had written Christ's own words neither we should have "this is my body," nor would the Greeks, but bassari. hif [BESARI 'Hi'). And what is this, if you translate T3 but what we now have?
So, too, in that passage in Exodus 12:11 when we read in Hebrew paesu hu [PESAH HO'), what is this but "this is the passover"?
See [488] what these sciolists resort to, what twists they set up in order not to seem beaten.
Does not Luke 22:20 also speak thus without x substantive verb in the handing of
to hyper himon ekchynomenon, that is, "this cup, the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you"? Yet, if you wish to explain fully all the articles here you must translate "this cup 'is' the new testament in my blood."
How stupid, therefore, or rather, how unfair, to throw dust in the eyes of the untaught [32] with these linguistic tricks, when the meaning of the words is the same in both Latin and Hebrew: For what languages are so closely akin to each other that they use the same words?
Let us cease putting forth such subterfuges then, and yield to the evident truth. How senseless it is, when those people have been so dull they have not understood the trope in this speech, for us to defend their stupidity with the weapons of Chrysippus: [33] ,
But it is well that they say the ingenious devices of Chrysippus prick but do not pierce. So also the tricks and artifices like the above do not pierce into the souls of the faithful, though they may prick and pinch them a bit.
Or are we not unjust judges who formerly answered, when the battle over driving [489] images out of the temple raged, and the enemies of them made it a reproach that many worshipped the statues themselves, calling one St.
Peter, another Wendelin, [34] that though we used the form of expression, "This is St.
Peter," yet everyone knew that the statue was not St.
Peter but represented him, or was an image of him?
Behold we recognize the trope here, which yet consists in no other word than in the verb "is". These, then, are the things which escaped my mind when I was hurrying through the Commentary, or which occurred to me afterwards.
If they had been put in then, perhaps they would have helped the effect so much that I should be living in peace and quiet now, the conflict over.
I will now hasten on to the points the adversaries make against me.
Some, therefore, offer this objection:
"'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not appearing.' [Heb.
11:1] Let no one be astonished, therefore, that bodily flesh is insisted upon here, because it is abhorrent to all sense that a real and living body can be eaten.
There is need of faith here to believe that this is so.
For if we made the declaration on the judgement of sense, it would not be 'the evidence of things not appearing.'
The senses themselves would perceive that the thing was so." To such I answer that there are as many errors in this objection as it takes words to utter it. Yet the whole misconception flows from the fact that we fail to understand properly the teaching Paul gives in Hebrews ll:l. We fancy faith is a sort of silly notion by which, with a kind of blind recklessness, we believe things which are altogether opposed to sense.
Men have always erred in this way, even among the gentiles, as, for example, when we say, "Socrates was killed because he made some rather rude jokes upon a multiplicity of gods."
Why, pray, did he not look out for his life, and believe [490] in the existence of this medley of gods? Because he could not. "Yet others believed," you will say.
I answer, "Very few, though they wished to seem to do so."
It is inconsistent with all senses for there to be many gods, provided that we understand by God that supreme good which contains all things and can do all things.
It is impossible that the highest should be multiple.
But those who demanded of Socrates that he should think with them that many gods existed were by their audacity rather more stupid than endowed with intelligence or faith.
For if Socrates had said that he believed in a great crowd of gods, he would have matched the faith of his enemies. He would have confessed with his tongue a multiplicity of gods, yet would not have believed it in his heart any more than his adversaries themselves did, but with this difference, that Socrates would have known that he did not believe in the existence of many gods, while his adversaries, in consequence of their blind vanity, would never have reflected whether it was likely that there were many or not. They plunged head first into the defense of the commonly received error.
Let us now accept this dictum, "There are many gods" and persuade Socrates to believe that there are many on the ground that faith is "the evidence of things not appearing."
For Socrates has never seen that there are many gods, and faith applies to things not appearing.
Therefore Socrates will never attain to faith unless he believes in what does not appear.
Behold the dilemma into which we put ourselves when we maintain from these words of Paul about faith that there is bodily flesh involved in question; we really overturn faith completely just when we seem to be insisting upon it, and make faith apply to things that cannot be believed.
There is also another matter in which the uninstructed err, namely the meaning of the word "sense".
They think that this word is put for the organs of sense or for the perceptions of the flesh when we say a thing is inconsistent with sense.
Here they leap forth, crying, "Of course this thing is inconsistent with sense, for it is not perceived," or "Of course it is inconsistent with flesh, for flesh does not grasp the things of the spirit." [Cf.
1 Cor. 2:14.] But "sense" is here put for "mind" and "judgement", not that which belongs to flesh and blood, but that which comes from the Spirit of God and is contained in our hearts. When, therefore,
I say that it is inconsistent with sense for bodily flesh to be eaten, I wish to be understood as meaning that every [491] mind, even the believer, is opposed to this notion. For what would be the use of speaking of the organs of sense or of the flesh, saying that these revolt at this notion?
Everybody knows they do. Go and talk to the unbeliever about this eating of the bodily flesh of Christ.
You will be laughed at not only becàuse of the ridiculous statement but also because of Christ himself.
I want, therefore, to explain in a few words Paul's view
about faith.
"Faith," he says in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of the things we hope for, the evidence of the things that are not seen." Everyone knows that "substance" is used here for that attitude of mind which every believer has--at least, everyone knows who sees how varied is the use among the Greeks of that word hypostasis ("substance").
