Friendly Exegesis, that is

Friendly Exegesis, that is

FRIENDLY EXEGESIS, that is,

EXPOSITION OF THE MATTER OF THE EUCHARIST

TO MARTIN LUTHER

February 1527

(Z V: 562-758)

Translated by Henry Preble Revised and edited by H. Wayne Pipkin

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' Introduction Following the publication of the Subsidiary Essay, matters developed rapidly in the growing division between Zwingli and Luther. [1] In the fall, 1525, fourteen Lutheran ministers had met at Schwabisch-Hall and formulated an essentially Lutheran confession.

Authored by Johannes Brenz, and circulated first in handwritten form, the Swabian Syngramma was later printed in January 1526.

A more significant edition was published in March by Agricola, containing a preface by Luther [WA 19:457-61].

In addition, in January of that year a letter of Luther to Reutlingen had been published [WA 19:118-25].

In both of these brief writings by Luther it was clear that he held the views of Zwingli to be a manifestation of the devil.

It was now time for Zwingli to publish his views on a wider front.

To that end he published his On the Lord's Supper in February 1526.[2] Significantly, the treatise was written in German and answered the Catholics Eck, Faber and am Grut.

Zwingli turned also to Luther and his follower Johannes Bugenhagen. He dismissed transubstantiation and then turned to a discussion of the phrase, "spiritus est qui vivicat". Even more important was the lengthy Christological reflection in which Zwingli developed his characteristic thinking concerning the divine and human natures of Christ, the latter of which is to reside in Heaven until the Final Judgement--and therefore is not in the Eucharist.

By this time a full-fledged public war was raging over the proper interpretation of the Eucharist.

To Christians of a later day it is a tragic scene. To the participants in the sixteenth century a question was under scrutiny that touched very nearly at the heart of the faith.

Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed and Radicals--all entered the heated arena with charges, defenses, and counter-charges.

Monthly, new treatises appeared, reiterating old arguments, developing new lines of attack. Few of the writings were characterized either by charity or understanding.

Zwingli came under increasing pressure.

At home he was still under attack by the moderate Catholics.

During the course

the Catholic nobleman Jacob Edlibach joined am Grut in attacking the Zurich reformer from a position that sounded very much like that of Luther.

It was to prove decisive in shaping Zwingli's estimate of Luther. [3] Next came an important escalation in the level of the confrontation with the publication at the end of September or the beginning of October of Luther's Sermon on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, Against the Fanatics. [4] The entrance into the discussion of the Eucharist of such figures as Carlstadt and other radicals such as Schwenckfeld hopelessly clouded the clear lines of opposition between Zwingli and Luther. [5] Luther was to have considerable difficulty in sorting out many differences between Zwingli and the radicals.

Meanwhile Bucer, Oecolampadius and Capito were encouraging Zwingli to enter decisively into the controversy by writing in a firm and friendly way to Luther. [6] Eventually a publication date for the spring Frankfurt book fair, 1527, was projected.

Apparently Zwingli wrote from mid-December

to the end of February 1527. The printing was completed by the end of March and a copy was sent to Luther on April |. [7]

Although designated "friendly," it sounds less so to modern ears, and was clearly offensive to Luther.

It was, however, typical in tone for a treatise by a humanist-trained author. It is, as Potter states, "one of Zwingli's most serious and most characteristic writings, appearing at the very height of his powers." [8] It is marred by a less than adequate understanding of the Lutheran position, apparently basing some of the discussion on Luther's earlier 1521 response to Henry VIII [WA 10/2:180-222].

The writing is too long as well, overly technical and, at times, tedious.

It is, however, perhaps the most important independent statement of Zwingli on the Eucharist.

It served to arouse the wrath of Luther to a fever pitch, though it advanced the Zwinglian cause in southern Germany.

In June, 1527, Zwingli reached out to Philip of Hesse and sent him a copy.

The treatise undoubtedly enhanced the developing relationship between the two.

The Friendly Exegesis then is of importance for two main reasons.

It is perhaps the decisive document from the Zwinglian side in the eucharistic controversy.

In addition, although imperfect in form, it sets forth with clarity the essence of the eucharistic position of Zwingli, a spiritual view characterized by the immediacy of the presence of Christ to the believer in faith, and, thus, not at all the "mere memorial" by which it is typically characterized.

The treatise has heretofore appeared in its complete form only in Latin, in the original 1527 edition published by Froschower and the later sixteenth century collection of Opera Zwinglii. This is the first complete translation of the treatise.

It was translated by Henry Preble and revised by H. Wayne Pipkin.

HWP NOTES 1.

The standard work analyzing the development of the controversy between Luther and Zwingli is Kohler. A concise, helpful summary is Locher, Reformation, pp. 307-318.

See also the insightful analysis of G. R. Potter, Zwingli, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 287-515.

Ein kdare underrichtung vom nachtmal Christi,

Z 1V:789-862

(tr. LCC 185-238).

Locher, p. 309.

See also the August 1526 Responsio brevis Huldrychi Zwinglii, Z V:317-358.

WA 19:469ff. LW 32:335-361.

In addition to the writings of Carlstadt mentioned above in Matthew Alber, notes 2 and 3, there were circular letters of Schwenckfeld on the Eucharist that were circulating in handwritten form. See Locher, p. 310.

Letters cited in Z V:548-9.

An excellent synopsis of the letter is found in Potter, Zwingli, pp.

305-506.

8. lbid. 303.

Huldrych Zwingli to Martin Luther, grace and peace from the Lord. God, who directs and disposes all things, is in the habit of so deceiving or at least mocking human hopes, most learned Luther, that victory [1] often flies from the grasp of him who thinks he holds her by both wings, and, on the other hand, safety suddenly appears where there was least hope of it.

It was this varied character of his plans that restrained me for some time from sending this exegesis of mine to you. For as often as I thought over the material, nothing seemed plainer or more securely calculated to bring me victory, but as often as I thought upon his will,

I was afraid before the result, thinking, "What if he has determined not to bring forth this light yet? What if from this dispute a quarrel, not a friendly conference, should arise?"

Hence, I not only restrained myself, but intervened with others also, to prevent them from writing in answer to or against you, whatever you might hurl out against us. Whereby after so many light skirmishes had been successfully fought, and you were not satisfied although you with impunity inveighed against us, but were said not even to take into consideration what is said in contravention of your way of thinking, I thought the Lord had given sufficient proof [563] of what he wanted done. For we know that all stubbornness is hateful to him, especially that which is unwilling to be guided by his word, as when a prophet is unwilling to yield and give way to another prophet at the time of his exposition [cf.

1 Cor.

14:

29-32]. Looking about long, therefore, upon all sides, and waiting, I finally break forth from my delay slowly and almost reluctantly, spurred on by more than one goad.

In the first place, I am moved by the consideration that the part of the opposing camp that is on the side of the gospel has long been comforting itself with the thought that when it comes to the real brunt of the battle, that is, when Luther puts his shoulder to the wheel, the opponents will turn and flee. Secondly, the affairs of the Papists, who have been filling every corner with their triumphant cry, "Luther is at variance with Oecolampadius and Zwingli in their matter of the Eucharist," seem to be much too involved to allow them to venture to plot any harm while we discuss the matter and come together. Thirdly, I am influenced by a desire for that full liberty in the Church in accordance with which Paul teaches that the individual has the right to speak in it, even if his seat is not among the prominent.

[Cf.

1 Cor.

14:31.] For if we are true prophets we shall listen to each other, and if we are in error upon any matter we shall yield the point.

And this possibility I think should be jealously guarded, to prevent

us falling into some tyranny.

We ought not to look upon anyone with such extreme deference as to yield to his authority to the detriment of the truth and to our loss if he makes a mistake, however willingly and gladly we pay him the honor that is due, nay, vie with each other in showing him respect.

It was for this that Paul opposed Peter [Gal. 2:11ff.] and Christ would not suffer himself to be called good by one who used the term wrongly [Mt.

19:17], that we might the more readily and freely contradict them that bring forward or defend what they know not of, reserving always the right of the Church to decide as it looks on at these contests.

Finally, piety has admonished me (which, look, see how piously you deprive me) not to desert the cause of the truth.

For he cannot successful continue to seem, much less to be, pious, who not only does not join his forces with the truth, but even betrays it when in danger and leaves the victory to them that do violence to Scripture.

For no man hides a lighted candle under a bushel, but puts it upon a candlestick, [564] [Mt. 5:15] and the servant who does not know nor do the will of the master is beaten with many stripes [Lk. 12:47].

We all know how sharply Paul rebukes the learned man who yet reckoned offerings to idols as things of no importance and so brought the simpleminded brethren almost to destruction [1 Cor.

8:7-13]. How much more we ought to show no hesitation here where no weak part of the faith is called into dispute and danger:

For if faith alone be not absolutely sufficient to make blessed without the power of externals, then we fall back upon works.

So many come forward and promise to make perfect by the power of the Scriptures, to which they yet do no small violence.

If they could accomplish this, it would be finished with the noblest part of the New Testament. For take away the Gospel of John, and you have taken away the sun from the world. Moreover those who confuse the two natures in Christ, truly desiring to proclaim of the human what belongs only to the divine, and of the divine what belongs merely to the human, though not as a matter of change of attributes and exchange [2] of natures, such persons not only obscure and defile the Gospel of John but trample it under foot, as I shall show in due course.

I had no right to temporize, I say, in so serious a business.

For how will he be acknowledged by the truth which is Christ, who, by deserting the truth, is shown not to have desired to acknowledge it?

Besides these inciting motives there was another stimulus, albeit not strong enough to awaken me by itself--the exhortation of the brethren, one promising victory over the adversary, another offering for the dangers of battle the protection of the golden armor of Glaucus, [3] another, armor of bronze.

That is, to put the whole thing plainly, some advised me to join battle with you sharply and steadily, others prophesied that more could be accomplished with you by gentleness and softness than

by force. [4] What I have done and what adviser I have [565] decided to follow you doubtless see much better than I could point out, for I follow natural temperament and Minerva, [5] that is, unless it offends you, the Spirit, without which all that one does is feeble and cold.

I have thought, therefore, that neither are you so stubborn and implacable as to take offense, provided you read what I have written, nor am I so tender and incapable of fighting, thank God, that if you attack me sharply I am likely to abandon my post. Not with good omens have I determined upon war or come out into the field to single combat.

I send you a fetial priest [6] in the shape of a book, who comes not to demand satisfaction, but to bring about an understanding.

Hence I have attached to the book the name of an exposition, that it may expound to you in a friendly way my views and the basis in Scripture upon which I build, and not come to blows, as the Papists and certain biting but bad poets have for some time been anxiously hoping.

For so far as I understand your position, you seem to be wholly ignorant of my arguments. For those which I have brought forward are enough to demolish, begging your pardon, without any trouble, all that you offer to the contrary.

If you have examined them and intentionally passed them by, I am afraid that even an ajax could not prevent your enemies from fixing upon you the name of a deceiver of the people. [566]

But however that may be, I frankly call upon you to lend a kindly ear to what I am going to say very freely but at the same time fairly, and ask you to weigh it without passion, after the fashion of Alexander of Macedon, [7] who is said, by interposing a period of three days, to have become more fairly disposed to the man who had made an appeal from his anger to his calmed and quiet judgement.

You have seemed to many, not yet having got over that wrath you were feeling towards certain persons, [8] to have treated a difficult subject in the heat of your anger, and not to have shown good and innocent men the consideration that was due to them and worthy of yourself.

If this is so, my book will make an appeal from your wrath to your calm and favorable judgement.

For you are aware how dangerous it is to admit into deliberation anger, petulance, stubbornness, jealousy and the like, that boldly and shamelessly gives themselves out for righteousness, Courage, firmness and authority.

Show yourself, therefore, free and calm for a bit, and consider how careful men of piety have ever been in refuting errors, and how much they have helped the Lord's flock when they have weighed things without passion, and, on the other hand, how much harm has been done by those who have been unable to see clearly in a case under consideration because they were overwhelmed by their feelings. Everyone knows how much violence has been done to the Church by greed and ambition, by guile and hypocrisy, and are we to fancy that no harm will arise from

24] hatred, jealousy, contention, rivalry and even bitterness, anger and impulsiveness?

Are these not passions? Yea, they are fiercer ones than the others.

There is no cause, then, to boast greatly of the Spirit, if we are overborne by these. Let bygones be bygones, then, and let us begin our conference in a pleasant and lighthearted mood, helleborisamenoi ("having calmed our minds with a soothing draft") like Carneades. [9] And do author, [567] lord and father of all things, breathe upon us with favor, and scatter from both sides all the mists of ignorance and passion, as you did once direct your strong wind against the sinister waters [Gen.

8:1], and put them to flight, thus giving the kind earth opportunity to put forth its shoots and buds.

Put an end, I pray, to dissension and uproar and fierce raging. Rise, most pleasant morning star [Rev. 22:16]. Shine forth at once, sun of Righteousness: [Mal. 4:2] For when there is contention, the holiness which you especially require of us is disregarded.

You see how we never come back better from contention.

For it is the work of the flesh, from which none comes without blemish.

On the other hand, they that have turned away from it, have ever been excellent.

Keep us from it, therefore, that we may employ in the work of virtue all the strength that we otherwise devote to strife.

And oh you, my Luther, deign to be, as you are reputed to be, single-hearted, katharos and unruffled.

For I shall offer to God things not sharp but sound, not trifling but vigorous, and if you accept them error will again be beaten back, Antichrist will fall, who is now seeking to lay hold of you for no other reason than that he fears that if you give up your opinion everything will collapse. That they will in any case

I do not doubt, but after more of a struggle.

I beg you to interpret what I have written in fairness with even greater fairness, as befits your learning and to think and carry out all things to the glory of God, as apparently as heretofore. Farewell and consider calmly. Zurich, February

28, 1527. [568]

To the Reader I am not so dull, however simpleminded otherwise, good reader, as not to foresee what you are going to feel when you look upon this exposition of mine, written, if not against Luther, yet to him.

You will be afraid that some cruel strife is going to arise between us, and give a handle for unkind comment to the enemies of the gospel. Put aside your fear.

I shall moderate my words in such a way that Luther cannot take anything amiss, and the papists will not be able to discover any hope of regaining their power.

Luther was openly expressing his disagreement with us and heaping maledictions upon all who bore everything for the sake of peace.

Not one of us uttered a syllable, and there wil be no recrimination even now.

What will be new, then, if I put forth my exposition in answer to him by name? He has already shown himself not content to differ with me and simply reject my views, but must number me among the fanatics and tricksters, and that in published books as well as in the letter to the people of Reutlingen [1] and in the revocation of Carlstadt. [2] I immediately [569] made my answer to his arguments and to the things on which he based them, just as I shall now do, but I did not mention him by name.[3] Luther, therefore, has written against me by name before, and Il against him, but without mentioning his name.

Now I am going to answer him by name, but without abuse. If he is angry with me, it will be nothing new.

If I take good naturedly, as one inured to evils, the things he throws at me, it will again be nothing new.

For I have stood up before the same weapons before without blinking. Be assured, then, that unless the Lord takes from me the mind that has thus far directed what I have written, nothing monstrous or unworthy of Christians will follow from this document.

It was sad that Luther could not recognize the truth--the Great Homer [4^] sometimes nods--but it would have been sadder to abandon the truth on his account. Take what I have done, therefore, in fair and good part. I have entered upon this matter with the purpose of putting everything to the test rather than withdraw from so clear and plain an understanding of Christ's words (for not till that prevails can we say that the gospel [570] has been restored), and with the hope and firm expectation that when Luther sees my words he will give up the contest.

If I am disappointed

in my hope yet I shall not be in a cause so sure and certain. Meanwhile, trust in the Lord, not in Paul, not in Peter [cf.

1 Cor.

1:12], and not in Luther and not in Zwingli, and be careful that you are most blameless in Christ your dress, if you have put him on [cf. Gal.

3:27], and without anxiety as far as this conference is concerned.

For if you never eat the flesh of Christ, so far as it is flesh, your happiness hereafter will lose nothing thereby.

Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, and all the thousands of the good and vast numbers of the fathers are above, yet they never tasted the flesh of Christ in a bodily sense.

It is the mark of a slight, not to say, sluggish faith to ask, "Whither shall I turn if these men disagree?"

For who are we that none should disagree with us? Is it not true that all people are liars?

[Rom. 3:4].

Adhere, therefore, to the Lord, and do his work zealously, and do not accustom any man, however learned and even holy, to venture to think it wrong for anyone to disagree with him.

Be good and kind, good reader:

A Friendly Exegesis, that is, Exposition of the Matter of the Eucharist, addressed to Martin Luther by Huldrych Zwingli

Allow me, then, at the beginning of the book, therefore, to return to you, O Luther, in which I will first set forth the order of the things I am going to say.

Since, therefore, in some of your writings you have proclaimed that you had no need to run to the support of tottering doctrines because so far was it from true that anyone had broken up the foundation you laid against Carlstadt that no one had ever shaken them, [1]

I want to arrange my exegesis [571] in such a way as first of all to answer the points on which you rely, and afterwards add my own foundation arguments and my understanding of the words of the Lord. Meantime, however, you will find a large part of my foundation arguments scattered through what I say in answer to your points. Then, thirdly, after an epilogue, I shall set forth in precise terms the assertions

2uU you make in this matter without Scripture authority.

Finally, I shall add a brief supplement on confession and images.

For in none of your discourses you seem to have made no slight mistake in teaching that the words of Moses are to be tested only by the basanon ("touchstone"):

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [Lk. 19:18] And since [2] in the letter which you wrote to Herwagen some time ago an opportunity to take up the passage,

"The flesh profits nothing" [Jn. 6:63], occurs, I shall avail myself of that early, but only touching upon the most important points, those you also consider such.

Now I come to your utterances.

In that letter, after having expressed a moderate approval of Bucer's work, [3] you thus cry out, "But alas!

In the midst of these triumphs and toils he has fallen by permission of God into that blasphemous monstrosity, the sacramentarian [572] spirit, and his fine gift of eloquence and understanding is suffering contamination, nay destruction, from this pestilential poison, etc." [WA 19:471:16-19] It is not my purpose, my dear Luther, either to defend Bucer here (for I have not seen what he has added to your words) [4] or to dilute your maledictions.

How deservedly they are cast at us, everybody knows by this time.

My object is to point out to you how through the whole letter you are carried away by the violence of your feelings. For if Bucer did everything worthily, and yet stumbled in this one point, it was a case of smoking flax, which Christ forbids us to quench, and shows by example.

[Mt.

12:20] For when Philip, having associated with him for so long, yet at length said, "Lord, show us the Father" [Jn. 14:8], he, though standing in relation of God to human and master to disciples, did not attack him as you, a mortal human, do a fellow mortal and a brother.

It appears that you either put the most important part of salvation in physically eating the body of Christ, or are carried beyond bounds by your feelings.

For if you did not put the gist of salvation in the eating, this knot would not deserve to be cut with so viciously sharp an axe,[5] and Bucer would not deserve to have you flare up so hotly against him.

If the other parts of your work which Bucer has translated do not contain the essentials of Christianity, you are right in praising the man, but if they do, your anger is beyond the merits of the case.

I warn you here in the beginning not to bring abuse on perfectly solid arguments by false accusation.

I am not going to say anything harsher of you. But things which had been said without full knowledge, due caution, or clear simplicity, I am going to enlarge upon plainly and without anger.

St. John bids us test the spirits.

[1 Jn. 4:1] Therefore, I shall properly discuss whether you did a worthy thing in thus attacking a brother, after I have faithfully examined the extent and importance of the matter.

It appears that the essential

^ of salvation is not contained in the eating. For, otherwise, [573] the disciples of Christ would have already reached the summit in having eaten the body of Christ, and would not have required the tortures of the cross. The other alternative remains, therefore, namely that you were carried away by your feelings beyond prepon

("what is becoming").

And this grieves me very greatly, not only on your account, but for the sake of miserable humanity, because nothing is so perfect and solid that it has not a gap somewhere.

Nothing is happy in all respects. I close an eye, however, to these attacks the more willingly because I see that whatever can happen to one man can happen to another.

There are things numerous enough to make me infer that this disorder crept in unawares: the fanatics whom you call Suermeri ("the Gushers"), I by a GraecoLatin term, Spiriteuseri ("the Spiritizers").

They form an evil just as troublesome to my party as to yours: unfit and early-ripe masters who proceed to teach what they have never properly learned; the shamelessness of the crowd who at every novelty become amazed and confused, as the Phaeacians did at the fortune of Ulysses, and with the same sort of result; the uncertain faith of princes, in consequence of which those who trust them most fall most grievously. These, I say, and other things (which, though they need not be mentioned here, cannot fail to be all the more distinctly present in our mind) were the causes of our letting loose the reigns of immoderate abuse.

Pardon should be granted even to a heedless good-for-nothing, if he sins from foolishness and not maliciously how much more, then, to a promachoó ("chief champion") of the gospel, if he has met with the ordinary human experience (for I do not think you think yourself in such a position that you are incapable of falling or stumbling) and yet has not betrayed the battle, nor could have if he had wished, since the leader, in whose sight the fight is carried on, has those to put into the place of the missing.

Pardon will, therefore, be readily granted, if the fault be acknowledged, for the causes of the transgression are understood. But to refuse to acknowledge one's wrong and to rage more and more ought to be furthest away from any good man, much more from Luther, the master of integrity and piety. You ought not, then, to have attacked the faithful translator so fiercely.

But you did it.

You, therefore, did as humans do.

Will you submit to this elenchon ("sort of judicial examination") of mine indignantly?

Will you not listen to an advisor?

So much in regard to the fact.

Now I will speak of your language, which, to speak frankly, seems to be mere speech, and not a reflex of your thought.

For if I believed that you cherished such bitter and savage thoughts as come forth from your words, I never should have conceived the shadow of a hope of a return to friendship, nay, I should not [574] look for anything worthy of a man from you, if that flood had, alas, come forth from your real feeling. "Show me the wound,"

I would say, "that I may see how terribly you are hurt." The mind

is ill that at any little touch or blow cries out.

If, therefore, Luther cries out ouk en kairQ, when there is no occasion, he is ill. But how can the mind of a man so completely pious and learned fall ill?

It must have had some disturbing experience.

It thought a wound was inflicted when it was really given shelter and refreshment.

Therefore it must be forgiven.

Let us put away, I beg, those bitter and noisy words, and work with argument and Scripture.

You have not yet proved that what you condemn in that excellent and highly learned man, Bucer, is an error, and you revile a man who deserves well of you as if no one could have hurt you more.

"He has fallen," you say, "into that blasphemous monstrosity, the sacramentarian spirit." [WA 19:471:17-18] Is it a monstrosity to rescue the Scripture from violence, or to thrust upon it an interpretation which even the ordinary understanding of the faithful does not accept?

Bucer has not fallen, therefore, but he was lying down and has risen up. A blasphemy, properly speaking, is an insult to God. But what is in accordance with the natural meaning of the words of the Lord were an error, that would not make it a blasphemy.

No one calls an error blasphemy in which there is no vicious intent.

We have, therefore, been making the points of our words too sharp.

The controversy is still awaiting the judgement of the Church, and we condemn without waiting for her decision.

This would seem to be blasphemy, hybris ("arrogance", and violence.

The sacramentarian spirit is that which hangs upon the sacraments and attributes more to them and trusts in them more than is right, not that which knows how to treat the sacraments as sacraments.

You used "sacramentarian spirit" as a term of reproach, but this reproach can properly be directed against those who seek in the sacraments what they do not contain.

The people of Israel, having once suffered a great defeat at the hands of the Philistines, said, "Let us fetch the ark of the Lord, and it shall save and protect us," [1 S. 4:3] and when it was brought, suddenly they suffered a still more disastrous defeat

[1 S. 4:10].

Why did not this sacred chest save them? Were not the rod, the manna, the tablets in it? [He. 9:4] But the box was not endowed with the power to save. Therefore, when they mistakenly attribute to it the power of saving, they are wrong. So the sacramentarian spirit is that which attributes to the sacraments what they do not contain, no, indeed, cannot even contain.

The Lord's body, even if it were physically [575] eaten, would never yet bring with it what you declare, namely the comforting of the heart, the effective presence of the gospel, and the pardon of sin.

This is brought from your own storehouse, not from the oracle of the divine word.

Furthermore, you think Bucer's "gift is suffering contamination, nay destruction, from this pestilential poison." [WA 19:471:

23-24] To us, on the contrary, to declare that the flesh of Christ

is physically eaten in the supper seems to be the really pestilential thing, through which as it sprouts and spreads the gospel is going to be laid waste.

For if it would strengthen faith and remit sins, who would not return to the vomit of works?

I confess clearly, by heaven, that if I were told by the word of the Lord that sins were forgiven through this supper, I would partake of it every time my conscience troubled me. Would not faith in works straightway come back?

Would not those who attended to so sacred a business immediately be in high esteem?

Believe me, the papists have scarcely any hope left unless they can keep live that superstition of the physical eating of the' body of Christ.

For what do you suppose?

That the Pope trusts to the promises and threats of certain princes?

What do you suppose princes can accomplish by bloodshed and power if the people are on the other side? He feeds them on gifts and promises, but not for long.

But if that forced interpretation of the Lord's words should prevail and flourish, he hopes to get everything back. Hence our friend Faber, that Vulcan of lies, [6] as the Diet of Speyer was on the point of adjourning, besought us with crocodile tears, [7] if nothing else could be done, at least to take care that Christ and entire salvation be not torn from us through the trampling underfoot of Christ's body, which was what those were after who denied that he was eaten in the sacrament.

[576] To have faith in Christ, the Son of God, is the healing remedy against the wounds of sin, not to eat of his body. Salvation is promised to faith, not to eating, unless it be allegorical, which is nothing else than having faith. Hence it is clear that the teaching is pestilential which, defiling the name of faith, instead of trusting in Christ, draws one to the opinion that his body, as body, is eaten in the sacrament, and not to that one by which faith understands nothing but trust in the Son of God.

As to the things that you complain so loudly have been spoiled by the man in the Pomeranian's version of the Psalms, [8] I neither approve, nor disapprove, not having seen them, but as far as I [577] have heard from others, he kept his own remarks sufficiently separate from the Pomeranian's work and yours.

Let each take out his own without insult if my advice has influence with you, or let what is in too deep to be easily taken out be set forth in the negative or the affirmative by notes of explanation and protest in language not calculated to injure. What is the need of such bitter outcries? For in your implication that certain persons have proclaimed their own view in regard to the Eucharist by making use of your arguments because they have none of their own, or that they have mixed their own in with yours, you take a wrong view of the business. For I see that both Bucer and Leo

(who had turned himself into Leopold) wanted to. prepare a way for you people (by which you could make a sudden retreat from your error, or could find a suitable opportunity to disguise it),

rather than to lean upon you. They did this out of love and zeal for your good name.

For they saw that many do not see clearly in the matter, and that their teaching is thereupon brought into suspicion as being under a delusion in some points.

Therefore they opened their arms to catch your fall, not to thrust upon you an error of their own, which certainly is no error, not to help a struggling cause by using your names, but to prevent your names from being ill spoken of. You yourself bear witness [9] that we are so fruitful and prolific that we can rain books, please the gods. This ought to be a reason to you for thinking, not that such men are agents of bad faith as if they trust to tricks, but truly of a good cause, which has such an abundance of rich material, that nothing can be said against it which is not immediately met. As to Leo, however, he did nothing but most faithfully quote your own words, as I, too, [578] am going to do with equal faithfulness.

In the meantime, you see to it how consistent in every respect you are.

I am also going to reply to the book you wrote to the Waldensians on the adoration of the sacrament. [10]

I shall equally destroy the force of that attack you make upon Carlstadt. [11] You pretend that I said, "Luther is thus far silent." [WA 19:472:6] Would that you had been silent on this matter! We should not have been forced to swallow your loathsome stuff. You would have done an acceptable thing to me at least by keeping silence, since I am now summoned by outcries the timeliness of which I do not feel sure about into the dangers of a battle with you.

"What should I accomplish," you say, "if I should write a thousand books, among those deaf madmen?

They neither hear nor see." [WA 19:472:7-8] We both hear and see, but as your shot was not very solid, however hot, we hoped that as soon. as you came to your senses, you would retire from the battle of your own motion.

But since you are becoming more and more violent, even we hear you at length perfectly, so you cannot still say we are deaf.

Whether we are mad or not, we can, perhaps, not safely say.

There are so many madmen, even among those who think they are equal to teaching Minerva herself, to say nothing of those who might more properly than ourselves be pronounced mad.

That the Swabian Syngramma [12] has been commended by you, truly grieves me, not so much on their account, as on yours and that of the Church. On that [579] of the Church, because if the rest of the bishops should follow the example of these, the teachings of Christ would be subject not to pontifical tyrants alone but to thousands and thousands of little tyrants. Brenz gathered to himself certain insignificant little bishops, and propped up by them, proclaimed without waiting for the judgement of

their churches, that that was an error which Oecolampadius, the teacher of the man (if, indeed, such an ungrateful animal is a man) asserted when he was sifting his opinion after the fashion of the ancients, [13] whose style of speech Brenz, in consequence of tender age and slender learning, has not yet mastered.

Do [580] these dozen little fellows do right to get together and make a random pronouncement?

And do five hundred bishops [14] in mitre and lordly attire not do right in accordance with the views of Christ and the apostles, when they determine a point without the authority of the Church? Where have we dropped the two-edged axe with which we used to sunder the chains and kloious ("dogcollars") of councils, that of the councils of those clad in purple are not the Church and nothing can be done by them to the prejudice of the Church of Christ? Why, then, did your men not explain the matter in controversy to their churches and await their judgement?

For I have made diligent inquiry into the whole thing, while they were hanging up the spoils of triumph to Jupiter in their security, to find out how they went to work among their people, and I have been informed that they overwhelmed their churches with cries like this, "A new heresy is coming forth, the most pernicious of all.

Close your ears, therefore," and the like.

They have not listened, and even now most of them do not listen, to "Prove all things; hold to that which is good" [1 Thess.

5:21], and, "If the true meaning of the Spirit shall be revealed into any one of the flock or of the audience, let him be permitted to speak in the church."

[Cf.

1 Cor.

14:30-31.] Was not the course mentioned, my dear Luther, not only unwise but the worst example? How can we better prepare a tyrant's throne than in this way? Some crazy head raises an uproar before the Church, crying out such and such a thing is heresy or an error, when he has not yet discovered whether it be white or black, and when the Church desires to see what is true in the matter, he caws like a crow, "Don't touch.

Don't take hold of it. Don't look at it." How else did the violence of the popes go to work?

Let us, therefore, not approve so indiscreet and harmful a precedent, my dear Luther, lest we seem now to admire what we were once glad to throw eis korakas, [15] ("to the crows").

For if I restore what but a little while ago I was clearing away, I set myself up as a sort of sham [Gal. 2:18]. On the other hand, the commendation of this work grieves me on your account, [16] [581] because it grieves me that your reputation should suffer any decline.

But it cannot help suffering such when you extol as if you were celebrating a victory of Caesar's, or the Combat of Hector and Achilles, [17] a book which is altogether feeble and barren.

For if you look at the style, it appears infantile and without any solidity and strength, nay so hurriedly and indiscriminately acquired that the writers seem hardly to have had enough equipment even for this composition.

If you look for arguments, nothing is weaker,

if for keenness, nothing is duller.

It is so badly reasoned and so sluggish in penetrating to the inner meaning of things that it is not easy to infer on what they could have relied in venturing to undertake the task.

If you desire clearness, do you not see that everything comes out of their hands more obscure than it went in? For this matter of the external word and the internal word and a thing which occupies a sort of third place so that both the external and the internal word symbolize it [18] (which appeals so strongly to your taste), is nothing but a hazy nonentity and a knot sought in a bulrush, [19] as they say.

For what is the external word but the [582] idea of a thing corresponding to it?

Let us see, then, what these fine fellows deduce from this perfectly plain notion that all philosophers have accepted.

"We preach the word of the gospel with the mouth," they say, "and this is the external word."

This can be passed over in silence.

"But what is believed in: the heart and understood in the mind is the internal word."

This also can be passed over without comment.

"But the thing corresponding is neither the internal word nor the external, but the thing of which the internal and the external word are the idea, image, and as it were, painted picture."

Here I can scarcely restrain myself from flowing over and saying, "Then they are distinguished in substance," but I will pass this also by without comment, that we may see into what pool of error these cuttle-fish plunge themselves.

They go on to say, "When, therefore, the faith of a person is present, he has God immediately present.

So, therefore, if he believes, he eats the body and drinks the blood (that is, believes), he must have the body and blood present.

But who makes God present to faith but the word?" [20] and so forth.

You see, Luther, what their view is.

First, they think that whatever one has faith, or plérophorian ("full assurance") about, is present in essence.

Secondly, they think it is brought by the word.

Finally, they vary the meaning of the terms "faith" and "presence of the body and blood".

I come back to the first and ask:

Do they think that in general the thing about which we have sure faith is materially present?

If so, the whole Mount of Olives is materially present with Christ and the apostles [cf.

Mt.

26:30ff.], nay also Judas with his treacherous caress and his accomplices, and Peter with his sword, in his fierce irritation.

For I firmly believe that Christ was taken there, and that all the rest was done as it is written. Otherwise, what is their reasoning? For it doesn't the least follow that because God is present to the believer, therefore a created thing is present to the believer, to omit for the present the caveat in which they say, "We are not speaking now of the presence by which God fills all things, but of that by which he is present to the pious." [20] But the body of Christ is a created thing. Therefore, it is a non-sequitur

to say, "God is present to the believer. Therefore, he who believes that Christ suffered for us in the body has his body corporally present." [21] Pardon the subtleties, good reader. There is nothing that makes me more angry than this Chrysippus-like [22] hair-splitting into which these fellows drag one against one's will and efforts

[583] to avoid it. I have proved before, by the testimony of the angel who said, "He is risen, he is not here" [Mt. 28:6], that the body of Christ is not everywhere, even if his divinity does fill all things, [23] and that, therefore, it is not at hand in bodily presence when Christ is believed in. For the pious women carried him in their hearts through faith, and yet the angel said, "He is not here," denying thus, by heaven, nothing but bodily presence.

From the reasoning of our friends it would follow that Christ was present in bodily presence before he was clothed with body.

For the fathers believed that he would come in bodily presence.

[Cf. Jn.8:56.] Therefore he was there.

For this is what they are trying to prove in general, that when faith is had the word forthwith makes present essentially and corporally that which is believed in.

If they do not think in this manner their reasoning has no weight, but is trivial and inconsistent.

As to what they say in the second place, that God is made present to faith by the word, I ask again, "By what word?

The external?"

Why, then, do we not make God present to the tyrants and pontiffs?

Is it the internal word? What becomes, then, of the sayings, "Unless you have believed you shall not understand"

[Isa. 7:9], and "No man can come to me except my Father draw him."?

[Jn. 6:44] From the drawing by the Father, then, comes our trusting in Christ, and not from the word, even the internal.

For by the internal word they cannot understand anything else than plérophorian ("fullness") of faith. [Cf. He.

10:22.] Then they say only that faith is present through faith.

For they say that God is made present to faith by the word.

God, therefore, is made present to faith by faith.

Faith, therefore, believes, and what it believes it makes present to itself.

What did it believe, then, before it had this present?

If it did not believe this, how could it be faith? If it believed it, how is it that what it believed was not present, since no one believes without the grace of God?

If, therefore, it was present through goodness and grace before belief or at the very beginning of faith, it was no doubt present in the way that it regularly is present to the pious, as they say.

See what becomes of their sharp and clever reasonings?

They make upon the untaught masses an impression of solidity and truth when they are nothing but the beard of the grain; they prick but do not pierce.

But they have some power to deceive, especially if meantime I raise an outcry that those who do not understand these subtleties are fanatics, deaf, dullards, blockheads, and even madmen. For then everybody wants to seem to understand clearly what is claimed. But [584] it is not hard to tell what they

are after when they say that both God himself and the body of Christ are brought to us by the word as in a vehicle, even if they strenuously disguise it. They mean to say that to those who believe that they are going to eat the body of Christ in the sacrament he is made present by the utterance of the words.

This becomes clear when they cry so loudly, "We must believe the plain and simple words of Christ, 'This is my body," in such a way as to understand that by the words themselves (they do not venture to say "when uttered" or "thought") the body of Christ is made present.

What then? They beg the question at all points.

For when we seek to trace the meaning in the word of the Lord, they come forth and say, what is eaten there is the body of Christ.

If one asks why, since there are so many difficulties involved, they say it behooves us to believe this is the meaning.

But they go to work cautiously, as I have said. Having said that the body of Christ is made present to believers by these words, they do not add "when uttered" or "thought".

Therefore I ask first whether the body of Christ is made present immediately upon the belief that the bread is the body of Christ or that it is in the bread.

If so, then it is faith and not the word that brings the body.

If not, they have proclaimed a falsehood in reiterating so often that if one only believes he eats the body, he does eat it. But some champion will come forward and say, "Faith and the word ought to come together at the same time."

I ask again, to come to two difficulties which they run away from, "What word ought to be thus coincident in time with faith, the word uttered or the word thought?" If the word uttered,

I ask whether it is enough that it be uttered by the minister for all or whether the individuals must utter it. If the utterance by the minister is enough, it might readily happen that no one eats the body of Christ.

For suppose the minister has not faith that the flesh of Christ is eaten on the occasion.

Then the flesh of Christ will not appear there.

If they say, "The faith of the partakers makes the flesh appear, not the words of those who repeat them," then the body of Christ is not made present by the word.

Thus your coach in which you were bringing the body of Christ goes to pieces.

If they say that it is in order for anyone to utter the sacred words, then the uttered words produce the body of Christ. But how can this be, since you said that it is made present by the faith of the believer.

If it is done by faith, then the word does what has already been done by faith, which is like pleading a case already decided.

If, on the other hand, the thing is done when the words are merely thought, the same thing follows, to wit, that thought does what has been done before by faith.

And, what is most dangerous in the premises to leave subtleties at length and come back to the subject, is that when they discourse in this way about the power of words, as if they made the body

of Christ present, they restore and prop up the authority of the pope which had almost collapsed. [585] But you may object, will he not also say, "By the words of the Lord, uttered over a believer, is not the thing which the words symbolize made present?

Do you believe, therefore, that to the man to whom Christ said, 'Your sins are forgiven'

[Mt.

9:2], his sins were pardoned or not?" I agree I believe so. He may then say, "So, therefore, are the sins of poor mortals forgiven when I say, 'Son, your sins are forgiven you.' For the words make the thing itself present and so forth."

He may say, therefore, with these syngrammateusi ("memorialists") to. all the blind and lame, "See" and "Hear", and may relieve their misfortune.

[Cf.

Mt.

11:5.] For the word will bring the thing itself with it. Nor can they say, "Christ did not bid us to do those things but eat his body. He commanded us to do this in remembrance of him."

For Christ did not bid us to eat his body in commemoration of the body, but he bade us to eat symbolic bread and wine in remembrance of his body, that is, of his passion and death.

It is to this that Paul has reference when he explains the words "Do this in commemoration of me" by saying, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you will announce the Lord's death." [1 Cor.

11:24f.] Therefore we must ignore that opinion of the pontiffs who used to teach that the words "This do in remembrance of me" should be referred to his body, "Produce my body out of or in bread in commemoration of me." For this word "this" does not refer to the bread or the body, but to the announcement, that is, the thanksgiving and praise, in the sense, "You shall thus give praise and thanks that I have given up my body for you," as is perfectly plain from Paul's words.

But, on the other hand, he bids the believers rescue their brethren from evils. For he says, "He enjoined upon them to care for all infirmity and weakness.

Nay, he added this promise, 'These signs shall follow them that believe.

They shall cast out devils in my name, etc." [Mk.

16:17] Whither will your syngrammateis ("memorialists" turn now?

He has nowhere promised that when anyone said the words "This is my body" the body of Christ will be produced there, but he has promised and said that the faithful shall banish devils and disease. When, therefore, they do not effect that which has been promised if we believe, it is apparent that they do not have faith.

How, then, will they make the body of Christ present, which God has nowhere ordered or promised that they can do or ought to do? [586] Yet, that no one may find a stumbling block in this reasoning of mine, it is necessary to meet the question at the start with the help of synecdoche, [24] and my reasoning is none the less strong.

Consider carefully, good Luther, how empty and trivial is what they say of the vehicle of the word.

There remains now the third division of this section, namely the showing how they amphoterizósi ("print both ways"), and apply different meanings to faith and to the presence of the body and blood of Christ.

For when they say, "When faith is present to a person, he has God present," what else, pray, do they mean than that wherever faith is, there is God present, not only with that presence wherewith he permeates and occupies the world and everything else, but also with goodness and grace? As if there were a kind of presence different from that universal presence wherewith he is present everywhere:

As if, for instance, in case God favored us, it was not enough for him to be present to us with the presence belonging to his nature, but he was more present in essence than if he did not like us.

In this view they are in harmony with the error which thinks that God's grace is a sort of property which is to be held and possessed by a person when it is given to him, an error which I think Philip Melanchthon was the first to confute. [25] This, then, is my view about God's presence.

