VII. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL OR UBIQUITARIAN CONTROVERSY. [553]
The Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper implies the ubiquity, i.e., the illocal omnipresence, or at all events the multipresence of Christ's body. And this again requires for its support the theory of the communicatio idiomatum, or the communication of the attributes of the two natures of Christ, whereby his human nature becomes a partaker of the omnipresence of his divine nature. A considerable amount of interesting speculation was spent on this subject in the sixteenth century.
All Christians believe in the real and abiding omnipresence of Christ's divine nature, and of Christ's person (which resides in the divine nature or the pre-existing Logos), according to Matt. xxviii. 20; xviii. 20. But the omnipresence of his human nature was no article of any creed before the Reformation, and was only held by a few fathers and schoolmen of questionable orthodoxy, as a speculative opinion. [554] The prevailing doctrine was that Christ's glorified body, though no more grossly material and sensuous, and not exactly definable in its nature, was still a body, seated on a throne of majesty in heaven, to which it visibly ascended, and from which it will in like manner return to judge the quick and the dead. This was the view even of Gregory Nazianzen and John of Damascus, who otherwise approach very nearly the Lutheran dogma of the communicatio idiomatum (the genus majestaticum). The mediæval scholastics ascribed omnipresence only to the divine nature and the person of Christ, unipresence to his human nature in heaven, multipresence to his body in the sacrament; but they derived the eucharistic multipresence from the miracle of transubstantiation, and not from an inherent specific quality of the body. Even William Occam (who was inclined to consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation, and had considerable influence upon Luther) ventured only upon the paradox of the hypothetical possibility of an absolute ubiquity.
Luther first clearly taught the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body, as a dogmatic support of the real presence in the eucharist. [555] He based it exegetically on Eph. i. 23 ('which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all') and John iii. 13 ('the Son of man who is in heaven'), and derived it directly from the personal union of the divine and human natures in Christ (not, as his followers, from the communication of the attributes). He adopted the scholastic distinction of three kinds of presence: 1. Local or circumscriptive (material and confined--as water is in the cup); 2. Definitive (local, without local inclusion or measurable quantity--as the soul is in the body, Christ's body in the bread, or when it passed through the closed door); 3. Repletive (supernatural, divine omnipresence). He ascribed all these to Christ as man, so that in one and the same moment, when he instituted the holy communion, he was circumscriptive at the table, definitive in the bread and wine, and repletive in heaven, i.e., every where. [556] Where God is, there is Christ's humanity, and where Christ's humanity is, there is inseparably joined to it the whole Deity. In connection with this, Luther consistently denied the literal meaning of Christ's ascension to heaven, and understood the right hand of God, at which he sits, to be only a figurative term for the omnipresent power of God (Matt. xxviii. 18). [557] Here he resorted to a mode of interpretation which he so strongly condemned in Zwingli when applied to the word is.
It is very plain that such an absolute omnipresence of the body proves much more than Luther intended or needed for his eucharistic theory; hence he made no further use of it in his later writings, and rested the real presence at last, as he did at first, exclusively on the literal (or rather synecdochical) interpretation of the words, 'This is my body.' His earlier Christology was much more natural, and left room for a real development of Christ's humanity.
Melanchthon, in his later period, decidedly opposed the ubiquity of Christ's body, and the introduction of 'scholastic disputations' on this subject into the doctrine of the eucharist. He wished to know only of a personal presence of Christ, which does not necessarily involve bodily presence. [558] He also rejected the theory of the communicatio idiomatum in a real or physical sense, because it leads to a confusion of natures, and admitted with Calvin only a dialectic or verbal communication. [559] Luther's Christology leaned to the Eutychian confusion, Melanchthon's to the Nestorian separation of the two natures.
The renewal of the eucharistic controversy by Westphal led to a fuller discussion of ubiquity. The orthodox Lutherans insisted upon ubiquity as a necessary result of the real communication of the properties of the two natures in Christ; while the Philippists and Calvinists rejected it as inconsistent with the nature of a body, with the realness of Christ's ascension, and with the general principle that the infinite can not be comprehended or shut up in the finite. [560]
The Colloquy at Maulbronn.--These conflicting Christologies met face to face at a Colloquy in the cloister of Maulbronn, in the Duchy of Würtemberg, April 10-15, 1564. [561] It was arranged by Duke Christopher of Würtemberg and Elector Frederick III. of the Palatinate. Olevianus, Ursinus (the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism), and Boquin defended the Reformed, the Swabian divines, Andreæ, Brenz, Schnepf, Bidenbach, and Lucas Osiander the Lutheran view. Five days were devoted to the discussion of the subject of ubiquity, and one day to the interpretation of the words, 'This is my body.' The Lutherans regarded ubiquity as the main pillar of their view of the eucharistic presence. Andreæ proposed three points for the debate--the incarnation, the ascension, and the right hand of God.
