THE EARLY EUCHARISTie THEOLOGY

OF

by Frank H. Meadows

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Sanctae Theologiae Magister

Department of Divinity, McGill University, Montreal. April 1965

PREFACE

Five years after Luther fixed his theses to the church door in , the was dealt a heav:v blow in the development of the controversy over the . The controversy opened up a. deep split in the Protestant ranks, dividing Lutherans and Zwinglians not only confessionally, but politically as well. When the Protestants were in greatest need of unity, both at the bargaining table and on the battlefield, in confrontation with the Catholic Emperor Charles V, their inability to agree on the Eucharist kept them divided and weakened. In terms of armed forces they were stronger; in terms of bargaining, they were in a position to demand concessions from the emperor who needed their support to fight the Turks. In every case, the lack of unity caused by the Eucharistie controversy reduced these advantages to nothing. Charles V did not hesitate to exploit the division amongst Protestants to the ext.ent that the potential of the Reformation, inherent in its early growth, was at best only partially realized. The theological :i.mplications of the controversy however, were of no less importance. Theologically, the Protestants remained divided although Zwingli and Luther were able to reach agreement on every other doctrinal position at Marburg in 1529. In a sense, this made Eucharistie theology the test case for the Reformation. Justification by faith, which has been regarded as a sort of slogan representine; the heart and essence of Reformation theology, did not in fact turn out to be the crucial issue. Evidently, one 1 s be efs concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist ~ere of greater importance than beliefs concerning justification. Bath Zw lans and Lutherans professed belief in justification by faith, but this was not sufficient grounds for Luther; he would not share in the Eucbarist with Zwinglians until they professed to share his beliefs in the manner of Christ's presence there. Indeed, their differences over this matter hardly allowed Luther to regard Zwinglians as fellow Christians.

As the controversy developed through the 1520's, the gulf that separated Protestants became wider and deeper. Beginning in 1528, a third factor in the controversy began to emerge. Under the

-ii- leadership of Martin Bucer, the leading theologian of , a small number of people b an to express their desire for a settlement of the controversy. The movement grew in strength and numbers, gathering support from both Lutheran and Zwinglian partisans who saw the extent of the damage being done. In 1536, Bucer and his party saw ir efforts rewarded with the signing of the proclaiming doctrinal unity between the Lutherans and the Zwinglians of Upper . Although the Concord did not include the Swiss Zwinglians, it did bring the controversy to an end, and for the time being at least, both sides cea.sed open hostilities.

This thesis surveys the Eucharistie controversy with particul~r reference to the part tha.t Martin Bucer played in it. Our concern is to trace the development of Bucer 1 s Eucharistie theology as it was formed within this particular context. Bucer's Eucharistie theology bears the marks of the debate witb which it Has form.ed and the concord which it sought.

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the

-iii- University of Strasbourg for its kind assistance to him during the academie year 1962-63. A special word of appreciation is due to the Dean, François

Wendel and to M. Rudolphe Peter, chargé d 1 enseignment, who guided my research on Bucer in its initial stages. Finally, I would thank the women of the Town of Mount Royal United Church u.c.w. whose generous scholarship assistance made the year•s study in Strasbourg a financial possibility,

-iv- ABBREVIATIONS

LCC. The Library of Christian Classics, Edited by C. C. Richardson, S.C.M. Press, London, 1953 and continuing.

LW. , Works, Edited by J. Pelikan, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1955 and continuing.

MBDS. Martin Bucer's Deutsche Schriften, Edited by Robert Stupperich, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, GÜters1oh, 1960 and continuing.

RHPR. Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, Published by the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Strasbourg with the collaboration of the Faculty of Protestant Theology of Montpellier and of Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.

-v- TABLE OF CONTENTS

PliliF'ACE • • • • • • • • . • • . • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • i

ABB.FŒVIAT IONS. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • v

CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF REFORM IN STRASBOURG. 1 Bucer' s Early Years...... 1 His Meeting with Luther ••••••••••••••••••••• 3 He Le ave s the Monas tery.. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • 6 The Refcrm of Wissemburg •••••••••••••••••••• 9 He arrives in Strasbourg •••••••••••••••••••. 10 The Das ym selbs •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 14 The Importance of This Work ••••••••.•••••••• 34 The Influence of Luther... . • • • . • . . • • • • . • • • • . 3 7

CHAPTER II THE EARLY YEARS OF TF..E EUCHARISTie CONTROVERSY .•• 39 Luther 1 s Eucharistie Theology •••••••••.••••• 40 Influence of Humanism on Bucer' s Tbeology ••• 50 The Summary Seiner Predig ..•••.••••...•••••• 52 Carlstadt Visits Strasbourg .•••••••••••••••• 55 The Grund und Ursach •••••..••••••••••••••••• 57 Strasbourg 1 s Neutra1 Position •••••••••.••••• 62 The Apologia Martini Buceri .•••••••..••••••• 68 Bucer Quarrels with Bugenhagen and Luther ••• 69

CHAPTER III FIRST ATTEMPTS AT CONCORD .•.••...... • 76 Luther's Confession of 1528 ..•..••••..•.•••• 79 Bucer's Rep1y: Verg1eichung D. Lutbers •••••• 88 The Diet of , 1529 •••••••••••••••••••• 100 The •••••••••••••••••••••••• l05 The Diet of ••••••••••••.••••.•••••• 109 The Tetrapo1itana ...••••••••••.••••••••••••• ll2 The Conference at .•••••••.••••••••••• l22 The First Formula for Concord •••••••..•••••• l24 Bucer's Relations with Zwing11 •••..••.•••••. 125

-vi- TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page CHAPTER IV PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENT ••.••.••••.•••• l29 The Death of Zwingli •••••••••••••••••••••••• l29 The Policies of Charles V ••••••.•••••••••••• 133 The Conference at Schweinfurt ••••••••••••••• l35 The Strasbourg •••.••••••••••••••••.••• 149 Bucer' s Confession for the Augsburg Theologians ••. l53 The Bericht ••• zU Manster ••••••.•...••••••••• l58 The Cassel Conference ••••••••••.•••••••••••• l60 The First Swiss Confession •••••••••.•••••••• l67 The Conference at Wittenberg ••••.••••••••••• l68 Articles of the Wittenberg Concord •••••••.•. 170 Attempts at Ratificatton •••••••••••••••••••• 172

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION •.••.•••.••••••••••••••.••••• 175

NOTES ••••••••.••••••.•..•••••••..••••••••••• 197

BIBLIOGRAPHY •••••.•..••.••..•••••••••••••••• 219

-vii- CHAPTER I

THE BEGTIJNINGS OF REFORM IN STRASBOURG

I Bucer 1 s Early Years

On November 11, 1491, while Luther was still a 1 child and Calvin as yet unborn, Martin Bucer was born in Sélestat, a small city to the south of Strasbourg, the ancient capital of . While Sélestat today is only one of a number of small villages in the region devoted to the production of wine, in those times it was a city of some considerable importance. Two features of its life were in the main responsible for this importance. In the first place, an intense religious enthusiasm was evident from the large number of convents and monasteries, all of which were crowded so that the number of monks and nuns was disproportionately large compared with the size of the lay citizenry. The second important feature of the city 1 s life was its high regard for learning, a development due largely to a circle of humanists led by Jacob Wimpheling and the ramous in which they taught. Tradition says that Bucer as a youngster attended this school and sat under the noted Alsatian humanist Jerome Gebwiler, from whom he received not only religious enthusiasm, and a love for learning, but also a conviction that the Church of the day was in need of reform.

When Bucer was ten years old, his parents moved to Strasbourg, but he was left with his grandfather in Sélestat, allowing him to continue his studies there. As the grandfather became older however, he found it increasingly difficult to earn enough to support the two of them. Bucer then was faced with the problem of how to get an education for which neither he nor his grandfather could afford to pay. The only solution which seemed sensible was that he should become a monk. It must be admitted that this decision on

Bucer 1 s part was motivated more by his love of learning than by his religious enthusiasm. Relying upon the assurances of sorne of the monks with whom he spoke that within the order he would find ample opportunity to study the 1 new learn1ng 1 , he entered the Dominican monastery in Sélestat in 1506 at the age of fifteen. His novitiate was a succession of terrifying experiences. Bucer soon realized the error of his decision, and yet he remained to take his final vows, convinced by the Dominicans that not to do so would lead to eternal damnation.

-2- It was at this time that Bucer ca..me into 2 contact with the writings of St. . The Latin classics which he had hoped to study were denied him, in spite of the promises which had been made. For ten years Bucer studied St. Thomas, very much against his will. In fact this knowledge of scholastic theology was to be of great assistance to him in the many debates, colloquies and diets at which he was to play a leading rôle. At the end of these ten years in Sélestat, Bucer managed to obtain a transfer to the monastery in . This was a definite improvement in his situation for it permitted him to study at the university a1though he still lived under monastic discipline. It was at Heidelberg that he first learned Greek, John Brenz being his instructor. In the works of Plato and other classical Greek authors he found as much delight as he did in the Latin classics to which he had been able to return. For the time being he was a11owed to pursue the studies of his choice although it was evident to the Prior that Bucer favoured life in the university far more than in the monastery.

This imbalance of devotion became critical in 1518 when Bucer met Martin Luther. Luther had come to Heidelberg to defend his actions before his fellow .

-3- Bucer was present. Not only was he convinced of the truth of the ninety-five theses, but he was completely won over by Luther as a person. Writing to a friend he described Luther's nwonderful courtesy in rebuttal, incomparable forbearance in listening, and erudite sagacity in the interpretation of Paul, so different from the method of Duns Scotus, so that at one time with brief, at another with learned answers, drawn from all parts of the divine Scriptures, he easily i.nspired 3 admiration in every heart.n Before Luther left Heidelberg, Bucer arranged an interview with him, which served not only to cement the friendship of the two men, but also to the widening of the gulf between Bucer and his fellow Dominicans. As soon as he was able to, he obtained copies of Luther's writings, read them with great delight and admiration, and sought to have them published in Heidelberg and Sélestat. When he wrote his first letter to Luther, in the year 1520, it was to express his profound admiration for Luther's work and to report on his attempts to circulate these writings amongst his friends in Upper Germany and Alsace. With the exception of the Bible, Bucer said, no writings were more sacred 4 to him than those of Luther. Indeed we shall see to what an extent these early writings of Luther influenced the formation of Bucer1 s theology. Although the two men

-4- were to differ bitterly in the controversy over the

Lord's Supper, Bucer 1 s position in this strife was as much grounded on Luther 1 s early work as was the position of Luther himself.

In spite of his activities on Luther1 s behalf Bucer still managed to avold open conflict with the rest of his Order, and his education continued. In 1519 two degrees were awarded to him, Bachelor of Theology and Master of Students. In the same year he was ordained a priest. Shortly afterwards he made a brief journey to where he met for the first time Wolfgang Capite who was later to be his closest friand and associate in the work at Strasbourg. On his return from Basel, Bucer took a step which was to prove decisive in the deteriorating relations with his Order. Openly, he championed the cause of Reuchlin in his controversy with Hochstratten. Reuchlin was a noted German humanist devoted to the study of Hebrew language and literature. He became a principle in a bitter controversy that raged over whether or not Jewish books should be seized and burned. The movement to do so was begun by John Pfefferkorn under the stimulus of Dominicans. A mandate from the Emperor Maximilian gave authority in the matter to the Archbishop of who

-5- solicited opinions as to what action should be taken. Among the many people he approached were Reuchlin and Hochstratten, the Dominican inquisitor to the diocese of . In all the opinions received, Reuchlin's stood alone against the burning of Jewish books. Under the leadership of Hochstratten, the Dominicans persecuted Reuchlin for six years charging him with having defied the authority of the Church. Bucer's siding with Reuchlin in the matter was ample proof that his sympathies were with the 'New Learning' and not with 5 the monastery.

Thereafter, life in the monastery for Bucer became increasingly difficult as Hochstratten used avery means at his disposal to have Bucer punished. When the situation became intolerable, Bucer left the monastery and sought refuge with his friends.

Rather than remain a fugitive all his life Bucer decided to seek absolution from his monastic vows. His first plan was to approach the at the coming , but when Aleander, a good friend of Hochstratten, was chosen as the legate another plan had to be adopted. In February 1521 a messenger left for Rome to seek on Bucer's behalf a commission from the Curia for a German bishop to investigate the matter.

-6- While awaiting the return of the messenger Bucer accepted the hospitality of and was active in the attempt to prevent Luther from going to Worms for fear of his life. For the time being his own safety was in jeopardy as well as Luther's, but the messenger soon returned bearing a commission instructing the Bishop of Speyer to investigate Bucer's charge that the monks had used undue influence in having him join the Order while he was still a youth. The investigation was undertaken by the suffragan bishop Anthony

Engelbrecht and in April of 1521 a. favourable decision was handed down. Bucer was legally released from his monastic vows, was made a member of the secular clergy, and granted the right to hold any clerical position.

Upon being released from his vows Bucer took employment as the court chaplain to Count Frederick of the Palatinate. To Bucer, the position seemed to offer much opportunity to advance the cause of reform. Frederick was personally friendly towards Luther and many members of the court shared in a high opinion of the Saxon reformer. However, Bucer's attempts to establish a group of faithful supporters of Luther was frustrated by the position held by the Count. As president of the imperial council of regency Frederick was bound to enforce the Edict of Worms, and Bucer's efforts were neither successful nor appreciated. His frustration led him to approach Ulrich von Hutten, asking him to speak on his behalf to Franz von Sickingen with the hope that Bucer would be given a parish. His request was granted; the parish of was given into his charge, and too, permission to take a year's leave of absence for study in Wittenberg if he so wished.

In Landstuhl, Bucer took another step further away from Rome by getting married. His bride, Elizabeth Silbereisen, had had experiences strikingly similar to his own. She had been forced to become a nun when only a child by seme relatives who were eager to rob her of an inheritance left by her rather. When Bucer convinced her that marriage would be a help and not a hindrance to a godly life she consented to become his wife. Soon after the wedding war broke out in the countryside around Landstuhl, in which Franz von Sickingen was to lese his life fighting the Elector of Treves. Bucer remained for a time in Landstuhl undertaking diplomatie missions on Sickingen's behalf. As the war dragged on and the fighting became more bitter and intense, the offer of a year's leave of absence was renewed which Bucer was pleased to accept.

-8- The road to Wittenberg led Bucer through the city of in Upper Germany. In Wissembourg, Heinrich Motherer of St. John's Church had begun the work of reform. He had accepted the teachings of Luther, had taken a wife, and had begun to preach the Gospel according to Luther•s interpretation of it. Motherer, however, was neither an eloquent nor persuasive preacher so that his opposition was beginning to overwhelm him. When Bucer arrived in Wissembourg, Motherer prevailed upon him to delay his journey to Wittenberg for six months to join with him in the work of reform. The result was an impressive demonstration of Bucer 1 s real talents, those of preaching, debating, and organizing. Every day he preached a sermon at St. John's and the number of those attending rapidly increased. Bucer's success at St. John's soon resulted in charges of heresy being made against him by the various monastic orders in Wissembourg but none of them were willing to accept the challenge of a public debate unless the authority of tradition was recognized. This was, of course, the whole point at issue, and the debates never took place. The Bishop of Speyer wrote to the city council demanding that the Edict of Worms be enforced, but the council replied that there was no heresy being preached at st. John's. Even the threat of, and finally the fact of,

-9- failed to halt the increasing enthusiasm for reform in Wissembourg.

Whether or not Bucer 1 s success in Wissembourg was to continue was decided not by the Church, but in fact by political events of the winter of 1522-23. The war that had caused Bucer to leave Landstuhl had resulted in the defeat of Franz von Sickingen. Without his protection, Wissembourg found itself in a dangerous position. Many cities of the Palatinate would have welcomed any excuse to launch an attack upon Wissembourg, and certainly such an excuse was provided by Bucer1 s presence there, and his preaching in open defiance of the Edict of Worms. For the safety of the city, the council requested Bucer to leave. Bucer recognized the dilemma in which the council found itself and he quickly agreed to its request. Early in May of 1523, he and Motherer quietly left Wissembourg and within a few days arrived at the home of his parents in Strasbourg.

II The Beginnings of Reform in Strasbourg

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg was one of the most important cities in Europe. Her location on the gave rise to an influx of wealth that made her a city of key commercial

-10- i.mportance. Her government, seemingly a hopeless snarl of councils and committees with overlapping and competing interests, was admired as one of the most effective democratie systems ever devised by man. After a visit to the city, expressed his admiration in a letter written to Wimpheling in 1514. 11 At last I have seen a monarchy without tyranny, an aristocracy without factions, a democracy without tumult, wealth without luxury, prosperity without insolence. What greater happiness could be imagined than this harmony. Would that thou, Divine Plato, had chanced to live in auch a 6 republic l"

There had been men devoted to the reformation of the Church in Strasbourg before Bucer's arrival in 1523. The first of these men was John Geiler of Keyserberg. In 1489 he began to preach in the cathedral 7 against the abuses of the medieval church. He continued to preach in this vein until his death in 1510, with the result that the Bishop issued a mandate which forbade priests to wear lay clothes, to carry weapons, to keep concubines, or to visit taverns. The selling of indulgences provoked reactions in Strasbourg similar to those in Wittenberg. This practice was attacked by a Hans Wendenschimpf who was as a result put into prison. The people, however, objected so vigorously to this

-11- that he was soo.n released without havi.ng received any punishment whatsoever. Strasbourg was the home of the 8 and it was here that printed editions of Luther's works achieved their greatest popularity. The freedom with which these books circulated was in large measure due to the fact that the city censor was , who was himself a noted humanist.

In 1518, a worthy successor to Geiler was found in Matthew Zell. He came from Freiburg to be the people's priest in the cathedral. Even before he arrived in Strasbourg Zell was sympathetic to Luther but he refrained from preaching reform until 1521. Then, following the example of Luther, he began to preach on Romans, and in spite of the protests of the Bishop and the he continued to preach and to enjoy much popular support. When the use of the cathedral pulpit was denied him, his supporters built a wooden pulpit which was carried in every day for Zell 1 s use. The Bishop's appeal to the Strasbourg council to put Zell out of office was refused, as the council at this point feared the strength of Zell's popular following more than it did the Bishop 1 s threats. The council was further enabled to sanction its action by referring to the Ntlrnberg Mandate of March, 1523 which stated in part that until the calling of a German

-12- Council, only the holy gospel should be preached in Strasbourg, Mainz, Cologne, and . On this basis the council continued to refuse all demanda for Zell 1 s removal from his position in the cathedral. It also explains the fact that Bucer, who along with Capito arrived in the city two months later, was soon allowed to join Zell in preaching daily before large crowds in the cathedral.

It was certainly not the council's intention to support and protect every priest who was sympathetic to the teaching of Luther. In protecting Zell against the Bishop and the cathedral chapter, the Strasbourg council was at first more interested in avoiding what would have been an unpleaaant conflict with the citizens than it was concerned to begin a programme of reform in the church. Bucer came to Strasbourg simply to visit his parents. The fact that Zell was already there made it seem unlikely that he would be able to find employment in the city. His first inclination was to go to Zllrich to take part in the work there, and he wrote 9 a letter to Zwingli to that effect. A month later he wrote again, describing to Zwingli the work that he had done at Wissembourg, but neither of these letters were answered, with the result that Bucer decided to stay in Strasbourg and help in the reform there. Through the

-13- influence of sorne friends in the city, Bucer received permission from the council to preach for one hour a day on the Gospel of John. As with Zell, Bucerts sermons attracted a large popular following so that the council soon realized that its own position had only become more precarious vis-à-vis the Bishop and the surrounding states and cities. Bucer was therefore limited to teaching in Latin which he did to small numbers of students each day.

In August Bucer once again began to preach in German upon the invitation of Zell to share with him the cathedral pulpit. The council, feeling itself to be in 10 a stronger position, did nothing to hinder him, and in November, Bucer requested the council to grant him 11 citizenship of Strasbourg. To support his request, and also to defend himself against the demands of the Bishop that he should be expelled from the city as a heretic, Bucer published some small works. The first, Das ym selbs niemant sonder anderen leben soll, is of key importance in understanding the general theological position which was forming in his own mind, and we shall examine it in some detail. Together with this he published a Summary seiner Predig which described his 12 work at Wissembourg. As well, he published a

-14- Verantwortung in which he gave sorne details of his life, with particular emphasis upon the release that he had 13 obtained from his monastic vows. He included an account of his beliefs and teaching and also replied to more particular accusations that had been made against him.

The importance of the Das ym selbs is greater than its brevity would imply. Two points of importance become evident in the reading of it. The first is the extent to which Bucer was influenced by Luther in the formation of key theological principles which are touched upon in this book. As we shall see, there are close affinities between the Das ym selbs and many of Lutherts early writings, all of which, we can assume, 14 Bucer had carefully read. To read the polemic that was exchanged by these two men over the Lord's Supper easily leads to the conclusion that they were, theologically, poles apart. This conclusion is incorrect. The later Luther and the later Bucer have the common ancestry of the early Luther. Bucer was keenly aware of this fact as he insisted upon the necessity of agreement over the Lord•s Supper when they were already agreed upon all 15 ether points of doctrine. The second point on which we shall enlarge later is the relationship between this early work and Bucerts doctrine of the Eucharist, in

-15- spite of the fact that no reference is made in it to the Eucharist as such. The theme of the book is the ontological unity of the believer with Christ which is established through faith given by God and nourished by the Spirit, and the importance of this unity for the life of the Christian and the life of the Church. The ontological unity of Christ and the believer is a determinative concept in Bucer1 s doctrine of the Eucharist.

A brief preface precedes the work in which Bucer commends himself to his readers as one who, by the grace that has been accorded him and the vocation that he has received, wishes to strengthen them and help them to advance in Christian living, "to arrive at the state of perfection whicb is accessible to us here 16 below." He praises them for what they have already achieved, for the zeal with which they seek to know the

Word of God, and he reminds them that it is this Word that awakens faith. The zeal and seriousness with which they attend the Word makes it evident to Bucer that they are indeed born of God {John 8:47) and a true flock of Christ, for this is what determines whether or not a body of people is the true Church. nAs one cannot doubt that a city in which the word of the Emperor is listened to and his orders followed belongs to the

-16- Empire, in the same manner it cannet be doubted that the Kingdom of Christ and the true Church are there where the word of Christ is listened to with such joy 17 and observed with such zeal." He speaks to them to the end that they may progress in the faith and become perfect in love, living not for themselves but for their 18 neighbour, and by him for Christ and for the Father. The Church is created and sustained by God, not in vaccuo, but as a visible, tangible reality, for they are the true Church, members of it by virtue of the faith awakened in them by the active life-giving Word. Bucer intends to explain to them the Church1 s vocation, what their response should be if they have true faith, and how this faith will enable them to respond. Through faith they are united with Christ, made children of God, and with Christ become joint heirs of the Kingdom. Being filled with the love of God, they overflow with love towards their fellows, and thus the purpose and plan of creation is fulfilled.

The body of the work is divided into two sections. The main theme of each section is summed up in each of the two long phrases which make up the title: (1) That no one should live for himself but for others and, (2) how man, an individual man, can achieve this. In the first section, the principle conceived is

-17- clearly and simply expressed. God created us according to his will to the end that we might love and serve him. Obviously, service cannot be rendered to God directly. "Creatures cannot serve their Creator in divine things ••• just as the pot cannot help the potter to understand 19 or to speak." We cannot help God to be himself. But since out of his goodness he created us and requires of us that we serve him, we must perform that service on behalf of God's creatures. ttEach creature, using the things out of which God made him, and the things that 20 God gave to him, will serve all others for their good." This is done to the praise of God, the end or purpose of ali things. That this should be so is shown in creation itself. The sky stretches itself out to cover all men, and its light is shed for all God's creatures.

Once the general principle of the first section has been announced, Bucer continues by commenting in greater detail on how God in the intricacy of creation intends that this service which is required is in fact a prime factor in the proper functioning of creation, if we can use such terms. Everything that God created he created to fulfil a particular function for the good of the whole creation, giving to all things the necessary faculties to perform the particular task for which they were intended. In this scheme of things 1

-18- man holda the pre-eminent position among all creatures. He was given "understanding, competence, and power over all other creatures of the land, the sea, and the air so that he might use them for that which is good and 21 uaeful." Thus man serves God in using those things of God's creation in just the way that God intends they should be used. "For one is honourable and pious vis-à- vis each thing in using it for the purpose for which it was made. For that reason one wears clothes, one eats bread, one drinks wine, one takes a wife so that she may bear children, one makes the wise man a member of 22 the council, etc."

For man to be able to serve creation to the fullest extent possible, he must be able to offer service to one who is similar to himself. God said that it was not good that man should be alone. To fill this gap, in effect to broaden man's opportunity to serve, God created woman. The meaning that Bucer gives to this fact of God's creation of woman is expressed in a definition of that which is good which he proposes at this point. "In Scripture, that which procures only the 23 good of others is called good." That is why Jesus says that God alone is good, for God alone makes all things good. As created by God, man is both material and spiritual, and the service that he accomplishes must

-19- show that it is sensitive to both kinds of needs created by this dual nature. In creating woman, God gave to man the possibility of rendering this service in its totality, in a unity of material and spiritual, for in creating woman God also created the family, the archtypal human community. Within the family, God brought into being that feeling or sentiment which relates to the fact of one flesh and one blood, which draws husband and wife together, parents and children, for the building up of the family as a whole. It is therefore this edifying love, born of true community of body and spirit that provides from a human point of view the rationale of service.

This is the order of creation in its ideal state. The next step in Bucer's presentation is to show that this ideal order has been thrown into confusion, if not utterly destroyed. Man's sin is the cause of this. In sin, man has turned his back upon God, so to speak, and has attempted to reject his condition of creatureliness. Man seeks above all else his own welfare, and in so doing, paradoxically does as much wrong to himself as he does to his fellow creature in that the separation of man from God is ipso facto the separation of man from what is good. "God has, by himself, made that which is good and wishes to make each

-20- 24 one blessed." But if men turn themselves away from Hlm, God has no choice, in a very real sense, "but to do what seems to be evil to them and to condernn them, for just as all things work together for good for those who love God, also it is quite certain that all things work together for the corruption of those who do not 25 love him." God punishes sin by rejecting man whose disobedience is responsible for the separation of creature from Creator.

One of the most tangible and obvious resulta of this unhappy reprobation is for man a considerable lessening of his control and competence over creation. "In losing our knowledge of God we have also lost our knowledge of His creatures. As we no longer care to live for God 1 s service it is only right that His creatures 26 should no longer be available for our service." That is why the world seems no longer to respond to man, who through his sin has been given up to eternal damnation. In this connection, one appreciates more fully St.

Paul 1 s words in Romans VII, that the whole creation has been waiting for the revelation of the sons of God who will re-establish the primal ideal order of creation. When each one shall be devoting himself to the welfare and benefit of his fellow creatures, God will again extend his grace to his creatures. "From all this it

-21- clearly is the result that no one is to live for himself alone; for God created all things not that they might live for themselves, but that they might serve the good of others and be the manifestation of the divine 27 goodness to which all things must bear testimony."

Before going on to the practical consideration of how man may achieve the ability to devote himself to others, Bucer applies the principle he has established to a consideration of how it bears upon matters of a more particular nature. All that he has said up to this point is in perfect conformity with the teachings of Jesus, especially in his formulation of the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12). nwe have been so made that by nature we desire that everyone does good to us and not ill. If our lives are to be ordered in accordance with what is said in the law and the prophets we must act in this way 28 towards our neighbour and do only good for everyone." Following St. Paul (Gal. 5:14): ttEveryone knows how each man loves himself. Therefore, if a man wishes to follow Christ, that is to say, to be drawn away from error and re-established in terms of the proper order, he must transfer to his neighbour that love which, by reason of his poisoned nature, he had concentrated upon himself.

For Love which is the fulfilL~ent of the law does not seek its own interest (I Cor. 13:7) but always the

-22- advantage and the well-being of ethers, be they enemies 29 or friends."

A further consideration arising from the thesis is that by means of it, certain vocations can be seen to be more worthy of honour and esteem than ethers. The service that is offered for the well-being of the community is of a higher arder than that whose object is the well-being of a single individuel. The service that promotes a spiritual welfare is of greater merit than one which procures simply material benefits. It follows according to this scheme that the highest service to which a man can devote himself is that of the apostle who, following the supreme example of Jesus, seeks to save sinners even should this require that he himself be accursed. This highest of all vocations is given to those "who consecrate themselves to the service of God the Father and of our Saviour Christ in the work of leading sinners to salvation ••• with such a zeal that he is ready to risk and sacrifice not only his life and his wealth, but also his spiritual life and his blessedness for this unique goal of leading ethers by the preaching of the Word of God to the knowledge of God and to blessedness, and in so doing praising and 30 glorifying eternally the divine goodness."

-23- Such a conception of the ministerial vocation must be accepted by those who wish to minister to a reformed congregation. From the vantage point of an ex-monk, Bucer concludes that it is the absence of this complete devotion in service and self-sacrifice to the spiritual betterment of the people under their charge that accounts for the deplorable condition of the Roman clergy.

This same spirit of selfless devotion which Bucer insists must characterize the clergy must also motivate the men who wish to govern the state. The service of the state is only a very slightly lower calling than the service of the Church. "The estate which is closest to that of the clergy is that of the civil authority, even though its function is not to occupy itself with spiritual things ••• but consists in enforcing respect for the external order and peace, to protect the good, and by means of its sanctions, to 31 prevent the wicked from doing evil to the good.n Reference is made to Romans XIII to show that those who serve the state receive their authority from God to the same extent as do the servants of the Church. Both kinds of service, though they differ in particulars, lead to the same end; the fellow creature is served and benefited to the glory of God. Certainly, Church and

.... 24- state are closely bound together, complementing one another for the total well-being of man. "For where God is not known, and obedience to him not demanded above all things, peace is no peace, law is no law, and everything that should be useful is in fact worth 32 nothing.n It follows then, that he who would devote his life to service in the context of civil authority must do so only in response to a divine vocation. Bucer draws attention to the Biblical example of the Israelites who were commanded that in the choosing of one to rule over them they were "not to give themselves over to the rule of a foreign king who was not their brother, but to accept the one that the Lord would choose from 33 amongst them."