As to the presence belonging to his nature, he is equally present everywhere, like the air we breathe. For he is the essential being and support of all things. It was apparently on this account that the Hebrews named him the Four-lettered, [26] because these letters are all breathing or spirit letters. But when he favors one more than another he deems him worthy of more gifts than the other He is not any more present in essence in the world than when the man endowed by him with so many gifts was not yet born, just as the Pope of Rome is not any bigger in physical sense with Eck [587] and Faber than with Luther and Zwingli, though he lavishes his favor upon them and hates us worse than a cur or a snake. [27] But they will say, "'This is a hard saying.' [Jn. 6:60] Was he not more present to Paul than to you?" He was not more present in essence but in grace.

Do you see, therefore, how you change the meaning of presence? If you take presence as grace or inclination, he was more present to David than to Saul. But understood so, it does not correspond with your postulate, with which you want to prove that as God is, or is made present by faith, so the body of Christ is made present in its essence by the same faith.

Here in the earlier position you use "present" instead of "grace, goodness and favor," in the sense that wherever faith is, there is also God's favor.

For if you try to interpret it otherwise, namely, as made present in essence by faith, you are not only wrong but crazy, as is clear from the above.

For how can he be made present by faith when there is no faith unless given by his goodness?

In the second place, the word "present" is understood of natural presence or presence in essence, so that the body of Christ is represented as made thus present by faith. But how, in the spirit and heart, or in itself and materially?

If this presence of the body is spiritual, for example, if it means that we trust in our hearts in Christ as having died for us, then there is no further disagreement between us.

For we, too, assert such presence, knowing that it is the one thing needful in this matter we are breaking lances over.

But if you assert natural presence, the whole hope of your argument vanishes.

For as God is not made present in essence by faith, so is also the body of Christ not made present in essence by faith.

But while the syngrammateis ("memorialists") assert all these things--"Faith makes God present,"

"Faith makes the body of Christ present," and the like--on their own authority without scriptural support, we must not act in such a way that the same may rightly be said of us, namely, that we want people to believe our statements unsupported by Scripture.

When, therefore, I say that God is everywhere present in his essence or nature and power (essence and power the theologians used to call it), I do not put this forth of myself (though the contemplation of the Infinite leads one rather to such a belief), but I take it from the utterances of godly men.

Jeremiah 23:23-24 threatens in the words of the Lord the wicked who refused to listen to his warnings, thus:

"Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off?"

"'Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Do not I fill heaven and earth?'

[588] says the Lord."

But there are many whom God does not visit with his favor, for he has destined them to be vessels of wrath. [Rom. 9:22] Jeremiah, is, therefore, not speaking of the presence of mercy and favor, but of the presence belonging to God's nature, by which he is everywhere present and holds and regulates all things. Thus there is not even a devil save because God is. For in him we live and move, as Paul quotes from the poet.

[Acts 17:28] Likewise in Romans 11:36, wishing to restrain the boldness of the disputants, Paul says, "of him, and through him, and to him, are all things"

(where in ipsum ("to him") is a figure of speech for in ipso ("in him"), which the Romans also, especially the Law writers, use, saying in senatum ("to the senate") for in senatu ("in the senate").)

For God is the being and existence of all things. Why, then, should we dispute with him?

So straightway they vary the meaning of faith about the body and blood of Christ when they say, "So, therefore, if he believes, he eats the body and the blood (that is, believes), he must have the body and blood present." [28] This is what they say.

Weigh their crafty words carefully.

For if in saying, "So, therefore, if he believes he (i.e. anyone) eats the body and blood, that is believes," they wish to be understood as saying that anyone who believes has the body and blood present, they say nothing different from me.

For I do not even understand the notion of faith in Christ Jesus without the idea of his body and blood.

For it was for this that Jesus was anointed Savior and Christ, that taking a body he might save us and through the fragrance thereof draw us to imitate his life.

[Cf. Eph.

5:2.] But in this sense he is no more present in body than is Peter. He is only in the heart.

But they want also by this turn of their language to insinuate their view into the minds of the simple, so that while we think they are speaking of mental or spiritual presence, the untaught will understand bodily presence.

If, then, they mean to say, "He who has faith in Christ has the body of Christ present, i.e., does not think of Christ as Savior apart from his body," they assert the same thing that I do. For Christ Jesus was then first called the Son of God when he came forth clothed in the robe of the flesh.

But if by these words (if he believes, he eats the body and the blood), they mean to say, "If he believes he is going to eat the body and blood physically," why do they explain the words "eats the body and the blood" from John 6:54 by saying, "that is, he believes"?

Look, therefore, first [589] at these words again, "So, therefore, if he believes he eats the body and the blood (that is, believes), he must have the body and blood present."

Do you see?

What do you think their character is? I think it is such that they signify nothing more than that the faithful have the body and blood of Christ present in their minds. I assert the same thing. But according to what

I have just said you see that this is not what they mean, but this:

"He who believes he is going to eat the body, eats it." And if you do not yet see the deceit of these people, measure it by this.

When they had said in the first clause, "so, therefore, if he believes," there was no need of adding as a second member of that sentence, "eats the body and the blood, that is believes".

For the following part would have fitted on by itself in this way:

"So, therefore, if he believes, he must have the body and blood present."

For when they add under the form of a second member the words "eats the body and the blood" and explain them by "that is, believes", what is this but tautologia ("tautology")? It's just as if they said, "So, therefore, if he believes, so therefore if he believes."

Now I think you perceive the fraud, namely, that they were all ready to say that he who trusts in Christ and believes that he is eating his body and blood, eats it, and when this seemed likely to get them into trouble, they drew back, and explained eating the body and blood as believing. Still, they wanted to suggest this notion to the little taught and the untaught all the same, or the notion that has been sufficiently exploded already, that trusting in Christ renders the body of Christ present in bodily shape.

For this is their doctrine, that a thing becomes present as it is in itself, if belief is had in it and at the same time the word is uttered by which we are told about the thing, a doctrine which involves so many difficulties and absurdities that it would be nauseating to mention them at length.

I will mention one or two.

It will follow, then, that when I trust in Christ Jesus,

and say, "This is my body" [Mt. 26:26], even without the bread (for our sweet-tongued friends say that this word "this" does not mean the bread) [29] the body of Christ is at hand and is eaten.

Then, as if it were not enough if you understand what Christ said of the Pharisees--how they devour widows' houses [Mt. 23:14]-as meaning that they extort the poor foolish women out of everything through the arts of hypocrisy and flattery, the Pharisees will have to have such enormous mouths and such teeth of iron and adamant that they can chew up and swallow down houses.

[590] For this is the implication of their doctrine, that a thing, even if a matter of the intellect and belief, is yet made materially present by a word if you believe the word.

So, again, it will follow that the elect are not only to enjoy the most excellent possible life in heaven, but are going to eat and drink.

For Christ said, "I have prepared a place for you, that you shall eat and drink at my table, etc." [Lk. 22:30] It is not enough that a trope be understood; we must go to the place itself.

So much for the word as the vehicle of the body, and for the change of meaning of their words, that you may better see that they are logomachous ("fighters about words") [1 Tim.

6:4; 2 Tim. 2:14] and tricksters, who have imposed upon you when you were unaware and were under the influence of strong feeling.

For while the orator [30] tells us that hapla kai saphé ta dikaia esse oportere ("the right ought to be simple and clear"), these aspirants for nothingness rather than rhetorical distinction make the holiest and clearest things involved and obscure.

For what is the use of making up, after the manner of the Scotists, all these perverted distinctions--the external word first and then internal, then these as distinguished from the thing they represent, and finally from the thing brought in material shape to us, now by faith, now by the word--unless one has made up his mind to throw dust in the eyes of the simple?

People who are sincere call ta syka syka ("figs, figs"), i.e., things by their right names, simply and clearly.

This is the way they ought to have spoken, this the order they ought to have kept, as the apostles said, "God gave his son unto the world as a propitiator and intercessor."

[Cf. Jn. 4:10] Here you have the thing, so that, if we are to take into account philosophical considerations, we may begin rather with the conception of the fact and the reason, than with accidents and afterthoughts.

This is what the apostles believe and preach.

What they preach, then, is nothing else than the fact itself.

For they preach the fact, not in order to show forth by the word the physical or bodily Christ (if they did that they would have to crucify him anew.

For [591] he was born to be crucified, and if he were shown forth in the one character he would have to be in the other also), but that they have faith in him who was thus born, lived, and was nailed to the cross.

And this cannot be attained through the word of the preacher, but through the

drawing of the Spirit. [Cf. Jn. 6:44.] They err, therefore, by the whole width of heaven when they think that either the thing itself or faith in it is brought about by the word.

Nor is what Paul wrote in Romans 10:14 contradictory of this, "How shall they believe what they have not heard?"

For after hearing the word, no one goes away believing unless his spirit hath been drawn by the Spirit, so far is it from the truth that by the word either faith or the thing which is the object of faith is brought about.

The thing is taught, and not all who hear receive it, but only those the ear of whom is picked by the Spirit.

Now it is plain that what is taught by the word ought first to be considered, and the second place only given to the word itself, which is nothing but the image of the thing.

If this is received, God has opened the mind; if it is believed, the heart has been drawn to it. Here we have to halt. For neither the understanding of the word nor the word itself makes the thing present in any other sense than as knowledge makes anything present, nor does the spirit otherwise than with the certainty of faith.

For if the thing became also physically present, we should have to eat the flesh of Christ in a material sense or run the risk of losing eternal life.

For Christ says, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

[Jn. 6:53] Here, I say, if it is not enough for a trope to be understood in the sense that whoever does not believe when of course the gospel has been preached shall be damned, nor enough to be united to Christ in firm faith through the grace of the Spirit, but one must have the thing itself also present, then no one can attain salvation, unless he has the thing itself and eats.

In that case, faith, to which salvation is so often promised in the Scriptures, is made void, and physical eating is set up so that by faith alone is not sufficient.

But I had almost forgotten how the syngrammateis ("memorialists") in this expression, "eternal word", are trying to find a dark corner in which to hide. For the simple fabricate wonderful images and meanings in this eternal word, when "eternal word" is a Hebraism by which "the eternal thing" is signified, and [592]

"the Deity" or "his purpose".

Thus, therefore, by saying, "There is the external word, and the internal and finally the eternal word which renders present the thing we believe," they deceive the unrefined listener who makes some kind of distinction between the thing we have faith in and the eternal word, just as if the eternal word were some special thing which produced before us and made present the thing we understand and believe, when they are really the same.

The eternal word is nothing other than the eternal thing about which we are taught and in which we have faith when we have been drawn to it.

See now how unseasonably they exercise their cleverness when they say, "There is, besides, the eternal word which makes the thing itself present." For they want the untaught to get this notion I have mentioned, namely, that the thing in which we have faith is made present by the eternal word, when the eternal word and the thing, that is, God himself, are the same thing. But perhaps they would deserve forgiveness if they did not try to make out that they are so splendidly consistent with themselves that they have a right to despise everybody else.

For their slip is due to ignorance, and comes from their not properly studying the ancient writers.

For when they speak of the beginning of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the - word"

[Jn.

1:1] they all keep the hebraism and say, "the eternal word which was with the Father," or something of the sort, though they mean to say the same thing as St. John, who meant nothing else than, "This thing

[593] that I am going to speak about is so thoroughly the Son of God as to be God himself." The meaning of the term for "word" among the Hebrews, moreover, is fuller and more splendid than that of rei ("thing" among the Romans.

From this, therefore, they have, through ignornace, drunk in a notion wherewith they deceive themselves and others. For they are as much dumbfounded by a trope as the tiger by the footprint of a man.

The ignorant person must be excused, therefore, but only as a private individual.

If he makes himself public by writing, he must be sharply reproved for having ventured to teach what he has not yet clearly learned.

The "thing", therefore, and the eternal word, are God and his purpose and all that he is. This is preached to us, that we may recognize it, and having recognized it, rest upon it. This is the godly and natural teaching which both reason and religion accept.

But that "the word brings the thing" and speeches like that, are paint with which logomachoón ("fighting about words") and deceivers defile the truth.

In so many words, much against my will, do these people who build upon words force me to discuss the matter with you. You see, therefore, what their clearness is, obscurity, darkness, nay, black night. The other things that I dislike in them--to wit, the pointlessness or unmannerliness of their irony and taunts and sarcasms--I need not go into at length, and will only add that they almost never quote the testimony of Scripture without violently distorting it.

I am grieved, therefore, not, by heaven, because my feelings have got the better of me, but on your account and that of the Church, that you have so highly commended a book which bears the marks of factious wantonness and not pious learning.

You make it a matter of unfavorable criticism that that incomparable man, Oecolampadius, preferred to put forth modestly the things that contradict your assertions rather than to confute them with mention of your name. [31] You must yourself decide how sincere you are in this. I did the same thing, thinking it advisable not to come into collision with anyone by name unless someone wrote against me by name.

But in the writings to which I refer,

I always brought out the things which opposed and removed what you had advanced.

Mention, I beg you, anything from among all the things you have put forth anywhere in support of your view that has not been repeatedly answered already. Some people are so pugnacious and hot-tempered that they find more delight in what is [594] bitter and inimical, nay Scythian and deadly, than what is gentle and not cringing but vigorous and solid. If the gentlemen had been willing to listen, they would before this have heard what they would see was a confutation of their arguments, but they preferred to have their case knocked all to pieces with wounds and blows rather than to have the matter settled by careful and quiet consideration.

Bucer's argument that Christ nowhere performed a miracle that nobody saw, [32] you again meet with abuse more than with Scripture or argument.

Mention a miracle that was not known to the perception of people. "He sits at the right hand," you say.

This is a miracle, but did not the disciples see him ascend thither?

Did not Stephen see him there? [Acts 7:56] I say nothing, meanwhile, about the great difference there is between the miracles that were put forth with regard to us and those which had to do with himself.

But you say, "Well, we do not see him today."

What of it? You believe today that he was seen in the past. Do we see today the dead raised in the body, do we see Christ rise, the dropsical cured, the blind restored to sight, and the man who had suffered from palsy rejoicing and going home with his bed on his shoulders in spite of the snarls of the haughty that it is not lawful to take up one's bed on the Sabbath? [Mt. 9:21] Therefore, we do not see Christ's miracles today but we believe that they were seen in the past, and we believe Christ himself, who foretold in plain words that he should ascend, and the apostles who bore witness that they had seen him. Else how could we have faith in his transfiguration, or not we, but the nine disciples?

[Mk. 9:2ff.] Only three [595] had seen it. You also put "reigning" among those miracles which are not seen, but indiscreetly, for it was that we might see that he was Lord of all things that he commanded the winds [Mt.

8:26] and the sun and the rocks and what not. And we cannot make a miracle fairly of his reign, for the philosophers reckon it no miracle that God reigns--unless with the Jews and the Arians we are going to deny that Christ is God.

Nor again is it a miracle for God to live.

But you say it is a miracle for a man to be a mortal and living. But if it is a miracle for the Son of God to live after human fashion, was he not seen to live whom the stones could not bear to look upon when he was dying? And if it is a miracle for him to be living now, he is also seen to have done this.

For he rose again and appeared among his own for forty days. [Acts 1:3] See again, my dear Luther, what happens to you when you thunder so loudly this synathroismon ("combination"), "thus

Christ sits at the right hand of the "Father, reigns, lives, acts is false", etc. [WA 19:472:22-23] See these things you reckon up are miracles, but each one has been presented to human perception.

But where has the body of Christ, whether eaten in the bread or as made from the bread, ever been in such guise that any mortal's perception perceived or saw it at all? Why has this one singly and alone among all miracles (so-called by us, not by Christ, or the apostles) nowhere been presented to our view?

Or how is there a miracle where no one has perceived that anything was done at which he could marvel?

For our teaching that a thing is accomplished by a miracle has the same sort of authority as the statement of the naturalists that the Phoenix is born again from his own ashes. [33] They say so, to be sure, but groundlessly.

It would be a miracle then, if he were thus put together again, like Hippolytus, but since no man ever saw it, it doesn't make it so because you people so represent it. [34]

"Let him believe that these spirits teach the truth," you say, "if anyone takes pleasure in perishing, for they have taken up a doctrine that sprang from evident lies, they maintain it with lies, and spread it by faithlessly corrupting other men's books."

[WA 19:472:23-26] [596] I have represented you faithfully I think in this, so do not accuse me again of faithlessness and lying.

If I made answer to this stuff with equal heat, not to say howls of rage, what, pray, would be the result?

A brawling quarrel.

Lying has from my boyhood been so abhorrent to me, Luther, that no one has ever accused me of lying unless he was himself a consummate liar.

As to the character of our people, I rightly esteem them on account of, and do not doubt, their marked learning and piety; as to yours, I care nothing.

I desire to know from you what the lies are upon which we have propped up our care.

If you still cling to the error of thinking that we are in error, why do you call that which is in error a lie? Are error and lie equivalent terms? I will tell you without lying who ought properly to be called liars: those who say that the truth is a lie; who declare to the world what they know in their hearts is not so, and say that it is their opinion; who attack the divine utterances with seditious outcries and slanders; who trust to their own authority in championing what is opposed to the authority of Scripture and thrust upon it a meaning which this same Scripture cannot admit. These are the people who can be said to deal in lies.

Now, then, examine us, and see whether you find anything forced or deceitful or cunning. Do we not fortify with the most unequivocal passages of Scripture the meaning which we maintain?

Do we deny in one place what we have said in another? Or what, pray, have we done, that you rave so roughly against us? I have told you hundreds of times that the question was not put forth at random by us, but we found it flying about in nearly everybody's mouth, and took it up.

Is it lying, then, to subscribe to other

people's opinions?

It is evident that you just indulge your feelings when you are not satisfied to say, "You are in error" but had to add, "You're a liar."

As to the propriety of the person who wants to perish believing "these spirits" understand this: there are not among us any who make frequent boast of the Spirit.

How faithful we are to our Lord, moreover, in the management of the talent entrusted to us [Mt.

25:14ff.], and how active in every work by which we gain with it as much as possible, is not a matter for you to judge or decide.

He knows with what sort of faithfulness we do all that we do, who alone knows the hearts of people.

[1 K.

8:39] Even if we were ever so much in error in your opinion, yet we should be in error without loss of salvation, even in your judgement, since you relegate this question to a place among those which are raised by troubled and curious minds, and may be neglected without danger to salvation.

For what else do you assert when you say that our utterances do not require controverting?

[Cf.

WA 19:123:18; 487:12.] If we are in error why should we not be proven so?

If [597] not that, why should we not be questioned?

It is apparent that you relegate the question to things indifferent. How is it that you charge us with treachery, as if, being sent to announce salvation, we preached destruction, when you yourselves in the early stages of the controversy have defined it as curious rather than essential?

Whither will you flee for refuge? What blessing has been promised to physical manducation, to say nothing of salvation itself?

Why, then, do you accuse us of treason?

Finally, as to faithlessness, since I see that this charge is aimed especially at Bucer though you put it in the general count.

I will not take great pains to rebut it, since neither the Strassburgers nor they of Basel nor we brethren at Zurich have ever been accused of this crime.

We fight faithfully for the truth. As to Bucer's having made some addition of his own to the Pomeranian's version of the Psalms, he did it not without his authorization.

He had given the man freedom to put in and leave out things in the course of his translation.

Thinking in his own sincerity that this permission had been meant seriously, he added what seemed consonant with the true view of the Eucharist.

This he did openly and with the purpose of furnishing both Bugenhagen and yourself a way out.

This you two, being faithful friends to him from whom he merited far other treatment in this matter than from me (for I had forbidden the man permission to make either a Latin or a German exposition, not without reasons), [35] proclaim to all the world as treachery.

Why do we not see the meaning of the sayings "strife sows strife"

[36] and "the weary man seeks a quarrel"? [37] When we are embarrassed in our cause we seek a quarrel.

A fine cause, to be sure, for reproaching one with treachery, when, even if he is in error, he yet acts in all sincerity! [598]

You go on in the letter, speaking of us, "Then, while they

see excellently, these vicious disputants make us of metaphors, inferences, absurdities, and arguments from the particular to the general."

[WA 19:472:26-28] These are your words, to say nothing of your style of speech meanwhile, which shows clearly enough how feeling has blinded your eyes. You think we rest upon metaphors?

You are wrong, then, and, clever champion that you are, accuse us of the thing in which you are especially great sinners, thus getting the start in casting the dart, so that we shall think ourselves fortunate if we avoid your spears without returning them. How should we make use of metaphors when on your own showing there is nothing paradoxical in what we maintain?

The great use of metaphors is when one is inculcating something unexpected, unusual, and out of keeping with accepted notions-unless perhaps you reckon among metaphors the collation and comparison of Scriptural passages.

But that you rest upon metaphors and nothing else, instead of resting upon the clear testimony of Scripture, I shall show when we come to the discourse you published against the fanatics. [38] The use of inferences is so legitimate that the rhetoricians say the essential point of a situation can be based upon them, even if witnesses, accomplices, documents, and signs are lacking. Our use of inferences, therefore, should not have been criticized so tumultuously, but you should have taken pains to prove that the use of inferences was not legitimate in this controversy.

For if it is demolishing my opponent's arguments in case I throw them aside instead of breaking them down, no one is so unskilled that one cannot answer everything that is said in opposition.

Since, therefore, Christ in many places used signs and inferences (for they are so closely related that you can sometimes hardly distinguish one from the other) as when he says, "If you will not believe me, yet believe me for the very works' sake"

[Jn.

10:38], "If they heard not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if one rises from the dead, etc."

[Lk.

16:31], why may we not also use them, especially when even people who do not rest their case upon them still avail themselves of inferences? There are eloquent reasons that can be defended in every case.

Know, then, that we have used inferences, not because we had nothing solid to rest upon besides, but that the pious reader might see that even they were on our side.

Are we to regard it as a trifling argument if one says, "The apostles did not understand in the literal sense the words of Christ, 'This is my body which is given for you.'"? [Mt. 26:26] I think not. But how is it to be proved? By the most evident inferences. [599] The apostles saw nothing to marvel at, though they were otherwise impressionable and simple before all such high things. You all throw aside the inference, not with argument but with your mere say-so, though that upon which it rests is solider than anything you bring forward in support of your whole case. Thus: the eating of Christ in the bread is generally considered the greatest of all miracles.

But the apostles saw nothing to marvel at.

Therefore, they did not perceive that there was any miracle in it.

What plausible reply, pray, can you make to this reasoning? You are constantly talking about it, but not to say anything that fits the case, only not to seem to have nothing to say.

The same point is likewise proved by another like inference, namely, the apostles did not worship the host. We do so. Therefore the apostles did not have the same view of the supper that we have.

Likewise Christ does not upbraid them because they do not do so.

Therefore nothing of the kind was demanded.

For he nowhere kept silence where an error could arise.

Likewise the apostles showed no hesitation, made no answer, asked no questions, and yet they did none of the things we do. They did not have, then, the same understanding of the matter that we have. Likewise

Thomas refused to believe that Christ had risen from the dead.

[Jn.

20:24ff.] But if he had believed that in the Supper he ate the body of Christ, he could not have been so obstinately incredulous.

Likewise when James enjoins that if anyone among us fall sick the leaders shall go to him, pray for him, and anoint him [Jas.

5:14], why does he not say, shall partake of the body of Christ with him, especially when we declare that faith is established and sins are forgiven through this eating?

Likewise "One faith," says Paul, "one baptism." [Eph. 4:5] Why does he not mention eating together the body of Christ? For if the eating of the bodily flesh of Christ were required in his Church, Paul would not have neglected to say, "And we eat one body of Christ, that we may be one body unto him." But I will say no more about inferences.

I will now speak of indications and documents. Throughout all the churches and basilicas this side of the Rhine, that none of the little houses [39] in which the sacraments are kept are more than two hundred years old or a little older is an indication [600] that all those years ago the sacrament was regarded in the light in which I regard it. When the altars were all removed in the ancient city of Zurich this year, there was not one found that had been raised at the same time as the church. [40] Well, is this not an indication that eight hundred years ago altars did not yet [601] exist?

The fact that priests' missals, such as our people call Chaplains', others Vicars', are not found at Zurich or in all Switzerland or even as far as Strassburg, not having a greater existence than three hundred years, also belongs with signs. At Glarus and Zug missals have been found, [41] not fully three hundred years old, which contain rubrics of this sort:

"And presently, when the infants have been baptized certainly let the bread and wine of the body and blood of the Lord be given them."

[602] And this is the strongest proof by far of all that the men of that time did not feel about the Eucharist as we wish to seem to feel. Otherwise they would not have offered it to infants. [42]

I pass over many things but not this, that in the Canton of Lucerne

in Switzerland, on the day we still call the Lord's Supper, the people in the Council House, the canons and councillors of the city, with the provost of the college, assemble in the banquet chamber of some hall.

There a portion of the sacred writings or something from the discourses of the fathers is read. Meanwhile wine and unleavened bread are brought in, and when the proper time arrives, the Provost rises and blesses the bread with these words, "The right hand of God the Father bless this gift of love."

Presently also the wine, in this way, "The right hand of God the Father bless this cup of love."

Immediately those sitting there eat in a devotional spirit and offer to the bystanders, and at the same time people assemble in the church, and a great quantity of unleavened bread is carried around.

Afterwards a sermon follows. [43] This also is an indication in regard to the supper in old times.

I have not written this because something similar is not found all about among the colleges, but to show the duller ones that they have at their own doors an opportunity to learn that our ancestors had no feeling that they were eating the bodily flesh of Christ in the bread, although, like us, they called the bread the Lord's body symbolically.

Our college at Zurich has documents more than seven hundred years old, in which there is no mention of a "mass". Monks of the Benedictine order and the order of St. Bernard are established at various places in Switzerland [603] in whose diplomas there is no mention of the Lord's body or of the "mass", though some of them have been established within three hundred years. [44]

And all these things and others like them, though you reject them forever, are yet true and more valuable than anything any of you offer.

We are as free from arguing from the particular to the general as you are persistent in declaring that we do it [WA 19:472:

19-23], and I have repeatedly reminded you of that. We have never desired to argue thus:

"The word 'is' is sometimes used instead for the word 'signifies'; therefore, it is everywhere used for the word 'signifies'."

But everytime we try to guard against your saying so, you stubbornly charge us with arguing thus.

I enter the same caveat now, even though you do not receive it.

This is what we have desired to show, that the use of "is" for "signifies" is not foreign to Holy Scripture.

Since, therefore, these words of Christ, "This is my body, etc." [Mt. 26:26] might seem to the simple to have been violently twisted, I explained them in this way without an example from Scripture:

"The word 'this' indicates here that the body of Christ was slain for us." I wished to show from Scripture that it was permissible to explain the word "is" by means of the word "signifies". We say, for instance, "The word

'seeing' is repeatedly used in Scripture for the word for 'understand-

ing', as is also the case with secular writers both Greek and Latin."

Now we give the example, "But when Jesus saw what they were thinking"

[Mt.

9:7], that is, when he understood or perceived.

We do not, however, mean to say that "see" is everywhere used for "understand" but that when the drift of the thought requires this, the reader need not shrink from such an interpretation, since

Scripture is full of instances of the sort. Even you see now, therefore, that we are not arguing viciously, but that you people are charging us with what we have never been so naive as to think of doing, and it is for you to consider the propriety or the viciousness of your action.

Why, then, are we so sharply attacked?

Is it the mark of a good spirit not to listen to the word of a brother explaining and making clear what he means? You are the people, I say, who throw the universal upon us against our will and loud cries. [604] If you say, "We have won, then, because they cannot compel 'is' to be accepted as 'signifies' or as a 'figure of speech,'"

I have already shown that this is unsound before by proving from other passages of Scripture (which make it impossible to accept "is" literally in this passage) that there must be a different exposition of these words. Thereupon some of you are unwilling to listen to a collation of other passages, and how dangerous and impious that is shall be shown by and by.

You add immediately, "But no one deigns to listen to the troubled cries of our consciences.

When we say 'The words of Christ are clear and plain:

"Eat! This is my body"' [Mt. 26:26], our consciences, I say, are held bound by this. We want a passage pointed out which compels us that our perception is false in regard to these words. But no one utters a syllable upon this in all their books."

[WA 19:472:28-32] Such is the complaining of your consciences.

I do not want to say anything unduly harsh or biting of you, Luther, although by these words you make applicable to yourself the fable in which the man is said to. be looking about for the horse he is himself riding on. [45] Our one object is to collate the passages of Scripture and thus bring the whole matter to the point where it becomes apparent that these words cannot have the meaning which they bear on their face.

And you say that you people want a passage pointed out which compels this?

You stumble about, therefore, of your own will with your eyes shut at noon-day.

Such passages are these and others like them:

"The flesh profits nothing" [Jn. 6:63] (therefore, he did not give it to us to eat); "He ascended unto heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty" [46] (therefore, he is not in the bread); again, "I leave the world"

[Jn.

16:28] (therefore, he is not here).

As far as his divinity is concerned, he did not leave it, and indeed he could not leave it; "It is expedient for you that I go away" [Jn.

16:7] (therefore, it is not expedient that he be here). And inferences, the testimony of the apostles, and all that has been so often said in one's everyday experience, all of which you people push aside with insult and censure.

I shall speak more

at length of all these things below, even at the cost of repetition.

Now I come back to you and to these further groans of your consciences.

"They throw at us that the flesh profits nothing, but we know that.

We want something else, something, namely, upon this passage, 'This is my body." [WA 19:472:32-34] These are your words.

A sick man must be very much out of sorts [605] when he won't touch or taste anything that you offer him.

If, my dear Luther, you knew that the flesh profits nothing, how did you come to get the notion that Christ gave it to you? Why do you not stop there, if you know the flesh profits nothing? Or how is it you know it profits nothing, when you declare that through eating it faith is supported and sin forgiven? What are you rowing for?

You are sailing in port [47] unless it is the case you do not understand "the flesh profits nothing" as we do.

I will set forth, therefore, our understanding of these words, and when you have heard it, do not continue to argue, like the insolent ones.

I do not suppose that you want me to go very deeply concerning the arguments or the material of the sixth chapter of John, for we are all agreed, I think, that in speaking there as he does of his flesh Christ wished to teach nothing else than that all hope and trust may be placed in him, the Son of God, because he was going to offer that flesh for us as a victim to satisfy the righteous wrath of the Father. And this allegory has a special charm over others in which he teaches the same thing because he maintains the exchange [48] of one for the other of his two natures and also because it mimics the Jews so finely who thought, or at least wished to seem to think, that he was nothing but a mere man.

Reproaching them with error, as it were, he says that his flesh is meat indeed, not by Hercules, meaning flesh, but his superior nature which had taken on flesh in order through it to propitiate and satisfy the eternal righteousness.

He is speaking, by means of the exchange of his mortal nature, though thinking of the immortal.

For he who trusts in that shall be blessed. The Jews, then, did not take this allegorical discourse of Christ's as he intended it, thinking it an absurdity that his flesh should be eaten, while he did not thereby understand flesh but faith in the Son of God. Thus they not only themselves found occasion to murmur and resist, but caused some of the disciples also to do so by saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" [Jn. 6:52] And many among the disciples, following their stubborn example, took advantage of the opportunity to rebel, and said, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?"

[Jn.

6:60] Seeing, therefore, that they murmured amongst themselves at it, Jesus said, [606] "Does this offend you? What if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?

It is the Spirit that makes alive; the flesh profits nothing: the words I speak to you are spirit and life." [Jn. 6:61-63]

The words of Christ, I say, we understand in this way, that to the error of the Jews through which they thought he had spoken of bodily flesh as if it ought to be eaten, Christ clearly answered that the flesh was absolutely useless to eat and not for faith either, if you considered it in a literal sense and by itself.

For he says, "It is the Spirit that makes alive." [Jn. 6:63] It must, therefore, be the Spirit in which one must have faith.

This understanding most of you cast aside, and say that Christ was speaking of the carnal understanding and natural quality when he said the flesh profits nothing, as Paul and Isaiah bear witness.

This error, concocted with more boldness than discretion, in order to save them from being pushed and driven away from the flesh of Christ to which they cling too closely, I have refuted with these considerations: [49] First, that the evangelist both before the words "The flesh profits nothing" and after them, has put many clear and distinct expressions from which it can readily be detected that the natural sense of these words is the one which we adopt.

First among these is, "Jesus, therefore, seeing."

For Jesus understood [607] what they were thinking of, and they were not thinking of the antagonism of flesh and spirit which our friends so untimely bring in here. Hence it is not likely that he ran outside the barriers, as they say,[50] but that he stuck to the same thesis until he had made plain to the disciples what was obscure.

And the second is where he says, "Seeing that they murmured among themselves at it, Jesus said." [Jn. 6:61] Behold with what clear marks he indicates everything so that we may see that Jesus is still upon the same subject:

"That they murmured at it," he says. At what? They were muttering things to each other through horror of the flesh.

And since nothing is said here of the nature of the flesh and the spirit, these words, "that they murmured at it", cannot refer to the nature of the flesh and the spirit. And his adding the word "said" immediately shows likewise that he made answer in regard to the thing on account of which they were murmuring.

The third is where he says, "Does this offend you?"

[Jn.

6:61] What, pray, does "this" refer to here?

To carnal understanding? Jesus had not spoken of that. How could it refer to that, then? It offended, therefore, that he had declared so often that his flesh must be eaten. The fourth is where, beginning to shed light on the matter, he says, "What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?" [Jn. 6:62] By these words he reminds them that they do not now believe that he is the Son of God, but turn everything upside down, and make him refer to human eating of flesh.

But when they shall see him ascend into heaven, then they will confess in consequence of their own experiences, both that he is the Son of God, and that he spoke of faith in himself and not of eating with the teeth the flesh which they see journeying to heaven. And though these things prove clearly enough that Christ stuck to his first hypothesei

("proposition"), yet the things that follow sweep away like a torrent

everything that seems to stand in the way. Fifth:

"It is the Spirit that makes alive; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life." [Jn. 6:63] Here you have the enlivening Spirit. Why, then, does he so often attribute life to the flesh?--"Whoso eats my flesh has eternal life, etc."

[Jn. 6:54] For he was a God that makes alive whom they thought a mere man.

Kat' ethologian ("by impersonation"), therefore, and mimicry, which are varieties of substitutions that is, by that imitation which [608] consists in using the language and point of view of one's opponent, he employs the word "flesh" but means "Spirit", that is, his own Godhead, whenever he attributes life to the flesh.

At length, therefore, when he had struck this divine chord for them in vain, he is made stern, as it were, by their stubbornness, and says, "O slow of heart, think you that life, which consists of spirit, can flow from the flesh?

It must be the Spirit which can give life." It is the Spirit, then, that makes alive.

The flesh profits nothing, namely, towards enlivening, if it be eaten.

For they had thought he attributed enlivening to the eating of flesh.

"The words that I have spoken unto you."

What words? "My flesh is meat indeed" and the like.

"They are spirit," that is, are to be understood of the Spirit, indicating, namely, that it makes alive.

How people would rave, my dear Luther, if I explained this expression, "they are spirit" as meaning

"they signify spirit," in the sense "whenever I have named the flesh, I have meant to indicate spirit and life." But why do you imagine it makes so much difference what shape we give our words if the sense remains constantly the same? I would not designate anything in a peevish or violent way, lest I be a stumbling block to any to prevent his coming to the truth. "For the flesh profits nothing," namely, when eaten, for it was at eating it that they shuddered.

He frees them from this horror by a twofold antidote, one, that what gives life must be spirit, the other, that the flesh cannot make alive.

Though in their conciseness these words savor of hebraism, they contain nothing at variance with the general feeling not only of the faithful but of all people.

The sixth thing by which we detect that it was of his own flesh that Christ said it profits nothing (understand forever as far as eating is concerned), and that he stood by his thesis--the one he meant all along and which the Jews failed to understand--is the words he presently added, "But there are some of you who do not believe." [Jn. 6:64] If he had been speaking of carnal understanding and disposition when he said, "the flesh profits nothing," he would not say now, "There are some that do not understand."

He is, therefore, discovered to be still teaching faith and combating the error through which they had fancied he had spoken of eating flesh.

The last thing that I want to use here, for otherwise my exposition would be crowded too full, is this:

"Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words

of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [Jn. 6:68] Peter did not say, "We understand how terrible a foe the flesh is, in that it not only profits nothing but even harms."

He said, "We believe."

Whatever, then, is said here by Christ has to do with the subject of faith and confutation of the error about bodily flesh.

And this, too, must not be passed by, that if Christ were speaking here or elsewhere of the nature of the flesh, he would never have said [609], "The Spirit enlivens; the flesh profits nothing."

For what attraction would there be in such a form of expression?

Did Christ ever speak in such insipid fashion?

He would have said, "The Spirit enlivens; the flesh kills," or something of the kind.

For there is no pleasing antithesis in the sense suggested, indeed no antithesis at all.

For the flesh not only profits nothing it even hurts; yes, indeed, it is nothing, or rather is the destruction and ruin of salvation. But in the proper sense, a very beautiful antipipton ("disjunction") appears.

For, when, in order to do away with the error, he says, "It is the Spirit that enlivens," and the listener suddenly begins to work up such an objection as, "What about the flesh, then, of which so much has been said?" there follows in the very course of Christ's words, "The flesh profits nothing," namely, eaten for the providing of salvation.

But before I furl sail in this matter I want to satisfy the objection which states that if Christ had said, "My flesh profits

. nothing," there would not be any vestige of ambiguity, but inasmuch as he says as a general statement, "The flesh profits nothing,"

[Jn. 6:63] he seems to be speaking of carnal feelings. I ask, therefore, in reply, "What spirit, pray, do they understand when he says, 'It is the Spirit that enlivens'?"

Is it not Christ's. spirit?

Why, then, do they not in the same combination or the same disjunction understand Christ's flesh?

But the strongest argument of all is, as I have shown at length, that through the very contemplation of the discourse it becomes manifest that Christ is dealing with the same material throughout, that of teaching faith and overthrowing the error of the unskilled.

I will not pass over in silence those who have before myself explained this passage in this sense, all the fathers, Augustine, Cyril, and all who in our time have written on John, so far as I have had opportunity to see them. [51] Melanchthon is of this opinion, namely, that "flesh" in the sentence, "The flesh profits nothing," is not to be understood of carnal feelings, but of flesh as a thing that may be eaten, for he says, "And that eating is believing he himself sets forth in the beginning of his discourse, saying, 'Whoso believes in me has life'

[Jn. 6:47], and later, 'The flesh profits nothing'." [52] Here [610] Melanchthon makes his second proof from the contrary.

Luther is of the same opinion in the sermon which he delivered upon the words of Christ, "My flesh is meat indeed."

[Jn. 6:55] He says there, "Christ himself

, 2/1 says, 'The flesh profits nothing, and again, 'My flesh gives life.'

How shall we put these things together to make them harmonious?

The Spirit puts them together. Christ means that physical eating of his flesh is of no profit, and so forth." [WA 12:582:29-32]

Recall your words, Luther!

I quote these words of yours for no other purpose that you were once of the opinion that Christ said, "The flesh profits nothing," here, not in regard to the carnal disposition, but to show [611] that his flesh was not to be physically eaten.

Hence there is no reason for your people to make here the objection, "We understand "physically! as meaning through the medium of the senses." I am not now examining that question, but freeing from a violent interpretation Christ's statement, "The flesh profits nothing," and doing it by means of arguments, inferences and witnesses.

Why, then, my dear Luther, does your school put forward different meanings to us? Or, rather, why do different explanations of the same words proceed out of your mouth, when the circumstances are not in the least changed.

The Pomeranian says that a carnal disposition is condemned here.

Melanchthon and Luther say that we are taught here that carnal eating profits nothing.

How is it, pray, that you are not of the same opinion all along?

If you deny that you have anywhere expressed the opinion that Christ spoke here of a carnal disposition (I do not know whether you have done so in so many words or not, for I am not as well acquainted with your works as would be necessary to enable me to go into that matter) yet you commend so highly the writing of the Swabians, which teems with this error, among others, then you seem to approve the explanation.

If you do not approve it, you are wrong to commend so highly a biblion ("book") that does such violence to the Lord's words.

But however the case may be, whether you are at variance with yourself or whether, as you have boastingly declared [WA 18:472:4-5], you are everywhere consistent with yourself, I offer you this controversy as to the natural meaning of the words, "The flesh profits nothing," but, with this condition, that you decide without passion and with righteous judgement (which [612] you cannot do, unless you examine with unbiased vision the pros and cons upon both sides). The Pomeranian and the Swabians stoutly assert that carnal feelings are here condemned.

By which arguments? None. On what witnesses?

Isaiah and Paul. They certainly tell the truth unwaveringly and undauntedly, but they say nothing in the point before the court.

On what inferences?

None.

What signs?

None.

What documents?

None.

What probabilities?

None.

We understand that the physical eating of the flesh is here denied.

By what arguments? On this, that it is to the Spirit, that is, to God himself that he attributes life.

It cannot, therefore, be his flesh.

The eating of flesh, therefore, profits nothing.

Also on

this, that throughout the whole discourse Christ means spirit, though he uses the word "flesh".

Therefore, he uses eating for faith and rejects physical eating.

And on what witnesses?

They have been heard.

And the witnesses on the other side are such that we should be glad to believe them unsworn, if they would only testify about the matter we are at swords' points over. But they do nothing less than speak for themselves.

On what inferences?

That if Christ had wished to begin a new subject of discussion, the evangelist would have made it clear by evident signs and breaks.