Faith is, therefore, that general constitution of mind which a person has and feels that he has towards those things towards which we aspire, towards which we direct all our hopes. The words that follow are an explanation of the preceding:
"the evidence of the things not seen." Elenchos is the Greek word, which the Latin translators rendered "evidence".
Perhaps "experience" would square better here at this time when the barbarisms of sophistry cling to us and everyone interprets words in his own way, scarcely accepting their real sense.
Now this is Paul's idea:
"I have said that faith is not only this notion but the thing by which we cling to things hoped for." And, to speak more clearly, this notion is not something that consists in a human device alone or in a doubtful opinion; it is clear experience by which a person tests in himself how great the confidence is he has in things that are not seen. It is, therefore, a sure experience by which a person is conscious in himself of an infallible belief and confidence in regard to God and towards God, the object of his hopes.
When, therefore, our friends strike at us with "Faith is the evidence of things not appearing,"
I say they are guilty of manifold error.
In the first place, some of them are so far from having a sound understanding that they imagine things set up for belief ought to be no way probable even to a believing mind.
What can be said cruder than this?
For "not appearing" is put for "not seen or perceived by sense".
Erasmus renders the idea fitly by "things that are not seen". [35] Then they err in taking argumentum ("argument") for materia ("subject matter"), as when we speak of the "argument" of a book, that is, the mass of material which is treated.
It is not used in this way, but for "the sure experience of which a person is clearly conscious in himself."
Finally, they err in fancying that faith applies to everything that is not seen.
For Paul is not speaking of that kind of faith, since it does not make blessed nor render the mind tranquil. He is speaking only of the faith that saves, and faith makes no person blessed unless it be directed towards those things which alone ought to be hoped for. For he had said before that faith is that substantial basis which we have for things hoped for.
Now he adds, "But the things [492] hoped for are not seen, yet though they are not seen, they are still present in the heart of the pious person by means of the sure experience of his soul."
When, therefore, they say, "There is need of faith in this thing, for faith applies to the things which are not subject to sense," they betray that they are more eager to speak than to speak rightly.
For it is
the faith in the things that ought to be hoped for by which we are united with the blessed, not by faith in the existence of things denied to the sense.
Angels, demons, souls freed from bodies are not subject to sense, and we have faith that they exist (see how I now vary the meaning of the word "faith", as also they do and are deceived, for I now use it for credulity, not for confident trust).
But these are not the things we are accustomed to hope in, and it does not make one blessed if you believe in the existence of angels or demons.
So, too, in our passage, what need is there of this faith that bodily flesh is eaten, since such faith would not make blessed? For hopes are not put before us in this sense, so that if you believe that bodily flesh is eaten you are saved. Let no one, therefore, bring up against me any more, "Unless we believe that flesh is eaten thus, we shall be robbed of salvation." For faith has not to do with such and is not directed towards the things that ought to be hoped for. They therefore only envelop us in empty clouds who bring up these things so ignorantly.
For the faith that we believe flesh is eaten, neither Christ nor the apostles anywhere teach is salvation-giving.
This I have written more at length than I had intended, but these people are accustomed to twist themselves into all sorts of things.
Secondly, they urge that there are many things in the divine writings which are inconsistent with all sense, which you must yet believe or you are an infidel.
For instance, that Christ was born a real man endowed with a real body from an undefiled virgin, that he walked erect and without sinking upon the waters
[cf. Mt. 14:25-32], rendered himself invisible and went away through the midst of his enemies [Lk. 4:30], and that he came forth from the tomb the third day by his own power. To all this I easily make answer from the foregoing.
For when they say it is inconsistent with sense that Christ should be born of a virgin, see how they vary the meaning of this word "sense", taking it for human senseperception, and not for that judgement which the faithful mind weighs and balances according to faith. It is, therefore, not inconsistent with sense that Christ chose to be born of a virgin.
For that is plainly recorded in the writings of the apostles. Therefore the faithful heart is not dumbfounded by it and does not draw back, for the faithful cannot help believing the clearest word.
Matthew 1:20 says, "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit,"
Luke 1:26-27:
"the angel was sent to a virgin,"
Luke 1:34:
"How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?", and Luke 1:35:
"The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, etc."
All these things are so clearly treated that no one can surmise that there is a trope or a riddle hidden in them.
Then the pious mind finds wonderful delights in searching for the reasons why the lamb chose to be born of a perpetual virgin, but in this other case it finds nothing but a hopeless [493] horror. The birth from a virgin is salvation-giving, but there is no ground for hoping
for salvation if you eat bodily flesh.
Birth from the virgin is so completely manifested to the sense of all the faithful that no pious person ever doubted it. For those who wavered here were not faithful, seeing that because they did not easily understand the mystery they failed to believe such clear scripture and the judgement of faith. That the symbolic bread is the flesh of Christ is so opposed to the sense of all the faithful that no one of us has ever really believed it, but rather we have either left it out of our thought through negligence or inertia, or have through folly kept ourselves from thinking about it. What better evidence could there be that this notion is not in accordance with the will of God?
For if faith is there, the heart delights in things which are most strange to the flesh, as I said in regard to the birth from a virgin. Sweeter than honey is the word of the Lord taken into the mouth of the faithful soul.
This word about the tearing of the flesh is so repugnant to the mind that it does not venture to eat it but casts it out of the mouth.
But here some rage more wildly than any Scythian that whoever is not charmed by this is an infidel, and they swear it by all the altars. As for me, if all the world adjudged me an infidel in this thing that I do not believe, that bodily flesh is eaten, I would laugh at their recklessness, for I am sure what faith I have in God. And yet, before I scented the trope, my mind always hesitated at that eating and my teeth recoiled.
