Last Supper Controversy

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The controversy in the history of the Western Church about the nature of the Eucharist and the question of whether Christ is symbolically or physically present in the eucharistic elements of bread and wine is referred to as the Lord's Supper dispute :

The doctrine of the Eucharist also plays a central role in the current ecumenical movement .

The dispute over doctrine on the Eucharist

In a broader sense, the sacrament controversy is the "controversy over the question of how the body and blood of Jesus Christ are present in the bread and wine: real, transformed or symbolic." In a narrower sense one speaks of a first sacrament controversy in the 9th century and of a second sacrament controversy in the 11th century. In the matter there was also a pre-Reformation dispute about the Eucharist with Wyclif (1300–1384), who rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation . The Reformation is also a dispute over the understanding of the Eucharist. The expression Lord's Supper dispute is mainly used for the dispute over the Eucharist within the Catholic Church or within the Reformation churches. The intra-Catholic or ecumenical theological discussion about the nature of the Eucharist continues after the Council of Trent , but is not called a dispute.

The first sacrament controversy

The Eucharistic disputes began in the 9th century: Amalar of Metz († around 850) was already adopting a new conception according to which the Eucharistic form of bread was transformed into flesh; this is done as an imitation of Christ's action at the Last Supper and his commission, but in the sense of a sacrifice (sacrificium) by the people and priests, so that God may not count their sins. Amalar's doctrine of the measurement was formative for the rest of the Middle Ages: For him, the Eucharistic body of Christ is actually the body of Christ in the manner of the physical reality that appears to us. In addition, the older tradition of spiritual sacrifice continued to exist, e.g. B. Florus of Lyon († 860), in which the Eucharistic sacrifice serves to gather and unite the one Church of Jesus Christ. With the church father Augustine , he emphasizes the “salvation-historical valuation of the sacrament” in its task of the mystical union of church and Christ.

With Amalar von Metz, Paschasius Radbertus († 850) tried in his Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini ("Book of the Body and Blood of the Lord") to bundle the patristic literature on the Eucharist: Christ will - even if he no longer dies - sacrificed in the Eucharistic celebration in mystery and enjoyed his body to wash away sins. The Eucharistic food was transformed into what faith confesses from without, into the historical body of Christ. Von Metzen's material realism was then also the occasion for the so-called First Supper Controversy, the question of the Eucharistic signs. Rabanus Maurus († 856) appeared as an opponent of Paschasius : he continued to represent the older, Augustinian view of an incompatibility of symbol and reality, which would be contrary to each other.

Ratramnus von Corbie († 868) is mentioned as the main opponent of Paschasius Radbertus . Charles the Bald had asked him whether the body and blood of Christ emerged in the Eucharist as a secret of faith or actually ( in mysterio fiat an in veritate ) and whether the body to be enjoyed was the body of Christ born of Mary or that after his ascension Christ elevated and seated at the right hand of God. The answer of the Ratramnus was that, since no physical change was noticeable with the change of the Eucharistic food, the change could only have taken place spiritually (spiritualiter) , but not physically (corporaliter) . You should therefore only pictorially (figuraliter) completed. So bread and wine are not in truth the body and blood of Christ, but only representational, as figurae in their visible form, and only their invisible essence according to the body and blood of Christ: they represent a purely spiritual food and a spiritual drink a difference between the body of Christ of the Eucharist and the passion body of Christ, whose memory would only be represented by the eucharistic food. The change connects the natural elements with the body and blood of the historical and transfigured Lord. The Eucharistic figures made present the human reality of Christ. But nothing changes in the existence of bread and wine. A transformation of the elements does not take place. In the sacrament the body of Christ is "present in exactly the same way as the people receiving the Eucharist [...]: in mysterio".

By harmonizing Augustinian and Ambrosian theology, by defending the compatibility of veritas and figura , Paschasius Radbertus put an end to this sacramental controversy in a letter to Frudiger: on the one hand, the historical and sacramental body of Christ are identical, on the other hand, the sacramental body has a “spiritual way of being “And the Eucharist is, by its very nature, both a real and a symbolic reality.

The second sacrament controversy

The first sacrament controversy revived in the 11th century in the so-called second sacrament controversy. Berengar von Tours interpreted the Augustinian concept of the sacrament as "dynamic-symbolic" and denied the possibility of the change of the elements and the true presence of the man's body. The sacrament itself does not contain the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, it is not the sacramental sign, but “actually subjective faith” that connects the believer with the historical and glorified Jesus Christ. For Berengar, the notion of real memory was a threat to Christ's unique sacrifice on the cross; so a realistic presence of body and blood among the Eucharistic food was inconceivable for him. In relation to him, others (Hugo von Langres, Durandus von Troarn) insisted on such a real present-day approach: the theologians who argued against Berengar and his symbolism were interested in emphasizing the identity of the historical and sacramental body.

