9

Dialogue, or a Discussion Booklet On the Horrible, Idolatrous Misuse of the Most Worthy Sacrament of Jesus Christ, 1524

(October 1524)

The first edition of Dialogus oder ein gesprechbüchlin von dem grewlichen vnnd abgöttischen mißbrauch des hochwirdigsten Sacraments Jesu Christi may have been published in Erfurt in the fall of 1524 (VD16, B6142; not in Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis”), but there are no extant copies of this imprint. The Basel imprint by Johann Bebel was published in October 1524 (VD16, B6141; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 126). Working from a separate copy given him by Martin Reinhart, Hieronymus Höltzel began to print the work in Nuremberg in November, but he was forbidden by the city council to continue. Reinhart took the pages already printed to the Bamberg printer Georg Erlinger, who finished the pamphlet before the end of the year (VD16, B6140; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 127). The pamphlet was also printed in Strasbourg by Johann Prüss in 1525 (VD16, B6143; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 128). There is a modern German edition, based on the Basel imprint, in Hertzsch, Schriften, 2:5–49, and two English translations, the first by Carter Lindberg, in “Karlstadt’s Dialogue on the Lord’s Supper,” and the second in Furcha, Essential Carlstadt, 269–315. I have used the Basel imprint for my translation but have noted variations in the Bamberg imprint in the notes. Hertzsch moved the text of fol. a4v of the Basel imprint to between fol. f3r and f3v; the translations of both Lindberg and Furcha follow Hertzsch and so have the same transposition. I have restored the transposed text to its original place, so that this translation now matches the sixteenth-century imprints. My translation is based on that of Lindberg, but I have modified it to reflect Furcha’s translation as well as my own reading and to correspond more closely to the style of the other translations in this volume.

[a1v] To all believers in Christ I wish God’s grace and knowledge.

No one should think, dear brethren, that I write in an outrageous way about the anti-Christian use of the most venerable sacrament from impudence and wantonness, although I certainly know that the greatest part will think that I’ve sought nothing other than innovation and oddity. This is because my work sets itself against so many thousand scholars of scripture,¹ and especially because the princes among the most learned and scripturally wise maintain the old papist abuse that the common person runs after, dancing up and down to their piping and holding everything that they hear from these scribes as the foundation of righteousness.² And [they think] that they everywhere do right when they sing, jump, and babble in imitation of those same highly learned song leaders, saying “Yes” and “Amen” to all their advice. But if the bound consciences freed themselves of some of their bindings and let the personages and the highly esteemed trot along, and [if these consciences] held to the pure truth and considered that it is unseemly and sacrilegious to twist the truth according to human deception or to judge the scripture according to the reputation of men, they would no longer depend upon the arm of man but rather upon the undeceptive foundation of truth and obtain eternal peace and a drink of the water Christ gives to drink, which satisfies completely and springs up to eternal life [John 4:14]. I desire that one seriously consider the truth. I also have no doubt at all that they would better ponder and receive this distinguished sacrament more worthily than they have up to now.

Fig. 5. Title Page of Dialogue, or a Discussion Booklet. On the Horrible, Idolatrous Misuse of the Most Worthy Sacrament of Jesus Christ (Bamberg: Erlinger, 1524). Herzog August Bibliothek,Wolfenbüttel [Yv 2178.8° Helmst].

[a2r] And if, dear brethren, you could take to heart how divine love together with faith, hope, and trust in God are cut off, waste away, and come to nothing through the misuse of all external, well-intended signs, then everyone would say that neither impudence nor innovation nor my own fame nor anything else invited and brought me to this work, but only this, that through the false use of the sacrament, the love of God is extinguished, faith hindered, and consciences imprisoned in horrible error—those consciences that through the traditional practice wanted to be strengthened in God’s love and faith and freed from all fear.

God understands all things better than we, no matter how well-prepared one is or can become. For this reason he often abolished the use of external things and totally forbade what he himself instituted, because he saw how the simple people took offense out of ignorance. Thus God has rejected sacrifice, fire, incense, temple, the snake, and the ark, and said, “What do I care about your sacrifice, your incense? What is it that you say: ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord?’ You shall no longer call upon the ark” [Jer. 7:4]. Hezekiah took away the uplifted serpent and broke it to pieces because of its misuse [2 Kings 18:4], despite the fact that God himself had set it up and that it was a particular sign of the body of Christ that would be given into the hands of evildoers on the cross. Dear brethren, what do you think we should do, we who see such a dreadful misuse of the most worthy sacrament? We who understand how these wretched and blind Christians behave and act with the sacrament so that they fall into the error of believing that Christ has suffered for our sins in the host? [a2v] Or that Christ has washed away and forgiven our sins in the host? Or that Christ remains with us eternally in the sacrament? We who see that some make greater feast of the sacrament than of the death Jesus³ Christ suffered?⁴ My matter will seem new to you. But I will present the truth to you as if I were presenting it before God’s eyes and severe judgment seat. Therefore I admonish you on oath to consider neither me nor anyone else but instead the foundation of my pamphlet, and that you weigh the truth in it seriously and wisely.

You shouldn’t imagine that because I’ve written a dialogue, I want to insult or entertain. I am greatly concerned about your salvation and am very serious about this matter. For the sake of brevity, I have named persons who discuss together this use of the sacrament, for the argument is grasped more quickly in conversation than in a single straightforward statement. Therefore you should know that I have sought brevity and your benefit, and above all God’s glory and honor, and not derision or diversion. It befits you to apply diligence to each argument and ask God that he would preserve and keep us through his discernment of his truth from all that dishonors him, which consists most of all in a perverted mind and will contrary to God. Amen.

Speakers: Gemser, Victus, and Peter, a layman.

G. Dear brother Victus, why are you so depressed?

V. What’s the use of complaining to you? You can’t help me.

G. Don’t you know that it is written, [a3r] “Ad aliquem sanctorum convertere”?⁵ You should call upon a saint in your time of need.

V. Whoever said that was a fellow like you, who would make the afflicted Job flee from God to created things. It seems to me that you’re more deceitful than he, for your advice is the same—that I should flee to you as to a saint.

G. What’s the harm?

V. Plenty, for you are immersed in sacramentalist teaching and consider as health what to me is sickness and a horrible ulcer.

G. I perceive that you are in doubt about the sacraments.

V. You have perceived my ulcer.

G. We have seven sacraments. Which one troubles you?

V. I know of neither one nor seven sacraments.

G. Oho!

V. I don’t know what sort of word the word sacrament is, much less what it means, and so it’s possible that I err and stumble, as Aristotle says, “Ignorantes virtutes vocabulorum defacile,” etc.⁶

G. Sacrament is a Latin word and not Greek; but the Jews say that it’s a Hebrew word and that in German it means “a false, fictitious image.” Seker in their language means “false, fictitious, and useless.” Ment they say is “an image.”

V. I thought you were a patron of the sacraments, but you’re a mocker.

G. I’ve told you what the Jews think of the little word sacrament and would have told you what it means in Latin, but you interrupted me in my speech like a peasant and want to humiliate me.

V. Your speech and the appearance of your face appear as if you agree with the Jewish view.

G. God forbid and preserve me [from that]!

V. But what does the word sacrament mean?

G. Sacramentum is a Latin word and in good German it means “a sign of a holy thing,” as the Master of High Minds teaches and says, “Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum.”⁷ [a3v] As we say it in Latin, “Hoc est sacramentum militare, hoc est castrense; nihil ad propositum.”⁸

V. You are a master of high minds who thinks little of God’s word, to whom God also doesn’t reveal many things, whom God also hates and destroys their understanding and wisdom [1 Cor. 1:9]. I want to have a right, clear biblical word.

G. “Hoc sacramentum magnum est.”⁹

V. Your answer fits like a helmet does on a foot! You know that our old translation has many invented words that don’t conform to the Greek and Hebrew, and that the sentences of our Latin Bible at times are opposed to the original languages. So if you don’t push me away with mere words, you must cite for me the [original] languages, as Jerome teaches.

G. The Christian church uses that word.

V. That’s why I want to know where the word sacrament has a basis in the word wherein the church lives, and that’s why I want to have a godly and true basis.

G. We have seven sacraments, among which the highest and most excellent is the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.

V. God has pleasure in his words, as the prophet Nehemiah says; so tell me whether God or a prophet or an apostle used the word sacrament for those things that you call sacraments. God has always given his creatures their own names.

G. But God led all the animals to Adam and let them be named by Adam [Gen. 2:19].

V. And so you’ll give the church this power: that it can give names to its acts and practices as Adam did to the animals?

G. Right and good.

V. Wrong and bad, because [it’s] too late.

G. How so, too late?

V. Christ and the apostles gave baptism and the Supper of Christ their names long before the “church of high minds” came to be. You’ve missed out [a4r] and were born too late.

G. We have the power that Adam had.

V. So I hear that you have the power to call black what is white and good what is bad, to rebuke Christ and his apostles as you have done for several hundred years, even though Adam never received or used such power.

G. Propter bonum sensum.¹⁰

V. Then the apostles and Christ would have had a poor mind and understanding, and the apostles and Christ weren’t wise enough to give correct names to those things that you call sacraments.

G. I see that the names bother you.

V. Not on my account, but for the sake of the sick and the weak who are led onto slippery ice with such words and are kept from continuing on and coming to God. One of these two things must always follow: Christ was either not wise or not benevolent enough when he instituted his Supper and [so] he didn’t leave behind [the knowledge] that his bread and cup should be called a sacrament or sign of holy things. Although it could be allowed that, when rightly understood, one called baptism, bread, and wine signs of things, as the apostles at times used them as figures, Romans 6[:3–4], 1 Corinthians 10[:16–17]. If you papists would allow such explanations to remain, there would be no danger.