Briefly in the other passages mentioned, the clearness is so great that there is no need of a trope.
They plainly display divine miracles to us.
In this passage the obscurity is so great that unless you appeal to a trope you will never come out of darkness and the fear of despair. Nor has anyone right to reason in this way:
Christ walked upon the sea by a miracle; therefore his flesh is eaten by a mira- . cle. For in the same way it would follow that he is a real material vine, light, sheep--by a miracle--since he is said to be the vine [Jn.
15:5], the light [Jn. 8:12], and the lamb [Jn. 1:29] But who has ever been so mad as to say that a thing was done by a miracle which is a trope?
All these other things--being born of a virgin, walking on the sea, rising from the dead--have a certain analogy in the faithful mind, for we recognize in them the purity, grace and omnipotence of the Son of God.
However, eating of bodily flesh can never be anything but cruelly hard.
All these miracles and similar ones have also their analogy among the Jews, if only we can believe their histories. Among them the barren often gave birth, the people passed over the sea [494] [Ex. 14:15-31], a man killed by robbers came to life again at the touch of Elisha's body
[2 K.
13:21] more than once David slipped through the hands of his enemies, Elisha smote certain men with blindness [2 K.
6:18].
In the other case you find nothing of the sort. For if you suggest manhu [MAN HU'], this has an analogy in Christ, but only insofar as that he is eaten in the trusting heart of the pious, as he himself explains in so many words in John 6:22-65.
For
we ji not know Christ anymore according to the flesh [2 Cor.
2:16].
Thirdly, thus:
"When Christ says, John 6:63:
'The flesh profits nothing,'
'flesh' ought not to be taken for bodily flesh, but for carnal feeling or understanding, because wherever in Scripture
'flesh' is used alone, it should be taken for carnal understanding."
See, pray, what it is to be beaten:
just like drowning, by Hercules.
For those who are drowning grasp at random at anything that presents itself, whether it is strong enough to get them out or not. So those who are getting beaten make a javelin, helmet, bracelet, leggin of anything that presents itself.
They strip themselves of all real defense, so that they can without danger be driven into line.
For what is this: in the statement "The flesh profits nothing," "flesh" is used here for "carnal understanding"? Are we not ashamed to make such a distorted answer, and to spoil the native flavor of Christ's words by clumsy decorations?
Do people not see through the grating, as it were, what we have inside, whether it be piety or cunning? But it is better to leave off exclaiming and answer the objection raised.
When Christ, in John 6, had done his best to show that salvation depended upon our trust in him as having died for us, employing figurative language as to his body and blood, the Jews were just as much dumbfounded as ourselves at that language, and fancied that he was giving his flesh to be chewed by the teeth.
[Cf.
Jn.
6:52.] Then Christ came to their aid while there was yet time, though a large part of his disciples had abandoned him, and warned them that the flesh profits nothing. [Jn. 6:63]
We must, therefore, admit that in his answer Christ had reference to the same thing to which they who were offended had reference.
They had reference to bodily flesh, for they said [Jn. 6:52], "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
It was this flesh at which they were offended. Therefore Christ also has reference to bodily flesh when he says, "The flesh profits nothing."
But grant that "flesh" is to be taken for carnal understanding or feeling when it is used alone.
In the first place, I ask whether it is a spiritual understanding when we wish to make it appear that we eat bodily flesh here.
And is this fleshly body, about which we wrangle so unthinkingly, spirit or flesh?
If it is spirit, why do we dream of flesh? And why [495] do we mix up names so as to say that what is spirit is also bodily flesh?
If it is flesh, the victory is mine, for that profits nothing.
Then I ask, since Paul in | Corinthians 8:13 says, "I will eat no flesh forever," ought "flesh" here also according to their canon be explained as carnal understanding, so that Paul shall say that he will never eat carnal understanding?
See how this stupid class of people desire to be autos epha ('supreme authorities"), thus beautifully laying down canons first of all and then decreeing, according to law as it were, how the sacred writings ought to be falsified (I wanted to say "captured").
[36]
Fourth, they thunder:
"You take 'eat' in John 6 for 'believe'5 we will also do the same thing.
When, therefore, Christ says [Jn. 6:58], 'If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever,' take 'eat' for 'believe' and the sense will be, 'Whoever believes this bread is my flesh shall live forever,' for the thing must be believed here which the Jews refused to accept." What do I hear?
Are there two paths to life, one by which they that trust in Christ attain the heavens, the other by believing that the bread is the bodily flesh of Christ? Besides, if you explain "eat" in this passage as "believe", with their variation of the meaning "believe", all the force and sense of the words is destroyed.
For if you say, "If anyone believe of this bread, he shall live forever," you upset the words, sense and all. Not that "eat" should not be taken for "believe" here, but it should not be taken for that kind of believing for which they take it.
It is established usage that "believe" may be used for "trust", though, therefore, in this sixth chapter of John, Christ taught that all one's trust and hope should be placed in him, because that is salutary and like bread unto humans. Yet the translators have constantly rendered the Greek word pisteuein
("trust") by "believe", though the saying [Jn. 6:47] "He that believes on me" would gain somewhat in vividness if it were given "He that trusts in me" or "He that shall rely or lean on me."
But those who made the translation in this way in order not to seem designedly to be introducing innovations everywhere, helped my side. "Believe" is used in this way, therefore, for "trust".
