John Feige, the chancellor of the Landgrave, exhorted the theologians in an introductory
address to seek only the glory of Christ and the restoration of peace and union to the church.
The debate was chiefly exegetical, but brought out no new argument. It was simply a
recapitulation of the preceding controversy, with less heat and more gentlemanly courtesy. Luther
took his stand on the words of institution in their literal sense: "This is my body;" the Swiss, on the
word of Christ: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have
spoken unto you are spirit and are life."
Luther first rose, and declared emphatically that he would not change his opinion on the
real presence in the least, but stand fast on it to the end of life. He called upon the Swiss to prove
the absence of Christ, but protested at the outset against arguments derived from reason and
geometry. To give pictorial emphasis to his declaration, he wrote with a piece of chalk on the table
in large characters the words of institution, with which he was determined to stand or fall: "Hoc
est corpus Meum."
Oecolampadius in reply said he would abstain from philosophical arguments, and appeal
to the Scriptures. He quoted several passages which have an obviously figurative meaning, but
especially John 6:63, which in his judgment furnishes the key for the interpretation of the words
of institution, and excludes a literal understanding. He employed this syllogism: Christ cannot
contradict himself; he said, "The flesh profiteth nothing," and thereby rejected the oral manducation
of his body; therefore he cannot mean such a manducation in the Lord’s Supper.
Luther denied the second proposition, and asserted that Christ did not reject oral, but only
material manducation, like that of the flesh of oxen or of swine. I mean a sublime spiritual fruition,
yet with the mouth. To the objection that bodily eating was useless if we have the spiritual eating,
he replied, If God should order me to eat crab-apples or dung, I would do it, being assured that it
would he salutary. We must here close the eyes.
Here Zwingli interposed: God does not ask us to eat crab-apples, or to do any thing
unreasonable. We cannot admit two kinds of corporal manducation; Christ uses the same word "to
eat," which is either spiritual or corporal. You admit that the spiritual eating alone gives comfort
to the soul. If this is the chief thing, let us not quarrel about the other. He then read from the Greek
Testament which he had copied with his own hand, and used for twelve years, the passage John
6:52, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" and Christ’s word, 6:63.
Luther asked him to read the text in German or Latin, not in Greek. When Christ says, "The
flesh profiteth nothing," he speaks not of his flesh, but of ours.
Zwingli: The soul is fed with the spirit, not with flesh.
Luther: We eat the body with the mouth, not with the soul. If God should place rotten apples
before me, I would eat them.
Zwingli: Christ’s body then would he a corporal, and not a spiritual, nourishment.
Luther: You are captious.
Zwingli: Not so; but you contradict yourself.
Zwingli quoted a number of figurative passages; but Luther always pointed his finger to
the words of institution, as he had written them on the table. He denied that the discourse, John 6,
had any thing to do with the Lord’s Supper.
At this point a laughable, yet characteristic incident occurred. "Beg your pardon," said
Zwingli, "that passage [John 6:63] breaks your neck." Luther, understanding this literally, said,
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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