Bucer concludes the first part of the Das ym selbs with a brief commendation of a number of other vocations that serve the community well even though they are less excellent than the vocation to the clergy and the civil authority. Two of these 'lesser• vocations are farming and stock-raising together with the various particular manual trades that they entail. All parents should be aware of the excellence of these lesser vocations to guide them in educating their children. One of the chief goals of education is to help the child choose the profession in which he can be

-25- of greatest service to the community. This must be the determinative factor for a Christian in making this choice. "The Christian is able to forego that which is owing to him, is ready to help others with his work, will not accept something for nothing, and observes the words of Jesus: It is more blessed to give than to 34 receive."

These words conclude the first part of the work. Bucer has maintained that the divine ordering of creation will only be regained when man ceases to live for himself and instead devotes himself body and spirit to the service of others. This conclusion is based on the premise, generally accepted, that the disordering of creation is to be attributed to man's egocentricity. The second part of the work asks the question: How can man overcome this destructive egocentricity? - and answers it by positing a way of life that is fundamentally Christocentric. It is of key importance to note that Bucer does not suggest an individualistic or pietistic approach to achieving this way of life. Rather, it is to be worked out in the context of the Christian community, for whether or not a man has received the gift of faith can only be determined by examining the quality of his life within the community. "If it (faith) does not produce this denying of self,

-26- this gift of putting one's self at the service of all men, if it does not lead to no longer thinking of one's self, but of living entirely for one 1 s neighbour to the 35 glory of God, it is not a true faith."

Always conscious of the fact that our appropriation of the gift of faith is at best imperfect, Bucer maintains that a Christocentric way of life can only be established by means of it. "The condition (required for men to live this way of life) is that they have faith in Christ, which is to say a complete confidence that by his blood He has poured out the Father 1 s grace upon them and has reconciled them with Him 1 from which it follows that He has made them able, by His Spirit, once again to become useful to all creatures and understanding of their needs, according to that primitive order that we have described. The extent to which this happens depends in ever·y man upon the extent of his 36 receptivity." Faith unites in two ways. It unites the Christian to Christ through confidence in the gracious efficacy of His blood; it also, by the bonds of service unites the Christian to his fellow creatures, particularly to his fellow Christians because of the 37 particular opportunities afforded for spiritual service. The Church reflects beth of these aspects of faith. Within its community the degree of a man's receptivity

-27- to faith can be extended and broadened; too, it provides the most suitable circumstances by which man can undertake the life of service urged upon him by his faith.

Faith, which Bucer conceives of as the uniting factor in the community of believers, has at its heart the quality of love. The dual uniting effect of faith described above is itself a reflection of the two aspects of this love. Bucer defines faith in terms of confidence. It would be more precise to say that he defines faith as a confident response on the part of man to the love of God proclaimed in the Gospel. The faith that is engendered by love elicits from man a response characterized by love. Initially, if temporal analogies are legitimate in this instance, the loving response has Christ as its abject, but the most satisfactory expression of this love can only be achieved when our

~ellow creatures too become its object. Christ has made this a real possibility, if not to say an imperative. Because of this dual nature of love, faith and works are closely bound together in Bucer's theology. Salvation by Christ enable s us to put as ide our egocentricity and restores within us the desire to live for the benefit of others to the glory of God. It is not that a man's works are effectual unto

-28- salvation but rather that they are a reliable indication of his faith.

This, Bucer says, is perfectly in accord with the example of Christ. "For example, he says to the blind (Matt. 9:28): Do you believe that I can do this for you? And they replied: Yes Lord. Then He says to them: Let it be done to you according to your 38 faith." For Christ to be able to do his works it was necessary that those to whom he ministered have faith in him. If we have faith, as did the blind, Christ can minister unto us in taking away our blindness that keeps us from the life of service for our fellows that God originally intended us to live. And in a passage that reminds us that this originally was a sermon Bucer pleads for man to recognize and appropriate this faith. "Oh, that we might believe that the Eternal Father, in establishing Christ our Lord as head of his Church

(Col. 1:18)~ intended to reconcile everyone and to gather them together through him (Eph. 1:10), to bring every being to his true end which is to live for the glory of God and for the service of all creatures, particularly man. Yes, could we but believe that this re-establishment, this reconciliation, and this reorganization by Christ is extended even to us. Then, without a doubt, we would receive the spirit of true

-29- love, which seeks not its own interest, but in all things is concerned with the well-being of the neighbour. For his word must abide forever: Let it be done to you 39 according to your faith." To the extent that we have confidence in God's love for us, shown to us in Christ, are we able in some sense to imitate Christ. He makes this a possibility, and our faith in hlm impels us to fulfill this possibility in actuality.

The fatherhood of God provides another line of thought through which the relationship of faith to works can be further explored. Through Christ, by the grace of the Father, we are members of his kingdom "so that we are now, not only liberated, but also true children of God. For if we believe in his name, he has 40 given us the power to be children of God." It is clear, Bucer says, that we become children of God by faith, and by faith we receive ths Spirit which cries out from within "Abbat Fathe.rt" When we invoke the name of God by this Spirit, calling him Father, it follows that by virtue of this we must recognize all men as brothers, and put ourselves at their service. But it is faith alone that can show us the nature of this relationship, that is, the completely unmerited love which God has for us. The teaching of Christ is that we can respond in faith to God 1 s love by the joyful service that we

-30- render to all who share the fatherhood of God (Matt. 25:3lff). There is no greater compulsion to serve than the recognition and acceptance of God•s love. Bucer was to express this much more forcibly in his commentary on the Psalms. "For those who with a good heart love God there is no torment greater than not 41 being able to praise him and serve him." Through faith, man becomes a child of God and therefore a brother to his fellow humans. To be a true brother means to serve; thus the link is established between faith and works.

The relationship of faith and works is treated in a third and final aspect which makes plain not only the formative influence of Luther upon Bucer, but also that in this particular instance, the disciple has taken the matter a step further than the master. God has lovingly poured out his grace upon us with such abundance, and has looked after our every need, so that man no longer need be morbidly preoccupied with the question of his own salvation. This is the message that Luther had to offer everyone who had agonized over the question of salvation as he had done. As Bucer expresses it, man no longer needs 1'to be anxious on his own behalf, for it is quite certain that the Eternal God, his Father, takes care of him and looks after him 42 as his own dear child." The extra step that Bucer

-31- takes, i. e. the point of Lutheran doctrine concerning salvation which Bucer uses in a manner that Luther himself did not adopt, consista in applying this benefit to the needs of the community of believers, especially their spiritual needs. In that man through faith can rest assured concerning his own salvation he is now free to devote his entire concern to the needs of his fellows, "especially those who share his faith, L e., who are Christian. For these are not only receptive to material benefits as are all the ethers, but also to 43 spiritual benefits as well." The Christian community of believers is, in a sense, prefigured in the cornmunity of the family to which Bucer has already referred. God ordained the existence of the family so that man could serve his fellows with beth material and spiritual benefits. The unity of the congregation, created, nourished, and sustained in the proclamation and faithful reception of the Word of God is proportionately analogous to the intimate relationships existing within the family, man and wife, parents and children. The same analogical relationship relates the opportunities available in the congregation whereby one can live for the spiritual benefit of ethers to the opportunities made available to us by God for which purpose he created the fa~ily. In the Church, one can

-32- imitate in a limited way, the self-sacrifice of Christ, and offer himself for the material and spiritual welfare of his fellows in the faith.

A further point is made to the effect that the unity of Christian brothers within the congregation is as much the creation of God as are the relationships within the family. For support, Bucer appeals to Ephesians 2:8-10. "It is by grace, Paul says, that you are saved, through faith. And this does not come from you; it is the gift of God. You are His work, having been created by Jesus Christ for good works, for which God has prepared us in advance, so that we might indeed 44 do them." The only works which God requires of us are those by which we offer service to our fellows. "I love mercy, and not sacrifices." (Hosea 6:6). To live in this way within the congregation is as natural to the man of faith, the new creation in Jesus Christ, as flying is to birds and swimming is to fish. The true believer who has received his faith from God, who lives in the community created and sustained by the Word of God can do nothing ether than live for the benefit of ethers united to him by the same faith, without any thought for his own benefit. This is indeed the purpose of God in both the old creation and the new. In all of this, the creative power of the Word of God is primary. It creates the faith; it creates the love which is characteristic of the unity of true Christian brotherhood; it creates the environment within which these things work. If the cornrnunity of believers is not founded upon the Word of God, then there is no true faith, no true unity or brotherhood. This latter is the lamentable state of affairs which Bucer feels constitutes the sickness of the Church as he knows i t, "bec a use the Word of God has 45 not been faithfully and zealously preached." The Word of God in all its life-giving potency can change this, for it will give us faith and love which will in their turn produce those good works leading us to a life divine and blessed both now and in the age to come.

We have dealt at length with this short treatise by Bucer (more correctly a sermon) for a variety of reasons. It is a very early work and it is, when compared to the bulk of Bucer' s wri tings, reasonably systematic in its presentation. The combination of these two factors has the fortunate result of allowing us to examine sorne of the key points in Bucer's theological thought at a point where he has yet to have the opportunity of working them out in practical terms. This indeed accords with Bucer's purpose in this

-34- publication. It is an exposition of what his theology tells him is wrong with the Church as presently constituted, and of the steps that he would take for the betterment of the Church presuming that those of his readers with the proper authority will let him proceed.

We find the great themes of Reformation theology expressed, not in vaccuo, but in terms that are eminently practical, the cure of souls, the relief of the needy, the proper governing of the state, the life of the Christian community. The keynote of this theology is the primacy of the Word of God. Through the agency of Jesus Christ the Word expressed its creative potency in the first order of creation. The new creation is similarly founded on the creative power of the Word of God, acting once again through the mediatorship of Jesus Christ. By means of the Word, man is endowed with faith, the only quality that will allow him to participate in the new order. Bucer sees 46 faith in a double aspect. Faith's first work in him is to create the necessary confidence in the saving 47 power of Christ 1 s atoning blood. It then acts so as to cause the believer to desire to reciprocate in obedience to the will of God. The way is opened for this activity within the Christian community, itself a

.... 35- creation of God's Word. The members of the community find themselves drawn together in a unity nothing short of ontological. It is a unity that invites the expression of faith-obedience in terms of love, for the unity is a creation of love, Christ 1 s sacrificing love for them.

While no explicit reference to the Eucharist is made by Bucer in this work, these same major themes will find expression in his Eucharistie theology as he works it out in the context of the controversy soon to come. To whatever degree his Eucharistie theology may be seen to fluctuate, it will always be grounded upon the unity of true Christian believer, with Christ as he gives himself under the symbols of bread and wine, with one another as they share the same loaf and eup. The unity that is thus nourished and manifested is the creation of the Word of God, declared by Christ and recorded in Roly Scripture.

A further benefit is to be realized from the study of Bucer 1 s Das ym selbs. One is immediately made aware of the tremendous debt which Bucer's theology 48 owes to that of Luther. To give one or two specifie instances, much of what Bucer says in the Das ym selbs can be found in sorne detail already expounded in

-36- Luther's treatise On Christian Liberty. Luther's purpose is to show "that we must endeavour to be for our neighbour what Christ has been for us. He speaks of the duty of each Christian to be concerned for the soul of his neighbour who of all God's creatures, is 1 49 the only one receptive to services of this nature."

This particular theme of Luther 1 s is to undergo a rouch

1 larger expansion in one of Bucer s major works 1 Von der wahren Seelsorge {1538), which can claim the distinction of being the first Reformation treatise on theology. Strohl suggests that the principle of the priesthood of all believers proclaimed by Luther as the right of Christiane is seized upon by Bucer and 50 made into a duty.

It is also evident that Bucer appreciated Luther's teaching on the relationship of the Christian to the law of the state. Luther 1 s opinion was that the Christian prince or magistrate should find within his Christian conscience those principles by which the state would be properly governed. Bucer, following this suggestion of Luther's, calls upon the Magistrates of Strasbourg to create a Christian city, enacting legislation modelled upon the divine law amply revealed in the Scriptures. This he did, Strohl notes, not without being aware that such a demand could appear

-37- 51 somewhat Utopian.

These two examples make no pretense at exhausting the degree of Luther•s influence on Bucer. It was a major influence, beginning in 1518 at their first meeting in Heidelberg and showing itself throughout the whole of Bucer 1 s life and thought. Of particular interest to us will be the extent to which

Bucer's Eucharistie theology is informed by Luther 1 s early, pre-controversial writings on the Eucharist. To this subject we shall now turn our attention.

-38- CHAPTER II

THE EARLY YEARS OF THE EUCHARISTie CONTROVERSY

Robert H. Fischer in an excellent essay on the theological issues at stake in the Luther-Zwingli controversy over the Eucharist devotes his opening paragraph to a catalogue of 'annoyances' and stumbling 1 blocks which characterize Luther's Eucharistie theology. The list is a long one. Luther bases his position upon Scripture, al1 the while seeming to ignore John 6. He condemns all but a literal interpretation of the words of institution, resorting at the same time to synecdoche. He professes a simple belief, one would say a blinding of the reason, but produces volumes of theologizing over these same words of Christ with a characteristic, unyielding dogmatism. He will not allow that philosophy has any place in the matter while many of his own concepts, notably that of ubiquity, are philosophical constructs. These few points are by way of highlighting the complete list of 'annoyances' to which Fischer refers. Indeed, the list is of such staggering proportions that Lutherans themselves ask, ncan we 2 still hold Luther's doctrine of the Lord•s Supper?" Fischer acknowledges that these most controversial elements of Luther 1 s Eucharistie theology are most prominent in his mature works on the subject from the 3 years 1527 and 1528. These years represent a time when the controversy was at its height, and the positions being taken by both sides were extrema. Too frequently, studies of Luther's Eucharistie theology take no account of what we might label his 'immature period 1 , the years before the controversy broke upon the Reformation. It was in fact during this period of 1 immaturityt that 4 Luther 1 s influence upon Bucer was greatest. Bucer's Eucharistie theology never lost all signs and evidences of this early Lutheran influence; the progress of the controversy may have seen this influence more or less obscured, but never was it coropletely obliterated.

Our purpose then, is to trace the main elements in Luther's Eucharistie theology, for the most part discoverable in his earlier writings on the subject in the course of which their influence upon Bucer will becoroe evident.

In hia essay on Luther 1 s Eucharistie doctrine, Barth suggests that among the various coroponents by which man and God are related in the Sacrament the 5 primacy of the Word of God is paramount. It is given

-40- by God as a promise, a testament; it is received by man in faith as a benefit, fulfilled and realized in him. But the Sacrament is nothing without the primary, creative Word of God. "A Christian must know that there is no reliquary on earth more holy than the Word of God, for the sacrament itself is created and blessed and 6 hallowed through God 1 s Ward." For Luther Barth says: "The sacrament is what it is only through the Word of 7 God and not otherwise." The point is fundamental to Luther's teaching. Whatever else men may think of the sacrament, the necessity of faith to receive, the nature of Christ 1 s presence in it, whether communion should be in one kind or two, all of these things fall away to insignificance if it is not understood that the

Sacrament is God's work and not ours, God 1 s sacrifice and not man 1 s. "If we desire to observe properly and to understand it, then we must surrender everything that the eyes behold and that the senses suggest ••• until we first grasp and thoroughly ponder the \vords of Christ, by which he performed and instituted the mass and commanded us to perform it. For therein lies the whole mass, its nature, work, profit, and benefit. 8 Wi tho ut the words nothing is der! ved from the mass. tt

Man profanes the mass and renders it of null effect if he imagines that in this Sacrament the

-41- initiative belongs to him. "If a man is to deal with God and receive anything from him, it must happen in this manner, not that man begins and lays the first stone, but that God alone - without any entreaty or desire of man ~ must first come and give him a promise. This word of God is the beginning, the foundation, the rock, upon which afterward all works, words, and 9 thoughts of man must build." God has never dealt otherwise with man, by which it becomes evident that we cannot deal otherwise with God. If we think that in the Sacrament we perform a good work, a sacrifice pleasing to God, then we have yet to learn that "He does not desire works, nor has he need of them ••• But God has need of this: that we consider him faithful in his 10 prom1se• s ••• lt

The above quotation leads us on to the second major concept in Luther's Eucharistie theology, the necessity of faith on the part of the recipient. "Promise and faith are correlative, so that where there has been no promise, there cannot be faith; and where 11 faith has not been, there is no promise." This, Barth says, is the second pillar of Luther's Eucharistie theo1ogy, faith created and sustained by the Word of 12 God. The faith necessary to receive the sacrament is

-42- no less the creation and gift of God than is the sacrament itself. "See to it that thou dost not make for thyself a false faith when thou merely believest that Christ is there given thee and is thine. If thy faith is only a human idea which thou hast set up, remain away from this sacrament. For the faith must be a faith which God creates; thou must know and feel that God has wrought such a faith in thee that thou therefore holdest it to be indubitably true that this sign is given to thea and thou art therefore become so brave that thou thinkest to thyself thou art willlng to die for it. And if thou art still wavering and doubting, then kneel down and pray God that he impart to thee grace to escape from thyself and to come to the true, 13 created faith."

The part that faith has to play in the receiving of the sacrament has certain corollaries. It does, for example, indicate the proper value that is to be accorded the signs, the elements of bread and wine in the sacrament. The signs certainly are subordinate to the Word, without which they would be nothing. From another angle, but to as great a degree, the signs are subordinate to the faith of the recipient. What is important is the spiritual feeding on Christ rather than the physical eating of his body. It is better to

·43- believe that this bread is his body than in fact to eat it. nBe carefult You need to be concerned with the spiritual body of Christ rather than with the natural; and faith in the spiritual is more needed than faith in the natural. For the natural without the 14 spiri tual is of no use in this sacrament. rt In spots Luther puts the matter even more bluntly. nThe sacrament in itself without faith does nothing; yea God himself, who does all things, does not and cannot do good to any man unless he believes in him firmly. Still less can the sacrament do anything ••• not the sacraments but faith at the sacraments makes alive and 15 justifies."

A second corollary concerna the part that faith has to play in the right fitness and preparation of the believer who cornes to receive Communion. The one who is the least fit according to the estimate of man is in fact the one who is best fit to receive the sacrament: ''a timid and faint-hearted conscience must rely, against its own thoughts, upon the testament of Christ and be daring in firm faith despite personal 16 unworthiness and the greatness of the blessing." The faith that makes one fit to receive Communion is not faith in one's own merit or personal worthiness but a whole-hearted faith that the promise of Christ is

-44- true: "every man ought to fortify his conscience against all qualms and scruples, so that he may lay hold on the promise of Christ with unwavering faith, and take the greatest care to approach the sacrament not trusting in confession, prayer and preparation, but rather, despairing of all these, with firm confidence in Christ who gives the promise ••• the word of promise must reign alone here in pure faith; such faith is the 17 one and only sufficient preparation."

The third main element in Luther's Eucharistie theology has already been alluded to above. Much of what Luther has to say about the signs or the elements of the sacrament is by way of contrasting their importance with the Word to which they are added to make the sacrament. On more than one occasion he quotes St. Augustine: "Why do you prepare stomach and teeth? Only believe,and you have already partaken of the 18 sacrament." Indeed, the impression is given that Luther looks upon the signs as almost incidental if not unimportant. Such is the creative power of God's Word that it can make any sign a sacrament. "Therefore, food and drink on which God has set his Word and sign are equally spiritual food everywhere, however external and material they may be. And if God tells me to hold up a straw, then there would be spiritual food and drink in

-45- the straw - not because of the nature of the straw, but 19 because of the Word and sign of God 1 s truth." It would be a mistake on our part to draw from this the conclusion that Luther in fact had a mystical, spiritualistic concept of the sacrament, that he was 20 really a Zwinglian without knowing it. In the first place, by virtue of the words of promise, the institution of the sacrament, Christ is really and truly present in, with, and under the elements. This is the premise of the whole of Luther's Eucharistie theology. It was not a blade of straw over which Christ said: ttThis is my body; this is my blood." The signa which God in fact adds to his Word to make a sacrament are bread and wine. When the priest raises the host he is saying to us: "this is the seal and sign of the testament in which Christ assigned to us the forgiveness 21 of sins and eternal life."

The importance of bread and wine as the seal and sign of the testament leads us i.mmediately to the fourth and final major element in this brief treatment. Luther finds that these signs are in themselves a wonderful demonstration of the fruit of the sacrament, of the efficacy and benefit which flow from it. It is a sacrament of unity, and here one perceives with startling clarity the debt owed by Bucer to what Luther

-46- was already teaching. Of particular interest in this regard is Luther's sermon of 1519: The Blessed Sacrament 22 of the Roly and True Body of Christ, And the Brotherhoods. Why is the sacrament made with bread and wine? "Christ appointed these two forms of bread and wine, rather than any other, as a further indication of the very union and fellowship which is in this sacrament. For there is no more intimate, deep and indivisible union than the union of food with him who is fed ••• and becomes one substance 23 with the person who is fed."

One paragraph, which I shall take the liberty of citing in full, sums up the thoughts Luther is expressing in this sermon to greater effect than would a collection of shorter citations. "To signify this fellm-Jship, God has appointed such signs of this sacrament as in every way serve this purpose and by their very form stimulate and motivate us to this fellowship. For just as the bread is made out of many grains ground and mixed together, and out of the bodies of many grains there cornes the body of one bread, in which each grain loses its form and body and takes upon itself the common body of the bread; and just as the drops of wine, in losing their own form, become the body of one common wine and drink - so it is and should be with us, if we use this sacrament properly. Christ

-47- with all saints, by his love, takes upon himself our form (Phil. 2:7), fights with us against sin, death, and all evil. This enkindles in us such love that we take on his form, rely upon his righteousness, life and blessedness. And through the interchange of his blessings and our misfortunes, we become one loaf, one bread, one body, one drink, and have all things in common. 0 this is a great sacr~~ent, says St. Paul, that Christ and the church are one flesh and bene. Again through this same love, we are to be changed and to make the infirmities of all other Christians our own; we are to take upon ourselves their form and other necessity, and all the good that is within our power we are to make theirs, that they may profit from it. That is real fellowship, and that is the true significance of this sacrament. In this we are changed into one another and are made into a communi ty by love. Wi tho ut 24 love there can be no such change." We might well conjecture that Bucer had a copy of this at his elbow as he composed the Das ym selbs.

It might seem strange that up until now little mention has been made of the 'real presence' in Luther's Eucharistie theology. The omission is intentional for the reason that the 'real presence' is not one of a series of main points to be listed

-48- alongside others. It is rather the ground upon which all these main points stand. Barth is saying much the same thing 1..rhen he de scribes 1 t as the unmoving axis of 25 Luther' s Eucharistie theology. Our intention is not to s st that the real presence is unimportant; the primacy of God's Word, the rôle of faith, the nature of the signs, the benefit derived from communion, all are understood rightly only in relation to the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. What is quite evidently of lesser importance is the manner of Christ's presence. His real purpose is not to prove the doctrine of incorrect nor to uphold a doctrine of consubstantiation in its place. Rather, he sets himself against those who insist on the former as a necessary article of faith. "My one concern at present is to remove all scruples of conscience, so that no one may fear being called a heretic if he believes that real bread and real wine are present on the , and that everyone may feel at liberty to ponder, hold, and believe either one view or the other without endangering 26 his salvation. As long as the real presence of Christ in the sacrament is upheld, the manner of his presence really has no interest for Luther. On occasion he even seems to use language that is appropriate only to a doctrine of transubstantiation. "He takes the bread

-49- and by the word which he speaks, this is ••• the bread 27 changes into his body." Even at the height of the controversy, in 1528, he writes that the manner of 28 Christ's presence is not worth fighting over.

To complete this description of ideas and concepts that influenced the formation of Bucer's Eucharistie theology, a brief reference must be made to humanism. The new learning was Bucer's first love; Erasmus and Colet were his early reading. Although Erasmus wrote nothing that concerned itself directly with the Eucharist, some of his writings do contain brief references to the sacrament. He gives the impression that he would prefer to understand the Eucharistie elements simply as symbols of spiritual gifts given to the soul. But he does not wish to contradict the teaching of the Church. Of greater interest to us is his emphasis on the theme of unity and brotherhood in relation to the Eucharist, the same theme which we find emphasized in Bucer's early writings. "Does not that sacred eup, which we receive and consecrate with thanksgiving for a memorial of the death of Christ, show our fellowship, that we have been alike redeemed by the blood of Christ? Again, that holy bread, which we divide among ourselves by the example and command of Christ, shows the covenant and

-50- the close fellowship which we possess as having been initiated by the same Sacrements of Christ. The bread is so made up of countless grains that they cannat be distinguished. The body so consists of different members that they are all inseparably united. Since then we are all sharers of the same bread, we declare that, however many we may be in number, yet in the consent of our minds we are one bread and one body ••• Therefore, as often as you come together to eat this bread and to drink from this eup, you are concerned with no affair of the belly, but you represent in a mystic rite the death of the Lord Jesus, that His abiding memory may keep you in your service until He 29 Himself cornes again to judge the world."

John Colet, who in contrast to Erasmus did write more specifically on the sacrements emphasizes to an even greater degree this same key concept of unity and brotherhood which is both created, nourished and manifested in the Eucharist. "The Sacrement of Communion of flesh and blood in ordinary food, which is the Sacrament of union and unity, is the feeding and nourishment in common in Christ in supreme unity of those who have been confirmed and filled with the 30 Spirit." The source of this unity is the real presence of Christ in the sacrement. "In the blessed eup and

-51- the broken bread is the health-giving communication of the real body and blood of Jesus Christ itself, which is received by many in order that they may be one in Him. Many are united in the participation of One and by being re-made for this very purpose, that we may be 31 conformed to Christ and may be in Him."

Such texts demonstrate the nature of the influences that were at work upon Bucer as his own theology was beginning to take shape. The extent of this influence upon his early Eucharistie theology, i.e. before the controversy actually broke out, cannot be 32 stated with the same degree of precision and amplitude. Aside from the very marked influence which has already been noted in the Das ym selbs, there are one or two interesting and enlightening references to the Eucharist in the Summary, a work which does antedate Carlstadt 1 s 33 arrival in Strasbourg. The nature of the situation in Wissembourg was such that we are not surprised by Bucer's warmly anti-Roman polemic. Most of his references to the Eucharist are against the Roman practice of celebrating the mass for a fee, and of celebrating it in private. 11 Beware my dearest brothers; save your money. Help those who are yours or other poor people, as God has commanded, and beware of Mass and Vigil which are sold for money, and which therefore

-52- are undoubtedly of the Anti-Christ, of the devil, and 34 blasphemous.n From what Bucer has to say about the sin of celebrating private masses, e.g. masses for the dead we can conclude two things: 1) the mass is not a sacrifice, a good work to be offered to God, 2) it must not be celebrated otherwise than as Christ instituted 35 it, in the fellowship. For the time being, he does not go on to draw out the implications of the second point.

Certainly there can be no doubt that Bucer very strongly believes in a real presence of Christ, though like Luther he does not bother much about the manner of that presence. "You do know, don 1 t you, as I have told you several times about the maas, that as i t is described for us by 1'1atthew, Mark, Luke and Paul, it means nothing ether than the reception on our part of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ ••• Through the death of' the testator who has given us the 36 testament, the testament becomes valid. Our Lord said: 'Take, eat, this is my body,' (l1att. 26:26), and of the eup he said: •Drink ye all of it, it is my blood of the New Testament, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.' (Matt. 26:27-28). From this it is clear that we 37 are to receive his body and blood as did his apostles." The words of Christ make the sacrament what it is. Our

Lord 1 s identification of himself with the bread and wine

-53- in the giving of the testament is our assurance that he is indeed present in the sacrament. We are also to understand in Bucer 1 s opinion that Christ's giving us his body and blood is a pledge of the validity of the 38 once and for all sacrifice that he made on the cross.

As was the case for Luther, so for Bucer the Word of God guarantees not only the presence of Christ in the sacrament, but it &lso creates and nourishes our faith. Through the sacrament the faith-confidence in the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice is strengthened with the resultant growth of faith-obedience as Bucer 39 carefully points out in the Das ym selbs. ttHe gave us to partake of his body, his true body in the bread, in order to awaken in us and strengthen in us this faith. By this bodily and appetizing sign of faith, faith that this body has been sacrificed to God the Father, we may believe that in eternity, we have been cleansed of all sin, and this faith is strengthened in us by the eating of Christ 1 s body in the bread. It follows from this that whether we are priest or lay, we are to partake of this bread, the true body of Christ, so that our faith 40 in him may become strengthened thereby •••

The final evidence providing the connecting line with Luther's Eucharistie theology is the mannar

-54- in which Bucer says we must approach the sacrament. One can only realize the manifold benefits of communion in the body and blood of Christ if with faith he confesses his need to be cleansed from his sins. To partake worthily, one must come in utter helplessness, seeking as it were a medicine that will cure this illness of sin. With such a faith as this the Christian will no longer despair, for in the sacrament he will actually receive Christ's body. How rouch better a sign this sacrament is than if for example he had given us a ring, a stamp, or a letter with which to seal his 41 promise.