I said, therefore, that "eat" is used for "believe", but only on condition that you take "believe" in the sense of "trust".
For this is the food and the nourishment of the soul by which it is reared for everlasting life, that it shall rely on Christ.
But, as it is, when these take "believe" here in its native signification [496] of thinking so and so, or having faith, so far as faith is an opinion, it is surely possible for a blind man to see how they vary the meaning of "believe".
For when Christ says [Jn. 6:47], "He that believes in me has everlasting life," he uses "believe" for "trust" as I also do when I say, "We, too, take 'eat' for 'believe'."
They mean by "believe", "suppose, think, consider".
For they say, "We believe that this bread is the bodily flesh of Christ."
What is this but "we positively think" or "consider"?
And what is this if it is not an evident paralogism? They that eat Christ, that is, believe on, that is, trust in Christ, have everlasting life, not that they believe the bread is his flesh.
For salvation is nowhere promised to those of these opinions.
Fifth, they come out with this:
"God, who is omnipotent, can cause the bread at once to be real bread and real flesh."
Not to discuss how the omnipotence of God observes order in all things, I will say briefly in regard to this sturdy objection that I am nauseated by these objections that surpass the inert babble of all the sophists in clownishness, not to say silliness.
I ask: may we reason in this style, God can do so and so and so, therefore it is done? Can drain the deep; therefore it is dried up? Turn water into wine; therefore water is wine?
If we may, I will say, "God can make a gourd out of an elephant; therefore an elephant is at once a huge beast and a gourd. God can make you to be a mule and a man; therefore you are at once a mule and a man." What, pray, can be said more reckless or shameless?
Then I ask, where have they found in Scripture that one and the same substance was ever two widely different ones?
For even in Christ, in whom are two natures; divine substance is not human substance nor is human substance divine substance.
I use "substance" here after the fashion of the Latins, according to which it has approximately the meaning of "essence", for as far as substantial existence is concerned, I am not opposed to the view of all the theologians that the humanity of Christ did not exist by itself but in the unity of the hypostasis. When he made water wine, was it at once wine and water? [Jn. 2:1-11] When he made the dust of the earth a man, was it at once dust and human?
See how shameless is the opinion of those who say that bread and bodily flesh are eaten together, nay, maintain that the bread is both of these things at once.
Sixth, they make this objection:
"Did wisdom and foresight as to speaking distinctly fail God? Did he not know how the world was going to understand his words in the sense we give them?
He would have foreseen, therefore, and guarded against this error by clear language if he had not meant [497] this to be the meaning."
I recognize clearly that wisdom can never be wanting in God, for he is himself wisdom itself.
But it is in ourselves that wisdom, nay, intelligence and sense fail.
For things that were clear and obvious to Christ and his disciples are dark to us. They were accustomed to expressions like "This lamb is the passover", when it was only the symbol and figure of the passover.
Hence both Christ spoke clearly and the disciples understood clearly what was said, for no hesitation, nor reluctance, nor questioning followed.
But we, slower than any tortoise, fail to take in a trope that was perfectly familiar to them, for the reasons that the sacred writings are not perfectly familiar to us and that we do not labor so much to be pious as to seem pious by handling and eating sacred things.
To the inattentive all things are dark, to the watchful and alert all things show themselves full of light.
So long as we pursue piety alone with all our strength nothing escapes us; on the other hand, so long as we are given up to hypocrisy and are other than we seem, we also attribute to all things a different form and color from their proper ones.
It is our own slowness or viciousness, not the obscurity of our words, that leads us astray.
God has foreseen and guarded against many things which we yet scorn to notice as much as if they had been nowhere said or written. We have, therefore, no right to make the pretense of obscurity. Nothing should be accounted obscure, simply because
Minerva [37] is not very kind to some people.
Seventh, in 1 Corinthians 10:16, Paul writes, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"
Here they come out with, "Behold how Paul calls them the communion of the blood and body of Christ, not symbols or figures?"
"This one passage," they say, "is quite enough to prove that the blood and flesh of Christ are distributed here.
Paul calls it the communion of the body and blood.
What need have we of more testimony?" On this passage let them have this:
Why do we fanatics still continue to work upon the minds of the simple with our tricks of loud shouting? Do we not understand what
Paul is after here? Do we not see what "communion" signifies?
Let the pious soul know, then, that Paul had taken it to heart that certain people were in the habit of sharing in the feasts of idols. He thought it wrong that those who with the rest of the brethren attended Christ's festival of thanksgiving should not keep away from the worship of idols also. He says, therefore,
[1 Cor.
10:14-16, 21]:
"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from the worship of idols and judge what I now say. The cup of thanksgiving by which we give thanks (for this is [498] what I consider blessing, eulogia), is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
Why, therefore, do those who participate here approach at the same time the food of idols? Why, then, do you, who are partakers of the table of the Lord, also share the communion of the table of demons?" From this it is apparent in the first place that "communion" is not to be referred to the bodily blood of Christ, as if it was said that this was divided here, in the meaning, "Is not the blood of Christ divided here?"
It is to be referred to those who drink together in this thanksgiving, in the meaning, "When we drink together the cup of thanksgiving by which we give thanks, are we not united into one body--all we who have been redeemed by his death and washed in his blood? Are we not a special congregation and society?
Why, then, do we betray the companionship of the body and blood of Christ, that is, the church or communion which gives thanks that it has been redeemed by the body and blood of Christ, and desert to idolaters in their public gatherings?"