G. You’ve revealed your sickness, Victus.¹¹

V. Let’s hear it.

G. You’re distressed because of the most high sacrament.

V. If you hit home, I’ll cry out.

G. You’re worried about whether Christ is in the sacrament according to his humanity.

V. You guessed it. For to ask whether Christ is here or there according to his divinity is a question of whether Christ is in all created things according to his divinity, which is foolish; for God is in hell as in heaven and¹² fills all created things.¹³

[a4v] G. That’s why I speak of Christ’s humanity.

V. I truly doubt whether the body of Christ is in the bread and his blood in the cup.

G. Why?

V. Because they say that his natural body, which was conceived in his mother’s womb and afterward nailed on the cross, is supposedly as large, broad, thick, and long in the sacrament as it was hanging on the cross.

G. “Oportet credere.” “One must believe” [Heb. 11:6].

V. “Maledictus qui credit verbis mendacii.” “Cursed is he who believes lies.”

G. That is the truth, that Christ is as large in the sacrament as he was hanging on the cross.

V. I know nothing at all of the truth and can’t believe it unless you show me God’s true statement that declares this freely and clearly.

G. You haven’t been a priest, for the priests have certain words (which they call verba consecrationis¹⁴) that are so powerful that they bring the body and blood of Christ from high heaven down to earth into a little host. If you understood such words, you would speak more sensibly.

V. You present much that I should ask you about. First, you say that the priests or monks bring the body and blood of Christ down from heaven, but that contradicts and stands against your previous statement when you said that Christ is as large in the sacrament as he was hanging on the cross. Therefore you would have to bring Christ into the sacrament from the cross where he died and shed his blood. In heaven Christ doesn’t have the form or the dimensions as when he was on the cross, so one of these things must be false. Second, you speak of certain little words that you call verba consecrationis, etc. I’ve never read them and I think that the priests have made them up. Third, you speak of a host. Explain this article for me.

G. The host is bread that the priest blesses and into which he brings Christ.

V. But I can’t understand it.¹⁵

[b1r] G. The priests make the bread nothing, leaving only the form of the bread there, and into this same form in place of the bread, they put the body of Christ.

V. If I hear correctly, it isn’t sacramentum, but rather fermentum Pharisaeorum¹⁶ [Matt. 16:11–12]. For the form of the bread always remains so small and so big, so thick, and in every way as it was before the priests breathe over it or blow and cackle like geese. And so I ask whether Christ’s body, arm, breast, shanks, and bones, crown of thorns, nails, and spear are in the bread, which is smaller than Christ’s little finger was?

G. Yes.

V. Must he then shrink himself and crumple up when the priests blow out such words?

G. What are you whistling about?

V. I doubt, and so I ask.

G. You shouldn’t mock.

V. I don’t know any other word to use.

G. You shouldn’t question.

V. That’s what your priests say when you’re completely unsure of your case. But I think if what you say were true, that one should investigate and search scripture, which testifies to¹⁷ Christ, for scripture praises the Thessalonians because they investigated.¹⁸ For since scripture tells of the other things Christ did and teaches us how Christ was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb, how he lived and spoke, suffered and died, rose again and ascended into heaven, the scripture must also tell how Christ is in the sacrament, which certainly is as miraculous as any one of these articles just listed.

G. Where I am going, says Christ, you know nothing about [John 7:34].

V. Duck, you’re hurting yourself!

G. Doesn’t that fit?

V. Just like the statement that one should preach until the carved, molten, or painted idols run out of the churches, but before that happens, one shouldn’t lay a hand on them.

[b1v] G. You shouldn’t inquire into such things.

V. Then why does the Truth say to examine the scriptures? And in another place, “My sheep hear my voice, but they don’t hear a stranger’s voice” [John 10:27]. And again, “You shall not hear the word of the false prophets” [Jer. 23:16], but God’s word we should examine day and night [Ps. 1:2]. You’ve never said to any stone or block of wood that Christ is in the host as he was on the cross.

G. Christ’s body is as large in the host as when it hung on the cross.

V. You sing your song like a raven, but I still can’t believe it. I would more easily believe that Christ’s body is as small in the host as it was when he was born or conceived, but I don’t believe any of it unless you present me with the word of faith. Otherwise if I had to believe your wind, the state of my case would be worse than that of a set of pipes.

G. How so?

V. The pipes have only twelve or twenty-four mouths for the wind to blow through, but I would have to suffer as many blasts as there are heads if I were to hear and believe every priest.

G. Anyone who doesn’t believe is condemned [Mark 16:16].

V. Worry about yourself. I believe in Christ, in his passion, and all his words. Whoever doesn’t believe in Christ, he is condemned. Show me Christ’s word or a letter of faith from the Bible that Christ’s body is in a little host, and see whether I don’t believe.

G. You’re bound to the Bible.

V. I seek God in the Bible and not scripture in the written works.

G. Why then do you have scripture?

V. As testimony to the truth.

G. Let’s speak Greek, Jewish, and Latin.

V. Do you know these languages?

G. If need be.

V. What need is there?

G. Don’t you see the peasant standing behind us, who is diligently taking in and considering all our words and speech?

V. Is that bad?

G. It’s bad that the laity [b2r] have just now come into their Christian freedom and will no longer give even a small coin to a priest to administer a sacrament.

V. So I hear that you have something in your pot that you could and should dump out.

G. I’m not joking, for you see that God is now giving to the simple some revelations that he conceals from the wise [Matt. 11:25].

V. Will you then hinder God’s power?

G. Indeed, no! But I would like to keep my honor and high position.

V. Instruct me. I will be quiet as a watermill.

G. For a long time the text “hoc est corpus meum” [Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19] has been understood as “the bread is my body,” as if it were written “hoc panis est corpus meum,”¹⁹ but the Latin language doesn’t allow this.

V. Isn’t that the text with which priests, the new and old papists,²⁰ mend and patch, cover and conceal, and want to maintain that Christ’s body is in the bread and his blood is in the cup?

G. You’ve hit on it.

V. Have you then covered yourself with a scoundrel’s cloak?

G. Don’t scold me and I’ll tell you a wonder.

V. You’re a learned scribe.

G. I’m jesting.

V. You can’t withdraw.

G. How so?

V. This verse, “Hoc est corpus meum, quod pro vobis traditur” [1 Cor. 11:24], is a complete verse that Christ has placed by itself elsewhere in the Gospels, although with other words, when he says nothing about the sacrament, as Matthew 16[:21], John 3[:16], 6[:32–33].

G. Prove that.

V. Easily, for the pronoun hoc has a capital H. But a capital letter means the beginning of a new sentence and verse. Therefore this verse is placed in the statement about the Lord’s bread, as one normally adds something that assists the speech or sermon, but it is still a complete saying in itself.

[b2v ] G. But what purpose does this verse serve?

V. For this: so the disciples would learn what their remembrance should consist of, for which the Lord has commanded that his bread be eaten.

G. But where did Christ speak of his body, which he would give for us and now has given?

V. In all the prophets and gospels that write about his passion.

G. It doesn’t sound right.

V. The old fiddle, and the pope’s laws and customs, and your honor have filled your ears with creaturely noises and so it doesn’t sound right to you. Clean out your ears and hold free and open ears to God’s words, and see whether what I’ve just now told you doesn’t sound right to you.

G. It’s difficult to leave behind old custom and one’s own honor.

V. That’s why the road to heaven is narrow and bitter [Matt. 7:14].

G. Since you’ve begun, lead on.

V. I should learn from you.

G. Lead on.

V. The Greek language serves this division and also the completeness of the verse, that it is a separate verse; for Greek writing and speech has separated this verse, “Hoc est corpus,” etc., with punctuation and letters better than the Latin.

G. Vide quomodo omnia rusticus ille perpendit.²¹

V. You should search and read, and I’ll listen.

G. “Touto estin to soma mou.”²²

V. Translate it into German.

G. “Istud est hoc corpus meum, quod pro vobis,” etc.²³

V. You should say it to me in German.

G. But don’t you see how this peasant opens his mouth and acts as if he would gobble up all our words?

V. That’s why you should speak German.

G. It isn’t good that we reveal this thing to the laity. For then the peasants will be worth as much as the priests.

V. That won’t hurt me or you. I’ll guarantee you that the God-fearing man will love you for the sake of the truth; besides, [b3r] you should confess God’s righteousness even to your harm and even with your death.

G. With that hope, I’ll translate it into German. “Touto is my body, which,” etc. And it would have been good if the Greek pronoun touto had been retained and mixed with the Latin.

V. Why?

G. Then it would have read, “Touto est hoc corpus meum.”

V. I ask, Why?

G. Then the people would have wondered, “What is the little word touto?”

V. But that would not have been inopportune to the priests.

G. All the better!

V. You will always go the way of the priests.

G. Mocker!

V. With reason, for then it would become a question or delusion that there was something there that was called touto and that thing must have been the body of Christ.

G. What would be involved in that?

V. Much, for you priests would have persuaded us laity that Christ had I don’t know what in the Supper and changed his body into it, and we would have festooned it with silver and gold.

G. You shouldn’t believe that.

V. Not believe it? I know right well the substances you’ve made from the chalice, and how you say you must have gold and silver chalices, and entice our silver and gold from our purses.

G. For myself, I would gladly have instructed and made known that touto is a Greek pronoun.

V. Who knows what you would have done when the old women had brought pennies and gulden?

G. I’m too devout.

V. But the avaricious and the fools really would actually have made a silver and gold chest from the little word touto.

G. Yet it would still have been a fine saying: “Touto is my body,” as all the evangelists say.

V. But what do you understand of the Greek text, and how does it sound in German?

G. “Touto estin to soma mou,” etc.

[b3v ] V. Speak German!

