Conclusion

The medium of print spread the debate over the sacraments throughout Germany and Switzerland, but it also allowed that debate to escape the control of the reformers. Printers, editors, and translators influenced the presentation of ideas, and both language and literacy levels shaped their reception. Printed matter could distort as well as transmit the positions of individuals, and the false impressions it created were difficult to correct. The Eucharistic controversy furthered the development of Protestant sacramental theology. Zwingli’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper was not normative; he was instead one contributor, along with Karlstadt, Oecolampadius, Schwenckfeld, and the Strasbourg reformers, and all of them were influenced by Erasmus’s ontology, hermeneutics, and exegesis. The sacramentarians had no one to rival Luther’s personal authority. The Marburg Colloquy did not end the controversy, but it changed the issues being discussed. It was also the context for the emergence of a new source of authority, a confession accepted as defining orthodoxy.

The Early Debate in Switzerland

In the spring and summer of 1525, Ulrich Zwingli published three works that rejected Christ’s corporeal presence, although Zwingli distanced himself from Karlstadt. Even more important was Johannes Oecolampadius’s treatise arguing that the church fathers had not taught Christ’s bodily presence. These Latin pamphlets generated a lively underground debate in letters and private conversations among reformers throughout southern Germany and Switzerland, and Erasmus did his best to distance himself from the position of his former associates. Zwingli’s pamphlets were translated into German and so contributed further to the vernacular discussion initiated by Karlstadt. Zwingli developed his understanding of the sacraments in attacks on Anabaptists who shared his understanding of the Lord’s Supper but rejected infant baptism. At the end of 1525, there was no clear distinction between the positions of Karlstadt and Zwingli, and the Wittenbergers considered Oecolampadius to be their most dangerous opponent

Sacramentarian Diversity

The division of the Zurich reformation over the issue of infant baptism posed the problem of authority within the sacramentarian camp. Balthasar Hubmaier rejected Zwingli’s exegesis of scripture and accused him of inconsistency; Zwingli responded by asserting his position as called pastor and attacking the character of his Anabaptist opponents. Hubmaier’s pamphlets highlighted the links between baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and excommunication in creating and maintaining a separate, purified church. Spiritualists such as Ludwig Hätzer and Hans Denck, who downplayed the importance of external ceremonies, fit more easily with other sacramentarians. Kaspar Schwenckfeld and Martin Cellarius would contribute to Wolfgang Capito’s attraction to spiritualism.

The Debate Matures, 1527–1529

Luther’s 1527 That These Words Still Stand Firm initiated a new stage of the Eucharistic controversy by summarizing and then refuting the most important sacramentarian arguments. The treatise initiated an exchange with Oecolampadius and Zwingli that highlighted their hermeneutical and exegetical disagreements and emphasized Christology. In response to Luther’s 1528 Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, Martin Bucer wrote a dialogue arguing that Luther and his opponents actually agreed. Although Bucer still advocated a sacramentarian position, he recognized that Luther did not teach impanation, and he began to shift the debate away from Christ’s bodily presence in the elements to Christ’s reception by communicants. Other contributions demonstrate that the two sides were consolidating their arguments and propagating them through a variety of genres.

The Contributions of Zurich and Strasbourg

Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Bucer both built on an Erasmian foundation in arguing against Christ’s corporeal presence, and their publications widened the gap between the Wittenbergers and the sacramentarians. Most of Zwingli’s pamphlets from 1526 were directed against Catholic opponents within Switzerland in the context of the Baden Disputation. Johannes Eck defended Christ’s true presence rather than transubstantiation more specifically, which meant that Zwingli’s responses to Eck attacked both the Catholic and the Wittenberg positions. In response to Leo Jud’s efforts to cite his authority, Erasmus published a denunciation of those saying the sacrament was only bread and wine, although he did not endorse transubstantiation. Bucer’s insertion of his own views into his translation of Luther’s postils only worsened his reputation for duplicity among the Wittenbergers. Luther’s published sermons on the sacrament prompted Zwingli’s 1527 treatises that added Christology to the disputed issues.