On what signs? That the disciples would not have thought of defection if Christ had begun to discuss the difference between flesh and spirit, and that it was Christ's habit not to allow one who strayed to go away unrecalled.

What documents?

The commentary of Philip and the Sermon of Luther.

What probabilities?

That though an immense amount has been said on both sides, no one on the other side has ever undertaken to break down our arguments or our testimony.

Hence it is apparent that, being without any support, they do not even expect in their hearts that they will come off victorious.

And it is most likely that they brought forward such an absurd explanation only that they might not seem to have thrown away their spear before the enemy came into sight, having been at the beginning of the war so confident that they offered their symmachian ("alliance") freely to others.

I appeal to you, I say.

You have no small inclination of the court toward your side and an advantage not to be despised.

For you are at once judge and witness, unless you prefer to reject your own testimony.

If you do so, we shall lose one witness but not the whole case.

You see how this explanation (whether one chooses to say it is that of fathers or of more recent times) is so strongly fortified on all sides that it dares trust itself to the decision of the enemy. [613]

What need of many words, fellow citizens? The very hesitation of the judge in so clear a case shows which side is coming off victorious.

But what am I at? He is on the point of himself pronouncing the psephisma ("concluding decree of the court").

(Pardon me, pray, for treating the matter a bit lightheartedly.) Resign the office of judge then.

Now I will approach you again, not as an adversary, but as one troubled in conscience.

I have perceived your anguished outcries.

But it often happens that those who are terribly distressed hear the words of the consoler but receive them not, nor suffer their distress to be removed by an exhortation or persuasion.

This is particularly your case.

Do you people imagine that we are so inhuman that we will not listen to the difficulties of your consciences, when we have no other thought, no other aim, than to help the consciences of all people in this matter, and especially yours?

For we do not unwillingly admit that you are of the first rank of the champions of the gospel, the Diomedes who dared alone to attack the Venus of Rome, [53]

the Jonathan who dared alone to assault the defences of the Philistines.

[1 Sam.

14:lff.] [614] But what can we do? Certain ones have fallen back to where they were not long ago that put their trust in ceremonies and works.

Whatever was said to them, they cried out:

"Why do you take from us the worship of God and the refreshment of our souls?"

It was of no avail to point out that God could not be worshipped by such means; that he was too rich to need them, too high to be pleased with them.

The words of the deity were of still less avail.

They did not want to be weaned.

So also you fill the earth with empty lamentations, like the papists crying, in impotent wrath, that the salvation of souls is taken away, Christ himself taken away, such insults were never heaped upon God, and the rest of it.

When we show that you are like people who, seeing in a dream the vision of an accident or wound, would cry out, and when awakened, hardly come to themselves so as to understand that it was a dream and not a reality, then suddenly you dash upon us like delirious patients upon their doctors.

Imploring can accomplish nothing. An attempt to soothe is received like a gourd on a sword, reasoning and apodeixis ("proof") have the same effect as a very little water thrown upon a very big fire. Whatever we have tried thus far, in whatever way we have approached it, the fire has suddenly blazed up more violently than before.

And how true all this is, to come back to the path, this passage of your letter shows, where you say, "They throw at us that the flesh profits nothing, but we knew that.

We want something else, to be sure, on this passage 'This is my body'." Here I beseech you, by all that is divine or human, check your steps, and lay aside passion, and listen a bit. If you knew that the flesh profits nothing, why in other places do you say, not without danger to the simple, that the flesh strengthens faith, takes away sins, and makes present what is otherwise only taught in words? [54]

Perhaps you mean to interpret "this flesh profits nothing" as the Pomeranian does, [615] as the meaning that carnal feelings are harmful. But we do not offer this discourse under that meaning, and you cannot demolish this explanation of ours.

It is apparent, therefore, that you do not shrink back from the common interpretation.

Why, then, do you not suffer that so gentle and healing a remedy be applied to your wounds?

Eating of the flesh profits nothing.

Do not eat it, then, for it furnishes no nutriment.

If, therefore, anyone takes it away, what harm does he do? If nothing of value is taken away, why do we lament?

It is apparent that the things by which we are goaded to such pitiful complaints are shadows and images, since he who is the truth, and about whose flesh we are at swords' points, teaches:

"The flesh profits nothing," [Jn. 6:63] and we declare we feel, on the contrary, how much good is received from the eating of the flesh, and cry out that those who say they do not feel so, not only err but are traitors,

liars, and heretics. What do you think now, Luther?

Is it not manifest what is said with passion and what with judgement?

As to the wounded state of your consciences, therefore, be at rest.

They have nothing the matter with them.

Those are images and phantasmata ("apparitions"), which you fancy are real things.

For let no one fancy, perchance, that he who is the way and the truth and the life [Jn.

14:6] was himself the sport of a dream when he said that eating the flesh profits nothing.

Since, then, we can be deceived, but he cannot at all, let us look with suspicion upon the notion that our consciences are deprived of refreshment when he says that no refreshment is derived from the thing in question.

As to those words, "This is my body,"

[Mt.

26:26] why do you not see that Christ did not give his body to be eaten, since the flesh profits nothing for eating? "But," they say, "this passage has nothing to .do with the one 'This is my body,' for in John 6 there is nothing brought up concerning the sacrament, but only the rebuttal of a crude notion about the body or flesh of Christ." [55] To this I answer that it seldom [616] happens that a proposition says nothing in it, even if it says nothing solid.

What does it say, then?

Just trifles, that is, it strings together empty words, and twines a rope out of sand, [56] as they say.

This is proved most emphatically at this juncture.

For why do we seek the refuge that there is no question of the sacrament in this chapter, when in the sacrament there is question of eating the body of Christ, and the same in this passage? Is not the same question involved in both?

If they admitted that the body and blood were a sacrament, and did not try to produce the thing itself out of the mere naming of it, we never should have fallen into this controversy about the eating of the physical body and blood. Since, however, through their ignorance and thickheadedness we are compelled to thresh out the question, what should prevent us from having recourse to the place where Christ cut this knot with an axe so sharp and solid that no person has any right to hope that these two pieces of it--body and eating--can be put together again?

It is a constant law, whenever anyone raises this question, to bring him first of all to this discourse, "It is the Spirit that makes alive; the flesh profits nothing." [Jn. 6:63]

Go now, Luther, and complain that no poultice is applied to the wound of your consciences, when it is so perfectly plain that the flesh profits nothing for eating.

But how is it that no one "breathes a syllable" [57] to you?

Did you not demand a little while ago that a passage be brought forward that would force you to admit that your view is wrong? This one, this one is compelling, Luther.

Do you hear?

Check your steps.

Do not ask for anything else.

You are sailing in port. [58] Let this be a wall of bronze and phone d' arrektos ("an unbroken voice"). [59]

[Cf.

Jer.

1:18; 15:20] You ask whether the words, "This is my

body"

[Mt.

26:26] are to be understoód literally and simply as meaning that the body of Christ is eaten, and Christ, the physician

(for from this he is called Jesus, that is, Savior and Father of the land), replies, "The flesh profits nothing."

Abstain from it, then, unless you want to disobey the physician.

Learn that we use the name body [617] of Christ but it applies not so much to the festival as to the symbol we carry about in it. Learn that we have here a trope, not an atropon ("unturnable") or simple form of discourse.

Augustine confirms this view, suggesting in a letter to Boniface [60] that it is the same with the body of Christ as with his resurrection or ascending into heaven when we say, "Today is the Resurrection of Christ", "Today is Ascension".

Therefore we ought to consider this business a little more calmly before we indulge in that exoudenosei ("annihilating") and turning up of the nose at with "We knew this, we want something else" and "This we knew, it is something else we want." Whatever is Offered, you always want something else, a tree, perhaps to hang yourselves on, as they say.[61] But error must be vanquished, however much it twists itself and Scripture, and however much it resists and rages and struggles.

In this exoudenosei ("annihilating") of yours you go on in this way, "They throw at us that it is absurd.

But this, too, we knew." [WA 19:472:34-35] We assert it is a twofold absurdity, with reference to the thing and to Scripture.

About the latter I am going to speak when I come to your "Sermon against the Fanatics". [62] Therefore, I will refrain here [618] and content myself with speaking of the absurdity with reference to the thing.

It is apparent that all of you who are on the other side have made up your minds to charge upon us in the spirit of gladiators.

For though we say so often that many absurdities arise from your saying that these words of Christ, "This is my body," [Mt. 26:26] cannot be taken in a figurative sense, you are no way moved, but go on with, "Then for the Son of God to be born of a virgin is an absurdity, for him to hunger, thirst, fear, suffer, die, likewise.

For these the heathen would call absurdities." [WA 19:486:14-22] What then?

Is this not obstinacy, not to say impudence?

Here again, I implore you.

We do not measure absurdities by the thing itself. We think nothing absurd that is taught by the divine utterances, provided the understanding of faith grasps its meaning properly.

I give an example: taught by the light of faith that Christ was born of a virgin, we know that it is so, that we have no doubt that those who have been unambiguously in error have tried to make a figure of speech of a real virgin, and we pronounce absurd the things that Helvidius [63] and others have invented about perpetual virginity.

We are free from meaning to speak except with the perception of faith when we make the objection of absurdity. Nothing is absurd to faith if only you rightly understand the

things that are set before faith to be believed.

And if anything is absurd to faith, then it is in very truth absurd. This is the hinge on which things turn. For if I do not rightly understand the divine utterances, I shall boast in vain that I believe, or I shall teach in vain, nay dangerously, my brother to understand and believe what is not set before us as an object of belief.

Again I give an example:

"Upon this rock I will build my church" [Mt. 16:18] is among the divine utterances.

When, therefore, the Pope of Rome utterly refuses to admit here a kind of alloioseos ("exchange"),

[64] namely, apostrophen ("an apostrophe"), [65] and obstinately maintains that the words were used of Peter, do not a crowd of absurdities follow?

And the same must be said of the keys.

But understand the words of Christ properly according to the norm of faith, so that here by keys you understand metaphorically [66] the grace of the gospel [619] and in the other place by rock understand an allusion kat' apostrophen ("by way of apostrophe") to Christ, not Peter, and no absurdity follows.

When, therefore, in order to frighten you off from the wrong view, we placed in front of you the absurdity which is inferred through collations of the Scriptures (about which, as I have said, I am going to speak in the appropriate place), you fled to this citadel:

"There is no need of collation, indeed, we will not listen to it. We rest upon the perfectly clear and plain words of Christ, 'This is my body.'

[Mt.

26:26] Then we did as parents sometimes do, pretending for the moment to yield, in order to get what they wish on a more favorable occasion.

For then we might have held up to the ridicule of the world men who reject Scripture collation, we pretended things were not as they were, being sure, that, if they took refuge in the citadel to which they have retired, they could be subdued more advantageously.

These people are the cause of our having brought up all the machines of absurdity.

For when they shut their ears to collation, and cried with stentorian voice, "The words are plain, sacred, Clear, contain no trope. We cling to the word of God with unsundered faith. See what you will have to endure, fellow countrymen, if you admit a trope here.

Nothing will be safe, hereafter, from these champions of tropes."

[WA 19:483:22-29] And when they kept pouring out bold and indiscreet things of that sort in words not a foot and a half long, but plethriaiois ("a hundred feet long"), what else, pray, could we do than what good soldiers do when they see the enemy superior to them in position or any kind of weapons--discover a way by which they can get the same kind of arms and come out ahead, or can drive the enemy out of his position? Thus, therefore, we attacked your citadel.

If you persist in not admitting a trope on any account, these difficulties will follow, first, that the Pope of Rome is right in asserting that the bread is transformed into the substance of flesh.

[620] For this demonstrative pronoun must point either

à 27. to the bread or the body or the festival in which the death of Christ is commemorated with symbols of the bread and wine.

If the pointing to the bread and a trope, as you say, cannot be endured in these words, then the bread changes into the body of Christ, and that is suddenly body which but now was bread.

But if the demonstrative is used to refer to the body, then the people win who say that Christ said, "This"

(namely, what he points out) "is my body," which is the view you impute to Carlstadt. [67] It can have no other meaning than "my body is my body".

But if it refers to the festival, that is, to the company giving thanks, then we have won. [68] Nor can you say that the pronoun "this" points to both the bread and the body of Christ, giving the meaning, "this bread is bread and the body of Christ at the same time," or the meaning "the words 'This is my body' are equivalent to 'My body is in this bread." For in either case you put a trope into the Lord's words, even though you do not notice it, just when you are refusing to admit a trope altogether.

Indeed, the first of these explanations, according to which some say the bread is at the same time bread and the body of Christ, makes confusion of the Lord's discourse.

For if it is bread, it cannot properly be said of it that it is the body of Christ.

But why do we not see that we thus just logomachein ("fight about words")? For if a trope is not to be admitted, then the difficulty follows that is involved in the teaching of the Pope of Rome, that the substance of the bread is transformed into the body of Christ.

Also the further difficulty that the body of Christ will have to be eaten, handled, seen, tasted as a matter of perception through the senses.

For he did not simply say, "This is my body," but, "This is my body which is given for you." [Mt.

26:26] Now it was given as it was at that time, that is, as subject to sense perception and suffering.

Otherwise it would have felt no pain during the Passion, which it be far [621] from me to say.

It must have, then, the same characteristics as to sense perception when eaten that it had then. I shall cry out just as they did, "The words are plain:

'Which is given for you,' he says." Thus, then, you will eat a man, as he was delivered up. For if his body must be eaten because he said, "This is my body," his body must equally be eaten as of the realm of sense, for as such it suffered wounds and death.

Hence there will be the further difficulty that Christ will even have to suffer pain, being broken by the teeth.

Finally, though there are many others, we have this greatest difficulty of all, which you always brush away with words, that no understanding (I am speaking of the understanding which has faith) can take in, that bodily flesh is eaten here, for these two things, "spiritual eating" and "eaten as he was fastened to the cross" are so at variance that no understanding can join them together.

I say nothing of the doctrine of Marcion [69] which will in no other way more easily return than if we confess that

we eat the body of Christ just as it hung upon the cross.

And if you persist in this stubborn rejection of tropes, we shall have to say so, because he said, "which is given for you". And since, you know, we neither feel nor see anything (of the kind), Marcion comes out victorious with his view that Christ carried about a body incapable of suffering.

We, therefore, "throw absurdities at you," partly because you do not admit a trope, while you never yet give an explanation without a trope, and partly because the words without a trope have to be so twisted that they are at absurd variance with other passages of Scripture.

This will be treated below.

Now this which is also in the things you refuse to consider, you certainly ought not to have passed by, namely, "They throw at us the visibility of miracles.

This also we knew." [WA 19:472:

35-36] These are your words, I think.

For you are the ones who maintain that the whole thing is done by miracle. Now, therefore,

I demand that you show us the miracle Christ ever did that no one saw and no one has told of. That he was born of a virgin has been so thoroughly set forth by all that even today when we read in Matthew, "Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost"

[Mt.

1:20], we both marvel and believe with unhesitating faith that at which we marvel.

But you throw at us perhaps, that it is an unseen miracle, because faith is not from ourselves but from the inspiration of the Father.

But who does not feel the inspiration of the Father in his mind and heart and in all the powers of his soul?

And whoever felt the miraculous presence of the body of Christ? Or when did Christ ever say it was accomplished by miracle?

Or what testimony. to this miracle of yours [622] do you bring, may I ask, from Scripture?

Do you not also call us away from the contemplation of physical eating? What kind of miracle is it that refuses to be looked at? The more faith examines and scrutinizes itself, the more it increases. Here they snarl out "faith" and frighten you away from looking. It is apparent that a merchant who objects to the viewing and inspection of his wares is offering for sale smuggled or damaged goods. Then some are carried along by their own words, and do not notice what a difference there is between the things that God does as to himself and to spiritual existences, and those that he does in the case of things clothed with body.

For the things he instills or breathes into our minds are not reckoned among the miracles, but the things that are done in an unusual manner in the duller world, these are what we have seen fit to call by the name of miracles, though I should not be inclined to contend obstinately about the word "miracle".

Eating the body of Christ, then, does not belong to the things that are breathed or instilled into the mind, for that which enlivens the mind and penetrates to it must be spirit; it shrinks from feeding upon body. This bodily eating of theirs must, there-

2/49 fore, be relegated to the things which take place in an unusual manner.

Let them show, then, that it is a miracle.

For the mind of the pious feels no shrinking from the spiritual eating of the Son of God, nay, it feeds upon that and is filled, but it does shrink from sarkophagia ("flesh-eating"). They say this is done by a miracle. Let them show the miracle not to the eye, but to the mind and understanding of the pious, from the writings of the apostles and evangelists.

So you would have done wisely if you had halted at the throwing of miracles, but my advice comes too late.

For you continued after this sufficiently satirical--I will not say shameful--fashion:

"I ask one thing. They always cackle something different from what I ask.

When I ask, 'What?' they answer, 'Rot'." [WA 19:472:36-37] What is the meaning of this, my good Luther? What have you ever asked?

From whom and what have you asked? To be sure, you have in this letter bewailed the tortures of your soul in such a way that no one has imagined that as far as this subject is concerned there was any feeling to be found there thus far except impatience.

For what have you hurled out upon us but words and exceeding bitter ones at that?

Or what, may I ask, in this complaint of yours, do you ask for that has not been abundantly answered before, as is now manifest?

If in the Church of Christ we are going to continue thus to hate, envy, revile, refuse to listen to anyone, fight with loud shouts, abuse each other, and maintain whatever we please out of our inner consciousness, into what condition are we going to bring things?

And I should not like to say to which that word "rot" you took from the play [70] better applies, to us who [623] have never refused to give an account of our faith and our doctrine either to any one person or to all people collectively or individually, and that without wild and terrible insults, or to those who do nothing but blast out "Rot".

At one moment they say that Christ is eaten, but in bread, then that it is bread and wine and also the body of Christ that is eaten, thirdly that nothing bodily is eaten here, but it is at hand, namely at the bidding of the words or the supper.

And all this so insipidly and unseasonably that I could not say whether they are worse off or the slave who acquires acquittal with his "Rot".

But if especially there are with you people who answer "Rot", you won't hear from us "Rot" but nai ("yes indeed").

Now I return again to the reviewing of your utterances.

"And nevertheless they boast that I do not come forth and confute them." [WA 19:472:37-473:1] I, Luther, am so far from ever having boasted that you did not come forth, that every time you have come forth into this arena I have groaned.

For I saw how you would march out to attack the thing, and I had some knowledge of your fists.

There is no one among us who does not frankly envy your warfare. How, then, should we taunt you? But you deny that you have not confuted us, and say, both in your remarks

against Carlstadt [71] and in other books or letters, that you have planted your doctrine so solidly that anything brought forward against it must be the vision of a dream. Oh, I say: We are blind in our own affair?

Let us trust it to a referee, then. To whom?

To the Church, the wife of our king? Show that you dare, my dear Luther, what we have dared: let our books stand open in all the churches.

For we have recommended in this matter that both yours and the books of the papists be read, that thus the victory of the truth may be the more genuine.

What you then go on to say for some time in your letter is all of the same flour. You reiterate that we have brought forward nothing solid or helpful, because, namely, we have not carried you off bound with a chain of well-welded arguments, or have not yet furnished anaphychen kai paramythian ("relief and encouragement")

[cf.

1 Cor.

14:3] to people's consciences.

[625] How do you know?

Know, then, that the Church will decide about the arguments, and that the arguments, and that the consciences even of some of whom you hope to find applauding and supporting you rejoice inwardly in their bosoms, as they say.

Again, you say further on (namely, speaking of Bucer), "in that he bears testimony in this very preface to the fact that I am a vehement opponent of his sect.

Would that I had leisure to be more vehement." [WA 19:473:9-11] These are your words.

We recognize no sect other than the way of Christ which is sometimes called a sect [Acts 24:14], both in a good and a bad sense.

Those are the founders of sects, who forbid us to track out the truth in a case, and keep the churches from passing judgement.

The fact that Bucer represented you as a vehement opponent, I have no doubt was done without vicious intent, and with a view to softening by such acknowledgment one who sometimes--be patient, I beg--seems to many rather more savage than is right.

But you wish you had leisure to be more vehement.

I wish you rest and relief from the passions that have so acquired the mastery over you in this whole picture that I grieve to have such a picture exhibited either to us or to posterity. Would that if we were wrong you would be more vehement not in pouring out insults and false accusations which are all that your letter contains, but in wielding the weapons of Scripture and argument.

After this you write, "nevertheless, he wishes to make this difference of view a slight matter involving no detriment to faith."

[WA 19:473:11-12] These are your words.

You do not think it is a slight matter? Add weight to it, then, that we may also perceive its seriousness, not with your cries of, "Satan, blasphemy, poison, lies, impiety," such as the documents of the papists teem with against us, but with solid arguments and Scripture.

But Bucer's offense would have been against us rather than against you if the purpose of his action had not been to call you away

28] from your passionate attitude in some way. For it is not a slight thing to teach that by carnal eating of the body the conscience is strengthened, sin forgiven, the thing made present in actual essence that is taught by the word, and, what is most impious of all, that this bread or body or sacrament should be worshipped.

For Christ has so often inculcated the opposite, saying, "He that believes in me has everlasting life" [Jn. 6:47] and that statement that by itself puts all your promises to flight, "He that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes in me shall never thirst."

[Jn.

4:14] If you have come to Christ, your conscience will no longer need to be fed; [625] if you believe in Christ you will not thirst for the blood nor crave the flesh. "Without detriment to faith," he says, "one may hold different views in this matter."

I do not agree in this, but I do not find fault with him for writing it. For the excellent man wished to relieve the disease by making it appear less serious.

Now who has sure faith in God cannot be strengthened by anything save that from which faith is born.

That is the Spirit of God, who is goodness and the light and strength of the conscience, and is alone this thing we are talking of. The pious heart cannot be fed or strengthened by a body. To believe, therefore, that by the eating of the flesh conscience is strengthened, does not involve detriment to faith. For it rests on no utterance of God, and, on the other hand, the person who believes in Christ does not hunger or thirst.

Bucer, therefore, made you a very great concession in that remark.

Afterwards you go on, "For that spirit thinks faith is not destroyed if Christ is blasphemed as a liar in what he says which shows how highly they regard Christ and all his kingdom.

For since on both sides we maintain that Christ says so and so, and these statements are contradictory, either we or they must be imputing lying and deceit to Christ. But if to represent Christ as a liar be not to deny Christ and blaspheme against faith in him, what, I ask, is to blaspheme against Christ?"

[WA 19:073:

13-19] These are your words. So far is it from true that the pious heart imagines that faith is not vitiated, if the words of Christ are vitiated, that it does not reckon faith as faith unless it holds all the words of Christ inviolably sacred.

For he alone not only teaches true righteousness, like other teachers, but he also bestows it bountifully.

And here we must not fail to keep in mind what sort of righteousness he bestows or teaches.

He teaches that internal righteousness, which is nothing else than the Spirit. This is faith and truth, and he gives it freely. He teaches also that there is an external righteousness, to exercise mercy, keep faith, give to every person their due. And this also he gives, for it flows from the first as from a spring. But for that righteousness which is supposed to come to us from outside or to be gathered from any bodily thing, and to be transmitted to us in an actual physical sense, purifying, cleansing or justifying, he has left absolutely no place.

We think, therefore, that faith is very greatly defiled if we return to the husks of externals, as they say. [72] We do not, therefore, say that Christ is a liar when we deny that the words "This is my body" mean that the supper is made of a physical body.

We are assured by the rule of faith [626] and the simple knowledge of faith that Christ gave nothing physical here, for we are assured that justification can come from no use of bodily things.

I beg your pardon.

When we speak of bodily things, we do not mean in any way to depreciate Christ's body as a sacrifice offered for us.

We only deny that the application of a physical body to the soul does anything towards justification, both because the mind cannot be fed by the flesh of the body, and because Christ himself has most effectively shown us that that which justifies must be the Spirit, while the flesh profits absolutely nothing.

Hence when you maintain that the flesh is eaten, and eaten for the justification of the soul and to bestow strength and the rest, and we, on the other hand, deny all this, and show that it is altogether trivial, we do not thereby say that Christ is a liar, no indeed, we do not even represent as liars these who are in the wrong.

So far are we from imputing anything of the sort to Christ.

It is for you, therefore, to look to your own method of argument and inference.

We make our inference thus: you affirm that the flesh is eaten; we deny it. Therefore, one or the other must be wrong.

We cannot both be wrong, since the controversy belongs to the category of contradictions, where one of the two propositions must stand as the other falls.

But you make your inference thus:

"We affirm; you deny.

Therefore, you make Christ a liar." Why do you bring Christ in thus in the last term or conclusion when he has not been mentioned before?

Do you not know even yet that you ought to have drawn the inference "Therefore, one side or the other is wrong"? But we have to rave atrociously and build on our authority, namely, when the truth fails us.

In the second place, you fail to notice that our controversy is not whether Christ said "This is my body," for we are in complete accord upon this point, but whether by these words he meant to set before us his body to be eaten physically.

Hence, what we are at swords' points over is not, as you say, whether he said so and so or not, but whether what he said should be understood in one way or another. No suspicion, therefore, of making out Christ a liar ought to be laid at our door. But your reasoning has a gap in it on another side--you fall into a begging of the question. For you make your onslaught thus:

"You deny that the body of Christ is eaten.

Therefore you make Christ a liar.

For he himself said, 'This is my body.'' Here you simply rest your case upon the point in controversy.

For the contest is whether Christ meant by these words to set his carnal body before us to be eaten.

And though you have not proved that he meant this, and, indeed, cannot prove it, yet you lay it down as the foundation of your argument, saying,

"Therefore you make Christ a liar." Why? "Because he said, 'This is my body.' Therefore, if you deny that he is eaten, you impute a lie to him."

But the question under discussion is whether the words should be tortured into such an unnatural meaning or not.

Let us not boast our own spirit, therefore, my dear Luther, nor reject that of others, [627] so long as we are seen to be utterly victims of passion, and unwilling to listen not only to the Scripture, but even to reason.

Afterwards, your letter says, "And this is what I have always said, that by these sacramentarian heretics Christ is mocked and has never seriously been learned or taught of by them, however magnificently they boast that the gospel and the glory of God are what they seek."

[WA 19:473:20-23] These, also, are your words.

I reply to them as follows: your expression, "I have said," has the emphasis here.

You want to seem to have given timely warning what sort of people the sacramentarian heretics were going to be. Therefore, you are a prophet. But you have not shown yet that these heretics treat Christ as you say.

For it is plain enough by this time that what you allege cannot in any way be logically made out.

Therefore, it is all recklessness.

But I must not omift-to "say "that "they are the people" that treat Christen tes prosthekés merei ("as an appendage")--I do not wish to say "mock" at him--who attribute to the flesh what belongs to divinity alone, such as strengthening faith, remitting sins (for who save God alone can remit sins?) and manifesting according to nature what is taught by the word. To what, I pray, do all these belong, save divinity, spirit, the more powerful nature?

Those, therefore, who confuse the qualities of the two natures think it makes no difference how they predicate any particular quality of either.

You see now, I think, what they make of Christ.

We ought not to call people heretics whom we have not proved from Scripture to be such, and so far from getting the better of us by Scripture are you that, on the contrary, the whole force of Scripture is on our side, while you flee to feeble elements [cf. Gal. 4:9], namely, to similes and ordinary exhortations (as your discourse against the fanatics abundantly testifies), and to such audacity as, "The words are clear"

(they are absolutely unclear if you look at the meaning) and "We do not admit a trope in so difficult a matter," while at the same time you use a trope to explain the words when you say, "The body of Christ is eaten in this bread." Consider now with a little clearer vision to which side this reproach of "sacramentarian heretic" more fittingly applies. And you say that Christ was never seriously learned or taught of by these heretics.

Do you mean that seriously?

I will give you a brief resume of how I learned to know Christ, having touched upon it a little while ago.

I have learned to know that Christ is, in the words of the apostle in 1 Corinthians

1:30, "wisdom from God, and righteousness, [628] and sanctification

and redemption"; wisdom because he is by nature God, who not only knows all things but governs all things; wisdom from God, because the Almighty Father sent him to us (not that he was not in the world previously, but that I understand the word "send" in the sense of taking on human nature), that he might teach heavenly wisdom perfectly and clearly so that everything he taught should be a pattern of true wisdom.

Whence also Paul confesses that he knows nothing but Christ Jesus and him crucified, which so prudent a man would never have said unless he were sure that "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" were in him, as he testifies in Colossians 2:3. "Wisdom from God," by which we may be sure that no externals are effective toward justification, as is made plain by all his life and all his teaching. For what externals did he not deprive of all power? Place? Why, even in talking with a woman he showed that he was not to be worshipped in Mount Gerizim and not at Jerusalem, but the true worshippers would everywhere worship in spirit and in truth [Jn. 4:21f.], and he warned his followers not to go to the places where people would send them to find Christ. [Mt. 24:26] Time? He bore witness that the Sabbath was made for human beings and not human beings for the Sabbath [Mk.

2:27], and taught that we should pray always.

[Lk.

18:1] Personality?

Why, "All that have come before me," he says, "are thieves and robbers"

[Jn.

10:8], and he declared that the pretentious prayers which the clergy of the Jews made for individuals and for the crowd, not amisthdti ("without pay") were snares of wealth. [Cf. Mt. 6:5.] In summary, his teaching was such that no one with a mind can help seeing that his sole aim was that we should have faith in the Lord, and worship with holiness and innocence of life. But since through the faults and disasters that have destroyed our nature in the bud, [73] as they say, we are so tied to our passions that we do none of those things worthily and as we ought that God requires of us, it comes to pass that God's righteousness fills us with terror.

For, although we proclaim him merciful and good, we are yet forced to recognize him as at the same time righteous. Nor could that be really good which was without righteousness.

That his righteousness might remain inviolable, and that the person who does nothing conformably to that righteousness yet not be forever deprived of God's companionship, he finds a way by which both his righteousness might be satisfied and miserable humanity restored to the companionship of God.

[629] He sent his Son who became our righteouness, sanctification and ransom of redemption, and that to those only who, elected by God and inwardly taught by the Spirit, believe firmly that through the one way of God's mercy (for the appeasing of his righteousness through the offering of his Son is likewise a work of mercy) is the path open to everlasting happiness. His Son became the pledge and security of this mercy. For how will he not give us all things, who gave us his Son? [Rom. 8:32] Not to be eaten, but made the

foundation of our hope, not in that he is flesh, but in that he is the Son of God who has put on flesh.

Thus you have in a few words how I have learned to know Christ, as the light and supreme wisdom who so enlightened the world that it should see that God is propitiated by no other observance than that of innocence, that heaven is reached through no other price or tribute than the apolytrosei ("redemption") of the Son of God, that no other stimulus rouses to the works of real virtue than the kindling of the Spirit, that through no other pipes does real refreshment flow into our hearts than through the irrigation and watering of the same Spirit. Thus I have learned to know Christ.

If this is not to learn to know him seriously, I confess that I have not yet learned to know him. But when you say that he has never been seriously taught of by us, how, I ask, do you know? Have you heard us? Where do we betray real religion? Why do you judge the servant of another, Luther?

[Rom.

14:4] For, whether we have rightly learned in our hearts to know Christ and teach him abroad is for him to decide, who alone knows the hearts of people.

[1 K. 8:39] It is, therefore, apparent again that this word "seriously" escaped you imprudently, I will not say impudently.

"Let him who is going to destruction go," you say. [WA 19:473:25] Is that the way you let go the helm as the gale increases in violence?

You see us so cruelly smiting the army of Christ, and yet say, "let it go to destruction"? Come forth, rather, and oppose to us the shield of truth, as we attack all your forces with thrust and cut:

You are in harbor and see us drowning so many thousands?

Throw out ropes, beams, sticks, everything you can lay hold of into the flood.

Some will be saved, if not all.

But take notice, do not hold out sawdust or stubble to them.

So far [630] that has hindered rather than helped them.

Solid and strong must be the things you want us to cling to to save us. Otherwise we will not even touch them.

That those are the sects that destroy which stubbornly refuse to receive the word of God, and cling to their own meaning or rather error, has been sufficiently shown above.

We greatly wonder with what face some who boast of preaching the gospel venture to refuse to their churches a doctrine supported by so many columns of Scripture, when nothing is so fruitful and fertile in rebellion and dissension as obstinacy, and nothing brings forth so many sects.

Therefore accuse those by the name of sect who put bit and bridle on the public freedom of the churches.

For these are the leaders of sects.

You are right in your warning after the body of your letter, when you tie on the apostle's words, "'God will send to them the offerings of their error, that they may believe in iniquity,

who have not received the love of the truth.'

[2 Thess.

2:11-12] This saying is beginning to be fulfilled and it will be fulfilled, that the elect may be approved and the unregenerate damned."

[WA 19:473:27-29] These are your words.

For you will see all the pious receive clear sight. from this contest of ours, and on the other hand, you will see the hypocrites rave, and be torn and twisted, that the thoughts and designs of their hearts may be made plain.

So much for that letter of yours, which is so filled with black salt that if it contained an equal amount of solid sincerity nothing could be stronger and sharper.

But by the eternal God, I never read anything of yours that was so utterly without force, scriptural basis or argument.

No indeed, it is so without a spark of anything but the sum total of bitterness that unless my confidence in those who sent it to me and your universally known propensity to harshness had convinced me, I never should have believed that it came from your pen.

Still I have made answer to it somewhat at length for a twofold reason: first, since it was bound to be published (for in our day the printers put into type whatever promises any gain irrespective of any satisfaction in it, not having in this due regard to posterity, to whom it is unsafe to leave such an example of bitter writing), there might be an antidote along with it; second, that the simple reader along with the light of the truth might detect the zeal of passion.

You understand now that I am chiefly aiming to bring out here that the flesh of Christ profits nothing as far as eating is concerned.

Hence it follows immediately that it was not given us to eat. Therefore the words of Christ, "This is my body" [Mt. 26:26], were spoken with another meaning than [631] that he gave us his body to eat.

Accordingly, I shall have relieved the fevered condition in which you cried out, "They throw at us that the flesh profits nothing.

But we knew that.

We want something else."

You will not need anything more.

You will not attribute to eating the propping up of faith, not the remission of sins, nor the physical exhibition of the thing that is taught, and figments of that sort, but you will know fully that a trope will disclose and save the whole situation here.

So we shall not be forced to be absurd in regard to any part of Scripture, nor to twist ourselves nor it, nor to concoct anything nonsensical.

Therefore, confine yourself within these bounds, and suffer yourself to be brought into line.

In regard to the things Luther wrote in the second part against Carlstadt and the fanatics.

By your complaint that no one has replied to what you wrote against Carlstadt you have compelled me to devote several hours to the reading of that work. [1] But, good gods! How far from the truth is it that anything solid is found there! This one thing alone I have learned from that work--what sort of thing the battle of the Andabatae [2] [632] was. You both rush so blindly into battle.

Carlstadt sees the truth, but, from ignorance of the power of tropes, he fails to arrange the words in the right sequence, and resembles more than anything else a raw recruit who lacks not courage or armor but is without skill in the use of armor and does not know which part of the body one ought to protect with the particular pieces of armor. He puts his helmet before his breastplate in place of a breastplate, binds the leggings round his temples, clothes his legs with the armpieces, makes a shield of his breastplate, a quiver of his shield, a bow of his javelin, and an arrow of his bow.

Thus, I say, Carlstadt comes forth, brave enough and strong enough, but almost wholly destitute of training.

You also march down at once into the arena (would it were not at once but after some delay, for time ripens all things!) absolutely unarmed, and first hold up our recruit to the ridicule of all with such a shower of irony, taunts, mimicry, sneers, and sarcasms that no eye could get by gazing upon him so clear a picture of him as is required by contemplation of your description.

And when you have made him beautifully ridiculous, you cast upon the unwary fellow such a heap of dust, sawdust, earth and paint, that is, of insult, false accusations, reviling and abuse, that you take away the breath of the spectators, and make them uncertain whether to laugh at or pity the man.

But he stands unmoved, does not yield and pays no attention to the laughter at his unskillful use of armor. They call out to him from the spectators to change about his armor, but in vain; he thinks he has every bit nicely fixed in its right place. They urge you, too (but equally in vain), not to hope to win the day by such unrestrained abuse--for I know what faithful advisers you have had--nor to defend the cause by weapons from which it is not likely to gain anything.

For what can you do, since you do not have a spear that can inflict a kairion ("mortal") wound in this kind of battle?

You so crowd with paint and pitch of abuse all that you write or teach in this matter that those who are going to engage with you hesitate whether to wipe off the dust first or to join issues at once.

If they make no answer to your false accusations [633] they fear harm may come to some of the flock, but if they make answer, there is danger that they may seem to have gone into the contest through zeal for their own interests rather than for the truth.

So much as a description of your battle hypotyposei ("in outline") as it were, so that I shall perhaps have both of you unfriendly to me, if, indeed, you go on as you have begun, and I appeal to the fair-minded reader to judge whether I do unworthily in freely warning away from a precedent through which the sound teaching of the gospel can be brought to destruction.

For each of these combatants fights to make himself famous through victory.

One rushes into the contest, trusting to his armor and his cause, though deficient in skill; the other armed with skill alone, and without armor, provisions, or engines of war, although not wholly without money, for he had gold to buy an antimachon ("fighter"). [3]

And each has the gladiatorial spirit, eager to fight to a finish.

No thought is given to waiting to consider, so that one should reflect thus:

"You have a good cause, but take care that you do not destroy it in action" or the other say to himself, "You are practised and skillful in battle and action, but what can an unarmed man do against even such a dunderhead when armed?

Others will come after him into the field who know how to use their arms better."

But nothing of the sort takes place.

They charge upon each other, clash, smite and destroy the foe with blow for blow.

Meanwhile, to the people of Christ looking on, nothing of pleasure or profit accrues, but some damage is done.

For, since you rave at each other with such a storm of unheard of reviling on both sides, every one of the crowd thinks that he can indulge in the same kind of brawling without any detriment to himself, since he sees the leaders [4] refrain from no sort of wrangling or abuse.

[634] We ought not, therefore, fair-minded brethren, thus to wink at the shamelessness of any person, and suffer one unhindered and uncontradicted to do anything in the church of God by which not only is our character contaminated but also that of our descendants if we transfer to them such an example.

Therefore, my dear Luther, it were well if the book to which you boast that no answer has yet been made had never been published, still better if it had not been made famous by your name.

For what, I ask, do you do but angrily hurl upon the enemy anything you have got hold of? And when I carefully consider everything on all sides,

I find that Carlstadt holds that true opinion which the sacred writings will everywhere bear, but that he violently wrenches apart the words which form the subject of controversy, and that

I cannot bear. You do not hold the true opinion, and even misunderstand the words, and are unwilling to have them treated so as to bring out their true meaning better, and this is least of all to be borne. Since in consequence of misunderstanding the words, stubbornness is increased (for they say, "We have the words"), the words must be snatched from their hands, and must be examined and considered in every part, that their error may be detected and their shamelessness turned to shame.

Therefore, when with great sorrow we read that book, the strength of which I now approach, I found nowhere in it anything that I had not answered three or four times, save only its false accusations, tricks, abusiveness, and that sort of bitter outpourings.

Though I doubt not that all this was thus lavishly put forth by you in altogether wild and groundless rage (for we are human, and Carlstadt appears to me one who can easily be hit as well as hit), yet you should on no account have let your pen run away with you as your exasperation demanded, and should have considered not only what he deserved but what was becoming in yourself.

Not having done this, you put forth a book that we are all glad is written in German, that such an example of abuse-for it is not parresia ("mere free-spokenness")--may not be set before people of other tongues. In this book you have so absolutely nothing that can withstand the force of my arguments that I feel no small wonder as to what you can have had in view when you threw out so confidently that what you had put forth there had not yet been answered.

For the things you put forth against the violence which Carlstadt does to the Lord's words were so full of wormwood that even if they were wholesome they would make the reader shudder not a little.

The point, too, about not confounding the words of the Lord might have been handled more temperately.

But I come back to the subject.

Having found, I say, in the whole book only one passage that needed an answer from me, I have determined to set it forth here. [635] You yourself regard it as a sort of axe of Tenes, [5] nay, as a thunderbolt, since you call it brontaxynén ("axe of thunder"), [6] not content with plethriaiois ("hundred foot words") [7] but giving us words of the measure of Jupiter also.

It is the passage of Paul, 1 Corinthians 10:16, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communicating of the blood of Christ? etc." This passage you think such that by it all the ramparts and fortifications of the enemy are thrown down as by an irresistible engine of war.

No, indeed, you shout in triumph, but evidently as the proverb has it, before victory is won.

Omitting, therefore, what does not concern the subject--namely, what is between you and Carlstadt individually--I shall first make clear by solid exposition, not of my own devising but taken from the word of Paul himself, the points in which you are under illusion, and then I shall put together the natural meaning of Paul's words.

What you say of the breaking of the bread is well approved by all the pious. And would that all were so well taught Christianity as to have no curiosity about externals, [636] and to let each church have its own custom, providing the thing itself which is symbolized is treated in some sort of likeness or proportion externally to the original. For the Anabaptists have sprung up--a pernicious class of heretics.