G. Hush! Be still! Quiet! The peasant will notice, quia verba sunt apertissime contra nos sacerdotes.²⁴

Peter, a layman: Dear sirs, allow me to speak. Don’t take it ill of me that I ask, for I understand that you are discussing the body and blood, bread and cup of the Lord Jesus Christ.

G. Prius, oh Victe, dixi de rustico, quod audiret et ruminaret verba nostra.²⁵

V. What’s the harm?

P. Dear sirs, I notice that you quarrel over a little word that is not too well known to me.

V. For that reason, Gemser, you should speak in German and say what “Touto estin to soma mou, to huper humon didomenon”²⁶ means in German.

P. I ardently desire that.

G. Touto is the body mine, which is given for you.²⁷

P. That’s a strange saying.

V. Truly, a mixed saying.

P. I’ll ask and hear whether you can make it understandable for me.

G. If it stood as is or were translated as “touto is the body mine,” etc., it would stand well.

V. But what if someone came along who said that touto was perhaps “a golden bread,” as you have made the word calix into “a golden goblet”?

P. Dear sirs, speak more understandably and in good German, for although I understand you in part, I don’t understand you completely.

G. In good German, the Greek language says this: “This is the body mine, which is given for you,” etc. But it seems to me to be better to let stand the pronoun touto, as I said.

P. But it would sound strange.

G. Each language or tongue has its own characteristics that can’t be translated into another language; and if anyone wants to speak about a characteristic of a foreign language, he must use the words of that same foreign language; thus we have many Latin words in our chancelleries. So now we’re using the Latin and Greek languages and should speak to you, an illiterate, [b4r] of the hidden content and sound of both languages. For this reason we must speak to you with Latin and Greek words.

P. Continue on. Who knows whether I might notice something. I was always beaten over the knuckles with Greek, Hebrew, and Latin boards and learned less than I have forgotten.

G. Have you understood us? If so, you are ill-disposed and opposed to us.

P. Speak for yourself.

G. The Greek language has articles and pronouns that teach the gender²⁸ and instruct so that one clearly sees which words the article or pronoun belongs to, and which it does not.

P. That sounds good. Say more.

G. Touto is a Greek pronoun that indicates a neuter noun. Now the word artos, in Latin panis, in German bread, is masculine. Therefore the pronoun touto can’t be applied to it and so it doesn’t support the opinion of those who say, “The bread is the body,” etc. For the Greek language won’t allow this any more than if I were to say in Latin, “Istud panis est hoc corpus meum,” or in German, “The bread is my body.”²⁹

P. That’s good.

G. Do you like this?

P. Yes indeed; because for a long time I couldn’t discover how it might be possible that the bread should become the body of Christ. I’ve always figured it this way: that Christ pointed to his body and said, “This is the body mine, which is given for you.” For Christ didn’t point to the bread nor did he say, “The bread is the body mine, which is given for you.” But those who say that the bread is the body speak on their own and lie, or at least promote their insolence. Listen: Jesus took the bread and thanked God and broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said they should eat it in remembrance of him [1 Cor. 11:24]. And he placed in the midst of these words [b4v] the reason for and manner of his remembrance, namely, because his disciples should remember that he gave his body for them. Paul strongly conveys this meaning, and those who speak otherwise pervert God’s word and are perverse people.

G. Who has taught you this?

P. The one whose voice I hear, although I didn’t see him, nor do I know how he came to me and went from me.

G. Who is he?

P. Our father in heaven.

G. Oh that I also learned from him.

P. Didn’t you promise his spirit? Aren’t you the poor man who gives God’s living voice a created form?³⁰

G. At one time, but not now.

P. If you have a wide-open desire for righteousness as righteousness and a burning heart in addition, then the Greek scripture that you have read just now is a means bestowed upon you.

G. What kind of assurance do you have, that you rely so firmly on your delusion and have remained in it up to now?

P. I don’t have a delusion but rather truth and certainty and can confirm that the text is true.

G. That’s why I ask about the assurance.

P. If Christ is said to have redeemed us with his body when he was united with the bread as you say, then Christ would have suffered in the host or in the bread or with the bread. Without the bread, he wouldn’t have come to the cross and he could only have suffered in the bread; all of which is obviously false.

G. Who has ever said that?

P. Those do (although from ignorance) who say that Christ’s body was united with the bread or in the bread or under the form of the bread.

G. How does that follow?

P. They say thus: Christ said, “The bread is the body, which will be given for you.” Isn’t that as much as to say that the bread will be given and suffer for you, or “My body under the bread,” or “My body which is [c1r] the bread, which is given for you?” Doesn’t that sound like “My body won’t be given for you before it has become bread or when it is under the form of bread?” From this it follows that Christ would have suffered secretly and hiddenly, just as he is secretly and hiddenly in the sacrament. This is against God’s truth and all the prophets. Secondly, it also follows that Christ wouldn’t have given his body for us on the cross, for you priests can’t place any man there who at the same time brought the body of Christ into the bread. If you will display Christ, then tell how he took the bread when his hands were nailed down. If you want to produce an apostle, then prove that the apostles could have consecrated the sacrament, as you say, at that time when they were all scattered and had fled from their shepherd and suffered scandal in Christ. Thirdly, it would follow that the bread that the baker baked must have been the body of which the scripture writes much, that it should be given for us. But this would be a strong contradiction of all scripture.

G. If you are so convinced of your position, why were you so happy when I told you how the Greek language behaves?

P. Because I hear an external witness through which I might now raise up and edify the fallen, and silence and overcome the opponents. I don’t need the external witness for my own sake. I want to have my testimony of the Spirit inwardly, as Christ has promised.

G. Where?

P. Once again, don’t you know that Christ said, “The Spirit, the Comforter, will give you testimony, and you will also give testimony about me” [John 15:26]? So it happened with the apostles who were assured inwardly through the testimony of the Spirit [c1v] and thereafter preached Christ externally and confirmed through the scripture that Christ must suffer for us and that the same Christ was Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one.

G. That is said of the apostles.

P. Shouldn’t we be like the apostles? Why did Peter say about Cornelius that he had received the Spirit as they did? [Acts 10:47]. Why did Paul say that we should be his followers? Hasn’t Christ promised us his Spirit as he did the apostles? The Spirit alone leads us into knowledge of God’s statements; therefore it follows that those who don’t understand God’s statements don’t hear the Spirit of God speak. Nor are they Christians, for Christ said, “Those are Christ’s who have the Spirit of Christ.” Therefore God’s Spirit alone gives testimony and assurance, Romans 8[:14–16]. This is the reason why God’s Spirit is called a pledge, arra and arrabo³¹ [Eph. 1:13].

G. Look! If the Spirit testifies, then you should also testify why you didn’t reveal your position earlier.

P. The Spirit didn’t impel me quickly enough. If he had sufficiently impelled and compelled me, I would have concealed or hidden much less than if I had a consuming fire in my bones. At times one must conceal the Spirit for the sake of his honor and sometimes fight with externally received testimony. I knew quite well that you and the whole world, especially the “scripture-wise,” would have laughed at me and said, “He raves,” if I had burst forth earlier. But now the languages are better known and more common; therefore I attack those learned in languages in their own knowledge.

G. Because you would listen so seriously and earnestly to God’s truth, I will also disclose for you that this statement, “This is my body, which is given for you,” is enclosed by periods, with periods both before and after it.

P. Is that good for what I’ve said?

G. Exceedingly good.

[c2r] P. Why didn’t you say that before?

G. I feared the fury of certain princes who claim to be learned in the scripture and have read little or nothing in it.

P. You should confess God’s sayings joyously.

G. I lacked the strength of the Spirit. Also, up until now I haven’t taken into consideration that to which I now pay great attention.

P. One should be alert and not be in too great a hurry in a thing and examine punctuation and everything with leisure and diligence.

G. I also can’t keep from you that this statement, “This is my body,” etc., begins in Luke [22:19] with a capital letter, which means that the verse “This is my body, which is given for you” isn’t linked to the previous words, but rather is a saying in itself.

P. As God often spoke them for himself?

G. Yes, yes. And therefore I must quickly agree with you and confess that Christ has said directly, “This is my body,” etc; that he pointed to his body and not to the bread.

P. If you can introduce anything to the contrary and demolish or otherwise affect the argument I’ve given, then do it.

G. Although I can’t say anything against it, I still can’t be silent.

P. Let’s proceed and treat further the issue of how one worthily eats Christ’s bread and how Christ’s body is given.

G. Tell me what it means to say, “My body is given for you.” When, how, and why is it given, if it is a particular saying and not appended to or united with the bread, as you and Victus said and I must confess?

P. Should you have partaken of the Lord’s bread and cup like dogs eat grass?

G. Dear fellow! Don’t sneer at me.

P. Whoever doesn’t eat the Lord’s bread worthily vomits out the body of Christ and becomes guilty of the Lord’s body [1 Cor. 11:27–29].

G. I am a priest and have prepared and sacrificed him in the sacrament myself.

P. Oho! [c2v] With four boots in a manure pile!³² Shame on you, you neglectful priest.

G. Do you rebuke me?

P. Freely and happily.

G. Why?

P. Because you’re so stone-blind and don’t know that the priests have killed Christ.

G. We’re speaking of the worthy reception of the sacrament.

P. I thought that we were going to speak of the handing over of Christ’s body.

G. You said not long ago that we should treat these two articles together.

P. I grant that.

G. Why do you accuse me as if up to now, I had eaten the sacrament unworthily?

P. You claim to be a good Paulinist and you don’t know?

G. I often eat mustard until my eyes start running and sweat flows, but I still stick with it.

P. You’re a courtier. You can ignore it and be silent when someone mocks you.

G. Tell me why you said that I’ve eaten the Lord’s bread unworthily.

P. Paulinist! Don’t you know how all Christendom sings, namely, that each person shall eat the Lord’s bread in discernment and judgment of the body of Christ? But anyone who eats without recognition of the body of Christ is guilty of the body of Christ.