Finally, it is apparent that if "communion" were to be referred ever so to the blood of Christ, Paul yet understood "body and blood" only. symbolically as Christ also did when he said, "This is my body."
Paul shows this in so many words when he adds [1 Cor. 10:17], "For we are all partakers of one bread." Behold he calls it bread, not flesh, not body, that he says we eat of here.
But if in the above discourse he had understood that the communion was the distribution of bodily blood, he would not have said in the last passage "we are partakers of one bread" but "of one body".
They, therefore, that cling to this passage as to a sacred anchor ought to learn the Scripture idiom and not leap forth recklessly without at all examining the matter.
For though they maintain most strenuously that such are the words,
yet it is incontrovertible that Paul is not speaking of the distribution of blood and body.
He is calling those the communion of the body and blood who give thanks together that they have been redeemed by these, as these two sentences firmly establish [1 Cor.
10:17]:
"We are one bread and one body" and "We are all partakers of one bread."
Let those who fancy that we cannot penetrate to the real purport of Paul's words read the Paraphrases of Erasmus at this point. [38] [499] Eighth, they bring forward Paul's words in l Corinthians 11:25, where he says, "This cup is the new testament in my blood."
From these words they raise the objection:
"What is offered here is the new testament; but the new testament is not a symbol, it is the blood of Christ itself.
Since, therefore, this cup is the new testament, it is necessarily the corporeal blood of Christ, for that is the new testament."
I am glad that this passage is brought up against me just for the reason that the variations in the meaning of "testament" that meet us here and there in the Scriptures may thus be examined a bit.
The testament, as far as the present case is concerned, is nothing other than an agreement promised by God, as when the Lord struck a compact or covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17:1:
"I am the almighty God," he says.
"Walk before me, and be blameless.
And I will make my covenant between me and you, etc." And a little farther on [Gen.
17:7, 8], "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you in their generations by an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your seed after you. And I will give unto you and to your seed after you the land of your roaming, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."
Here we have nothing else than the covenant which was thought worthy by God in his grace to enter into with Abraham.
What does this covenant contain? On what terms is it established?
These are the terms:
"I will be your God. You will walk before me most uprightly.
I shall make you father of a great people.
I shall give you seed by Sarah.
I shall also be the God of that seed of yours which I promise you.
I will give unto thee and unto thy seed the land in which you now dwell as a stranger." And these terms are the real covenant itself.
But there are added to covenants signs, which though also called by the name of covenants yet are not covenants, as is plainly shown in the same passage.
For there follows [Gen.
17:10]:
"This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and [500] you and your seed after you.
Every male child among you shall be circumcised."
Behold how he called circumcision a covenant here, though it was not a covenant but the symbol of a covenant, as the divine language itself shows in this way [Gen.
17:11]:
"And you will circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and you."
We now see that called a token of the covenant which was just before called the covenant.
It is, then, clear enough that signs of covenants are not covenants, although they are sometimes clothed with the name of covenants, as when circumcision here is called the covenant, while it is only a symbol of the covenant.
And "baptism" is used for "Christ" in 1 Peter 3:21 where he says that we are saved by baptism, though we are really saved by Christ alone.
But baptism is just as much the symbol of the Christian people that has received from God the covenant that his son should be ours, as circumcision was once the symbol of that covenant that the Lord should be their God and they should be his people. I want now to pass over from the covenant or testament of Abraham to the testament of Christ. The covenant which was struck with Abraham is so strong and valid that unless you keep it always you will not be faithful.
For unless the Lord is your God and you are worshipper of him only (for "you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only" [Dt. 6:13] you have no reason to boast that you are faithful.
But he whom you worship and adore thus is your God, that is, the supreme good, because he gives himself freely to you and casts himself into death for you by which he might reconcile you to himself.
This grace had been promised by him who has given it, long ago, when our first parent transgressed his law, and he constantly renewed this promise to our fathers.
And the reason why he made the promise was none other than because blessedness could not come to us, however much we toiled and sweated, while the fall of the first parent had not been atoned for. But when Christ, slain for us, appeased the divine justice and became the only approach to God, God entered into a new covenant with the human race, not new in the sense that he had only just discovered this remedy, but because he applied it at the right moment, having prepared it long before.
This new covenant or testament, then, is the free remission of sins which God has bountifully granted us through his Son.
They, therefore, that trust in God through Christ and lead their own to this trust (to say this at the same time) are themselves circumcised, just as Abraham and his seed were circumcised of old, but with the circumcision of Christ, which is baptism, Colossians 2:11. Our baptism, then, looks altogether to the same thing as did circumcision of old.
It is the sign of the covenant which God has struck with us through his Son.
Baptism, therefore, is the chief and special token of the new testament.
Furthermore the festival of the Eucharist commemorates how that testament was perfected. Not, by Hercules, because it is itself the testament, but because the testament is renewed in it, and thanks are given unto the Lord for this generous blessing.
What, then, [501] is the new testament?
The free remission of sins through the Son of God.
Hence it comes about that since this free remission of
sins was accomplished through the death and shedding of the blood of Christ, the death itself and the blood may perhaps be called the testament, although, if we are to speak clearly and literally, Christ is not the new testament, but the mediator of the new testament, as Paul says in Hebrews 9:
"The testament itself is? the remission' of! sins. v[CE. Heb:
19:16, :22.] -But^ T donot 'say this with the idea that it is a sin to call the death of Christ or his blood "the testament".