Bucer did not at first enter into the Eucharistie controversy with any degree of enthusiasm. Indeed, the disagreement between Luther and Carlstadt had been going on for two years before Bucer becarne involved. As it was, the problem was brought to Bucer 1 s doorstep when Carlstadt arrived in Strasbourg in October 42 of 1524. His desire not to become involved in all likelihood explains the scarcity of references to the Eucharist in his writings up to that point. The presence of Carlstadt in Strasbourg made further isolationism impossible. He was an unwelcome guest, not only because of his argument with Luther but also because he offered leadership to those elements of Luther's reply was longer in coming. Before it arrived, Bucer published his next major work, the 46 Grund und Ursach. The purpose of the work was ostensibly to inform public opinion about the content of a petition that the preachers had presented to the city council a few months earlier. The petition had suggested necessary reforming measures to be taken in the city 1 s churches, but the council had taken no action on it. The Grund und Ursach had the desired effect of bringing the pressure of public opinion to bear upon the council so that the measures were put into affect one by one over the next few years. Of greater interest to us are the few references to the Eucharist which Bucer included in the work.

Quite evidently he is now sympathetic to a symbolical, spiritual interpretation of the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. What is more important still is that he claims support for such a position in Luther's own writings. This is to say that as far as Bucer is concerned there has been no swing or shift in his position; he has always believed in the real presence of Christ and he still does. Now his theology has crystallized to some extent concerning the manner of Christ's presence. A spiritual interpretation is perfectly consistent with what Luther has already

-57- radical reform that were lying more or less dormant in Strasbourg. With.in a month. of his arrival he published a treatise on Christ•s words of institution which stirred up enough dissension amongst the people ta cause the city fath.ers ta expel him from Strasbourg. With Carlstadt gone the theologiens of the city under Bucer's leadership began an investigation of the theology in question, hoping ta arrive at a consensus. A questionnaire was sent ta the theologiens of all the leading reformed cities in Switzerland and Germany. A special letter was sent to Luther requesting his advice and opinion, in which they confessed their confusion and also their suspicions that the symbolical view of 43 the sacrament was not altogether false.

The suspicions were probably strengthened by the visit of Hinne Rode who brought with him to 44 Strasbourg a copy of the treatise by Honius. This particular work argued in favour of the symbolical view of the Eucharist with a sane and unimpassioned approach in contrast to that of Carlstadt. The replies from the questionnaire did little to help settle the matter. They served only to show that there was nothing even approaching a consensus about the Eucharist. Zwingli's reply attempted to prove by scripture that the 'is' in 45 'This is my body' must be interpreted as 'signifies'.

-56- written. "Dr. Martin Luther himself always directed our gaze towards the spirit and to faith, as he has in 47 fact written.n The reference is to Luther's sermon on 48 the New Testament of 1520. "For that reason, Carlstadt should have saved his jealous, careless and spiteful 49 words.n There is no doubt whom Bucer blames for the unhappy quarrel already two years old.

Bucer 1 s desire is that we should understand the sacramental elements as figures and signa of Christ•s death without attempting to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of how he is present. But this is in fact the very thing that Carlstadt has pre cipi tated: "1 t would be u..11derstandable to me if this bread and eup were figures and siens of Christ's sacrifice made once and for all. The question is not whether this bread and eup are figures and signs of Christ's death but rather, whether they are the physical body and physical blood of Christ or simply bread and 50 wine." To what extent these two alternatives in fact represent the positions taken by Luther and the symbolists is debatable. In any event, these are the battle lines as Bucer sees them, and Bucer makes an attempt to have a foot in both camps. "We hear that Christ says that flesh is of no avail; why then do you 51 concern yourself with flesh? If you interpret it and

-58- proclaim it as a figure and a sign, and then in true faith accept that he has given his body and blood once and for all on the cross for your redemption, then you would really partake of the true body and blood of Christ, and thus have eternal life ••• Whatever is physical will not do you any good. But if you receive it spiritually, then eternal life is given to you ••• Accept that in St. Paul, God's Spirit speaks, and accept that the bread and eup are genuine and true. What is important for you is that in your eating and drinking you do so in commemoration of the Lord, so that through your faith you do partake of his body and blood 52 spiritually."

In a brief summary, Bucer outlines the concepts that are now determinative in his theology of the Eucharist: "hold fast to the Word of the Lord, and do not force it in any way. Remember that flesh is of no value, and that everything bodily here points to the spiritual. Our Lord comrnands you to est and drink, and that is bodily, but he does so only for this reason; that you may be his, that you may know that he has given his body and blood for you, that you may remember this, believe it, be thankful for it, and obedient 53 to it." From the passages that have been cited we can see that Bucer has made an attempt to remain loyal to

-59- the main concepts of the Eucharistie theology which he first formed largely under Luther 1 s influence. He suggests that he is being true to Luther as he knew him. The Word of God is still primary and faith remains undiminished in importance, if not in fact augmented. Other passages which I have not cited, particularly one concerned with I Corinthians 11, treat of the unity of the body with its Lord and the brotherhood of its 54 members as benefits and results of the sacrament. But he will not come out and say unequivocally that the bread and wine in the sacrament are the body and blood of Christ. He will say everything else but that, and to that extent he has pulled himse1f away from Luther. Leaving aside the question of whether Zwingli was a

1 Zwing1ian 1 we must say that at this point Bucer was more on Zwingli 1 s side than on Luther 1 s. Circumstances and Bucer's rash na1vety were to drive them even further apart within the next few years, without there being any significant change in Bucer's Eucharistie 55 theology. The situation was also to be aggravated by the development of Luther's dogmatic spirit so that he did in fact become very rigid on points of be1ief which formerly he had 1eft to the decision of the individua1 56 conscience.

Shortly after the publication of Grund und

-60- Ursach in December of 1524 a reply was received from Luther. He regrettably made no attempt to answer their theological questions with theology. He admitted how strongly he himself had been tempted to forsake his belief in the reality of Christ's presence in the bread 57 and wine. Apart from that, the letter admonished the Strasbourg theologians to hold fast to their old belief, i.e. in the real presence, and to read his new book soon to appear, in which the matter would be dealt with more fully. The promised new book, Against the 58 Heavenly Prophets was published a month later in January of 1525. It served only to confirm Bucer and his fellow theologians in their distaste for Luther's violent dogmatism. In it Luther bitterly attacked Carlstadt, dealing with Carlstadt's accusations against Luther point by point. But the personal animosity which Luther had built up against his former colleague seemed to need a wider target on which to vent itself so that all who held the symbolist view of the Eucharist found themselves tarred with the same brush that Luther had used on Carlstadt. The attack drew a rebuttal from Zwingli in his De Vera et Falsa Religions of March 1525. The publication of this work marked the beginning of the bitterest period of the whole controversy.

-61- Bucer still hesitated to become openly involved in the controversy in spite of the ample provocation that Luther had supplied in Against the Heavenly Prophets. Although he was in favour of the theological position expressed by the symbolical interpretation of the Eucharist, and was dismayed by the tactics that Luther was employing in the controversy, his respect for and of Luther as a master held him back from a more active participation. In response to an inquiry from the city fathers i.n February of 1525 who wished to know which doctrine of the Eucharist was believed and taught by the Strasbourg clergy Bucer replied that they neither taught "that the true sacrament is not in the bread and wine, nor do 59 they teach Carlstadtianism." The peculiar negative context of the reply indicates just how earnest their desire was to remain as neutral as possible under the circumstances.

In the Fall of 1525 Bucer persuaded his colleagues in Strasbourg to make another attempt to approach Luther, to present him with their views, and to seek his endorsement of them. We must conclude from that that Bucer still considered his own theology of the Eucharist to be essentially Lutheran especially in view of what Luther himself had taught concerning the

-62- sacrament between 1519 and 1523. Gregory Cassel, one of the younger Strasbourg theologians and formerly a student at Wittenberg, was chosen to make the journey to Luther to lay the matter before him. An interesting document relating to this mission has recently been published by Jean Rott of the Bibliotheque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, himself a specialist in 60 Bucer studies. The document is a letter by Bucer written to Cassel in which the young emissary is given his instructions. Bucer tells him what to say and how to say it. As Rott points out, the letter is a masterpiece of diplomacy, and at the same time refreshingly unambiguous. Bucer begins by assuring Luther that all the Strasbourg theologians look upon him with great respect and admiration. He is forced to admit however that they also have a high regard for 61 Zwingli and Oecolampadius. For this reason the present controversy is a constant source of dismay to the Strasbourg theologians. A proposal for concord then follows along lines that Bucer was to use in the majority of his attempts at conciliation.

The first point suggested by Bucer is that all the reformera are agreed on the fundamental principle of justification by faith. Why then suffer the pain of disagreement and disunity on an issue which is quite

-63- secondary and in no way indispensable to salvation, viz. whether or not Christ is physically present in the Eucharistie elements. Each one could believe as he pleased on this particular detail and refrain from criticizing his brethren who do not share his beliefs at this point. Bucer assures Luther that Zwingli and Oecolampadius would be happy to agree to such an arrangement and that they all hope that Luther will be of the same opinion. Then, in a reasonably deferential manner, Bucer explains for Luther the arguments in faveur of a symbolical interpretation, relying heavily on John 6:63 - "The flesh availeth nothing" in its application to the bodily or spiritual presence of 62 Christ in the sacrament. Obviously there has been no further development of Bucer's Eucharistie theology at this point as i t agrees in detail with the lines laid dawn in Grund und Ursach. The rest of the letter is taken up with a defense of Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and the Strasbourg theologia.ns against charges made by Luther and his followers. Bucer apologizes for a degree of harshness recently displayed in the writings of the two former theologians, explaining that they are experiencing grave difficulties in their own cities on account of troublesome Anabaptists. They are worthy more of Luther•s sympathy than his bitterness. To

-64- defend Strasbourg against the charge of heresy and barbarity in its teaching and practice Bucer asserts that the city's theologians have up until now maintained a neutral position, not wiehing to take sides in the 63 unhappy quarrel. In Strasbourg, they have felt it best not to spend time haggling over secondary points of detail. The letter closes with Bucer1 s assurances of friendship and devotion for his old master Luther.

The tone of Luther's reply was as harsh as

Bucer 1 s letter was mellow. Rott offers the opinion that Luther's anger was as likely as not caused by 64 Bucer's professed neutral position. The very thing that Bucer hoped would provide an avenue to concord provoked the very opposite reaction in Luther. Anyone who was not wholeheartedly and openly for him was in his opinion against him. Regardless of what the Strasbourg theologians considered their own position to be, Luther very evidently at this moment regarded them as enemies. "He could not keep silent ••• for the interpretation of 1 is 1 as equivalent to 'signifies' was an error. Either he or Zwingli must be Satan's servant, and it was his duty to prove it was Zwingli. From this stand he could not yield though it cost him their 65 friendship." We should note at this point that Bucer in his approach to Luther through this letter made two

-65- serious errors of judgment both in connection with his suggestion that the whole argument was over a detail of secondary importance, i.e. that it really wasn't worth bothering over the question of how Christ was present in the Eucharist, bodily and substantially, or spiritually and to faith. The first error was the purely psychological one of imagining that Luther would agree that this whole vexing affair was a lot of fuss about nothing.

The second and more critical error was in the very assumption that the nature of Christ 1 s presence was only a secondary matter. It was a fundamental issue; what was really at stake were the Christological 66 questions involved. Zwingli's reasoning, based upon the localized presence of Christ's glorified body in heaven, suggests that with reference to Chalcedon Zwingli may be going beyond the distinct qualities of the two natures to their actual separation. In terms of the same formula, Luther's Christology cornes very close to going beyond a union of the two natures to their fusion. nin Alexandrian fashion Luther's christology (sic) emphasizes the intimate union and sharing of divinity and humanity. These two natures are and remain distinct; one is not confused with or converted into the other. But when the incarnation

-66- takes place, the natures are so intimately united that one can say: in Christ God is man and man is God; where the one nature of Christ is found, there is the other 67 also." On a more practical level, the question is whether or not one can be saved by a disembodied Christ: "for Zwingli it is Christ•s spirit or divinity alone which imparts life-giving gifts; this power must not be ascribed to his flesh or humanity, or tied to anything 68 else material. 11 At the moment Bucer had given his tentative approval to the Zwinglian theology, but there is room for serious doubt that at the time he realized to the full the profound implications that this had for his whole theological system. Nor was he to come to the realization for some t.ime. All of his attempts at concord up to the year 1536 wcre based upon the supposition that the Luther-Zwingli controversy was simply a matter of words.

The tone and content of Luther•s letter made any further pretense at neutrality untenable. For the next three years, 1525 to 1528, Bucer engaged in progressively more active polemic against the Lutheran position. His attacks were aimed less at Luther himself and more at Luther's followers. Two Lutherans, John Brenz and Johann Bugenhagen were particularly the opponents of Bucer during this period. Late in 1525

-67- Oecolampadius published an anti-Lutheran work in the form of a treatise on the words: This is my body. The author dedicated his work to the reformed Christians in Swabia with the hopes that they might be won away from Luther and give their support to Zwingli. Bucer involved himself by writing to personal friends in Swabia commending the book to them, urging them to accept the views it expressed, or if they could not do so, at least to refrain from publishing any rebuttals. One of the friands was John Brenz who very much resented Bucer's attempt to curtail his active support of Luther. Brenz wrote angry letters to Bucer blaming the Zwinglians for having started the controversy and accusing the Strasbourg theologians of false doctrine 69 in their teaching on the Supper.

The matter might have gone no further between the two men had not Brenz allowed the letters to be published before he rather tardily sent them to Bucer. As it turned out, Bucer saw the letters in print before they reached him from the hand of Brenz. Feeling that the personal nature of his correspondance had been vio1ated he wrote a hasty and intemporate rep1y which he published in March, 1526 under the title Apologia Martini Buceri. It was the most bitter polemic that Bucer contributed to the controversy, to the extent

-68- that it was a serious drawback to his later attempts at concord. In it he reviewed what he had written to Brenz in his personal latter, reproached Brenz for having made the affair public in so discourteous a manner, and presented the by now familiar arguments in faveur of a symbolical interpretation. His desire, he concluded, was not for discord, but for peace. Yet as Eells comments: nhe erred in desiring not so much peace, as a Zwinglian victory by peaceful means. While disclaiming the name of partisan, he laid himself open 70 to the charge of hypocrisy by acting like one."

The quarrel with Bugenhagen came about in quite a different manner. Sorne time before the controversy over the Eucharist developed Bugenhagen engaged Bucer 1 s services as a translater to make available in German his Latin commentary on the Psalms. Once the agreement had been made, Bugenhagen sent Bucer a letter offering him the right to translate as freely as he wished, not to feel bound to a word by word 71 translation of the original text. The translating went very slowly, to the extent that the controversy had broken out and sides had been taken before Bucer reached the Latin text on Psalm CXI. Bugenhagen had commented upon this psalm with reference to the Euchari8t, using a somewhat ambiguous phraseology.

-69- Bucer took advantage of the ambiguity to translate in such a way as to make it appear that Bugenhagen was 72 really a Zwinglian. The result was that Bugenhagen, an avowed Lutheran, "~Aras made to say s uch things as: 11 God does not wish to be adored in a physicul form, but ln spirit and in truth. Nowhere can we find that Christ while on earth wished to be adored as anything other than God 1 s annointed and our redeemer. It would please him all the less to be adored as God and creator in the 73 bread as many do." The translation was anti-Lutheran at least by implication up to this point, but Bucer was to become more explicit. Nowhere in the writings of St. Paul, he said, can we find the bread of the sacrament referred to by him as anything more than bread. Those who say that the physical body and blood of our Lord are in the elements are in fact falling on their knees and worshipping mere bread and wine. He concludes by ridiculing the ttcute little housestt in which the bread is kept, the ringing of bells during the Eucharist, all of which he feels sure is an 74 abomination in the sight of God. Not all of the passages were polemical to this extent. Bucer links up the central idea of the Das ym selbs with the celebration of the sacrament in as positive a way as he has ever done up until this point. ''Christ has given

-70- this ceremony ••• in which we are to remember that he gave his body and blood for our redemption which brings with it the fraternity of all who are united in this faith, with whom we are the one bread and body as we 75 participate in the one loaf." In this manner, Christians become predisposed to love everyone and to do good, for they recognize the vastness of God 1 s love 76 for them.

Bucer published the translation of

Bugenhagen's commentary against Zwingli 1 s advice. He felt that the letter of commission that he had received was full and sufficient authority for his actions. It was only after sorne months had passed that Bugenhagen was made aware of what Bucer had done to his book. Bugenhagen immediately composed a bitter personal attack upon Bucer whom he accused of having fouled and depraved his book and of using the influence of the name Bugenhagen to spread the vicious heresies of Zwinglians. The attack was published late in the Summer 77 of 1526. Incredible as it may seem, Bucer was under attack by Luther for almost the identical reasons. With Luther's approval, Herwagen the printer bad Bucer under contract to translate Luther 1 s Postils from

German into Latin. As had happened with Bugenhagen 1 s Psalter, Bucer had begun the work before the controversy

-71- involved him as a Zwinglian supporter. When he came to translate the last volume or Luther 1 s sermons he inserted his own teachings on the Eucharist instead or

Luther 1 s, although in this instance he did include an explanatory prerace. In the preface he extoll.ed

Luther 1 s skill as an exegete, which ract should not be hidden because of his errors in this one particular doctrine. Luther was understandably no less furious than was Bugenhagen and attacked Bucer's action by means of an open latter to Herwagen. "By his (Bucer 1 s) facility and apt fecundity he has correctly and happily enough translated my works better than others ••• However he has contaminated that gift or fecundity and intelligence, yea, lost it in that pestilent poison or the monstrous blasphemy or the sacramentarian 78 spirit ••• " Luther' s rage was undoubtedly j ustiried. Bucer had either nalvely or intentionally used the names of Luther and one or his closest colleagues to spread throughout France, Italy, and Switzerland the teachings of Luther 1 s avowed anemies.

In March or 1527 Bucer published a defence of his conduct both in Latin and German. The texts of the two documents are not identical, but the differences 79 are only minor. With particular reference to Bugenhagen's attack upon him, Bucer's defence is the

-72- letter that he received from Bugenhagen, in which he was offered a free hand to change and alter the text as 80 he wished. There is no doubt that Bucer was within the letter of the law at this point. Bugenhagen had offered him unparalleled freedom in the translation, and Bucer had used it in a way that Bugenhagen had not foreseen. But Bucer knew full well that the spirit of the law had been violated if not the letter, and he continued his defence on other grounds. He had been accused of teaching that true believers do not receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. This he denies. In the sacrament, he says, the true believer does by faith receive the body and blood once 81 and for all sacrificed on the cross. At this point in his defence he commenta that with difficulty he resisted the temptation to insert in his translations the fact that Scripture says nothing about the bread and wine 82 being changed into the body and blood of Christ. "We teach that wherever there are faithful ones gathered Christ is in their midst. He truly feeds them with his true body and blood for nourishment unto eternal life if they believe and consider that he has given his body and blood for them. So when they celebrate the communion they are to eat the bread and drink the eup in remembrance of the Lord, proclaiming his death.

-73- They are to have no doubts that to them, as he did to his disciples, he gives his body and blood to eternal redemption, and for the establishment of the new, 83 merciful and eternal covenant with God the Father."

But, he wenders in concluding, about those who teach that as the words of institution are repeated over the elements, Christ's body and blood go into the bread and wine, who assures them that this is so? Where do we find our Lord saying that such a thing takes place?

We should not bring this chapter to a conclusion without noting that it was during this period in which he was an active Zwinglian partisan, that Bucer wrote the first edition of his Gospel Commentaries. 84 They were studied and appreciated by Calvin himself, and enjoyed such a success that they ran to three editions in Bucer 1 s own lifetime. Courvoisier is probably right in his opinion that the Eucharistie theology which Bucer expresses in them is no different 85 from that expressed in the Grund und Ursach. There is one interesting passage in which Bucer gives us a deeper insight into what he understands by the 'real presence' of Christ in the sacrament. "In giving the bread, he says: Take, eat, this is my body given for you, i.e. just as I give you this bread to eat with your physical mouth, so I give my body to be eaten by

-74- your soul ••• Just as you eat with your mouth and take into your stomach this bread which you have received from me in order to maintain your life ••• so must you believe from the depths of your soul that my body is given for you so that your faith in God will be 86 nourished and strengthened."

We must agree with Eells that even in this act:tvely polemical period Bucer was not a thorough- 87 going Zwi~glian. While he referred to the elements as symbols, they were certainly not empty symbols. With them, the true believer received the true body and blood of Christ, by faith, for the nourishment and strengthening of his spirit. And yet his Lutheran opponents regarded him as a Zwinglian. Nothing that he could say or do would change their opinion of his partisanship. This fact proved to be an almost insurmountable frustration in his first attempts to bring an end to the controversy, to which we now turn our attention.

-75- CHAPTER III

FIRST ATTEMPTS AT CONCORD

The controversy over the Eucharist reached 1 a critical stage in the Spring of 1527. During the Spring Fair of that year both Zwingli and 2 Luther published lengthy works on the Eucharist. Both works were full and careful expositions of each respective author's Eucharistie theology. Qui te evidently, in spite of Bucer's assertion that the matter was of secondary importance, and his growing conviction that the whole affair was simply a matter of words, the two protagonists knew themselves to be involved in a quarrel that was rouch more profound and radical. Both Zwinglians and Lutherans shared certain fundamental principles, it is true. Both sides believed that we are saved only by faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Both claimed their authority to be Scripture. Both claimed the use of the identical hermeneutical principle, the interpretation of scripture by scripture, without reference to any external authority. nBeneath these similarities of principle, however, lay a deep divergence which showed itself in their respective conceptions of what faith is. This divergence in turn is related to basic differences over the person of Christ, the purpose of the sacrament, the interpretation of the spirit-and-flash contrast, the proper approach to the Scriptures, and the nature of divine revelation 3 and its relation to reason."

Faith, from Zwingli 1 s point of view, is that which looks away from created things and fixes its attention on what is spiritual and eternal. Faith cannet have anything material as an object. The suggestion that we should have the body of Christ as an object for faith is thus unacceptable to Zwingli. It is the divinity of Christ alone which is effective unto salvation. The term 1 spiritual body' is meaningless for Zwingli, or even self-contradictory; the two words are opposite in meaning; one cannot possibly describe the other. Luther agrees that faith is spiritual, but that it is so not because of its object, but because of its source and sustenance, God the Roly Spirit. For Luther, however, the real dichotomy is not that of spirit and body but rather that of spirit and flesh. That which is spirit is produced by the Spirit and directed towards the Spirit. Flesh, on the other hand, is that which we produce and direct towards ourselves, or the powers of darkness. God used earthly or material

-77- things to reveal himself to us, and so faith looks to these things, not as abjects, but as signs of his presence, which God has ordained for us. This is supremely true in the case of Jesus Christ where God and man are united in one persan. The only Christ we know is Jesus who was God in huroan flesh. Because God chose this way to reveal himself we cannot declare the humanity of God to be useless for our salvation. Wherever Christ is present, he is present according to 4 both his divine and human natures.

Zwingli's theology will not allow him to imagine that there is a bodily eating of Christ in the sacrament. The nature of the Zwinglian dichotomy is such that he can only interpret the sacrament as something which draws our faith away from the material and directs it heavenward, towards Christ who is seated at the right hand of Gad. In terms of the same dichotomy, Christ•s presence in the Eucharist can only be a spiritual presence. Zwingli would, at the same time deny that he has actually separated the two natures in his theology in a Nestorian way. He has simply attempted to do justice to the figurative language of the Bible. There are any number of examples to show this, such as the vine allegory in John 1,5. Because of the nature of Biblical language we cannat suppose that

-78- Christ meant anything more in the words of institution than that he is offering to true believers to partake of his saving divinity by faith. There is nothing absurd about faith when you understand what the real abject of faith is. God is light, not darkness, and he 5 does not intend that faith should be blind incredulity. 6 In the Confession of 1528 Luther deals extensively with all of these arguments advanced by Zwingli, and offers his refutation of them, one by one.

Luther's own systematization of Zwingl1 1 s theology shows that there are two main arguments to be refuted.

Bath are concerned with Zwingli 1 s spirit/body dualism. Zwingli had contended that because Christ had ascended, his body was now in heaven seated at the right hand of God. Luther attacks this idea in various ways. Jesus Christ, Luther says, is true God and true man; this is his essence and his nature. Wherever he is present, he is so according to bath his divinity and his humanity. "Our faith maintains that Christ is God and man, and the two natures are one persan, so that this persan may not be divided in two; therefore, he can surely show himself in a corporeal, circumscribed mannar at whatever place he will ••• if you could show me one place where God is and not the man, then the persan is already divided and I could at once say truthfully,

-79- 1 Here is God who is not man and has never become man. 1 But no God like that for met For it would follow from this that space and place had separated the two natures from one another and thus had divided the person ••• This would leave me a poor sort of Christ, if he were

present only at one single place 1 as a divine and human person, and if at all other places he had to be nothing more than a mere isolated God and a divine person without the humanity ••• They (humanity and divinity) simply will not let themselves be separated and divided 7 from each other."

Luther attacks the same point of Zwinglian theology from another side. Zwingli has accused Luther of trying to imprison Christ in the Eucharist and localize his presence there. Luther retorts that it is the Zwinglians who are guilty of this rather than hlm. They interpret the 'right hand of God' to mean a localized place in heaven. Luther says that this is faulty ; that the tright hand of God' means the manifestation of God 1 s power, and that his right hand 8 can be wherever he wishes it to be. "Next he contends that Christ has not confined himself to particular places, nor does he wish to be sought here or there, but he must be known in the Spirit. Here again they rush madly about and fail to see what I am writing

-80- against them. In short, who confines Christ to a particular place? Is it not the fanatics, who locate Christ in heaven at a particular spot and force us to say, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he 9 isl' (Matt. 24:23)rt In connection with the same point, Luther denies the accusation that he is teaching a localized, circumscribed presence of Christ's physical, fleshly body: nwe do not say that Christ's body is present in the Supper in the same form in which he was given for us - who would say that? - but that it is the same body which was given for us, not in the same form 10 or mode but in the same essence and nature.n

The second main argument is, in Luther's view the question of how John 6:63 is to be interpreted - the flesh availeth nothing. Zwingli had, with reference to his spirit/body dichotomy understood this text to mean that even if Christ's body were not locally in heaven but in fact present in the Eucharistie elements, it would still be of no value. Christ's body has no power to save; the faith of the true believer could in no way be nourished or lifted up by the presence of

Christ 1 s body, because of the very clear words of the text - the flesh availeth nothing. Luther will not allow Zwingli to use body and flesh univocally. This is the critical errer that the Zwinglians make when they

-81- apply this text of John 6 to the words of institution. At this particular point in the argument it is Oecolampadius who is the butt of Luther's attack. He "wishes to prove from the context of this passage, John 6:52ff, that flesh here must be construed as Christ's flesh ••• The context of the passage supports our interpretation much better ••• the text says explicitly that the Jews and the disciples alike were offended at 11 the words of Christ about eating his flesh." Because some of his disciples have been offended by his words, Jesus rebukes their lack of understanding: ••he rebukes their false conception, and he may well continue, 1 Ah, flesh is of no avail; the spirit gives life. 1 Thus 'spirit' here must mean spiritual understanding or teaching, for Christ himself so interpreta it, saying, 'The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life' (John 6:63). Therefore, of course, 'flesh' must mean, on the contrary, flesh1y understanding or 12 teaching."

Evident1y for Luther, to say that the body of Christ is present in the sacrament is not to say that 13 Christ's f1esh is present, eaten in and with the bread. Zwingli apparently had assumed that in saying the former, Luther meant the latter. On the basis of the Zwinglian dichotomy, this was a perfectly valid assumption to make.

-82- As long as spirit and body are considered as mutually exclusive, then to say that a body is present is to say that flesh and blood are present. This particular logic carried no weight with Luther. As long as Christ was bodily present, the manner of that presence vis-à-vis the bread and wine was of secondary importance. "Now I have taught in the past and still teach that this controversy is unnecessary, and that it is of no great consequence whether the bread remains or not. I maintain, however, with Wycliffe that the bread remains; on the other hand, I also maintain with the sophists that the body of Christ is present ••• I hold that two diverse substances may well be, in reality and in name, 14 one substance.u Examples in support of this latter contention are given. The article of faith on the Holy Trinity is one. In the Godhead there are three distinct persona, and each person is the one God. The incarnate Christ provides us with another example. "I point to the man Christ and say, 'This is God t s Son,' or, 'This man is God's Son.' It is not necessary here that the humanity vanish or be annihilated in order that the word 1 this 1 may refer to God and not to the man ••• Rather, 15 the humanity must remain. 11 What kind of unity do we behold in the man Jesus Christ? nit is not the substantial union of natures ••• but the union of parsons.

-83- For although there is not a single substance according to the natures, yet it is one single substance according 16 to the person.n Arising from this and other examples Luther submits that we can see two different kinds of union, union of natures and union of persona. And other examples are brought forward to suggest that there are other types of union as well - angel and flame, Roly Spirit and dove.

Following the same line of argument, Luther applies this principle to the Eucharist, and speaks of a ''. nwhy should we not much more say in the Supper, 'This is my body,' even though bread and body are two distinct substances, and the word 1 this' indicates the bread? Here, too, out of two kinds of objects a union has taken place, which I shall call a 'sacramental union', because Christ's body and the bread are given to us as a sacrament. This is not a natural or a personal union, as is the case with God and Christ. It is also perhaps a different union from that which the dove has with the Holy Spirit, and the flame with the angel, but it is also assuredly a sacramental union ••• it is entirely correct to say, if one points to the bread, 'This is Christ's body,'·•• also it is correct to say, 'He who takes hold of this bread, takes hold of Christ's body; and he who eats

-84- this bread, eats Christ•s body; he who crushes this bread with teeth or tongue, crushes with teeth or tongue the body of Christ.• And yet it remains absolutely true that no one sees or grasps or eats or chews Christ's body in the way he visibly sees and chews any other flesh. What one does to the bread is rightly and properly attributed to the body of Christ 17 by virtue of the sacramental union.n

In one admirable paragraph, Luther indicates how the main themes of his Eucharistie theology are interrelated, each one depending upon the other in the synthesis. The main themes are still those of his 18 earlier writings, outlined in the last chapter. "See, then, what a beautiful, great, marvelous thing this is, how everything meshes together in one sacramental reality. The words are the first thing, for without the words the eup and the bread would be nothing. Further, without bread and eup, the body and blood of Christ would not be there. Without the body and blood of Christ, the new testament would not be there. Without the new testament, forgiveness of sins would not be there. Thus the words first connect the bread and eup to the sacrement; bread and eup embrace the body and blood of Christ; body and blood of Christ embrace the new testament; the new testament embraces the forgiveness of sins; forgiveness of sins embraces

-85- eternal life and salvation. See, all this the words of the Supper offer and give us, and we embrace it by 19 faith."