These we fairly call heretics, [8] for though confuted many a time and oft they are so far from coming to their senses that they have wanted to make, have indeed even made a secession, not from the impious who deny Christ or champion the Pope, but from those brethren and churches who most sacredly confess Christ and worship him by improvement of life, and they have done this for no other reason than because they say we must be baptized again, and our people shrink from catabaptism.

What use is it here to mention other errors with which they confuse all things: that a Christian cannot hold a magistracy and that a Christian ought not to take an oath. What else is that than the destruction of government? For they preach the following doctrines among Christians: that all things ought to be owned in common, that it is not lawful that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel, that spiritual marriages can be formed.

Nay, they have formed not a few of these and the carnal children born of them cry at night, that they may be all the more spiritual, and hundreds of things of the kind, of which there is no end.

For, as soon as they are worsted at one point, they get up a new fight with some other concoction.

These heretics, I say, on whom I have made this digression, accuse us of treason, now because we use unleavened bread, not ordinary bread, now because we sing hymns before we eat of it. For, they say, we read that Christ did none of these things, but simply presided over an ordinary meal.

And they grow! out countless things of the sort every day, though it clearly makes no difference whether you take the bread yourself and break off the necessary amount or whether you put into your mouth a piece handed to you by another.

Let each church retain its own custom, provided the likeness to the original is preserved in the main, lest we become [637] more superstitious than the papists themselves.

Though among them different customs were practised in different bishoprics in the matter of externals, yet no quarrel arose in consequence.

These things are symbols, and, while we are bound to treat them with respect and reverence, there is no reason why, beyond that, we should get into an uproar on their account.

The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy, not food and drink. [Rom. 14:17] It is the duty of the pious to live a holy and religious life, and to bend all their efforts to this end, and not to struggle fiercely about things with which righteousness is not concerned.

Therefore, I regret exceedingly this contest with your party, albeit

j 29] the cause is one worthy of my taking the field for it. For such doctrines are impious as that sins are remitted through eating, faith strengthened, that made materially present which is only taught by the word, and your other doctrines of the kind. However,

I still regret the quarrel.

For meantime a large measure of the Christian love that had been kindled is lost to us.

And this by no means escapes the notice of the Evil Spirit who knew well enough what means to take to extinguish the heavenly flame that was flaming up anew so well. Love and disagreement are inconsistent with each other. Therefore, he foments disagreement in order to drive out one nail with another. Our battle ought to have been with wrong, and all pure measures directed to the end that the exiled queen, Christian virtue and simplicity, be restored to her kingdom.

As it is, we are fighting about symbols so cruelly that love has to stand very far away, especially when such bitterness raises its head, and where love is not, the frost of injustice and all unfairness straightway returns.

But you go on thus (I will translate your words faithfully from the German into Latin, if only I understand them quite rightly):

"notice in the third place," you say, "what Paul plainly sets forth:

'This same bread that we break is the communicating of the body of Christ!'

[1 Cor.

10:16] Do you hear, [638] beloved brother? The bread broken or divided into parts is the communicating of the body of Christ.

'Is, is, is,' says Paul, 'the communicating of the body of Christ.'

Now what is the communicating of the body of Christ?

It can be nothing else than that those who each receive their part of the bread that is broken thereby receive the body of Christ.

Thus this communicating is the same thing as to be sharing, so that each one receives the body of Christ in common with his neighbor, as Paul also says in the same passage,

'We are all one body, because we partake of one bread.'

Hence, even anothen ("from the early days") that is, from the times of our ancestors, it has been called 'communion'."

[WA 18:168:

14-24] Such are your words. Here, my dear Luther, you are suffering from three delusions, first, in consequence of the strong feeling which is apt in any argument to seize violently upon those words which at first sight seem to be in one's favor, and put them into one's argument irrespective of what precedes or follows them, when, if their nature be examined, they will be found to be as sterile as a plant which propagates itself from a root is, when you try to transplant a shoot from it.

You ought, therefore, to have looked at what precedes and what follows.

As to what follows I shall speak a little later in connection with your third delusion.

What precedes shows thus what Paul was undertaking to show in this passage: in chapter 8 he had upbraided those smatterers who reckoned the feasts of idols among the adiaphora ("things indifferent") about like those who in our day suggest that the images set up for worship can

be endured.

Learned men, certainly!

"What is an image?" they say, when they have not brains enough to distinguish between images set up for worship (as almost all those in our churches are), and other images.

These people, I say, Paul declares are doubly wrong, first because they sin against love to one's neighbor, for a Christian ought to give up those things which are free, if they offend one's neighbor.

Now, even if to take part in the feasts of idols were ek meson ("among the middle things") which Paul [639] does not allow (though for the moment he concedes it, so to speak, for the sake of urging his argument from Christian love more strongly), these people would yet be guilty of no small sin, seeing that the feebler brethren were thereby offended.

Second, he declares they sin against religion and piety themselves.

This point he treats, returning to his argument kat' analepsin ("in reiteration"), after having digressed to other but not irrelevant matters in the ninth and the first half of the tenth chapters. And this is a special characteristic of the holy apostle, he directs his arguments and efforts from externals and ceremonies to internals and to the thing he wishes to recommend, which is symbolized in the ceremonies.

For example, he draws from marriage the most festive undertaking by which he encourages the observation of the fear of God, representing God as the husband and ourselves, both individually and the whole church, as his bride, that at one time contemplating faith, at another time conjugal jealousy we may be led to be ashamed to regard any but him who is wedded to our souls. Also, he uses baptism, in which when we are dipped we feel something of Christ's experience when let down into the tomb, and when we come out are compared to him as he rises from the dead.

When, therefore, Paul is going to demolish the objection of those impious persons who said, "If, then, sins are forgiven through grace and not because of merit, let us sin, that grace may flow more and more abundantly, for the more it forgives the more evident and bright it becomes,"

[Rom.

6:1f.] he thus proceeds, I say, from baptism, "Or do you not know that whoever formerly were baptized into Jesus Christ were immersed into his death?"

For when we were plunged into the liquid, we were symbolically buried with him into the death of our own life, "that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life, etc."

The pious reader should be warned here in passing that the Anabaptists twist this passage with great violence into harmony with their error, saying that infants cannot die unto the old life, since they are mere beginners in life. They thus show their own rashness and ignorance. Paul is not treating here with the reason for baptism but for a Christian life, and this he shows to be especially necessary to the person who boasts on account of Christ, both by reason of the formula of external baptism and the death and resurrection of Christ to which baptism has a certain analogy.

So also in this passage which *we now have in hand, he is trying to pull away the Corinthians from the communion of things offered to idols by reproaching them with impiety and unfaithfulness.

For having first proved that they offended against Christian love (see, [640] by the way, how not only in the present passage, but in all his teaching, Paul regulates all things according to the rule of the two chief commandments upon which hang all the law and the prophets [cf.

Mt.

22:40; Gal.

5:14], having finished, I say, the argument drawn from the law of love to one's neighbor, he comes back to the stronger one which is derived from the law of the love of God. And this he confidently believes is so strong and irresistible that he appeals to the judgement of those against whose knowledge he is battling.

And thus he analambanei ("resumes") his argument:

"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry or from communion with idolatry itself.

I speak to the wise; judge yourselves how what I say is true."

[Cf.

1 Cor.

10:14-15.] Here, I say, you are under delusion from strong feeling, not noticing that what goes before shows that Paul is not in this passage treating of the Eucharist as his subject of discourse, but taking it as the basis and hypothesei ("groundwork") of his argument to drive away thus those smatterers from the communion of things offered to idols:

"When you sit down to the meat offered to idols, do you not coalesce into one body, one communion with the idolaters?

If, then, you are of the body of the idolaters, how can you be members of the body of Christ?"

[Cf. 1 Cor. 10:20-21.] This, I say, is the argument that Paul makes in what I have mentioned as going before.

If you had considered the situation a little more carefully, you could not, with your keenness of perception, have failed to see at first glance how in this passage "communion" and "body" are used not for the tearing apart of Christ's body, but for the people who sitting at the feasts of idols are one body and one communion with the idolaters, or in the supper of thanksgiving are made one congregation, church, body, communion with the worshippers of Christ.

For he says that those who are of this body cannot be of another, as will be made plain from the third delusion.

I will call attention to this at the same time: by the experts in the law, "body" is also used for "communion".

For instance, those who are of one and the same college are one body, those who are of one people are one body, those who are of one kingdom are one body, those who are of one place of assembly, voting precinct, church are one body. The law itself escapes my memory. Let the person who recalls it to mind point it out:

Secondly, you are under delusion in regard to the words themselves, not having studied them thoroughly.

For since they read, "the cup of blessing, etc." and presently, "the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we, the whole people of Christ, are one bread and one body: for

we are all partakers of one bread"

[1 Cor.

10:16f.], how, I ask, you failed to see these two prosapodoseis, that is, repetitions of reason, which Paul has made so clear by marking them with words of meaning "for"? [641] For when he had said that the cup of blessing was the communion of the blood of Christ and the broken bread the participation in the body of Christ, he seemed to himself to have spoken a bit obscurely because of the compactness of the tropes.

In order, therefore, to be more clearly understood, he explains what it is that he has called the cup of blessing and participation in the body of Christ. He says, as it were, "When

I address you with such an exclamation as 'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the participation in the body of Christ?'

[1 Cor.

10:16], I wish to be understood in this way:

'The cup of blessing which we bless, that is, when we bless with the cup of blessing, is not this meeting of ours the communion, that is, the people, the church, the congregation of the blood of Christ?

For you are the communion of the blood of Christ'--he left that clause about the cup anantapodoton ("without the corresponding clause") but he put it in with the bread, and things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other--'who drink of the one cup of blessing, and the bread which we break, is it not the communion, or body, company, people, church, congregation of the body of Christ?

For we, because we partake of one bread and drink from one cup, unite into one body.'

I am aiming at nothing else, therefore, than that you should understand me in this way:

When you are unwilling to be torn away from the meat offered to idols on any consideration, why, I ask, do you not see how unfitting that is to those whose boast is in the name of Christ?

For you might have learned from the very giving of thanks of what body, congregation, or church you are.

For when you, the church of Christ, give thanks unto the Lord for the death of his Son, and drink thereby the cup and eat the bread of thanksgiving,

[642] you see, of course, that you with the other members are the body, communion, and church of Christ, which church I call not inappropriately the communion, that is, the people of the blood of Christ and his body.

For those who make use of certain particular ceremonies, sacred customs, and religious teachings, are also of the same confession and name."

"You, therefore, when you all come together for the giving of thanks because we have been redeemed by the body and washed by the blood of Christ, do you not see that you are the congregation and people of the body and blood of Christ? And what, pray, can the congregation of the blood of Christ have to do with the congregation of idols?" [Cf. 1 Cor. 10:21.] There you have, Luther, the aim of the apostle here and the source of his arguments and efforts.

You ought to have discovered in the words themselves, in order to see better their natural meaning, this idea that hoi polloi is that we, the whole multitude or congregation, are one

bread and one body.

For if we are ohe bread and one body, he calls us thereby the communion, that is, the people of the blood of Christ, and he did not say the blood was communicated, but that we are the body, the communion and company of the blood of Christ. Nor did he say that the body of Christ was participated in, but that we were the participation, that is, communion and company of the body of Christ.

Thus, therefore, the argument is good: if you are the body of Christ, if the congregation of his blood, what, I ask, can you have in common with the body of idolaters? You are guilty of impiety and treachery if you keep not away from the feasts of idolaters. Besides, this yoking together of one bread and one body shows of itself how he wants body understood here. For they must be on the same footing. If, therefore, we are the bread, we are also the body. But why are we one bread? He gives the reason. Because we are partakers together of one bread.

Therefore, the same reason we are the same body, because we partake of the one bread.

He did not say, "because we are partakers of one body." We are, therefore, the communion, company, people, or body, or church of the body and blood of Christ.

But what Carlstadt said does not deserve such violent attack. [9] [643] Paul showed plainly enough in the last passage that the body of Christ is not pulled apart in the supper when he said, "For we all partake of one bread"

[1 Cor.

10:17] and not also, "We all partake of one body."

For however foolishly Carlstadt acts according to you in other things, he yet saw what is in accordance with the facts here. For it is the final prosapodosis

("summing up of the reason") why he called the whole multitude "one bread and one body," when he says "For we all partake of one bread."

But if the apostle had been of the opinion that by eating and partaking of one body of Christ we become one body, he would by no means have said in giving his reason, "We partake of one bread" but "of one body".

For the words upon which the matter hinges must be definite and clear in the highest degree, especially when we serve them up again by way of epilogue. We are, therefore, one body.

Of what?

Of the body and blood of Christ.

And why?

Because we come together into one festival of thanksgiving, and break one bread together.

Thirdly, you are under delusion because you did not more carefully. consider what follows.

For in order to strengthen his point by a comparison also, the apostle adds, "Behold Israel after the flesh!

Are not they who eat sacrifices koinonoi, that is, partakers or sharers of the altar?"

[1 Cor.

10:18] In these words, I say, could have been seen without any trouble in what direction Paul meant to turn the signification of "communion", "sharers", "participants".

Those who are sharers or partakers of the altar are truly not such because they eat the altar, even though it has been built of the most perfectly smoothed stones.

So those who are the participation of the body of Christ are not such because they eat the body of Christ, but because in regard to his

body, that is, in thanksgiving for his death, they eat the bread and drink the cup, and they are themselves the participation, that is, the communion or congregation of the body of Christ.

For the same word, koinonia, which a little while before the translator has rendered "communication", is in this passage, under the form koinonoi, rendered by "sharers", whence you can see openly that "communication" does not fit the passage very exactly, but [644] rather "communion" as I have shown abundantly in correspondence with the Pomeranian and others. [10]

The meaning is, therefore, "Do you not see that those who eat together in the feast of offerings are made one body of people making offerings, that is, one company or congregation, so that they are called the company of peace offerings or of expiations, according to the kind of victim?

Why, then, do you not see that you, when you are partakers of this supper, become the body and company of the blood of Christ? And again, as long as you attach yourselves to the company of the idolaters, why, I ask, do you not see that you are partakers and sharers with them and a congregation of idolaters?

And this I would not have in the least, namely, that you should be of the company and participation of unbelievers.

For you cannot at the same time be fellow priests or of the company of devils and of Christ, because you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils."

(See how he puts the drinking of the cup of the Lord in the communion, not the communication or swallowing of the blood of Christ, so that you can see that "communion" is used all through for us who are the "communion", not for the distribution of body and blood.) "Neither can you be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils."

Behold how his whole object is nothing but to show whose company or people they are.

It is not permitted, therefore, for them to betray the Lord and sit like deserters at the banquet of unbelievers.

So much for the refutation of the explanation which you thrust upon this passage.

It is not necessary to bring forward the testimony of the Fathers here, for they have been abundantly heard already in my "Commentary", "Subsidiary Essay" and the letters to the Pomeranian and the brethren, Rhegius and Billicanus. [11] Before, however, I lay aside the explanation of this passage,

I must note the fact that the word for "to bless" is often used in Hebrew for "to extol highly" or "to give thanks". Thus in Genesis

14:19.

"Melchizedek extolled [645] Abraham highly" (for not only the Romans but the other nations had the habit of praising before the assembly of the people, by way of giving him their thanks, the man who had exposed himself to danger for the public safety), and said, "Blessed be Abraham by God most high." Likewise in Genesis 47:7, "And Joseph brought in...his father, and set him before Pharaoh: moreover, Jacob blessed Pharaoh."

In this passage the word for "blessing" is evidently put for "extolling

highly" and "giving thanks".

For Jacob would not have been very polite if as soon as he had come into the sight of the unbelieving king he had muttered some sacred formula in a strange tongue.

He did nothing of the kind. He praised the king and thanked him for all his kindnesses.

In the Psalms this meaning of "blessing" is so frequent that there is no need of quoting passages. On the word "body"

I have spoken a little way back, showing that it is used for "congregation" and "communion".

That, then, is the meaning of the apostle's words and arguments.

But, to return to the point from which I digressed, I do not have the same feeling about the meats offered to idols that your little doctors have.

For though I might allow them to be reckoned among things perfectly adiaphora ("indifferent"), love to one's neighbor and love to God are opposed to this. On love of one's neighbor I have said most of what I have to say.

I will now speak on love of God, which is also sinned against here. He does not properly love God and is not really pious who, having professed the religion of Christ, and having become one body with the members of his church, returns to the ancient fellowship with idolaters and wishes to be one body with them also.

I appeal to your own judgement.

Judge, I beg, what I say.

Is not that feast of thanksgiving and praise, in which the symbolic cup is carried round, the communion, company, body, or congregation of the blood of Christ?

Is not the bread which we break equally the communion or congregation of the body of Christ?

That is, to do away with all obscurity, when we break the bread together do we not unite ourselves with the congregation or people of the body of Christ?

For we are one bread and one body for the reason that we are all partakers of one bread.

It would be a small matter to put a morsel into one's mouth or to taste a cup with the edge of one's lips, but it is not a small thing to have done this in the church of Christ.

Those who do this give evidence of themselves that they are of that body and people who have faith in Christ, the Son of God, [646] and who give thanks for the death which he underwent for us. He who shows the password to the enemy is adjudged worthy of the punishment of Mettius. [12]

And whoever sits down at this banquet (which is not just a password but a public profession and sacrament), [13] and straightway does the same by sacrifices to idols, is that one not, guilty of treason?

Does this person not only betray the body and blood of Christ, to which he falsely pretends to give thanks for his redemption, but also that congregation which is distinguished by the name of the body and blood of Christ because of the public profession? Who is so dull as to fancy that one may be reckoned in two utterly different families? How much less may one participate in a feast where an evil spirit is worshipped, and also in that where the one and only God is worshipped and praised because he gave his Son for our redemption!

This, good reader, is the meaning of Paul's words, not as evolved out of my thought, but

as weighed in a true balance, I think, with frequent readjustment of all its parts so they might not be too much or too little. You,

Luther, fell upon it blinded by hatred of Carlstadt so that you did not see clearly. But the people of Christ cannot be prevented by any outcry or any device from accepting what is solid and sure instead of things which are concocted with great labor to prevent us from being convicted of error.

Now I hope I have blunted that keen-edged brontaxynen, [14] that is, axe more terrible than thunder, with which you hoped you were going to scatter asunder all the engines of war that were brought up against your forces.

The other points that you have made in that book will one after another be either dissolved with success or exposed by my exposition that I venture to say no one will ask for anything more. [647]

As to the Things that Luther Wrote in His Book On the Adoration of the Sacrament [1] This book also is one that perhaps might better have been sponged out (I mean to speak freely but intend no insult), for it is stuffed full of such uncertain and careless teachings that it could teach what it is to teach that which you do not know, and to make people careful who are thinking of taking to the pen.

I would have you frankly excused, however, on two accounts, because at the time you wrote the book you were so overwhelmed with various occupations that you had no opportunity to weigh this matter, or, perhaps, in those infant days (which needed milk and not solid food) [cf. He. 5:12] it was better to go a bit slowly, and because you may seem to have suffered, so to speak, as even the greatest men have.

Some have told us that Augustine had such a position of authority with many people that they drove him into writing against his will things that he had not thoroughly studied, partly because of his earnest demands and partly because he was a little ashamed to confess there was anything he did not know, lest he should lose a trifle of his authority. [2] For when the untaught multitude have bestowed such authority upon a person, they think he not only must know everything but will expound it according to their notions, and when that happens, they lean upon the authority of that one alone whom they have thus exalted.

But what

can be more wrong-headed and dangerous than for those who know nothing of art, for instance, to attribute authority to those who know so little, and presently to prefer such to an Apelles or a Praxiteles? [3] And if some, having read this book of yours with judgement, [648] remind us that even you are human and liable to slip and make mistakes and be deceived, perhaps it is good that it did not fall a victim to the sponge.

If, on the other hand, they are going to follow gladly your notions and the uncertainty you teach here, and cling to it tenaciously, it would be better, not that the book had been sponged out, but that it had been written on water. [4] For why, to begin with this point, do you proceed deliberately to teach the Bohemians [5] what you only just touch upon, and to plant it upon such a shaky foundation, or rather, upon no foundation?

Why do you build up a worthless discourse upon an imaginary basis?

For though you especially warn us that we ought to take faith as our teacher, and, consulting the articles of faith and putting aside preconceived notions, expound Scripture by collating Scripture, you yourself do nothing of the kind.

For faith does not know that strengthening that you attribute to eating. The articles of faith protest, and yet a preconceived notion cries, "The words are so." Collation of Scripture is put aside. This is your only cry, "I will not admit a trope. Whatever is written anywhere ought not to modify the sacred words on any account so that they shall admit a different meaning from that which they bear on their face." But I shall deal more plainly in the second part of this exegesis with the whole subject of this law of yours and your injurious violence.

Why do you maintain so stoutly that the expression "Christ was the rock"

[1 Cor.

10:4] is not figurative? [6] Do you not thereby make of the Son of God a stone or a brave [649] statue of Niobe, [7] perhaps, or Lot's wife?

[Cf. Gen.

19:26.] But you say, "It has been said already that the rock is spiritual." [WA 11:435:32-436:5] But when I say, "Christ is the rock,"

I speak figuratively.

Who does not know that there is no trope in the expression, "Christ is the spiritual rock," and, on the other hand, who does not know that there is a trope if you do not add the word "spiritual"? What is the reason that we are so ready to fight?

When we say, therefore, "Christ is the rock," it is a trope, by Hercules, but when we say, "Christ is the spiritual rock," the trope is reduced to simplicity and made plain to every eye.

And while you were on this topic, why did you not see, | ask, first that it is one and the same church, one and the same testament, one and the same faith, whether of those who came before Christ at dawn, or at the third, or sixth, or ninth hour, or ours, who came into the vineyard at the eleventh hour and yet were received as liberally as those first workers, no indeed, were given our reward before them [Mt. 20:1f.] that the casting off of the Jews from the olive tree and the grafting of us upon

it might be made manifest?

[Cf. Rom.

11:17.] If you had seen this you would not afterwards in teaching about the baptism of infants have been obliged [650] to say that baptism simply ought not to be given where there was not faith.

For you would have known by the beneficent power of the testament the infant children of Christians are just as much enrolled among the people of God as are their parents.

You would have seen, in the second place (since the fathers are said to have eaten the same spiritual food as ourselves), either that the food of faith is sufficient for salvation or that the flesh eaten profits nothing.

[Jn. 6:63] For they certainly had such faith and so much of it that they are set up as an example to us by the apostle in Galatians 3 and Hebrews 11, and they are so far from having eaten the flesh that they never saw it. For Christ himself bears witness that Abraham desired to see his presence, but that he only saw it was to be and rejoiced. [Jn. 8:56] Then having divided adoration into external and interior, or ceremonial and spiritual, [8] you continue thus:

"He who believes not that the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament does right if he adores it neither with external nor with internal adoration." [WA 11:447:5-7] And a little later (for it is not worthwhile to quote here all that you say, word for word), you speak thus:

"I am forced to confess that Christ is here (namely, in the sacrament), since his body and blood are here." [WA 11:447:

9-10] Thirdly, you say, "There is a difference between Christ's sitting on high in the heavens and his being in the sacrament and the hearts of the faithful.

For he ascended to the heavens, no doubt, in order to be acknowledged and adored there, as almighty Lord over all things, according to Philippians 2:11.

But he is not in the sacrament and the hearts of the faithful especially to be adored there, but to plead with us there and to help us, just as he came to us in the flesh, not to be adored but to serve us, as he himself says, 'I came not to be ministered to, but to minister [651] and to give my life as a ransom for many.' [Mt.

20:28] [WA 11:447:16-25] Fourthly, you say, "But it does not follow from this that he ought not to be adored.

For many adored him upon earth and he received them."

[WA 11:447:26-27] Fifthly, "He must be here in the sacrament and in all the hearts of the faithful in this free way, so also that we may be sure that he gave no instructions as to his being adored in the sacrament or in the hearts of the faithful."

[WA 11:447:32-35] This is what you say, and I think I have rendered it faithfully.

Now see, | ask, how many difficulties and inconsistencies follow from these utterances of yours, that you may see at length what it is to talk without scriptural support.

When you say in the beginning of your remarks that he who does not believe that the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament does right if he does not adore it, this adoration must be free.

If the adora-

tion is free, then to believe or not to believe that the body is eaten here is also free. For if those who believe that it is eaten ought to adore it, and we ought to believe that it is eaten, then those who neither believe that the body is eaten nor adore it are guilty of twofold sin.

For you cannot take refuge in saying, "I said they do right if they do not adore it, provided they do not believe; not as if one were permitted not to believe the body is eaten, but to guard against their slipping into the more serious sin of adoring it, when they do not believe it is eaten." For there is no danger that those who do not believe that the body is present will adore it with that true internal adoration and worship which are due to God alone. Hence it appears that when you wrote that book you were distinctly of the opinion that one was free to believe or not believe that the body is eaten.

Why, then, do you call it heresy now?

When, in the second place, you say that you are absolutely forced to confess that Christ is in the sacrament since his body and blood are there, you talk in a way wonderfully inconsistent with yourself.

For if Christ is there, how is it that those who do not adore him do not sin? I speak only of those who are counted by the name of Christ.

And your remark that he came not to the earth to be adored is frivolous and brought out of yourself.

And when you try to prove it on the ground that he himself said, "I came not to be ministered unto, etc.," you distort the Scriptures.

For in this passage [652] he is speaking of that physical service which servants render to their masters, not of that adoration which is nothing else than confession according to faith, by which the apostles and all believers have always adored and worshipped.

When they say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"

[Mt. 16:16], they worship. When Christ says, "Your faith has made you whole" [Mt. 9:22], he recognizes that those to whom he says this have worshipped.

And you will never find anywhere that he did not ask this one thing, that he be worshipped, that is, recognized as the Son of God, which is the crowning point of adoration of him. And if you say that Christ's saying to Martha, "You are careful and troubled about many things" [Lk.

10:41], means that he objected to being adored, you are again mistaken.

For he is disapproving here that excessive attendance and preparation by which Martha was wearing herself out.

For presently he adds that there is one thing needful, namely, that which Mary Magdalene did when, listening to his words, she clung and worshipped him.

[Lk. 10:42; Jn.

12:3f.] Hence Christ is not any place such a way that he is not to be adored.

Moreover you refute yourself most plainly. For having, both in this book and in that which you wrote against the King of England, not only denied the concomitance of the divinity of Christ, [9] but exploded the notion, you yet confess in this place that you are forced to admit that Christ is here in the sacrament. And it is not beside the point that you are forced thus.

For since you persist in maintaining that the

body and blood are here and are eaten, you see that it altogether follows that since the God and man are one Christ and both his natures are united by an indissoluble bond, there is not eaten here a body of Christ which is atheon ("without divinity").

[653] Though, therefore, you cast out concomitance, you plainly bring it back here when you say that you are altogether forced to confess that Christ is here since his body and blood are here.

What else is that than concomitance? Even if you do not introduce it by name, you confess it in fact. And you would do well if only the body of Christ were eaten here. For you say in your "Sermon

Against the Fanatics or Gushers" that in this sacrament the thing is presented in its actual nature or essence which is elsewhere taught by the word. [10] Now no one at all except Arius teaches that Christ is only human and not both God and human. [11] If, therefore, that is presented before us here which is taught, the whole Christ is presented.

What else does this mean than that the divinity of Christ is an inseparable concomitant in this sacrament and is equally the subject of eating? And this is still more strongly put by yourself. For you say in the same sermon (violently twisting the words of the apostle "that he might fill all things"

[Eph. 4:10]) that the body of Christ cannot fill all things otherwise than as a sack is filled and distended with grain (a beautiful comparison truly). [12] Therefore it cannot be that the body is by its own nature so expanded.

It would have to be made so by the divine nature. The divine nature, therefore, would be a concomitant of the human in this sacrament just as much as everywhere else where you assert the presence of the human.

Do you see now how consistent you are? Do you see, further, how many absurdities follow if we say that the body is dined on? Do you see that the papists are more consistent than your party?

For having once fallen into error from ignorance of the idioms of the Hebrew tongue, they have not chosen to be so violent. and [654] perverse as to deny what follows naturally.

But you, on the contrary, at one moment deny the absurdity of the absurdities that you see follow and then presently relegate them again to the realm of absurdity, being orthodoxoi ("orthodox"), namely, while we are all heretics for being a little slow to assert what we yet see rests upon a solid basis, though according to the situation and the fear or favor of princes change about like a play actor without any shame whatever.

When, thirdly, you make a distinction between Christ as he sits at the right hand of God and as he is in the hearts of the faithful, and assert that he is above at the right hand to be adored, as many absurdities follow as there are letters in the words. Do you not extend to us in the sacrament the same Christ that sits at the right hand of God? They say yes. Why, then, if he is not to be adored if he is the same in both places?

It is apparent that you are again wandering away from the concomitance,

and thinking that only the body of Christ is present in the Sacrament, not the whole Christ. For all reject adoration for the humanity of Christ. When, therefore, you refuse to adore Christ in the hearts of the faithful, it becomes plain you either do not know what you are saying or are now denying what you have but recently asserted, plainly being compelled to admit that Christ is here altogether.

Do you see now what it is to talk from the point of view of humanity and not of Scripture? Where, I ask, in Scripture did you see that notion of his being above to be adored and below not to be? If Christ is God, is he not to be adored wherever he is? But he is everywhere. Therefore, he is to be adored everywhere, above or below, on the right hand or on the left.

You see, further, how disregard of alloioseón ("exchanges") handicaps you people.

If you noted them carefully, you might avoid all these slips that are so unworthy of you. It is the characteristic of human nature to be limited, to be tied to one place (his sitting at the right hand of the Father [Col. 3:1] does not alter the case) while it is characteristic of the divine to extend, permeate, be present everywhere, to hold, know, and dispose all things. When, therefore, you predicate adoration of Christ [655] only as sitting at the right hand, you limit the divine nature by the human.

When, on the other hand, you say the body of Christ is everywhere and fills all things as barley fills a sack (I can hardly help laughing, my dear Luther, whenever your sack is mentioned), you expand human nature to the measure of the divine.

Thus you bring back home by right of postliminium [13] all the errors of the Roman pontiff with this confusion of yours.

Speak, therefore, according "to. the "canon 'of Scripture, not under my, but under its direction.

As I shall clearly demonstrate by citing scriptural evidence later:

"the body of Christ is tied to the right hand of God so that it cannot be anywhere else until the last great day of judgement.

Hence it follows that it cannot be eaten in the Eucharist."

Augustine had a view to this when he said, "The body which has risen must be in one place."

[14] Secondly, thus:

"Christ is God so that he fills all things, and is almighty, so that he regulates all things in person, etc.

Hence also it follows that one and the same Christ is by virtue of his divine nature in the hearts of all, and one and the same is worshipped." [15] When Peter confesses and worships Christ in his heart, he confesses and worships the same Christ who is in the hearts of the sons of thunder [cf. Mk.

3:17], and he whom Paul honored and worshipped with all his heart is the same whom Luther now worships.

Peter, therefore, worships him who is in the hearts of all, and all worship him who is in the former's heart, for he cannot be so limited by any heart that he is not to be adored because he is in that heart.

This, too, must not be passed by, that in that third utterance of yours you did not speak like one versed in theology when you said [656] that Christ was not in the hearts of the faithful to be adored.

For you seem thus

to limit him by our hearts even.

Is he not to be worshipped in that he is in the air of heaven, in the waters, in the kindly earth, the sun, since he alone holds all these things?

Why, then, is he not to be adored in that he is in the heart of man? "He is not," you say, "in the heart of man to be adored."

On the contrary, there is nowhere that he ought more to be adored.

For those things that I have enumerated are very far from worshipping even though by personification they are sometimes represented by the sacred poets as worshippers.

The human being alone worships, and unless he worships from his heart, he does not worship.

But, perhaps someone will say, "Everyone worships, no doubt, in his soul, but one person does not worship because this one worships, but because that is God. See the syngrammatical cleverness:

Turn about what you say, and I shall recognize the theologian, not a babbler.

Shape your speech in this way: because Christ is God, he is in the hearts of all, nay he is worshipped for thé reason that he is in the hearts of all.

For whatever cannot be in the hearts of all is not God, and, therefore, should not be worshipped."

I demonstrate:

"The love of God is infused into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given unto us. [Rom. 5:5] The spirit of all the pious is the same, the love the same.

The faithful praised God for the increase of the church [cf. Acts 2:47] and this very thing was nothing but a giving of thanks in accordance with faith, which is also worship.

A hundred brethren are given us for one lost [Mt.

19:29] and in them all we have the same spirit and by it worship the same God.

So, therefore, Christ is in our hearts to be worshipped by us individually and by all, and he is to be worshipped not simply because he sits at the right hand, but because he permeates all things, nor is he anywhere in the world in any manner that he should not be worshipped, but he is therefore to be worshipped because he can be nowhere where he is not to be worshipped."

When, however, in the fourth place, you try to prove that it does not follow that Christ should not be worshipped, even if he did say, "I came not to be ministered unto but to minister" [Mt. 20:28] your suggestion is very good. For he is not dealing in that passage with the worship that comes from faith, but with the material ministration or obedience that we owe our masters.

Many, you say, worshipped him upon earth, and he received them.

What was the need of that, Luther, unless [657] you were going to make worship of the Eucharist adiaphoron ("a thing indifferent")?

But notice how you do not do this!

It was easy to prove that Christ received worship when it was given. Thus one part of the argument was established, namely, that Christ could be worshipped.

But you ought to have proved the other part, namely, that he had anywhere repudiated true worship.

For unless that be proved, the d E of Christ is not among the adiaphora ("things indiferen

Finally, when you say that we ought to be sure that Christ gave no injunction that he was to be worshipped in the sacrament or in the hearts of the faithful, you are arguing altogether to the effect that the worship is indifferent. But see how rashly you do it.

It is nowhere taught that he should be adored in the house of Martha or of Simon the leper. [Lk. 10:38ff., Mt.

26:6ff.] Might he, therefore, have been worshipped there or not worshipped?

You seem to be of the opinion that where a place was not marked off by unequivocal words for the worship of Christ, he could be worshipped there or not. What else is this than shutting up God in a place? For if you shut him out or leave him free in one place and not in another, you are evidently limiting his divinity.

For you make him free or not in connection with place, and this is nothing else than to tie God to the narrow limits of places.

We, therefore, do not do this, arguing from the finite to the infinite.

We say Christ is everywhere and, therefore, is to be worshipped everywhere. We say also that the papists, when not understanding the words, "This is my body" [Mt. 26:26] figuratively, yet holding that divinity goes with the body by concomitance, they think more logically than you in denying concomitance in words but admitting it in reality--as I say you do for two reasons.

First, because you confess that Christ must be in the Eucharist since his body and blood are there; second, because you teach that he may be worshipped in the Eucharist, although he is not there for the purpose of being worshipped.

We say this, also, that his divinity is present everywhere where the body of Christ is, and, on the other hand, that the body of Christ is not everywhere where his divinity is, for the one is infinite, the other finite. You do not examine well, my dear Luther, this word "where", which is not predicated equally of the infinite nature and the finite.

We say, finally, that if the body of Christ is in the Eucharist, the whole Christ accompanies it, both as regards personality and as far as regards essence (for the divine and the personal or human nature are one personality in substance and one God), and that you deny this inseparable union of the natures of Christ when you deny concomitance.

But, to pass to other things, do you sit down straightway and deck out another book for the Bohemians.

For this [658] one will profit nothing with them towards the unification of the Church, so far as I understand the faith of the Bohemians from its fruits as you describe them. They know that it is written by Moses, "You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him only you shall proskollethese, that is, cleave to."

[Dt. 6:13; 10:20] And Christ repeated that this was to be taken in the sense that the heart was to cleave to no other thing save God alone.

[Cf. Mt.

4:10] Hence the theologians, whether ancient or recent, have never admitted that it was right to adore the mere or naked humanity of Christ (as they put it), [16] and if any passage is found looking to that, they have held that it must

be understood to refer by figurative exchange to the higher, namely, the divine nature.

If, then, the Eucharist is to be worshipped, it must be worshipped because Christ is here as God and human, and the Roman pontiff or Thomas and the Parisian theologians win, [17] and the concomitance which your party so abhors is restored.

But let us give God the glory, and maintain nothing without the authority of his word.

Then we shall know where we have fallen.

For it is no light matter to teach what is to be worshipped.

If we slip here and set up to be worshipped a thing which ought not to be, we desert to the impious.

God only and alone is to be worshipped, not flesh and blood.

You have now with reference to this book things that show more clearly than the sun that it has no strength as of bones or even of sap or blood upon which you can rely in so difficult a matter.

What you bring forward from Paul either has been explained or will be explained.

Now I come to the sermon which you delivered against the Gushers, that is, the Fanatics.

In Regard to the Things that Luther Wrote in the Sermon against the Fanatics or Tricksters

Whom He Calls the Gushers [1] This sermon of yours is so full of inadvertencies that unless the thread of the discourse manifestly betrayed the fact nobody would believe it was yours.

Since, therefore, many of the things in it [659] are so trivial that they can be answered by anybody without any trouble, I shall pass by these when we come to them, or shall touch upon them but briefly. And I shall number the individual points. [2] I.

In the beginning of the sermon you say, "In this sermon two things ought to be specially considered, one, what must be believed, the other, faith itself. The first can be called the object of faith, namely, that we believe in fact that the body and blood of Christ are in the bread and wine."

[WA 19:482:15-23] This is the gist of your opinion.

You see here, my dear Luther, that you vary [660] the meaning of the term "belief" just as the syngrammatists.

If you take "faith" here in the generic sense, for example, for "Christian faith", the subject of faith is Christ, the Son of the living God. For upon this rock the Church is being built. [Mt. 16:18] But if you take faith for the opinion in accordance with which the body of Christ is eaten here physically,

why, I ask, do you call faith what is only an opinion? The object of faith is the thing on which alone faith rests safely and wholesomely. Eating the body physically or materially is not such that we rest upon it alone unto salvation.

Otherwise there would be two roads unto salvation: one, the death of Christ, the pledge of the mercy of God; the other, physical eating. Then the disciples themselves, by eating the body, would have been redeemed before Christ died.

Let us not, then, throw such smoke and mist into the eyes of the crowd:

"the object of faith is the body and blood, etc."

But you will say, "In this sacrament I maintain that two things are to be considered.

It cannot be denied, therefore, that in this sacrament the object of faith is the body and blood.

For this is what we are fighting about."

To this I answer that the case is still before the court and that the heavenly word is on our side--conjectures arising from ignorance on yours.

How so?

Listen!

The object of faith in this sacrament is the death of Christ for us, for which we come together to give thanks.

The witnesses are Christ--"This do in memory of me"

[Lk.

22:19]--and Paul--"As often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come."

[1 Cor.

11:26] Since, therefore, you people say that this is the object of faith in this sacrament, the eating of the body and blood, bring on, I say, your witnesses.

You have none at all. For Christ is on our side when he says, "This do in remembrance of me."

For the words "this do" are not to be referred to eating the body, but to giving thanks, that we ought to do so plainly, in memory of him.

For the apostle expounds them thus, "As often as you eat this bread, you do show the Lord's death."

He did not say, "As often as you eat this bread, you eat the Lord's body."

Therefore, the giving of thanks is the thing looked at here, and is the object of this sacrament.

But for what are thanks given? For this, that Christ, the Son of God, died for us.

The body of Christ, provided it be put for his death, is, to be sure, the object looked at in this supper, but not that it be eaten, but [661] that thanks be given because it was offered for us.

I say constantly that it is slain that it profits, not eaten.

But bring out the testimony by which you prove that corporal eating of the body is the object of the faith which is demanded in this sacrament. By the same token you will canal the Isthmus. [3]

You are weaving ropes of sand. [4] How so? By your false hopes and the words with which you make big promises but you will never make them good.

Il.

You suggest that those who desire to run without stumbling in this matter ought especially to keep away from these fine drawn thoughts. [5] As if yours were plain: that the body of Christ is eaten here carnally, physically, or materially, although the bread remains bread, and that it is eaten in the bread, etc., while ours were obscure, by which we say that the commemoration

of the death of Christ is called the body of Christ here, just as the festival of his ascension is called the Ascension, though he does not ascend anymore:

This you see much more stubbornly, clever rhetoricians you are, casting upon us all the faults that you were the first to typify. For what does all that you put your trust in amount to but subtlety?

III.

You declare that we have followed unawares such thoughts as, "How can the body of Christ be in the bread and be eaten in so many places at once?" [6] Here again you are wrong by the whole width of heaven, and refuse to listen to the explanation of the brethren. [7] [662] It would be lucky and fortunate if it would be understood as it is meant, without any juggling whatever:

I learned by faith that the flesh was not given us to eat, for I am assured by faith that we are saved through Jesus Christ, that all things are given us with him, that through him we have been made children of God.

What eating of the flesh could do in addition to all this, I do not find in the divine utterances.

Many men promise many things if you eat the flesh, but what they promise is not ratified by the supreme commander and judge. Besides, there was the repeated prediction of the going away of the flesh.

These considerations drove me to look into the tropes and the nature of the Scripture a little more closely, and I thought, "What if the words of Christ, since the flesh profits nothing as far as eating is concerned, express, by an idiom of this tongue, a meaning different from this which is so vastly inconsistent with so many passages of Scripture?"

I make a thorough investigation, examining the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin, the old and the new.