G. Cunning!

P. How so?

G. I wanted to use these words of Paul against you, “Anyone who eats the Lord’s bread without discernment” [1 Cor. 11:29], and so trap you and firmly subdue you that you should confess that Christ’s body is under the sacrament, and that we should be prostrate before the sacrament and show it divine honor, and that we’re obligated to do everything that Christians now do. But you’re cunning and flee my battlefield and try to strike me with my own weapons.

P. I reject the word “cunning,” for I fight against you with the truth and not with cunning. But that would indeed turn out to be rubbish if the aforementioned words of Paul [c3r] serve and suit you instead of me.

G. Don’t mock me, for I have a Wittenberg letter.

P. But it’s still a mockery and disgraceful for you to boast of Paul as if he were yours and yours alone. You write and occupy yourself with him daily and you don’t know what you’re doing. And if I were silent, the dead Quintus Mutius³³ would arise and say, “It is unbecoming for such a brave man who wants to value the gospel when he doesn’t correctly consider and understand Paul whom he daily cites by mouth and pen.”

G. Do you mean I don’t understand Paul?

P. The stars suggest your ignorance and blindness.

G. Let me use Paul against you.

P. Chop away!

G. Everyone should eat the Lord’s bread worthily, and whoever eats it unworthily is guilty of Christ’s body; and whoever drinks the Lord’s cup unworthily drinks to judgment, 1 Corinthians 11[:29].

P. What’s new there? Solomon said it better when he stated, “Whoever eats the king’s bread shall eat it with great fear and respect so that he does not fall under the king’s wrath.” If I ate with a prince, even though I ate my own bread or such bread as I have, I would have to sit more respectfully and eat more politely and with greater discretion and greater timidity than in my home. How much more should I eat with due honor the bread of the most high king of all, my Lord Jesus Christ, who although innocent allowed himself to be slain for my sake?

G. I should eat the Lord’s bread worthily; that is, I should know what kind of bread it is, how it is the Lord’s bread, how the Lord is in and under it. I should beat my breast, honor it, kneel down, and await the forgiveness of sins through the sacrament, [c3v] and I will as certainly receive it as I receive the sacrament, and I should cast away all doubt, and trust and comfort myself with it.

P. You have grasped the sword by the blade and hold out the handle toward me; the faster you fight with it, the deeper you will wound yourself.

G. How so?

P. He who misuses God’s word uses it to his own harm.

G. I’m using it correctly.

P. Correctly, as a priest and papist.

G. Isn’t it good?

P. It’s evil and devilish.

G. Why?

P. Because he robs God of his honor and lordship like a thief, opposes the truth, destroys Paul’s teaching, and makes people foolish.

G. You rave.

P. I will gladly rave for you so that I might be truthful and wise before God.

G. You’ve now listed many accusations. Tell me why the pope’s teaching in this case makes the people foolish.

P. When wise people eat a greater lord’s bread at the lord’s table, they aren’t afraid of the bread and they kneel not before the food but before the lord; they act respectfully and discreetly before the lord and don’t consider what the bread is but why and how they eat with the king. The pope also wants to have this from those who eat with him. But when he speaks of the bread of Christ, he says how we are to discern, honor, and eat the bread respectfully, although we never remember Christ, which is certainly a foolish manner. Therefore the pope makes people foolish. He teaches how they should clean the teeth and rinse the mouth, but the Antichrist teaches nothing about how they should regard and consider the body of the Lord Jesus.

G. How does he steal God’s honor?

P. Like a thief.

G. Why?

P. Because he says we should say to the form of the bread, “My God, be merciful to me.”

G. Do you have anything more?

P. The pope makes Christ’s passion useless and into nothing.

[c4r] G. How?

P. If Christ redeems us and forgives our sins in the form of the bread, then Christ died in vain on the cross.

G. How does the pope contradict the truth?

P. He says that we should be mindful of the bread, but Christ didn’t command that to us, and he allows us to forget the Lord’s body, which we should remember as often as we eat the Lord’s bread. And so no one has eaten the Lord’s bread more unworthily than the papist crowd.

G. Haven’t you eaten the bread of the Lord according to the pope’s institution?

P. Not in twenty years.

G. How do you come to such great fortune?

P. I was under the papal ban, to my salvation, and learned what is written, “I will speak well of your ban and curse.”

G. How does the pope destroy the teachings of Paul?

P. Paul applies the greatest diligence to make us understand and be mindful of the Lord’s death. The pope overturns that and presents us with his form of the bread and lifts it so high that we forget the Lord’s body and death in great fear, anxiety, and recognition of his form, and we consider as nothing what the Lord suffered on the cross when we are supposed to have the greatest consideration for it. But Paul keeps us thinking³⁴ and instructs us that we should partake of the Lord’s (whom we do not see) bread and wine (which we do see and feel) with the fear of the Lord, as the food of the highest Lord of all.

G. Now I know that remembrance makes one worthy.

P. You must add something to that.

G. My remembrance is precious, since I remember that the form of the bread is the body of Christ.

P. Has Christ commanded that remembrance to you? Did he say, “Do this in remembrance of me?” or, “Do this in remembrance of the sacrament, or of the form of the bread under which is my body?” Haven’t you yourself confessed [c4v] that the pronoun hoc can’t refer to the word panis? Doesn’t Christ want us to remember his body that was given for us? Was your form of the bread also given for us? Was it crucified and slain? If we laypeople granted that, we would be as bad as the worst priests. You’re a priest and are aware of what might befall you.

G. Spare me!

P. Spare yourself! We’re quarreling not about money, but about the truth.

G. All my life I’ve heard over and over how we should prepare and make ourselves fit to receive the sacrament and the body of Christ. I’ve always believed that it is the same thing to receive the sacrament and to receive the body of Christ, and so I’ve believed one to be the other, just as those from whom I heard this believed it.

P. We’re not talking about either your preachers or your hearing; we’re talking about whether you heard rightly or wrongly. If you mean to say, “I speak rightly,” then you must prove [your] correctness with divine righteousness and truth. Without that I believe nothing from you.

G. Indeed! How often have I heard, “Prepare yourself to receive the body of Christ worthily!”

P. Indeed, I believe you; but show me a word of Christ or an apostle that says this. I know that Christ never gave us his body to receive [in this way], as our subsequent discussion will make clear. Christ also says that his flesh is of no use to us [John 6:63]; and also, “It is useful to you that I go away, for if I don’t go the Comforter will not come” [John 16:7]. If all of this is true, then it is also true that we don’t receive the body of Christ either naturally or sacramentally.

G. Prove that better.

P. Did Christ ever say, “Receive my body,” the way he said, “Take the bread and eat it,” etc.? Your wretched preachers would have preached more fittingly if they’d said, “Look to see that you receive and eat the Lord’s bread worthily,” [d1r] as Paul preaches.

G. Isn’t it written, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, there is no life in you”? [John 6:53].

P. Did Christ say that when he said, “Take the bread and eat,” etc.?

G. No, but it is written in another place.

P. Yes, in the place where Christ said the flesh is of no use [John 6:63].

G. Yes.

P. So the reception of Christ’s flesh is also of no use. Further, I ask whether by the above-mentioned words Christ wants to say that we will perceive no life in us unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood.

G. Right.

P. If you grant me this, then you must also grant that the eating of Christ’s flesh is an inward tasting of Christ’s passion and that its meaning is that the Son of man is lifted up so that whoever looks to him—that is, believes—is not condemned but has everlasting life [John 3:14–15].

G. I won’t criticize you on that.

P. Thus to receive Christ means to accept Christ; that is, to recognize Christ heartily and ardently.

G. That belongs to the sacrament.

P. Even if one didn’t receive the sacrament into eternity, he would still be saved if he were justified otherwise. But to obtain salvation without the tasting of Christ is impossible, and no one can be justified without the knowledge of Christ, Isaiah 53[:11]. The sacrament isn’t necessary; the knowledge of Christ is necessary. You also know that long before the institution of the sacrament, Christ said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man,” etc. Thus you haven’t used Christ’s words correctly.

G. There is a little word that is called sacramentaliter, which answers many questions.

P. Among fools. But it has no effect among those with understanding, for those who know God speak with Christ’s words and say, “We must eat the Lord’s flesh spiritualiter,” [d1v] that is, “spiritually.” Sacramentally it is of no more use than the natural external flesh of Christ.

G. You’re pouring out everything that lies hidden in your innards.

P. It will get better; for those who want to eat Christ sacramentally are worse than those who went away from Christ or those who wanted to eat Christ bodily [John 6:52, 60–66], like the unicorn and lions from which Christ himself wanted to be preserved, according to what is written: “Libera a cornibus unicornium, et erue de ore leonis animam”³⁵ [Ps. 22:21].

G. Say on.

P. Sacramentally, the body of Christ is of no use at all, for one can perceive in it neither the death nor the resurrection of Christ. Therefore, as sacramentally understood, it is of no use either carnally or spiritually; it is nothing.

G. There you have struck the pope such a box on his ear that his entire face is black and blue.

P. And all papists too.

G. And the new papists as well. But what must we do in order to accept or receive the body of Christ spiritually?

P. We must let go³⁶ and do nothing.

G. That’s too severe for me. Tell me, how should we worthily receive the bread of the Lord, as you define it?

P. Anyone who has a passionate remembrance of the surrendered body of Jesus Christ and desires to testify to that externally in the church by wanting to eat the Lord’s bread, he is worthy to receive the Lord’s bread, as Christ said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Anyone who doesn’t have the right remembrance of Christ isn’t fit as Christ wants him to be fit.

