UBIQUITY.
Preliminary History (§ 1).
Luther’s Doctrine (§ 2).
The Reformed Doctrines; Brenz (§ 3). Chemnitz (§ 4).
Formula of Concord (§ 5).
The Two Schools (§ 6).
Ubiquity is the term applied to the non-spatial (‘‘ repletive ’?) omnipresence of the body of Christ set forth by Luther in the eucharistic controversy. All statements of the Eastern Church which apparently involve the question of ubiquity from Origen to John of Damascus affirm, on the unity of the
natures, the logical, not the real, trans-
1. Pre- fer of the qualities of one nature to the liminary other, thus teaching an “ exchange,”’ History. or ‘‘ community,” of names, not an
exchange of attributes. Augustine, with his local concept of the “‘ right hand of God ” as contrasted with the non-local view of John of Damascus, gained favor in the Middle Ages, and later
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Ubbonites Ubiquity
with the Reformed and with Melanchthon. He nowhere clearly expresses the realistic concept of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but confines the omnipresence to the divine nature of Christ. Scholasticism gained increasing interest in the question of omnipresence in proportion as the doctrine of the real presence gained the recognition of the Church and obtained its theory in the dogma of Transubstantiation (q.v.). Here Augustine remained the prime authority, and Hugo of St. Victor (q.v.) held that ‘‘ Christ is humanly in heaven, divinely everywhere.” Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas (qq.v.) followed John of Damascus (q.v.), in distinguishing between Christ as totus and totum, Christ being omnipresent in the former case in virtue of the unity of his person, but not in the latter as conception of both natures. Thus the omnipresence of the body was rejected. According to the anhypostasis of Leontius (q.v.) the Logos is essentially the person of Christ; deity follows humanity everywhere, but not vice versa. Radbertus (q.v.) taught that in each case the body was created anew from the bread by a special miracle. Arno of Reichersberg (q.v.) taught ‘‘a special power of Christ of being bodily present wherever he wished,” not exercised until after death; and in like manner Peter Lombard taught the presence in one place of the exalted body of Christ, omnipresence of his divinity, and multipresence of his sacramental body. This remained, in all essentials, the teaching of ‘scholasticism. The difficult problem now arose of explaining how the circumscribed celestial body of Christ, with its attributes of quantity and dimension, could replace the bread in the host. Albert the Great (see ALBERTUS Maenvs), distinguishing between a natural and a spiritual body, held that “the glorious body ” of Christ was present in the host “ in the fashion of the spiritual body.’’ This, however, combined with the subintration theory (see TRAN- SUBSTANTIATION, II., § 4), rendered uncertain not only the spatiality but also the actuality of the body of Christ in the host. Bonaventura (q.v.) and Thomas Aquinas accordingly sought to prove ‘‘ the dimensive quantity of Christ’s body ” in the host, and to unite their teaching with the theory later taught by William of Occam (q.v.) as ‘‘ definitive existence,” namely, ‘‘ whenever anything is in place so that the whole is in the whole and in any part whatsoever.”’ The theory of Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas, however, was self-contradictory in that the portion present in the host was conceived as at once quantitative and non-quantitative. Occam resolved this realistic doctrine of space and quantity critically. To him quantity was something substantial involving “‘ cireumscribed existence.” ‘‘ Definitive existence ”’ (ut sup.) pertains only to nonquantitative things. The body of Christ in the host must, therefore, be conceived as non-quantitative, thus returning to the original position of scholasticism, except that the theory of subintration was replaced by a sort of condensation hypothesis, whereby, through divine omnipotence, a substance might be reduced to the mathematical non-extensibility of a point. But Occam proceeded still further,. dialectically postulating, at least, the possibility of the ‘‘ repletive existence ” (and thus of the
ubiquity) of the body of Christ. He accordingly taught, (1) the actual “‘ repletive existence” of God; (2) the local presence of the body of Christ in heaven; (3) the non-quantitative, definitive presence in many places of the body of Christ in the host; and (4) the possibility of the ubiquity of this body in the universe.
