spiritually.[1] Why are its effects not held to be corporeal? Why should not this body, which is a corporeal, but at the same time heavenly, supernatural substance, also bring forth in me corporeal and yet at the same time holy, supernatural effects? If it is my disposition, my faith, which alone makes the divine body a means of sanctification to me, which transubstantiates the dry bread into pneumatic animal substance, why do I still need an external object? It is I myself who give rise to the effect of the body on me, and therefore to the reality of the body; I am acted on by myself. Where is the objective truth and power? He who partakes the Lord’s Supper unworthily has nothing further than the physical enjoyment of bread and wine. He who brings nothing, takes nothing away. The specific difference of this bread from common natural bread rests therefore only on the difference between the state of mind at the table of the Lord, and the state of mind at any other table. “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”[2] But this mental state itself is dependent only on the significance which I give to this bread. If it has for me the significance not of bread, but of the body of Christ, then it has not the effect of common bread. In the significance attached to it lies its effect. I do not eat to satisfy hunger; hence I consume only a small quantity. Thus to go no further than the quantity taken, which in every other act of taking food plays an essential part, the significance of common bread is externally set aside.
But this supernatural significance exists only in the imagination; to the senses, the wine remains wine, the bread, bread. The Schoolmen therefore had recourse to the precious distinction of substance and accidents. All the accidents which con-
- ↑ “This,” says Luther, “is in summa our opinion, that in and with the bread, the body of Christ is truly eaten; thus, that all which the bread undergoes and effects, the body of Christ undergoes and effects; that it is divided, eaten and chewed with the teeth propter unionem sacramentalem.” (Plank’s Gesch. der Entst. des protest. Lehrbeg. B. viii. s. 369.) Elsewhere, it is true, Luther denies that the body of Christ, although it is partaken of corporeally, “is chewed and digested like a piece of beef.” (T. xix. p. 429.) No wonder; for that which is partaken of, is an object without objectivity, a body without corporeality, flesh without the qualities of flesh; “spiritual flesh,” as Luther says, i.e., imaginary flesh. Be it observed further, that the Protestants also take the Lord’s Supper fasting, but this is merely a custom with them, not a law. (See Luther, T. xviii. p. 200, 201.)
- ↑ 1 Cor. xi. 29.