G. Be good and forbearing enough to speak further.

P. Look, shall we return to an often-cited statement?

G. Yes; it doesn’t hurt, for this material is unusual. In which article is remembrance based?

P. You’re the master so should answer me, but you ask me.

G. Heed nothing, neither my worthiness [d2r] nor my great outcry, and answer my question.

P. The remembrance has many aspects in Christ, but one article is foremost, which we must understand and should consider as often as we would eat the Lord’s bread worthily.

G. Name it.

P. The body of Christ delivered up is what each person must remember who wants to eat the Lord’s bread without judgment [1 Cor. 11:29]. But we’ll speak of that at a more opportune time and place.

G. What does Paul call this article and the knowledge of it?

P. Paul calls it the Lord’s death, and the remembrance he calls proclamation [1 Cor. 11:26]. But you should understand that through the surrounding verses.

G. Speak, I’ll listen.

P. You do this out of humility.

G. Out of necessity.

P. These are Paul’s words: “Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This is the New Testament in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me” [1 Cor. 11:24–25]. Paul says with clear words that we should do everything in remembrance of Christ, such as eating the bread of the Lord and drinking of his cup. Through this Paul indicates to us that the remembrance of Christ shall kindle and stimulate us to take the bread and cup of Christ.

G. You skipped over that like a frightened hare over a bush.

P. What’s that?

G. You’re afraid of the little word broken.

P. Why?

G. Paul has confirmed our opinion of the priests, for he says, “This is my body which is broken for you” [1 Cor. 11:24]. But that has no basis if you don’t allow the body of Christ to come into the form of the bread, for the bread is broken. The body of Christ can’t be broken in itself, but the body of Christ is broken in the form of the bread per consequens.

P. Oh, you poor and foolish man! Do you think that Christ’s body must be broken when the bread is broken? [d2v] Don’t you know that it is written, “You shall break none of his bones” [Exod. 12:46]? Don’t you know the manner of speaking when one says, “You have a broken mind, a broken spirit”? [Ps. 51:17]. If you want to say that Christ was broken in the form of the bread, you can’t succeed. Tell me, who broke him? If you want to say that Christ broke the bread himself, I answer, if Christ wasn’t in the bread when he broke it, then nothing in his body was broken when he gave the bread to his disciples.

G. Christ’s substance is one thing in the sacrament and another outside of it.

P. So you priests have a different Christ in the sacrament than we laity have on the cross. Anyone who has a broken limb has it where it is broken. Now I ask further, did Christ break himself without others’ hands?

G. No.

P. So you can’t point to any apostle who broke Christ’s body in the bread as you can show that they ate the bread. Therefore it is false that Christ’s body is broken in the bread and it is a lie that Christ’s body on the cross is broken under the form of bread. So sneak off, you poor sophist.

G. Let’s stay with the matter begun and see further with what words Paul speaks about remembrance and about what we should remember.

P. Paul calls the broken body and the shed blood the death of the Lord; that is what we should remember. But as I’ve said, Paul calls the remembrance proclamation.

G. Speak more and explain Paul’s words.

P. “As often as you eat of this bread (says Paul) and drink of this cup, you should proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” [1 Cor. 11:26].

G. Explain that.

P. It’s as clear as a bright light to me.

G. I note well what we need for the worthy reception [d3r] of the Lord’s bread and cup, namely, the remembrance and proclamation of Christ’s death. But I still don’t exactly understand the proclamation.

P. Learn to understand this: “One believes in the heart to righteousness and with the mouth to salvation” [Rom. 10:10].

G. Relate this verse to remembrance and proclamation.

P. The remembrance of Christ can’t exist without faith and knowledge of Christ, any more than I could have a remembrance of my father if I hadn’t known him. So remembrance follows knowledge or faith in essence and manner. If the knowledge is ardent and pure, then the remembrance is ardent and pure. If it is from hearsay, then the remembrance is the same way.

G. Can remembrance also justify?

P. Why not?

G. Prove that!

P. Isaiah portrays the mocked and slain Messiah in all his dreadful bitterness; then Isaiah says that the Messiah will justify many of his servants through knowledge of him.

G. Is this the text, “In scientia sui justificabit ipse multos,”³⁷ Isaiah 53[:11]?

P. You have said it.

G. Do you mean to [say] that the remembrance of Christ, in the way in which he was cursed, derided, nailed up, and put to death, also justifies as knowledge of him?

P. That I do. For it is written, “They will say that they have done it in remembrance of me.”

G. How does that accord with this clause, “With the mouth one believes unto salvation”?

P. The proclamation of the death of Christ. For the proclamation is a statement of faith that proceeds from the heart through the mouth. Therefore the outward confession or preaching of the death of Christ is a sign or fruit of inner righteousness, so that all who hear such external preaching must say, “God is in [d3v] the person who is preaching” or “God speaks through him.”

G. So I understand that the remembrance of Christ must be so rich, so boundless, and so powerful in him who desires to eat the Lord’s bread that it compels the man to preach publicly before the church or otherwise proclaim the death of Christ, and then to eat (out of great love and remembrance) the Lord’s bread.

P. You guessed it. Don’t you know how Paul preached of Christ at Troas and the people were impelled afterwards to eat the Lord’s bread?

G. Yes, as in Acts 20[:11].

P. Do you also know that the disciples remained steadfast in Christ’s teaching and afterwards also remained in the breaking of the bread [Acts 2:42]?

G. Indeed.

P. But do you know that the proclamation of Christ’s death always should come before one begins to break and take the Lord’s bread?

G. By whom? Concerning what?

P. The preaching of Christ’s death is necessary. As Paul says, you should proclaim the Lord’s death as often as you receive it [1 Cor. 11:26] and the Acts of the Apostles also show this. Sermons on the resurrection or the birth of Christ aren’t at all appropriate for the reception of the Lord’s bread, although one might mix in the articles of Christ’s birth and ascension.

G. By whom?

P. By the one who wants to break the bread or by another.

G. I consider it to be unnecessary that all recipients be examined, since Christ gave his bread to Judas the betrayer.

P. You’ve already heard me say a lot. I also think it’s enough to understand how the words of Christ and Paul agree and what one needs in order to take and eat of the Lord’s bread worthily.

G. Good brother, in things one hasn’t experienced it isn’t too much to discuss something twice.

P. What is that?

G. We should speak again of the worthy reception or acceptance of the Lord’s bread, since I notice that something still sticks in the pen.

P. What?

[d4r] G. The word dijudicare, which Paul used and means (in German) “to judge correctly,” “to consider well,” “to condemn vigorously.” The Greek word diakrinon means both “to distinguish” and “to judge.” He who wants to distinguish a thing correctly must observe that thing inwardly and outwardly and consider thoroughly what he desires to distinguish.

P. What are you referring to?

G. To Paul’s statement that says, “The one who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment on himself, for he doesn’t distinguish the body of the Lord” [1 Cor. 11:29].

P. We dealt with this statement at the appropriate time.

G. Oblige me and let us deal with it once more.

P. I want to hear how you’ve understood me.

G. You say that everyone who wants to receive the sacrament without harm must have the remembrance of Christ and diligently judge the body of Christ and also proclaim outwardly the death of Christ; but we priests, as you say, take this away from Christ and attribute it to the sacrament.

P. Why are you “sacramenting”? Where in the scripture did you learn that word?

G. Bear with me, for I can’t express myself, and act as if you hear the word bread as often as I say sacrament.

P. Continue on.

G. We clergy, priests and monks, say that the sacrament forgives sin and we preach thus, “Oh sinner, if your conscience terrifies or oppresses you on account of your sin and you can’t be freed of your anxiety and burden, go and receive the sacrament for your sin and be at peace.”

P. You false prophets! You promise the people the kingdom of God for a piece of bread; what would you promise for silver and gold if you weren’t ashamed? You promise the simple people peace of conscience in those things that are smaller than the conscience and can make or give no peace.

G. Go easy!

P. It’s true. I know that even with your secret breathing and [d4v] hissing you can’t make the bread anything better or different. Why do you say that it can forgive sin when you’ve blown over it?³⁸ Wouldn’t it be the same as if you also said, “Man, if your sins oppress you and you desire to have peace, then take a handful of barley and eat it in God’s name; then you will be free and quit of your sins and at peace in your conscience.” In this manner the pope gave letters of indulgence, and the false prophets in prior times took wheat and corn, and our priests take the offering money for sin. This would free the peoples’ consciences and give peace for themselves and before other people, but how about before God? Didn’t they have a false peace and security when there was no peace or security? Don’t be surprised that the foolish people believe and let themselves be contented with lies, for they let themselves be raised up, spun around, and put down by every wind that blows on them. But in the end, they will be put to shame and see rightly how they are deceived.

G. But Martin Luther himself has given this counsel.

P. It is most harmful that the simple people sell themselves with their esteem for one person, for they don’t depend on the pure truth but rather upon a person and so they can’t hear or see the pure truth because they have such a thick foreskin over their ears and eyes.

G. The bread has the body of Christ.

P. Even if I granted that Christ’s body were united with the bread, it nevertheless would be false and speaking deceptively if I gave the bread a hair’s breadth of so much might and power that it could forgive our sins and give us peace. What I give to the bread I take away from the passion of Christ. Also, Christ’s body or death would be of no use at all if Christ were not God and sealed by God the Father when he [e1r] was (and still is) a man, and if Christ hadn’t known his passion and death to the highest degree. Now consider, dear sophist, and see how Paul directs us to know the remembrance of the bitter death of Christ, which we remember when we think back over some fifteen hundred years, although knowledge and memory go beyond time and place and shouldn’t be attached to anything that contributes nothing to the forgiveness of sins.