This very extensive, very detailed rebuttal of Luther's against the attacks made on his doctrine by the Zwinglian party had a profound influence upon Bucer. The reading of it, early in 1528 marked a crisis in Bucer's development in which the nature of his activity in the Eucharistie controversy changed from that of a Zwinglian protagonist to that of a conciliator 20 and mediator. The nature of his theology did not change quite so quickly, but from this time forward there is a noticeable withdrawal from the Zwinglian position to the Lutheran. It may be, as Eells suggests, that his basic theological ideas remained unchanged from 1523 to 1536, i.e. from his arrival in Strasbourg to the signing of the Wittenberg Concord, but it is incontestable that his expression of these ideas varied 21 a great deal from period to period. The reading of Luther's Confession marks the beginning of a new period.

While reading the Confession, Bucer became convinced that he had been making a serious error in his estimate of Luther's Eucharistie theology. As the controversy had developed, Bucer had interpreted Luther's writings to mean that Luther believed in a

-86- physical, fleshly presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. But in the Confession, Luther explicitly 22 denied that this was his teaching and very carefully expounded what his beliefs actually were in terms of a 23 •sacramental union'. As he raad, Bucer was convinced that the real trouble had been Luther's poor mannar of expressing himself, that what he meant by a 'sacramental union' was in fact very close to the beliefs of his own party. Even before 1528 Bucer had suspected that the Zwinglians did not understand Luther correctly.

Luther 1 s Confession convinced Bucer that this suspicion was correct. The idea now began to form in his mind that concord was a real possibility, providing that suitable words could be round to express the cornmon 24 beliefs of both parties. The possibility of concord in the Eucharist filled Bucer with enthusiasm. Soon after he had read Luther1 s Confession he wrote of his conclusions to the leaders of the Zwinglian party. In a latter to Oecolampadius he wrote: "In the thing itself Luther agrees with us, even as to what pertains to the presence of the body of Christ, for he asserts that the body of Christ is definitely in the bread and not around it ••• Between the bread and body of Christ he claims there is a sacramental union, which union he 25 states is different from any other.n He wrote to

-87- Zwingli as well: 11 Essentially there is agreement on the truth, except that he insista constantly on repeating the words, 1 This is my body,' and on that basis 26 asserting that Christ is present even for the wicked." This early enthusiasm was soon to be dampened. The quarrel was more real than apparent, and it had become so bitter that the achievement of concord would require more than just theological unity.

This change in Bucer 1 s attitude towards the Eucharistie controversy caused Bucer to develop a new plan of action. He set himself two main objectives, the first being a published reply to Luther's Confession, the second a preparing of the way for holding a colloquy in which the two parties might work out their differences. The first of these objectives was achieved very quickly when in July of 1528 Bucer published a dialogue entitled Vergleichung D. Luthers, und sein 27 gegenthyls, von Abendmal Christi. The Dialogue was a strange sort of polemic, aimed not at Luther himself, but at the large number of Lutherans who, in Bucer's opinion, followed Luther in veneration without understanding his Eucharistie theology. The two principals in the Dialogue were a Zwinglian and a Lutheran with the Zwinglian explaining to the Lutheran the implications of Luther's recent Confession on the

-88- Eucharist. The explanation is meant to show the Lutheran that the differences between the two parties is not as great as most people imagine.

The Zwinglian describes the argument as it is commonly understood: uthe entire argument rests on this

- Dr. Luther once said that these words, 1 This is my body,' etc. are to be understood exactly as they stand, and that the power of these words is such that when they are spoken over the bread and wine the body of Jesus Christ is in fact in the bread and wine, whether there is faith or not ••• on our side we maintain not that one should think that the body of Christ is physically in the bread of the Supper and his blood in the Cup 1 whether there is faith or not, but that when the faithful are reminded by the Word and by the signs of the death of Christ in the Supper, they will believe this and thank the Lord that he has given his body and blood for them. At this point, by faith and the Spirit they do in fact have Christ and his blood truly and enjoy it. As the bread and wine are physically enjoyed so too, the body and blood of Christ are spiritually 28 eaten.u In this section, we notice the introduction of another point at issue which was to grow in importance, viz. the reception of Christ in the sacrament by unbelievers. Eells suggests that in the

-89- Dialogue Bucer makes this a more important argument than the question of Christ's presence locally in heaven. "This gave him (Bucer) a stronger position from whlch to argue, but it meant a separation from the old view and a rapprochement to that was 29 destined to increase."

Bucer does not devote any particular section of the dialogue to a treatment of this point. As we shall see in the material to be cited, it is brought in and underlined throughout the whole of the work. The first several pages are devoted to a discussion of Luther's .30 use of the phrase sacramental union in his Confession. Bucer has the Lutheran speaker quote the actual text of the Confession in which Luther uses the term. The Zwinglian commenta: "Luther admits freely that the body of Christ and the bread in the Supper are not one thing according to essence and nature as are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are three persona but one in essence and nature. It is not a personal oneness (in the Supper) as in Christ the divine and human natures are united in one person ••• in the sacrament, the nature of the bread and that of the body are not really one ••• It (the union of body and bread) is to be considered a .31 sacramental union. tt This is, according to Bucer, what the Zwinglian preachers have been saying, although

-90- expressing it differently. "This is what our preachers say, that the bread of the Supper is truly the body of Christ, but as Luther says, not united naturally, for the body and bread are not of one nature and essence; not united personally as are the divinity and humanity in Christ. Nor is it a formal oneness with the body of Christ dwelling in the form and gestalt of this bread. 32 But rather, it is a sacramental oneness." One must believe that at this point Bucer was speaking for himself and the Strasbourg preachers. Had the Zwinglians expressed themselves as Bucer representa them, the controversy would have been much less serious and radical.

The theme of sacramental unity leads Bucer to a discussion of the nature of Christ's presence in the sacrament. What kind of Christ, as it were, is united sacramentally with the Eucharistie elements? A key paragraph in Luther's Confession denied that Lutheran Eucharistie theology teaches that Christ is physically 33 present in the sacrament. To say that Christ is bodily present but not physically present is perfectly consistent with the Lutheran dichotomy of spirit/flesh. Bucer seizes upon this distinction and devotes the major portion of his Dialogue to this matter. His aim is to show that when Luther says bodily presence he

-91- does not mean physical presence, a misunderstanding which Bucer felt certain was prejudicing the Lutheran position in the controversy.

The argument moves from the question of sacramental unity to the question of the nature of

Christ 1 s presence in the following paragraph. "He (Luther) maintains that this (sacramental unity) could not be said to be the same unity as that which is between the Roly Spirit and the dove, which he called formal unity ••• this kind of unity is quite a bit below sacramental unity. So, as the Roly Spirit is God and therefore invisible to human eyes, you can see that when John said that he had seen the Holy Spirit he was using a trope, a catachresis. There is a way in which John was speaking incorrectly ••• he couldn't have seen the Roly Spirit, but only the dove. John was not able to express the unity between the Roly Spirit and the dove in any other way than by this misused terminology. What he said really only pertained to the dove. (In the same way) we misuse the terminology even more when we speak of the body of Christ as being physically 34 eaten and chewed.n The same sort of qualifications that apply to John's words about seeing the Roly Spirit must be applied to what we say about eating and drinking Christ in the sacrament so that the simple, uneducated

-92- person will understand and not be offended. "We understand that (in the sacrament) the body of Christ is truly being eaten ••• Only we would have to understand that this tropological and therefore concealed, mysterious way of speaking needs to be explained and illuminated from above. If I were to say: 'Today I have chewed the body of Christ,' the simple-minded person would understand me to say, 'He ate the body of Christ. But how is it possible; How can the body of

Christ, being spiritual, be eaten? 1 Then I would have to say to him, 1 0f course, I have chewed the bread which is called his body, which in the sacrament is the 35 body.'" It is not enough simply to use this language; its figurative, tropological nature must be explained.

Already we can detect the fallacy of Bucer's argument. Bucer 1 s rather naïve assumption is that because both Zwingli and Luther make use of tropological language they are both in fact saying the same thing, although in different words. This assumption however, cannet be maintained in the light of the different tropes that the reformers are using. Luther 1 s trope is synecdoche in which a part is referred to as representative of a whole. Zwingli, on the other hand uses alloeosis by means of which he has the Roly Spirit referring to Christ 1 s absent humanity when the reference

-93- 36 is really to his divinity. In other words, both reformera use tropological language but for opposite reasons. Synecdoche allows Luther to interpret the words of institution so as to depict the bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament; Zwingli's alloeosis allows him to interpret the same words to mean that Christ is bodily in heaven, even during the sacrament where he is present only according to his divinity.

Persisting in this assumption, Bucer declares that once the nature of Luther's tropology is understood, it will be seen that he has been greatly misunderstood. It is this lack of understanding that has prolonged the controversy. "He (Christ) has given us a strong and convincing promise that his body was given to us in order to grant us sanctification, and although it is his body, it is our food for eternal life. However, because this was a tropological speech as Luther and his supporters admit, the meaning does not have to be that the bread is the physical body of Christ, naturally or personally. Therefore it is not necessary that one put the same reading or the same meaning from the bread into Christ's body. What holds for one does not necessarily hold for the ether. Because the bread is digested, should I therefore admit the same thing of the body of Christ? ••• Any such talk would be false because the body of Christ (in the sacrament) is

-94- 37 spiri tual and not physical." Bucer refera to St. Augustine's On Christian Doctrine as supporting his view. According to Augustine, anything said about the eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood must be interpreted tropologically, as a figure of speech. "This means that by eating and drinking we become one with Christ's suffering and we remernber his deeds. Otherwise, (Augustine says) we would participate in sin and crime were we really to think that we eat Christ's 38 flesh. However, the body of Christ is truly in the 39 supper and that we admit gladly."

The main points of the argument have now been made. Christ is present bodily in the sacrament but not physically; therefore, the statement that Christ is eaten in the Supper must be understood tropologically. The greatest possibility for misunderstanding lies of course, in the confusion of the words physically and bodily. Bucer devotes much attention to showing that these two words do not necessarily mean the same thing, and that in this particular instance, they mean quite different things. Bucer begins his treatment of this aspect of the problem with a complicated dialogue between the Zwinglian and Lutheran. The Lutheran asks if Christ 1 s body is not physically present in the Supper. The Zwinglian answers: ttThe word 'physically'

-95- is what you add. Our Lord said~ 1 This is my body.' He 40 did not say 'physically. 111 The Lutheran suggests that there is no difference between the two. "How can the bread be the body of Christ, and the body not be there physically? Gan something be a body and not be physical?" to which the Zwinglian answers: nDoes not the Lord say to Simon 'You are a rock' ••• and refer to himself saying 1 I am the vine'? Are not these things, Simon as a rock, Christ as a vine, are not these actual bodies, Simon and Christ'? Yet, we do not understand these things physically as such. Is Simon physically a rock? Is Jesus physically a vine?

Logically~ at the Last Supper when Christ spoke the words, he could not have meant that the bread was physically his body. "When the Lord said these words: 'This is my body,' he remained physically seated among his disciples. If the bread had now truly been his true body physically, then he would have to have had two bodies. The one would have been the body which sat among the disciples and the other which he had given to them. But this cannot be; Christ is truly 41 human, and he had only one truly human body." "Do let him be a natural human being, so that he is not able to be in more than one place physically, for were he to be at more places than one, he would not have one human

-96- body. So admit that these words, •This is my body,' must not be interpreted physically ••• where he says

1 I am the true vine,• why do you not understand that he is not physically a vine but that in another sense he is." The Lutheran answers, "When the Lord is a human being, he cannat be a vine." To which the Zwinglian replies, 0 Well then, he cannot be bread 42 either."

One important conclusion that Bucer draws from his insistance upon the bodily but not physical presence of Christ is that participation in the body and blood of Christ is only available to those who have faith. His bodily presence, which is spiritual and not physical can only be received in a spiritual and not a physical manner. Faith is the necessary attitude of the recipient. "Christ himself says that whoever eats his flesh and blood has eternal life. From that we know no one without faith can participate in the body and blood of Christ, as communion with Christ and communion with his body and blood are one and the same thing. Since in the communion the death of Christ is celebrated in the memory, the Lord has given special signs of his body, bread and wine, and he has given these to those who are his. Those who enjoy these things within the community have physical

-97- communion with the bread and wine and spiritual communion with the body and blood of Christ ••• therefore, those who have faith eat Christ with the bread, but not 43 the unfaithful ones. "

The Dialogue concludes with a summing up of the theological positions that have been debated. The Lutheran summarizes the Zwinglian teaching as he now understands it. "You want to say that it is truly the human nature (of Christ present in the Supper) which is described for us in the Scriptures and many other places. But you do not say that the body of Christ is physically and essentially in more than one place. What you want us to understand is that the Scriptures show us that Christ is in heaven and that from thence he shall come to judge so that he cannat now be physically in the bread. You want us to understand that he was not physically in the bread which he offered to his disciples when he sat physically among them. Therefore, you want us to understand that these words, 'This is my body,• mean that the bread is sacramentally the body of Christ and that no matter where the faithful celebrate 44 communion, he is there, but not physically."

Bucer 1 s Dialogue did not make the impression that he had hoped it would. Bath sides regarded it

-98- simply as another polemic and failed to see its conciliatory intent. Bucer was at least partially responsible for this by virtue of seme unkind remarks about Luther personally which were to be found in the 45 text. The Zwinglians praised the book while the Lutherans heaped scorn upon it. Luther, in a latter, referred to it in these terms: "What measure of virulence has he not surpassed in that latest Dialogue, in which he is deliberately an open calumniator of all 46 my deeds." Eells suggests that Bucer himself failed to grasp the import of his own work, for in spite of his imagining that he had shown Luther to be in fact a Zwinglian it was soon to be interpreted as showing that 47 Bucer was actually a Lutheran.

Between the publication of his Dialogue in July of 1528 and the Diet of Speyer in 1529, Bucer published little that had any bearing on the Eucharistie controversy. In September of 1528, his peaceful, conciliatory attitude was repeated in a commentary on Zephaniah. He deplored the extent of the discord over so miner a matter as the manner of Christ's presence in the sacrament, professed his full agreement with Luther's phrase sacramental union, and insisted that this was but another way of expressing the beliers of the Zwinglian party. For the first time, he admitted

-99- the possibility of errer on the Zwinglian side. The problems that he was about to confront in his attempts at concord showed first signs of life when both Zwingli and Oecolampadius condemned him for suggesting that 48 there might be errer on the Zwinglian side.

The Diet of Speyer convened in March of 1529 marked a decisive change in the nature of the Reformation. "From a spiritual movement, at a popular level, the Reformation became a political force in the 49 hands of the princes." For Strasbourg, the Diet came at a particularly significant time. It marked the end of a period: " the introduction of the Reformation in Strasbourg, Bucer's principle concern since his arrival, was accomplished, the mass having been abolished by 50 order of the Council of Aldermen (February 1529)." At the Diet, the Protestants found themselves outnumbered by a militant Catholic majority which passed a number of restrictive measures against the 51 Protestant states and cities. In view of the harsh, uncompromising Catholic attitude, Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse worked quietly behind the scenes to promote an alliance between certain Protestant groups. These were Hesse, Electoral Saxony, Nllrnberg, and . Philip wished to have Strasbourg as a member of the alliance, but Elector John of Saxony protested the inclusion of a

-100- Zwinglian partisan in a Lutheran alliance. In order to win admittance to the union, Strasbourg had to submit a statement of its Eucharistie beliefs and practices that would satisfy the other members. A fragment of this statement has recently been published in Pollet•s valuable study of Bucer's correspondance and other 52 unpublished documents. If not actually from the hand 53 of Bucer himself, it most certainly is an expression of Bucer's Eucharistie doctrine at this point, as Bucer had by now assumed leadership of the Strasbourg theologians.

The document in question is typical of many similar statements that were to issue from Strasbourg in the years ahead as the city attempted to play a mediatory rôle between Lutherans and Zwinglians under the impetus of Bucer's conciliatory attitude. Within the compass of its few lines, it shows all of the characteristics of the many documents that Bucer was to compose in his search for a formula to which both sides could subscribe and thus achieve concord on the question of the Eucharist. There is the appealto Scripture, particularly to the statements of St. Paul and the synoptic Gospels. The hermeneutical principle is one of a simolicity of interpretation, the words being taken at face value. A belief in the real presence of

-101- Christ in the sacrament is affirmed; the true body and true blood of Christ are eaten by faith. The practice of offering communion only to the faithful is encouraged. By implication, those who are without faith are to be excluded. The final characteristic is the emphasizing of the concensus on the essentials of reformed doctrine, e.g. justification by faith. This is essential to salvation of course, but details of sacramental theology can hardly be accorded the same importance. '~hat use are disputes on the Supper, when agreement has already been reached on the principal 54 things which lead to salvation." The fragment is brief enough to be cited in its entirety.

"We do not know whether or not our actions are the most praiseworthy with regard to the disagreement over the sacrament, but we do know that here (Strasbourg) the unity of the faith is proclaimed and the true use of the sacrament is preached; namely, that it should be celebrated and truly believed as the three evangelists and Paul describe it, without additions, without changes, without human interpretation, and without obscuring by reason. In all simplicity of faith the words of Christ are left in their reasoning, in their spirit, and in their life. We ~lso believe that Christians participate not only in bread and wine, in

-102- the Lord's Supper, but in the true body and true blood • of Christ which through faith is the assurance and the promise of Christ. Christ alone is necessary and useful, and to participate in him you must participate in the Supper. Those who celebrate the Supper without faith in Christ eat unto themselves judgment and certain death, and not the life-giving body and blood of Christ which his followers have been admonished to enjoy, and which, if enjoyed, gives eternal life. We leave everyone to his own understanding as God leads him providing he knows God truly through Christ and 55 desires the sanctification of his Roly Name, etc." The document shows unmistakably the more frankly Lutheran expression of the matter, particularly with reference to what is made of the words of Christ. It is Christ's words, i.e. the words of institution that assure us of a true participation in his body and blood. These words are to be understood in their simplest sense without any alternative interpretation suggested by human reasoning. Moreover, the Supper is no longer seen as a simple adjunct to faith, as another instance of the promise that Christ would be present where two or three of his faithful are gathered in his name. If one would participate in Christ, he must do so by participating in the Supper. The arguments that Luther

-103- was to use very shortly in the Marburg Colloquy are already expressed in skeletal form in this particular confession.

The alliance which Philip of Hesse had hoped to form, and to which the above document relates, was not successfully completed. Philip, however, became more firmly convinced that a defensive alliance of the greatest possible strength had to be arranged. "In proposing this expedient the Landgrave was actuated by concern for the defence of the Reformation, in its bearing on the political situation, rather than by a 56 keen interest in the theological question at issue.n To Philip it was evident that an alliance of sufficient strength would have to include Zwinglian cities (Switzerland and Southern Germany) as well as the Lutheran cities and districts (Central and Northern Germany). Although the theological issue was of secondary importance in Philip 1 s scale of values, he realized that an alliance of the size he desired would not be concluded until the Eucharistie controversy had been settled. It was particularly important that at the forthcoming Diet of Augsburg, the Protestant groups should face the Catholics with a unity that had been lacking at the recent Diet of Speyer. With all this in mind, Philip invited the two parties in the controversy

-104- to a colloquy at his castle in Marburg to be held at the beginning of October, 1529.

Zwingli was most anxious to come. The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland were actively opposed to the Protestant cantons so that Zwingli was no less desirous of an alliance than was Philip. So willing was he to attend, in fact, that Zwingli came to Marburg 57 against the better judgment of the ZÜrich Magistrates.

Luther 1 s opinion was just the opposite. He had no sympathy for a plan whose aim was to defend the Reformation by force of arms. The political factor, a strong motivating force for the other interested parties, actually inclined Luther to stay away from the colloquy rather than encouraging him to come. Under the influence of Elector John of Saxony Luther finally agreed to be present, although he predicted that no good would come of it.

The Colloquy, in one sense a failure in that it did not achieve concord on the Eucharist, was not the vain enterprise that Luther predicted it would be. The fifteen Marburg Articles that were drafted were a clear indication that the two main Protestant factions were in complete agreement on all points of doctrine with the exception of the Eucharist. With regard to the

-105- Eucharist itself, Zwingli and Luther held rigidly to the points of view that had already been expressed in their writings, but they did agree to cease from further open controversy on the matter. Why they could not agree at the Colloquy itself is still a matter for debate. Lindsay suggests that each side had one major weakness which the other proceeded to attack, viz. Zwingli's somewhat shallow exegesis and Luther's concept 58 of the ubiquity of Christ 1 s body. Fischer, on the other hand, claims that the ubiquity theory was only an appendage to Luther's Eucharistie doctrine and that the difficulty lay in Zwingli's inability to be convinced that Luther did not believe in a materie.l, physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. nAt Marburg Luther actually proposed a union-formula: The contenders should agree that Christ's body was really (substantially) present, and that no questions need be asked how or in what mode this took place. Zwingli refused, for to him tsubstantially' in this case had to 59 mean materially.n In any event, Bucer may have been right in suggesting that the controversy was simply a matter of words, not in the sense that if only the right words could be found, both sides would subscribe to them, but rather the sense that key words such as substantially, essentially, and sacramentally were

-106- 60 differently understood by the opposing sides. These words provided, as it were, a false stumbling block that obscured to a large extent the real stumbling block of Christology, of the relationship of the two natures in Christ both before and after the resurrection and ascension.

The rôle that Bucer played at the Colloquy was, for the most part, a secondary one. He did not enter into the debate proper; Zwingli and Oecolampadius upheld their side, and Luther spoke on his own behalf. When the debate had been concluded, Bucer was given the opportunity of clarifying the theological position of Strasbourg. This he did with the request that Luther 61 should give his opinion of the teaching at Strasbourg. Luther refused either to approve or condemn. Bucer then requested that Luther point out their errors. But this too Luther refused to do. "I am not your master or your judge," he said. nwe commend you to the 62 judgment of God; teach as you will answer to him.u

The real value of Bucer 1 s presence at Marburg was realized in the groundwork that he laid for concord at a later date. Luther had a number of his key supporters with him. As yet, Bucer was able to make no headway with either Luther or Melanchthon. However, private conferences with Justus Jonas, Brenz, and Osiander

-107- gained for Bucer a greater measure of sympathy amongst these Lutherans than he had known since his first 63 involvement in the controversy. In his desire for concord, he found Philip of Hesse to be a valuable ally. Philip, from his side was impressed with Bucer's theological understanding and skill. The result was that Bucer came away from Marburg not in despair, but more firmly convinced than ever that concord on the question of the Eucharist could be found.

Evidence of this earnest desire for a settlement of the Eucharistie controversy, and confidence in its possibility are found in a prefatory letter that Bucer published with the second edition of his Gospel Commentaries in the Fall of 1529. nNo one surely errs consciously, and no one however holy is 64 immune from error." Such a comment marks Bucer as a man apart in a time that was not noted for its lack of dogmatism. Eells calls the letter the "first 65 conciliatory writing published by either side." Bucer has now moved a step beyond his former position of believing that the quarr·el is only a matter of words. If a concord is to be achieved both sides will have to sacrifice something. However they conceived of it, beth Luther and Zwingli believed in the true presence of Christ in the sacrament. It was on the basis of

-108- this phrase that Bucer would continue to work for a settlement of the controversy. From this time forward, he published nothing of a polemical nature on the Lord' s Supper.

In spite of the failure to achieve a complete theological un.animity at the Marburg Colloquy, Philip of Hesse made one final attempt to achieve a political union of the Protestant parties before the approaching Diet to be held at Augsburg. The Protestant nobles and representatives of the interested cities met at Schwabach in the Fall of 1529. The articles presented as a basis for union were so uncompromisingly Lutheran 66 that Philip 1 s plans were completely frustrated. The result was that with the opening of the Diet in June of 1530 the Protestants were unable to present a solid front against the menace of the staunchly Roman Catholic emperor Charles v. Charles opened the Diet with the demand that each state and city should submit a statement and a defence of its religious convictions. The Lutherans submitted the ramous statement composed by Ililelanchthon which la ter gained the name of • '. In Mackinnon's view, it was a rather ignoble attempt on Melanchthon's part to protect Lutheran Germany from the attacks of Catholic Germany by suggesting that Lutheranism and traditional

-109... Catholicism really had a lot in common. "Melanchthon's moderate and moderating spirit would have been all the more admirable had he refrained from thus seeking to save Lutheranism at the expanse of the Swiss and South German Reformera as well as the Anabaptists, and shown as rouch moderation towards them as towards the 67 Romanists." Melanchthon himself must have realized that the project would not receive Lutherts unqualified approval, for Luther, hidden away at Coburg for the duration of the Diet, did not receive a copy of the 68 confession unti1 it had been submitted to the Diet.

Once the Strasbourg delegates had read the Confession and had shown it to Bucer, they declared themselves ready to subscribe to it providing that the article on the Lordts Supper be omitted. A qualified subscription however, was not permitted; they were to 69 affirm all of it, or none of it. The article in question when taken by itself seems inoffensive enough: nrt is taught among us that the true body and blood of Christ are rea1ly present in the Supper of our Lord under the form of bread and wine and are there distributed and received. The contrary doctrine is 70 therefore rejected." The sting of course was in the tail. As Bucer well knew, the contrary doctrine that Melanchthon rejected was not Roman Catholic Eucharistie

-110- theology but the Zwinglian doctrine. In the apology that accompanied the confession, Melanchthon becomes more explicit in his rejection of any doctrine that does not hold to a substantial and essential bodily presence of Christ offered with the bread and wine. He underlines the fact that in this point, Lutherans stand together with Roman Catholics against the Zwinglians and all other sectarian viewpoints. "We have quoted all of this here, not to begin an argument on this subject {his Imperial Majesty does not disapprove this article), but to make clear to all our readers that we defend the doctrine received in the whole church- that in the Lord's Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present and are truly offered with those things that are seen, bread and wine. We are talking about the presence of the living Christ, knowing that 'death no longer has 71 dominion over him.rtt Evidently, Strasbourg could not adhere to such a document without earning the reputation of a turncoat amongst the cities of South Germany and Protestant Switzerland. To have signed it would have meant approval of Melanchthon's ill-considered policy of Roman Catholic appeasement.