Karlstadt’s Challenge to Luther

The Zwickau prophets initiated a debate about infant baptism in Wittenberg that was the starting point for Andreas Karlstadt’s rejection of Luther’s sacramental theology. Karlstadt adopted an Augustinian and Erasmian dualism that separated internal/spiritual from external/material things and so reduced the spiritual value of external acts. Karlstadt was an independent thinker, but his exegesis of scripture more often followed Erasmus than Luther. He also advocated postponing baptism until children could understand their faith, and he rejected Christ’s bodily presence in the bread and wine. Publication of his Eucharistic pamphlets in the fall of 1524 provoked a strong response from Luther and his supporters that reinforced Luther’s understanding of the sacraments and discredited Karlstadt.

Print and the Reformation Crisis of Authority

Traditional narratives that distinguish between the Eucharistic controversy and the origins of Anabaptism have obscured the underlying connection between the two debates. The Lord’s Supper was the topic of almost 20 percent of all works printed in Germany between 1525 and 1529, and by 1529, almost two-thirds of these imprints also discussed baptism or the sacraments more generally. The controversy pitted the exegetical authority of Martin Luther against that of Erasmus, and participants used all the techniques of dialectic and rhetoric to persuade their readers. To understand the issues debated in the 1520s, one must pay careful attention to terminology. Calling Luther’s opponents “Zwinglians” obscures the significant contribution of other figures to the debate, and the phrase “real presence” is anachronistic and inaccurate in describing the debate. The debate in the 1520s concerned Christ’s corporeal or substantial presence in the bread and wine.

Reconstituting Authority

Through the second half of the 1520s, cities and territories began to institutionalize reforms to the Lord’s Supper. Luther’s German Mass was influential in central and northern Germany, while the communion liturgies of Zurich and Basel were important as sacramentarian models. Church ordinances also contained sections on the Lord’s Supper, with the most important being the Instruction to the Visitors of Saxony and Bugenhagen’s Braunschweig ordinance. The Bern Disputation of 1528 generated a number of publications by both sacramentarians and Catholics; so, too, did the events leading to Basel’s abolition of the mass. The leaders of both parties could not reach agreement on the Lord’s Supper at the Marburg Colloquy, but the articles adopted there marked the emergence of a new source of collective authority: a confession of faith that defined orthodoxy.

Print, Polemics, and Popular Response in Southern Germany

Vernacular pamphlets published in Ulm and Augsburg shed light on the impact of the public debate over the Lord’s Supper. The Ulm reformer Conrad Sam gave a fair summary of the position of each side, although he favored the sacramentarians. Radical sacramentarian authors in Augsburg were more partisan and anticlerical. When one of their pamphlets was falsely attributed to him, Sam defended his own moderate position and sought the support of the leading sacramentarian reformers. Johannes Eck repeated arguments from Sam’s pro-Wittenberg opponents in his own attack on the Ulm reformer. The pamphlets written against Sam were more important than Sam’s own writings for establishing his reputation as a sacramentarian. Whereas Eck cited the authority of the Roman Church and clerical authors looked to the leading reformers, lay contributors appealed directly to the Bible and the ability of readers to draw their own conclusions concerning the sacrament.

The Lord’s Supper in Catechetical Literature

The introduction of a pre-communion examination in Wittenberg was the catalyst for the incorporation of a section on the Lord’s Supper into the earliest evangelical catechisms, which began to be produced in 1525. Throughout the second half of the 1520s, Luther’s sermons on communion preparation increasingly emphasized belief in Christ’s bodily presence, but this emphasis was not reflected in catechisms written outside of Wittenberg, which continued to teach positions from Luther’s pre-1525 writings. There were very few sacramentarian catechisms, with the most important being the Strasbourg catechism by Wolfgang Capito. The St. Gallen catechism modified the older catechism of the Bohemian Brethren, while the communion preparation advice produced in Augsburg emphasized positions both sides could accept.