G. I fear you’re right and that we play a monkey’s game whenever we adore the sacrament, carrying it about our cities and villages in silver and gold monstrances, wanting to preserve and protect ourselves and ours with it and to drive out the devil; for what we ascribe to the external bread we take away from the death of Christ.

P. What do you think of it now?

G. I think it’s a lousy trifle and a cunning deception to have talked this way about the sacrament for so long. For the sacrament is an external thing that can’t make us blessed or holy or pious or better or righteous or free, even though we view it a thousand times. I fear that the prophet Haggai was prophesying of us when he said, “They hang a little piece of holy flesh on the hem of their clothing and say that what they touch with it is holy” [Hag. 2:12].

P. You are more wavering and fickle than a feather in the wind. Now you agree with me in everything, now you agree with the priests; one moment you speak papistically and the next truly about your sacrament; sometimes you approach me, sometimes you back away from me, you Proteus you!

G. I am so agile out of great subtlety. It’s also useful for me, for in this way I flee the cross and have an easy life among the great.

P. I believe you.

G. If I didn’t know this skill, I would have been scorned long ago.

P. But it is neither honorable nor Christian; [e1v] it would be more becoming to a thoughtless liar than to you.

G. I still say that Haggai prophesied of us.

P. How so?

G. We say that when the bread is blessed it can forgive sin and make everything holy that only touches it. So we give to the sacrament just as much honor, praise, love, and respect as to the body and death of Christ.

P. You have no basis for that in the scriptures.

G. Not a letter. Christ said, “Anyone who loves father or mother more than or as much as me is unworthy of me” [Matt. 10:37]. What will he say to us who have given the same honor, fear, and love to a lesser creature that has neither soul nor body—namely, the bread—as we have given to him?

P. The person who esteems the bread of the Lord, or who fears, honors, or loves it as much as the Lord’s bitter death, is unworthy of Christ’s death and doesn’t comprehend it. He also takes and eats the Lord’s bread unworthily to his judgment, to his injury and fall.

G. If it were right that we should adore or fear and honor the Lord’s bread with such pomp, then the prophets would have prophesied of the holiness and righteousness of the bread and told us that the bread would bear our sin and pain and that it should be sought when our sins terrify or grieve us.

P. You speak well and rightly. John the Baptist wouldn’t have pointed to the uncovered Christ if the Christ concealed from us in the host should forgive sins. Christ also would have been so kind to us that he would have shown us how we must eat his bread if we would be certain of the forgiveness of our sins.

G. How about Paul?

P. He points us to the remembrance of Christ’s death when our sins oppress us; therefore he says, “Many have become righteous through the obedience of one man” [Rom. 5:19].

[e2r] G. Prove it.

P. Anyone who wants to have the sure forgiveness of sins and to eat the bread of the Lord worthily and without injury—what you call receiving—should be certain in the knowledge of Christ’s death, i.e., understand and accept the death of Christ to such an extent as God our father promised it, and seal it with his heart that God is truthful. The one who is so fit [for the sacrament] is well fit, but he who has a fault is unfit and unworthy; it would be better for him if he ate peasant bread than the Lord’s bread.

G. Why?

P. Because of his hypocrisy and unworthiness.

G. Prove it.

P. “As often as you eat from this bread and drink this cup, you should proclaim the death of the Lord” [1 Cor. 11:26]. Paul says this about the Lord’s death and not about the Lord’s bread when he imposed on us the remembrance and proclamation until he [Christ] comes. With this Paul shoves to the ground all the mass-sayers, monks, and priests in one heap. For Paul says when the Lord comes, then one no longer will eat the Lord’s bread nor preach before its reception; and he concludes that the Lord doesn’t come in the bread or the sacrament, and if he came the sacrament would cease. So Christ can’t come in the sacrament. He remains above in heaven, which holds him until the time of refreshment comes [Acts 3:19–21]. Now whoever eats unworthily from this bread and drinks from the cup of the Lord is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

G. That’s terrible!

P. Let each person examine himself and thus eat from the bread and drink from the cup of the Lord [1 Cor. 10:28].

G. Do I hear that I should be certain of the matter?

P. Whoever examines or considers himself must know [e2v] and not imagine. Anyone who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment on himself if he doesn’t discern the body of Christ.

G. So it is better that we abstain than that we receive it.

P. You’ve said it.

G. We’ve gone far afield and see that the sun is setting, so we should turn back and cut short this matter of the delivering up [of Christ] to a more opportune time. Then I’ll want to hear and learn how Christ was delivered up, to whom he was handed over, for what reason, and for whom or for whose benefit he gave himself; what we should understand and recognize in it, and how our spirit must be assured by God’s Spirit.

P. What should we discuss now?

G. The matter now touched upon in which you said that Christ doesn’t come into the sacrament. That would closely concern all priests and monks.

P. Are you the great giants and children of Anakim who are able to draw God down from heaven?³⁹

G. We can, and do it with the power of another.

P. Who has given you the power of another?

G. Christ, when he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

P. Has Christ also commanded that you should bring his body into the bread?

G. Yes.

P. I have believed, and know it is true, that you priests lie; for Christ didn’t command you to force his body to come into your host.

G. What then?

P. Christ says you should take and eat his bread, with the addition that as often as you take and eat it, you should take and eat it in remembrance of him. As Paul says, you should do this, and all Christians are able to do so, the unanointed better than the anointed tonsure-wearers. They are truly the brave giants who through such words have stolen by force their supposed and falsely vaunted power [e3r] through which they claim to bring Christ’s body into a little piece of bread.

G. It seems to me that Paul has confirmed our power strongly and well when he said, “I have received from the Lord what I have given to you. For the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took the bread and gave thanks and broke it, and said, ‘Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me’” [1 Cor. 11:23–24]. There! There! See, Peter, how Paul holds a mass and repeats the words of the Lord and brings his body into the bread, and also gives us the power to summon and bring the Lord’s body into the sacrament.

P. Oho! Indeed! How laughable your babble is to me.

G. How so?

P. Did Paul give you the power with these words, “Do this,” etc., to conjure the Lord’s body into the bread and hold mass? Even a blind man deep in the night can grasp that Paul does nothing other than narrate the Lord’s words and the time in which Christ instituted his Supper, and that he wants to teach us that we should eat the Lord’s bread not like other bread but rather in his remembrance. If you want to take a special power from repeating these words in order to force the Lord’s body into a small piece of bread, as Christ is said to have done (as you say), then I could say that Moses gave us power to create heaven and earth, and that Moses created all the creatures when he began to describe the creation of heaven and earth. If you want to ascribe to yourself the one, you must also take the other. If you now would prove your creation of a new world with the deed, then I’ll also believe that you or another tonsured one can summon and bring the Lord’s body into the sacrament.

G. But what did Paul establish with the Lord’s word?

P. Many good things; for he exhorts us about the time [e3v] of Christ’s passion, of the fitness and manner in which we should eat the Lord’s bread.

G. Explain yourself!

P. Concerning the time, we shouldn’t eat the Lord’s bread like pigs, for when he administered the bread to us in his remembrance, it was the night in which he was innocently betrayed on our behalf; therefore, it is right that we stand in the bitterness of our life when we eat his bread. Concerning his passion, it’s clear that we should contemplate the magnitude and horror of our sins, as well as Christ’s boundless obedience and burning love. The manner consists in the remembrance and proclamation of Christ’s death. As frequently said, that is the reason Christ pointed to his body and said, “The body is given for you; before this, no one was given nor was there anyone who might have been given; nor will anyone come after me, for I am the one and my body corresponds to and truly is the body that is given for you.” Now whoever takes and eats the Lord’s bread in contemplation of all these things truly has sufficient reason earnestly to eat the Lord’s bread, although it is neither holier nor better than any other bread.

G. But Christ did bless the bread.

P. It says that he gave thanks—that is, to God his father. For that reason some call the sacrament a Eucharist, as if only the sacrament were a Eucharist; these follow their brains more than God’s word.

G. This thanksgiving was always an effective power through which Christ brought his body into the sacrament.

P. Prove that. You’ve fled your former defense and now take another defense for yourself. If your first argument had been any good, when you let the words be heard, “Do this in remembrance of me,” etc., you would have [e4r] held the battlefield. But because your ground forsook and disgraced you, you seek these words, “Christ gave thanks,” but they’ll sustain you like the previous ones.

G. I have three grounds or swords. If one ground sinks, I flee to the next. Isn’t it priceless that when I break one sword, I take another and defend myself?

P. That’s a sure sign that the sunken ground and broken sword weren’t firm and strong. But the one who fights with the truth has the very best ground and the very strongest sword, since the truth is the strongest of all.

G. That matters little to me, if only I protect myself and contradict you.

P. You’re a born sophist, a deceiver, a seducer. But according to your reputation, you should force your case, compelling, forcing, and frightening your enemies, capturing them with power and stopping their mouths with the truth so that they can’t say anything against you.

G. My grounds appear good.

P. You shouldn’t have only the appearance, but rather the truth. Now put forth your apparent arguments and let’s see how bright and light that appearance is.

G. One is this, “Jesus took the bread and blessed it.” The second is, “This is my body, which is given for you.” The third is, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

P. This still appears so distant and so dark that I can’t see that any one of these grounds serves the priests.

G. You have weak eyes.

P. If yours are so sharp, lead me to these so-called apparent arguments. But I think you have such sharp eyes that they see what’s not there.

G. Jesus took the bread and blessed it or gave thanks to God.

P. Do you want to hold that blessing and giving thanks are the same thing?

G. Yes. [e4v] For one evangelist has the word bless in the same place where another has written give thanks [Matt. 26:26; Luke 22:19].

P. But explain your apparent argument that Christ through his blessing put himself into the sacrament and that you priests through Christ’s blessing can bring his body and blood into the sacrament.