At the request of Jacques Sturm, Strasbourg's delegate at the Diet, Bucer and Capito, his fellow

-111- theologian, began to prepare a confession that Strasbourg might present to the Emperor. The document thus produced was not altogether an 1 écrit de 72 circonstance', to use Pollet's phrase. Bucer and Capito had anticipated the situation now facing them, and some months back had begun to collect material to 73 provide a basis for the required confession. Using this material, and referring to a copy of Melanchthon 1 s confession they completed their work in four days. Sturm showed the confession to other non-Lutheran delegates present and managed to gain the subscription of three other cities, for which reason the confession was given the name Tetrapolitana, the confession of the 74 four cities. The additional signatures were not obtained without a priee. The original article that Bucer composed on Eucharistie doctrine was, as we shall see, meant more for the eyes of Luther than for the 75 Emperor. Bucer was continuing his policy of trying to convince Luther that differences between him and the Zwinglians were minimal. To gain the approval of the three other cities, the final draft of the article had to omit most of the frankly Lutheran material that Bucer had hoped to include. Eells describes the 76 resultant article as a shorn lamb. With reference to the Eucharist it affirmed simply the following:

-112- "In this sacrament his true body and true blood are truly given to eat and drink, as food for their soula, and to eternal life, that they may remain in him and 77 he in them ••• "

In the original draft article, however, Bucer intends to say much more than that simple affirmation. Three things become evident as we read through this original document. First, the same basic points are adhered to, although in a more expanded form, that were outlined in the confession prepared for the Diet of Speyer, i.e. the appeal to Scripture, the 'simplicity' of interpretation, the true presence of the true body 78 and blood of Christ, etc. Second, the document is essentially intended for Luther, at one point citing from his pre-controversial writings, that Luther might 79 look upon it as a possible basis for concord. Third, the document supports Eells' contention that Bucer was attempting to shift the central point of disagreement from the matter of the real presence to the question of the reception or non-reception of Christ's body by 80 unbelievers. The true presence of Christ in the sacrament is now assumed by Bucer; that it is so is no longer a matter for debate. Bucer shows us the importance which this latter point has achieved in his own thinking by making the non-reception by unbelievers

-113- as the firat point in the Strasbourg doctrine of the Eucharist. "The first thing is that the Lord bas instituted this for his disciples and for true Christiana, and this is attested to especially by the three evangeliats and St. Paul. That it was instituted for those with true faith ia guaranteed by the very worda of our Lord himself: 1 the body which haa been given for you and the blood which bas been shed for you. 1 And also: 'This eup is the New Testament.• (Matt. 26:26; I Cor. 11:25). The New Testament bas been given only to true disciples and on1y those witb 81 true faith can participate in it ••• "

Bucer returns to this point again and again throughout the who1e of the article. "They (the Strasbourg clergy) a1so speak out against those who attempt to maintain that this heavenly food gives as much to the god1ess as it does to those who tru1y 82 be1ieve." Scripture and the Fathers show that the body and b1ood of Christ are not eaten physica1ly but spiritua1ly. nst. Paul has written ••• 'Flesh and blood

cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. 1 " When the Fathers spaak in a similar vein ••• the interpretation is as follows: the body attains to immortality and is built up towards it in this life by the Spirit, strengthened

in us by the fee ding (in the sacrament) in true faith. tt

... 114- The true feeding therefore is spiritual in nature. nthe godless, as long as they are godless, cannat have 83 eternal li fe since they do not re ally eat this food ••• lt Even Thomas Aquinas admits that this is the correct interpretation of the Fathers on this point: "when they say that the godless also can participate in this food, even though they do not have the mouth or the organs of faith. But what they take is the Sacrament but not the rem sacramenti of which St. Augustine speaks. This is to say that those who take the Sacrament but have no faith cannot actually eat or participate in that which is of the essence of the Sacrament ••• in their opinion (the Fathers) this food is always meant for and 84 directed to the souls of the faithful ••• u

The second point that Bucer makes in the confession is made against private masses, demonstrating thereby that the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity, unity of the believer with Christ, and the unity of the fellowship of true believers. Luther could not mistake the conciliatory intention of this paragraph, especially as it echoes the phraseology of his own writing on the 85 subject. "The second thing that we believe is that those who are true disciples of Christ ••• wait one upon the other and that they celebrate this Last Supper as a congregation ••• The ancient Fathers of the Church

-115- referred to the Sacrament in Greek as synaxim and in Latin they called it communionem, which means to say 'a Congregation', just as St. Paul wrltes, 'The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ, and we, one loaf and one body, as we participate 86 all in the one bread?ttt A little further on, Bucer refers to St. Augustine to emphasize the point that in the Eucharist, the true believer is united with Christ. "It is true that the body and blood of the Lord is food and drink which leads to eternal life. St. Augustine therefore wrote, interpreting the words of St. Peter to the Lord in John 6:69, 'You are the Christ, Son of the living God, 1 that is, 'You yourself are the eternal life and givest in your flesh and blood nothing other than that which you are yourself.' The symbolic meaning of this is that he who has eaten here (in the sacrament) and remains in the Lord, the Lord will also remain in 87 him; he will live with the Lord and the Lord with him.u

It is not until he reaches the third main point of the article that Bucer makes any reference to the real presence as such. When he does so, he makes a concession to the Lutherans that he has never before made. With the reception by true believers of the body and blood of Christ, not only the soul is nourished, but there is a sense in which the body is nourished as

-116- well. The body thereby is made more fit to render spiritual service, of the sort fully described in the Das ym selbs, and it is also prepared for its future resurrection and for eternal life. "The third thing which we believe is ••• that with the Word and sacrament he gives his true body and true blood1 really and truly for food and drink as he did in the first supper which he held with his disciples where he gave his body and blood, and handed it to them; and this, not only as food and drink for the soul but also that the body is new increased in rea.diness for the service of the spirit and that in the future it may have resurrection 88 and the eternal life." This belief is grounded in Scripture and is perfectly consistent with the teachings of the Fathers. Certa.inly, it is most unfair and inaccurate to impute to the Strasbourg preachers the teaching that only bread and wine are offered in the 89 Eucharist. The manner of the real presence, however, is not that of a local or physical inclusion of Christ within the elements. The word 'This' in the words of institution is not meant to direct one•s attention to the bread and wine but rather to the presence of Christ perceived by the faithful. "It is for this reason that St. Augustine, in the twelfth chapter of Ad Addimantum writes as follows: 'Our Lord did not hesitate to say

-117- This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body.' This holy Father is not thereby trying to say that this bread is an empty sign. What he is trying to say is that the body of Christ is actually there present and given.n The Strasbourg preachers believe this and teach it, and speak out only against those who speak irreverently about the reception of Christ's body: nsaying that the body and blood of the Lord in the sacrament is taken into one's mouth, chewed and mashed with the teeth, swallowed into the stomach, saying that they take into themselves the whole body and blood of Christ, which even St. Thomas and ether scholastics 90 themselves could hardly confess."

These three points taken together constitute the doctrine of the Lord's Supper as it is taught at Strasbourg. Bucer summarizes: "this is our faith and our teaching ••• {concerning the words of institution) accept them with hearty faith and receive them as the Word of eternal life. Keep them free of all human interpretation and confess them to mean that Christ our Lord is truly present in the Supper and that his true body is truly eaten and his true blood is truly drunk; but primarily by the spirit through faith, although in the body (our physical body) which eats this food and drink in its own way so that the love of God then

-118.- permeates the heart, the soul, and all strength; that by this food they become ••• more wholly attuned to him. Our bodies are perfectly fed with this food when by the resurrection which this food brings, they are renewed and made ready for the Kingdom of God, for which we are 91 not yet fully ready ••• n The article concludes with the reaffirmation of Strasbourg's orthodoxy in the Eucharist with reference to the Scriptures and the Fathers, with an expression of regret that there has been a controversy over this matter, and with the assurance that the Strasbourg theologians bear no ill will for unpleasant things that have been said and done during the course of this controversy. The final statement is aàdressed to the Emperor, but as is the case with the article as a whole is meant for the 92 attention of Luther. Indeed, it seems likely that Charles V did not even receive a copy of the Tetrapolitana, that it was consigned to the limbo of a 93 committee of Catholic princes. This did not trouble Bucer unduly. "The main purpose (of the Tetrapolitana) was to show the Lutherans and the Zwinglians what an ideal system of belief, especially upon the Supper, was practised at Strasbourg, and to offer that as a platform 94 upon which they could unite."

Aside from the preparation of the Tetrapolitana,

-119- Bucer•s main efforts while at Augsburg were directed towards the same ends as they had been at Marburg, namely the holding of private talks and conversations on the subject of a possible settlement of the Eucharistie controversy. His aim was to convince a sizable number of men to share his own opinion of the necessity and possibility of concord amongst the Protestant parties. He had little difficulty in obtaining interviews with John Brenz, Urbanus Rhegius and Gereon Sailer, all three of whom professed to be sympathetic to any efforts made on behalf of concord. Bucer knew however, that success depended upon support from higher up in the Lutheran party. Melanchthon had to be approached and convinced for Bucer's plans to have any hope of realization. Melanchthon had, up to that point, shown in his confession and had actually stated that he would sooner have concord with the 95 Catholics than with the Zwinglians. Had it not been for the hostile reaction of the Catholics to Melanchthon's confession it seems quite probable that 96 Bucer would have made no progress at all. The refusal of the Catholics to consider any negotiations or compromise with the Lutherans caused Melanchthon to 1have second thoughts about his attitude towaràs the Zwinglians, with the result that he wrote to Bucer,

-120- expressing his desire for a settlement of the 97 Eucharistie controversy. Bucer replied with a request for a personal interview. In the meantime Philip of Hesse managed to arrange an interview for Bucer with Brück, the Chancellor of Electoral Saxony. Brfick asked Bucer to set down in writing his ideas on concord so that they might be shown to Melanchthon. In this document, Bucer made the point that sorne of the difficulty at least was due to different meanings being 98 given to words like 1 really 1 • Melanchthon took the trouble to compose a set of criticisms on Bucer1 s proposals, but still refused to grant the interview. Bucer continued to press for the interview. He enlisted the support of those Lutherans with whom he had had satisfactory interviews so that Melanchthon finally gave way before the combined weight of their petitioning.

The interview with Melanchthon had the affect for which Bucer had hoped. He was able to convince Melanchthon that he did believe in the real presence of Christ in the Supper, and that he could say that Christ 99 was truly, really, essentially, and bodily present. When the conversation had concluded, Melanchthon composed a brief series of articles describing the matters touched upon in the interview. Bucer signed the

-121- document, composed a similar one of his own to which Melanchthon subscribed, and had the satisfaction of knowing that beth sets of articles were being sent to 100 Luther who was still at Coburg.

The more difficult work still lay ahead. Bucer had bad remarkable success in gathering Lutheran support for the desirability of concord. But he still had to find support among the Zwinglians. In the long run, they were to prove more bitter and unyielding than the Lutherans had ever been. Of the Swiss theologians Bucer found the greatest measure of support and encouragement from Oecolampadius. Zwingli not only pronounced that he was sceptical about the possibility of concord, but continued to publish controversial writing on the subject of the Eucharist. As saon as Bucer had interviewed Melanchthon, Capite left Augsburg for Switzerland to seek Zwingli 1 s support for concord. Zwingli refused concord on any terms ether than Luther•s subscription to an uncompromising set of 101 articles that he had composed. However, before Bucer learned of Capito 1 s experiences in Switzerland, he secretly left Augsburg in September of 1530 to visit Luther at Coburg.

Bucer's private conference with Luther at

-122- Coburg showed the wisdom of Bucer•s attempt to shift the emphasis in the controversy from the question of the real presence to that of the reception of Christ in the sacrament by unbelievers. Certainly the two matters were intimately re1ated, but in the latter question, Bucer had a rouch stronger case than he had in 102 the former. In the interview at Coburg, Luther conceded that he had overestimated the extent of Zwing1ian errors and that his belief was not in a physica1 presence of Christ in the sacrament, as the Zwing1ians had supposed. The one concession that he was not prepared to make was that Christ was present on1y for be1ievers. Christ is present Luther insisted, because he promised to be without any reference to the 103 faith of the recipient. If this matter could be settled then the Eucharistie controversy could be brought to a close. Finally he gave a qua1ified approval of Bucer's plan to compose a formula of concord which should be circulated privately amongst the interested theologians. At the same time he 1eft no doubt in Bucerts mind that he expected the Zwinglians to retract publicly the errors that they had previous1y taught.

The next few weeks were spent by Bucer in his first tour of the cities of Upper Germany and

-123- Switzerland, seeking support for his conclliatory activitles. With the exception of his stop at ZUrich, Bucer's tour was a great success. In NUrnberg, Ulm, Isny, , Constance and Basel his suggestions and proposals were enthuslastically received. In znrich, Bucer found Zwingli to be as intractable as he had been with Capito a month earlier. He would have nothing to do with making any public retractions, and it was only with difficulty that Bucer convinced him to accept the 104 phrase, "The true body of Christ is truly offered.n Matters were only made worse when Zwingli opened a letter addressed to Bucer that arrived shortly after he had left znrich. The letter was from the Strasbourg Magistrates urging Bucer to arrange as hasty a settlement of the Eucharistie question as possible in order that a defensive alliance might be formed. Zwingli assumed that Bucer's intention was to sacrifice religious truth if necessary for political ends. Bucer was never able to convince him that this was not so with the result that all hope of Zwingli's support was 105 lost.

Bucerts next step was to prepare a formula for concord. It was written in the form of an open letter to Duke Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who had given Bucer rouch encouragement in the matter. The key phrase,

-124- to which he hoped both sides could honourably subscribe, was as follows: "That the true body and the true blood of Christ are truly present in the Supper and are 106 received with the words of the Lord and the sacrament." Bucer explained his meaning further by pointing out that the true bread, i.e. the body of Christ was provided by God from heaven, and insisting that the body and blood of Christ are not physically consumed. That which we eat physically is but a sign united sacramentally, not physically to Christ 1 s body and 107 blood. The letter was circulated privately and met with sorne approval. Neither Zwingli nor Luther however, would approve it. Among the many criticisms of Zwingli was the assertion that the phrase 1 true body and true blood of Christ' could be properly understood by theologians but would be inevitably misunderstood by 108 the average Christian in a crass, physical manner. Lutherts criticism was that the statement did not say enough. For example, Bucer had omitted any reference to the reception of Christ's body by unbelievers. Until this matter was settled, there would be no concord on 109 the Eucharist.

The favourable response that this formula had received from sorne quartera caused Bucer to continue his efforts with it as a basis. He wrote to Zwingli to

-12.5- urge upon him a more conciliatory attitude. Zwingli 1 s reply was to the effect that Bucer should mind his own business. In despair and anger, Bucer wrote a final word to Zwingli. "I commit the cause to the Lord, and I will henceforth solicit nothing from you on behalf of concord, and I beg your pardon for having wearied you with my great expense, labour, and peril. Neither is Luther, nor are many of the Lutherans what you think. Often great error, also great vehemence in defending error, occupies the spirit even of the pious. I prefer 110 to sin in innocent credulity than in wicked suspicion." Bucer still believes that there are theological errors in the Lutheran position, but Zwingli's antagonistic attitude is, for Bucer, an error of far greater magnitude. Bucer was forced to the conclusion that even the right words would never effect a full Zwinglian­ Lutheran concord on the Eucharist. The controversy had lasted too long and had been too bitter for that to be a possibility.

Recognizing the justice of Luther's criticism of the formula, that it made no reference to the reception of Christ by unbelievers, Bucer wrote a letter to Luther expressing his personal beliefs on the matter. In it, he made a distinction between the unbelievers and those who do believe, but who partake of the

-126- sacrament in an improper mannar: nunbelievers, as you write, do not receive it, just as the blind do not receive the light of the sun, though it shines equally upon their eyes and upon the eyes of those who see. Likewise we confess that those who know the body of the Lord is offered here, also receive it, even if their spirits receive it to damnation and are not fed ••• But I do not see any difference between rats and those who do not have any faith at all, nor feel otherwise in any 111 way about this bread and other bread.n Bucer here is attempting a compromise on a key issue. Luther 1 s position wishes to maintain that in the Eucharist there is a real presence of Christ which in above and beyond the control of man. Luther will not have it that the presence of Christ depends upon man's faith. Bucer concedes this, but at the same time he will not allow that the presence of Christ is tied to a mechanical operation of the sacrament. It is not so much that he is not present in the sacrament as that he is not received by the unbeliever, and for those who believe, but for one reason or another receive the sacrament unworthily, they receive Christ to their damnation.

Bucer 1 s first formula did not achieve concord, but it was an important step towards that goal. With the exception of znrich, he now had the support

-127- and co-operation of a large body of theologians, nobles, and civic authorities from both the Zwinglian and the 112 Lutheran parties. Of even greater importance was the experience that he had gained. He had had personal contact with the vast majority of Lutheran and Zwinglian leaders. This more personal understanding was to be of invaluable assistance to Bucer as he continued to seek sorne means of opening the way to concord.

-128- CHAPTER IV

PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENT

In October, 1531, Zwingli was killed at the Battle of Kappel. Although Zwingli had become increasingly antagonistic towards Bucer 1 s efforts at concord in the Supper controversy, his death at Kappel was a severe blow to Bucer's conciliatory programme. This conclusion does not base itself on any conjectured iroprovement in Zwingli's attitude towards concord. It is based rather on the attitude of the Ztirich city council and the other Ztirich theologians. Before

Zwingli 1 s death ZBrich as a whole had not been as suspicious of Bucer as Zwingli had been himself. Almost a year before, when Bucer had visited znrich seeking support for his efforts at concord, he had made a very favourable impression upon the city cowncil, if not 1 upon Zwingli himself. The council was bound to be even more sensitive to the need for a political alliance 2 than was Zwingli. Bucer was at that moment the only person with a definite plan of action to suggest for ending the controversy and achieving unity. The council was for that reason very happy to listen to him especially when he displayed his skill, as Pollet says, in underlining and emphasizing those points where the 3 opposing sides found themselves in agreement.

But Bucer 1 s skill was of a greater subtlety than that. In speaking either to Lutherans or to Zwinglians he could emphasize these same points in either Lutheran or Zwinglian terminology as the 4 situation demanded. In znrich Bucer could refer to the true presence of Christ in such a way as to emphasize the non-material, non-local nature of this true presence. "By this (the presence of Christ) we are given food for the soul unto eternal life, that he may be in us and we in him. It is well known by all that what the soul eats is not bread, nor is the human flesh transformed into a loaf, nor does it become enclosed in it. No one really assumes that this sort of external 5 food is given for eternal life." Christ is truly in the sacrament, but not ln such a way as to allow one to speak of the priest as touching him or as giving him to the communicants. He is present to faith, not to the touch, or any other of the five physical senses. "It is maintained in the first place that the Lord Jesus and not the priest gives his body and blood in the Last

Supper, according to his word, 1 Take, eat, this is my body.' ••• with the sign of bread and wine given to his

-130- disciples his body and blood ••• This is nothing other than food for the soul which we eat by confidence in God with the faithful contemplation of these sacrifices that have been made for us and are now made alive 6 within us." Christ's presence in the Eucharist is of such a non-physical nature that we can speak of his being present in the sacrament without having to imagine that he thereby becomes physically absent from heaven. "Christ has given his body and b1ood for food and drink and daily gives to the faithful who alone may enjoy it. It is a food and drink that does not need to become physical bread for us, nor does it need to leave high heaven and become enclosed in a physica1 substance 7 such as bread." Bucer concludes that Christ's presence is so far removed from a physica1 nature that any kind of physical terminology is boun.d to be inadequate if not misleading. He has at least this much command over the terminolcgy however, that he can express the same .fundamental ideas, viz. the true presence of Christ, received by the faith and not the physical body, nourishing the soul unto eternal life, and to building up of the fellowship, yet express them in such different ways as to be approved both by Zwinglians and Lutherans. There is no significant difference in doctrinal content between this presentation to the Z~rich city counci1

... 131- and the article on the Supper that Bucer composed for the Tetrapolitana. But it is easily seen that the two documents are poles apart in the impression they intend to convey. To the Zwinglians, Bucer says that Christ is present but in a non-physical manner. To the Lutherans, he says that the presence of Christ that is perceived and received by the true believer in the sacrament is in every sense of the word a real presence. The same basic idea is present in both instances v:i th 8 different emphases being made.

Zwingli's death had the result of changing this favourable relationship between Bucer and the city of Zllrich as a whole. "What actually did happen when he died was that the clergy of Zlirich henceforth revered him as a sainted martyr. Their aim now became not so rouch to preserve the truth of the doctrines he bad taught, as to guard the integrity of his expression of them. Of no doctrine was this more true than that of the Lord's Supper. Zwingli himself might have 9 modified his views; his followers never could." For Zlirich to negotiate with Bucer while Zwingli was still alive might be interpreted as a betrayal of his theology; to do so after his death would be interpreted as a betrayal of his memory. Zlirich did not wish to be guilty of this latter offense.

-132- A month later, Bucer's plans for concord received another serious setback when Oecolampadius died. The death of the Basel theologian was no less a blow than that of Zwingli, but for the opposite reasons. Of all the Swiss theologiens Oecolampadius was Bucer's strongest supporter. He did not share

Zwingli 1 s distrust of the Lutherans or suspicion of Bucer's motives. His recently published Dialogue had in fact been an important factor in gaining the support of Melanchthon in attempting to settle the 10 Eucharistie controversy. With these two deaths within a matter of days Bucer lost both the opportunity of 'converting' his most serious opposition and the needed assistance of his strongest supporter. Bucer in his discouragement ceased his activity in the interests of sacramental unity during the Winter months. But it was impossible to ignore the situation for very long. Luther, in spite of his professed desire for a settlement of the issue, was writing private letters in which he expressed his distaste for Zwinglians. It required all of Bucer's powers of persuasion to prevent the Zwinglians from publishing open attacks upon Luther.

More than the personal correspondance of Luther however, was making the need for concord more urgent. Charles V was exploiting the theological

-133- situation to serve his political ends. Obviously, the lack of unity amongst the Protestants of the Empire was very much to his advantage. By auch manoeuvres as offering his imperial protection only to those states and cities that signed the Augsburg Confession, he kept the Protestants in a constant state of turmoil and indecision. As long as this situation prevailed, the Protestants would never pose any serious military threat to Charles v. Moreover, cities such as Strasbourg and the smaller states greatly desired the undoubted benefit of imperial protection. Pollet sums up the situation in these words: ttAfter the upheaval of the first decade, the Reformation began to instit.utionalize itself and to seek some legitimacy (political) by a return to the juridica1 framework of the Reich. Strasbourg cou1d not remain a1oof from this evolution by means of allying itself with the sma11 Swiss democracies or by confusing itse1f with the masse flottante between ZUrich and Wittenberg. Sooner or 1ater, a confessiona1 alignment wi th Luthers.n Saxony woulà impose itself as the priee of imperial 11 protection.n The strength of the Emperor 1 s policies can readily be appreciated. The moment that Strasbourg, Hesse, Ulm and other parts of this masse flottante signed the Augsburg Confession, the hopes for a full

-134- Protestant solidarity would be lost. The continued existence of these relatively uncommitted powers kept alive the faint possibility of eventual Protestant unity.

In view of this situation a meeting of the non-Lutheran cities and states of the Empire was convened at Schweinfurt in. April, 1532. The matters that had to be faced by this conference were both theological and political in nature. Basically the problems were two in number: (1) how many of the states pre sent were pr·epared to sign the Augsburg Confession? - and (2) how many of the states who would sign the Confession would then be prepared to make a separate peace with Charles V and leave the Zwinglians to their own deviees? To sign the Augsburg Confession was certainly of great political value but many of the delegates hesitated to sign on theological grounds. Again, the benefit of imperial protection was obvious but to obtain it by deserting fellow Protestants in faveur of an alliance with the Roman Catholic Emperor was theologically a doubtful move. In preparation for the conference at Schweinfurt, the Strasbourg Council asked Bucer to prepare a document evaluating the Augsburg Confession as an aid in deciding what policies should be followed at the conference. Once those

.... 135- policies were determined Bucer was also to be given the task of winning the support of Upper German states 12 for the Strasbourg position. In effect, the task handed to Bucer was that of finding theological grounds for signing the Augsburg Confession; grounds of such a nature that the majority of Zwinglian cities would also find them acceptable without betraying their theological convictions. At that moment Bucer was called upon to achieve that which the majority of people concerned regarded as an impossibility.

The document that Bucer composed in response to this demand marks an important development in his 13 attitude towards the controversy. Having been composed for the attention of Zwinglians it treats of the same basic themes in a Zwinglian manner. Belief in the real presence is confessed, but with the emphasis placed on the non-material, non-local nature of that presence. The most serious point of actual disagreement with Luther, reception of Christ's body by believers only, is also treated very fully by Bucer. But Bucer seems to have attained a maturity of understanding that he has not shown before. His plan no longer seems to be a search for words that will be inoffensive to both sides; rather, the old familiar words have to be properly understood. This allows hlm to talk to Z1<1inglians in

-136- terms of the bodily and essential presence of Christ in the sacrament. It is the limitations of our human language that have caused us trouble. We must of necessity talk of divine things in human words. Bucer explains that the Zwinglians fear that the spatial concepts and language used to describe Christ•s presence in the Eucharist will be misunderstood by the people in a univocal manner. This is in fact the error that

Luther has made 1 in not being attentive enough to the properly analogous nature of our statements in reference to the real presence.

In the first part of the document, Bucer talks about sacraments in a general way, making reference to Old Testament •sacramentst, i.e., circumcision, Passover, etc., and to the New Testament sacraments of

Baptism and the Lord 1 s Supper. His purpose is to show how a sacrament is an expression of God 1 s covenant and promise, and how the sacrament acts as that which unites man with God. As a consequence, a sacrament to be effective, must be received by faith. God•s purpose is at al1 times the salvation and blessedness of his 14 elect. In a passage highly reminiscent of the Das ym selbs Bucer relates this blessedness to the faith of the Christian. "All our blessedness and our salvation are founded on true faith in God through Jesus Christ.

-137- As the prophet says, he who is righteous lives by faith (Habakkuk 2:4, Rom. 1:17). He who heartily believes God's promises, namely that through Jesus Christ, his dearest Son, he will forgive all our sins and be our gracious God and Father eternally, he will therefore love God with all his heart and will desire to live in accordance with God 1 s will, and find true joy in it. Such a person is impelled by God's spirit; he loves his ncighbour as he does himself, and he is zealous in his whole life to show himself similar to Christ, his master and Lord. But all of this is 1.5 achieved according to the measure of faith.n The purpose of the sacrament :ls that this faith be implanted in the recipient and increased to the fullest extent possible. The sacrament is the way that God has 16 chosen to do this.

The promises of God, the covenants that he has made with man, are the primary things. The action of the sacraments is to represent these things to man and to assure him that they are operative on his behalf. "The action of the sacrament ••• is as a visible reminder and assurance of these promises and covenants. These external actions of the sacraments are a sort of representation or an enactment of that which God 17 promises and offers. 11 Thus the act of circumcision is

-138- a visible reminder of the truth of God 1 s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of a at nation. Similarly, the Passover is a reminder of the promise of redemption and salvation. Because the sacraments in this sense are a sort of tappendix 1 to the promises and covenants of God, they in fact unite us with God, for he has promised that he will be our God and that we shall be his people. »For this reason, the Latin teachers gave the sacraments the name sacramentum which means an cath with which one unites himself with another ••• As God promises tc be ours through Jesus Christ, we in our turn promise to be his real people, and that we desire to live for his glory. And so, the sacrament becomes for beth aides the cath by which they 18 are united." Following the teaching of St. Augustine, the Word when added to the external element, makes a sacrament so that the sacrament may be described as a visible Word, a visible remembrance and assurance of 19 that which God has promised to us.

What do the sacraments of the new covenant represent to us? »since in our Lord Jesus Christ all the promises of God, in St. Paul's words, have become the Amen, i.e. the reassurance for us, and since we cannet come to the Father ether than by Jesus ••• therefore the sacraments are for us the representation of Christ•s

-139- 20 de ath." Both Baptism and the Lord' s Supper are 1 in the teaching of the New Testament, closely related to the fact of Christ•s death and resurrection. In Baptism, as we are immersed in the water, we die and rise again with Christ. In the Supper, Christ offers us the flesh and blood sacrificed on the Cross which are effectual unto eternal life. ttThrough the food and drink {of the Supper), just as in the immersion in Baptism, the Lord becomes one in flesh and blood with us, i.e. he offers himself to us through this re-enactment with the bread and wine as symbols, indicating that just as without such physical food and drink man cannet live, so through this particular food and drink all are preserved1 strengthened, and made joyful in him, so that all may realize that eternal life cornes only through a true and complete trust in God ••• merit, spirit, power, and life can be had only 21 through his de ath. n But it must not be imagined that because of the use of such words as 're-enactment' and

1 symbol 1 , the real presence is thereby denied. In the Supper his flesh and blood are truly food and drink 22 unto eternal life, and we receive this food by faith, the same faith which is itself nourished by the Eucharist. Although we speak of Christ•s body as being received by faith, yet it is not to be thought that Christ's presence is something vague and uncertain. In other words, Christ's presence, strictly speaking is not dependent upon faith: "junt as certainly as they receive and participate with a faithful heart in this, i.e. just as surely as they receive the bread and wine in their physical mouths, so too do they receive Christ 23 into their hearts."

The concluding portion of the document gives Bucer's estimate of the present controversy, the misunderstandings that each side has had of the other, and their source in the application of human language to divine matters. Physical words are not to be interpreted in a purely physical manner. 11 There is no one who wishes to maintain that bread and the body of

Christ are merely a physical thing 1 or that the body and blood of our Lord is imprisoned in the bread and 24 wine, and therefore in a man's stomach." This is the teaching that the Zwinglians have imputed to the Lutherans, imagining them to have too crass an interpretation of the words of institution. The Lutherans, on the ether hand, have assumed that the Zwinglians regard the sacramental elements as purely incidental, and that one need only have faith to partake of Christ. "No one who is truly fai thful will maintain that the Lord did not give bread and wine to his disciples. Thus it is maintained that bread and wine are by nature something other than themselves, viz. the 25 body and blood of our Lord.u The Lutherans do not believe in a physical presence; the Zwinglians do not regard bread and wine as empty SJimbols: "with the bread and wine, the Lord gives us his true body and true blood which is not, however, received by man's mouth or 26 stomach, but by his faithful soul."

Bucer claims that this is in fact the way that these matters were understood by the early Fathers. They did not imagine that a physical union between

Christ 1 s body and the bread took place, or even that the bread and wine represents a physical presence of Christ in the sacrament. They taught that there is an essential and bodily presence of Christ, (there would have to be, for us to be united with him, flesh of his 27 flesh and bone of his bone) but they taught that this is an invisible presence whose realit'Y is represented by the visible signs or symbols. What is the relationship of this visible reality to the reality that is invisible? Certainly, none of the parties to the dispute profess a belief in the simple identity of the two, i.e. transubstantiation. Nor do any believe in a simple difference of the two, i.e. that the bread and wine are empty symbols. The relationship is one of analogy. "Many have said that these words signify that bread and wine are his body and blood; ethers, that this bread and this wine signify body and blood. The latter is the interpretation which St. Augustine maintained against Adamantus, yet not so as to imply that the body and blood of Christ are not really 28 present." The visible reality representa a reality which though inherently invisible to human eyes is no less real for that. "When he (Christ) says, 'This is my body, 1 ••• something invisible is given tous in a tangible and visible sign. In the same way, the royal power is there in the sceptre, the episcopal power in 29 the staff." The royal power and the episcopal authority are no less real because of their invisibility. These things are present in their visible representations, but not in such a way that the royal power would be found hidden inside the sceptre if one were to take it apart. The nature of the words of institution is such that as the visible reality, the bread and wine, are given, the attention is directed to the invisible reality of Christ's body. In the Supper the words at that moment "are directed at the bread, but properly speaking they are referring to his body which he wanted to give to his disciples. So then, there are two things which are designated and offered,

-143- bread and body, bread visibly and body invisibly. In ether words, the bread is given to the eyes and the 30 mouths of the disciples, the body to their hearts."

Any attempts to understand the 1 mechanics' of the matter will only lead to such errors as transubstantiation. How God does it is irrelevant to the fact that Christ is present for us in the Eucharist.

The nature of the analogical relationship is such that Bucer can confess his belief in the bodily and essential presence of Christ in the Supper. This is not to say that he is physically present. "Let no one doubt that the Lord has risen bodily into heaven and is now sitting at God 1 s right hand ••• The presence of this food, as Cy1•il maintains, is grssped only by subtle and unsearchable faith ••• it is here in man's soul and sentiment that Christ is truly and essentially present. It is not necessary that Christ be physically transformed, nor is it right to say that the heaven is 31 much too high." For many people, the word tbodily' is too closely linked with spatial concepts and images to be used in the manner that Bucer has used it in the above citation. Bucer adroits this, pointing out that the objection has been that in this connection, to use the word 1 bodily 1 is to do violence to Christ's human 32 nature. This was the charge made against Luther by

-144- Zwinglian theologians. Bucer assuree them that their charge is groundless, that they have made the mistake of identifying 1 bodily 1 with 'physical'. If one read St. Augustine on this subject it will clearly be seen that to say that Christ is 'bodily' present in the Supper in no way destroys his true hum8nity. Just the opposite is the case. The Fathers' use of the word

1 bodily' was an attempt to express a belief in the true presence of the real Christ. If we cannet understand it, let our love be strong enough to accept the validity 33 of the truth that is seeking expression.

