Section 405

it was written with much skill, good reasoning, and per- suasive eloquence. It was answered by the Lutheran party in Si/ni/ramma Suevicon, to which he replied in Aniispif/ramma. Fryth, one of the early English mar- tyrs, was burned in 1533, because, as Cranmer writes, "he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith that there is the very corporeal presence of Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this point most after the opinion of tEcolam- padius." This contest with Luther on the subject of the Eucharist was, in many respects, the most painful of any in which CEcolampadius found it necessary to en- gage. CEcolampadius agreed substantially with Zwin- gli's view of the sacrament, and he defended it with a considerable amount of patristic learning and dog- matic skill against the Lutherans, especially Brentius. But he differed from Zwingli in the interpretation of the words of the institution, by taking the verb in the literal sense, and placing the figure in the predicate : " This is — really, not liguratively, in the sense of signi- fies, as Zwingli explained it — the symbol of my body" (Jiyura corporis, as Tertullian once says). He attend- ed, in company with Zwingli, Bucer, and Hedio, the religious conference with the Lutheran divines at Mar- burg in 15"29, and was there confronted with Luther, while the more vehement Zwingli debated with the mild Melancthon. But, although the champions of the Lutheran and Reformed churches agreed in fourteen fundamental articles, they could not settle their dispute concerning the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Luther even refused the hand of brotherhood which Zwingli offered him, with tears, in spite of the differ- ence of views. Nevertheless Qicolampadius lent his support to Bucer's efforts to bring about an agreement between the German and Swiss Reformers. It seems also that CEcolampadius modified his theory on the Eu- charist, and gave up some of his former untenable asser- tions. His learned biographer. Dr. Herzog (ii, 230), thinks that the Reformers of Basle held at last firmly to the view " that our souls are truly nourished with the true body and the blood of Christ, and that Christ is present to the believers in the Eucharist, although not in a manner essentially differing from his general presence in the Church." This is also the view which afterwards prevailed in the churches of Basle, as may be seen from " the Second Confession of Basle," called too " the First Helvetic Confession," drawn up by Bullinger, Gr^'nasus, and Myconius, in 1536, which teaches, in the 22d article, as follows: "Concerning the holy com- munion, we maintain that the Lord offers and com- municates in it truly his own body and blood, i.e. him- self, to his members as nourishment, to the effect that he lives in them more and more, and they in him ; not that the body and blood of the Lord are naturally united to the bread and wine, and locally included in them, but, rather, that bread and wine, according to the institution of the Lord, are highly significant, sacred, and true signs by which the Lord himself, through the ministry of the Church, offers and bestows the true communion of his body and blood to believers, not as a perishing food of the belly, but as food and nourishment of the spiritual and eternal life," etc. This is substantially the same theory which was afterwards so ably developed and de- fended by Calvin. From G'^colampadius's peculiar po- sition at Basle, and his relation to Wittenberg and Zu- rich, it seemed for a while as if he were destined to be a mediator between the two parties in that unhappy con- troversy which destroyed the visible unity of the Church of the Reformation, and arrayed her members in two hostile factions. But with all his excellence, he was not equal to the exigency ; perhaps no man, however great his piety, learning, moderation, and tact, could have prevented the split ; yet the strife might possibly have been less bitter if the Reformer of Basle had de- clined to join either side. Unhappily for such a result, he had a lurking tendency to that spurious si)irituality which undervalues all external means of grace. Thus VII.— U