I find the fact is quite different from what we had all supposed, and that we had been misled through ignorance of the languages and the overconfidence that attended this.

If we had reached our conclusion by following curious thinking, the inspired controversy would have been long ago.

For there is no doubt that thoughts of the sort tortured the souls of the faithful centuries ago, [8] but faith and the unquestionable oracles which contradicted this meaning of yours, brought people to our conclusion, and, as I think, happily.

And what you say of the fanatics, namely, that when they have got hold of some error or some dark obscurity they hurry to Scripture and seek to find confirmation of their error, [9] you should say to those who pretend that the soul is made firm by eating of flesh and the rest of their difficulties, [663] and who, when unable to defend their views from Scripture, thunder forth, "The words are clear:

'This is my body;,'"

[Mt. 26:26] and vary the meaning of faith as applied to the body of Christ.

We have never asserted anything for which we could not give clear justification from Scripture.

It is a great thing that I claim, but it is true. Moreover, the truth is great. Scripture is the guide by which we affirm or tear away.

IV.

After this your nearly fanatical sermon against the

fanatics goes on thus:

"But he who drinks in true faith from the words themselves believes this.

Whether Christ creeps into the bread or cup, whatever he wants to do, as long as I have these words, I ask nothing further."

[WA 19:485:6-9] These are your words.

We think faith cannot be drunk in from words, but the words put forth are understood by the direction of faith. "Unless you believe, you will not understand" [cf. Isa. 7:9] and "No person comes to me, unless the Father who sent me draw him."

[Jn.

6:44] And you yourself, in the work "On the Adoration of the Eucharist," lay down this law, "Let any word whatever be uttered in the natural meaning and let that meaning be kept unless faith suggests otherwise."

[WA 11:436:21-22] This is the law passed when you were commander: words, therefore, yield to faith.

Faith is the, the arbiter and interpreter of words. How, therefore, could we wait to drink in faith from words, when we ought not to approach the interpretation of Scripture unless fortified by faith?

Gather yourself together, I ask.

For however you take it, you have lost your bearings through strong feeling.

How many troubles have you drunk in by that assertion that the Scriptures are to be interpreted by faith, coupled with your persistence in maintaining that faith is drunk in by words! You have forced the Roman pontiff to interpret by faith, "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church."

[Mt.

16:18] Suppose he should now meet you thus:

"I also wished, O Luther, to have no apostrophe ('apostrophe") sought in these unequivocal words 'And upon this rock'!

I could easily see myself indicated from the command itself, but when you said that things must be interpreted by faith,

I began to be insecure in my realm and my powers. Why, I implore you, did you not then cry that faith must be learned from words?

When it was I drinking from the words, I was represented as Antichrist; are you to suffer nothing of the kind?" [664]

You then jest in this fashion, that if those words are not clear you do not know how to talk in German (that is, plainly). "For if anyone should hand me a bread roll, saying, 'Take, eat.

This is a bread roll, should I not understand what it was?"

[WA 19:485:13-15] Such are your words.

No one denies that the words are plain. We understand from childhood what they mean.

But the very combination of the words gives a meaning that is absurd because it contradicts faith and Scripture unless you help it out with a trope, such as you yourselves are constantly using.

Such expressions like these, "Christ is a calf, a serpent, a sheep," are perfectly clear as far as the words go, perfectly absurd as far as meaning is concerned.

But when you have explicated the trope:

"Christ is typified by the calf once offered for sins, [He.

9:12, 19] and by the brazen serpent, [cf. Jn. 3:14] or is like the sheep in innocence or when made a sacrificial victim,"

[1 Pet.

1:19] the whole thing hangs together.

But it is strange that you are so utterly blind as to see absolutely nothing. You bring forward illustrations or comparisons without any judgement, as I shall

show both here and in the following. Yet what would you accomplish with them if they squared to a hair's breadth all points? [10]

When you say, "Who will not know that it is a bread roll that I offer when I take the bread and say, 'Take, eat. This is a roll'?", you think you have brought forward something similar when it is dissimilar. You offer bread and say it is bread. Who would find anything absurd here?

But in the Lord's words you offer bread and say it is the physical body, no indeed, is human, or rather, God and human, that is, Christ himself.

If you wanted to present something like this you ought to have said, "Who does not know that the words are clear when I offer a bread roll and say, 'Eat.

This is a watermelon or a cucumber'? Who, I say, does not know what I have offered is a watermelon or a cucumber?"

I should say nobody would know it unless you should explain the things by some figure, for instance, that the bread roll [665] was spoken of as a watermelon or a cucumber from its shape, but was nothing but a bread roll, or that having been given the price of a watermelon, you had bought what was called a watermelon but was not one, or in some similar fashion.

For that is the way in our passage that we say the bread or the festival itself is the body of Christ, when it is only the commemoration and symbolization of Christ's body.

Vi.

You next perform the function of a champion and set forth the basis of our case in this fashion:

"They have two chief points with which they oppose us. First, they say it is absurd that Christ's body and blood should be in the bread and wine, and second, that it is not necessary to eat the body and blood."

[WA 19:486:10-12] See, my dear Luther, what a champion of bad faith you are.

You ought to have understood that we measure the absurdity not from the meaning as it appears to people but from the meaning as it concerns the thing involved, that is, of faith and Scripture.

For the thing involved, that is, faith, sees without difficulty that it has no need of this bodily food.

For faith makes happy. And it is enough for the festival if the hearts of the faithful offer their thanks which spring from trust in Christ

Jesus.

As to the external symbol, it is abundantly sufficient for the heart to have eaten the bread and wine as a proof to its neighbor of its faith and love and its belonging to the communion or Church of Christ.

But Scripture and the very articles of faith are so at variance with your opinion that one or the other must fall, as will be made clear.

For what you attribute to the body of Christ, namely, the being everywhere and filling all things, will be shown with perfect clearness not to belong to it. In the second place, we only say that it is not necessary that the body be eaten but that it is altogether impossible that it be eaten, for two reasons, as has been said, although Bucer and the other brethren of Strassburg first represented this matter from motives of policy as adiaphoron ("indifferent"), since as such they could call in question without an uproar. [11] But [666] listen to your

own words:

You wrote early in the work on the "Adoration of the Sacrament", "For it is true as a general fact that you can live and become justified and blessed without this sacrament."

[WA 11:433:18-19] These are your words.

Why, then, do you now charge it as a crime that certain men have taught thus, fishing in your preserves, perhaps? Is this the way you show us your inspiration by the Spirit?

For the things you attach to the word are empty pretense.

For the word, the meaning of which you people vary so often, is nothing else than to believe that Christ Jesus, the Son of God, suffered death for us, not to believe that his body is eaten here.

For faith in that has nowhere been proposed to us. The word that stands for the one faith we bring into the festival, that which stands for the other we do not drink from ite The illustrations and similes you then bring forward all try to make it not seem absurd that the body of Christ be eaten.

But you are only seeking to soften the meaning as it appears to people, when you ought to be trying to reconcile the contradictions between the heavenly word and the articles of faith on one side and your opinion on the other.

As to this you are all sound asleep.

You throw out that by the same token it can be said to be absurd that he was born of a virgin. [12] But you do not reflect, first, that no passage of Scripture stands in the way of his being born of a virgin, no indeed, that this was announced and foreshadowed both by utterances and by acts of holy men and prophets. Second, that all that we believe about that miracle is written in transparently clear language.

Finally, that to the virgin who marveled just as the disciples would have done [667] if they had understood Christ to be speaking of his bodily flesh, and said, "How shall this be?", the whole thing was explained:

"The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the highest shall overshadow you, etc."

[Lk.

1:35] Here nothing of the sort was done or said, no promise given.

You add an objection as to the absurdity of the incarnation of Christ [13] which yet, as has been made plain, was foretold by the utterances of the prophets as promised by God.

Not so with the eating of the body and blood.

You fancy that it is a similar case that the soul is in every part of the body at once and in the whole body, then the case is dissimilar. [14] It would be a similar case if somebody should be in many places at once. To be the soul in all the members is like that heavenly Spirit, which, though one, informs all the various members of the body of the Church, and yet remains the same spirit and mind of the same in all. This the physical body of Christ does not at all do. For it cannot be in various places and separate localities.

"My mind," you say, "can at the same time think, speak, see, hear, feel," [WA 19:487:22-23] yes, and loidorizein ("revile"), etc.

If the body could do this, you would have a similarity.

As it is, it is dissimilar as far as our present purpose is concerned.

The similarity it has is to the Holy Spirit, which gives different gifts and functions to the members of its church, just as the soul performs various functions in the same body.

Your remarks about the fruits of the earth, that it is a wonderful thing that on one stalk such similar pods and shells should grow, and that the kernels should be so similar throughout, yet no one wonders at it,[15] you are indiscreet to station in your line, since [668] they make for us.

Do you want to hear how?

Thus: if these things are really wonderful, as by Hercules they are, and yet because of familiarity with them no one wonders at them, just think how much more vain it is to try to pass off as miracles things that no one has ever perceived or seen or believed, no indeed, that are nowhere depicted or described:

You have two eyes and take in many thousands of heads at the same time, and yet you are far inferior to the Cyclops [16] who with only one eye saw just as many things as you see with your two eyes.

Hence it is no wonder that men have ceased to marvel at this power of yours.

But what has this to do with our thesis?

You tell us also that one and the same voice can be heard by many people, etc., and that all the more can Christ do the same thing with his body, which is the same body, namely, in all the bread which is eaten in the supper.

Again you bring forward a dissimilarity.

You have not yet shown that anybody has ever been in various places at once, and all the things you bring out as similarities are really opposites. Body and spirit are opposites, but you transfer to body whatever applies to spirit.

Of this kind also is it that by one breath and one [669] inspiration one and the same Spirit informs numberless hearts, as happened on the day of Pentecost.

[Lk. 2] And you reason here from the possible to the actual, a proceeding you utterly tear to pieces in writing to the King of England, not in a very proper way perhaps, for he is anointed of the Lord. Here are your words:

"With their lifeless explanations they simply beg the question most viciously, and the sum of their accomplishment is that things may be as they pretend they are, when they ought to have proved both the fact and the justice of their contention, that it is so and ought to be so. No one doubts that God can transubstantiate the bread, but they cannot show that he does so." [WA 10/2:206:35-39]

These are your words faithfully copied from your book.

Why, then, if it is such an indecisive proof to reason from the possible to the actual, do you now give yourself up to it so completely?

Keep the law which you have laid down. I shall not let you escape.

If you continue thus to convict yourself, I shall make an Eck or a Faber [17] of you or some even greater monstrosity.

For if argument from the possible to the actual is to stand, I shall say, "God make an Eck of Luther" and you may draw the proper inference. I shall aposiopésomen ("step aside in silence").

"When I bring Christ into the heart by my preaching, which is done by the bodily voice," you say, "so that now you grasp him in your mind, you must confess that you have the real

Christ, not that he sits there as one sits in a chair, but as he is at the right hand of the Father." [WA 19:489:9-14] [670] See first here how uneducated your language is, second, what it savors of most strongly (for I do not want to say anything rough of you), finally, how consistent you are with yourself: If he is in the heart of a person just as he sits at the right hand, why did you teach that he is not to be adored in the heart of a person? And what you akribologizesthe ("put forth in minute detail" concerning the word, has already been proved unsound.

And presently you add that though Christ is thus in the heart of a person he is no less at the right hand of the Father, and that when this is believed, he is thereby acquired and possessed in the heart, and the heart of the one who has him thus is in heaven, not in appearance or in dream as it were, but in reality. [18]

I do not know what you are aiming at with these words.

For if the heart of the believer is in heaven otherwise than by sure hope and contemplation, why do you not prove it from Scripture?

If not, what are you going to accomplish by this reasoning?

It has long been acknowledged by everybody that Christ is really in us provided we believe, and that we are in heaven, but the first by virtue of his presence for he is God, the second, only in contemplation, faith, hope, Christian love. "The pious experience this," you say, "but they" (meaning us, of course) "perceive nothing of this." [WA 19:490:2-3] That is what you were going on to say, no doubt.

If, then, you perceive this, I implore and call upon you by everything in heaven or on earth, why do you want carnal manducation? [671] What else do you hunger and thirst for? Does not "by faith alone" suffice?

You say, "The eating of the body comforts."

This you say out of your own minds. Bring us the word of the Lord.

You say, "We have the Spirit as witness of what we experience." I say, human beings are liars. [Rom. 3:4] It cannot be that you experience the virtue to have come to you from the eating which Christ did not perceive to have gone out of himself.

And that he did not say so.

For if he had wished any virtue to be imbibed from the eating of his body, he would have said so.

After all this you go on, "If, then, this great fact is so, namely, that by the voice of one man the whole Christ is

brought into so many ears, can it seem astonishing to anyone that he puts himself into the bread and wine?" [WA 19:490:10:13]

Who denies that Christ, speaking absolutely, can do this or anything else? We ask that according to your own law you prove that he has done it. The question of the omnipotence of God is not now under discussion, but the question of physical eating of the body.

When will you see that you are reasoning from the possible to the actual in your customary way?

Since Christ, according to his own word (this the new school call his ordained power), [19] cannot be in the body anywhere except where he has described himself as being, it is impossible for him to be eaten in the bread.

He is at the right hand; he has said that he is going to sit there until he comes again to judge the world.

[Cf. Mt.

26:64.] "He can be in only one place" [20] as far as his human nature is concerned.

VII.

You assert that it passes understanding how he gets into the bread, but you know the words are there, "Take, eat. This is my body [672] which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

[1 Cor.

11:24] "When we speak these words over the bread," you say, "then he is really there, etc." [WA 19:490:

14-20] Such are your words.

Consider here first that you have the word, but not the understanding.

We, too, have the word, but rightly understood, and the Roman pontiff has the word, but wrongly understood.

No one denies the word is there. The controversy is about the understanding of the words.

Do you see to what you are driven?

To this, absolutely denying the possibility of any other explanation in order to guard against collation, because if you admit such collation it is apparent that you will come off worsted.

It is stubbornness to say, "We have the words."

Arius also has the words: [21] "The Father is greater than I, etc., [Jn.

14:28] Of that day the Son of Man. does not know,"

[Mt. 24:36] and "Father, why have you forsaken me?", [Mt. 27:46] but though he has them, the orthodox church, on the other hand, has words which set up over against them bring out their meaning.

We have not only a few words, but all Scripture, religion and faith.

Consider, secondly, how audacious you are when you say that as soon as we have uttered these words, the body of Christ is at hand.

That is why the people used to talk who tried to palm off their own visionary words as divine utterances.

Bring out the testimony of Scripture to this beautiful principle not of yours but of the Roman pontiffs. "This do," you say, "in remembrance of me."

I have said hundreds of times that these words, "this do," refer not to eating of the body, but to the giving of thanks, according to the words of Paul, etc.

"In the way," you say, "he comes into the heart and neither breaks nor destroys anything, but through the word alone is heard and grasped." [WA 19:490:21-22] Such are your words. [673] Where do you leave "No man can come to me except the Father draw him,"

[Jn.

6:44]

and "Unless you believe, you will not understand"?

[Isa. 7:9] But you say, "This is only the first part of the comparison. Hear the other part also."

"Speak,"

I say.

Luther:

"So also he comes into the bread in such a way as to make no hole." [WA 19:490:22-23] See how slow you are. When you say "heart", what, I ask, do you mean?

The physical heart or the mental faculties?

If you mean the physical heart, certainly nothing but what is bodily comes into that.

If you mean the mental faculties, of which the heart is the citadel and palace, what does your comparison amount to I ask?

Is it this: the knowledge of God comes into the mind; therefore the body of Christ comes into the mind?

What is the similarity here?

You do not mean, I suppose, that the body of Christ slides down into the belly.

Where is it received?

In the breast, they say. The physical? But nothing comes into that which has not previously been in the belly and throat.

In the heart, that is, the seat of the mental faculties, which means nothing else than the soul?

But this does not feed upon flesh; it lives by the Spirit alone.

Does it eat spiritual flesh?

It had eaten that before when it put its trust in the Son of God.

IX.

Coming back to the birth from a virgin you say, "From whence does it come that a virgin conceives?

The angel Gabriel brings the word, 'Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son.'

[Lk.

1:31] With these words Christ came not only into the heart but into the body when she heard, kept, and believed them." [WA 19:490:24-33] This is what you say. Not to touch upon the subtle suggestion about the word here, by which it is hinted that Christ was brought by the word, I will ask you to show us any such promise as this:

"Behold you will eat bread and in the bread the body of Christ, but you will perceive nothing of this.

Yet whenever you utter the words, 'This is my body' upon the bread, the body shall be at hand."

Then I will believe no less (if any may compare small things with great) than the holy virgin believed.

I will even grant that which she was told when she asked the manner [674] in which the thing should be done, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, etc." [Lk.1:35] I will ask nothing further, after you bring forth so unequivocal a promise, not from the chest of your minds in which you have the body of Christ laid away, but from that storehouse from which the faithful stewards bring forth things both new and old. [Cf.

Mt.

12:35.] With these and other comparisons both more crude and more inapplicable you not only pester the unhappy reader to death but shower contempt upon him, as if he had not intelligence enough to see what fits and what does not fit, and as if the matter should be dealt with by means of parallels and not by means of solid and clear testimony from Scipture.

If this business could have been settled by comparisons and parallels, I should have abandoned the case long since, not frightened away or persuaded by these

half alive parallels that you bring up, but either by the old ones that sometimes amid the singing of the Psalms I used to understand the festival of the body and blood of Christ, in which were sung the praises of both the wood that softened the odor of the water of Marath [Ex. 15:23] and the wood that brought up the hatchet of the prophet, [2 K. 6:6] or by the new ones, which, though commonplace, are nevertheless more applicable to the matter in hand.

What ones for instance?

These: one and the same sun and all of it is beheld by all, even if one looks at it with one eye only through a crack much smaller than the eye.

The sun is made no smaller by looking at it, nor is it any smaller to whoever has but a very small space through which to contemplate it.

If the word looks into one and the same mirror, each person sees one's own face reflected in it. We all breathe the same air (which fills the material world more thoroughly than the barley fills your sack), and there is enough for all, nor is it lessened by any space of time.

We all drink the same water (nor does water nor any other element come into existence for us in new amount any more than the earth does.) It is not diminished by our use nor increased by our refraining from its use. All the rivers unload themselves into the sea, but it is not thereby rendered any bigger.

It gradually sends through the earth, as if absorbed by a sponge, everlasting springs of water for us, yet becomes no narrower thereby.

Wood drinks, and the trees, plants, [675] shrubs, grass, rocks even, and the earth drinks most of all.

For what does that amount to which animals and people use up, these last scorning it in great part, content with what they extract from the vine?

Yet there are so many copious drinkers that it is conjectured that more is drunk at every moment than the whole sea contains, and yet the amount of water is always the same, neither made greater by inflowings nor less by so much drinking.

With these and like comparisons, which are far more learned and more applicable to the case than yours, I should long have been satisfied if anything could be gained by parallels.

But let us refrain from proclaiming marvels, like jugglers, where there is no marvel, where he who is marvelous in his workings, has promised nothing for us to marvel at, suggested nothing of the kind before he did the thing in question, and when he did it, no one marveled nor asked any question afterwards, though the apostles were still tarrying among people.

What has become of your law that nothing must be maintained which is not set forth plainly in the sacred writings and ratified by the spirit of faith? He said, "This is my body." [Mt. 26:26] But did he say (even if we grant that there is no trope here), "Make my body out of bread or in bread"?

For I have proved, crying until I am hoarse, that the words, "This do in remembrance of me" are to be referred to the giving of thanks, not to the making of body. For he bids us make festival and give thanks in remembrance of that which he did for us in dying.

And this I brought forth not from my own store, but from Paul's where he thus explains these words of commemoration,

"As often as you eat this bread, you do show the Lord's death."

[1 Cor. 11:26] Things such as I, too, have enumerated are miracles but they are performed with us experiencing and perceiving them.

It is a miracle that we are made over by the Spirit of Christ, yet at least our mind perceives this.

But what is perceived of the eating of the body?

I know your reckless course here.

It is pretended that something is perceived, but, I say: tell that tale to others! [676] I believe nothing of that sort unless it is confirmed by the word of the Lord.

See, then, my dear Luther, who should rightly be called fanatics and jugglers, those who walk slowly along the ground and say that the festival is called the Body of Christ or even that the bread which is eaten in it is not ordinary bread, or those who soar aloft and put forth splendid promises without any authority from Scripture, as if I should swear that I was flying in the air, when yet the eyes of all men beheld me walking upon the ground, and pretty clumsily.

After these metaphors you come down to the oft mentioned remark about the filled sack.

And you speak after this fashion:

"Likewise we believe that Christ Jesus is in his humanity constituted in a way superior to all things and fills all things, as Paul says, Ephesians 4:10." [WA 19:491:17-18] These are your words. I had met this absurd suggestion kat' anthypophoran

("by raising it as an objection to be answered") in the early part of my argument, when I showed by the testimony of the angel that the body of Christ is not everywhere and is not stretched out into the largeness of the divine nature.

For to the woman who sought his body (I use "body" emphatically, for they did not seek his divinity, inasmuch as it was because they believed he was the Son of God that they sought him) the angel said, "He has risen; he is not here."

[Mt. 28:26] If he was not there, how can you say, Luther, that Christ even in his humanity fills all things?

If you try to take refuge in the statement, "He was not there with the original crude style of bodily presence.

His body had taken on another state,"

I shall bind you with two chains that you may not slip from my grasp: one, that the angel is speaking of the body which had risen again.

For he says, "He has risen; he is not here," thus denying that the body which had risen again was there. Therefore, the body of Christ is not everywhere.

The second is that Christ says, "This is my body which was given for you," [Mt.

26:26] not, "which has risen from the dead." If, as you are always clamoring, we must stick to the simple words of Christ, we shall be forced to eat the body of Christ as it consisted of flesh and blood and bone, and altogether as it hung upon the cross. Therefore, we cannot say on the authority of this passage of Paul that the body of Christ is everywhere.

About the natural meaning of those words I shall have something to say presently. [677]

But if you proceeed to slip out by the other path, namely, by saying that the subsequent words suggested to you the grounds on which you say that he is everywhere, and if you wish to be understood as meaning that he, insofar as he is human, reigns everywhere, for you speak after this fashion:

Luther:

"He (namely, Christ) is, not only in virtue of his divinity, but also in virtue of his human nature, Lord of all things, holds all things in his grasp, and is everywhere present."

[WA 19:491:18-20] If, I say, you try to escape by this road, I shall bind you with three chains.

First, if you jump over to the divine nature, your reasoning is not valid, for the question is whether the body is eaten, and since

I deny that it is eaten, supported by other reasons but especially by this reason, that this body cannot be in several places at once, even according to the testimony of the angel, it devolves upon you people to prove that his body is everywhere, not that Christ reigns everywhere.

For he did that before he was clothed with body.

Second, you give evidence of a manifest and new error when you say that by his human nature he is Lord of all things.

Who, I ask, of the theologians has ever taught anything like this?

How can he be less than the Father, as he himself says [cf. Jn.

10:29] and Athanasius confesses, [22] if in virtue of his humanity he is just as much Lord of all things as in virtue of his divinity?

Speaking of the day of judgement in Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32, he says distinctly, "But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only."

Do you see, my dear Luther, how his humanity has the second place?

If that were itself Lord of all things, how could the day of judgement be appointed for all flesh, not merely without its command, but even without its knowledge?

Let us not, I say, cast ourselves headlong into such manifest errors, lest we seem to subscribe to the teaching of Sabellius and of Marcion who sprang from his heresy. [23]

Finally, a clumsy Vulcan, I will catch you again in the net of your own words. [24]

For you say in the last part of this section, [678] "And he is everywhere present, namely, as to his humanity."

[WA 19:491:17-18] Hence it appears that you are of the opinion that the body of Christ is everywhere just as much as his divinity.

For you use up no small number of words to show that, though he is everywhere, he yet manifested himself especially in two places, for example, in heaven and in the Eucharist, in the one, to show that he was Lord of all things, in the other, to make us sure where to seek and to find him--but all this is mere human words, not in quotations from the divine utterances.

It has already been shown that it is not the province of humanity thus to reign even if the one that reigns is a person.

That he ascended no one denies, but that he is besides in the Eucharist, so that we know where he is to be sought and found, is dis dia pason ("by twice the whole scale") at variance not only

with religion but with your own utterances.

For you have said that he is in heaven and not also in the Eucharist to be adored, and now you point out that he is to be sought and found also in the Eucharist.

For what, I ask? To be eaten. What is he going to do when eaten? Confirm the heart, remit sins, etc. But I have shown already that it is impious to attribute these things to physical eating. But to be eaten all the same.

Perhaps you mean, "to fill the belly," for the mind is satisfied with the contemplation of him.

See, my dear Luther, what-you force us to endure and do. We are forced patiently to bear all these immense absurdities, and to reply to things so frivolously cunning that if anyone else had brought them forward nobody would deign to reply to them.

But since your authority supports them and you are so far from desiring to return to the straight path that you even seem eager to stand on these things, I have a wolf by the ears. [25] It is painful that your authority should suffer any derogation; it is impious to betray the truth.

Placed in such a position as I see that it is after all a smaller thing to sin against a person than against God, and though I regret exceedingly to make answer to these things, which have not even the appearance of foundation in the sacred writings, yet one is bound to guard against human wares being passed off as divine.

Since, therefore, you pay too little attention to the exchange of the two natures of Christ, and yet frequently avail yourself of them in speaking to the general crowd who have no understanding of them, I have determined to note down here a few points in regard to them, [679] that no one may be imposed upon through lack of knowledge of them.

For you jump craftily from one nature to the other, as when you say that Christ is in us and around us everywhere (a competence only of his divine nature), and at the same time wish to insinuate to the minds of the untutored that his natural body is everywhere, filling and surrounding all things.

On the Alloiosis of the two Natures in Christ [1] Alloiosis, which I have interpreted as an expression involving a leap, is, according to Plutarch, [2] a trope by which an interchange takes place between members of a category or scheme of things where, namely, on account of some affinity in the grammatical phenomena, a leap or interchange is made from one to the other.

Such interchanges or exchanges or leaps, which the holy men used freely in regard to Christ in view of the union of the two natures in him, nay, Christ himself used for agreeable variety in regard to himself (the theologians used not long ago

to call it exchange of attributes, that is, special properties) [3] -these, I say, I have called alloiosis or leap, in order to make the grammarians more friendly.

For all experts have the peculiarity of [680] being a little angry with a person who does not properly grasp the terms of their speciality.

Alloiosis, then, so far as our subject is concerned, is that leap or transition or, if you prefer, interchange, by which when, speaking of one of Christ's natures, we use the terms that apply to the other.

[681] For instance, when Christ says, "My flesh is truly meat,"

[Jn. 6:55] the word flesh properly applies to his human nature, but by exchange it is used in this place of his divine nature.

For in that he is the Son of God he is the food of the soul. For he says, "It is the Spirit that enlivens."

[Jn. 6:63] Again, when he says that the son of the householder was slain by the husbandmen, though "son of the householder" is a characterization of his divinity, [cf.

Mt.

21:33ff.] he uses it in reference to his human nature--for by virtue of that he could die, but not by any means of virtue of his divine nature.

When, I say, what applies to one of the natures is predicated of'the other, this is alloiosis or exchange or change of attributes.

It is so essential to know this and keep it in mind that one who disregards it or does not know it defiles not only the Gospel of John but also the others with extraordinary errors.

The reason why they were all so much given to the use of this exchange or alloiosis of attributes is this: when he who is from all eternity Son of God put on humanity, he was made Son of Man also, not in the [682] sense that he who was Son of God lost the lot or condition of being divine, or was transmuted into the position of man, nor in the sense that he turned human into divine nature, but in the sense that God and a human being became one Christ, who, in that he is the Son of God, is the life of all (for all things were made by him [Jn. 1:3] and in that he is a human being, is the offering through which the eternal righteousness, which is also his righteousness, is reconciled.

These two natures, however, he joined and united into one substance or person in such a way that they still always retain each its own character, with the one exception that the tendency to sin is utterly foreign to his humanity.

For he was not born of corrupt seed but by the Holy Spirit's making fertile his virgin mother.

But being thus without guilt he underwent punishments, sufferings, and distress to the day of his death, such as hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sleep, waking and all such things. So the holy ones of God sought out many images and marks to help them teach clearly this union.

Some brought forth the comparison to a person who consists of soul and body (which seemed to me the closest comparison) and showed that the God and the human being in him made one Christ.

Others brought forward a blade heated by fire. [4] For if you cut wood or any other body with it, both

a wound and burn are inflicted.

By this parallel they wished to show the force, life, nature, character, working of the two natures.

This metaphor you took from them if you confess it. If you deny it, you pilfered it [683] and twisted it to support the notion of the flesh in the bread, Luther. [5] That was not very clever, though, for as the heated sword cuts and burns, so the divinity of Christ performs miracles, enters the heart and dwells there, while his humanity hungers, suffers and dies.

But what, I beg of you, has the bread to do in the soul, what the body of Christ physically eaten?

But the comparison to a heated blade was not known to the people, and their wondering amazement before anything new flattered us into the hope that something could be accomplished with them by means of comparisons of this sort not thoroughly understood, since we were utterly without help from the Lord's word, and yet did not want to yield the victory and glory to God, because we were seeking the glory of humanity.

But I come back to the subject.

I wil examine several instances of alloiosis in John and elsewhere, that the simple reader may be made cautious about thinking that when he hears anything predicated of Christ or said by him that what applies to only one of his natures applies to the other also.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him, etc.,"

[Jn.

1:1] applies only to the divinity of Christ.

So also that which Paul writes in Romans 11:36, "Of him and through him and in him are all things." "The Word was made flesh," [Jn. 1:14] "God was made human," are ways of saying by alloiosis that he who put on humanity is the eternal God, and after he put it on is eternally human also. For God was not made human in the sense that he who was God [684] was turned into a human being, but he who was not a human being before put on humanity.

We say, therefore, that God who made the humanity he put on was made human, meaning that human nature was put on by the Son of God.

This Athanasius confesses, "Not by the turning of divnity into flesh," he says, "but by the putting of humanity upon God." [6] Yet no one is offended by the sharing of qualities when it is said, "God was made human," meaning "the human was made God," or "was taken upon the person of the Son of God."

See what an inoffensive union:

But see at the same time how we must not confuse the understanding of the properties, even if we interchange the names:--John 3:13:

"No person has ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him should have, etc." We have here "the Son of Man" twice, but not as a typification of the same nature.

The Son of Man is lifted up and fixed upon the cross,

b pur and the Son of Man is in heaven though he had not yet ascended.

His divine nature, therefore, by which he is forever with the Father, is called the Son of Man exactly as his human nature is called God when we say that God was born of the virgin. It was in virtue of his divinity, then, not in virtue of his humanity, that he was the Son of Man in heaven with the Father who never abandoned him.--Jn.

5:17:

"My Father continuously works and I work."

Here "I" is said of Christ, but it applies only to his superior nature, which performs miracles and works all things equally with the Father.

But a little later, when he says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing," [Jn. 5:19] he calls the assumed human being "the Son", and declares that he can perform no miracles.

I would not contend with those who perhaps not impiously, but inopportunely, would say that "Son" is put here for the divine nature also, in the sense that the Son works nothing which the Father does not work with him.

I have enough testimony with which to show more clearly than day that things belonging only to divinity are spoken of, indeed as if they belong to humanity, but are not attributed to it. So far is it from the truth that you can expand Christ's material body so greatly.--In the same chapter:

"And has given him authority to execute judgement also, because he is the Son of Man."

[Jn. 5:27] Here "Son of Man" is put for his humanity, while earlier in this discourse ("the Son of Man which is in heaven") it was put for his divinity only.

For it is the prosapodosis ("repetition of the reason") why the Son especially is [685] to judge the world, namely, because he is the Son of Man, that is, has put on human nature.

In the same chapter:

"I can of mine own self do nothing."

[Jn. 5:30] Here "I" is put for his humanity.

He denies it to the working of miracles, about which he was especially talking there.

And do you, Luther, attribute all things to it, infinity, power and what not? I do not object to taking "of mine own self" here in the sense of "alone", merely to avoid contentiousness, for what follows shows well enough that the phrase would be referred to the human nature.--John 6:55, "My flesh is truly meat."

The passage shows incontrovertibly that "flesh" is used to mean the divine nature, for he himself had explained the passage as meaning that it must be the Spirit that enlivens, that the flesh profits nothing, [Jn. 6:63] about which enough has been said above.

[14] And do you imagine he is speaking of carnal understanding, thus destroying this charming allegorical utterance and alloiosis?-John 7:16:

"My teaching," he says, "is not mine." Why, good Jesus, how, then, is it with your doctrine, if it is not yours? But it was yours, for you are God, and all that the Father has is yours, and, on the other hand, all that you have is the Father's.

But it was not yours because you are human.

It is yours when you pass to your divine nature, not yours when to your human nature.

It is

yours by possession, not by nature, if we look at the human in you.

In this discourse you copy the portrayal or representation of your enemies who made you human only and not also God.

And do you attribute all things to him in virtue of his humanity also, when he denies them to it?--John 10:18:

"I have power to lay down my life, and to take it again," applies to his divinity, not humanity.

For this latter said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." [Mt. 26:39] And in the same gospel:

"I and my Father are one"

[Jn. 10:30] applies to the divine nature. They were not one person but one substance.

For though they were two, they were yet one thing, and he makes the Father and himself two witnesses, in order to do all things according to the law.

John 8:16f.:

"If I judge," he says, "my judgement is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.

It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. Therefore, I am one that bears witness of myself; the other who gives testimony of me is the Father who sent me." And you would confuse everything, attributing to his humanity what is peculiar to his divinity:

[686] ruling, filling all things and other things of the kind? John 10:38:

"That you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him."

Here "mel" and "I" look to his divinity, for in virtue of that he is in the Father from eternity and the Father in him. John 12:23:

"The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified or rendered illustrious," and a little further on, "Father, save me from this hour," [Jn. 12:27] that is, "Rescue me from this crisis."

These are so thoroughly human that one may judge that he had no need of help, so far is he from ruling in virtue of his human nature.

And if anyone says it was done by a dispensation, what then?

His sitting at the right hand of God until he comes to judge is just as much a matter of dispensation as what he now asks, nay, so is his whole putting on of human nature.

In the same chapter, "Where I am, there shall also my servant be," [Jn. 12:26] and John 14:3:

"I will receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also." Here "I" and "to myself" signify the inferior nature, for in virtue of the nobler he was always with them.

And do you say that Christ's body is everywhere?

It will follow, then, that wherever the humanity of Christ is, there are the elect also. And according to you, that is everywhere; it fills all things.

Then the elect must also be everywhere. If, then, Christ is physically in the Eucharist so are also the elect.

It is strange that these Christeaters are in no way repelled by this Christbearing Christopher, taller than the Colossus of Rhodes. [7] In the same gospel, [Jn.

12:32ff.:

"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to me." This he said, signifying what death he should die.

The people answered him, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abides forever: and do you say the Son of Man must be

lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" [687] See how those thickheaded people were yet cleverer than we are at seizing the trope.

They understood that in using the expression "be lifted up" he was speaking of dying.

Unless, therefore, they deny that Christ can die, and he himself asserts it, it is evident that he is making the quickest possible transition. from one of his natures to the other.

For the expression "If I be lifted up from the earth" looks to his human nature, but the words that follow quicker than a flash, "will draw all people to me", beyond a doubt look to his divine nature, for it is the function of that to draw all people to it.

As, therefore, even if one says hundreds of times, "The Son of God was slain," or "The Lord of Glory was crucified," we never understand that his Godhead suffered anything, only his humanity.

So whenever power over all things and infinity are attributed to Christ, we never understand that his humanity has these things, even though we hear such modes of expression without offense. For as each nature is in him in its entirety, so each nature preserves its own character (as far as their boundaries are concerned). His humanity can no more reign than his divinity die--even though he who reigns is human, and he who dies is God.

We easily admit the expressions, "The Son of Man sits at the right hand and reigns" [Mt. 26:64] and "The Son of God died for us," [cf. 1 Cor.

15:3] because of the union of the natures, yet the understanding never confuses the two.

And would you, great theologian as you are, confuse them? Far be this from Luther, who is thoroughly convinced that whatever he has taught is of divine origin and is incontrovertible.

In the same gospel:

"Whoever believes in me does not believe in me, but in the one who sent mes dma l2344)|sHeres ther tirst sin ime signifies Christ the God, the second, Christ the human being.

In this sense, whoever trusts in me insofar as I am God, truly trusts, for no one trusts in that which is created.

No one, therefore, trusts in me insofar as I am a human being. For all hope must be laid upon the one who sent me.

And do you attribute to his humanity infinity and supremacy over all things, when he so unequivocally puts them away from him? Who has ever taught that we must put our trust in the creature? We must lean upon God alone.

If anyone says, "We must put our trust in the death of Christ, for he suffered it for us,"

I answer, we are indeed given assurance through the death of Christ, as a pledge of God's mercy, that the divine righteousness is appeased, but that which we must ever put our trust in is God alone.

But I am not at all troubled by expressions of this kind to put trust in the death of the Son of God, any more than by any others that are used of either one of the natures in Christ, when they apply only to the other.

John 13:33:

"Little children, yet a little while I am with you." Here "I am" is said of his human nature, for we cannot say of his divine nature that it is not every-

where. [688] And do you venture to say that his body is everywhere, when he himself says that he will be with us but a little while?

John 14:6:

"I am the way, the truth and the life" is said of his divine nature only, for it is in virtue of that that he is all these things.

Do you see again that the way, the truth and the life are applied to his human nature only by alloiosis? Yet you attribute to the body, even when eaten, the reinstatement of the tottering soul, the forgiveness of sins, and the rest of your things? Even if these things were anywhere attributed to eating by evident statement of Scripture, it would yét be by alloiosis, since they are peculiar to divinity.

When, therefore, we have no scriptural authority, what mischief does our recklessness mean when we assert on our own authority things that so plainly are at variance with real eusebeig

("piety" towards the one supreme God?

In the same gospel:

"If you had known me you would have know my Father also."

[Jn.

14:7] Here "me" looks to his Godhead, for they certainly knew Jesus, the tektona ("carpenter", "artisan", etc.) but that he was the only supreme God they sometimes confessed and they sometimes hesitated to believe.

Do not, therefore, pluck from this passage a reason for contending that he is Lord of all things just as much by his human nature as by his divine nature, for it is now clear what leaps he takes in speaking of himself.

Indeed, he goes on immediately to speak in such a way as to make clearer what I am saying.

In the same place:

"Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father." [Jn. 14:9] Is the Father, then, of human aspect, as Melito is said to have thought? [8] By no means.

For no one has seen God at any time.

[Jn.

1:18] How, therefore, has the Father been seen when Christ has been seen?

When Christ is known, the Father is known, not as a human being is known, but as God is known. For there is but one God. Whether, therefore, you know the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, you know God.

Hence it is clear why the words above, "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also," cannot be understood of the knowledge of Christ's human nature.

In the same chapter:

"I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter."

[Jn.

14:16] He said another comforter should come to abide with them forever.

Therefore, was he not to abide forever himself? He was, for he is everywhere present and a near God, but he was to lay aside the flesh until his appointed day. And do we straightway cry out that the flesh is there?

In the same Gospel:

"The word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." [Jn. 14:24] He is evidently denying that the words are his as a human being, for as God he has all these things in common with the Father.

For he says, "All mine are yours, and yours are mine." [Lk. 15:31] And do we attribute the kingdom to him otherwise than by alloiosis, when he says that the word he commends to us is not his? In the same

place:

"These things I have spoken to you, being yet present with you." [Jn. 14:25] Therefore, he went away. [689] But he who is by nature everywhere present cannot go away.

Therefore, it was his humanity that went away, as is seen plainly by what follows, for he says, "But the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things, etc."

[Jn.

14:26] Here we have "but", that we may see the part that belongs to the Holy Spirit. "I shall go away," he says, "but the Holy Spirit will be with you immediately to make good my absence."

This passage acts very strongly against you people, when you say of your own notion (as always) that all this going away (of which mention is made in these passages) is to be understood in the sense that he only took away the ability to perceive him.

For it is plainly seen here that he promises that the Holy Spirit did not dwell visibly among them.

Therefore it follows at once that he was speaking of the going away of his body altogether and not of its visibility or invisibility.

And do we attribute to the body that comforting which belongs only to the Spirit?

What need of the sending of the Spirit would there have been if the bodily presence and the supper room furnished all things? In the same place, John 16:44ff.,

"These things I have told you, that when the time comes you may remember that I told you of them.

And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

But now I go my way to him that sent me, and one of you asks, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you." He says that up to that time he had concealed from the disciples those violent and terrible things they were going to suffer after his departure. For they were not going to suffer anything while he was with them, that the saying might be fulfilled, no doubt where he says, "Father, of those you have given me I have not lost one."

[Jn.

18:9] For he says, "Because I was with you." But after he was no longer with them, they were constantly dragged to punishment.

But was he not there with goodness and protection?

He was.

They were, therefore, deprived of his humanity only. Again, "But now," he says, "I go my way to him that sent me."

It is an antithesis:

"Hitherto I have been with you, but now I go away."

If he had been abiding with them but unseen, that would not have been going away, and the antithesis would not fit.