Bucer concludes the document with a final insistance on the necessity of faith to receive Christ in the sacrement and a final appeaJ. that the Lord's table be accessible to all who come in true faith and penitence. His readers "are not to be of the opinion that only perfect Christians are to go to the table of the Lord. It is pr::l.marily the weak and the poor who need this heavenly food so that their faith may be strengthened ••• we are to grow daily in this faith, for which as we said above, Gospel and Sacrament were instituted as the right means to deepen our faith, without which our position would only become worse.

This, of course, is precisely the Devil 1 s intention 34 when he attempts to confuse people about the Eucharist.u

-145- After reading this document and consulting with Bucer on the matter, the magistrates of Strasbourg agreed that there were no theologioal reasons for not doing that which was politically expedient, i.e. signing the Augsburg Confession. This however, left unsettled the question of how this action would affect Strasbourg's relationship Nith Zwinglian states. An avenue towards eventual Protestant unity had to be kept open at all costs. It was decided that the Confession could not be subscribed in its present form. With the removal of the word substantialiter, the section on the reception of Christ by unbelievers, and the phrase, "On that account the contrary doctrine is rejected," the cities of Strasbourg and Ulm signed the Augsburg 35 Confession. With this particular document recently completed and the events of the Schweinfurt Conference still fresh in his mind, Bucer composed a new formula for concord to be studied by the states of Upper Germany. Picking up the major points of this 'Schweinfurt Confession' it denied transubstantiation, a local material presence and insisted upon the necessity of 36 faith to receive Christ in the sacrament.

After having signed the Augsburg Confession, even with the deletion of certain words and phrases, Bucer could not have been surprised that this most recent formula for concord was not well received by the Zwinglian theologians. There was no doubt, a certain inevitability to the signing of the Augsburg Confession by Strasbourg. "Various events which took place in 1530-31 led to a revision of the religious policies of Strasbourg: the impasse of the Diet of Augsburg and the formation of the Smalkalde League (January 1531) 1 coinciding with the campaign led by Bucer for the purpose of union; the death of Zwingli at Kappel occurring soon afterwards (October 1531); the policy of Charles V aimed at dividing his opponents by offering his imperial protection only to Lutherans. Already in 1530, presenting its Confession (Tetrapolitana) separately to the Diet, Strasbourg felt itself to be isolated. Two years later ••• it seemed that there was only one choice to make: to declare a preference for the Augustana, implying, in a sense, that this confession 37 was winning out.n The step taken at Schweinfurt was an important one for Bucer; it brought him still closer to Luther, rekindled his energy to achieve a concord with Luther, without his imagining at the same time that he had drawn away from his attachment with the Zwinglians. In May of 1532 Bucer received a letter from Wolfhart, a

Zwi~glian preacher at Augsburg to the effect that for 38 many Zwinglians that attachment no longer existed.

-147- In the letter, Wolfhart bittcrly assailed Bucer for demanding the impossible of Zwinglians, i.e. that they should become Lutherans. He accused him of injuring the memories of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and of deserting his former teachings (Wolfhart had been a protégé of Bucer's) in favour of capitulatlng to Luther. A long, carefully written reply apparently did little 39 to regain the support Bucer bad lost. As well as the letter from Wolfhart, letters from Bullinger and Jud in ZUrich were received in the same angry tone. Bucer had to devote a large amount of time to private correspondance to prevent the Zwinglians from aggravating the situation with polemics that they threatened to publish.

The aggravation occurred however, not from the Zwinglians as Bucer had feared, but from Luther himself. In January, 1533 Luther published a Warning to Frankfurt in which he declared that he would have no union with them unless their teaching on the Eucharist was correct, i.e. Lutheran. The Warning made Bucer look ridiculous. He had only managed to keep the Zwinglians from publishing their own pamphlets by convincing them that Luther really wanted a peaceful settlement of the controversy. Somehow, Bucer managed to keep the Zwinglians from replylng to Luther.

-148- Instead, he composed and published anonymously a defence of the Frankfurt preachers entitled Entschuldigung der 40 diener am Evangelio Jesu Christu zü Franckfurt. In the defence, Bucer suggested that Luther had been misinformed by sorne who -v:ere ogainst concord. There could be no question as to the orthodoxy of Frankfurt on the matter of the Eucharist, for in Frankfurt it is taught that "In this sacrament his true body and true blood are truly given to eat and drink as food for their souls and eternal life, that they may remain in him and 41 he in them." The defence concluded with an emphatic denial that at Frankfurt the bread and wine were regarded as empty symbols. By means of this brief work, Bucer kept the latent hostility from breaking out into the open.

Following this particular disturbance, Bucer undertook another tour of the churches in Switzerland. The tour was neither a total failure nor an unqualified success. In sorne cities such as ZUrich he was able to make no headway in gathering support for concord. In he received a more friendly reception, and sorne progress was made. Returning home, he devoted the next 42 few weeks to preparing for the first Strasbourg Synod.

The main purpose of the Synod was to give

-149- legal status to the relationship between Church and State in Strasbourg. Of the sixteen articles that were approved in June, 1533, the one on Eucharistie doctrine 43 aroused the least amount of contention and debate. Yet the article has a certain importance in view of a work that Bucer was to publish in a few months time, ~ the Bericht ••• zn Mnnster. Luther 1 s attack on the preachers of Frankfurt had caused Bucer to lay aside any plans or rough drafts of formulas for concord. In his attempts to keep peace, he was forced to retreat slightly in his expression of Eucharistie doctrine. The result was that in his Defence of the Frankfurt Preachers Bucer used the formula from the Tetrapolitana 45 as an expression of Frankfurt's Eucharistie teaching. Once this particular eruption had subsided he was able once again to turn his attention to the composition of formulas that might prove a satisfactory base for concord. The article on the Supper that forms a part

of the Synod 1 s sixteen articles "whatever its inherent value ••• was the one that Bucer was to use again in the {Bericht ••• zn Mftnster) which, in its turn, was to serve as the basis of all future negotiations. Its career did not end here, as it is found in the Wittenberg 46 Concord itself."

With the exception of its phraseology, the

-150- article has little to offer that is new. "In the Supper, it is Christ himself, food for eternal life, who is chiefly offered to us, and thus we are offered his true body and true blood, but in such a way that the bread is not necessarily Christ's body and the wine his blood, so that the bread and wine are not transformed into the body and blood, and that they are not in any way locally enclosed ••• ; according to which the immortal body and blood of Christ would become a perishable food and drink, as are the bread and wine which always remain different in their essence and their nature from the body and blood of Christ. But, with the bread and the wine, as well as with the words, the true body and the true blood are represented and offered 47 to us, that is to say, the true communion of Christ.n This was the first draft of the article to be presented to the Synod. Bucer was not entirely satisfied with

1 the phrase "represented and offered t. In the final draft, the one eventually approved by the Synod, he strengthened the wording by substituting "given, and truly received by believers who enjoy it in view of 48 eternal life" in place of "represented and offered". Wendel observes that this final draft with the phrase ttgiven and truly received" was to be henceforth the classic expression of this particular concept of the

-151- 49 real presence. Only those who are true disciples of Christ can be imagined to receive the benefit of communion with their Lord and Master. In this particular confession of faith Bucer gives first place among the benefits of the sacrament to the concept of unity with Christ and the true community of the brotherhood. The essential ideas of the Das ym selbs are again recalled and their close relationship to the Eucharist is emphasized.

With the conclusion of the Strasbourg Synod during the Summer of 1533 Bucer was free once again to occupy himself with the Eucharistie controversy. At the moment he had no definite plan or programme to follow. Instead, he was kept busy trying to keep the peace between Zwinglian and Lutheran factions in reformed cities and states through Upper Germany. Augsburg was particularly prominent as a troublesome source of inter-party wrangling. The Zwinglian preachers there had been particularly harsh in their condamnation of Bucer when Strasbourg signed the 50 Augsburg Confession. Bucer had engaged in a long correspondance with Wolfhart over the matter and had apparently made seme progress, to the extent that Augsburg decided to attempt on its own a greater degree 51 of rapprochement with Luther. To that end, Wolfhart

-152- had made a public statement declaring that Augsburg's teaching on the Eucharist did not differ from that taught by Luther. Luther's reply was characteristically intemperate. He described Augsburg as a source of Zwinglian heresy and insisted that the Augsburg preachers should cease using his name as a means of imposing their errors upon poor, unsuspecting people. This he wrote in a letter to the Augsburg Council who in turn delivered it to the preachers. No agreement could be reached on what sort of a rejoinder should be made. In the meantime, Bucer had heard of the incident and had hurriedly composed a document which he sent to Augsburg with the suggestion that it form the basis of a reply to be sent to Luther. From a letter that Bucer wrote to Blaurer a few months later we gather tbat this 52 document was largely ignored by Augsburg.

The document itself is interesting for the way in which the material is presented. Bucer summarizes the actual extent of disagreement at the moment by dividing the matter into two parts: (1) points upon which there is agreement with Luther and (2) points upon which agreement has yet to be achieved. There is a long preamble in which he reviews the matter· generally, giving some attention to Luther's own Confession of 1528, particularly Luther's use of the term 'sacramental union'.

-153- Although he has dwelt at length on this same matter before, Bucer 1 s expression of these idees is becoming more Lutheran in character. In this particular document he will admit that what we say about the bread and wine can also be said of Christ•s body, but only by virtue of the sacramental union, not because of any physical or local inclusion of the invisible reality in the visible. nTherefore, the beholding, touching, chewing, manducation of the brea.d is v.rhat happens also to Christ 1 s body; but it happens to Christ's body only because of this sacramental union ••• Because our Lord has united them and has made one essence out of them, (Luther) can say that he (Christ} gives us his body and blood in these visible things of bread and wine so that a sacramental union exists between the bread and the body of the Lord, and the little word 'this' does not refer only to the bread, but also and especially to the body of Christ, which is given to us especially in this sacrament. New such interpretation we find also in all our Roly Apostles and teachers, which all confess that 53 there are two things, an earthly and a heavenly ••• u

According to Bucer, Luther's statement that the Zwinglian preachers of Augsburg are completely in errer is manifestly absurd. There are four major issues on which they are in agreement with Luther, presupposing

-154- that Luther was expressing his views accurately in the Confession of 1528. In the first place both parties agree that in the Supper there are two realities which 54 are by nature and essence different. Secondly, by virtue of a sacramental union, these two things become 55 one essence, although not one nature. Thirdly, they are agreed that this sacramental union permits the use of figurative language: none might say that the body of the Lord is given, whereas actually it is not the body but the bread alone which is the actual thing with 56 which all these things happen." In the fcurth place, both sides agree that it is the Lord himself who gives us his body in the sacrament; that as the priest administers the earthly elements, the invisible reality 57 is bestowed by Christ. "Now we ask you and all Christians whether we are unreasonable (in saying) that this is our basic agreement with Dr. Luther? If so, we condemn all Hho say that in the Supper there is only bread and wine which is given, and those who do not confess that the real matter is the true body and true 58 blood of Christ, the whole true God and true man. tt

In assessing the areas in which agreement has not yet been achieved, Bucer concludes that there is only one of major importance still outstanding: nwe believe that no one receives the true body and blood of

-155- the Lord who does not truly believe in him and is not 59 his member.n Various reasons are adduced by Bucer for this belier. At the institution of the sacrament, the Lord speke the words to his disciples. Certainly, it is Christ himself who is the primary participant in the Eucharist. Surely, he would not give his true body and blood tc someone who does not believe in him. He is not bound by our actions so that if the priest gives the elements unwittingly to an unbeliever, Christ does not of necessity give him his body and blood. If a priest be confused by a man's false show of repentance and absolves him from his sin we do not believe that ipso facto Christ also forgives him. "New, it may be that Dr. Luther and his supporters believe that the body and blood of Jesus Christ is to be made rea dy for beth evil and good, faithful and unfaithful. They say that God's promises are founded in themselves and not on man's faith or lack of faith. To this we agree. If however, someone is expressly one of Christ 1 s body, and in the name of Christ, \le cannet make him equal tc the 60 unfaithful." Bucer is prepared to make a distinction between those who have no faith whatsoever, and those who have faith, but for various reasons partake of the body of Christ improperly. This latter group do in fact receive Christ 1 s body, Bucer admits, but they

-156- receive it to their damnation. nThose who do have the historica1 faith, eat the body of Christ with the bread to their judgment (I Cor. 11:29). With this, the whole matter is tied to faith, for people can become guilty of the body and blood of Christ who do eat nothing other than bread and wine since they do not want his body and blood and they reject the dear gift of God's eternal life. They do not want to accept that which is offered to them through the Ward and the Sacrament. So it is that only the true believers genuinely enjoy Christ, but even they can make themselves guilty of the heavenly gifts if they do not enjoy this body with genuine meditation as did, for examp1e, the Corinthians who, along with St. Paul, were dear brothers and members 61 in Jesus Christ." This particular differentiation to which Bucer alludes, almost as if it were an afterthought was to develop in his own mind, and eventually become an important factor contributing to the achievement of concord at Wittenberg in 1536.

The fact that this document was not used by the Augsburg preachers in their debate with Luther was in al1 probabi1ity a sufficient indication to Bucer that a greater activity on his part would be needed to bring a peaceful conclusion to the Eucharistie controversy. In his own name he pub li shed a polemic

-157- against the Anabaptists of Mnnster, Bericht ••• zn Mnnster, March, 1534. In Wendel's opinion mentioned 62 ab ove the brief confessional statement on the Eucharist contained in this work is essentially the same as that which was to be the basis of the Wittenberg 63 Concord. The statement is as follows: "We believe and confess that the Lord gives us his true body and his true blood, not as food for the stomach and therefore in a fleshly manner like other bodily foods, but in such a divine way that the Lord truly lives in us and we in him and are truly partakers of his body and his members, and so of his kind and nature; therefore he also shall awaken us on the last day to eternal life and present us at the right hand of the Lord, and on 64 that account the Lord has instituted his dear church.u The obvious weakness of the statement consisted in its silence on the question of reception of Christ•s body by unbelievers, the very matter in which, by Bucerts own admission, there was still serious disagreement with Luther. This however, was not a careless omission on Bucer's part. Towards the end of the Bericht ••• zn MUnster he suggested that the question was of such a theoretical nature that it could in all conscience be left to one side in the composition of a formula for 65 concord, Such a statement tempts one to question

... 158- Bucer's integrity; on the other hand, he could hardly have imagined that concord would be achieved without this matter being settled. Bucer 1 s actions are in this instance explained by his plan to compose a formula which would find the greatest amount of support for what it contained. As a result, any matter still open to disagreement had to be omitted. The hope was that with sufficient support being given to this formula a conference could be held at which the question of reception by unbelievers could be amically settled. In fact, Bucer did gain the approval of many key people for his statement in the Bericht ••• zfi MUnster; Blaurer, Bullinger, Jud, as Hell as many Lutherans gave it their 66 approval.

The value of Bucer•s plan was almost immediately made evident. In August, 1534, Philip of Hesse visited Wittenberg and spent some time with

Melanchthon discussing the controversy over the Lord 1 s

Supper. Bucer 1 s Bericht ••• zfi Mfinster had made such a favourable impression upon the Lutherans that Melanchthon was moved to suggest that a conference between him and Bucer would do much to increase the 67 prospects of concord. Luther immediately gave his approval to the suggestion and Philip relayed the invitation to Bucer. The meeting was to take place at

-159- Cassel in Hesse during the season of 1534. Bucer devoted the next few months to preparing for the conference with Melanchthon. The object of these preparations was to gain as rouch support as was possible from the Zwinglians, and to take with him to Cassel a statement on the Eucharist signed by the majority of the Zwi~glian theologians. To achieve this, he planned a conference to take place before Christmas which should be attended by as many Zwinglian theologians as would consent to come. As well as sending written invitations, Bucer personally visited the important cities of Upper Germany exercising his powers of persuasion in faveur of the conference.

The conference met in Constance on December 15, 1534. All hopes for its success were practically 68 lost ~rhen ZO.rich refused to send official delegates. Instead, they sent a statement of their beliefs which the conference could endorse or reject as it chose. Without Bullinger or Jud present to debate the ZO.rich statement the whole purpose of the conference was frustrated. The document stated that the disagreement was not simply a matter of words, but that ZUrich was ready to make a settlement with Luther lttif he would concede that the body of Christ is not eaten exc~pt by faith; that Christ, according to his hwnan nature, lives

-160- in some definite place in heaven; and that he 1s present in the eucharist by faith, in a manner appropriate to the sacrament,' not carnally or sensuously, but 69 spiritually so that he is perceived through faith." The conference agreed to accept the statement and also agreed, at the insistance of Bucer, that the cities represented would subscribe any formula of concord that Bucer and Melanchthon might compose, providing it did not exceed the position taken by Bucer in his Bericht ••• 70 zn Mnnster. With this, Bucer left Constance, heading north to Cassel where Melanchthon was waiting for him.

To provide a basis for their discussion, Melanchthon had received from Luther a set of instruction3 consisting of four main points. First, the controversy was not simply a matter of misunderstanding. Second, no concord should be considered that would require either side to give up its conscientious belief. Third, Luther was unshakably convinced that his belief was correct, that the union between body and bread is so close that whatever can be said of the bread can also be said of the body of Christ. Fourth, he was willing to co-exist peacefully with the Zwinglians, but he could not communicate with them in the sacrament unti1 they conceded that his was 71 the only correct belier. In spite of this unpromising basis for discussion, the conference was highly satisfactory. Bucer composed a written reply to

Luther 1 s four points that dealt adequately with Luther's 72 arguments so that even Melanchthon was satisfied. With Luther's arguments taken care of, the two men drafted a formula expressing their common belief concerning the Eucharist. The Cassel formula confessed "that Christ was truly and really received; that the bread and wine were signa exhibitiva with which were received at the same time the body and blood of Christ; and that the union of the bread and body was of such a kind that 1 they are one, not with a mixture of their natures, but as a sacrament, and each one is given together with the sacrament in such a way that what is 73 posited of one may be posited of the other.'n Bucer and Melanchthon signed the formula, Bucer adding the fact that this was the belief of many of the cities of Upper Germany. At the same time, Melanchthon gave his 74 signature of approval to Bucer 1 s Bericht ••• zrr Mrrnster. It was decided that Bucer and Melanchthon should take the Cassel Formula to the important men of their respective parties and, with as little publicity as possible, gain as many signatures for it as they could.

Melanchthon's task was far less difficult than Bucer 1 s. As the Lutherans became more favourably

-162- inclineà tovJards concord., the Zwinglians became more and more suspicious of Bucer personally, and of his efforts to settle the controversy. Their suspicions were not entirely unfounded. In spite of Bucer 1 s protestations that his beliefs remained basically unchanged., his mannar of expressing them was becoming more frankly Lutheran. The Cassel Formula itself is a sufficient indication that this was so. The use of the phrase nwhat is posited of one may be posited of the othern in the formula, implied to many Zwinglians that Bucer's beliefs had in fact gone beyond the concept of sacramental union of body and bread to a more material, physical union. Bucer claimed that this was not the case; that he had guarded against this misinterpretation by stating in the formula that the body and the bread are of different natures, and that in the sacramental union they are not mixed. The Zwinglians were not satisfied with this answer. In fact, the whole formula seemed to them to be nothing more nor less than a complete capitulation tc the Lutheran position. Eells expresses it this way: nthe plain fact was that he (Bucer) made a confession for the Lutherans and an explanation for the Zwinglians, which only a distorted interpretation could reconcile. He accepted the words 75 of Luther, but placed an impossible exegesis upon them."

-163- While this is a little harsh - the exegesis would be better described as 'strained' - it is an accurate reflection of the poor opinion that many leading Zwinglians were forming of Bucer.

Melanchthon had no difficulty in gaining Lutheran support for the Cassel Formula. It and other documents relating to the Cassel Conference were shown to Luther, and he expresseà his satisfaction with l.Vhet had been achieved. Luther's approval encouraged Melanchthon to suggest that a colloquy should be called for the purpose of preparing and signing a final formula for concord. In Luther's opinion however, a slightly longer waiting period was necessary for him to gather sufficient confidence in the good will of the Zwinglians before he would join in a colloquy with them.

Since the Cassel Conference Bucer had haà little time free in which to seek approval for the Cassel Formula. Augsburg had requested his services to assist in the organizing of the Protestant congregations 76 in the city. From time to time he was able to leave Augsburg for a few days and invariably he would visi t one of the neighbouring cities. The results were very discouraging. The Zwingllans were satisfied to let well enough alone. A signed concord was not, in their

-164- opinion, a necessity, and as long as Luther was not attacking them they saw no reason to go looking for trouble as Bucer seemed to be doing. Remembering the success of his Bericht ••• zU MUnster, Bucer reprinted the section on the Eucharist as a small pamphlet entitled Ain kurtzer einfeltiger bericht vern hailigen Sacrament dess Leibs und Bluts unsers Herren Jesu 77 Christi. In the cities of Upper Germany the pamphlet was generally well received. The most infJuential Zwinglians however, Blaurer, Bullinger and Jud, continued strong in their opposition to Bucer 1 s efforts for concord. Gradually a split appeared in the

Zwingli an ranks v-li th the Swis s ci ti es firmly attached to Bullinger and opposed to concord with the Lutherans, while the Zwinglians of Upper Germany gave their allegiance to Bucer and supported his plans for concord.

The events immediately leading up to the Wittenberg Concord began in July of 1535. Two of the Augsburg theologians, Gereon Sailer and Gaspar Huber, were sent by their city council to invite Urbanus Rhegius of LUneberg to join the ranks of the Augsburg clergy. Their journey led them through Wittenberg where they stopped long enough to talk with Luther about their desire for concord on the Eucharistie 78 question. They had carried with them a copy of Bucer 1 s

-165- 79 Einfeltiger Bericht which Luther read with approval. Luther gave them a letter to take back to Augsburg in which he expressed his strong desire for peace and his willingness to work on behalf of concord. When this news was delivered to Bucer he wrote to Luther in the name of the Strasbourg preachers saying that he had written the Einfeltiger Bericht and that many of the cities of Upper Germany subscribed to its teaching. In addition, there were other cities who would not subscribe but who were sympathetic to it. With the dispatch of the letter, he left Strasbourg for another tour of Upper Germany to raise as rouch enthusiasm as 80 possible for whatever proposal Luther might make. At the same time Capito was sent to visit the Swiss cities for the same purpose.

Luther•s reply to Bucer•s letter suggested that a conference should be held at a time and place sui table to the Zwingli ans. Easter of 1536 was the time decided upon, and the choice of a place was left to Luther. As he had done before the CasGel Conference, Bucer planned for a 'preconference' of Zwinglians. The Swiss however, particularly BJ.aurer, Bullinger and Jud were opposed to having any more conferences sponsored by Bucer. Instead, they decided to hold a conference of their own to which only the Swiss cities were

-166- invited. The conference was held in Basel, in February, 1536. Bucer was not present when the conference opened because Strasbourg had not been invited. In spite of this he and Capito came to 3asel, and entered the conference hall whlle sessions were in 81 progress. He immediately took the floor and suggested certain alterations to the article on the Supper that was being drafted. It is a testimony to Bucer 1 s gifts of persuasion that by the end of the session, the conference decided to adopt Bucer 1 s suggestions. The article that was finally composod and signed by all present was as follows: "Truly the Supper is a mystery, in which the Lord offers his body and blood, that is, his own self truly to his disciples for this purpose, that more and more he may live in them and they in him. Not that the body and blood of the Lord are united either naturally with the bread and wine, or are included locally in them, or are offered by any carnal presence, but that the bread and wine are symbols by the institution of the Lord, in which the true bestowal of his body and blood is presented by the Lord himself, through the ministry of the church, not as food to be destroyed in the stomach, but as nourishment to eternal 82 life." The document as a whole became known as the First Swiss, or Second Basel Confession. Bucer's

-167- strategy was not completely successful as the Bern city council refused to endorse their delegate•s signature. Bullinger too, signed against his better judgment and declared that Luther had better not ask 83 for any further concessions.

In April, Bucer left Strasbourg for the conference with Luther. Knowing that many of the invited delegates would need to be persuaded to come, he planned a route that took him through the majority of the Zwinglian cities. One by one the delcgates were gathered, although as had been expected ZÜrich refused to attend. Towards the end of May, the Zwinglian party arrived in Wittenberg for the b inning of the conference. The meetings began inauspiciously with an opening statement by Luther. Evidently he had been put in a bad humour by the recent publication of the Zwingli/Oecolampadius correspondance. Many of the letters published contained statements on the Eucharist 84 which were personally uncomplimentary to Luther. Basically, his opening statement said two things:

(1) the Zwinglians had to recant their for~er teaching that the bread and wine were empty symbols and, (2) they were to pledge their intention to teach the people 11 that in the holy Supper the true body and true blood of Christ is truly had and received even by the mouth,

-168- 85 and that no less by the wicked than the good."

It was left to Bucer to make sorne reply that would keep the conference together. He first offered to recant any errors that he had made, but whatever errors he might have taught in the past did not include that of belief in eropty symbols. Once again he contended that the strife was at least in part a matter of words as he had formerly imagined that Luther believed in a natural, physical union of body and bread, and the physical eating of Christ 1 s body. Luther in turn had misunderstood the Zwinglians by thinking that they did not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Concerning the reception of Christ by the wicked, he was willing to concede this rouch; although those people who have no faith in the words of the sacrament receive only bread and wine, there are also those who while believing that Christ is present in the sacrament partake of it in an unworthy fashion, and do recelve Christ 1 s body and blood to their 86 damnation. The first session of the conference drew to a close shortly afterwards. On the following day, Bucer made an offer of the same concession, to divide the wicked into two categories, the unworthy and the unbelicvers. The former were said to receive Christ to their judgment, the latter, to receive nothing but

-169- bread and wine. After conferring privately with the Lutherans present, Luther declared his willingness to accept the compromise, and the concord was sealed with the shaking of hands.

Once this achievement had been reached, ether items of doctrine were quickly agreed upon. It was not until sorne days had passed that Bucer showed Luther a copy of the First Swis~ Confession. Luther found it free of errors but complained that the doctrine should be stated more forcefully. He would prefer it if the Swiss would subscribe the Wittenberg Concord. The articles of the Concord were drafted by Melanchthon in the form of a description of Zwinglian beliers. Three of the articles were concerned with the Eucharist.

"They con fe ss, according to the v-Tords of Irenaeus, the eucharist is composed of two things, an earthly and a heavenly. Thus they believe and teach, that the body and blood of Christ is truly and substantially present, offered, and taken with the bread and wine.

And although they deny that transubstantiatlon takes place, they do not believe a local inclusion in the bread is effected, or any lasting union outside the use of the sacrament, yet they grant that by a

-170- sacramental union, the bread is the body of Christ, that j.s, they believe that, when the bread is proffered, the body of Christ is at the same time present and truly offered. For they belie"~re the body of Christ is not present when outside the ceremony it is preserved in a box, or is shown in processions, as is done by the papists.

Next, they believe this institution of the sacrament has power in the church, which does not depend on the worthiness either of those who minister or receive. And as for Paul's statement that the lmworthy a1so eat: they believe that the body and blood of the Lord are also truly offered to the unworthy, and the unworthy take them, when they observe the 1rrords and institution of Christ. But they eat them to their judgment, as Paul says, because they abuse the sacrament, since they use it without penitence and without faith in him. For the sacrament was instituted that it might testify, that all those who are truly penitent and put their faith in Christ have the benefits of Christ applied to them, and are made members of Christ, and 87 are washed in the blood of Christ."

The Wittenberg Concord did not bring about a confederation of Lutherans and Zwinglians. It did

-171- signal the end of this Eucharistie controversy. The Eucharist was to be again in the future a source of contention, but not between the same parties or over exactly the same issues. Unfortunately, Luther and Bucer were not satisfied with this achievement. Luther particularly, regarded the Wittenberg Concord as only the end of a first phase. The second phase would only be complete when all the Zwinglian and Lutheran churches 88 had signed the Concord. "Had Bucer recognized in the Wittenberg Concord a reconciliation and not a union of the two parties, he would have allowed it to remain as the conclusion of his efforts for peace. As it was, he shared the general inability of his age to perceive that reconciliation of beliers was not essential to 89 reconciliation of believers ••• n To Bucer was assigned the task of gaining the signatures of the churches in Upper Germany and Switzerland. The next two years were devoted to attempting this hopeless task. With the majority of the cities in Upper Germany there was little difficulty in gaining the desired signatures, although one or two, such as Ulm, refused to sign or even to discuss the matter.

Not unexpectedly, Bucer's greatest challenge lay in Switzerland, particularly the cities of znrich, Constance, Berp, and Basel. Bucer used every means at

-172- his disposal to gain approval of the Wittenberg Concord. He wrote letters, made visits, attended conferences, all to no avail. In fact the opposite affect was taki~g place, and enmity was growing once again between the Swiss and Luther. Bucer was labelled as a 1 fanatic for unity'; sermons were preached against him, and Strasbourg was requested to keep its theologien at home. The worst treatment he received was in Zllrich where the 90 crowds mocked him on the streets. It was in ZUrich, in May, 1538 that Bucer attended his last conference on beb.alf of the Wittenberg Concord. The debate la.sted for three days, most of which time Bucer was under attack. To end the stalemate, Bigel, the Chancellor of ZUrich asked both sidas whether or not they believed that the body and blood of Christ were truly received by faith in the sacrament. Bath confessed that they 91 did. 11 Why then this long dispute'? 11 Bige 1 asked. As far as Bucer was concerned the dispute was over and he ceased all further efforts to gain formal approval for the Wittenberg Concord.