I would spur on in friendly fashion our impetuous friends who are suffering from the disease of logomachias ("word-battling") to come to a clear understanding of these matters.
Let me now go on further.
Christ wished the remembrance of this blessing which he perfected by his bitter death to flourish among us forever.
Therefore, with particular appropriateness, he instituted the festival of the remission of sins, as of old that of the deliverance out of the Egyptian bondage.
And since the blood of the testament can be called "the testament", and we give thanks in this festival for the shedding of the blood by which the testament was perfected, it comes about also that we call "the blood of Christ" by which we only commemorate the shedding of the blood for us, and then, as we have called the blood "the testament", so also we name the symbol of the shed blood "the testament".
Put all this down as old wives' tales if the words of the apostles do not support it..Paul teaches that the testament itself is the remission of sins, Hebrews 8:6-13. I Peter 2 and 3 and Paul in Colossians
1:14 remind us that this testament, covenant or agreement was won through the death and blood of Christ.
Furthermore, none of the apostles calls the death or the blood "a testament", but the "blood of the new testament", though I had left it free for teaching purposes so that they could be called "the testament".
Read over the words of the apostles.
If, then, the blood itself which was shed was not called the "testament" but "blood of the testament", as that through which the testament of free remission was made and confirmed, how much more is this cup of the blood not the testament, but the symbol or figure of the blood of the testament?
The figure, therefore, receives the name of the thing typified, as has been made plain above. The sacrament, therefore, of the covenant and testament, if you use "sacrament" for the external sign of the chief covenant or oath, is baptism; the symbol of the passion of Christ, through which this covenant and testament was perfected, is the festival in which bread and wine are distributed to be partaken of with one accord by the faithful with thanksgiving for the commemoration of the death of Christ. We ought not, therefore, show ourselves so incompetent as to contend thus fiercely for the sake of nomenclature, one declaring that this feast of thanksgiving is sacramental, another denying this.
For when we understand the thing itself clearly, why do we keep on
wrangling about names?
[502] I am not anxious about what is written in the "Canons of the Apostles". [39] It is easy to see that they are not the work of the apostles but of some bishops perhaps who arrogated this name to themselves, and how much right they had to it anyone can see.
Besides the works are eis korakas, relegantur, banished in the canonical Decrees, Dist. 16. [40]
I had determined to add to this little work the testimony of certain ancient writers, but since Johannes Oecolampadius, that incomparable man, has made a special book of this, let him who will hasten to it [41] and drink from its generous streams so much as he will. For this is not a new thing that I am maintaining here. The early writers held the view, and it is strange that their authority is put away by those whose sole cry is, "The Fathers, the Fathers."
As I sound the signal for retreat, [42] therefore, I beg and entreat, by the Christ whose glory and grace alone | preach, that no one will try with obstinate spirit to persist in refusing to admit into counsel things which deserve to be examined with painstaking care in this matter.
Vast fires of discord arise from small beginnings, and when we are driven along by their fury all opposition seems a sin and a crime; we refuse to listen to any suggestion.
But why do not pious men do the thing which the facts of the situation compel the cruelest tyrants to do? The spirits, when all things have been wasted and lost in their pursuit of wars rather than justice, are at length compelled against their will to return to the source of the trouble and embrace justice.
Since incurable error in regard to the Eucharist has flowed from ignorance of Scripture alone, why, I say, do we refuse to see clearly what the reason is for our having wandered so far from the goal [503] in order that this great carelessness, not to say folly or idolatry, may be removed from us? For I would not have those deluders listened to, who think that certain delusions must be allowed to the common people. Let concession be made in other points if expediency demand it, but be it a crime to make concession here.
I recognize that the offering of victims, festivals, temple adornments, and countless ceremonials were conceded to the weakness of the Hebrews, but I find nothing of this kind foisted upon that most crude race.
As the apostle Peter indicates, how much less should it be foisted upon us who have drunk of the Spirit! [Cf. Acts 15:7-11.] Or do we not tempt the Spirit of God when we thrust upon the palate of the faithful a thing so utterly strange to it, which we see plainly the apostles did not treat as we do?
There never was any religion or any school of philosophy which put away shadows and delusions and either set forth the truth more clearly or defended it more vigorously than the Chris-
; 277, tian. Why, then, do we act in such a way as to bring such a thick mist over this clear light--a mist that neither the winged Daedalus [43] could surmount nor the Delian [44] swimmer pierce?
How many vain attempts have been made to penetrate the darkness!
To pass by Scotus and Aquinas [45] and clever efforts like theirs, we have all tried something on our own account in order to overcome each his own incredulity and put it to sleep that it may never venture to murmur.
And yet the citadel of faith has never really surrendered, and accepted anypokritos, without dissimulation, the belief that there is in the bread [504] any such thing eaten as we have dreamed.
I hear, to be sure, daily our friends saying (for they cry loudly enough), "Dear me! Listen to the recklessness of this impious fellow. I never doubted and yet he judges me.
I am tremendously filled with joy every time I eat this flesh.
He is ignorant and does not know faith."
But I make of their outcries: if the gods had taken the advice of Momos [46] and put a window in the human breast, so that we could discover through it the cunning contrivances of the heart, I know what we should find in the hearts of them that make such outcry.
Hypocrisy is a slippery and crafty evil.