He would have had to speak, or we should have had to explain his words thus:

"Hitherto 1 have moved among you, but now I shall be unseen." For being present and being unseen are not opposites, but being absent and being present.

But let someone say that the word here is "and", not "but"; it must be noted that the Greek has here nun de ("but now") which is the most unequivocal mark of an antithesis.

There follows, "ut nemo

ex vobis interroget me: quo vadis,"

("so that none of you need ask me, where are you going?") Here the Greek does not have ut, but et, but this et is put for ut after the fashion of the Hebrews, and this is of very frequent occurrence in John. The sense is, therefore:

"But now I am going away in such a manner that there is no need of any question as to where [690] I take myself, for all will see plainly that I set out towards heaven."

As John 6:62 says, "When you see the Son of Man ascend up" (here, too, we suddenly have a twofold alloiosis) "where he was before," then, it is clear, you will not ask any questions.

But if he had meant to lead his disciples to believe that they ate his body or had him physically with them, he would not have taken such pains to forewarn them of his real departure and disappearance in the body. For he is not absent who is present unseen.

"But because I have said these things to you," he says, "sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you." Oh, worthy reason why the apostles should be sad, if they knew that only the sight of him was taken away, and even that was so liberally made good! For they were to have him with them in a far more special manner thereafter and with a closer presence than before, even if anaisthétds ("unperceived") (provided it is such a rich and sweet thing as you maintain to eat him).

But we ought rather, leaving the apostles free from suspicion, to observe how you people maintain anaischyntos ("shamelessly") whatever comes into your heads, [9] even giving the Scriptures but a careless examination.

For when Christ here, in spite of their sadness, persists in thinking and teaching of his going away, and says, "Nevertheless

I tell you the truth," why do we not see that he is speaking of a real going away? So gentle and kindly a teacher would not have allowed them to remain thus overcome with deep sadness, if he had not been really going away. Nor would he have said, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth, even though you do take my going away so terribly to heart," but, going away to punishment as he was, he would have applied to their wrenched understanding some such healing poultice as this:

"You do not rightly understand me.

I cannot be lacking anywhere since I have taught you to eat me.

I was present before visibly but outside of you; now I shall be present within the chambers of your breasts, but invisibly," or the like.

But so far is he from doing anything of the sort, that he impresses upon them that he is telling them the truth.

And, by heaven, it would not be the truth if he were eaten in the bread by us, as you people say. For he is not truly absent who is present unseen.

And to this refer his words, "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come unto you."

If it is expedient that he go away, it will be of no advantage that he remain.

If the Comforter does not come until

all the comfort of bodily presence is taken away, why do we not see that the eating of the body does not guarantee any of the things you maintain?

"It strengthens the heart," you say.

What, then, is the mission of the Spirit? He says it is such a necessary one that it is expedient [691] that he go away in order that it may come the more quickly.

Why, my dear Luther, do we not allow ourselves to be persuaded, since we see that the teaching of the Spirit is so perfectly uniform?

He had said before, "It is the Spirit that enlivens, the flesh profits for absolutely nothing,"

[Jn. 6:63] showing that it must be the Spirit through which the heart is renewed, that the flesh can do nothing in this direction. Now he says,

"If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come."

[Jn.

16:7] What, I ask, does he say with that but what he had said before?

"The flesh must be removed from us, for its presence profits nothing.

Now there will be need of: the comforting Spirit, which will immediately be present as soon as I go away. If I do not hasten my going away, it will delay its coming." See how necessary it is that his body be removed:

Let us also remove this imagined eating of the flesh that we may receive the Spirit as early as possible.

In the same place:

"All things the Father has are mine."

[Jn.

16:15] Here "mine" indicates his divinity as rightful possessor.

For though Christ reigns, and lives, and enriches all things with the Father and the Holy Spirit, yet this is wholly because of his: superior nature.

It belongs, therefore, of right to him that all that is the Father's is also his, and when we attribute what we do to his humanity, we are not out of the way, for he who shares these things with the Father shares the nature of a human being with us also. But in reality expressions of this kind involve a leap and are not literal.

In the same gospel:

"And I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go to the Father." [Jn. 16:26f.]

How could he have come forth from the Father since he says, "No one has ascended up to heaven but he who came down, the Son of Man who is in heaven"? [Jn. 3:13] If he never abandoned the Father, how could he go away or come forth from him?

It must be noted, therefore, that the speech is a kind of mimicry.

He copies the custom of them that are sent somewhere.

For they go away, and, having accomplished what they were sent for, return.

For divinity cannot go anywhere, since it is everywhere and fills all things.

Again, this expression, "I came forth" points to his divine, not his human nature.

But the Son of God came forth, not with movement in space, but in putting on a nature hitherto foreign to him.

Finally, the expression "I leave" refers to his human nature, since the divine can leave nothing.

For it hates,

that is, neglects none of the things it has made.

Here we have bold leaps indeed:

Secondly, we must consider here principally the circumstances of the situation. When he says, "I am not going to comfort you with the promise that I will pray the Father for you," we detect the characteristic and custom [692] of one no longer to be at hand.

For the ambassador, who has finished his mission and is going away never to return, says, "There is no need of my recommending you to the king though you are not at hand, for you are thoroughly commended to him on such and such account."

So in this passage Christ comforts them with the love of the Father, not with the eating of his body, nor with his personal intercession in the body with the Father.

All this is the mark of one who is to be away.

Thirdly, he says, "I leave the world," not, "I deprive it of the sight of me." The word "leave" cannot apply to one who is present.

Let us not make up anything imaginary here. He said, "I leave."

He must leave, but he did not deprive the world of his power and goodness and mercy.

Therefore, he left it in the body. Let us, then, suffer him to be away, until he comes, especially since we seem to have no need of his body, inasmuch as the spirit does all things better than any flesh can.

In Luke 19:12, Christ said, "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return."

This man is Christ.

If he is here, how can he have gone away? And again, if he is here, how can he return?

Let us examine the whole allegory (for I do not think those paradigms which are really allegories ought to be reckoned among the fables) and we shall find only that he is absent in body but very present in spirit, suggesting means by which we might gain increase with the sum entrusted to us, which is the word. There is no mention here of faithfully managing the body, but only the word. But how could he so recklessly have forgotten the body if such a harvest of blessings sprang up for us from the eating of it? How could the apostles have said nothing?

He went away.

Let us permit him to have gone.

He will return.

Let us await his coming.

Let us not, I implore, be more cruel than Saturn and devour him as he reigns. [10] In John 17:3, he whose body you proceed to eat says, "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

See, if you please, first here, that life eternal comes from this, that we know the true God, not that we eat the body of Christ physically; secondly, that Jesus Christ is again put here by alloiosis for his higher nature, for by his human nature he is not God.

This the apostles also recognized when they said, [693] "We believe you are Christ, the Son of God," for that 'was the way. of salvation.

They did not say, "We believe that your body is eaten physically."

Here again it is made manifest that we have put our trust in Christ, not because he put on human nature, but because he is the only true God. Hence if we find expressions of the kind, let us be careful to attribute to each nature, according to the rule of faith, what belongs to it.

How, then, can we attribute to the eaten body the forgiveness of sins, the strengthening of faith and those kind of gifts, which belong to divinity or the Spirit alone?

In the same gospel:

"I pray for them.

I pray not for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours."

And "All mine are yours, and yours are mine."

And "I am glorified in them." And "Now I am not in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you." [Jn. 17:9ff.] These things I will now treat separately, although all that Christ said in this chapter contributes to the present controversy.

He now prays for his own, though he had said shortly before, "And I do not say to you that I will pray the Father for you." There he says he will not pray, though he is constantly interceding for us, as the same evangelist bears witness in | John 2:1, and these things make two questions for us.

But, not to be carried too far afield, Christ intercedes for us, because he is the price of our redemption, for there is no need of much praying and weeping and beating of the breast and displaying of pledges.

For he is the eternal wisdom, and therefore, by his nature, not only sees what ought to be done when we have erred, but foresaw before we were conceived the end and result of our acting and what we were trying to do. And his saying here that he was not going to pray for his own when he brought humanity as a íriend to his Father, is a way of showing by hyperbole that they are always known and acceptable in the highest degree to the Father, so that they have no need of anyone to pray for them, though we all come to the Father through Christ only and alone.

But now he prays for them, being still in the world, for the work which he had on hand had not yet been brought to its completion.

By this we, too, can see that we are not to put our trust in the prayers of those [694] who have been already received into the realms above, but that while we still struggle upon earth we should pray without ceasing. So much for the unanimous judgement of Scripture.

Now I come back to the argument.

"I pray for them, O Father, not for the rebellious world, for I know to what it inclines and to what it has been foreordained by us. For those, I say, I pray, whom you have given me, for they are yours, and all yours are mine.

Yet I have called them mine, because they have preached me and are to preach me much more.

But the reason why I am now so anxious to pray for them is that now I shall be no more in the world, but they will be in the world.

In truth, I come to you, leaving them behind me upon earth. Hence it comes that I am solicitous for them." [Jn. 17:9ff.] I give here

, EY! a paraphrase of Christ's language without violence. We see before all things that every circumstance points to Christ's going away as he says.

Moreover the words are so plain by which he says that he is not to be now in the world that there is no need of special effort to show they mean this. "And now I am no more in the world" is a Hebrew form of expression for which we should say, "Now or hereafter I shall not be in the world."

What shall we say here, Luther?

He denies he will be in the world.

He does not say, "I shall be unseen," but, "I shall not be in the world."

We are forced, actually forced, by truth itself to flee to the protection of alloiosis, and confess that it is his human nature which is taken away by these words, since his divine nature cannot help being everywhere.

For he adds only at the end as an epilogue, as it were, "And I come to you," to suggest where he is going to take himself.

Nor is there any ground for our saying that in the discourse which Christ gave after supper he spoke only of that absence by which he was for three days in the hands of his enemies or in the tomb. What he said of that time and what he said about his ascension to the Father is sufficiently clear.

What I have brought forward about his going away all applies to his ascension into heaven.

In the same chapter:

"Holy Father, keep those in your name whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name; those you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the Son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

And now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves."

[Jn.

17:11ff.] Here you see that his statement, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name," must manifestly be understood of his human nature.

Therefore, [695] sometime he was not going to be with us. But as far as his divinity is concerned, he is not able to leave us who said, "I shall be with you even to the consummation of the ages." [Mt. 28:20]

It remains, therefore, that only his human part was taken away.

And that this must be absent we see most clearly when he says, "While I was with them," and a little later, "And now I come to you." By this antithesis we easily understand, unless we will not, that he was once with us in human form, and is not so now any more.

In Matthew 26:64, standing the next day before the high priest, he said, "Nevertheless I say unto you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven." And that this was fulfilled in this way we read as well in Mark 16:19 in the words, "And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God," as Luke, both in his gospel, Luke 24:51, "And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven"

and in Acts 1:9f.:

"And when he had spoken these things, while they looked, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel who also said, 'You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen him go into heaven.'"

All these things I have brought out for proving the ascension of the body of Christ and its sitting at the right hand. See the first passage, how he proclaims that he will sit at the right hand until he comes again for judgement. Stephen saw him there, and the articles of faith bear witness to his being there, nor has there ever been anyone who had seen him descend anywhere as the apostles and Stephen saw him ascend and sit there.

Your distortion, by which you would make out that Stephen saw him only with the mind's eye, is trivial. [11] Moreover, you have Acts 7:55f.:

"But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, atenisas, that is, looked up steadfastly into heaven, [696] and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of the power of God."

Do you hear how he lifted up his face, how he directed his eyes? You imagine us so dull and stupid that we do not understand how God is seen with the mind's eye.

In that passage are not described the lifting up of the mind to God and the contemplation of him, but a miracle by which Christ presented himself, in whatever shape, whatever way, tanquam, apo mechanés ("with the unexpertness of the superhuman, as it were") to the first martyr.

Show us, I beg, that any such thing has been done in the sacrament.

Where is our madness taking us? We even begin to take away from the divine miracles, in order to champion some imaginary miracle of our own.

See also the second passage:

"He was received up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God," and you will see that it can be understood only of his humanity.

For how could the divine be received up into heaven?

"Heaven is my throne," he says. [Acts 7:49] He sat there not only before his sitting there as a human being but before his human birth also.

As a human being, therefore, Christ was received up into heaven, who as God had never gone away from there, moreover he sits on the right hand of God.

This you, Luther, reckon among miracles, though you ought not to have allowed the existence of anything miraculous, for from the corollary which you deny, no doubt because our friends in not very good Latin call it concomitantia ("concomitance"), you might have understood, since you say the body of Christ is everywhere and fills all things, that there is no cause for wondering amazement that it even sits at the right hand of God.

In short, we know that he sits there, that is sojourns, is,

lives there, rejoices, and cheers his adopted brothers, and is so situated or circumscribed that he "must be in one place only." [12]

Hence we deny that he can be anywhere else than where the Lord's word shows that he is.

We know that you would show him in the bread, but Scripture does not support you.

Prove, therefore, by unequivocal passages of Scripture that he is in the bread, as we do that he is [697] in heaven.

And that the human side of Christ (that we may not maintain anything not perfectly supported by Scripture) is so circumscribed or situated that it must be in one place only, we prove thus:

Christ himself has circumscribed his body in very many passages, not a few of which I have already cited, first by its going away or sitting at the right hand, and he has done it so thoroughly that no teacher could by any philosophy better show that it was circumscribed.

Secondly, Christ has also made manifest where he is to be until the day of universal judgement, and has nowhere hinted that he should have his place anywhere else than where he has shown he will be. But we must not be troubled about the right hand of God, in truth, since it is not circumscribed, and we may argue from that that Christ's human side cannot be circumscribed either:

Although the divine nature is itself infinite, and certainly cannot be circumscribed in any way, yet all created beings having intelligence are in him just as we are, and are circumscribed.

In that place or fashion, therefore, in which the infinite God offers himself to finite creatures endowed with understanding for their blessing and support, we recognize that Christ, by virtue of his humanity, sits at the right hand of the Father, circumscribed just as angels and people are circumscribed.

All of this again we confirm by Scripture.

"I will," says the Father, "that where I am, there my servant will be also,"

[cf.

Jn.

12:26] and "I will receive you into myself, that where I am, you may be also," [Jn. 14:3] and "In my Father's house are many mansions." [Jn. 14:2] Thirdly, we prove that Christ's body is finite and circumscribed because it even rose from the dead, as the angel said to the women, "You see Jesus the crucified.

He is risen; he is not here." [Mt. 28:6] On this passage enough has been said above.

Nor can we say that he is by turns sometimes everywhere, sometimes not, for the infinite cannot draw itself together so as not to be infinite and then spread itself out so as to be infinite again.

Fourth, all the appearances by which he manifested himself after the resurrection prove our point. Raised from the dead, he determined to present himself in visible and tangible shape to his disciples, but he never appeared thus in different places at once, as we may see in the last chapter of Luke [Lk. 24], in John 20, and in | Corinthians 15 where we read that all his appearances took place in a successive series. And what is written in the last chapter of John, how he stood upon the shore when the disciples had been

drawing an empty net all night even unto the dawn, is a mark of circumscription.

Fifth, passages like, "Where I am, there shall my servant be also," point to the same conclusion.

[698] If they are where he is, in virtue of his humanity, namely, then, as they are circumscribed, so must he also be circumscribed.

Thirdly, see the passage, Luke 24:51:

"And it happened, when he blessed them (that is, bid them farewell in the Hebrew way) that he was parted from them, etc."

See how everything that he does and says indicates going away and absence.

He bids them farewell, comforts them, and commands them to stay together.

He uses these words, "I go away, I leave the world, I shall now not be in the world."

So, too, the apostles:

"He was parted from them;"

"While they beheld, he was taken up;"

"A cloud received him out of their sight;" "He was received up into heaven;" "He sits at the right hand." What will be sacred among us, my dear Luther, if we do violence to these words?

Christ is said to have gone away somewhere in the body. We say that he has stayed.

Why is not that confounding the Scriptures?

See, finally, the passage of Luke in the beginning of Acts, "And while they looked toward heaven as he went up," (why do you not forbid them also to lift their eyes towards heaven as you have taught that Stephen need not have raised his eyes or his face towards heaven?) "behold two men stood by them, etc. who also said, 'You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven."" [Acts 1:9ff.]

You have here the circumscribed and visible going away of the body, nor is any return anywhere promised other than one circumscribed and visible.

As we also see here plainly when he says, "shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven."

But he was circumscribed and visible when he went away, to such a degree that they were forced to fix their gaze closely in order to follow him more easily as he went into the distance on high.

Also in Matthew 26:64, "You will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven," and 24:30, "And they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Behold how he is to return:

In the same way he went away, visible and in the clouds with power and great glory. So, therefore, he will come as he went away, namely, visibly. Matthew 24:26:

"Wherefore if they say to you, 'Behold, he is in the desert,' do not go out; 'Behold, he is in the secret chambers,' do not believe it. For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be."

Here also there is an alloiosis in [699] the Son of Man.

It is put for the human nature of Christ, for in his divine nature he is still with us silently and unseen.

Some people spoil this passage by their interpretation saying that Christ spoke here only of sects, though a clearer and more unequivocal passage will not easily be found that says he will not come in any other way at all than

in brilliant glory. That he is speaking of his own presence in the body is shown by the prosapodosis ("causal resumé") which says, "For just as lightning, etc." [Mt. 24:27] This causal "for" shows sufficiently that in the preceding words the "corporal presence" is not spoken of when he adds on that he is about to return visibly and openly. He therefore warns them, lest they even believe those who say, "Here, or there, is Christ." For when he comes, his openness is to be so public, his unfolding so broadly radiant as lightning bursts forth. Nor is it in order even to speak so much of the public judgements caused by his coming.

He continues present in his teachings, which apply to the time between his first ascension and his return to judge the world, or that meantime he is to be present in the bread in some ineffable manner, as the Pomeranian says. [13] For in all the time which intervenes between his ascension and the judgement, he declares that he is not to be sought anywhere in the body, nay, he points out that they are false prophets who venture to attempt such a thing.

Nor could he have made that assurance stronger than by that splendid promise in which he says that his coming shall be as the lightning.

And do we maintain that he is here with unseen body? Have we not fear of the disgrace that threatens false prophets?

I know that lightning and the other words can be understood figuratively, but elsewhere, in this passage not [700] easily, for the question is one of visible signs. Matthew

19:16f.:

"And behold, one came and said to him," (namely, Jesus), "'Good master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?!

And he said to him, 'Why do you call me good? Only God is good."

Behold how his human nature has the second place:

The man, whoever he was, had called him good, though he had not recognized that he was the Son of God. Therefore, he rebukes him for the error. But is not the humanity of Christ anyway good?

It is good, but by grace, not in the way his divinity is good, by nature.

Christ, then, wished to teach the man not to speak of anything as truly and properly good save God only and alone.

And do we attribute to the eaten body what belongs to the one good being that is alone and truly good? When, I ask, will you calm down, Luther, and not so recklessly attribute to the eaten body what neither Christ nor the apostles ever attributed to it, especially when you see that Christ himself denied to his inferior nature so much that he did not bear it with equanimity that the man should on its account only call him good? For this is very strongly against those teachings of yours:

"the human part of Christ reigns, fills all things," and others of the same stamp.

On what is written in Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32, "But of that day and hour no person knows, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only," enough has been said above.

I cite it again here for two reasons, one, because it

acts against your doctrine of the kingdom of the human part of Christ, for how can you install in the kingdom that which Christ says does not know the exact time of the last day? The other, in order to note in passing that alloiosis occurs not only between the two natures in Christ, but also between the persons of the divine essence, so that sometimes the person is put for the essence, or, again, the essence is put for the person, as in this passage, "My Father alone knows." [Mt. 24:36] "Father" is put for the deity or Godhead itself, for the Son, insofar as he is the Son of God, knows all things just as much as the Father, and so does also the Holy Spirit know.

I will now bring up more examples, for I am forced to be unduly long in spite of myself, as it is, you will find enough in the above and in the books of the New Testament themselves. Look there for them.

These two passages point to the same thing where he repulsed his loving mother.

The one, when she came to the aid of the humble marriage feast and reminded her son [701] that there was no wine left, and he answered, "Woman, what have I to do with you?" The other, when she struggled to reach him through the crowd and could not, and he, learning that his mother was anxious to see him, stretched out his hands to his hearers and said, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers, etc.?"

[Mt.

12:58] I have no doubt that in these passages he did not mean to detract from the precept, "Honor your father and mother,"

[Ex. 20:12] but wanted to show that the human part of him, however high it might be, still never should be so much exalted by us that we should appeal to it alone, for all salvation must be looked for from the Deity. So much for alloiosis.

I have been so copious in its treatment as no doubt to have wearied the most patient reader.

But the situation demanded it, lest I should seem to treat lightly a matter of great importance.

For as humanity was put on by the Son of God that he who had been creator might duly become a sacrificial victim, and as this humanity, through the glory of the passion, death and cross, was raised to the throne of the supreme deity and sits at the right hand of God, so his divinity abides unchangeable, reigns alone, and alone governs all things.

If through exchange of his natures we attribute such things to Christ the man, we ought to recognize without offense how this is done.

On Absurdities of Scripture I have said above that a twofold absurdity drove me to examining more minutely the words of Christ about which I am weaving this exposition, one of faith or fact, on which enough and more has been said in its special place and elsewhere, and one of Scripture, concerning which I now begin. There are countless passages in both testaments which at first sight present the greatest diversity and the greatest opposition to each other, but when you compare them properly and without partisan bias, there is nothing more harmonious or plainer. The passage under discussion is one of these.

When you first look at it, it seems inconsistent with so many passages of Scripture that you could not easily find another that meets with so much apparent contradiction.

Please do not take offense that, in my effort to show this, I place the apparent inconsistencies in a series without separate names.

For this conduces greatly to clearness in the case and to brevity, for which you have no doubt been longing for some time.

Luther:

These words of Christ, "This is my body," [Mt.

26:26] are to be understood in their simple literal sense. [1] [702] Zwingli:

But from that will follow that the bread passes over into his body.

Thus the transubstantiation of the Roman pontiffs prevails, and Paul seems to have done wrong when he called bread what was the flesh of Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:17:

"We are all partakers of one bread."

They are not, however, to be understood in the sense that the bread passes over into the substance of the body of Christ.

[2] Z:

Therefore, these words are not to be understood in their simple literal sense.

For what do you suppose is indicated by the word, "this"?

It indicates both the bread and the body of Christ, in the sense, "This is bread and the body of Christ," or "In the bread is the body of Christ."

(For you lay down both, my dear Luther.) [3] [703] Z:

Therefore, the words of the Lord are to be understood

not in a simple but in an evidently complex sense, if "this" is the bread and "is" also the body of Christ. But if the bread remains bread, while the body of Christ is eaten in the bread, again the words are not understood in their simple literal sense.

We have a synecdoche.

For Christ did not say, "In the bread is my body," but "This," namely, the bread, "is my body." What is the principle of difference by which we admit a synecdoche, but reject a metonymy, [4] which is just as good a trope as the other?

The bread is bread and is nevertheless the body of Christ, and both are eaten in this sacrament miraculously and in a way ineffable to us. [5] Z:

Christ ordered that he be judged by his miracles if the Jews would believe in no other way. [Cf. Jn.

10:38] Show us, therefore, the miracle: Christ also prophesied that false apostles would show such signs that even the pious would run the risk of being shaken in their faith. Hence if the friar preachers, who are especially given to getting up miracles, were now talking of some miracle, it would still not be safe to believe them. How much less [704] would we be influenced when things are pointed at as miracles which have never been done or said anywhere:

The body of Christ is not eaten in such a grossly material way, but in some way known to Christ only. We have no business to be curious in the matter. [6]

But it must be eaten in the most grossly material way if the words are to be taken in their literal sense.

For this is the meaning they carry: this bread is that body of mine which is given for you.

It was given for us in grossly material form, subject to wounds, blows and death.

As such, therefore, it must be the material of the supper. Otherwise, show us from Scripture in what possible way it can be eaten.

Christ's body is everywhere.

For he reigns and fills all things. [7] Z:

The angel lied, then, to the woman when he said, "He is risen. He is not here." [Mt. 28:6] Christ will have lied since he has declared that as far as his human nature was concerned he would be no more in the world, and that so often that it would be a labor to reckon up the passages.

L: Though Christ's human nature is everywhere and fills all things as wheat fills the sack, yet he desired in a special way to place himself in this sacrament, and give himself to us, that we might know where we might find him. [8]

The notion that Christ's body fills all things has

already been shown to be frivolous by the language of the angel and by his going away. The second part is contradicted [705] by his words with regard to the time between his ascension and the last great assembly, to which time we also belong:

"Wherefore if they shall say to you, 'He is in the desert,' do not go out. 'Behold, he is in the secret chambers,' do not believe it. For as the lightning comes out of the east, and is seen even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." [Mt. 24:27] It is contradicted by the articles of faith:

"He sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge, etc." We do not read that he is to come anywhere else or for anything else than to judge. It is contradicted by the words of Christ, when in Matthew 26:64, he says, "Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand." Here we have the man.

He sits at the right hand of God, there he said he should be, and he says "hereafter".

Let us not, then, seek him elsewhere hereafter.

All these things are done invisibly. He does not now come down by stairs or a ladder and go back again. [9]

But this is opposed by the words of the angels, "This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven." [Acts 1:11] He is to come in plain sight of all.

He is come thus to judge.

This passage has nothing to do with that presence by which he is in the Eucharist.

He is not to come down for any other thing than to judge. He says he is not to be sought anywhere. He calls those false prophets who say that he is here or there, and says, "Hereafter will you see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand." We live in that "hereafter".

Let us, then, see him where he is. To what end should his body be literally present in the Eucharist?

To strengthen the heart and faith. [10] [706] Z:

He says it must be the Spirit that enlivens the heart, that the flesh profits nothing.

[Jn.

6:63] He promises that the Spirit shall come and shall do all things so that we need take no thought even of what we wish to say, etc.

"Sins are remitted through the bodily eating of the body." [11] Z:

That sin was atoned for by his death (for he was made a curse for us. [Gal. 3:13]) is set forth in so many places in Scripture that there is no need of quoting any of them here.

If, moreover, sin is remitted through the eating of his body, the

sins of the disciples were remitted when they had supped upon the body.

Does his blood purify thus, not only when shed, but when drunk?

Why, therefore, was he fastened to the cross?

Are there two ways to justification, one by faith, the other by bodily eating? Where are we going?

In this bread is made present what has been preached by the word. [12] Z:

What becomes of "He that believes in me has everlasting life" [Jn. 3:36] and "No one can come to me except the Father draw him"?

[Jn. 6:44] If a man can make present what he has preached, why do we not make it present to them that hear the gospel and believe not, thus giving them in spite of themselves bitter things, indeed, but salutary?

You people are so stupid that being without the Spirit you understand nothing of those subtle things that have to be understood spiritually.

Only they that believe eat the body of Christ. [13] [707] Z:

We, too, believe, but we do not eat the body in a literal sense.

We must believe that the body of Christ is eaten here. They that believe do thereby eat.

There you are varying the words of faith and belief.

Is it not faith unto salvation when we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and put our trust in Him?

But where, pray, in Scripture have we been told to believe that the body is eaten or the blood drunk here?

Why do you force the word "believe" into this meaning? What one of the apostles ever said, "We believe you are eaten in the body"?

Did they not all say, "We believe you are Christ, the Son of the living God", according to John 6 and Matthew 16:16.

These snares are laid for you, my simpleminded brethren.

They speak of having faith in Christ according to Scripture, and presently leap from this kind of faith to the kind of belief in which they pretend it is believed the body and blood are eaten.

I myself, I know, I say, brethren set over the ministry of the word in no mean city who, [708] not being able to retreat, shelter themselves thus: they hold up the faith to view which every pious person regards.as the crowning point of all religion, and at the same time they vitiate the natural character of faith, which is simply trust in Christ as the Son of God, and instead of "belief" put into the minds of the simple "the eating of the body of Christ."

In saying we must believe that it is eaten here because the words say so, they sin twice: they bid us understand words wrongly that they have not understood, and without authoritzation they set up for our belief what we have nowhere

been directed to believe.

For we have nowhere been taught to believe that the body of Christ is to be eaten in a bodily sense, however much Christ must be eaten, that is, must have our trust put in him.

Strange how they ekperdikizosi ("flutter away like partridges") from what is taught in John 6 under the figurative form of eating the body. May the Lord give them knowledge of himself and of themselves. Amen.

These things about the absurdity which is detected (in your doctrine) by collating the Scriptures, I wished, most learned Luther, thus to go over with you, that the apparent contradictions might be the more clearly judged when thus placed in juxtaposition.

It is for you now to examine thoroughly on what foundation your structure rests, and on what mine rests, and our intellects must be surrendered unto the Lord. [Cf. 2 Cor.

10:5.] You began with the spirit, unless, what heaven forbid, you have been deceiving us; do not end with the flesh. [Cf. Gal. 3:3.]

Now I come back to the path of the argument.

When Christ is said by the apostle in Ephesians 4:10 to have "ascended above all heavens in order to fill al things," [709] you ought not to have fallen upon such an uneducated and uncultivated comparison as that even in virtue of his human nature he fills all things like grain fills a sack (I was expecting you to add another, such as, like a countryman fills his leggins, since you had opened the door to such crudities), but rather to have weighed the words again and again.

For you would have met an alloiosis which, even if you had not seen the true sense, would yet have pointed out the way by which you could have come to understand that the thing must be explained as applying to the divine nature of Christ, even if you were pleased to take the word "fill" literally insofar as it is combined with the notion of quantity.

As a matter of fact, it ought not to be taken in this meaning, but as used for "accomplish" or "correspond to", in the sense, "He ascended up far above all heavens, that he might accomplish all things that had been written of him," or, "that he might correspond in all things to that which had been foretold of him," just as it is taken in the expression, "so it is becoming for us to fill all righteousness,"

[Mt. 3:15] that is, to accomplish what it has been ordained that we should do (for it is a hebraism).

And in 1 Corinthians 15:4:

Christ is said to have risen again "according to the Scriptures," that is, as the Scriptures had prophesied.

So also in this passage he is said to have ascended, that he might fulfill all things that the divine prophets and holy men had foretold of him.

This is clear and plain from what goes before and what follows.

For having quoted the testimony of Psalm 68:19, "Ascending up on high, he led captivity captive", and "he gave gifts to people", in order to point out the varied gifts bestowed upon us by God through Christ, he presently asserts. that he ascended, both to satisfy the present passage and other passages of Scripture, and

to send down the gifts promised to us.

For he proceeds at once to the gifts which he bestowed in sending the Spirit. "He made," he says, "some apostles, some prophets, etc." [Eph. 4:11] Therefore, if nothing can induce you to look more deeply into the matter of the Eucharist, such a crude distortion of this passage will surely at least have the power to make you say, "What, having been so blind where the light was so bright, do I not see that in this difficult and obscure matter I may be suffering the same thing as in the other case? Doubtless I have offended the Lord in some way, that he has suffered me to slip so disgracefully. It is a warning not to be so self-confident."

XI.

You continue in the same discourse after this fashion, "Since Christ says so plainly, 'Take, eat.

This is my body,' [Mt.

26:26] it is for me to believe these words as unhesitatingly as I am obliged to believe all the words of Christ.

Even if [710] he offered only a bit of straw and uttered these words, it would be my duty to believe." [WA 19:496:15-18] These are your words.

Your teaching is right, though your comparison is inelegant, but you do not hear the cry of the Roman pontiff, that the words of Christ must be believed in which he made Peter, the pontiff's predecessor, the foundation stone of his Church.

If you say, "These words [i.e.

Mt.

16:18] do not have that meaning, but must be treated in the light of faith, and compared with other utterances on this point.

The Lord's words must, indeed, be believed, but when rightly understood," [14] why, pray, do you yourself not keep this law?

The words of Christ are to be believed without fear, but not until their plain meaning has been plainly set forth as the judgement of faith and the harmony of the Scriptures show it. The point is whether the words of the Lord ought to be explained in the sense in question.

And you, as if you had won the case, continue to beg the question and insist that the words are plain:

"The belly is God," [Phil.

3:9] "An idol is naught," LIS or8:4] and "Luther is an axe." But in the sense they present on their face they are most absurd.

When, however, you have explained the figure in this fashion:

"There are people who worship the belly more religiously than they worship God." "An idol is, indeed, a material object, but he whom it represents is naught, or is no God."

"Luther is an axe, yea a two-edged axe, more mighty than a thunderbolt to break the chains of the Roman pontiff."

Then the words are really plain and clear. Everybody knows what "this" means, and "is" and "body" and "my", but the sentence is not necessarily plain because it consists of such plain words.

But your discourse is full of the noisy shout, "The words are plain; we must trust the words; we must believe the words."

You go on to say, XII.

"So also the baptism.

Baptism is water, and the Holy Spirit is in baptism." [WA 19:496:20-21] What does this mean,

I ask? Do you imagine I have not yet gone so far as to know what

baptism is, and how the Holy Spirit is in it? [711] How much nearer right were the teachings of the papists when they said that baptism consists of a material thing and form!

They called the water the material thing, and the words, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, etc." the form.

You say baptism is the material thing, namely, water, and that in the material thing is the Holy Spirit.

I now ask you, therefore, which is the more excellent sacrament, baptism, or the bread and cup of thanksgiving?

You will say, no doubt, the Eucharist (fof that is the way you people are always naming it, as if it were a concrete object when it is only an action, the action, namely, of giving thanks, though I would not make a wanton uproar in the matter, so that we call the bread of the supper the Eucharist merely by metonomy).

I shall answer, "In the Eucharist the sacrament is the bread, and the body of Christ is in the sacrament;" you say, "but in the water which is baptism is the Holy Spirit." By as much, therefore, as spirit is superior to flesh, the soul to the body, by so much is baptism more excellent than the supper.

If you say that the Holy Spirit is also in the supper with the body, then concomitance prevails, the supper will have to be adored, Christ will be there to be adored, which you deny. Would that I had never come upon these things of yours or that you had never put them forth:

For consider into what sophistries you drag us.

Baptism is not the water but the act; so the Eucharist is not the bread or the body of Christ but the act of thanksgiving.

What then? Do you deny that the Holy Spirit is also in water which does not baptize anyone?

I think not.

Why have you found the Spirit in the water anew for us? You cannot deny that you meant to say that the Spirit is either itself given in the water or gives remission of sins. For you declare that sins are remitted also by the body eaten in the bread.

Are you, therefore, restoring the kingdom of Antichrist by right of postliminium?

If in the water the Holy Spirit, and in the bread of the Eucharist the body of Christ, lavishes bounty upon us, who will not turn to externals?

Oh theology worthy of a Luther:

But do, O God, open his eyes, lest he more and more forget you and himself! [712] XIII.

As to your representation of us as the archgushers, that is, the chief of all fanatics and tricksters, stupid fellows and unworthy that you should join issue with us, we have long since pardoned your revilings. [15] For we pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors."

[Mt. 6:12] But this point I do not wish to pass over, that having nothing substantial with which to meet us and sustain our attack, you cry out that we are unworthy that you should contend with us.

The fable of the fox is not unknown to you, [16] and what is meant by the proverb that a tired man seeks a quarrel. [17] XIV.

Then you say a lot of things that I may properly pass by. They are so infantile and unworthy of a great theologian

that I should grudge the labor of confuting things that fall as they do of themselves, if I were not afraid that whatever I bypassed without answering, you would cry out, "Why did you not answer this point?" You say a lot of things I say, and then you come down to a feeble boast of this kind, "Of course his death should be shown.

I, too, preach it, and more grandly than those fellows have ever done.

If they did not have it from me, they would doubtless know nothing about it, namely, the preaching of the death of Christ." [WA 19:504:15-17] These are your words.

The Apostle Paul, of whose measure we fall very far short, once quenched thus a flame of impudent arrogance and boasting that had flashed up. "Neither the one that plants counts for anything, nor the one that waters, but God, who gives the increase."

[1 Cor.

3:7] As to myself, Luther, I always regarded my teacher as in the position of parents, especially those who advanced my study of sacred and humane letters.

If something from that rich abundance that the Lord has given to you has found its way to me, why should I not acknowledge it? If I had learned the scheme of the gospel from you, why should I not confess it? I will point out frankly how the matter stands.

There were many excellent [713] men who before the name of Luther was so famous saw upon what religion hinged, and they were taught at length by other teachers than you think. I call God to witness that I learned the essential purport of the gospel from reading the treatises of John and Augustine and from the diligent study of Paul's epistles in the Greek, [714] which I copied with my own hand eleven years ago, in the eighth year of your reign. [18]

This essential summary [715] I committed to writing in such manner that many congratulated me. See whether you rightly grasp it yourself. For, by Hercules, you do not seem to understand the matter of the keys thoroughly yet, since you are constantly attributing some power to some sort of absolution. [19] I recognize no other than that of which Christ speaks through the metaphor of water, thus:

"Whosoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst, but the water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life," [Jn. 4:14] and, "Truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word, and believes in him that sent me, has eternal life, and will not come into judgement, but is passed from death unto life," [Jn. 5:24] and "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life," [Jn. 6:54] and, "Whoever eats this bread will live forever,"

[Jn.

6:51] and, "Whoever comes to me shall never hunger," [Jn. 4:14] "Whoever believes in me will never thirst,"

[Jn.

4:14] and "Whoever believes in me has eternal life."

[Jn.

6:47] This, I say, is our absolution, expiation, satisfaction, and remission of all sins, when we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for I know [716] that all things are given to us with him and through him.

You, according to what I hear, still persist in the opinion that the conscience needs to be reassured by the formula of some

absolver.

See, therefore, what your faith amounts to, and what your knowledge of the gospel. I have never taught that thing since

I was regenerated in Christ. For the words "binding" and "loosing" are not to be taken in your sense; they mean nothing else than "believe" and "refuse to believe".

I treat this in the appendix. [20] If it would not offend you, I would send you to my Commentary or to my Exposition of the Sixty-Seven Articles. [21] For by the blessing of God I have traced out so thoroughly the scheme of the gospel that pontifical keys, purgatory, and the pretended intercession of the saints, to all of which they say you cling in all your books, collapse utterly. [22] [717] How, then, can

I have learned from you what I neither teach nor believe according to your views?

When certain people (to whom I properly and gladly look up) have understood the matter of the gospel more clearly than either you or [718] I, how can they have learned it under your tutelage? You are perfectly right in teaching that salvation is won through faith in Christ Jesus, but why, holding this doctrine, do you attribute power to some sort of "keys"? Why do you not overturn purgatory?

Why do you not recognize Christ Jesus as the one and only mediator between God and humanity? You sometimes forget yourself. When you were explaining faith and in the battle of indulgences always indiscreetly allowed some power to the "keys", you gave me a violent wrench, taught as I had been several years before by my teacher, that most learned and pious man, Thomas Wyttenbach, [23] now accepted of those above,

[719] that the death of Christ alone was the price of the forgiveness of sins.

Path theretore. ism thes Keyethat opens toy the heart =the chest of the forgiveness of sins.

When that is at hand there is no more thirsting [720] or hungering.

You gave me a wrench, I say, because you did not see clearly that the keys are nothing but faith in the gospel.

But now judge how much more fairly I have done than you.

I saw that though you had the true light you lacked some rays, yet, in order to give no occasion for a quarrel, I let it all pass, led by the hope that you would daily see things more clearly and more surely.

I did the same in the case of the Eucharist, ceasing to call it a commemoration, simply not. to seem to struggle against the authority of so great a man, like a goose flouting a swan.

But you, however much the brethren urged you by letter not to go too fast and to descend to that mad, ungoverned ferocity with which [721] you were heaping such atrocious abuse upon good and learned men, you did not suffer yourself to be restrained.

[24] See in whose heart the desire for peace was more deeply rooted!

But now I will curb my pen, lest it charge upon those unworthy revilings that you have been casting upon me in all your letters to friends, [25] and I will. moderate it to the measure of respect due you from me.

Though there were not a few, |

say, who had learned the essentials of religion, even if you do not admit better than yourself, yet equally well (for there are certain men whose friendship twelve years ago helped me in this [722] matter, [26] and stimulated my zeal) yet there was none from all the camp of Israel who dared expose himself to the danger, so afraid were they of the immense Goliath who threatened them with such a weight of arms and forces. Then you, the one faithful

David, anointed unto this of the Lord, put on your armor.

[GE nsu Wed First, according to their own fashion you proceeded to discuss with them, and to throw paradoxes and Gordian knots at them. [27] Presently you cast aside this baggage and chose stones from the river of heaven, and brandishing them, and loosening and twirling your sling, hurled them so forcibly against the foe that you stretched his tremendous limbs over a vast extent of ground.

Hence the souls of the faithful should never cease to sing, "Saul smote a thousand but David ten thousand."

[1 S.

18:7] [723] You alone have been the Hercules who, where there was any danger, rushed to meet it. [28] You have slain the Roman boar.

You have crushed the earthborn Antaeus.

Who has ever held out to us [724] from the fountain springs of the apostles the hostility of the flesh and the spirit in a purer and more transparent drink?

You have dragged forth the Cacus who not only stole the oxen, driving them backwards, into his cave, but also robbed the houses of widows.