G. That’s so clear that no proof is needed.

P. But to me it’s so obscure that I can’t believe the priests at all.

G. Point out the obscurity.

P. You’ve boasted of the light and aren’t able to show it, so I’m not obliged to prove the obscurity. The one who boasts of the light or apparent argument must prove his point with scripture or witnesses.

G. Christ said thanks and through the very words of giving thanks he put himself into the sacrament.

P. Because you speak so much of the thanksgiving, I ask you what Christ said when he gave thanks. When Christ raised Lazarus, he also thanked God [John 11:41] and the formula of thanksgiving is included in the same story. But about this thanksgiving, I can’t give either the manner or the formula. But if you know the formula, then tell it.

G. In my whole life I’ve never heard of it, nor have I considered or asked about it.

P. So you boast about something you don’t understand. It must be necessary that you must know the words of thanksgiving that Christ used, if you claim that through Christ’s thanksgiving you can bring Christ’s body and blood into your sacrament.

G. Do you find more faults with me?

P. Many.

G. Pour them out!

P. If Christ brought himself into the bread or the cup through the blessing that you make use of, it would follow that Christ was already in your sacrament before he spoke these words, “This is my body,” etc., and that these words, “This is my body,” don’t serve [f1r] you in bringing Christ into the sacrament.

G. More here!

P. If Christ had come into the sacrament, then he would have left his place where he sat. For Christ always left his earlier place when he came or went to a new place, as the scripture shows, John 6[:15]. Likewise, when Christ went up the mountain, he left the valley, and when Christ went to heaven, he left this world, bodily speaking. Isn’t it written, “I will go away from you and come to you again” [John 14:3]?

G. That’s all true naturally, but sacramentally and supernaturally it’s true that Christ is in many places at the same time.

P. Do you also have a basis for that in scripture?

G. No.

P. So you’re a liar.

G. Then the entire crowd lies.

P. That is possible and human, Leviticus 4[:13], Exodus 19[:7–8].

G. Have you completely poured out your opinion?

P. No, I have more in reserve. But one thing I don’t want to hide from you, that it is a sandy foundation when the priests say that the words of blessing or thanksgiving, which they don’t even know, are so powerful that they can drive Christ into their sacrament. For if their words could stand, then it would also stand and be true that the priests of the old law also brought their bodies into the food and drink, indeed even into the people whom they blessed. In sum, it must follow that you priests and monks bring your bodies into your food and drink when you’ve blessed your food and drink or read the benediction, and that you yourselves and your guests devour your body and your flesh and your blood; that you must bring yourselves sacramentally into the food that you bless or receive with thanksgiving. For Paul uses the same word, eucharistien, 1 Timothy 4[:4–5], when he speaks about the common use of all kinds of food. And so you see, [f1v] your first apparent argument and ground is a dark lantern and quicksand for you who misuse the clear scripture.

G. Then another ground will serve me, “This is my body,” etc.

P. Little; indeed, not at all.

G. How so?

P. You priests say that Christ is in the bread or under the bread or in the form of the bread, but the words just cited don’t serve you at all.

G. But it is written, “This is my body,” etc.

P. That’s why it’s against you; while it stands written, “This is my body,” etc., it is another thing to say “under which” or “in which bread is my body.” If Christ had said, “under the bread” or “in the bread is my body,” then you would have had an apparent argument.

G. Is it sin that we add an in?

P. Truly a great sin, for God says, “You shall not add to it” [Deut. 4:2]. Yes, it’s a falsification. The highest priest⁴⁰ would burn anyone who falsified his bulls with such a little word and gave it a different meaning as you bring to Christ’s statement. If you priests wanted to defend your sacrament with such fraud, you’d have a better basis in the words concerning the cup, since the words about the cup are this, “The cup, the new testament in my blood,” etc. [1 Cor. 11:25]. From these words you could have had a clearer pretext to say that the cup is in the blood and must be in the blood, by virtue of the words of Christ when you read and say them, “This cup is the new testament in my blood.” For when you say, “The body of Christ is in the bread” or “in the form of bread,” it isn’t correct, but there is no in in the statement about the cup.

G. Yes, it would have been better to have hit upon that.

P. Not hit upon it? You would have cloaked yourselves excellently with scriptural words if you had said straight out, “The cup is in the blood,” as the text says, and in addition it is a new testament.

[f2r] G. Yes, well cloaked. But what would the peasants have said? Wouldn’t they have said: “I don’t see any blood in which there is a cup; I see the cup, but I don’t see blood.” Perhaps the peasants would have stoned us.

P. Of course not!

G. Of course!

P. I don’t believe it.

G. I know it to be true, for they wouldn’t have seen any blood in which the cup was.

P. Couldn’t you persuade them with your chatter, saying, “You must take captive your reason [2 Cor. 10:5] and subdue your mind and act as if you can neither see, taste, nor understand.”

G. Are you mocking?

P. Haven’t you persuaded the laity that they taste bread and wine, but nevertheless that they shouldn’t say they taste bread and wine when they receive your sacrament? In the same way, you would also have brought it about that they would have believed that your cup was in the blood that, however, they could not see. You would only say, “Faith comprehends all things, understands all things, and is capable of all things.” So faith is also capable of seeing the blood that the eyes of men and angels can’t see.

G. I don’t know whether or not you’re mocking us.

P. How could I?

G. What about if it says directly, “The bread is my body,” as Christ said?

P. Christ never said that the bread was his body. The Greek language won’t allow us to relate the words this is to the bread, as has been shown above. In addition, it’s ridiculous if one wants to say, “The bread is my body,” etc. For this makes it sound as if the Lord’s body, which would suffer and be given for us, is bread and not a natural human body. It isn’t the body born of his mother, Mary, but rather bread that a baker made. Moreover, it’s against the stream of all the prophets who have written of the surrendered body of Christ and against all the gospels and the apostolic books. For it is always true [f2v] that anyone who is not with scripture scatters and is against scripture.

G. Then let the third ground serve me.

P. “Do this in remembrance of me”?

G. Yes.

P. But I’ve heard great scarecrows use these words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” in the sense that they want to maintain that priests are able to summon and confine the body and blood of Christ in the papistic sacrament.

G. Who are the scarecrows?

P. Those who are called doctors, who wear the round, handsome, pointed little hats and go about in long robes and stand around like the straw and wooden scarecrows that are dressed in beggars’ old clothes.

G. Easy!

P. How can I speak gently of them? Because one of them says that through these words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” bishops consecrate priests, another that the priests conjure Christ into the sacrament, and a third carries on in another way.

G. I believe that through these words, “Do this,” etc., Christ has given us power to summon his flesh and blood into the sacrament when we read such words.

P. Oh poor blindness! Are reading and doing the same thing to you? Did Christ speak first of reading or doing, or did he say what his disciples should do, before he said, “Do this,” etc.?

G. What we should do.

P. You should take and eat the bread; you should do this in remembrance of the Lord. As Paul says, “You should proclaim the Lord’s death as often as you eat the Lord’s bread and drink of his cup” [1 Cor. 11:26].

G. Let’s speak further about several arguments.

P. Which ones?

G. About thanksgiving.

P. Do you think that through his thanksgiving Christ changed his body into bread?

G. Yes.

P. Then you must also confess that Christ changed his body into five barley loaves, for Christ also gave thanks [f3r] or blessed them, as you say, for the word he blessed stands there too [John 6:9–11].

G. Stay on track.

P. Was the blessing or the benediction and thanksgiving of Christ that power through which Christ brought his body into the bread, and was it the power that Christ supposedly gave to the priests? If so, then Christ instituted his sacrament long before the night when he was betrayed, against all those learned in scripture and even Paul. It also follows that Christ fed several thousand people with his body and that Christ gave his flesh and blood to others before the apostles. You must also admit that Christ placed his body into Lazarus’s body when he raised him from the dead.

G. You almost make me doubt.

P. Now assuming that Christ brought his body into the bread on Thursday as you say, do the priests then have the same power as Christ?

G. The same and greater. “Majora his facietis”⁴¹ [John 14:12].

P. Now I hear that the scurvy priests can bring the body of Christ into their so-called form of bread, which Christ couldn’t do.

G. No. Christ changed himself into the bread with a clear voice, but the priests bring Christ into the bread with a quiet whisper.

P. That’s a good one! Make sense! Let’s clear our throats so we don’t laugh ourselves to death.

G. Christ in any case said, “This is my body.”

P. Christ stood as present and said, “This is the body mine,” etc. So when a priest says, “This is my body; take, eat the bread,” and we eat, then we are devouring a lousy priest. But if the priests speak of the body of Christ and recall to memory how Christ stood and said about his body that his body was the body that was promised to be offered up for us, then they speak correctly. But he’s not stuck in the bread as they say.⁴²

[f3v] G. Don’t the priests have a command to bring Christ’s body into the sacrament?

P. We read of all kinds of commands and many articles through which God has entrusted all kinds of power to his apostles, but among them all we find not one that says that Christ gave priests the power to fit his body into the bread and his blood into the cup.

G. Is that so?

P. I say, “Yes,” for Christ gave his disciples power to preach, baptize, cast out devils, heal the sick, shake the dust from their feet, and raise the dead [Luke 10:1–19]. But among all of these commands I see not one that says, “You should or will bring my body into a small piece of bread.” I’d like to see a single letter that you ink-gobblers might boast of and base your claim on that Christ commanded you to bring his body into bread or the form of bread. So I say that you have knavishly, thievishly, and deceptively appropriated this power to yourselves.

G. Then shall Christ remain eternally up above?

P. It was concluded above by Paul and also by us that we will need the sacrament or bread only until the Lord comes. When Christ returns from heaven, then the sacrament and all external things will pass away.

