§ 111. THE EUCHARISTIC THEORIES COMPARED. 671
object and use of the Lord’s Supper is chiefly the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, to the comfort of the believer.? This is the scholastic statement of the doctrine, as given by the framers of the Formula Concordie, and the Lutheran scholastics of the seventeenth century. The confessional deliverances of the Lutheran Church on the Lord’s Supper are as follows : —
THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION OF 1530.
** ArT, X. Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the [true] body and blood of Christ 2 are truly present [under the form of bread and wine],’ and are [there] communicated to [and received by] ® those that eat δ in the Lord’s Supper. And they disapprove of those that teach otherwise.”’ 7
1 The Lutheran theory is generally designated by the convenient term consubstantiation, but Lutheran divines expressly reject it as a misrepresentation. The Zwinglians, with their conception of corporality, could not conceive of a corporal presence without a local presence; while Luther, with his distinction of three kinds of presence and his view of the ubiquity of Christ’s body, could do so. The scholastic term consubstantiatio is not so well defined as transubstantiatio, and may be used in different senses: (1) a mixture of two substances (which nobody ever taught); (2) an inclusion of one substance in another (impanatio); (3) a sacramental co-existence of two substances in their integrity in the same place. In the first two senses the term is not applicable to the Lutheran theory. The ‘‘in pane’’ might favor impanation, but the sub and cum qualify it. Dr. Steitz, in a learned article on Transubstantiation, in Herzog,! XVI. 347, and in the second edition, XV. 829, attributes to the Lutheran Church the third view of consubstantiation, but to Luther himself the second; namely, ** die sacramentliche Durchdringung der Brotsubstanz von der Substanz des Leibes.”’ To this Luther’s illustration of the fire in the iron might lead. But fire and iron remain distinct. At all events, he denied emphatically a local or physical inclusion. Lutheran divines in America are very sensitive when charged with consubstantiation.
2 The Latin text reads simply: corpus et sanguis Christi ; the German text: wahrer Leib und Blut Christi.
8 Vere adsint et distribuantur. The German text adds: unter der Gestalt des Brots und Weins. The variations between the Latin and German texts of the original edition indicate a certain hesitation in Melanchthon’s mind, if not the beginning of a change, which was completed in the altered confession.
4 German: da.
5 German addition: und genommen wird.
6 Vescentibus. The German text has no equivalent for this verb.
7 Et improbant secus docentes. In German: Derhalben wird auch die Gegenlehre verworfen, wherefore also the opposite doctrine is rejected. The
672 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
THE ALTERED AUGSBURG CONFESSION OF 1540,
Concerning the Supper of the Lord they teach that with bread and wine are truly exhibited! the body and blood of Christ to those that eat in the Lord’s Supper.?
ARTICLES OF SMALKALD (BY LUTHER), 1537.
“Οὐ this Sacrament of the Altar, we hold that the bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ, and are given to, and received by, not only the pious, but also to and by the impious Christians.”’
In the same articles Luther denounces transubstantiation as a “subtle sophistry (subtilitas sophistica),’? and the Romish mass as ‘‘the greatest and most terrible abomination (maxima et horrenda abominatio).”? Pars III., Art. VI., in Miller’s ed., pp. 301, 320.
FORMULA OF CONCORD (1577). EPITOME, ART. VII. AFFIRMATIVE.
“1, We believe, teach, and confess that in the Lord’s Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present, and that they are truly distributed and taken together with the bread and wine.
_ “TI. We believe, teach, and confess that the words of the Testament of Christ are not to be understood otherwise than as the words themselves literally sound, so that the bread does not signify the absent body of Christ, and the wine the absent blood of Christ, but that on account of the sacramental union the bread and wine are truly the body and blood of Christ.
“4111. Moreover, as concerns the consecration, we believe, teach, and confess that no human work, nor any utterance of the minister of the Church, is the cause of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, but that this is to be attributed to the omnipotent power of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. ;
““tV. Nevertheless, we believe, teach, and confess, by unanimous consent, that in the use of the Lord’s Supper the words of the institution of Christ
sacramentarian (Zwinglian) doctrine is meant, but not the Calvinistic, which appeared six years afterward, 1536. The term improbant for the papal damnant, and anathema sit, shows the progress in toleration. The Zwinglian view is not condemned as a heresy, but simply disapproved as an error. The Formula of Concord made a step backwards in this respect, and uses repudiamus and damnamus.
1 Cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur, instead of vere adsint et distribuantur. The verb exhibit does not necessarily imply the actual reception by unbelievers, which the verb distribute does. So Dorner also judges of the difference (l.c., p. 324).
2 The disapproval of those who teach otherwise is significantly omitted, no doubt in deference to Calvin’s view, which had been published in the mean time, and to which Melanchthon himself leaned.