The Lutheran reasoning was chiefly dogmatic: The incarnation is the assumption of humanity into the possession of the divine fullness with all its attributes, and the right hand of God means his almighty and omnipresent power; from these premises the absolute ubiquity of Christ's body necessarily follows. [562]
The Reformed based their argument chiefly on those Scripture passages which imply Christ's presence in a particular place, and his absence from other places, as when he says, 'I leave the world;' 'I go to prepare a place for you. . . . I will come again;' 'I have not yet ascended to my Father;' or when the angels say, 'He is not here,' 'Jesus is taken up from you into heaven,' etc. (John xiv. 2-4, 28; xvi. 3, 7, 16; xx. 17; Acts i. 11; iii. 21). [563] They urged the difference between the divine and human, and between the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation. In the appeal to the fathers and the Creed of Chalcedon they had also decidedly the advantage. Nevertheless, the Colloquy had no other effect than to confirm the two parties in their opinions. [564]
The Consensus Dresdensis.--The Wittenberg and Leipzig Professors and other Philippists in Saxony openly rejected ubiquity in the Consensus Dresdensis (October, 1571), which satisfied even the Elector Augustus. This document teaches that the human nature of Christ was after the resurrection glorified and transfigured, but not deified, and still remains human nature with its essential properties, flesh of our flesh; that the ascension of Christ must be understood literally, and not as a mere spectacle; that Christ's sitting at the right hand means the elevation of both natures to the priestly and kingly office; that the sacramental presence of the body of Christ must be something special and altogether distinct from omnipresence. [565]
Absolute and Relative Ubiquity. Brenz and Chemnitz.--There was a very material difference among the advocates of ubiquity themselves as to its nature and extent, viz.: whether it were absolute, or relative, that is to say, an omnipresence in the strict sense of the term, or merely a multipresence depending on the will of Christ (hence also called volipræsentia, or, by combination, multivolipræsentia). The Swabians, under the lead of Brenz and Andreæ, held the former; the Saxon divines, under the lead of Chemnitz, the latter view.
John Brenz, or Brentius (1499-1570), the Reformer of the Duchy of Würtemberg, and after Melanchthon's death the most prominent German divine, developed, since 1559, with considerable speculative talent, a peculiar Christology. [566] It rests on the Chalcedonian distinction between two natures and one person, but implies at the same time, as he felt himself, a considerable departure from it, since he carried the theanthropic perfection of the exalted Saviour to the very beginning of his earthly life. He took up Luther's idea of ubiquity, and developed it to its legitimate consequences in the interest of the eucharistic presence. According to his system, the incarnation is not only a condescension of the eternal Logos to a personal union with human nature, but at the same time a deification of human nature, or an infusion of the divine substance and fullness into the humanity of Christ at the first moment of its existence. Consequently the man Jesus of Nazareth was omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent in the Virgin's womb, in the manger, and on the cross, as well as he is now in the state of glory. [567] The only difference is, that these divine attributes were concealed during his earthly life, and were publicly revealed to his disciples at the ascension to the right hand of God, i.e., to the omnipotent and omnipresent power of God. [568] The states of humiliation and exaltation are not successive states, but co-existed during the earthly life of Christ. While Christ's humanity was poor, weak, suffering, and dying on earth, it was simultaneously almighty and omnipresent in heaven. He ascended in his humanity invisibly to heaven even at his incarnation, and remained there (John iii. 13). The visible ascension from Mount Olivet would have been impossible without the preceding invisible exaltation. Heaven is no particular place, but a state of entire freedom from space, or absolute existence in God. Space and time, with their limitations, belong only to the earthly mode of existence. Wherever the divinity is, there is also Christ's humanity, [569] i.e., every where, not, indeed, in the way of local extension and diffusion, but in a celestial, supernatural manner, by virtue of the hypostatic union and the real communication of the properties of the divine nature to the human.
This is the most consistent, though also the most objectionable form of the ubiquity dogma. It virtually resolves the earthly life of Christ into a Gnostic delusion, or establishes a double humanity of Christ--one visible and real, and the other invisible and fantastic. [570]
Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), the chief author of the 'Formula of Concord,' next to Andreæ, less original and speculative than Brenz, but superior in patristic learning and sound judgment, elaborated a Christology which mediates between Luther and Melanchthon, and taught only a relative or restricted ubiquity, i.e., a multipresence, which depends upon the will of Christ. [571] He was followed by Selnecker, Chytræus, and most of the Saxon divines. He opposes the Swabian doctrine of a physical, natural communication and transfusion of idiomata, and of the capacity of the finite for the infinite, except in the sense that God may dwell and reveal himself in man. He calls the absolute ubiquity a monstrosity (monstrum, portentum), as Selnecker called it a Satanic fiction (figmentum Satanæ). Christ is an incarnate God, not a deified man. But the Logos may temporarily communicate a divine attribute to the human nature in a supernatural manner as a donum superadditum, without thereby setting aside the abiding limitations of humanity; just as fire may give heat and brightness to iron without turning the iron into fire. Chemnitz agrees with the Reformed, as he expressly says, in adopting the 'simple, literal, and natural signification' of the ascension of Christ as related by the Evangelists, i.e., that 'he was, by a visible motion, lifted up on high in a circumscribed form and location of the body, and departed further and further from the presence of the Apostles,' and is, consequently, in this sense withdrawn from us who are on earth, until he shall in like manner 'descend from heaven in glory in a visible and circumscribed form.' Even in glory Christ's body is finite and somewhere (alicubi). Nevertheless, while seated at the right hand of God, he may be present where he chooses to be, and he is present where his Word expressly indicates such presence; as in the eucharist (according to the literal interpretation of the words of institution), or when he appeared to dying Stephen, or to Paul on the way to Damascus. [572]