§ 104. LUTHER’S THEORY BEFORE THE CONTROVERSY. 618
Reformed churches. The Protestant denominations which have arisen since the Reformation on English and American soil,—Independents, Baptists, Methodists, etc.,— have adopted the Reformed view. Luther’s theory is strictly confined to the church which bears his name. But, as the Melanchthonian and moderate Lutherans approach very nearly the Calvinistic view, so there are Calvinists, and especially Anglicans, who approach the Lutheran view more nearly than the Zwinglian. The fierce antagonism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has given way on both sides to a more dispassionate and charitable temper. This is a real progress.
We shall first trace the external history of this controversy, and then present the different theories with the arguments.
§ 104. Luther's Theory before the Controversy.
Luther rejected, in his work on the “ Babylonish Captivity of the Church” (1520), the doctrine of the mass, transubstantiation, and the withdrawal of the cup, as strongholds of the Papal tyranny. From this position he never receded. In the same work he clearly intimated his own view, which he had learned from Pierre d’Ailly, Cardinal of Cambray (Cameracensis),! in these words : —
‘*Formerly, when I was imbibing the scholastic theology, the Cardinal of Cambray gave me occasion for reflection, by arguing most acutely, in the Fourth Book of the Sentences, that it would be much more probable, and that fewer superfluous miracles would have to be introduced, if real bread and real wine, and not only their accidents, were understood to be upon the altar, unless the Church had determined the contrary. Afterwards, when I saw what the church was, which had thus determined, — namely, the Thomistic, that is, the Aristotelian Church,—I became bolder; and, whereas I
1 Petrus de Alliaco (1350-1420) was one of the leaders of the disciplinary reform movement during the papal schism, and in the councils of Pisa and Constance, the teacher of Gerson and Nicolaus de Clemanges. He gives his views on consubstantiation and transubstantiation, which resemble those of Occam, in his Questiones super libros Sententiarum (Argent. 1490), Lib. IV. Qu. VI. See Steitz, in his learned art. on transubstantiation, in Herzog’, XV. 831; and Tschackert, Peter von Ailli, Gotha, 1877.
616 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
had been before in great straits of doubt, I now at length established my conscience in the former opinion: namely, that there were real bread and real wine, in which were the real flesh and real blood of Christ in no other man. ner and in no less degree than the other party assert them to be under the accidents.| . . . Why should not Christ be able to include his body within the substance of bread, as well as within the accidents ? Fire and iron, two different substances, are so mingled in red-hot iron that every part of it is both fire and iron. Why may not the glorious body of Christ much more be in every part of the substance of the bread? . . . I rejoice greatly, that, at least among the common people, there remains a simple faith in this sacrament. They neither understand nor argue whether there are accidents in it or substance, but believe, with simple faith, that the body and blood of Christ are truly contained in it, leaving to these men of leisure the task of arguing as to what it contains.”’
At that time of departure from Romanism he would have been very glad, as he confessed five years later, to become convinced that there was nothing in the Lord’s Supper but bread and wine. Yea, his old Adam was still inclined to such a view; but he dared not doubt the literal meaning of the words of institution.? In his book on the “ Adoration of the Sacrament” (1523), addressed to the Waldensian Brethren in Bohemia, he rejects their symbolical theory, as well as the Romish transubstantiation, and insists on the real and substantial presence of Christ’s body and blood in the eucharistic elements; but treats them very kindly, notwith- ‘standing their supposed error, and commends them for
1 ἐς Hesse verum panem verumque vinum, in quibus Christi vera caro verusque sanguis non aliter nec minus sit, quam illi sub accidentibus suis ponunt.”’
2 “ὁ Das bekenne ich,’’ he wrote, Dec. 15, 1524, to the Christians in Strassburg (De Wette, II. 577), ‘wo D. Carlstadt oder jemand anders vor fiinf Jahren mich hatte mégen berichten, dass im Sacrament nichts denn Brot und Wein ware, der hatte mir einen grossen Dienst gethan. Ich habe wohl so harte Anfechtungen da erlitten und mich gerungen und gewunden, dass ich gern heraus gewesen ware, weil ich wohl sah, dass ich damit dem Papstthum hatte den grossten Puff kénnen geben. Ich hab auch zween gehabt, die geschickter davon zu mir geschrieben haben denn D. Carlstadt, und nicht also die Worte gemartert nach eigenem Diinken. Aber ich bin gefangen, kann nicht heraus: der Text ist zu gewaltig da, und will sich mit Worten nicht lassen aus dem Sinn reissen.’? The two persons alluded to are probably, as Ullmann conjectures, Wessel or Rhodius and Honius, who sent a letter to Luther with Wessel’s books,