It is unutterably clever in wearing an open brow while hiding the thought, and pouring together vast and deep rivers of holy and religious words by which the lighter-minded are carried from their moorings, but all that it twists into making you believe that you eat flesh is spurious. True piety knows in what you make your boast, though you boast forever, for it has a solid and infallible criterion by which it tries and knows all things.
That rests upon two pillars, faith and innocence.
Christ calls the latter "mercy and justice" in Matthew 23:23.
Whatever sails, whatever breezes, then, speed us hither, guide our course and commerce rightly. For these things make one truly rich--faith, mercy and justice.
But the mariner who pursues ought else touches at every shore, in order to boast at having seen everything and to tell tales for you to marvel at, not to profit by. That faith only profits then, and brings one into port, which trusts to the favoring breeze, that is, to the grace of the Divine Spirit, not that which believes whatever you choose to utter about maneaters. These wares only are profitable-justice and mercy that rest upon faith.
We all, both teachers and pupils, fix our gaze upon this therefore, we shall easily see that is is ouden pros logon ("of no value") if we crunch not only the flesh but the bone of Christ.
When we rant about this last, we make clear to the solidly pious what we are trying to do.
God Almighty give us light and peace, that we may see the truth and be restored to real peace and tranquility of soul.
Amen.
NOTES 1.
Bartholomew May (1446-1551) was a member of the Small Council (i.e. the Executive Council) of Berne and was perhaps the dominant political authority in support of the Reformation.
He was head of a large clan whose descendants today come through his grandson, Benedict.
See the family chart of the May family in Z 1V:459. See also A. May, "Bartholomaus May und seine Familie," Berner Taschenbuch XXIII (1874):1ff.
Zoilus (4th c. b.c.) was a cynic philosopher of Amphipolis.
He was notable for his attacks on Homer, Plato and others. OLD: 1225.
Theseus, legendary hero of Attica, and Patroclus are cited here because of their friendships:
Theseus with Perithous, Patroclus with Achilles.
Cf OLDS and OLD: 91957
The Commentary on True and False Religion appeared in March,
1524. Z 11:628-912
(tr. J Il:43-343).
Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1480-1541), here spelled Carlstadt in following the Latin/English spelling, became an early reformer and follower of Luther.
He later developed into a radical opponent of Luther.
His writings on the eucharist figured prominantly in the eucharistic debates between Luther and Zwingli.
There are numerous studies of Carlstadt.
See especially the following:
Hermann Barge, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, 2 vols., Leipzig:
Friedrich Brandstetter, 1905.
Ronald J. Sider, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt.
The Development of his Thought 1517-1525, Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1974.
Friedel Kriechbaum, Grundzuge der Theologie Karlstadts, Hamburg:
Herbert Reich, 1967.
Ulrich Bubenheimer, Consonantia Theologiae et lurisprudentiae. Tubingen:
J. C. B. Mohr, 1977.
Zwingli treats the Eucharist in the Commentary in Z Ill:773-820 (tr. J 11:198-255).
For various references on Proteus, see Otto, 289.
For the expression extra oleas see Erasmus, Adagia, Il.ll:10
(Op.
Omnia ll, col. 451).
Amphiboly is a figure of speech suggesting double meaning or ambiguity. OLD:
121.
Apostrophe is a rhetorical figure in which the speaker turns from speaking to the judge and addresses the opponent directly. Cf. Quintilianus 1V:1:63ff.,
IX:2:38ff.
Metabole is a transition or change into another sense or meaning.
Cf.
Quintilianus 1X:3:38.
10.
Zwingli is alluding to the Apostle's Creed in which it is affirmed that Jesus "ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, thence he will come to judge the living and the dead." John H. Leith
(ed.), Creeds of the Churches, 3rd ed., Atlanta:
John Knox Press, 1982, p. 24.
11.
Cf. MPG 12:475-478.
12.
For the expression ex ungue leonem see Erasmus, Adagia, l.X:54
(Op. Omnia ll, col. 347).
15:25:07 11:799:2A
ti.) (reid 217I:2228); 14.
For the expression in portu navigare see Erasmus, Adagia, 1.1:46
(Op. Omnia ll, col. 47).
15.
Metaphor is the use of a word in a transferred or figurative sense.
The proper Latin word is translatio. OLD: 1105.
16.
L. Sergius Catilina was a Roman patrician who headed a conspiracy against the state.
Thus a Cataline is a revolutionary.
OLD:
285.
Spurious Maelius, in 440 b.c. was accused of aiming at supreme power and was put to death. OLD:
1060.
17.
Furius Camillus was an exceptionally brave Roman dictator who saved Rome from the Gauls.
OLD:
262.
Tullius Cicero was perhaps the most famous Roman orator, writer and statesman. OLD: 515.
18.
Cornelius Sulla (also written Sylla) Felix was Roman dictator c. 128-78 b.c.
19.
The De Vita et poesi Homeri, spuriously attributed to Plutarch, addresses metonymy in Book l, par.
15.
Cited in Z 1V:474 n.
6. Metonymy is the replacement of the name of a thing by the name of its attribute.
OLD:
1106.
20.
There are numerous references to Scylla, the half-human sea-monster located in the straits of Messina, who snatched and devoured men from passing ships, and Charybdis, the whirlpool on the Sicilian side of the straits.
Cf.
OLD:
309, 1714. Erasmus, Adagia, |.V:4 (Op. Omnia Il, col. 183f.).
21.
For the expression vela colligere see Erasmus, Adagia, V.I:32
(Op.
Omnia ll, col. 1187).