The last few years of work on behalf of concord had made it abundantly clear that the difficulties he enccuntered were caused as much by pride as by theology. Theologically, the Swiss wore suspicious of words like substantially and essentially

-173- 11-rhich seemed to them too liable to physical, material interpretations. The formulas proposed for concord were for the most part too ambiguous to be trusted. The Wittenberg Concord had the further disadvantage of being a Lutheran document, even though it purported to describe Zwinglian beliefs. To sign it would be in affect to submit to Luther, and this the Swiss could not do. "The question was not 1 What is the true doctrine? 1 but, 'Who shall draw up the formula of concord? Shall orders be issued from vJittenberg or ZUrich? Shall Luther agree with us, or shall we agree 92 wi th him? 1 11 And the Swiss knew that Luther was no more prepared to sign one of their staternents than they were to sign one of his.

-174- CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

The signing of the Wittenberg Concord was the high-point of Bucer's efforts to unite the Protestant factions. In the last chapter we indicated the historical significance of the Concord. It effectively established a truce between the Lutherans and a majority of the Zwinglians. It did not establish doctrinal unity even though a confessional statement was signed. The statement as such admitted of various 1 interpretations. The first question that must be examined in this conclusion therefore is: What was the theological significance of the Wittenberg Concord? To what extent is it Lutheran; to what extent •Bucerian•; or are these terms in fact synonymous when applied to Eucharistie theology?

Wendel's estimate of the Wittenberg Concord is that it representa for the most part the submission 2 of Bucer to Luther. Whatever conciliation was achieved, whatever concessions were made, were for the most part verbal; but it was a Lutheran document that was signed. In one sense, this assertion is true. We note for example that the text of the Concord, while it claims to be a description of Zwinglian beliefs, is in fact more favourable to Luther. For example, Bucer•s concession that the unworthy do receive the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament is carefully described.

Concerning Luther 1 s concession, that the unbeliever receives only bread and wine, no explicit reference is 3 made. This would not be too important if Wendel's assertion that these were purely verbal concessions were entirely correct. In fact, Bucer's distinction between the unworthy and unbelievers is one that can be justified on the basis of Scripture. In I Corinthians 11:17ff, St. Paul is criticizing the Corinthian congregation not for its lack of faith, but rather for its lack of love. All the while they are eating with faith in Christ, they are despising the fellowship of the Church. "The unworthy eating that brings judgment here is the profanation of the Sacrament through a failure to love ••• one particular form such unworthy eating takes today is the failure to discern the body of Christ whenever we fail to act upon the truth that all who believe in and love the Lord Jesus Christ are essentially one in hlm by admitting to fellowship at 4 his table fellow-members of the ecclesia of God.n

-176- It is interesting to note the implications for intercommunion that are to be found in Bucer 1 s distinction between the unworthy and unbelievers, especially as intercommunion was a key concern in all his efforts for concord on the Eucharist. The question of intercommunion as such will interest us further on. For the moment, it is enough to take note of the fact that the strength of Bucer's negotiating with Luther is not faithfully represented in the articles drafted by Melanchthon. The articles in question would have to give more weight to the assertion that those who do not believe do not in fact receive Christ in the Eucharist. To the extent that the concessions made by Bucer and Luther were not purely verbal, Bucer's subscription of articles that ignore Luther's concession, but carefully point out his own, must be interpreted in some sense as a submission to Luther.

There is stronger evidence still to support the contention that Bucer had all but capitulated to Luther in the Wittenberg Concord. "Thus they believe and teach, that the body and blood of Christ is truly and substantially present, offered, and taken with the 5 bread and wine." Certainly, Bucer's Zwinglian contemporaries were of the mind that the use of substantialiter as descriptive of the mode of Christ's

-177- presence in the Eucharist was a concession to Luther's tendency towards a crass, material doctrine of the real presence. In a letter prepared by the ZUrich theologians in November, 1536, ZUrich1 s Eucharistie doctrine is described in the following terms: "Therefore, the body of Christ is truly eaten by us in the Supper, and his blood is truly drunk, but not so raw and carnally as sorne have hitherto represented; namely, that he is eaten substantially - that is, bodily 6 and carnally ••• " Bucer, of course did not by now agree that 'substantially' bad to be interpreted as 'bodily and carnally 1 , and to that extent at least he was caught 7 up in the language game. Bucer bad learned that there was more than one way to understand substantially, and that the way he bad come to understand it was of sufficient importance for it to be a useful descriptive term for Christ 1 s presence in the Supper.

After the Concord bad been signed Bucer prepared a statement by which he meant to explain to hie fellow Strasbourg theologians the significance of the \.Ji ttenberg articles on the Supper. In i t he refera to the use of substantially. "It is necessary for us to see that Luther does not teach natural physical union or an incorporation of Christ into the bread, but we have to understand that there are two things, that is,

-178- not merely earthly bread and wine without the body and blood of Christ, a body far removed from ours. In the Supper, the body and blood of Christ are truly present, not merely effective with real spiritual power, but

~~ substantialiter, essentialiter, essentially and truly, and is given and received in the bread and wine. The distinction must be made between sacramentum et rem sacramenti, that is, between the body and blood of

Christ (called res sacramenti) 1 given and received as 8 such, and the bread and wine which are the Supper." What Bucer is reaching for at this point is something the same as ïvlelanchthon 1 s interpretation. Christ' s presence in the sacrament is personal, that is, the relationship between the believer and Christ in the 9 sacrament is intimate and personal. Only in terms of such a relationship could it be imagined that the Eucharist affects an ontological unity of the believer and Christ. Such a unity of Christ with the believer is for Bucer the definitive characteristic of the sacrament. If Christ, according to his promise, is present and active in the celebration of the Eucharist, and the believer participates with true faith, then in fact Christ and the believer will be united ontologically. If the Eucharist is the sacrament of love and unity, then this must be so, in Bucer's opinion.

-179- Because the union cannet take place without Christ's presence according to bath his natures, Bucer uses substantialiter as a word which will leave no doubt as to the manner of his presence. He is personally there; not just spiritually, or according to a part of his being, but according to the totality of his persan, bath divine and human.

In terms of the controversy, Luther and

Z~ringli had used the term to express entirely different concepts: «part of the difficulty rests upon divergent conceptions of Wesen - substance or essence. For Luther, standing in the schola.stic tradition, substance was that which makes an entity what it is ••• For Zwingli ••• wesentlich generally had the connotation of dinglich - real in the legal sense of real property, as we 10 speak of a •man of substance.•n However, Bucer 1 s use of the term does not fit neatly into either one of these conceptualizations. What J. c. McLelland says about Calvin's concept of 'substance' can be applied to Bucer with the understanding that to some extent Bucer anticipated Calvin in this matter. "He (Calvin) consistently speaks of the substance or matter of the Sacrament as being Chrlst himself ••• But once the point is made that the Sacrament's referent is the divine-human person ••• then one has split open the scholastic

-180... terminology and introduced a dynamic orientation. For instance, Calvin relates all his theology ••• to this fact of the believer's participation in the new humanity 11 of the living Christ.n In the last analysis, neither of the old categories will do. We are left with our old words, and they must be made to interpret our new ideas. The old term •substance' must be made to convey the idea of the dynamic personal relationship between Christ and the believer in the sacrament.

Bucer apparently made sorne progress in this regard, at least among sorne of his disciples. He considered the matter at length in the third edition of his Gospel Commentaries which ~.vere published in the Fall of 1536. There is extant a French translation of parts 12 of this edition. In trsnslating Bucer 1 s use of substantialiter, terms that are expressive of this dynamic or function concept are used. The best example is provided by a passage in which Bucer analogically relates Christ' s presence in the Eucharist and his continuing presence in heaven to the location of the sun in the sky exhibiting its presence there by means of its rays shining on earth. uEt comme le soleil est vrayement circonscript 1 en un lieu du ciel visible 1 et neantmoins par ses rayons il exhibe sa presence partout le monde 1 vrayement et efficacement : ainsi nostre

-181- Seigneur ( combien qui soit circonscript en un lieu du ciel 1 et de la gloire inaccessible du Pere ) neantmoins par sa parolle et saincts sacremens 1 11 se exhibe et presente tout 1 tant humanite que divinite vrayement et 13 efficacement ••• " By the term in question Bucer means that Christ is present, as it were in his entirety, bodily but not physically, giving himself to us in and through the sacrament, uniting himself to us so that through this union we are nourished unto eternal life. To say that in the Wittenberg Concord Bucer simply bowed the head to Luther is to deny Bucer credit for the new categories of thought that he was trying to express.

Strohl, after a careful examination of both Bucer and Luther, suggests that the real nature of the relationship is one in which Luther was helped to an 14 understanding of himself by Bucer. "Luther's contemporaries, even his friands, were unable for a long time to understand them (Luther's ideas on the Eucharist), as Luther at times used inadequate expressions, and was unable, in the heat of polemic, to respond to the requests for clarification without 15 becoming very heated." To sorne extent Luther too was searching for new categories of thought appropriate to his religious insights. Strohl offers this as the

-182- possible framework of the who1e Bucer-Luther re1ationship during the Eucharistie controversy. The crisis wou1d have occurred then in 1528 with Bucer reading Luther's Confession, before which he simply understood Luther as professing belief in a physical presence. With Luther's reference to the sui generis category of sacramental union and his explicit denial of belief in a physical presence, Bucer changed his attitude, attempting to penetrate ever deeper into Luther's thought, seeking more suitable modes of expression. Up unti1 1528, Bucer had imagined Luther to be teaching a 1ocalized, physica1, inclusion of Christ in the sacramental bread: "Bucer, who had been trained in Thomism, had seen the danger of using formulas which might regard grace as a substance contained in the elements of a sacrament rather than as 16 a sovereign act of God." Bucer's activity in the controversy as a quasi Zwinglian, as a resu1t was governeà more by his assumption that Lut~er had fal1en into this Thomistic error in his Eucharistie doctrine and less by his support for Zwinglianism. Stroh1 concludes from this that we are wrong to attribute to Bucer an intemperate degree of vacillation in his own Eucharistie doctrine.

In Stroh1's opinion, the difficulty in understanding Luther stemmed from the fact that he affirmed the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament without demonstrating the necessity of a 17 bodily presence. Luther 1 s problem was that he did not know how to say it. "It was on1y throughout the course of the great sacramental controversy ••• that Luther sought all manner of explanations for the possibility 18 and the necessity of what he affirmed." As he read Luther's Confession of 1528, Bucer began to see what the nature of the prob1em was. His conversation with Luther at Coburg in 1530 supported his new understanding of Luther 1 s teaching. Luther assumed that Zwine1i, teaching that the sacrament was a commemorative act in which the congregation made a profession of faith, was making the sacrament an act of men. Luther, in turn, had not wanted to affirm a concept of , but simp1y the presence and the action of Christ, the who1e persan of Christ, as we are saved not on1y by his divinity, or by his humanity alone, but b~ the two 19 natures united in the one persan." This, Strohl says, was identical with Bucer 1 s own belief on the matter. The differences between the two men were as much a result of their di rent backgrounds as anything. Luther had seemed tc evo1ve towards a more Thomistic expression of his beliefs; Bucer, with his deep mistrust

-184- of all Thomism had evolved towards a more Scotist expression of the matter, leaving it to the free decision of God to communicate the Spirit in the Eucharist, or not to do so. In a word, the problem returns to that already mentioned, how to express the new and dynamic concept of Christ•s presence in the Eucharist with the terms available. The meanings of old terms must be filled out with new concepts. Strohl points out that Bucer attempted to do this by afL rming from 1536 onwards that the body of Christ is as present in the preaching of the Word as it is in the distribution 20 of the sacramental elements.

Both Strohl and Wendel have attampted to explain Bucer• in term~ of Luther, the latter by having Bucer simply capitulate to Luther after sorne verbal concessions, the former by describing Bucer as the only one who could help Luther to an understanding of himself. Although Strohl's case is stronger than Wendel's, neither of the two give Bucer credit for being himself. It is certain that his own doctrine can stand independently of Luther's; and to an even greater extent is this true of his policy of seeking Protestant uni ty by me ans of the Eucharis t. nBucer and his companions did not become Lutherans at Wittenberg, nor could they any longer properly be classed as Zwinglians.

-185- They advanced to a middle position that marked a division in the Zwinglian forces destined to become 21 complete as the years went by. ,.

Bucer's doctrine of the Eucharist developed mainly between the years 1528 to 1.536. Before that time, during his so ... cal1ed Zwinglian period of 1.524 to 1.528 he devoted most of his energy to combatting the errors that he felt Luther was making, as well as the various abuses of the Roman Church. Starting in 1.528, when Bucer fastened upon concord as a possible goal, his mm doctrine of the Eucharlst began to take shape. Commenting on the Wittenberg Concord he underlines the main aspects of his doctrine as they are expressed in the Co!lcord. "It should be taught, as we have done, that the truth of Christ is that in the Supper the true body and true blood of our Lord is truly given and received. But not in such a fashion that there is a natural transformation of the bread, or that it is locally bound to tho bread, or that it is food for the stomach. In truth this sacrament does not rely on the merit of man, of those who receive it or those who administer it, but it relies solely on the Word and institution of the Lord, and therefore it is received to the judgment of al1 those who receive the sacrament 22 unworthily."

-186- In all Bucer's formulas for concord, in all his published works having to do with the Eucharlst from 1528 onwards, his Eucharistie doctrine consista of four main points. In the first place Bucer affirma that Christ is truly present in the Supper. Gradually he came to describe this as a bodily presence; finally he added the word substantialiter, meaning that Christ is present and active in the Supper according to his two natures united in the one person. "When the Roly Sacrament is administered according to the institution and the commandment of our Lord, our Lord himself, true 23 God and true man is truly given and truly received ••• n Bucer's affirmation of the true bodily presence is always negatively qualified. It is not a physical presence, nor is there any local, natural union of body and bread. It is in no way to be imagined that Christ 1 s body is chewed~ swallowed or digested, but as the bread is received by the mouth for the nourishment of the body, to the same extent Christ 1 s body is received by t~e spirit as nourlshment unto eternal life. The union of body and bread is sacramental, sui generis, a union that does not exist outside of the sacramental act, even though it does derive from the unique unio hypostatica of the divine and the hwnan in the per~on of our Lord.

-187- The second main point of Bucer 1 s teaching is to affirm the primacy of the Word of God. There is no sacrament without the Word, for it is the Word that gives the sacrament its meaning. Following the phrase of St. Augustine, the sacrament is the visible Word, representing to us, in the full meaning of that term, the wonderful promises of God 1 s Word. nst. Augustine writes concerning the fifteenth chapter of St. John,

1 The Word is added to the external element, to the water in Baptism, to the bread and wine in the Supper, and they therefore become a sacrament, that is to say, a visible Word.' We can see from this why the sacr~~ents have been ordained, namely, to be visible remembrances of God 1 s promise to be our gracious God 24 and Saviour, to make us his children and heirs ••• " Man does not make the sacrament; still less any sacrifice. He can only receive it from God, as it has been commanded and instituted in God 1 s Word.

The third point concerns the reception of

Christ 1 s body in the sacrament. It is received only by those who believe that it is present. It was in connection with this point that he apparently wrung a concession from Luther although this fact is not represented in the articles of the Wittenberg Concord. Until a short time before the Concord, Bucer had simply

-188- divided recipie~ts into be1ievers and unbelievers. In 1533, we find a third group emerging, the unworthy. Bucer first expressed this idea in the document on the Eucharist that he prepared as a suggested rep1y that Augsburg might sand to Luther. »Those who do have the historical faith, eat the body of Christ a~d the bread 25 to their judgment (I Cor. 11:29)." This was to form the basis of the compromise worked out at Wittenberg.

Bucer 1 s insistance on the necessity of faith to receive Christ in the sacrament does not in any way conflict with the point made immediate1y above. Christ's presence is not determined by faith, either of the recipient or the celebrant. It depends sole1y upon God. But in orèer to emphasize and guarantee, as it were, the nature of that presence as not physical, local, or natural, Bucer insista tbat the Christ who is present is received only by those who have faith to receive him. He fee1s that without this provision we do in fact make the Eucharist an ex OEere operato event where there is a transfer of grace from God to man dependent more on a human ceremony than on Cod's promises to the i thful.

The fourth point of Bucer's Eucharistie doctrine concerna the benefits derived from participation in the sacrament. All benefits derive ultimately from this, that in the Supper Christ is truly given and truly

-189- received by the faithful. From an inàividual point of view the primary benefit is that of eternal life. From the point of view of the Christian brotherhood, the primary benefit is unity. The loaf and the eup are fitting symbols of this fact for as Christian believers are united with Christ in the Eucharist, so that he lives in them, and they in him, by the same token they are u~ited as a body. As the many grains of flour unite to make the one loaf, and many drops of wine unite to make the one eup, so many believers are united to make the one body of Christ which is his Church.

This fourth point leads us directly to a consideration of that which motivated Bucer to devote so much time and energy to seeking concord between Lutherans and Zwinglian8. The ultimate goal was unity. Political unity, while it was perhaps paramount for the magistrates and nobles, was not Bucer 1 s main concern. Christ had prayed that his disciples should be one as he and the Father were one, and Bucer saw in the Eucharist one means by which this unity might be effected. For him the sacrament was a real means of grace; those who together received the body of Christ at the same table could hardly resist that grace to the extent of remaining divided. In this belief he differed sharply from Luther who insisted that full doctrinal

-190- agreement could be the only basis for intercommunion. In a recent essay on intercommunion, Max Thurien has described these two opposing viewpoints as the doctrinal conception (Lutheran), and the open conception 26 (Reformed) of the Eucharist. The doctrinal "conception places the main emphasis on eucharistie faith and doctrine. The condition of intercornmun:i.on is unity of 27 faith in the real presence." On this basis intercommunion can only take place after doctrinal agreement has been reached. The open conception affirms that: 'tNo one can prevent a baptized Christian who believes in Jesus Christ from receiving the Lord 1 s Supper wherever it may be ••• No church discipline, no doctrine of the ministry, no dogmatic conception can give any theological justification for ••• exclusion by 28 a church." This position is basically Christocentric. The emphasis is placed on the fact that this is Christ's table; the invitation to communion is his, and Christ invites all Cbristians to partake of hlm in the sacrament. "Thus the Lord's Supper, itself a sign of unity, is thought of as a means by which divided Christians may advance towards unity. It is indeed a source of unity from which we may draw divine strength 29 in our march towards a full and visible unity.n Thurian, in his article, is describing the modern

-191- 30 situation, but the terms he uses are just as applicable to the sixteenth century as to the twentieth.

In weighing the merita of Bucer's position as against that of Luther, certain questions must be askeà. Concerning the doctrinal conception of Luther, does this not in fact support itself by means of an illusion? Presumably, Luther celebrated the Eucharist with his fellow theologians at Wittenberg, among them Melanchthon. Eucharistie doctrine was a major point of difference between the two. There is evtdence to indicate that this difference goes back at least to the Wittenberg Concord. Fraenkel, in a recent essay on Melanchthon's doctrine of the Eucharist, makes this point, drawing upon Bossuet for support: "qu'on ne reçoive Jesus-Christ que par la foy; ce qui est pourtant le vray caractére du sens figuré. Je ne vois pas non plus qu'il (Melanchthon) ait jamais dit avec ceux qui le soûtiennent, que les indignes ne receussent pas le vray corps et le vray sang; et au contraire il me paroist qu 1 il a persisté en ce qui fut arresté sur ce sujet dans l'accord de Vittenberg. Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que dans la crainte qu'avait Mélancton d'augmenter les divisions scandaleuse de la nouvelle réforme où il ne voyoit aucune modération, il n'osait presque plus parler qu'en termes si généraux, 31 que chacun y pouvait entendre tout ce qu1 il voulait."

-192- For the sake of peace, Melanchthon preferred to keep quiet about these differences. Obviously, the illusion is that all Lutherans do in fact agree upon Eucharistie doctrine, which could be a misapprehension of grave proportions. This seems to have been the case with I1elanchthon. If Luther was going to be consistent, he would have had to exclude Melanchthon from Lutheran celebrations of the sacrament.

The important question to be put to Bucer concerns his doctrine of the real presence. Is it strong enough and clear enoug~ to allow ethers who are not in full doctrinal agreement with him to take it seriously? Many of Bucer's contemporaries found him wanting at this point. They accused him of being vague and ambiguous. In fact, Bucer had a stated preference for a formula that would embody the essentials in the 32 simp1est possible expression. He would have been happy to have signed a concord based on a formula such as the following: nin this sacrament his true body and true blood are truly given to eat and drink, as food for their seuls, and to eternal life, that they may 33 remain in him and he in them ••• " Eells complains that

Bucer gives no explanation of the manner of Christ 1 s 34 presence, and presumably it was this that vexed his contemporaries. Rather than condemning Bucer for this,

-193- ~re shoulil gi ve him credit as the theologian of the Reformation who asked the right question. To use

Bonhoeffer 1 s term, both Zwingli and Luther were guilty of asking the 'Wie-Frage' which Bucer with greater wisdom would gladly have avoided. "Traditional christological (sic) orthodoxy has always faced the peril tbat the sublimity of its subject matter may beguile it into metaphysical speculation. The What of the real presence easily turns into a How, and orthodoxy is equated with a theoretical alchemy of the 35 incarnation." Luther and Zwingli were in fact beguiled in this way. Bucer's preference for the simple formula affirming the true presence of Christ indicates that he saH the true nature of the mystery involved. nThe mystery of the real presence of Jesus Christ is the mystery of the Who and the Where, and it dare not be 36 distorted into the mystery of the How."

In this concludi11g chapter, I have to sorne extent gone beyond the point of simply summarizing and commenting upon the historical period of the Eucharistie controversy itself. My purpose in doing this has been to show that the importance of Bucer's work transcenda the limits of his own time and place. Within the limita of this particular thesis, i.e. the limita of this particular controversy between 1522 and 1536 I

-194- would offer a concluding affirmation that of the various questions that were raised in this debate, the right and proper questions were being asked by Martin Bucer. Granted that the Eucharist centres about a mystery, the mystery of the divine-human persan of Christ, the right approach must surely be to attempt to show the true nature of the mystery and its limits, and not to attempt to solve the mystery as if it were a problem. Amongst the first generation of reformers, Bucer alone saw the true nature of the mystery involved. As his theology developed within the context of the debate his purpose became larger than the mere search for concord, as important as this was. He was also seeking the best possible expression of the nature of the mystery 1111i thin the limi ts of tradi tional terminology. The negative mode of expression which resulted - 'not physical' and 'not locally bound' - with reference to the nature of the presence was not an attempt to answer the wrong question, the question of 'How 1 • Rather, it was a resolute attempt to focus attention on the right question, the question of 1 Who 1 • It was this particular insight of Bucer's that helped him in his attempts to get the controversy onto the right track. Indeed, it is this significant insight that

-19.5- made his Eucharistie theology more than a basis for compromise; in this sense, it is true to say that its importance is greater than its historical purpose.

-196- NOTES

CHAPTER I 1. Two principal spellings of the name exist. The one to be used in this thesis is the Latin form 1 Bucer 1 , as it was the form favoured by Bucer himself. The German form •Butzer' is also in use, but is less common. cf. Eells,H., Martin Bucer, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1931, p.433, note 4•

2. cf. Strohl,H., Traité de 1 t Amour du Prochain, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1949, p.6.

3. Eells 1 Op.Cit., P•4• 4. Ibid., p._5.

cf. Lindsay,T.H., A History of the Reformation, T .&T .Clark, Edinburgh, 1907, (Second Edition) Vol.l. p.69ff. 6. cf. Smith,P., Erasmus, Harper, New York, 1923, p.136. 7· cf.Stroh1, Op.Cit., p.5. 8. More accurately, it was in Strasbourg that Gutenburg invented moveable type. 9. Strohl, Op.Cit., p.ll. 10. cf. Heitz,J.J., Etude sur la Formation de la Pensée Ecclesiologique de Bucer, Unpublished Thesis submitted to the University of Strasbourg, 1947, p.12. There was as -v:ell, a request from sorne of his students, cf.Bucer, Das ym selbs niemant, sonder anderen leben soll, in Stroh1,H., Traité de l'Amour, etc., Op.Cit., p.(l6-17) 11. The granting of citizenship signala in an official sense the beginning of a co-operation between Church and State that achieved the quiet, yet

-197- thorough reform of the city. cf. Heitz, Op.Cit., p.l3. See also Strohl, Op.Cit., p.9. 12. Published in MBDS., Vol.l, pp.79-147. 13. Published in MBDS., Vol.l. pp.l48-193. 14. cf. Heitz, Op.Cit., p.l2, also note 25. Strohl also notes in his introduction to the Das ym selbs that in the Summar~ Bucer reproduces faithfully the essential theses of Luther. See Strohl, Op.Cit., p.6f. 15. Many references cnn be cited to support this point. For example, see Bucer, Bekentnus derer von Strass burg, das sacrament betreffend etc. 1 published in Pollet,J.v.~ Martin Bucer- Etudes sur la Corresnondance, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1958, Vol.l 1 p.23.

16. Bucer, Das yrn selbs in Strohl 1 Op.Cit., p.(l6-17}. 17. Ibid., p.(l6-17). 18. The reference here is to Matt.25, a chapter which, as Strohl points out, figures in nearly all of Bucer1 s writings. cf. Strohl, Op.Cit., p.l9, note 1.

19. Bucer, Das ~-m selbs in Strohl1 Op.Cit., p.(l8-19). 20. Ibid., p. (20-21).

21. Ibid. 1 p.(22-23). 22. Ibid., p.(22-23)f. 23. Ibid., p. (24-25). 24. Ibid., p. (28-29). 25. Ibid., p. (28-29).

26. Ibid. 1 p. (30-31). 27. Ibid., p. (32-33). 28. Ibid., p.(34-35).

-198- 29. Ibid., p. (34-35). 3 o. Ibid., p. {36-37). 31. Ibid., p. (44-45). 32. Ibid., p. (46-4 7). 33. Ibid., p. (46-47). 34. Ibid., p. (56-57). 35. Ibid., p.(68-69).

36. Ibid. 1 p.(56-57). 37. cf. Ibid., p.(70-71). 38. Ibid., p. (56-57). 39. Ibid., p. (58-59). 40. Ibid., p. {58-59). 41. Bucer, Familiere declaration sur les livres des Psaumes, 1553, p.l04, Quoted in Courvoisier,J., La Notion d'Eglise Chez Bucer, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1933, p.48, note 2. 42. Bucer, Das ;rm_sell2.§. in Strohl, Op.Cit., p.(70-71). 43 • Ibid • , p • {7 0-71 ) • 44. Ibid., p.(70-71). 45. Ibid., p.(74-75). 46. cf. Strohl, Traité de l'Amour, etc., Op.Cit., p.8. 47. Bucer, Das ym selbs in Stroh1, Op.Cit., p.(56-57). 48. Stroh1 would even s est that the title of the work was derived from paragraph 30 of Luther's treatise On Christian Liberty. cf. Strohl, Op.Cit., P•7• 4 9. Ibid. , p • 8 . 50. Ib id. , p • 9 • 51. Ibid., p.ll.

-199- CHAPTER II 1. Fischer,R.H., Luther' s Stake in the Lord' s Supper Controversy, in Dialog, Vol.2, Minneapolis, 1963, pp.S0-59. 2. Ibid., p.50. 3. Ibid., p.51. 4· My intention at this point is not to poke fun at Fischer in his use of the word 'mature'. I would simply want to guard against the too easy assumption that a careless reader might make - that of assuming Luther•s earlier writings on the Eucharist to be immature. Barth, for examp1e, in his excellent essay on Luther's doctrine of the Eucharist (in Theology and Church, Harper & Row, New York, 1962, pp.?4-111) finds the majority of his references in Luther 1 s writings from 1519-1523, before the controversy really developed. 5. cf. Barth, Op,Cit., p.85. See note two above. 6. Ibid., p.74.

7. Ibid., p.74. The italics are Barth1 s. 8. Luther, A Treatise on the New Testament, in LW., Vol.35, p.B2. On the identity of the words of Christ with the Word of God cf. Barth, Op,Cit., p. 77f. 9. Luther, A Treatise on the New Testament, LW., Vol.35, p.82. 10. Luther, The Bab lonian Ca tivit of the Church, LW., Vol.3 , p. 2. F~rther documentation for the primacy of the Word of God in Luther's Eucharistie thoology is to be found in abundance. For partj_c~larly interesting passages see LW., Vol.36, p.244-245; p.255; p.295. 11. Quoted in Barth, Op.Cit., p.Bl. 12. Ibid., p.81. 13. Quoted in Ibid., p.8?. Barth•s ita1ics. 14. Quoted in Ibid., p.82.