This dispute finally ended with Berengar being forced at a Roman synod in 1059 to sign a confession from the pen of Cardinal Bishop Humbert of Silva Candida: bread and wine are not just signs; They are not in a sensual way, but in truth (non sensualiter, sed in veritate) the real body and blood of Christ ( verum corpus et sanguinem Christi ), which in reality are touched by the priestly hands, broken and when communicating with the teeth would be crushed.

In contrast to the radical realism of Berengar's confessional formula , Lanfrank von Bec and his pupil Guitmund von Aversa approached the doctrine of transubstantiation : the outward form of the Eucharistic gifts is preserved, but their essence is transformed into the body of Christ ( converti in essentiam Dominici corporis ); factually this already represents a distinction between substance and accident . Lanfrank distinguishes between the visible parts of the sacrament ( visibili elementorum specie ) and the invisible thing, the Corpus Christi.

Guitmund works out the concept of change: He sees change as a substantial change ( substantialiter transmutari ), in which the accidents of the existing matter, bread and wine, are preserved.

The real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrament per modum substantiae , thus worked out, makes the Lateran Synod of 1079 Berengar confess the following:

“[…] That the bread and wine that lie on the altar are substantially transformed (subtantialiter converti) into the true, own and life-giving flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ through the mystery of holy prayer and through the words of our Savior and after the consecration the true body of Christ (verum corpus Christi), […], and the true blood of Christ (verum sanguinem Christi), […], not only through the sign and power of the sacrament, but in the authenticity of nature and the truth of substance (in proprietate naturae et veritate substantiae) ... "

- DH 700

The proceeds of the preparatory work by Lafrank von Bec and his pupil Guitmund von Aversavon were sanctioned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and given the concept of transubstantiation, which appeared for the first time around the middle of the 12th century and is a short term for the Eucharistic faith had already spread widely; so he had already penetrated the canonical collections of Ivo of Chartres († 1116) and the Decretum Gratiani (1140). Early and high scholasticism had to deal with further questions, such as where the substance of the bread would remain after the change; Hugo von St. Viktor, for example, spoke of a transition from the true substance of bread to the true substance of the Christ body. In its first canon, the fourth Lateranum defined the true presence of Jesus Christ among the figures of bread and wine (transsubstantiatis pane in corpus et vino in sanguinem) , insofar as it was performed by priests who were properly ordained by the key power of the Church:

“But there is a universal church of believers […] In it, Jesus Christ is the priest himself and the sacrifice at the same time. His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar and in the forms of bread and wine (veraciter continentur), after the bread has been transformed into the body and the wine into the blood through God's power (transsubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem potestate divina). In this way, what he received from his own is received from his own, and so the mystery of unity (mysterium unitatis) is completed [...] "

- DH 802

With the triumphant advance of the doctrine of transubstantiation , the piety of the Eucharist also changed: since the middle of the 11th century, the Eucharist has been venerated through squats and incens , towards the end of the 12th century elevation was introduced, which spread quickly and in the 13th century was common, as was Eucharistic adoration at the beginning of the 13th century and the Feast of Corpus Christi (Festum Corporis Christi), which was introduced in 1264.

The Lord's Supper Controversy during the Reformation

Zwingli and Luther discuss the Lord's Supper in Marburg. Illustration of the Zwinglitür of the Grossmünster in Zurich.

The expression Lord Supper Controversy describes in a narrower sense the conflict between the reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli and their mutual supporters over the understanding of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper .

After Zwingli had made his position clear in an open letter in Zurich in the autumn of 1524, Johannes Oekolampad supported him from Basel with a paper published in September 1525. The Lutheran theologians around Johannes Brenz in Schwäbisch Hall responded with their Syngramma . Between 1526 and 1529 Luther and Zwingli and their followers on both sides (Oekolampad, Johannes Bugenhagen ) exchanged a number of pamphlets.

In 1529 Zwingli met with Luther and Landgrave Philipp of Hesse . He was in agreement with Luther on the doctrine of justification . Justification before God cannot be obtained through good works, but only through faith in the one God and Christ's atoning death. At the meeting in Marburg ( Marburg Religious Discussion ), however, it became apparent that the controversy surrounding the understanding of the Lord's Supper could not be overcome. Luther saw in the Lord's Supper the deepest experience of God's grace that had become visible. Because in the institute of the Lord's Supper there is a praedicatio identica , to “body bread” and “blood wine”, as Luther put it in his book On The Lord's Supper. Confession formulated in 1528. In, with and under bread and wine, the true body and blood of Christ will be distributed and received with the mouth ( real presence ). The humanist-influenced Zwingli saw in the Lord's Supper and its elements only a symbolic force that was only intended to awaken the memory of the risen One. Only in the believing remembrance of the church is Christ present in a spiritual way. However, the jointly rejected starting point was the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation , according to which wine and bread are actually and permanently transformed into the blood and flesh of Jesus during the celebration of the Lord's Supper.