On this dialectic straining of the doctrine of the ubiquity of the body of Christ Luther based his doctrine. Luther’s original eucharistic theory was based entirely on opposition to the Roman Catholic
opus operatum. The essential part of
2. Luther’s the Eucharist was held to be the word, Doctrine. faith being the right disposition. Luther affirmed his belief in the real
presence and transubstantiation in 1519, but within a year he had replaced the latter by the teaching of the consubstantiation (of Occam), postulating, without any attempt at explanation, the substantial coexistence of the bread and the body of Christ in the Eucharist. When, however, Johann Carlstadt and Zwingli denied the real presence, Luther proceeded further than Occam; and in Wider die himmlischen Propheten von den Bildern und Sakramenten, in reply to Carlstadt, he set forth the initial statement of the synecdochical theory of the real presence, and the first intimations of the doctrine of ubiquity. Luther maintained that the “ this” of the words of institution implied the presence of the body already in the unbroken bread. When Christ says, ‘‘ This is my body,” he takes the “‘ whole ” (bread and body) “‘ for the part ”’ (body); this is the synecdoche of Luther, later modified by Melanchthon. Luther introduced his teaching on ubiquity in his Sermon vom Sakrament des Leibes (Wittenberg, 1526), and developed it in his polemics against Zwingli and Cicolampadius. Dass diese Worte (das ist mein Leib) noch feststehen (1527), and Bekenntnis vom Abendmahl (1528). Maintaining the real presence as an immutable article of faith established by the Scriptures, Luther sought with equal zeal to defend the doctrine of the true reality of the body as well as to dispel all gross notions. He teaches that the body of Christ is exceptional and supernatural, different from ordinary human flesh and blood; that his flesh is born of the spirit, of a spiritual nature, and fit for spiritual food; and that the attributes of magnitude and extension do not apply to his body. Two deductions were then drawn: all things being present and permeable to Christ, he can enter and pass through them, being as energy without matter (as proved by the sealed tomb and the closed door); and the entire body of Christ may be in the smallest atom, though not circumscribed by it. This mode of “ definitive existence’ explains, however, only how it is possible for a corporeal being to be present in material substances without changing itself or them. For an answer to the further problem, how the body of Christ can be present simultaneously in heaven and in the host in countless celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, recourse becomes necessary to the omnipotence of God, and Luther returns to the doctrine of the presence in an indefinite number of localities according to his will (Arno) taught by scholasticism. He continually emphasizes the ne-
Ubiquity
cessity of the belief that with God all things are possible, and that, therefore, the heavenly body of Christ is miraculously present in the host. Such is wrought by the creative word and the command of God. Although satisfied that “ definitive existence” and presence in as many places as Christ willed to be were sufficient to faith in view of the omnipotence of God, he brought still higher arguments to bear against his opponents, developing the one into “ repletive existence,’ and the other into omnipresence. This was done by the symbolic interpretation of the ‘‘ right hand of God ” and by the logical consequences of the Communicatio idiomatum. Definitive existence and multipresence pertain, through divine omnipotence, also to angels and demons. The body of Christ, however, possesses a far higher supernatural character, especially as he was at once God and man. Luther then affirmed that ‘‘ the right hand of God ” everywhere followed the divine omnipotence, and he deduced that Christ’s body was at the same time at the right hand of God, and in the Eucharist by his syllogism: The body of Christ is at the right hand of God; the right hand of God is everywhere; therefore the body of Christ is in the bread. The same conclusion he reaches also by his Christology, as is fully set forth in his larger Bekenntnis. Accordingly, the two natures of Christ in one person demand the participation of the exalted humanity of Christ in the omnipresence of God. Luther now sought to complete his demonstration of ubiquity by developing the communicatio idiomatum from the premise of personal union. That the real presence in the host naturally follows repletive existence is selfevident, but proved toomuch; for it imperiled the unique sacramental presence, making it superfluous. To avert this Luther asserted that the sacramental, distinct from the ubiquitous, presence was such only by the word of God, whereby he binds himself to the bread for the reception of the communicant. This was a recourse to a particular act of the divine will or a retreat to a multiple presence subject to Christ’s will. Luther’s doctrine of ubiquity remains important only for Christology. There are, then, according to Luther, three demonstrable ways in which the humanity of Christ may anywhere be present: ‘ circumscriptive or local existence,’ as it was on earth; ‘ definitive existence,” as it was during the resurrection through the sealed tombstone, and afterward through the closed door, and as it is also in the host; and “ repletive existence,’ as the humanity is, in virtue of its personal union with God and exaltation to his right hand, everywhere and nowhere, also in the communion substances, yet in itself inapprehensible and inactive (wirkungslos). Luther did not restrict the body of Christ or the omnipotence of God to these three modes of being, but merely emphasized the ways human thought can and must establish the doctrine in accordance with faith and the Bible. Though transcending reason, if not contrary to it, yet here is primarily a matter of faith in the miracles of God in nature and grace.
Zwingli, on the grounds of humanistic and rationalistic criticism, denied ubiquity and the real presence, and opposed the communicatio idiomatum