In short, if you had removed the images that are set up for worship, if you did not eat in bodily sense the pretended body of Christ in bread, if you saw by the light of the gospel that purgatory was a net to catch money, and absolution or the "keys" but faith in the gospel, that the Son Christ Jesus was the only one God and mediator between God and humanity, you would not only have cleaned out the stables of Augeas, but have scaled heaven itself.

But look you!

Have a care lest for love of a wanton hussy you lay down the leontén ("lion's skin") and club. We have Busiris still to overcome and slay.

Saul fell from his kingdom, because he forgot himself to the destruction of his power, and considered handing it down to his descendants against the will of the Lord.

Hence, there came upon the man varied fears and alarms, hence jealousy and blind yielding to any impulse. Suspicious of everything, he recklessly killed innocent priests and prophets, and it is wonderful that he even spared his daughter who pointed out to her husband David a way of safety by flight.

His heart could not be softened when only the skirt of his robe was cut off as he was relieving himself, nor when his spear was taken away when he slept, nor when the foreskins of two hundred Philistines were brought to him.

[1 S. 18-24] Let this be an example to us, so that we shall not also, if we reign by the Lord's will, do anything tyrannikoteros ("over-tyrannically") in the ministry

of the word. Let us, to whom the Lord provides his favor aphthonos ("ungrudgingly") be envious of no one.

We are one body; Christ is the head:

Luther is one eye.

Let him not envy the ear what belongs to the ear. In good faith, my dear Luther, haec allégorizomai ("I indulge in this allegory"). It is for you to make the application in a spirit of sincerety. Now I come back to your utterances.

You seem not yet to have attained a clear perception of the sense in which the apostle [725] uses the word "proclaim", when he says "you will proclaim the Lord's death," [1 Cor.

11:26] for, as far as I can understand, you think it is to be taken to mean "teach the gospel", since you preach your own preaching so much.

So that those who have sworn allegiance to you (for there are many so devoted to you that they would rather be wrong with you than right with the apostle), when they come down from the communion, say to the brother on the seat, "I proclaim to you, brother, the Lord's death."

See what ignorance will do!

It is so superstitious that, not seeing what the words of the Lord mean, it makes a ceremonial formula of what it does not understand.

The point is proved abundantly by the whole matter we are treating, and especially by the failure to understand this word "show" and the conversion of it into a ceremonial formula. Now this word (like all the things in the entire New Testament, although it is written in another tongue), savors of the Hebrew idiom.

The Hebrews very frequently use the word for "proclaiming" instead of the word for "praising" or "professing".

Thus in Deuteronomy 26:3, "And you will go to the priest who will be in those days, and say to him, I profess today before the Lord your God that I have come into the country which the Lord swore unto our fathers that he would give us." While we have in this passage profiteor ("I profess"), the Hebrew has HIGGADETTI, and the Greek anangel16, both of which mean annuntio in the sense of "I profess, pro- 'claim, praise, acknowledge, this day before the Lord your God that I have come into the country that the Lord swore to our fathers to give." What was the need of this confession? The thing was known to every tribe and neighborhood in the land.

The profession is, therefore, an act of thanksgiving, an acknowledgment and giving praise for blessings given.

There follows a little farther on, "And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which you, O Lord, have given me." [Dt.

26:10] So, in the present passage, [726] "The death of the Lord you proclaim, katangellete."

(This use of imperatives for futures and the reverse is common in Hebrew.) That is, you will praise, give thanks, acknowledge, confess.

Not that this solemn style of speech is required, for we should thus all be forced to raise our voices together in one and the same outpouring of praise, but the pious giving of thanks and the acknowledgment of what the Heavenly Father has in his generous bounty given us.

The other things, for example, the going forward before the congrega-

tion, the carrying round of the symbolic plate and cup, we are not now discussing. [29] Judges 9:16:

"If you then have acted truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house, then rejoice today in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you.'! Here where we have laetamini ("rejoice"), the Hebrew has SIMEHU, the Greek, eulogétheiéte ("praise", "bless").

Thus we readily detect that the word for "blessing" which the Greek has here, is sometimes used for the words for "thanksgiving" and "rejoicing".

Hence also we say the "cup of blessing", that is, of thanksgiving, joy, and celebration.

Hence we detect further this also, that to "proclaim the Lord's death" is nothing else than to bless, that is, to give thanks and rejoice.

For in this passage to commemorate and to proclaim the Lord's death are the same thing, for Paul explains one by the other. In 1 Peter 2:9, we have "that you should proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." What else, I ask, is to "proclaim the praises" here than to confess, acknowledge, give thanks, rejoice? So also in the present passage, "You will proclaim the Lord's death" is equivalent to, "You will acknowledge, praise the Lord's death, render thanks and hymns for it, rejoice and exult in consequence of it." [727] The Eucharist, then, is thanksgiving, exulting of the soul, confession.

As also Christ in Matthew 11:25 and Luke 10:21 said, "I confess" for "I thank you, O Father."

Hence we brethren and ministers of the gospel at Zurich, when we restored it, omitted altogether those rules by which some make this act of thanksgiving disgusting and nauseous, threatening terrible things if any lewd person, winebibber, miser or slanderer come to it. For we hold that such are to be forbidden the Eucharist only when they have been openly found to be such.

For, though we ought not to shut our eyes to such great wrongs, yet one's secret sins, which one has perhaps already washed away by repentance according to faith, ought not to be pursued with such terrible fierceness, both because God alone is the judge of the hidden, while a person sees only the surface, and because that practice opens the way to reckless hypocrisy.

For you will easily find people who nourish in their hearts hatred, envy, greed and kenodoxian ("vanity"), yet who boldly come to the table of the Eucharist.

Thus they would be judged to be the only good and blameless ones.

As soon as that happened, the reward would be added, and then it would be all finished with the business of the gospel.

Let us, then, meet those things with excommunication that strict piety ought not to shut its eyes to,only when they have actually come to our cognizance, and meantime leave everyone to his own faith and conscience.

For Paul in 1l Corinthians 5:11 speaks only of those wrongdoings which are so plain that

they can be detected by our power of judgement, and condemned without conscientiae diakrisin, that is, misgivings of conscience.

Or, as seems to me more probable, Paul is not speaking there of excommunication, for that he calls "delivering over to Satan,"

[1 Cor.

5:5] but of the individual care with which every person keeps oneself away from those who is seen to be much addicted to these faults.

For that I think is what is meant by "not to eat with someone like that." [1 Cor.

5:11] Finally, there are included in this passage certain faults which we never read were punished with excommunication and in which it is not easy to see the point at which they deserve to be excómmunicated, like avarice and greed.

The people most given up to avarice and greed try hard to hide and [728] conceal it from themselves.

And since finally there is an addition to the law to this purpose, "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person," which looks like excommunication, it would seem to be free for every person to indulge his own feeling in the matter.

For these two considerations occur to me, that the words, "Put away, etc." may without violence be taken in the sense of a not unfriendly avoidance of the kind of persons referred to, and that with the apostles excommunication is exceedingly rare.

But whatever the natural explanation of the passage may be, Paul nowhere expresses the opinion that we are to pronounce judgement except in cases so public that they cannot be denied under any pretence.

Such he tells us are to be pierced with the sword of non-participation.

You have, also, many other things both vain and impotent in this treatise, such as that what had been taught by the word is presented in natural shape in this sacrament. [30] This is the function of the spirit, not of the body.

That this sacrament is called the food of the hungry; [31] it is the food of those who have already eaten the flesh and blood and juices of faith.

The fruits that you count up here are fruits of the Spirit and of faith, not of the supper. That it was instituted for the feeble only; [32] that we are not all one bread and one body. And all that class of things which, as I have said, are vain because they are supported by no scriptural authority, and truly impotent, because you hurl at us whatever your anger suggests, as if the thing could be disposed of by insult, reproach and abuse.

The sensible reader will easily find answers for them all from what I have said already.

There remain the letters to the brethren of Strassburg [33] and to Reutlingen, [34] both of which are so devoid of anything but abuse that has not been met [729] in the above that I do not want to detain the poor reader with them longer.

I think it has been abundantly shown how frivolous those things are which you people teach without any authority from the divine utterances, that the eating of the body strengthens faith, remits sin, makes present in natural form what has been proclaimed by the word.

I think also that those sophistries have been thoroughly enough exposed and more by which, from ignorance perhaps more than intention, you maintain that we must rest upon the words of Christ before collation of Scripture has shown whether they can bear the meaning which they present at first sight. Certainly his words are a sacred thing which should not be touched and violated by an audacious or profane hand, any more than the ark which slew Uzzah for his righteous zeal as he thought to prevent its falling by his hand. [2 S. 6:6-7] But they are sacred and inviolable when they emit to us the perfume of their true meaning.

They do, indeed, emit the perfume of the same meaning, but our sense of smell is often so vitiated that it fails to scent the real perfume.

In such case let us by no means cry out, "The words are sacred," with the purpose that the untutored shall rest upon an imperfect or incorrect understanding of them.

So shall we be more riotous than the rioters. Let us drop this and proceed to Part Two.

Part Two In dividing the subject I promised to explain clearly in this second part the words of Christ about which we are in controversy. This

I am going to do, gladly and cheerfully, thanking God in the meantime that he has brought the ship through dark and rocky regions so successfully that it has not even a crack or a moan. So much by way of introduction.

But before I undertake the explanation of the words of the Lord, I shall have to say a few words upon the collation of the Scriptures, namely, that after the human tongue began, by means of tropes and figures and [730] varieties of expression, to season its speech with sweet smelling spices, or paint it with varying hues, as it were, then the divine Goodness (which everywhere babbles to us like parents to their infants, and uses our own language) condescended in talking with us, to use our own tropes and figures. Hence we learn beyond doubt that a knowledge of tropes and figures is above all things necessary to those who have determined to busy themselves with the sacred writings.

Secondly, since they that use the charms of tropes and figures rather extravagantly are apt to put before us forms of speech that at first blush seem to be widely at variance and far from the truth, even though they are not always of varied import, I will give one example from the rich abundance.

Christ is said by Paul to have been born of the tribe

of Judah, [Heb. 7:14] and is said by the same writer to be neither Jew nor Greek.

[Cf. Gal.

3:28.] Thus the same words are used in different passages in different principles and with different meanings.

But the passages must be brought together, that no one may think that any lack of harmony can be found in the sacred writings.

From this it appears again beyond doubt that collation of the Scriptures is just as necessary as the knowledge of tropes.

And this you, too, most learned Luther, bore witness to in addressing the King of England in these words, "It is characteristic of the Thomists" (for what precedes does not apply here), "to disregard the canon of the understanding of Scripture, which is to note what follows a given passage, as well as the context, and what seems to contradict it." [WA 10/2:206:24-26] So much for your canon.

Hence it would be extremely discourteous, to say nothing stronger, for you now to depart from that opinion or rather law, and rely upon such stubborn utterances as, "The heavens must fall sooner than they be explained in a different sense," and "They are too great to have to put on a different garb out of respect for others"

(for some cry out that). How shall we remove that contradiction, inconsistency, or diversity?

If they alone must not be weighed by the scales of faith, all else must be investigated in the light of their firmness and certainty. For nothing else shrinks thus from collation.

Then will not only your canon go to pieces but faith itself also. For it knows that eaten flesh profits nothing.

[731] The third thing I have thought I ought to say is that there is nothing so difficult in the sacred writings that its expression has not been adorned with the coloring of tropes.

I will give a few of the many examples. In the early part of Genesis there is such a varied mass of land and water and abysses of the deep, that unless you made your way through it by the aid of synecdoche, you could not get out even if you were the swimmer of Delos. [1] We believe in an omnipotent God. This omnipotence is mentioned by different writers with various kinds of tropes.

One says, "Lord, all things are reckoned in your providence."

Another represents him saying, "The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool."

[Acts 7:49] Another says, "You hold the earth in your hand."

[Cf.

Isa.

40:12.] Even the scheme of the gospel itself is taught at one time under the figure of the eating of flesh, [cf.

Jn.

6:53ff.] that we may more successfully receive the force and nutriment of faith.

At another it is taught the trope of a spring of water, [Jn. 4:14] that we know its refreshment and result.

Again, under the figure of keys, [Mt.

16:19] that we may understand that absolution and freedom of the soul which is in Christ Jesus.

The bitter death of Christ is foretold by trope:

"If I be lifted up from the earth, etc." [Jn. 12:32] And, "Last of all the father sent his son, but they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him." (Mt. .21<3 748.)

Why in the world, when God and even Christ himself

used a trope in regard to the supreme event itself, should we so obstinately shrink from them in the matters of the mere commemoration of the event?

What are we coming to, when, if it suits our purpose, we advise, nay command others to collate the Scriptures, and then, when we are attacked with our own weapons and methods, we forbid that which we had taught? How ridiculous is a fencing master who has taught admirably how an adversary is to be attacked or evaded, what is in accordance with the art and what not, and who, when he is himself straightway attacked and hit, cries out that this is not in accordance with the art and cannot be endured!

The dish we have made, as the proverb has it, we must eat up. Let us keep the law that we have laid down:

Such is the audacity of the kenodoxon ("vain fellows") that in the explanation of tropes a new disaster could arise, and all things be confused by means of tropes.

[732] Hence it is thirdly true beyond doubt, that, since the highest things are taught even by the divine utterances wrapped up in tropes, it is necessary to consider under the guidance of faith what can bear a trope and what cannot.

For if anyone proceeded to explain the statement of the Father, "This is my beloved son," he would proceed to be as impious as Arius was.

He, again, would be more senseless than a stone, who should say that Christ was literally a rock or stone because in speaking of himself he said, "The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner."

[Mt.

21:42] Faith, therefore, must be our guide as to what words are to be explained by any trope.

For not every trope discloses only hidden things.

Fourth, I set out a thing that corresponds to the second part of the subject, namely, to collation.

For who is so dull as to think that any passage may be compared with any other?

It is, therefore, fourthly true beyond doubt that the Scriptures are to be compared under the same rule of faith, holding fast to analogy in the comparison, and this exists between opposites just as much as between things that are similar.

This will all become clear by examples.

The parable of the ten virgins [Mt.

25:1ff.] and the case of Lazarus [Lk.

16:20ff.] are profitably compared through the analogy of similarity.

They both tell of the condition of the soul after this life. That Christ was the son of a perpetual virgin and that he had brothers, although he was the only begotten, may properly be compared, even though to be a perpetual virgin and have had an only begotten son and to have brought forth several births are contradictory.

For a comparison between the two is applicable through analogy.

The perpetual virginity comes into question.

It is explained by the idiomatic usage alone, by which it is common in Hebrew to call by the name of brothers not only those of the same tribe but those of the same people.

Therefore clansmen are called brothers, not only those of the same parents.

But it is not a sound comparison, if you compare the parable of the nobleman who went into a far country [Lk.

19:12ff.] with that which was written with reference to the calling of the Jews and the Gentiles, the one about the householder that went out at dawn and hired husbandmen to work in his vineyard.

[Mt.

21:33ff.] For one was woven about Christ's ascension into heaven, and the commending of the gift of the gospel, the other about the rejection of the Jews and the election of the Gentiles.

So also we should not compare "The Word was made flesh," [Jn.

1:14] and "This is my body," [Mt. 26:26] [733] for there is no analogy between them.

The former tells that the Son of God put on human nature, the latter tells of the festival of praise and commemoration of his death, or, as our friends say, that his body is given us to eat.

But between these two statements, "Christ put on human nature," and "Christ gave us his body to eat in a physical sense," there is absolutely no analogy.

Between these, however, there is an analogy:

Exodus 12:27:

"This"

(whether the lamb or the assemblage or the festival) "is the passover," and "This is my body," put for "This ceremony, this symbolic lamb, this festival, is the commemoration of or thanksgiving for that passing over which I did in Egypt," and "This assemblage or festival, this symbolic bread, is the thanksgiving for or commemoration of my body which I have given for you." And also between these:

"I baptize with water, but Christ with the Holy Spirit." [Cf. Acts 1:15.] Circumcision, then, which formerly occupied the place of baptism, was only an external act of ceremony, and the Holy Spirit was not given in that act any more than in baptism.

For a human being performs both baptism and circumcision, but does not give the Holy Spirit in them.

Likewise between these:

"As within the Church and people of God were reckoned those who had been born of the seed of Israel, so within the Church are counted those who are born of the children of the renewed promise."

For there is one Church, one faith, and God is not more angry with us and our children than he was with the Jews, whose children were just as much in the covenant and the Church as their fathers were.

Here also there is an analogy: circumcision was given to the children of the Hebrews.

Therefore, baptism ought not to be refused to the children of the Christians.

There are also various other things demanded in the collation of the Scriptures, for instance, discrimination between words of promise and of command, between ceremonies and things that shape the character, and the like.

On these points I have written at some length in German to Strauss, that bird of ill omen. [2]

Fifth, it must be set out that while it appears that Scripture is to be interpreted only under the lead and guidance of faith or anointing, there is yet no one who cannot by the aid of hypocrisy make a show of faith.

For the human being sees only the surface, God alone the heart. [1 S. 16:7] What will not ambition dare?

Hence I confess that there is no need of some

barriers within which we may be forced to keep those who are constantly [734] boasting the Spirit. For it is vain for me to boast to those who know the Spirit pretty well that this is the spirit which is mere stubbornness. And these barriers can be none other than the walls of Scripture.

For even Christ confines himself within that when he says to the scribes, "you search the Scriptures, and they testify of me."

[Jn.

5:39] He attributes more to them than to that miracle in which a man rose from the dead and testified of things in the other world.

[Lk.

16:31] It is, therefore, in the fifth place, true beyond doubt that Scripture is the touchstone of our spirit. [3] By this we must prove all spirits.

For just as a draught animal by itself without yoke or collar, straps or ropes, cannot even start its load and, on the other hand, ropes attached to the load as cleverly as possible likewise cannot move the burden without the animal, so if you expound Scripture without the Spirit or faith, you will accomplish nothing.

On the other hand, if you assign to the Spirit what is not consistent with Scripture, you will introduce a confused and fanatical wonderment and make a mess of everything.

Scripture is the rope, fetter, reins, yoke, straps, the draught animal is the spirit. The superior thing, I frankly acknowledge, is the spirit, but unless it be restrained by the reins and ropes of Scripture (I am speaking only of our spirit of faith), it will become headstrong and violent, and outstrip the choir and organ, as they say.

And lest anyone should fail to understand me, I will use the illustration of the stonecutter or the carpenter.

Neither of these approaches his material without chisel, axe, rule, plumbline, nor again does he send them to it by themselves, as if they could accomplish the work by their own efforts without labor of his.

So our spirit is a stonecutter imbued with the heavenly Spirit, the word we preach is our material.

Scripture is our chisel or axe; tropes are our rule and plumbline.

The stonecutter is the chief thing, but unless these accessories are at hand, nothing worthwhile will be accomplished.

Setting all this forth, therefore, in order not to boast stubbornly of the Spirit, while not having the support of Scripture,

I approach happily the actual exposition of the words of Christ.

But, look you, I want to warn you first [735] not to forget this point about the collation of the Scriptures. For that is what brings me to my present course.

Consider the following words of Christ:

"the flesh profits nothing"

[Jn. 6:63]; "again, I leave the world"

[Jn.

16:28]; "it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I do not go away, the comforter will not come unto you" [Jn. 16:7] "for now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you"

[Jn.

17:11]; "therefore, if they say to you, 'Behold, he is in the desert,' do not go forth.

'Behold, he is in the secret chambers, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes out of the

east, and shines even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be" [Mt.

24:26f.]; "after the Lord Jésus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God" [Mk. 16:19]; "and it happened, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven"

[Lk.

24:51]; "and when he had spoken these things, while they were watching, he was taken up and a cloud hid him from their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel who also said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?

This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven." [Acts 1:9ff.]

While I say from these very distinct utterances I do not take away the natural meaning nor injure it, I am forced in the words of the supper not only to admit, but to invite the presence of a trope with which to explain them in the spirit of religion without injury to the divine utterances.

For the Spirit that spoke all these things is one of harmony and unanimity, not one of contention and discord. They must, therefore, themselves be consistent, unanimous and harmonious.

How almost all kinds of figures are formed all through the Hebrew writers, I have often told elsewhere, and since it is only metonymy and catachresis that we have need of for the present purpose, I will speak here of these only. [4] Metonymy, according to the various significations of the preposition meta, which sometimes means "after", or "with" or "across", can sometimes be called "denomination", [5] or the substituting of one name for another, as when we put on an invention or an institution the name of its originator, and call it by his name. Thus we call wine, Bacchus; wheat, Ceres; the supper or symbol of commemoration, the body of Christ.

Because Bacchus and Ceres were the originators, the one of wine, the other of grain, and Christ instituted the commemoration as a thanksgiving for the death [736] which he bore in his body (for his divinity was imperishable).

Sometimes it can be called "cognomination" [6] or the applying of the name of a person (or thing) to something that represents the same, as when we call a statue Cocles or Cloelia, [7] because the statue represents one or the other.

So "Baal" is applied to an idol or a demon by metonymy, that is, cognomination, and idols are called gods, and of this class is the expression, "An idol is nothing in the world"

[1 Cor.

8:4], that is, the god to whom the idol is set up is nothing.

So law is put for the work of the law, circumcision is spoken of as a covenant, when it is only the symbol of the covenant, and the cup is likewise spoken of as the testament when it is but a symbol of the testament.

Sometimes it can be called "transnomination", [8] or the exchanging of the names of things; when opposites are given the names of each other, as when law is put for the sin which

is committed against the law. And law writers speak of a person falling under the law when he has fallen away from the law or say that a person pleads extenuating circumstances for the law, when it is the thing done contrary to the law for which he pleads extenuating circumstances.

So we have "sin" put for the offering for the sin; "abuse" for the person who has suffered the abuse; "the purchase of hunger" for the grain or corn supply bought to counteract hunger.

See Genesis 42:19.

Metonymy is spread so abundantly all through the Scriptures that it would be difficult to set forth all its subdivisions here.

Now catachresis must be considered here, because if anyone chooses to interpret the word "is" as "signifies", we can call in that variety of figure and quote passages from Scripture in which it is used in this way. Catachresis is a figure by which the literal and natural signification of anything is applied to a thing to which the literal signification does not belong. [9] I will not speak here of the battle I fought with Billicanus [10] as to whether substantive verbs admit tropes or not, for language existed before the name "trope" was invented.

This word "is", then, is transferred from its natural signification to one not literally belonging to it, when I point to a statue of Caesar and say, "This is Caesar."

For that by which we say a statue "is" what it is the statue of, is a different kind of "being" from the natural signification of "being". Therefore, I saw very clearly that there would be people who would take their stand on the word "is", and say, "Christ said 'is'. No one will mar that word, for it signifies being. Therefore, the bread is the body of Christ."

I have brought together examples from all through the Scriptures to show that "is" sometimes loses its natural signification. From the Old Testament:

"The seven fat cows are seven years of plenty, and the seven thin and the empty ears are seven years of scarcity and famine,"

[Gen.

41:26f.] [737] sets forth "are" incontrovertibly for "signify".

From the New Testament:

"It is Elijah himself," where "is" evidently is put for "is like".

In Galatians 4:24, "these are the two covenants," is evidently used for "these signify the two covenants."

And finally I have taken from the Old Testament an example which no one of you has ever been able to shake, "For it is the Lord's passover."

[Ex.

12:27] Whether you say the lamb or the commemoration or the festival is the passover, yet no one of these is the passover but the sign of the passover. About the analogy of this a little later.

Now I would beseech you, my dear Luther, suffer me to admonish you. You bewail the untaught rabble, saying, "Behold how many sects have sprung up among the people themselves.

One says, 'The word is takes the place of signifies,! another says, 'body is employed for figure of a body,' and they throw the shadow of a figure over us all in this light. Another turns the words about."

[11] In regard to this lamentation of yours I would ask you in

E a friendly spirit whether your conscience never suggests to you: you do a thing unworthy of you, when you make such an uproar before the people, for you know very well that there are not different sects among those people.

They all declare that what the controversy is about are only symbols, but carry the names of the things of which they are symbols. They explain the terms, however, in different ways. If you say "no", I ask you again, whether you are not reminded by the same conscience that we are certainly not stubborn as you proclaim, casting us among people who should be avoided, though you have never proved us wrong.

Indeed, if what some say of you is true, you instigate certain princes to a policy of cruelty towards this opinion, and so will not have proclaimed the times of Arius in vain. [12] If we were doing anything [738] stubbornly, we should all have taken the cue from Carlstadt's words, and should be giving you noise instead of Scripture, as a certain crowd is doing. As it is, though one explains the matter in one way, another in another, yet no discord arises among us.

I followed Hoen of Holland [13] (whose letter John Rhodius and George Saganus, men distinguished for both piety and learning, brought me), [14] in explaining "is" is used for "signifies", and I was not ignorant of tropes at that time.

I had read Fabius [15] and Cicero [16] and even Plutarch as given in the introduction to Homer. [17] But that simple explanation which anyone could understand pleased me:

"This bread signifies my body which is given for you."

For everybody does not know what a trope is. I saw, also, that by whatever kind of trope we explain the words, the point is simply this, that the force of the word "is" undergoes modification and has the value, "is a signification or representation of". I followed the simplest course, therefore, and explained the thing as an example of catachresis.

Oecolampadius followed Tertullian [740] and gave this explanation, "This is the figure of my body," in which he takes "figure", [18] not in the sense of a type or prefiguration or indication of things to be, but in the sense of antitypQ ("an image"), that is, a representation or reflection of something that has sometime really been.

For Jerome also used the word "representation" in treating of this subject. [19] Tertullian and Oecolampadius, then, explained the words as a metonymy, of the variety cognomination, by which that is called the body which is an image or representation of the body, or a means of recalling it to remembrance.

But here springs up a new conflagration. We evidently must disagree, for Oecolampadius

[741] says this is metaphor, while I say it is metonymy.

To this I answer, that one and the same form of expression may be explained by different kinds of figures, and these may also be considered from different points of view.

Hence even among the rhetoricians we very often find the same form of expression elucidated by different tropes.

I will give examples. "We are one bread

and one body, we, the whole communion and congregation."

[Cf.

| Cor. 10:17f.] I say we are called bread and body by a metonymy of the variety cognomination.

What do I have in mind? The fact that Paul thinks we are named one bread because we eat of one bread, and body because by eating the symbol of the Lord's body we come together into the one body of the Church. And how can this be called anything better than cognomination? But by metaphor

Oecolampadius calls us one bread and one body. What has he in view?

The formation of the bread and the composition of the wine.

For as one loaf of bread is made of innumerable seeds and the wine of as many grapes, so the one body of the Church is gathered together from countless members. A great reason, indeed why we should impute a quarrel to people, that, while espousing one and the same opinion, they explain words by tropes with different names!

For when I say by catachresis, "This bread signifies, figures, represents my body which is given for you," and Oecolampadius says by metonymy,

"This bread is a figure, a signification, representation, reminder of my body which is given for you," what difference, I ask, is there in the essentials of the opinion?

Also, when I, looking at one thing, say we are called bread by metonymy, and Oecolampadius, looking at another, says it is by metaphor, both of which are consistent with the apostolic writings and with the analogy of faith, indeed, both look to the one and only union and harmony of Christ's body, why, I implore, do we slanderously accuse brethren of disagreement before the untaught people?

In like manner there is no disagreement when one by means of the pointer "this" indicates the bread, and says, "This bread represents my body which is given for you'; another directs the same pointer towards the feast days, and says, "This feast is a representation or reflection of my body which is given for you." Both mean that the thing in question is a commemoration with thanksgiving of the blessing bestowed upon us by the Lord, and both use the synecdoche in saying this. For the one who says, "This festival represents my body, etc." includes by synecdoche all [742] the things that are done here, the giving of thanks, the symbolic plate, and the symbolic cup.

And the one who says, "The bread represents, etc., in part," understands in the symbolic eating by synecdoche the whole festival of praise and takes together, for example, the thanksgiving and the mystical cup. Happy and fruitful are those cases in which, however you explain them, unity and truth of meaning are preserved. Let us not then in such hostile fashion attack our brethren in the presence of the people of Christ to which we belong, nor denounce them with the cry, "They are at variance.

They are a beast of as many heads as John fastened to a certain beast in the apocalypse.

[Rev.

13:1] They are obstinate." [20] Let us call obstinacy (as is most proper, namely) the diligent study of Scripture whence we derive that

choice fruit of truth, by which our languishing hearts are refreshed after having been fed upon the husks of our own ignorance.

Driven thus to admit a trope in Christ's words, whether we will or no, and having explained the kind of trope not unsatisfactorily, as I think (for whether you explain "is" as used by catachresis for "signifies" or "represents", or take "body" by metonymy for "representation" or "reminder of body", the sense remains the same), I approach the sacred words with good auspices, as they say, with the favor, namely, of the dove that lighted upon the head of Christ and flew into the gathering of the disciples.

IER: 3:22]

"And when the hour was come he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him." [Lk. 22:14] I have decided to treat the matter from the gospel of Luke and Paul for the sake of clearness. For Matthew and Mark were content with few words here, being persuaded, no doubt, of the knowledge of the matter among the people, for all the details were then so well known to the whole Church that a few words were enough for everybody.

"And he said,"

(I come back to the words) "with desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer."

[Lk.

22:15] Christ put the passover and his body together.

Let us not, therefore, separate [743] in thought what he associated in fact.

Not that I mean that the lamb should be devoured in the Eucharist as the children of Israel once devoured it piecemeal, but I would keep the analogy, likeness, or correspondence, through which the passover and the commemoration correspond to and resemble each other.

In the former thanks are given because in the slaughter of the first born, to which even the royal offspring had fallen a victim, the first born of the Hebrews had been spared.

[Ex.

12:29ff.] In the latter, while the son of the most high king was slain, the world was passed by and saved entire.

And this is again an analogy of similarity.

In the former case the lamb or the festival is called the passover, though neither the lamb nor the solemnity was the passover, but a symbol and commemoration of the passing by or passover.

In the latter case the supper or the bread is called the body of Christ though it is the commemoration and thanksgiving of his body, that is, of the death which he suffered for us in his body. There are many other things which lead us to see that Christ had in view the occasion and the analogy. For instance, being upon the point of not only celebration but of abolishing the old commemoration and instituting the new one, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah 33:31, he used the same kind of language and trope in the new institution which he had used in establishing the old, and, he especially instituted it at the same time. Here he said, "This do in my memory," [Lk.

22:19] just as he had said in the previous time, "When your children

ask you, 'What do you mean by this service,' you will say, etc.," as is written in Exodus 12:26.

Hence we see that in both cases the commemoration and thanksgiving are chiefly looked at, not the thing that is eaten.

I will go on, therefore, to the other points, keeping to the analogy. There follows:

"And he took the cup, gave thanks, and said:

'Take this, and divide it among yourselves.

For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God will come.'"

[Lk.

22:17f.] When certain persons consider this passage, they seize an occasion for contention rather than find a bulwark of any sound opinion. For, wishing to overthrow what is said in Matthew and Mark after the handing of the bread and cup, "I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until that day, etc."

[Mt. 26:29; Mk. 14:25] By this we readily discover [744] that Christ himself, after the bread had been eaten and the cup of blood had been drunk, called it wine that they had drunk, and not blood.

And by this synecdoche it is further discovered without difficulty that the same view must be held of the bread, that it is not his body, even though called so, because eaten in commemoration of the death of Christ.

Wishing, I say, to overthrow the natural force of that understanding, they say that this language of Matthew and Mark refers to the wine which had been drunk during supper, not to the cup which had already been called his blood, and they try to prove this from this language of Luke.

For by him, they say, it was put before the mention of the supper, from which we see that it was not the symbolic cup, but the ordinary drink of the supper that Christ called wine. And in support of this they bring forward the fact that before these words he had said, "For I say unto you, I shall not anymore eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God," [Lk. 22:16] in which they refer the word

"thereof" to the passover, so that Christ says he will not thereafter eat any passover, until it is fulfilled in the kingdom.

They show us thus in twofold manner their own negligent way of going to work. First, they do not see that Luke put these words before that they might forewarn and prepare the reader to understand the following as a trope and nothing else, that the bread remained bread, and the wine, wine, but in the meantime they were called the body and blood.

They were simply what he had said, the body and blood. They were simply what he had said, if you looked at their substance; if you looked at the religious side of the matter, the ceremony and its meaning, they were something more.

The other two evangelists, Matthew and Mark, put those words about the wine afterwards, as a metanoias, that is, a sort of correction.

It was just as if they said that Christ had added these words in order that no one should believe that what he had drunk was anything but wine.

Second, they do not understand that Christ spoke the

words, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you,"

[Lk. 22:15] not so much for the sake of the eating of the roasted lamb as for the sake of the institution of the commemoration of himself.

If they had not understood this, they would readily have seen that the words, "I will not eat anymore thereof" [Lk.

22:16], should be referred not only to the eating of the lamb of the old covenant, but to the whole matter of the supper.

And this point also must not be passed by, that Luke, who wrote his gospel after the other two, and narrated everything with clearer detail, employed greater clearness in these words also, for the reason that his predecessors had said rather too little for the exigencies of the lapse of time, which brings everything into forgetfulness.

Hence we see plainly that he anticipated kata prolépsin, that is, by way of forewarning, what the other two placed after kata metanoian, that is, by way of correction. And this we readily perceive both here and in the description of the supper which he wrote in Acts 2:46.

There follows:

"And he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" [Lk. 22:19f.] Here

I urge you first, Luther, [745] not to let the idiomatic usages of the Hebrew escape you anywhere, and especially in the present passage.

You know how frequently they say, "This is the sin," for, "This victim is slain for the sin," and call sin that by which sin is removed and atoned for.

You know how frequently they say, "This is such and such a thing," for "This signifies this thing."

"The seven fat cows are seven years of plenty" [Gen. 41:26]; "This is Elias"

[Mk.

6:15]; "These are the two covenants"

[Gal.

4:24]; "An idol is nothing" [1 Cor.

8:4], instead of "Baal" or, "the god to whom the idol is set up is nothing." Then remember the analogies of the things under consideration here.

The old supper is put aside and the new one substituted for it on the same evening.

Who, pray, can he even surmise that he used a different form of words from that which he had used in the celebration of the old supper?

In this the formula or reading was, "This is the passover," for, "This is the commemoration of the passover." So also, after that was finished, the fact itself suggests that when Christ used a similar form of words, he spoke in the same tropological sense also, saying, when he had taken the bread, "Take, eat.

This is my body," (for:

"This represents my body," or "This is a commemoration of my body") "which is given for you." [Mt.

26:26] For he adds immediately, "This do in remembrance of me." [Lk.

22:19] By this mark we perceive that it is the commemoration which is looked at here, not the eating with a view to strengthening the soul or faith.

You see, therefore, how the very analogy of the supper works for us.

But I beseech you, do not now burst out with, "See how they rest on grammatical dexterity." We do not rest on cunning, but now that, by reconciling apparent inconsistencies, collating the Scriptures, we have brought things to the

point that, whether one will or no, one is forced to admit that the words in question cannot have the simple meaning they present at first sight.

We explain the situation not only by cunning, but by examples, by the usages of the language which Christ spoke, and by the very analogies of the action and institution. For why should

I now name faith again as the judge and guide in all these things, when I have perhaps spoken of her in the above more plainly and strongly than a not well-disposed reader can bear?

There follows:

"Likewise also (he took) the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.'" [Lk. 22:20] Such is Luke's statement, for the Greek article he I have rendered by "is", not trusting to my own authority but to Paul's. He says, "This cup is the new [756] testament in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." [1 Cor.

11:25] Consider here first the pains taken by the evangelist.

Although he had said above, "This is my body," [Mt.

26:26] he now says, "This cup is the new testament," or, "the cup of the new testament, in my blood."

[1 Cor.

11:25] He did not say, "This cup is my blood," in order to give a better clue for the judging and understanding of such points.

He says it is the cup of the testament which had been ratified in the blood of Christ, not the blood, in order that we may more easily go up to the preceding and understand that what is eaten is only the feast of the new testament which had been struck and ratified by the death of Christ's body.

But that no one may have any justification for contention on the ground that Paul really and simply called this cup the testament, and therefore it follows that it is the blood, if it is the testament, it must be noted that the blood of Christ is not the testament but the blood of the testament.

For the testament or covenant is that Christ the Son of God is ours, and that through him we have been elected into the number of the children of God. And all this was accomplished and ratified by his death.

Hence neither the body nor the blood is the testament, but the confirmation of the testament, as may be seen from Galatians and Hebrews, and indeed, from these words of Luke and Paul, who say plainly that the testament is in the blood, and do not say the blood is the testament.

But if anyone obstinately persists that it is the testament, let him remember that circumcision is equally called the testament or agreement, when it is only the sign of the covenant according to Genesis 17:10.

It is, therefore, through the figure cognomination that the cup is called the testament, when not even the blood which the cup represents is the testament, but it is that through which the testament was made and confirmed.

In this you, Luther, have always been under a delusion (for see, meanwhile, how patiently

we put up with that).

You have always contended that his cup was the testament, when it is only the symbol, reminder, representation of the testament.

Whether then you say, "This cup is the cup of the new testament, which new testament is consecrated in my blood," or "This cup is the new testament in my blood,"

[1 Cor.

11:25] the thing meant by both Luke and Paul is simply that this cup is a reminder of the new testament which has been made through the blood of Christ.

Consider, secondly, that it is not beside the point that Paul added with each symbol, "This do in remembrance of me," [1 Cor. 11:24] which Luke was content to put after the symbol of the bread only. [Lk. 22:19] [747] He would, thus, namely, inculcate upon us more and more that it is a commemoration that he is speaking of here, not the consumption of a physical body.

"For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, proclaim the Lord's death until he come."

[I1 Cor.

11:26] It is of no avail to suggest here that the apostle, after all these things on which you wish to seem to rest your case, calls "bread" and "cup" one of which he called "the body", following the evangelists.

For so conscientious a man would never have done this if he had held the opinion that the bread was the body of Christ or that this body was eaten in the bread. And so to the showing of the Lord's death, how that it is to be understood as singing praises and giving thanks for it,has been set forth sufficiently already.

Not that I would forbid the proclaiming of the Lord's passion in public discourse when the supper is to be celebrated, but the real meaning here looks, not to such proclaiming, but to what I have said.

The churches retained inviolately the function and watching of God in having Christ's death shown to them at the season of the year in which the commemoration was celebrated.

"Till he comes" refers to the whole time from the death and ascension of Christ till the last day. To "eat unworthily" is to approach without that faith which is demanded of those who unite in the body of Christ, as those did who as soon as they had partaken of the supper rushed off to the things sacrificed to idols.

That, therefore, is called unworthy which is not done properly, as, on the contrary, that is done worthily which is done rightly as it should be.

Thus the holy one, the Baptist, says, "Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,"

[Mt.

3:8] that is, such as are becoming to those who repent. St. Augustine [21] understood it in the same way in his tract on John 62:

"'He shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,' applies not to eating but to betrayal of him, through entering into the fellowship of the Church as if one were a Christian when one is not." So also St. Ambrose understands it, [22] "Not discerning the Lord's body," that is, not regarding what his body is and what his spirit. Augustine understands this in the same way if I remember rightly.

I think the apostle

had reference to that body which a little before, in chapter 10, he said was put together firmly by eating of one bread.

[1 Cor.

10:17] But if anyone objects to this view, he can yet see clearly from the above that "body" is to be understood of the commemoration of Christ's body, so that "not discerning the Lord's body" applies to him who has not sufficiently serious views in regard to the Lord's death, which is renewed by representation in the commemoration of the Eucharist.

[748] He comes back to the same sense, which I gave a little while ago.

For he who has no deeper feeling for Christ than to think that he may eat the supper in remembrance of him and may eat the things offered to idols also, plainly makes the commemoration of his body, that is, of his passion, of no more account than the woman who has intercourse with an adulterer makes her husband's honor.

And that the body of Christ is to be understood of his death is clearly made out from the words of Paul.

He commands us to proclaim the death of the Lord, and Christ directs us to do this in his memory.

Therefore, the commemoration of the body is simply thanksgiving for his death.

I have left more on this subject, with more testimony also, elsewhere in my writings.

These few pages on Part Il, which I have reduced to very narrow limits because the subject in general has been so treated in the earlier pages as not to need lengthy treatment here, and because I do not doubt you will be abundantly content with the few words, provided you follow your judgement and not your feelings.

But I send along a book written in German, which I have also called a clear exposition. [23] You will find in this, provided you read, will read it, the things that you will perhaps miss here. [749] Epilogue to Luther So much for my exposition of my opinion in the matter of the Eucharist, most learned Luther.

All your weapons I think either have already been wrested from your hands or are on the point of falling from them of themselves.

Some I have turned upon yourself in such a way that you must either give up your stronghold or convict yourself of error. And would that the friends who have read your words with some care had called my attention sooner to certain things, so that I might have put them in their proper place. For they say if one examines your utterances rather closely there is no need of my efforts. I begin to have some confidence in their statement, now that Henry Utinger, [1] that orna-

ment of our Church and friend faithful as Theseus to me, [2] has brought out a passage from a sermon of yours entitled, "On the Sacrament of the Altar and the Brotherhoods." [3] For in this, near the beginning, you say:

"It is therefore called (this sacrament, namely) [750] the "gathering together" or "communion".