-200- 15. Ibid., p.82f. 16. Luther, A Treatise on the New Testament, LW., Vo1.35, p.90. Italics mine. Luther, The Bab4lonian Captivity of the Church, nv., Vo1.36, p. 6. 18. Luther, A Treatise on the New Testament, LW., Vo 1. 3 5, p. 50 cf. LW. , Vo 1. 3 6, p. 4!~-. 19. Quoted in Barth, Op.Cit., p.75. 20. Such was the nature of Bucer' s rather na"ive misunderstanding of what was at stake in the controversy. 21. Quoted in Barth, Op.Cit., p.80-81. 22. Luther, The Blessed Sacrament etc., LW., Vol.35, PP•49-73. 23. Ibid., p.59. 24. Ibid., p.58. 25. Barth, Op.Cit., p.lOO. 26 Luther, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 11-I., Vol.36, p.JO. 27. Barth, Op.Cit., p.l03, note 6. 28. Ibid., p.103, note 7. 29. Erasmus, Paraphrase on the First Epistle to the Corinthiens, Quoted in Stone,D., A History of the Doctrine of the Roly Eucharist, Longmans, London, 1909, Vol.2, p.62-63. Italics mine. 30. Colet, On the Sacraments of the Church, quoted in Stone, Op.Cit., Vol.2, p.3. 31. Colet, Lectures on I Corinthians, quoted in Ibid., p.J. 32. Two shorter works of Henri Strohl, former dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology at Strasbourg, should be consulted by any who wish a fuller

-201- treatment of this subject. They are: 1. Bucer, Interprète de Luther, in RHPR., Vol.l9, pp.223-261, and 2. Bucer, Humaniste CFi'.rètienf Librairie Félix A1can, Paris, 1~~9. That there s a lack of conceYlsDs on the subject is amply demonstrated by Ee11s, Op.Cit., P•44-7, note 18. 33. Bucer, Martin Butzers an ein christlichen Rath und Geme n der stutt Weissenbur Summsr seiner Predi dase1bst eethon, 1 23, in NBDS., Vol.l, pp.79-l 7. It was not unti1 October of 15'24 that the controversy was brought to Bucer' s doors tep wi th the arrival of Carlstadt. 34. Bucer, Summar·y seiner Fredig, 1'-ŒDS., Vol.l, p.123. 35. cf. Ibid., p.199ff. 36. For Luther's use of this ana1ogy see Tbe Babv1onian Captivity of the Church, LW., Vol.36, p.37f. 37. Bucer, Surnmary seiDer Predig, IlifBDS., Vol.l, p.117. 38. of. Ibid., p.117, line 20ff. 39. cf. Bucer, Das ym selbs, in Strohl, Traité de l'Amour, Op.Cit., p(S6-57). I am followlng Stroh1 in the use of theee two terms, 'faith-confide:ncet and 1 faith-obedience 1 • cf. Ibid., p.8.

~-0· Bucer, Summa:r·y seiner Predig, NBDS., Vol.l, p.ll7-118. 41. Ibid., p.l18, line 5ff. 42. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.71.

~3. Ib:i.d., P• 71. 44· cf. Mackinnon, J., Luther and the Reformation, Longmans, London, 1929, vo1.3, p.306f. 45· Eells, Op.Cit., p.72.

46. Bucer, Grund und ursach auss ~otlicher schrifft1 etc., MBDS., Vo1.1, pp.194-27 • 47. Ibid., p.252. 48. Ibid., p.252, note 144. cf. Luther, A Treatise

-202- on the New Testament, LW., Vol.J5, pp.79-lll. 49. Bucer, Grund und ursach, IvlBDS., Vol.l, p.252. 50. Ibid., p.251. Italics mine. 51. The appeal to John 6:63 was a favoured argument from Scripture on the part of the Zwinglians. 52. Bucer, Grund und ursach, lVIBDS., Vo1.1, p.252. Italics mine. 53. Ibid., p.252. 54. Ibid., p.242f. 55. One could add here as a third factor the violence of Luther's attack not only upon Carlstadt, but upon all who held the symbolist view. This unfortunate aspect of Luther's tactics was soon to display itself in Against the Heavenly Prophets, 1525. 56. cf. Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vo1.4, (1930) p.2. 57. Luther, Letter to the Christians at Strassbur , LW., Vol. 0, p. This I admit, if Dr.Carlstadt or anyone else five years ago had convinced me that in the sacrament there was nothing but bread and wine, he would have done me the greatest service. I have undergone such severe temptations ••• and I have so struggled and writhed under them that I should very gladly have escaped free.n 58. Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets, LW., Vo1.4.0, p.79-?23. 59. Quoted in Eells, Op.Cit., p.74. 60. Rott,J., Bucer et les débuts de la Querelle Sacramentaire, in RHPR, Vol.34, 1954, pp.234-254. 61. Oecolampadius was the reformer and chief theologian of Basel, and was one of the early proponents of a symbolical interpretation of the Eucharist. 62. Rott, Op.Cit., RHPR, Vol.34, p.245f. 63. Ibid., p.250f.

-203- 64. Ibid., p.241. 6S. Eells, Op.Cit., p,74. 66. Wendel,F., Calvin, Sources et Evolution de sa Pensée Religieuse, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 19$0, p.267, note 1S7. 67. Fischer, Op.Cit., in Dialog, Vol.2, p.S5. 68. Ibid., p.ss. 69. Eells, Op.Cit., p.75. 70. Ibid., p.76. 71. Stupperich, R., Cri ti cal iP-troduction to Bucer, Verteutschung des Psalters Johann Pommers etc., IvJBDS., Vol.2, p.263. See also Eells, Op.Cit., p.77. Bucer l-.TB.s given permission to tttranslate most freely, by changing, adding, contributing, altering the arder, casting sorne things in th'3lr place, and interpreting some more clear]~ or even differently, so that the Psalter would not be so much 11 his (Bugenhagen•s) as Bucers. 72. cf. Bucer, Psalter wol verteutscht, HBDS., Vol.2, pp.218-222. 73. Ibid., p.220. 74. Ibid., p.221. 7S. Ibid., p.219. 76. Ibid., p.220. 77. F'or the full ti tle of Bugenhagen' s work see HBDS., Vol.2, p.262. 78. Luther, quoted in Eells, Op.Cit., p.81. See also in LW. , Vo 1 • 3 7, p .147ff. 79. The full title in German is: Das Martin Butzer sich in verteutschung des Psalters Johann Pommers etrewlich und Christlich gehalten, MBDS., Vol.2, pp.2 -27 • See Ibid., p.2 3 for Latin title. 80. cf. Supra, Note 71.

....204- 81. Bucer, Verteutschung des Psalters Johann Pommers, NBDS., Vol.2, p.266f. 82. Ibid., p.267. 83. Ibid,, p.271. 84. Wendel, Calvin, Sources et Evolution, Op.Cit., p.253. 85. Courvoisier, La Notion d'Eglise, Op.Cit., p.75. 86. Bucer, quoted in Wendel, Op.Cit., p.253, note 109. 87. Eells, Op.Cit., p.86.

CHAPTER III 1. cf. Fischer,R.H., Critical introduction to Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, LW., Vol.37, p.l53. 2. Zwingli's work was entitled: friendly Exposition of the Eucharist Affair, to Martin Luther, see Zwingli's Sffmtliche Werke, Vol.5, , 1934, pp.548-758. The treatise by Luther was entitled: 'l'hat The se Words of Christ, "Thls is my body, netc., Still Stand Firm against the Fanatics, LW., Vo1.37, pp.l3-150. Fischer, Introduction to LW., Vol.37, p.xvii. Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, LW., Vol.37, p.280. 5. cf. Zwingli, Friendly Exposition, etc., Op.Cit., p.618. 6. Luther's Confess1on Concerning Christ's Supper is the most extensive and detailed of his publications relative to the controversy. The detailed nature of the work results from Lutherts decision ta make this his final writing on the subject. See Fischer' s introduction to the work, LW., Vol.37, p.l56.

-205- 7. Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, 1\v., Vo1.37, pp.218-219. See also Ibid., p.229.

8. Luther 1 s reference is to his previous work, That These Words of Christ, etc., see L~J • ., Vo1.37, p.l+ 7ff. 9. Luther, Confess5.on Concerning Christ's Supper, 1\v., Vo1.37, p.281. 10. Ibid., p.195. 11. Ibid., pp.286-287. 12. Ibid., p.287. 13. cf. Ibid., p.195. 14. Ibid., p.296. 15. Ibid., p.297. 16. Ibid., p.297. 17. Ibid., pp.299-300. This particu1ar paragraph by Luther is the one that so radica11y changed the nature of Bucer's re1ationship to the controversy. See Ee11s, Op.Cit., p.87f. 18. cf. Supra, p.40ff. 19. Luther, Confession Concernin Christ•s Su er, LW., Vo1.37, p.33 • One important theme, characteristic of Luther, and dear to the heart of Bucer, that of unity with Christ and with fe11ow Christians, does not have an exp1icit reference in this psrticular paragraph. Luther has, however, dea1t with it earlier on in the treatise. See Ibid., p.275. 2 o. cf. Ee lls, Op.Cit., p.8?. 21. Ibid., p.87.

• Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Su,eper, LW., Vol.37, p.195.

23. Ibid., PP• 299-300.

2)-j.. cf. Ee11s, Op.Cit., p.88.

-206- 25. Bucer quoted in Ibid., p.88. 26. Ibid., p.B8. 27. Recently published in MBDS., Vo1.2, pp.305-383. 28. Bucer, Vergleichung D. Luthers, I"'BDS., Vol.2, p.309. 29. Eells, Op.Cit., p.89. 30. See Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, LW., Vol.37, p.3oo. 31. Bucer, Vergleichung D. Luthers, MBDS., Vol.2, p.312f. 32. Ibid., p.314.

33. Luther, Confession Concerning Christ 1 s Supper, LW., Vol.37, p.195.

34. Bucer, Vergleichung D. Luthers, HBDS., Vol.2, p.Jl6.

35. Ibid~, p.317. 36. cf. Fischer, Op.Cit., in Dialog, Vol.2, p.54. 37. Bucer, Vergleichung D. Luthers, MBDS., Vol.2, r.317f.

38. cf. Ibid~, p.318, note 67. 39. Ibid., p.318.

1~0. Ibid., p.322. ltl. Ibid., p .. 323. 42. Ibid., p.330. 43. Ibid., p.333. See also pp.341; 369; 371. 44. Ibid., P•345· 45. For e.xample: nYou must not pay attention to what Luther says, but to what God ssys." Ibid., p.JJl. See also p.366.

46. Lut~er quoted !~Sella, Op.Cit., p.90.

-207- 47 . Ib id. , p • 9 0. 48. cf. Ibid., p.90f. 49. Pollet, Etudes sur la Correspondance, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.l9. See also Mackinnon, Op.Git., Vol.3, p.298. 50. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.l9. 51. cf. Lindsay, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.345f. 52. Bucer, Bekentnus derer von Strassburg, das sacrement betreffend, etc., in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.23. 53. Pollet faveurs the authorship of Bucer. 54. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.20f. 55. Bucer, Bekentnus derer von Strassburg, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.23. 56. Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.3, p.320. 57. cf. Eells, Cp.Cit., p.92. See also Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.J, p.320. 58. cf. Lindsay, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.358. 59. Fischer, Op.Cit., in Dialog, Vol.2, p.54. See also Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.3, p.325f. 60. See Infra, p.136. 61. cf. Eells, Op.nit., p.94. 62. Luther quoted in Ibid., p.94. 63. cf. Ibid., p.94. 64. Ibid., p.96. 65. Ibid., p.96. 66. cf. Ibid., p.97. See also Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.4, p.2.

-208- 67. Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.4, p.7. See also p.Bf. If Melanchthor!. actually presumed that the success of this enterprise was a possibility, then this must rank as an even greater n~ivety than that of Bucer who thought that the Eucharistie controversy was only a matter of words. 68. cf. Ibid., p.lO. 69. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.99. See also Pollet, Op,Cit., Vol.l, p.40. 70. Tappert, T.G., (Ed.) The Book of Concord, M.uhlenberg Press, PhllacJelphia, 19$9, p.J4. Translation taken from the Ger·rnen text. 71. Ibid., p.J79-180. 72. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.40. 73. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.99. 74. Besides Strasbourg, the confession was signed by Cons tence, Linda lJ_, and I1emmingen. 75. cf. Pollet, Op.C!t,, Vol.l, p.41. 76. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.lOO. 77. Ibid., p.lOO. 78. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, pp.20 & 23. See also Supra, p.lOlf. 79. cf. Bucer, Von dem sacramente des le rbs und bluets Christi, in Pollet, Op.C t., Vo .1, p. cf. Luther, The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, tw., vo1.35, p.so. 80. cf. Eells, Op,Cit., p.89.

81. Bucer, Von dem sacrame~te des leybs und bluets Christi, PoJlet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.45. 8?. Ibid., p,48. 83. Ibid., p.49. 84. Ibid., p.51. The same point is mgcJe again on p.52.

-209- 85. cf. Supra, ~ote 79. 86. Bucer, Von dem sacramente bluets Christi, Pollet, Op.Cit., 87. Ibid,, pp.49-50. 88. Ibid., p.46. 89. cf. Ibid., p.47. 90. Ibid,, p.48. 91. Ibid., p.50. 92. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.41. 93. cf. Eells, Cp,Cit., p.lOlf. 94. Ibid., p.l02. 95. Ibid., p.l03. 96. On Catholic reaction to the Augsburg Confession see Mackinnon, Op.Cit., Vol.4, p.llff. 97. cf. Eslls, Op.Cit., p.104. 98. cf. Ibid., p.l05. See also Fischer, Op.Cit., in Dialog, Vol.2, p.53. 99. cf. Eells, Cp.Cit., p.l06.

100. cf. Ibtd. 1 p.l06. 101. cf. Ibid,, p.lO?. 102. cf. Ibid., p.89. 103, cf. Ibid., p.l09. 104. Ibid., p.lll. 105. cf. Ibid,, p.lll and p.115. 106. Bucer quoted in Ibid., p.112. 107. Ibid., p.ll2. 108. cf. Ibid,, p.ll3.

-210- 109. Ibid., p.ll3f. 110. Bucer quoted in Ibid., p.ll5. 111. Bucer quoted in Ibid., p.ll6. 112. Ibid., p.ll7f.

CHAPTER IV

1. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.55ff. 2. This is not to say that Zwingli himself was insensitive to this need. He was, when compared to Luther, far more anxious to see the realization of a firm political alliance. See Supra, p.l05. 3. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.56. 4. Perhaps it was Bucer's ability to do this very thing that convinced him that the controversy was largely a matter of ;.sords. His real problem Has to fin.d the right words that would be ~cceptable to beth parties. 5. Bucer, Report to the Council of ZThrich, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.59. 6. Ibid., p.59. The concept of faith as confidence in God goes back to Buer's earliest writing. See Strohl, Traité de l'Amour, Op.Cit., p.8. 7. Bucer, Report to the Council of znrich, Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.60.

8. W•. KBhler descrlbed Bucer in these terms: 11 The voice can sound either in a Lutheran or Zwinglian manner; it certainJy does not make a sound that is clear and distinct, but rather one that is closely veiled." Quoted in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.68. 9. Eells, Op.Cit., p.l39. 10. cf. Ibid., p.l07.

-211- 11. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.67. 12. Strasbourg was at this point assuming a position of leadership among this masse flottante between ZUrich nnd Wittenberg. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.68. 13. Confessio :tvlartini Buceri in conventu Schweinfurdico in Pollet$ Op.Cit., Vol.1, pp.69-79. 14. cf. Ibid., p.69, paragraph 1. 15. Ibid., pp,69-70. 16. cf. Ibid., p.70, paragraph 3. 17. Ibid., p.70. 18. Ibid., p.71. 19. cf. Ibid., p.71, paragraphs 6 & 7. 20. Ibid., p.72. 21. Ibid., p.73. The German text of the paragraph from which this is taken reads as follows: "Nur eben disz wirt unns auch im heiligen nachtmal, wiewohl durch anndere gleichn8ss, furbildet, nemlich der speis unnd tranckh, wie im tauff durch eindunckhen oder wUschen, dann der herr in dem selbigen unns sein leib unnd blut, das ist sich selbs, sein tod unnd verdlenst, mit dem zeichenbrot urmd wein furtregt unnd darbeutet, das er domit anzeige, wie der mensch on sein leibliche speis unnd tranckh nit leben khan, unnd aber durch solliche in allem seinem thun erhalten, gestercket unnd lustig gemacht wirdt, das also ttnnd zugleicher weis, niemant des ewigen lebens, das ist eines rechten herzlichen vertrawen in Gott, aus dem dann alles guts folget, annders dann durch sein leib unnd blut, das ist seinen tod, verdienst, geist, krafft, art unnd leben, theilhafftig werden, in dem selbigen bestehen oder furfaren m8gen.u 22. cf. Ibid., p.73, paragraph 10. 23. Ibid., p,74. 24. cf. Ibid., p.74.

-212- 25. Ibid,, p.74. 26. Ibid., P•74• 27. cf. Ibid., p.75. 2s. Ibid., p.?s. 29. Ibid., p.?s. 30. Ibid., p.76. 31. Ibid., p.77. 32. cf. Ibid., p.77, perarraph 21. 33. cf. Ibid., p.77. 34. Ibid., p,78. As well as being an appeal to both sides to recognize each other as brothers aroupd the Lord's table, this passage indicates that the Anabaptists were becomin13 more of a problern in Stra s boLl.rg.

35. Eells, Op.Cit. 1 p.141. cf. article X of the Augsburg Confession in Tappert, The Book of Concord, Op,Cit., p.3h· Interestingly enough, Strasbourg did pot put aside the Tetrapolitana. For a number of years, both it and the Au~sburg Confession were regarded as the official teaching of the Strasbourg clergy. 36. cf. Ibid., p,141. 37. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.SO. 38. Wolf'hart' s let ter and Bucer' s re ply are round in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.84ff. 39. cf. Ee11s, Op.Cit., p.lq2. 40. Ibid., p.143- 41. Ibid., p.143-144· 42. Ibid., p.145. 1+3.

-213- 44· cf. I~fra, p.l57f. 45. cf. Wendel, L'Eglise de Strasbourg, Op.Cit., p.148. l~6. Ibid., p.l48. 47. Ibid., p.l48. 48. Ibid., p.l49. 49. cf. Ibid., p.l49. 50. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.80f. 51. cf. Ibid., p.l23. 52. cf. Ibid., p.124, note 7. See also Eells, Op.Cit., :o.l61. 53. Bucer, Bekentnus der lehr vom abendtmal der Theologen Angspurgk, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, pp.12S-129. 54. Ibid., p.131, paragraph 6. 55. Ibid., p.l31, paragraph 7. 56. Ibid., p.l32. 57. Ibid., p.l32, paragraph 9. 58. Ibid,, p.l32. 59. Ibid., p.l32. 60. Ibid., p.134. 61. Ibid., p.l35. 62. cf. Supra, p.150. 63. ef. Wendel, L'Eglise de Strasbourg, Op,Cit., p.148. Bucer, Bericht ••• zn MUnster, quoted in Eells, Op.Cit., p,161. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.l6lf. 66. cf. Ibid., p.l62.

-214- 67. cf. Ibid., p.173. 68. cf. id., p.174f. 69. Quoted in Ibid., p.175. 70. cf. Ibid., p.175. 71. cf. Ibid., p.l76. 72. cf. Ibid., p.l76. 73. The Cassel Formula, quoted in Ibid., p.l77. 74· cf. Ibid., p.177. 75. Ibid., p.l78. 76. cf. Ibid., p.l83ff.

7 7 • cf • Ibid. , p • 18 0. 78. cf. Ibid., p.l90. 79. The fact that they had a copy of the pamphlet with them indicates that the visit wae made at Bucer 1 s suggel':ltlon. 80. cf. Eells, Cp.Git., p.l9lf. 81. cf. Ibid., p.l94.

82. The First Swiss Co~fc3sion, quoted in Ibid., p.l95. 83. Eells, Op,Cit., p.l95. 84. cf. Ibid., p.l93. 85. Luther as quoted in Ibid., p.l99. 86. cf. Ibid., p.l99f. 87. The Wittenberg Concord - Articles on the Eucharist, in Ibid., pp.202-203. 88. cf. Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.l60. 89. Eells, Op.Cit., p,205. Pollet suggests that the fault in this respect lay more with Luther than Bucer, Op,Cit., Vol.l, p.l60.

-215- 90. cf. lls, Op.Cit., p.22lf. 91. Ibid., p.223. 92. Ibid., p.215.

CHAPTER V

1 • cf • Ee 11 s , Cp. C i t • , p • 2 04.

2. cf. Wendel, Op.Cit., Calvi~, Sources et Evolution de sa Pensêe Religieuse. p.2Sl. 3. The third article does re fer to the benefi ts of Christ being applied to those who have faith in hlm. Luther 1 s concession is perhaps implied in this. The article however, does place e rouch greater emphasis on the reception cf Christ by the unworthy. The article in question is quoted in lls, Op.Cit., p.202f. 4. Fennell, w.o., The Nature and Manner of the Impartation of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, publisheo in Christology, The Lord'g Supper and Its Observance in the Church, a collection of essays published jointly by representatives of the North American Area of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the u.s.A. National Ccmmittee of the Lutheran World Federatio~, Ne~ York, 1964, p.4lf. 5. Quoted in Eells, Op.Cit., p.202. 6. Quoted in Ibid., p.214. 7. cf. McLelland, J.C., Lutheran-Reformed Debate on Eucbarist and Christology, published in Chr:i.s tolo.. The Lord 1 s Su uer and Its Observance n the Church, Op.Cit., p.l f. 8. Quoted in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, p.l66. 9. cf. Tappert, T.G., Christology and the Lord's Supper in the Perspective of History, published in Christology, The Lord's Su~~er and Its Observance in the Ch,lrch, Cp.Cit., p. •

-216- 10. Fischer, Op.Cit., in Dialog, p.53. 11. McLelland, Op.Cit., p.l2. 12. Courvoisier, J., Une Traduction Françaine du Commentaire de Bucer sur l'Evangile Selon Saint Matthieu. Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1933. 13. Bucer in Ibid. The phrases in ita1ics sll translate substantia1iter in Bucer's text. The style of French is that of 1540. cf. Strohl, H., Bucer, Interprète de Luther in RHPR, Vol. 19, 1939, pp.223-261. 15. Ibid., p.253. 16. Ibid., p.254. 17. cf. Ibid., p.254. 18. Ibid., p.255. 19. cf. Ibid., p.2)7. 20. cf. Ibid., p.258. 21. Eells, Op.Cit., p.204. 22. Bucer in Pollet, Cp.Cit., Vol.l, p.l65. 23. Bucer in Ibid., p.l72. 24. Bucer to the Assembly of Schweinfurt, published in Ibid., p.72.

Bucer, A Confession for the Augsburg Theologians, in Ibid., p.l3lt • .?_6. Thurian, M., Intercommunion, in Bulletin, Vol.lO, No.2, Division of Stu.dies, World Council of Churche~, , 1964, pp.)-14.

27. Ibid., P•7•

28. Ibid.. 1 p.?. 29. Ibid., p.?.

30. For a modern Lutheran 1 s statemant of the Lutheran

-217- position see Heinecken, M.J., Christology, The Lord 1 s Supper and Its Observance in the Church, puolished in Christology, The Lord's Supper and Its Observance in the Church, Op.Cit., p.69, Parag;raph 3. 31. Quoted in Fraenkel, P. Ten Questions Concerning Melanchthon, the Fathers and the Eucharist, pub li shed in Luther and !vie lan ch thon, Vajta, V., (Ed.), Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia, 1961, p.146. 32. cf. Eells, Op.Cit., p.l63. 33. From the article on the Bucharist in the Tetrapolitana. Quoted in Eells, Op.Cit., p.lOO. 34. cf. Ibid., p.lOO. 35. Pelikan, J., Bonhoeffer's Christologie of 1933, publi.shed in The Place of Bonhoeffer, Marty,M.E. (Ed.), Association Press, New York, 1962, p.149. 36. Ibid., p.155f.

-218- BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barth, Karl Luther's Doctrine of the Eucharist: Its Basis and Purpose, (1923) in Theology and Church, a collection of the shorter writings of Barth between 1920 and 1928. Translated by Louise Pettibone Smith, Harper and Row, New York, 1962, pp.74-111. BornkamM, Heinrich Luther' s >,rJorld of Thought, translated by Martin H. Bertram, Concordia Publishing House, Saint Louis, 1958. Brilioth, Yngve Eucharistie Faith and Practice, Evangelical and Catholic, trans1ated by A.G. Hebert, SPCK., London, 1930. Bucer, Nert.in The texts of Bucer are in chronological : Das ym selbs niemant, sonder anderen leben soll und wie der mensch dah n kummen mg, 1 23, in MBDS., Vol.l, pp.47-67. Also published with a French translation, notee and introduction by Henri Strohl in Traité de l'Amour du Prochain, Pres~es Universitaires de France, Paris, 1949. Martin Butzers an ein christlichen Rath und Gemeyn der Eltatt Weissenburg Summary seiner Predig dase1bst gethon, 1523, in MBDS., Vol.l, pp.?9-147. Grund und ursach auss gotlicher schrifft der nenweruneen an dem nachtmal des herran, so man die Mess nennet, Tauff, Feyrtagen, bildern und gesang in der gemein Christi,

-219- Bucer, Martin wann die zlisamrnenkompt~ durch und auff das wort gattes z Strassburg fÜrgenommGn, 1g24, in MBDS., Vol.l, pp.194-278. Instruction given by Bucer in the name of his Strasbourg colleagues to Gregory Cassel for his mission to Wittenberg, 1525, in RHPR., Vol.3l.J., pp. 2L!.lt-254. Psalter wol verteutscht, 1526, in MBDS., Vol.2, pp.lS?-223. Das Martin Butzer in verteutschung des Psalters Johann Po~mers getrewlich und christlich gehalten, 1527, in IviBDS., Vol.2, pp.26S-2?$. Vergleichung D. Luthers und sein 'egentheyls vom Abentmal Christi, 528, in MBDS., Vol.2, pp.30S-383. Bekentnus derer von S ssbur das sacrament betreffend, etc., 1 29, :in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, Doc.II, p.23. Von dem sacramente des leybs und bluets Christi. Ist nicht eingelegt, schema. for Article XVIII of the Tetrapolitana, 1530, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vcl.l, Doc.VI, pp.45-54. Report of Bucer to the Council of ZRrich on the doctrine of the Eucharist professed at Augsburg, 1530, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, Doc.VII, pp.58-61. Confessio Martini 3uceri in conventu Schweinfurd:i.co, etc., 1532, in Pollet, Cp.Cit., Vol.l, Doc.IX, pp.69-79. Bekentnus der lehr vom abendtmal der Theologen Augspurgk, etc., 1.533, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, Doc.XII, pp.l27-141.

-220- Bucer, Martin Ermahnung M. Buceri an seine Gesellen, das sie sich der Formulae underschreiben sollen, etc., 1 Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, & XXI, pp.l65-166. Vorhalt bey der Burgerschafft wegen de sz zu \~i ttenberg ge hal tenen Convents, 1536, in Pollet, Op.Cit., Vol.l, Doc.XXII, pp.l67-170. Vortrag auf den Cantzlen anlangend die zu Wittenberg gemachte Union zwischen den Lutheranern und Zwin lianern der stritti en Reli ion articul halb, 1 3 , in Pollet, Op.Cit., Doc.XXIII, pp.l71-173. Courvoisier, J. La Notion d'Eglise Chez Bucer, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1933. Une Traduction Française du Commentaire de Bucer sur l'Evangile Selon Saint Matthieu, Libraire Félix Alcan, Paris, 1933. Eells, Hastings Martin Bucer, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1931.

Fischer, Robert H. Luther 1 s Stake in the Lord 1 s Supper Controversy, in Dialog, Vo1.2, Minneapolis, 1963, pp.50-59. Heitz, J.J. Etude sur la Formation de la Pensêe Ecclesiologique de Bucer, an unpublished thesis submitted to the University of Strasbourg, 1947. Hopf, Constantine Martin Bucer and the , Blackwell 1 s, Oxford, 1946. Li>Jdsay, Thomas M. A History of the Reformation, Vol.l, T.&T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1907, Second Edition.

-221- Luther, Martin The texts of Luther are in chronological sequence: The Blessed Sacrament of the Roly and True Body of Christ, and the Brotherhoods, 1519, in LW., Vo1.35, pp.49-73· A Treatise on the New Testament, that is, the Roly Mass, 1520, in LW., Vol.3S, pp.79-lll. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520, in LW., Vol.36, pp.ll-126. Receiving Both Kinds in the Sacrament, 1S22, in LW., Vo1.36, pp. 237-267. The Adoration of the Ss.crsment, 1523, in LW., Vol.36, pp.27S-305. at to the LW.,

Against the Reavenly Prophets in the IvJ:atter of Images and Sacraments, 1525, in LW., Vo1.40, pp.79-22J. The Sacrement of the Body and Blood of Christ - Against the Fanatics, 1526, in LW., Vol.36, pp.335-361. That These Words of Christ, "This is My Bod.y, 11 etc., Sti11 Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in LW., Vol.37, p,.13-150.

Confession Concerning Christ 1 s Supper, 1528, in LW., Vol.37, pp.161-372. MacDonald, A.J. The Evangelical Doctr:tne of Holy ( Ed. ) Comm.union, Reffer & Sons, , 193 0.

-222- Mackinnon, James Luther and the Reformation, Vols. 3 & 4, Longmans, London, 1929-30. Pollet, J. V. Martin Bucer - Etudes sur la Correspondance, Vol. 1, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1958.

Rilliet, Jean H. Zwingle, le troisième homme de 1~ Réforme, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 1959. Rott, Jean Bucer et les débuts de la querelle sacramentaire, in RHPR., Vo1.34, pp.234-254- -- Stone, Darwell A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, Longmans, Green, London, 1909. Strohl, Henri Bucer, Humaniste Chrétien, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1939. Bucer, Interprète de Luther, in RHPR., Vol.l9, pp.223-261. Le Protestantisme en Alsace, Editions Oberlin, Strasbourg, 1950. Thompson, Bard Bucer Study Since 1918, in Church History, Vol.25, The American Society of Church History, Chicago, 1956, pp.63-82. Thurian, Max Intercommunion, in Bulletin, Vol.lO, No.2, Division of Studies, World Council of Churches, Geneva, 1964, pp.5-14-· Wendel, François Calvin, Sources et Evolution de sa Pensée Religieuse, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 19,50.

-223- Wendel, François Martin Bucer, La Société Pastorale de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1951. Zwingli, Huldrich On the Lord's Supper, 1526, in LCC., Vol.24, pp.lSS-238. An Exposition of the Faith, 1531, in LCC., Vol.24, pp.24$-279.

-224-