22. Heinrich Engelhardt (d. 1551), Doctor of Canon Law, was stipendiary priest at the Fraumunster and one of Zwingli's closest companions and supporters during the Reformation. See Wyss, p. 17 n. 6.
23.
Zwingli is referring to Joachim am Grüt, Second Secretary of the Great Council, a skillful and moderate opponent of Zwingli. He published a treatise against Zwingli's eucharistic views. See Wyss, p. 62 n. 2.
24.
The reference to the Councillors is to the following:
(1) Leo Jud (1482-1543), Pastor at St.
Peter's.
See Leo Weisz, Leo Jud, Zurich:
Zwingli Verlag, 1942.
Also:
Karl-Heinz Wyss, Leo Jud.
Seine Entwicklung zum Reformator 1519-1525, Berne:
Herbert Lang, 1976.
(2) Caspar (Grossman) Megander (1495-1545), a canon at the Grossmunster and a close ally of Zwingli. Cf. ADB 21:263-65.
(3) Oswald Myconius (1488-1552), teacher at the Fraumunster School, later Zwingli's first biographer and the successor of Oecolampadius in Basel.
Cf. ADB 22:127-29.
25.
Although there are no definite contemporaneous records to verify the report of Zwingli, Finsler concludes on the basis of what records report after
that the number of 7,000 inhabitants is basically accurate.
Z 1V:479 n.
26.
For classical allusions to parable and trope, respectively, see Quintilianus V.11.1 & 25 and VIII.6.1ff.
27.
Cf. Egli, nr. 684. See also Zwingli's Action oder bruch des nachtmals,
Z 1V213-24.
28.
See above, note 6.
29.
For the expression ater sit an albus see Otto,
and Erasmus, Adagia, l.Vl:99 (Op. Omnia ll, col. 265).
30.
Eris is the Greek goddess of strife best known for her part in starting the Trojan War.
Her Roman counterpart was Discordia.
Cf. Pauly VI/1:463ff.
31.
For the expression in scirpo nodum quaeris see Otto, 312f. and Erasmus, Adagia, !l.|V:76 (Op. Omnia ll, col. 546f.).
32.
For the expression os oblinere see Otto, 259.
33.
Chrysippus was a Stoic philosopher of the 3rd century b.c., student of Zeno and Cleanthes. OLD: 312.
34.
St.
Wendelin (c. 554-c.
617) is reputed to have been a king's son who became a shepherd.
Little is known about him, though he was one of the popular saints in the Middle Ages in the Rhineland and in Switzerland.
See New Catholic Encyclopedia XIV:874.
55.
According to the Vulgate, Hebrews 11:1 reads, "Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium."
Erasmus in his 1522 Basel translation rendered it as "Est autem fides earum rerum, quae sperantur, substantia, argumentum eorum, quae non videntur."
56.
Zwingli is making a play on words:
"quomodo sacrae literae corrumpi ('capi' dicere volui) debeant." Z 1V:495:8-9.
37.
Minerva is the goddess of wisdom.
38.
Erasmus published numerous paraphrases of New Testament writings, many of which were translated into Swiss German by Leo Jud. In 1524 he published in Basel a complete Latin edition of the New Testament epistles:
Paraphrasis in omneis epistolas apostolicas.
39.
The Apostolic Canons are eighty-five canons similar to conclusions of several fourth century councils.
They form the last chapter of the Apostolic Constitutions.
They are therefore not of apostolic origin, as Zwingli observes.
Cf.
Berthold Altaner, Patrologie, 3rd ed., Freiburg:
Herder, 1951, p. 44.
40.
Corpus iuris canonici, XVI:1.
41.
This is a reterence to the 1525 work of Oecolampadius which played an important role in the controversy between Zwingli and Luther:
De genuina verborum domini.
For a study of the .ole of the Fathers in the eucharistic thinking of the reformers involved here, see Gottfried Hoffmann, "Sententiae Patrum--Das Patristische Argument in der Abendmahlskontroverse zwischen Oekolampad, Zwingli, Luther and Melanchthon," Heidelberg Dissertation, 1971.
42.
For the expression receptui canere see Otto,
and Erasmus, Adagia, III.V:88 (Op. Omnia ll, col. 848).
43.
Daedalus was the mythical Athenian hero who built the labyrinth.
OLD: 483.
44.
The Delians were renowned as swimmers.
For the expression delius natator see Erasmus, Adagia, l.VI:29 (Op. Omnia ll, col. 234).
45.
Zwingli is referring to the great scholastic philosophers and theologians Duns Scotus, the Franciscan (d.
1308) and Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican (d. 1274).
46.
Momos was the personification of the fault-finder with numerous appearances in classical literature. Cf. Pauly XVI/1:42.
Ceu qr Sat Qe ba!
E twin? zi » de wd wc Wu REN tees © LA —- "uu s a re en ; Ott ORS ri cir ar y ture Bo.
6) Gum! we eret ell eri Pme. des d Gd mam m ve GUY ar ar nao St Daci div =< Det ees salsa dm Gees cuu al ot Sees? qne— H^ ec Guess "4
Wt tet Jess iesu a dams pre ibl a) mw (FS ABB e Se aen ava a, ve"
OF | 4 -— B e a» € 16.8 A | eni qui ow lap t H LI !
LAUDEM SL
Mp mls ew Penis EL EN LI » «€ LI se^ "4.5
7 7 e m
A» Fs "wu
M tap f " e* pt "
7 fm
B ES e p m ^ die tm b « oe u « mi é , . p e Oud =