Supper, in "The Mercersburg Review," 1850, pp. 421–549. Ch. Hodge (Presbyt, d. 1878):
in "The Princeton Review" for April, 1848; Systematic Theology, New York, 1873, vol.
III., 626–677. C. P. Krauth (Luth., d. 1883): The Conservative Reformation (Philadelphia,
1872), p. 585 sqq. H. J. Van Dyke (Calvinist): The Lord’s Supper, 2 arts. in "The Presbyterian
Review," New York, 1887, pp. 193 and 472 sqq. J. W. Richard (Luth.), in the "Bibliotheca
Sacra" (Oberlin, O.), Oct. 1887, p. 667 sqq., and Jan. 1888, p. 110 sqq.
See, also, the Lit. quoted in Schaff, Church Hist., I. 471 sq. and IV. 543 sq.
While the Reformers were agreed on the question of infant-baptism against the Anabaptists,
they disagreed on the mode and extent of the real presence in the Lord’s Supper.
The eucharistic controversies of the sixteenth century present a sad and disheartening
spectacle of human passion and violence, and inflicted great injury to the progress of the Reformation
by preventing united action, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy; but they were overruled for
the clearer development and statement of truth, like the equally violent Trinitarian, Christological,
and other controversies in the ancient church. It is a humiliating fact, that the feast of union and
communion of believers with Christ and with each other, wherein they engage in the highest act
of worship, and make the nearest approach to heaven, should have become the innocent occasion
of bitter contests among brethren professing the same faith and the same devotion to Christ and his
gospel. The person of Christ and the supper of Christ have stirred up the deepest passions of love
and hatred. Fortunately, the practical benefit of the sacrament depends upon God’s promise, and
simple and childlike faith in Christ, and not upon any scholastic theory, any more than the benefit
of the Sacred Scriptures depends upon a critical knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.
The eucharist was twice the subject of controversy in the Middle Ages,—first in the ninth,
and then in the eleventh, century. The question in both cases turned on a grossly realistic and a
spiritual conception of the sacramental presence and fruition of Christ’s body and blood; and the
result was the triumph of the Roman dogma of transubstantiation, as advocated by Paschasius
Radbertus against Ratramnus, and by Lanfranc against Berengar, and as finally sanctioned by the
fourth Lateran Council in 1215, and the Council of Trent in 1551.^817
The Greek and Latin churches are substantially agreed on the doctrine of the communion
and the mass, but divide on the ritual question of the use of leavened or unleavened bread. The
withdrawal of the cup from the laity caused the bloody Hussite wars.
The eucharistic controversies of the Protestants assumed a different form. Transubstantiation
was discarded by both parties. The question was not, whether the elements as to their substance
are miraculously transformed into the body and blood of Christ, but whether Christ was corporally
or only spiritually (though no less really) present with the natural elements; and whether he was
partaken of by all communicants through the mouth, or only by the worthy communicants through
faith.
The controversy has two acts, each with several scenes: first, between Luther and Zwingli;
secondly, between the Lutherans and Philippists and Calvinists. At last Luther’s theory triumphed
in the Lutheran, Calvin’s theory in the Reformed churches. The Protestant denominations which
have arisen since the Reformation on English and American soil,—Independents, Baptists,
Methodists, etc.,—have adopted the Reformed view. Luther’s theory is strictly confined to the
(^817) Schaff, Church History, vol. IV. 543-572; Creeds of Christendom, II 130-139.