And to communicate means to receive this communion, which in German we call "going to the sacrament."

And this comes from the fact that Christ and all the saints are one spiritual body, [Rom. 12:5] just as the people of a city are one communion and one body, etc."

And toward the end you prove this by the testimony of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:17, in this way:

"Paul speaks thus in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 'We are all one bread and one body, etc." [WA 2:743:24-26] If I had had this extract at the time I was rescuing these words of Paul from the violence you do them in your book against Carlstadt, what do you think I could have put in stronger or more effective?

Here you admit that we.are that body of Christ of which Paul says, "We are one bread and one body."

In the other work, good gods, how you thunder and fulminate against this explanation coming near you, though you have previously put it forth both orally and in print:

I would not be thought to say this with a view to reviling you, by Hercules, but to offer you yourself, since Scripture has so far accomplished little with you, letters less, and silence least of all. But how can it be that when you are confronted with your own utterances you should not say, "I forgot myself"? How short, how human, nay, how salutary for the harmony of all the churches that little phrase would be: Would not all, whether high or low, say that it was natural and showed an honorable sincerity if your indignation was inclined to boil over in case anyone tried to bring your teachings into doubt?

For what mortal was there ever of whom it could properly be said that he was aplakétos ("infallible")?

You would be undergoing nothing new and strange if you should say, "I forgot myself." We all go wrong in many things. [Jas. 3:2]

But you would undergo something quite unheard of, if it could be said of Luther, "He has nowhere slipped, nowhere made a mistake." Nay it would be blasphemy if we should in our folly attribute to you what belongs to the supreme divinity alone.

Remember how much tribulation you would save the poor peoples of Germany who all believe in their hearts what you either will not or dare not believe, if you would frankly speak this one little phrase.

Our view is bound to prevail, beyond a doubt, [751] but the victory will be a harder one with your opposition, for it will have to be wrought out with travail, when we should just come upon it with universal rejoicing, if you should say, "I forgot myself." To err is human: [4] to slip, make mistakes, be deceived. Do you not hold that there is naught that is human which does not concern you? [5] Say, then, to yourself, "Suppose

I forgot myself."

Remember how much the Lord has wrought

for the world through you, all the glory which is dropping away from you because of your obstinate stubbornness in this one matter.

He did away with transubstantiation of the bread into the body through you, for he saw that the idolatry of the body would go to pieces with it. Now he is destroying that idolatry through others.

Will you, then, stand against the Lord? Do you fancy it is without a purpose that you are superior to all in that battle in which you maintain that nothing is without a purpose?

If you believe, then, that this battle has been sent upon us by the Lord for our ill, it is your duty (if you are really a Christian, as I think perhaps there is no doubt) to take all precautions that it shall cause as little ill as possible.

If it be for our good, it is your duty to promote that as quickly as you can by yielding first and then encouraging all to do the same; if it is to try us, it is yours to put away bitterness and fierceness, that we may see all things more clearly.

Has the Lord exalted you? Take care that no one shall find any trace of pride in you because of the honor of this distinction.

To inveigh arrogantly against the faults of a brother ill becomes a Christian.

How much further ought it to be from us to slash at each other with more cruel ferocity than any Lapithae or Centaurs! [6] Remember that God is looking on at this battle and sees more deeply into the spirit of all than do we ourselves.

Remember that not only the great people of Germany but of the Christian world, not only the present age, but all comingages to the end of the world, will be our judges. They will judge more fairly and righteously in the matter of this controversy by as much as they will be the less infected with those passions by which we are influenced now.

For what is the present age?

It is thoroughly infected with passions.

It is so seduced and debauched by partisan zeal, [752] that it bestows admiring honor upon the grandiloquence of a man rather than upon weighty celestial testimony. Very few hold sincere opinions. One is smitten with the disease called avarice, so that he will say or refrain from saying what he thinks acceptable to princes.

Another is puffed up with the dropsy of vainglory, and would sooner see all things not only human but divine totter to their fall rather than his own renown.

Another is torn with hatred, envy, rivalry, and cannot be placated by prayers or speeches sweet as the sweetest honey or by any subordination or concession. Thus are nearly all things pulled asunder.

I appeal to you, therefore, O time to come, to pronounce in the integrity of your judgement upon these doings of ours.

For I do not doubt that something of this battle will come to you and that will be as little as possible under the conditions of this or that passion.

See how our view is confirmed by the collation of Scripture, has the support of tropes, the favor of idiom, the countenance of analogy, and, what we think its crowning

glory, it subscribes to religion and faith, our guardian guide, dictates its acceptance.

Yet so clear a case finds still no audience with certain princes, and snares are laid for it by not a few of the learned.

Do, I say, O coming time, consider again and again what is true in the matter, and see that you are not so blind in this thing as we are at this time, though we see clearly enough, perhaps, in other things. I hand on the torch. [7] Farewell.

I come back to you, Luther.

Take this epilogue, as it were, and consider it with neither negligence nor anger. You will not easily overcome the forces that have been led out here against the camp of your arguments. Grant that I have no right to expect to reach any height, [753] as I frankly confess, and that nothing ordinary is to be expected of you. Yet remember that the greatest heroes have often been conquered by ordinary people.

I am the last of all to take up the conflict with you, and do it against my will, but do not think the war is over because I come so late.

Remember the proverb, "A tired ox plants its foot more firmly." [8] And take all this kindly and in good part.

I submit this exegesis to the judgement of all pious and learned people with the conviction that I have throughout honestly avoided trachyteta ("roughness") and unless you should be offended by the hipotyposis ("outline") of your battle, which I gave not to expose you or Carlstadt to the laughter and sport of humankind, but to recall you by some means from that violent effect of passion which is carrying you astray and will destroy you if you do not give it up. Farewell in God, and be not hasty.

To the Reader And I would not have you go away, good reader, without my warning not to undertake anything in partisan spirit, but to remember that no one conquers or is conquered except the Lord so wills it. You are for Luther. Know that he will not bear away the victory even though he fights most strenuously, unless it flies down upon him from above. [9] You are on my side. Beware of shouting "Ha, triumph." because of this book, for if Luther continues to resist in his harsh way, though we shall beyond a doubt conquer, I fear the battle will be so hard fought that the victory will be, as the proverb has it, a tearful one. [10]

Let us, therefore, weary God with constant prayers, not to abandon his cause, not to let so important a pillar in the Church fall to the ground, and so to enlighten the minds of princes that they will cease to tyrannize over the feeble multitude, [754] which is not so very

receptive of truth, and is in general pretty stupid. And if a contest with Luther proves altogether necessary, let no person form his opinion until he has heard both sides. And though, good onlooker or reader, you could conclude that things written in such a hurry in so violently disputed a matter must be pretty polemical whether we will or no, yet I think that these words of mine must be called cheerful and generous rather than bitter or polemical, and I can be said to have manifested the greatest admiration and regard for Luther, and am likely to do so always. Farewell to you, too, and show wisdom.

There follow now the things that Luther and his followers maintain without authority from Scripture.

The body of Christ physically eaten in this sacrament strengthens faith.

It is an evident error, and, if one persists in it, an impiety.

The body of Christ physically eaten remits sins.

It is an error, and, if one persists in it, an impiety.

The body of Christ is conveyed to us in physical shape by the vehicle of the uttered words.

It is an error from the secret chambers of the Roman pontificate, and, if one persists in it, an impiety and the restoration of all errors.

When I offer the body of Christ to be physically eaten, I make the gospel familiar to him to whom I offer it, and give him the body and blood. It is an error and the height of thoughtlessness, and, if one persists in it, an impiety.

On Images | assert distinctly that keeping those images which are set up for worship is idolatry. [11] The interdict against idols in the decalogue, whether it is the second commandment or a division of the first, should no more be thrown out of its place

than the command, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, etc." [Mt. 22:37] Neither should all that is written in the whole Old Testament be considered in the light of the one commandment,

"You should love your neighbor as yourself,"

[Lev.

19:18; Gal.

5:14] as they say that you maintain, Luther.

For Christ [756] says, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." [Mt. 22:40]

In the scales of those two, therefore, must the whole thing be weighed.

Now, since no one sets up an idol for worship (for I have no anxiety about the things that are not worshipped) without having first made a god of him to whom the idol is set up, an idol cannot be worshipped without treachery to faith.

For Christ says again, "If you will enter into life, keep the commandments."

[Mt.

19:17] Nor does Paul, in 1 Corinthians 8:lff., hold that offerings to idols are among things indifferent, for he makes a sacred boast that he had drawn away the people of Thessalonica from the worship of idols.

If this interdict be regarded as a separate commandment, the last two on covetousness will make one.

This is the way St. Augustine divides them in his notes upon [757] Exodus. So that good-for-nothing Faber, [12] more foolish than Morychus [13] and more cruel than Phalaris, [14] need not be ignorant as to how many commandments there are in the decalogue. [758] On Confession A confession is made, O Luther, worthy of both yourself and God, when you address and worship the Father in your closet, and show him the troubles of your wounded soul. There you will be absolved by Christ Jesus whom you gaze upon with the eye of faith. For straightway when you look upon him with the contemplation of faith as he hangs upon the cross, your heart will be assured you that nothing can be denied by the Father who could bear that his son be crucified for your sake. And Christ panting in agony upon the cross for your sins will make you also carefully watch that you do not sin.

This is the external sign that makes the heart sure, not the formula, "I absolve you." This is the net with which the apostles gather in souls. These are the keys with which are opened the bonds and prison of souls groaning and confined in guilt.

But if anyone has not yet learned this, let him go to some person learned in Scripture, who will set forth the scheme of the gospel, and at the same time pray that the Lord will imbue the person with his own Spirit.

So much as a brief summary of these two topics. Again farewell, most learned Luther.

NOTES I. To Martin Luther 1.

This is a reference to the winged goddess, Victory.

The term alloiosis may be defined as, "the transposed attribute, changing attributes of one property or nature of a thing or person to another."

Potter, Zwingli, p. 312.

This distinctive, favorite concept of Zwingli is similar to the communicatio idiomatum.

By this figure of speech one is allowed to use attributes appropriate for the humanity of Christ when speaking about the divinity, and vice versa. See also Locher, p. 207:

"Die communicatio idiomatum lasst Zwingli nur als 'communicatio X naturarum' gelten; nur von der Person des Gottmenschen kann man 'per alloiosim' die Eigenschaften beider Naturen aussagen."

The term will be translated here as "exchange".

Glaucus was a Lycian prince who assisted Priam in the Trojan War. He exchanged his golden armor for the bronze armor of his friend and combatant, Diomedes.

The phrase "god for bronze" came to mean a bad exchange.

Cf. Iliad, vi, 236.

Bucer and others encouraged Zwingli to engage Luther.

For quotations by peers of Zwingli on this matter, see Z V:548-9.

Minerva was the Roman equivalent of Athena.

Originally a goddess of handicrafts, she became in later times a goddess of war, encroaching on the territory of Mars. OLD: 1110-1111.

The fetial priests were a college of twenty priests who, among other acts, officiated on occasions by blessing peace treaties, truces and covenants.

A fetial book, therefore, would intend to produce harmony or agreement. Cf. Georges

1::2742-5.

Alexander of Macedon - Alexander the Great.

It is significant for the course and intensity of the debate which ensues that Luther had developed strong views over against Carlstadt because of the latter's rejection of Luther's eucharistic affirmations.

See Kohler 1:178ff.

Carneades (2147-129? b.c.) was a philosopher who headed the New Academy at Athens at the time of the greatest influence of anti-dogmatic skepticism.

Il.

To the Reader 1.

This is a reference to Luther's Antwortschreiben an die Christen zu Reutlingen, WA 19:114-125. See especially 121:28-122:2.

See Luther's preface to Erklarung wie Karlstadt seine Lehre von dem hochwurdigen Sakrament und andere achtet und geachtet haben will, WA 18:453-466. See especially 454:23-26.

Zwingli refers here to his Letter to Matthew Alber and to the Subsidiary Essay. See above, pp. 131-144 and 191-227.

Cf.

Horace, Ars poetica 359:

Indignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus."

An earlier usage of the saying by Zwingli is found in Z 1V:922:

4-5, III.

To Martin Luther 1.

See WA 19:457:23-26; 472:2-5; 529:13-16.

The writing against Carlstadt is Wider die himmlischen Propheten, von den Bildern und Sakrament, WA 18:37-214.

See also Ronald Sider (ed.), Karlstadt's Battle with Luther:

Documents in a Liberal-Radical Debate, Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1978.

For the letter of Luther to Herwagen, dated September 13, 1526, see WA 19:471-73. See also Kohler 1:370ff.

Martin Bucer had published with Joh.

Herwagen of Strassburg a four volume translation of Luther's Kirchenpostille in Latin in 1525-26.

In Volume IV of the translation Bucer published a preface and a letter to the reader correcting some of Luther's views and especially contradicting Luther's exposition of

Cor.

10.

Clearly Bucer identified himself with the Swiss.

In 1527 the following appeared fromthe press of Herwagen:

Martin Bucer, M. Buceri in Quartum Tollmum Postillae Lutheranae, continens summam doctrinae Christi.

Eiusdem, Epistola, explicans locum

Corinth.

10... Epistola M.

Lutheri ad lohannem Heruagium superiora criminans.

Responsio ad hanc M. Buceri .

Strassburg:

Johann Herwagen, 1527.

Apparently Zwingli did not see the Bucer comments until after the Friendly Exegesis was written. See Z 1X:71.

This is a reference to "cutting the Gordian knot," a proverbial term referring to a problem that is to be solved only by drastic action. According to one legend, Alexander, in 333 b.c., cut through the knot of Gordias rather than untie it.

Johannes Faber, Vicar-general of Constance, 1518-24, was at one time a friend of Zwingli. Later he was Zwingli's opponent in the First Disputation and a later opponent also of Luther and Hubmaier.

He moved to Vienna in 1524,

2777. becoming Bishop in 1530.

ADB 14:435-441.

The reference to Vulcan is to the destructive Roman god of fire.

For the expression crocodili lachrymae see Erasmus, Adagia, ll.|V:60

(Op. omnia ll, col. 543).

Cf.

WA 19:471:24-26.

The Pomeranian is Johannes Bugenhagen whose

Latin exposition of the Psalms was translated into German by Bucer in 1526.

Although Bugenhagen gave Bucer the permission to change as much as he saw fit, he likely did not mean for there to be substantial changes of content.

When Bucer did in fact make changes to correspond with his and the Swiss views on the nature of the Eucharist, an uproar ensued in Wittenberg. See Kohler 1:354-385.

Cf. WA 19:472:4-5.

10.

In 1525 Luther wrote a treatise on the adoration of the sacrament against the Bohemian Brethren, whom he called the Waldensians:

Vom Anbeten des Sakraments des heiligen Leichnams Christi,

WA 11:431-456

(tr. LW 36:275-305).

11.

Cf.

Luther's assertion that no one had yet answered his attacks on Carlstadt. WA 19:457:23-26, 19:472:2ff.

12.

See editorial introduction above, p.

235.

See also WA 19:524-528.

13.

Oecolampadius sifted through the opinions of the ancients in his September

treatise on the Lord's Supper, De genuina verborum domini, hoc est corpus meum, iuxta vetustissimos authores expositione liber.

See above, p.

Zope 14.

Z V:580 n.

2 suggests that the

bishops to which Zwingli is alluding are the bishops of the Church before the 12th century who held, in Zwingli's mind, to a symbolic view approximating that of the Reformer.

It was, then, only in the writings of Peter Lombard that the Real Presence was victorious. ey, NG (Ono DOC 16.

The reference is to the Swabian Syngramma.

17.

In the Wiad, Book 22, Achilles killed the deluded Hector, son of Priam.

18.

The matter of the external and internal word appears only implicitly in the Syngramma.

Zwingli had addressed himself to the issue in his response to Jakob Strauss. See especially Z V:551:24ff.

19.

For citations of the phrase nodus in scirpo quaesitus see Otto, 312f. See also:

Erasmus, Adagia, ll. IV:76 (Op. omnia Il, col. 546f.).

20.

The quotation is not exact and may be a re-translation by Zwingli into Latin from the German translation.

* 21.

This quotation, however, is taken verbatim from the Syngramma, CAvf.

22.

Chrysippus, ca.

280-ca.

b.c, a Greek philosopher, was cofounder of Stoicism with Zeno and was its principal systematizer.

See also Pauly 111/2:2502ff.

25.

Earlier attacks of the Lutheran view of ubiquity by Zwingli may be found in the following:

Z IV:827:4ff., 904:27ff.,

V:508:3ff.

For literature on the question of ubiquity in Luther, see Locher, p. 223 n. 292.

24.

Synecdoche is "a figure of speech whereby a less comprehensive term is used to imply a more comprehensive one, or vice versa." OLD: 1896.

25.

See Philip Melanchthon, "De gratia," Loci Communes, 1521. Melanchthons Werke, II/1.

Edited by Hans Engelland.

Gütersloh:

Bertelsmann Verlag, 1952, pp.

85ff.

(tr.

Wilhelm Pauck, Melanchthon and Bucer, Philadelphia:

The Westminster Press, 1959, pp. 86ff.

26.

The four-lettered Hebrew word, technically called the tetragrammaton, is the Hebrew word for the God of Israel, JHVH, or Yahweh.

27.

For a citation of the phrase cane peius et angui see Horace, Epistulae, 1.17.30. OLD: 129.

28.

This is a citation from the Syngramma. See above, note 21.

29.

Zwingli is referring to Luther's

treatise, Wider die himmlischen Propheten. See specifically WA 18:187:24-27.

30.

By the "orator"

Zwingli means Demosthenes (384-322 b.c.), the greatest of Greek orators.

Fritz Blanke reports that a verbatim citation of this phrase in Demosthenes has not been found. Cf. Z V:590 n. 3.

31.

For Luther's criticism of Oecolampadius, see WA 19:472:10-15.

32.

Bucer advanced this argument in the preface to his translation of the four volumes of Luther's Kirchenpostille.

33.

The Phoenix was a fabulous bird of antiquity, especially of Egypt, that, upon dying in its self-induced funeral pyre, produced a new Phoenix which rose from the ashes of the old.

34.

Hippolytus, the son of Thesus, in Euripedes' tragedy Hippolytus, was killed when, betrayed by the unlawful passion of Phaedra, Poseidon sent a sea monster which frightened Hippolytus' horses, thereby dragging him to his death.

35.

The letter of counsel by Zwingli to Bucer not to work on the Bugenhagen commentary on the Psalms or Luther's Kirchenpostille is not extant.

36.

For the phrase lis litem serit see Erasmus, Adagia, ll. X:41

(Op. omnia Il, col. 693).

37.

For the phrase a lasso rixa quaeritur see Seneca, Dialogi, 5.

5. OLD: 1004.

38.

Zwingli is referring to Luther's The Sacrament of the Body and Blood -Against the Fanatics.

WA 19:482-523 (tr. LW 36:335-361).

Zwingli addresses himself to this later in the Friendly Exegesis. See pp. 287ff.

39.

The tabernacle-house to which Zwingli refers was one form for preserving the sacrament in the Middle Ages, dating, in this instance, after the institution of the Corpus Christi festival in 1217. RGG VI:598.

40.

For Bullinger's description of the removal of the sacrament houses, see Bullinger 1:367.

41.

It is not likely that the parishes of Glarus and Zug would have their own individually produced missals, though it would not be unusual for the Bishopric of Constance to have such. The practice of infant communion, forbidden in 1215 by Lateran IV, did not apparently die out then. Cf. Z V:601 n. 4.

42.

Oecolampadius made a similar point in his De genuina verborum domini. See Kohler 1:119-120.

45.

For a brief further description and for further references on this and similar liturgies, see Kohler 1:477 n.

4. Kohler cites B. Fleischlin, Beitrage zur schweizerischen Kirchengeschichte, ||| (1903):

2021. as having proved that Zwingli was in error about the conclusion of this service.

44.

Zwingli is referring to documents or diplomas which, since they refer to other business, would not. be expected to mention the Mass. The argument is therefore curious, if not fallacious. Cf. Z V:603 n.

45.

See Wander Ill:1297, Nr. 397.

46.

This is a citation from the Apostle's Creed.

47.

For the expression in portu navigare see Otto, 285.

48.

See above, note 1:2.

49.

See Responsio ad epistolam loannis Bugenhagii,

1V:561:4ff. and Ein klare Underrichtung vom Nachtmahl Christi, Z 1V:810:9ff.

(tr.

LCC 199ff.).

50.

For the expression extra oleas see Erasmus, Adagia, ll.

Il:10

(Op. omnia ll, col. 451).

51.

Zwingli earlier treated the matter of John 6:65 and made reference to the Fathers Cyril, Augustine and Chrysostom as well as his contemporary Erasmus in Z 1V:561-562.

52.

Zwingli is citing Melanchthon's Annotationes in Evangelium Johannis of 1525. See Corpus Reformatorum 14:1104:9-12.

53.

Homer, Iliad, V:330ff.

54.

There are several places to cite in Luther's

treatise, The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ--Against the Fanatics.

Cf. WA 19:504:

20-27; 507:27-28; 508:22-24 (tr. LW 36:335-361).

55.

Zwingli may be referring to the following sentence from Luther's The Babylonian Captivity of the Church:

"In the first place, the sixth chapter of John must be entirely excluded from this discussion, since it does not refer to the sacrament in a single syllable." WA 6:502:7-8 (tr. LW 36:19).

56.

For the common expression ex arena funem texere see Otto, 160.

57.

See page 266 above and WA 19:472:31-32.

58.

See above, note lll:47.

59.

The source of this phrase is Iliad 11:490.

60.

Augustine deals with the question of the body and the sacrament in his letter to Bishop Boniface in MPL 33:363-64.

61.

For the expression suspendio arborem quaerere see hangen in Wander 1l:550, Nr. 28.

62.

See below, pp. 287ff.

65.

Helvidius was a fourth century theologian who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary and was consequently attacked in writing by Jerome and Augustine. Zwingli called him "ein irriger kempffer" in his sermon on Mary. Cf. Z 1:402:6ff.

64.

For Patristic references to the use of alloiosis see G. W. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1961, pp. 76-77.

65.

For the concept apostrophe see Quintilianus IV.

1. 63ff.

IX.

38; IX. 3. 24, 26.

66.

For the concept metaphorice see Quintilianus VIII.

4ff., IX.

67.

The distinctive contribution of Karlstadt in the eucharistic debate alluded to here was his assertion that when the word "This (touto)" in "This is my body" was uttered by Jesus, he was pointing not to the bread, but to his body.

Cf.

E. G. Rupp, "Karlstadt's Eucharistic Rebellion," Patterns of Reformation, Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1969, pp. 141-148.

68.

Luther stresses the community or gathering ofthe body of Christ in Wider die himmlischen Propheten. See WA 18:168:14-24.

69.

Marcion was a second century theologian, adjudged by the Church to be a heretic primarily because of his Christological views and his belief that the God of the Old Testament was not truly the Father of Christ.

Cf. RGG IV:

740-742.

70.

The utterance "Ble" occurs in a play by Johann Reuchlin that was published in 1507: loannis Reuchlin Phorcensis Sergius uel Capitis caput cum commentario Georgii Symler.

71.

Zwingli is referring to Wider die himmlischen Propheten, WA 18:

62-125.

72.

This expression has not been located in either the contemporary or classical literature.

73.

The expression jin herba perdere possibly finds its best English equivalent as "to nip in the bud".

The exact Latin form has not been located elsewhere, though the phrase in herbis is found in Erasmus, Adagia,

IV. 1X:99

(Op. omnia ll, col. 1164).

IV.

Luther Against Carlstadt and the Fanatics 1.

See above, note lll:52.

The andabatae were gladiators who fought blindfolded.

Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, 7. 10. 2. OLD: 128.

In August 1524, at the end of a confrontation with Carlstadt, Luther is reputed to have tossed a gold coin to Carlstadt, inviting him to write against him publicly and not merely to attack him in private.

Cf. WA 15:339f.

The antesignani were originally troops in the front line of a legion.

It later came to refer to protagonists or the leaders in a battle.

Cf. Caesar, de Bello civili, 1. 45. 5.

The securis tenedia referred to the axe of King Tenes of Tenedos and became a proverbial symbol of decisive action. OLD: 1918.

|n his treatise against Carlstadt Luther called 1 Cor.

10 a thunder axe (donneraxt) which would cut Carlstadt's head.

Cf. WA 18:166:29-34.

Zwingli graecized the original Latin term.

Blanke suggests that Zwingli is accusing Luther of escalating the warfare of words. No longer content with his "thunder axe" he is turning to measures worthy of Jupiter. Z V:635 n. 3.

Earlier treatments by Zwingli of the Anabaptists include the following:

Von der Taufe, von der Wiedertaufe und von der Taufe (May 1525) Z IV:

206-337 and Antwort über Balthasar Hubmaiers Taufbuchlein (November 1525)

Z 1V:585-641.

Cf. WA 18:168:25-169:4.

10.

Zwingli is referring to his Responsio ad epistolam loannis Bugenhagii (1525)

Z 1V:558-576.

See also Letter to Matthew Alber,

Z III:335-354,

above, pp.

131-144.

11.

Commentary on True and False Religion.

Z [lI:628-912 (tr. J Ill:

43-343).

Subsidiary Essay on the Eucharist, above, pp. 191-227, Ad Theobaldi Billicani et Urbani Rhegii epistolas responsio

1526, Z IV: 893-941.

Theletter to the Pomeranian is cited in the previous note.

12.

Mettius Fufetius, a general of Alba, was torn apart by two wagons by Tullus Hostilius for disloyalty. Cf. OLD: 1106.

15.

Zwingli made a similar point in his Commentary, Z Ill:758ff.

(tr.

J MI:180ff.).

14.

See above, note IV:6.

From Luther's Book on the Adoration of the Sacrament 1.

An English translation of the treatise by Luther is LW 46:275-305.

As Zwingli cites the writing by Luther, the WA reference will be given in the text.

It should be observed that Zwingli is translating, and sometimes only paraphrasing. Paraphrases will be noted as such by giving the reference in the notes rather than in the text.

This reference in Augustine has not been located.

Cf. also Z V:647 n.3.

Apelles was a famous painter of the fourth century b.c. Praxiteles was an Athenian sculptor, also fourth century.

For the expression in aquam scribere see Otto, 51.

The treatise by Luther which Zwingli is considering is addressed to the Bohemian Brethren.

See the introduction to the English translation, LW 46:

271-274.

Cf. WA 11:455:10-51.

Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus, whose many children were killed by Apollo and Artemis because she boasted she was Leto's equal; she turned to stone with weeping. OLD: 1179.

Cf. WA 11:444:1-10.

The doctrine of concomitance is that Christ's body and blood are present in each of the consecrated species in the Eucharist.

Also, due to the hypostatic. union of the divinity and humanity of Christ, both are equally present in the eucharistic elements after their consecration.

Cf. TRE 1:94:38ff.

Also:

Pelikan 3:193-94. The treatise of Luther against Henry VIII is Contra Henricum regem Angliae

1522, WA 10/2:180-222.

Strictly speaking, Zwingli is not correct here, for Luther did not deal with the question of concomitance, though he did address the related question of transubstantiation.

10.

Zwingli refers to Luther's The Sacrament of the Body and Blood-Against the Fanatics, WA 19:482-523

(tr. LW 36:335-361).

11.

The heresiarch Arius (c. 250-c.

336) maintained a strict subordinationist position concerning Christ.

He did not, however, maintain that Christ was only human. Cf. Pelikan 1:193-200.

12.

Zwingli is referring, more sarcastically than sincerely, to the following statement in Luther, The Sacrament--Against the Fanatics:

"Heaven and earth are his sack; as wheat fills the sack, so he fills all things."

LW 36:345

(WA 19:

493:9-10).

13.

Postliminium is the recovery or restoration of civic rights that had been held in suspension during exile, capture or other such crises.

It is then a technical term for the return to the status quo.

Cf.

Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 29825 14.

In Augustine's tractates on John is an assertion of the localization of Christ which was important for Zwingli:

"For the body of the Lord, in which He rose again from the dead, can be only in one place, but the truth is everywhere diffused." NPNF VII:186 (MPL 35:1632).

15.

The two quotations on either side of the reference to Augustine are arguments of Zwingli which he is putting forth for purposes of establishing his point of view. They are not actual quotations.

16.

The question of the worship of the humanity of Christ as over against the divinity was addressed by several scholastic theologians. See, for example, Thomas

Aquinas:

"The adoration of latria is not given to Christ's humanity in respect of itself; but in respect of the Godhead to which it is united, by reason of which Christ is not less than the Father."

Summa Theologica, Ill. xxv.

2 (tr.

Blackfriars 15:546).

17.

Concomitance is asserted by Thomas in Summa Theologica, Ill.

Ixxvi. l, 2 (tr. Blackfriars 17:285-290).

VI.

What Luther Wrote in the Sermon Against the Fanatics.

Martin Luther, The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ-Against the Fanatics.

WA 19:482-523 (tr. LW 36:335-361).

See also Kohler 1:383ff.

The numerals, which were given in the Froschower text in the margin, will be given here with the paragraphs.

The reference is to plans that existed in antiquity to build a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth. Cf. OLD: 972.

See above, note lll:56.

Cf. WA 19:484:1-5.

The quotation is based on WA 19:484:2650.

Zwingli is complaining that Luther has failed to take seriously what he and Oecolampadius have written on the matter of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

He made a similar complaint in the letter of 25 April

to the mayor and Council of Ulm. Z 1X:97:5-8.

Zwingli is likely referring to the ninth century controversy between Radbertus and Ratramnus over the question of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

The controversy emerged again in the eleventh century around Berengar of Tours. Cf. Pelikan 3:74-80, 186-202, 254-55.

Cf. WA 19:484:50-485:6.

0% "Cf. tta; 557.

11.

For the question of the eucharistic thinking of Bucer and Capito to 1527, see Kohler 1:210ff., 215f., 221ff., 290ff., 358, 364, 372ff.

12.

WA 19:486:14-15.

13.

WA 19:486:17-22.

14.

WA 19:487:14-21.

15.

WA 19:488:9-12.

16.

Zwingli is referring to the one-eyed Cyclops, Polyphemus, in Odyssee IX.

17.

Zwingli is referring to the Catholic opponents Johann Eck and Johann Faber.

18.

WA 19:489:26-490:1.

19.

The late medieval nominalists, that is, the representatives of the via moderna, characteristically spoke of God in terms of his "absolute power" and his "ordained power".

This latter potentia was the way God had chosen to relate to the reality outside himself.

For a discussion of these concepts, see Heiko Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 30-56.

20.

See above, note V:14.

21.

The biblical texts cited here are those which Arius 'could use to support his subordinationist position.

22.

Zwingli is referring to "Quicunque vult", the so-called Athanasian Creed.

Written about 500, it was falsely attributed to Athanasius.

The ideas which Zwingli is citing are not in the authentic Athanasius.

23.

Sabellius, about whom little is known, was a third century theologian who lent his name to the modalistic form of monarchianism or "patripassianism".

Marcion's Christology was docetic.

Thus Zwingli is citing ancient heretics who depreciated the humanity of Christ.

24.

The Roman God of Fire, Vulcan, sent his mother, Hera, a golden chair with hidden chains that caught her when she sat down.

Cited in Z V:677

Mens 25.

For the expression lupum auribus tenere see Otto, 199.

VII.

On the Alloiosis of the Two Natures in Christ.

For later treatment of alloiosis by Zwingli, see Dass diese Worte:

"Das ist mein Leib" usw. Z V:922f. and Uiber doctor Martin Luthers buoch, bekenntnus genant, Z VI/2:126ff.

Kohler cites Plutarch, Moralia.

De placitis philosophorum |.

17.

Kohler I: 479 n. 1.

In fact, the communicatio idomatum or "communication of properties," to which Zwingli is referring here by various synonyms in his discussion of alloiosis has ancient roots, as. for example Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444).

See Pelikan 1:249-51, 270-74.

On the usage of the terms in the Reformation see R.

S. Franks, The Work of Christ, New York:

Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962, pp.

3558-559. See also the extensive note by Blanke, Z V:679 n. 3.

The image of the blade heated by fire is cited elsewhere in Zwingli in Z IV:115ff.

The image of metal and fire is of ancient vintage and was not an uncommon illustration among the Fathers.

See, for example, Origen, "On the Incarnation of Christ,"

De Principiis, Il.

(tr.

ANF IV:283).

Also:

Theodoret

in his dialogue "Eranistes

II" (NPNF/2

Ill:197) and Letter 145 to the monks of Constantinople (NPNF/2 IlI:316).

Luther utilized the ancient image of the red hot iron to illustrate an understanding of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

See WA 6:510:5ff.

(LW 36:32).

Although not verbatim, and containing a slight misquotation ("in deum" for "in deo"), Zwingli is quoting from the "Quicunque vult".

Cf.

J. N. D.

Kelly, The Athanasian Creed, New York:

Harper & Row, 1964, p. 20.

Zwingli is making a pun which is lost in the translation.

If the Elect are everywhere Christ is, then Christopher would be longer, taller than even the colossus of Rhodes.

Surely that would frighten the Lutherans, or the Christeaters.

The pun: why aren't the Christobori (the Lutherans) frightened by such a Christophoro?

Melito of Sardis, an apologist of the second century, was reported by Eusebius to have written a book "on the corporeality of God" which is now lost. Cf. Eusebius, Church History, IV. 26. See especially NPNF/2 1:204 n. 20.

The phrase loqui, quidquid in buccam venerit is a common expression in various authors and languages. See Otto, 59.

10.

The cruelty of Saturn lay in his devouring his own children.

€ f22W/A19:5491222—29.

12.

See above, note V:14.

13.

Zwingli is referring to the letter of Bugenhagen which he answers in his Responsio,

Z 1V:558-576.

Although the phrase modo quodam ineffabili does not occur as such, it is not necessary to ascribe the reference to Erasmus rather than Bugenhagen as does Kohler I: 480 n.

4. Blanke notes that Zwingli later puts the words in Luther's mouth in Z

V:703:10.

The idea is there, whether or not the words are exactly written. Cf. Z V:699 n. 2.

VIII.

On Absurdities of Scripture 1.

There are numerous places where Luther asserts a similar conclusion. E.g.:

WA 11:450:7-16, 18:206:20-25; 19:125:26-51, etc.

Cf. WA 6:508:7-29 and WA 11:441:18ff.

Cf. WA 18:206:20f. and WA 19:499:52-55.

For synecdoche, see above, note lll:24. Metonymy is "the replacement of the name of a thing by the name of its attribute." OLD: 1106.

Cf. WA 6:510:4-15.

Cf. above, note VIII:1.

Cf. WA 19:491:17-20.

Cf. WA 19:492:19-495:10.

WA 19:489:24-27 and 491:26-29.

10.

Cf. WA 19:507:25-55.

11.

Ibid.

12.

Cf. WA 19:504:20-505:11.

13.

WA 19:493:16-27.

14.

For treatments by Luther of Matthew 16:18, see WA 2:185ff., 628.

15.

Cf. WA 19:498:17-19, 28-29.

16.

When the fox saw that the grapes were too high, i.e. beyond his reach, he said:

"They are sour." Cf. Wander 1:1242.

17.

See above, note Ill:37.

18.

See also Bullinger 1:8:

"Under anderen sinen Uebungen schreyb er die Epistlen Pauli graece ab, und lernt sy ussen."

Zwingli also here identifies the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation with 1519, i.e. the Leipzig Disputation.

19.

Zwingli questioned whether Luther kept too much of a Roman practice in affirming the value of confession.

See Zwingli's exposition of the 18th article, Z 1I:148:6ff.

20.

See the conclusion to this treatise, below, p. 369.

21.

Z 1h:14:457.

See Volume | of this set edited by Edward J. Furcha.

22.

For a brief consideration of the appropriateness of this charge, see Blanke's comments in Z V:716 n. 5.

23.

For Thomas Wyttenbach, see note above, p. 270 n. 4.

24.

This letter has not been identified.

Blanke suggests it may have existed only in rumor. Z V:721 n. 1.

25.

Included among the writings of Luther to which Zwingli is referring are Antwortschreiben an die Christen zu Reutlingen,

WA 19:114-125

and Schreiben an Johann Herwagen, WA 19:462-473.

He may well have other published writings of Luther in mind as well.

26.

Zwingli likely refers to Erasmus, the circle around him, and his own humanist friends at the time of his contact in 1516. Cf. Z 1l:217:8ff.

27.

See above, note lll:5.

28.

Zwingli in the following makes several allusions to the labors of Hercules even as he applies the image to Luther himself.

29.

Zwingli is referring here to certain specific practices in the celebration of the Eucharist at Zurich. Cf. Z 1V:15-24.

30.

Cf. WA 19:504:20-26.

Dew Choy WAN 1925092116.

22. 9 €1:0WAL19:509:27*

33.

Cf. WA 15:591-597.

34.

Cf. WA 19:118-125.

PART TWO 1.

Delos is an Aegean lsland which was the mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.

Cf. OLD: 510.

Zwingli is referring to his writing on the Eucharist against Strauss,

Z V:464-547.

The lapis Lydius is the touchstone found in the Lydia by the river Tmolus. OLD:

1055.

Scripture as the "touchstone" is a common expression in Luther.

Cf. WA 33:276:6 and WA 46:780:15.

Zwingli earlier addressed himself to metonymy in the following places:

Z 1V:474:17, Z V:476:19 and 477:15.

735:28: denominatio.

8^ 736:2: cognominatio.

Cocles was the cognomen of Horatius.

OLD:541.

Cloelia was a hostage who escaped from Porsenna by swimming the Tiber to Rome.

OLD:

338.

736:9: transnominatio.

Catachresis is "the improper use of a word." OLD: 284.

10.

See Z 1V:913:20ff.

11.

For these charges in Luther, see WA 19:120:28ff. and WA 19:458:7ff.

12.

Cf. WA 9:79:20ff.

13.

Cornelisz Hoen, or Honius, (d.

1524) was called by Williams an "early sacramentist".

He was the author of an important tract in which he interpreted the words of institution symbolically.

It was published by Zwingli in 1525,

Z 1V:512-519.

See above, p. 130 n.

2. See also:

G. H. Williams, The Radical Reformation, Philadelphia:

Westminster Press, 1962, pp.

35-37, 87-89.

Also:

Kohler 1361 ff.

14.

John Rhodius (Hinne Rode) was rector of the school of the Brethren of the Common Life in Utrecht. See G. H. Williams, Radical Reformation, pp. 35-37, 86-89. George Saganus was a friend of Hoen and Rode. Cf. Williams, p. 86.

15.

M. Fabius Quintilianus, born ca. 35 a.d. was a famous Roman educator and rhetorician.

As such he provided one of the most valuable sources of ancient rhetoric, language and educational theory in his Institutio oratoria.

See Pauly VI:1845ff.

Zwingli and many other humanist scholars quoted from him extensively.

See the discussion on tropes in Quintilianus, 8.6; 9.1.

16.

For discussion of tropes in Cicero, see Orator, 24.

17.

The De vita et poesi Homeri, falsely attributed to Plutarch, addresses tropes in Chapter 15. Cited in Z V:739 n. 3.

18.

The Tertullian text which Oecolampadius utilized is taken from the Against Marcion I:xiv (MPL 2/2:287; tr. ANF 1II:281).

19.

Jerome's Commentary on Matthew, MPL 26:202f.

20.

WA 19:459:7-12.

ZR One Vilee cortege Ze.

M BINSIT3256;

25.

Blanke, Z V:748 n.

1, suggests that Zwingli is referring to his Freundlich Verglimpfung über die Predigt Luthers wider die Schwarmer, Z V: 771-794.

Epilogues 1.

Henry Utinger (d.

1536) was an early friend and supporter of Zwingli in Zurich. Cf. Z 1l:765 n. 4.

Theseus, legendary Attic hero, was the slayer of the Minotaur and the husband of Phaedra.

The expression "faithful Theseus" was used by P.

Paninus Statius, Siluae 4.4.104.

Cf. WA 2:742-758 (tr. LW 35:49-74).

This well-known phrase comes from Jerome, Epistle 57:12:

"To err is human and to confess one's error wise." MPL 22:578

(tr. NPNF/2 VI:118).

Otto, 165, quotes Terence as follows:

"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto."

The Lapithae were a Thessalian tribe, famous for their vicious fight with the centaurs. OLD: 1002.

Various references exist to "passing on the torch" as a figurative allusion to the Greek torch-race. OLD: 998.

This proverb is quoted by Jerome in Letter

in which he warns Augustine not to provoke him lest, as old as he is, he prove to be a dangerous opponent. MPL 22:851

(tr. NPNF 1:225).

The reference is to the winged goddess Victory.

10.

An exact proverb corresponding to this phrase has not been found.

A similar expression, "Flet victus, victor interiit," is found in Erasmus, Adagia, II.V1.24

(Op. Omnia ll, col. 591.).

11.

Zwingli addressed the question of images in the Short Christian Instruction. See above, pp. 68-71.

12.

The reference is to John Faber, Zwingli's opponent at the First Disputation. See above, note lll:6.

13.

Morychus represents in antiquity a figure of Dionysius.

Cf. Z V:757

14.

Pharlaris, a tyrant, gained notoriety for his roasting his victims in a bronze bull. OLD: 1572.

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