This treatise belongs to a series of four which appeared in the latter
half of the year 1519, the others treating of the Ban, Penance, and
Baptism. The latter two with our treatise form a trilogy which Luther
dedicates to the Duchess Margaret of Braunschweig and Luneburg.
He undertakes the work, as he says, "because there are so many
troubled and distressed ones--and I myself have had the
experience--who do not know what the holy sacraments, full of all
grace, are, nor how to use them, but, alas! presume upon quieting
their consciences with their works, instead of seeking peace in God's
grace through the holy sacrament; so completely are the holy
sacraments obscured and withdrawn from us by the teaching of men."[1]
In a letter to Spalatin[2] of December 18, 1519, he says that no one
need expect treatises from him on the other sacraments, since he
cannot acknowledge them as such.
A copy from the press of John Grunenberg of Wittenberg reached Duke
George of Saxony by December 24, 1519, who on December 27th already
entered his protest against it with the Elector Frederick and the
Bishops of Meissen and Merseburg[3]. Duke George took exception
particularly to Luther's advocacy of the two kinds in the
Communion[4]. This statement of Luther, however, was but incidental to
his broad and rich treatment of the subject of the treatise.
It was Luther's first extended statement of his view of the Lord's
Supper. As such it is very significant, not only because of what he
says, but also because of what he does not say. There is no reference
at all to that which was then distinctive of the Church's doctrine,
the sacrifice of the mass. Luther has already abandoned this position,
but is either too loyal a church-man to attack it or has not as yet
found an evangelical interpretation of the idea of sacrifice in the
mass, such as he gives us in the later treatise on the New
Testament[5]. However, already in this treatise he gives us the
antidote for the false doctrine of sacrifice in the emphasis laid upon
faith, on which all depends[6]. The object of this faith, however, is
not yet stated to be the promise of the forgiveness of sins contained
in the Words of Institution, which are a new and eternal testament[7].
The treatise shows the influence of the German mystics[8] on Luther's
thought, but much more of the Scriptures which furnish him with
argument and illustration for his mystical conceptions. Christ's
natural body is made of less importance than the spiritual body[9],
the communion of saints; just as in the later treatise on the New
Testament the stress is placed on the Words of Institution with their
promise of the forgiveness of sins. Luther does not try to explain
philosophically what is inexplicable, but is content to accept on
faith the act of the presence of Christ in the sacrament, "how and
where,--we leave to Him."[10]
Of interest is the emphasis on the spiritual body, the communion of
saints. Luther knows that although excommunication is exclusion from
external communion, it is not necessarily exclusion from real
spiritual communion with Christ and His saints[11]. No wonder, then,
that he can later treat the papal bull with so much indifference; it
cannot exclude him from the communion of saints.
The treatise consists of three main divisions: sections 1 to 3
treating of the outward sign of the sacrament; sections 4 to 16, of
the inner significance; sections 17 to 22, of faith. Added to this is
the appendix on the subject of the brotherhoods or sodalities,
associations of laymen or charitable and devotional purposes. Of these
there were many at this time, Wittenberg alone being reported as
having twenty-one. Luther objects not only to their immoral conduct,
but also to the spiritual pride which they engendered. He finds in the
communion of saints the fundamental brotherhood instituted in the holy
sacrament, the common brotherhood of all saints.
The modern world needs to have these truths driven home anew, and,
barring a few scholastic phrases here and there, cannot find them
better expressed than in the remarkably elevated and devotional
language of Luther in this treatise.
The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar
Ed., vol. ii, 742; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 28; Walch Ed., Vol. xix,
522; St. Louis Ed., xix, 426; Clemen, vol. i, 196; Berlin Ed., vol.
iii, 259.
Literature besides that mentioned:
Tschackert, _Enstehung der lutherischen und reformierten
Kirchenlehre_, 1910, pp. 174-176.
K. Thieme, _Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Sakramentslehre Luthers_,
Neueu Kirchl. Zeitschrift, XII (1901), Nos. 10 and 11.
F. Graebke, _Die Konstruktion der Abendmahlslehre Luthers in ihre
Entwicklung dargestellt_, Leipzig 1908.