church which bears his name. But, as the Melanchthonian and moderate Lutherans approach very
nearly the Calvinistic view, so there are Calvinists, and especially Anglicans, who approach the
Lutheran view more nearly than the Zwinglian. The fierce antagonism of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries has given way on both sides to a more dispassionate and charitable temper.
This is a real progress.
We shall first trace the external history of this controversy, and then present the different
theories with the arguments.
§ 104. Luther’s Theory before the Controversy.
Luther rejected, in his work on the "Babylonish Captivity of the Church" (1520), the doctrine
of the mass, transubstantiation, and the withdrawal of the cup, as strongholds of the Papal tyranny.
From this position he never receded. In the same work he clearly intimated his own view, which
he had learned from Pierre d’Ailly, Cardinal of Cambray (Cameracensis),^818 in these words: —
Formerly, when I was imbibing the scholastic theology, the Cardinal of Cambray gave
me occasion for reflection, by arguing most acutely, in the Fourth Book of the Sentences,
that it would be much more probable, and that fewer superfluous miracles would have to
be introduced, if real bread and real wine, and not only their accidents, were understood
to be upon the altar, unless the Church had determined the contrary. Afterwards, when I
saw what the church was, which had thus determined,—namely, the Thomistic, that is,
the Aristotelian Church,—I became bolder; and, whereas I had been before in great straits
of doubt, I now at length established my conscience in the former opinion: namely, that
there were real bread and real wine, in which were the real flesh and real blood of Christ
in no other manner and in no less degree than the other party assert them to be under the
accidents.^819 ... Why should not Christ be able to include his body within the substance of
bread, as well as within the accidents? Fire and iron, two different substances, are so
mingled in red-hot iron that every part of it is both fire and iron. Why may not the glorious
body of Christ much more be in every part of the substance of the bread? ... I rejoice
greatly, that, at least among the common people, there remains a simple faith in this
sacrament. They neither understand nor argue whether there are accidents in it or substance,
but believe, with simple faith, that the body and blood of Christ are truly contained in it,
leaving to these men of leisure the task of arguing as to what it contains."
At that time of departure from Romanism he would have been very glad, as he confessed
five years later, to become convinced that there was nothing in the Lord’s Supper but bread and
wine. Yea, his old Adam was still inclined to such a view; but he dared not doubt the literal meaning
(^818) Petrus de Alliaco (1350-1420) was one of the leaders of the disciplinary reform movement during the papal schism, and in the
councils of Pisa and Constance, the teacher of Gerson and Nicolaus de Clemanges. He gives his views on consubstantiation and
transubstantiation, which resemble those of Occam in his Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum (Argent. 1490), Lib. IV. Qu. VI. See
Steitz, in his learned art. on transubstantiation, in Herzog2 XV. 831; and Tschackert, Peter von Ailli, Gotha, 1877.
(^819) "Esse verum panem verumque vinum, in quibus Christi vera caro verusque sanguis non aliter nec minus sit, quam illi sub accidentibus
suis ponunt."