Part 1 (1/2)

Works of Martin Luther

by Luther Martin

INTRODUCTION

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 Baptisy 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 knohat the holy sacrarace, are, nor how to use the their consciences with their works, instead of seeking peace in God's grace through the holy sacrament; so completely are the holy sacra of men”[1]

In a letter to Spalatin[2] of December 18, 1519, he says that no one need expect treatises froe the of Wittenberg reached Duke George of Saxony by December 24, 1519, who on Deceainst 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 statenificant, 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-elical interpretation of the idea of sacrifice in the ives us in the later treatise on the New Testaives 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 proiveness of sins contained in the Words of Institution, which are a new and eternal testament[7]

The treatise shows the influence of the Gerht, but ument 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 proiveness 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 coh 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 n of the sacranificance; 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 weretwenty-one Luther objects not only to their iendered 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 ho a few scholastic phrases here and there, cannot find them better expressed than in the ree of Luther in this treatise

The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weien 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 thatder lutherischen und reformierten Kirchenlehre_, 1910, pp 174-176

K Thie der Sakramentslehre Luthers_, Neueu Kirchl Zeitschrift, XII (1901), Nos 10 and 11

F Graebke, _Die Konstruktion der Abend 1908

J J SCHINDEL

Allentown, PA

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Clemen, 1, p 175

[2] Enders, II, no 254 Smith, _Luther's Correspondence_, I, no

206

[3] Gess, _Akten und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von Sachsen_, Leipzig, 1905