"this" in the sacred text; Zwingli, the word "is;" "Oecolampadius, the word "body;"^840 others torture
and murder the whole text. All alike destroy the sacraments. He allows no figurative meaning even
in such passages as 1 Cor. 10:4; John 15:1; Gen. 41:26; Exod. 12:11, 12. When Paul says, Christ
is a rock, he means that he is truly a spiritual rock. When Christ says, "I am the vine," he means a
true spiritual vine. But what else is this than a figurative interpretation in another form?
A great part of the book is devoted to the proof of the ubiquity of Christ’s body. He explains
"the right hand of God" to mean his "almighty power." Here he falls himself into a figurative
interpretation. He ridicules the childish notion which he ascribes to his opponents, although they
never dreamed of it, that Christ is literally seated, and immovably fastened, on a golden throne in
heaven, with a golden crown on his head.^841 He does not go so far as to deny the realness of Christ’s
ascension, which implies a removal of his corporal presence. There is, in this reasoning, a strange
combination of literal and figurative interpretation. But he very forcibly argues from the personal
union of the divine and human natures in Christ, for the possibility of a real presence; only he errs
in confounding real with corporal. He forgets that the spiritual is even more real than the corporal,
and that the corporal is worth nothing without the spiritual.
Nitzsch and Köstlin are right when they say that both Zwingli and Luther "assume qualities
of the glorified body of Christ, of which we can know nothing; the one by asserting a spacial
inclusion of that body in heaven, the other by asserting dogmatically its divine omnipresence on
earth."^842 We may add, that the Reformers proceeded on an assumption of the locality of heaven,
which is made impossible by the Copernican system. For aught we know, heaven may be very near,
and round about as well as above us.
Zwingli answered Luther without delay, in an elaborate treatise, likewise in German (but
in the Swiss dialect), and under a similar title ("That the words, ’This is my body,’ have still the
old and only sense," etc.).^843 It is addressed to the Elector John of Saxony, and dated June 20, 1527.
Zwingli follows Luther step by step, answers every argument, defends the figurative interpretation
of the words of institution by many parallel passages (Gen. 41:26; Exod. 12:11; Gal. 4:24; Matt.
11:14; 1 Cor. 10:4, etc.), and discusses also the relation of the two natures in Christ.
He disowns the imputed literal understanding of God’s almighty hand, and says, "We have
known long since that God’s power is everywhere, that he is the Being of beings, and that his
omnipresence upholds all things. We know that where Christ is, there is God, and where God is,
there is Christ. But we distinguish between the two natures, and between the person of Christ and
the body of Christ." He charges Luther with confounding the two. The attributes of the infinite
nature of God are not communicable to the finite nature of man, except by an exchange which is
called in rhetoric alloeosis. The ubiquity of Christ’s body is a contradiction. Christ is everywhere,
but his body cannot be everywhere without ceasing to be a body, in any proper sense of the term.
(^840) He coins new names for the three parties, Tutisten, Tropisten, Deutisten. Erl. ed. XXX. 336.
(^841) "Wie man den Kindern pflegt fürzubilden einen Gaukelhimmel, darin ein gülden Stuhl stehe und Christus neben dem Vater sitze in
einer Chorkappen und gülden Krone, gleichwie es die Mäler malen. Denn wo sie nicht solche kindische, fleischliche Gedanken hätten
von der rechten Hand Gottes, würden sie freilich sich nicht so lassen anfechten den Leib Christi im Abendmahl, oder sich bläün mit dem
Spruch Augustini (welchem sie doch sonst nichts gläuben noch keinem andern), Christus muss an einem Ort leiblichsein, aber seine
Wahrheit [Gottheit?] is allenthalben." Erl. ed. XXX. 56.
(^842) Köstlin, M. Luther, II. 96 and 642; and Luthers Theologie, II. 172 sqq.
(^843) Werke, vol. II. Part II. 16-93. Afterwards translated into Latin by Gualter, Opera Lat.II. 374-416.