After Zwingli's death in 1531, new attempts were made to overcome the dispute, also in order to be able to reach a broad alliance with the Old Believers ( Schmalkaldischer Bund ). Above all, Martin Bucer and Philipp Melanchthon tried to find a balance. However, it was only possible to integrate the representatives of the so-called “Upper German” Reformation into the Lutheran camp with the Wittenberg Agreement of 1536. The Swiss Protestant cantons led by Zwingli's successor Heinrich Bullinger were excluded from the Schmalkaldic Confederation.

The Geneva reformer Jean Calvin rejected Zwingli's view that the Lord's Supper was primarily about the actions of the congregation. According to his teaching, bread and wine are means of grace through which the believer receives Christ and in him the fullness of the gifts of grace. Calvin only denied the equation of the elements with Christ's body and blood, because Christ's body was materially present in heaven. Luther initially accepted Calvin's view. In 1549, however, Calvin reached an agreement with Bullinger in the Consensus Tigurinus and thereby approached the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper. This led to the so-called second supper dispute in the 1550s , which the Gnesiolutheran Joachim Westphal opened in 1552 with an attack on Calvin. In connection with this, a dispute broke out within the Lutheran camp between the Gnesiolutherans and the followers of Melanchthon (the so-called Philippists ), who were accused of rapprochement with Calvin.

literature

  • Ernst Bizer : Studies on the history of the Lord's Supper dispute in the 16th century. 3rd unchanged edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1972, ISBN 3-534-05929-8 ( contributions to the promotion of Christian theology 46).
  • Pierre Bühler : The Reformers' Last Supper Controversy . In: Theologische Zeitschrift 35 (1979), pp. 228-241.
  • Josef R. Geiselmann: Last Supper dispute. In: Höfer / Rahner (ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK). - Herder: Freiburg. Vol. 1. 2. Edition 1957 (special edition 1986), Sp. 33-36 (with further references).
  • Jörg Haustein : The Last Supper Controversy of the 16th Century, Its Background and Its Significance for Contemporary Ecumenism . In: Lord's Supper Today. Reflections on the theological foundations and contemporary design. Ed. V. Wolfgang Erich Müller and Enno Konukiewitz. Frankfurt am Main (Peter Lang) 2002, pp. 23–40.
  • Gerhard Kiesow: Of knights and preachers. The Lords of Gemmingen and the Reformation in Kraichgau . Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 1997, ISBN 3-929366-57-6 , pp. 65-73 (plus master's thesis, University of Heidelberg 1997).
  • Walther Köhler : Zwingli and Luther. Their quarrel over the Lord's Supper after its political and religious relationships . 2 vol., 1924/1953.
  • Wilhelm H. Neuser : The second sacrament controversy . In: Handbook of the history of dogmas and theology, 2nd ed. Carl Andresen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2nd edition 1998), pp. 272–285.
  • Ruth Slenczka: The creative effect of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper and the practice of the Lord's Supper in the 16th century , in: European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2010 Accessed on: June 13, 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Kunz (Ed.): Lexicon Ethics - Religion: Technical Terms and Persons , Stark, Freising 2001: Last Supper
  2. ↑ Cf. Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Catholic Dogmatics: for the study and practice of theology. - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th total edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 683.
  3. ^ Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Catholic dogmatics: for study and practice of theology. - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th total edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 693 f .; Josef R. Geiselmann: Last Supper Controversy In: Höfer, Rahner (Hrsg.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK) - Herder: Freiburg. Vol. 1. 2. Edition 1957 (special edition 1986), Col. 33
  4. ^ After Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Katholische Dogmatik: for study and practice of theology - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th complete edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 694.
  5. ↑ a b c d Josef R. Geiselmann: Last Supper Controversy In: Höfer / Rahner (Hrsg.): Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK) - Herder: Freiburg. Vol. 1. 2. Edition 1957 (special edition 1986), Col. 33
  6. ^ Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Katholische Dogmatik: for study and practice of theology - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th complete edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 694.
  7. ^ Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Catholic dogmatics: for study and practice of theology. - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th total edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 696 translated as "essential"
  8. ↑ Denziger / Hünermann: Enchiridium symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum - 37th edition. - Herder: Freiburg [ua] 1991, No. 700
  9. ↑ Denziger / Hünermann: Enchiridium symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. - 37th edition. - Herder: Freiburg [ua] 1991, No. 802; Translation after Gerhard Ludwig Müller: Catholic dogmatics: for study and practice of theology. - 2nd edition of the special edition (7th total edition 2005). - Herder: Freiburg, Basel, Vienna 2007, p. 696.