G. Christ comes secretly in the sacrament; but Paul is speaking of a clear and visible advent.

P. If Christ comes secretly into the sacrament, then he must be ashamed of his coming or be afraid of you.

G. Christ comes secretly to us priests.

P. Truly, he comes so secretly that you yourselves don’t know whether he comes into the sacrament or not. For there is no priest who can maintain on oath that Christ comes at his command into the sacrament [f4r] as large as he was hanging on the cross.

G. I’ve celebrated many a mass and frequently, but I’ve never felt that he had come.

P. I know.

G. Wouldn’t Christ come down from heaven secretly?

P. No.

G. Bring scripture!

P. Two men said to the apostles, “Christ will come as you saw him ascend” [Acts 1:10–11]. Christ ascended visibly into heaven, so he must also return visibly. I won’t let myself be persuaded to anything more than that the apostles neither hoped for nor desired the secret advent in their bread.

G. I don’t know who the two men were, so I’d much rather hear scripture.

P. Take Christ’s word, who said, “When they say, ‘Here is Christ, there is Christ’ (as you priests have long done and said, ‘Christ is in this host,’ and ‘in that host,’ and ‘Christ is in all corners’⁴³); you shouldn’t go out or believe it.” For Christ’s advent won’t be secret but rather as evident and visible as the lightning that shines from east to west [Matt. 24:23–27].

G. Christ says that of the second advent.

P. But there are no more than two advents, one in the form of the cross and passion here on earth, the other in glorified form. For you mustn’t invent a third and you can’t apply either of these two to the host. Christ will remain in heaven until the day in which all things will be brought to an end, as Peter says in Acts [3:20–21] and as we’ve established above.

G. I think it’s difficult for you to believe that Christ can be in many places at the same time.

P. No; I believe that you can bring and place him in many places at the same time just as easily as I believe that St. Anne had five heads and an innocent [f4v] child has a beard twelve yards long.

G. Don’t you believe that Christ in one moment is present in ten thousand places?

P. Essentially, I don’t believe it. But I do believe that you’d gladly bring him from heaven if he were so forgetful as to leave there and come down.

G. Do you also not believe that Christ is at the same time in many ciboria?⁴⁴

P. In your jails?

G. What do you mean by jails?

P. You’re accustomed to lock up your God with iron doors and to attach many iron bolts and bars so that he won’t escape you, and so you greatly mock, shame, and disgrace Christ our savior.

G. Disgraceful!

P. You have invented for yourselves a God who is no God.

G. He is Christ.

P. Christ is bodily in heaven. If your scripture shows that he is in your bread, then I’ll speak differently.

G. We bring him down.

P. Oh, you powerless priests! Do you want to ascribe such great power to yourselves? It belongs to a greater power to bring Christ from heaven into the sacrament, to drive out the devil, than to cast a great stone mountain into the sea—none of which you can do. I know that if you tried to cast out the devil, the same thing would happen to you as happened to the seven sons of the Jew Scaeva⁴⁵ [Acts 19:11–17].

G. What we do, we do with good intention to honor Christ.

P. You honor Christ like a cat honors its captured mouse.

G. Oh, no!

P. Now even if you mean well in all things, to speak of human intention, you should still abandon your good intention if you don’t know that God the Lord is pleased by your good intentions. You should remember Peter who had a capital good intention, humanly speaking, for he was opposed to Christ’s being disgraced and martyred; and nevertheless he had to hear, “Go from me, [g1r] you Satan!” [Matt. 16:22].

G. We believed it would honor Christ and be good for us if we brought Christ into the bread and held him in it as in a miraculous temple.

P. Where do you have a basis for that intention?

G. In the scripture.

P. Set forth the scripture!

G. What shall I set forth? Don’t you know that Moses built God a tabernacle and Solomon afterward built God a house?

P. On what basis do you want to build Christ a house from bread?

G. It is argumentum a simili.⁴⁶

P. With such bread⁴⁷ you’ll destroy the entire scripture and make entirely worthless the precious passion of Christ.

G. Is it against the scripture and Christ?

P. It is so completely against the scripture that you have no basis therein for it. It is also against Christ that you priests want to make him a temple constructed by human hands. Christ is the highest priest and through his one sacrifice and one death he has entered the eternal tabernacle that God’s hands alone have formed, without the work of any creature [Heb. 9:11–12]. From this same temple and tabernacle you bold warriors dare summon Christ into a thing that will be consumed in time, whether by worms, by fire, by mice and pigs, or by fattened swine as you priests are.

G. Is that wrong?

P. Christ says, “What kind of house will you build for me? Shall I stay in your bread?” Haven’t you imagined and invented all that? Haven’t you chosen such paths and abominations yourselves? Out, you dog-butchers!

G. The cup that we bless is a fellowship of the blood of Christ. Look here and realize that we bless the cup, and that the cup is a fellowship of the blood of Christ [1 Cor. 10:16].

P. The blessing consists of the remembrance and proclamation of the death of Christ, as Paul explains in the following chapter and as mentioned above. Otherwise I don’t know what the formula for the blessing was and I’d gladly like to know.

G. Answer me then, that the cup is a fellowship.

P. Fellowship consists in this: [g1v] that no one should drink the Lord’s cup unless he understands why Christ shed his blood and he should drink from the Lord’s cup from great love and thankfulness and a burning remembrance. One can’t drink with blessing from this cup without the fellowship of the Lord.

G. The verba consecrationis effect and create these things.

P. Who made them up?

G. Fingere licet.⁴⁸

P. Lapidare jus est.⁴⁹ How many powerful words are there?

G. Five, as there are five wounds, and he who omits one can’t consecrate.⁵⁰

P. How many of them are there in Greek?

G. Four.

P. Then the apostles didn’t consecrate.

G. Does that surprise you? We should, after all, daily increase in the knowledge of Christ.

P. They say that Christ spoke in a mixture of Jewish and Syrian. If that’s true, you’ll hardly have more than two words.

G. Our power is expanded and extended.

P. I’d like to have that.

G. What do you think? Do you want to make other words?

P. I know truly and certainly that the body of Christ without the passion would have been useless to us. As Christ said, “The Son of man must be lifted up, so that anyone who sees him suspended will not perish” [John 3:14–15]. So the clause, “which is given for you,” is firmly tied to and of equal power as the clause, “This is my body,” and I’ll prove this with my remembrance, although I neither hold nor believe that such words are verba consecrationis.

G. You’re obstinate.

P. Against lies; but I yield to the truth.

G. Shouldn’t Christ come into our sacrament when a priest reads such words?

P.⁵¹ Should Christ jump up for every priest because of his stinking breath?

G. Why not?

P. Surely the majority of the priests belong to the race of the Pharisees and brood of vipers [Matt. 3:7] whom Christ won’t approach or have much to do with.

G. Christ must come because of the words.

[g2r] P. The Pharisees also had God’s word, and so well that Christ said, “You should listen to them” [Matt. 5:20], but he still didn’t want to go near them.

G. He feared them.

P. Christ should fear much more now, for now the priests tear Christ with their teeth and kill him for three pennies. God says to such sinners, “Why do you take my word in your mouth? Therefore it does not help you,” etc. [Ps. 50:16].

G. I always thought Christ should come into the sacrament.

P. Christ would truly have restless days; he’s tossed to and fro more disgracefully than a juggler’s rod by the priests.

G. You compare Christ to a juggler’s rod?

P. No, but I say that the jugglers handle their rod more skillfully than the priests handle Christ. This is why: the jugglers are chaste and remain sober and speak their lines clearly. But the priests stink early of wine and beer like a vinegar jug; and some of them are still so drunk in the morning that they can’t hold their heads up or move their tongues properly, and they babble rather than read. Some sleep during low mass, as one did who fell asleep and in his dream stood up and said, “To me!” for he dreamed he sat in a wine cellar. And another stood up during low mass in his dream and said, “Shuffle the cards.” Now see whether the juggler’s rod isn’t better handled by the jugglers than the words of Christ are by the priests. But who can believe that such a wine flask could bring Christ into the sacrament? If Christ is in their power, his situation is worse than that of the juggler’s rod.

G. I don’t believe myself that Christ has fellowship with such priests.

P. Then why do you command us poor peasants to fall down and beat our breasts when you drunkards elevate your idolatrous bread?

G. Prove it!

P. You priests have printed a blasphemous image of Christ [g2v] on your bread with a branding iron so that all consciences are polluted. And God regards all images as an abomination and hates and flees them. So for this reason I don’t believe that you are able to convert Christ in your sacrament, for he always did his father’s will here; does he now oppose the same will? I don’t believe that at all. Your bread is an idolatrous bread, an abominable and rejected bread.

G. Easy!

P. The image also makes the simple people think that Christ has turned himself into the image and that Christ’s feet are where they are in the image, his head where the head is in the image. Some think that the priests upset Christ’s stomach if they turn the image upside down, and so forth.

G. We know that images are nothing.

P. We also know they are much less than dung and are laid as a trap to bring someone to a fall.

G. How would it be then if we used bread without the idolatrous image?

P. But you can’t summon and convert Christ into it. For the sake of brevity, I ask you whether you are able to bring the mortal body of Christ into the sacrament, or the glorified immortal one?

G. Your question is a snare thrown to draw and entangle.

P. But you’re obligated to answer me.

G. Christ is in the sacrament in his immortal and glorified body.

P. Why?

G. Christ died once and will die no more, as Paul says in Romans [6:9–10] and the Acts of the Apostles teaches.

P. You’re a bold Paulinist.

G. That I am.

P. But you know little of his teaching.

G. More than the whole world.

P. Are you so learned and you don’t know that Paul says, “The Lord took the bread,” etc., and said, “This is my body, which is given for you”? The mortal body, not the immortal, was given into the hands of the Jews and the heathen to be slain.

G. Yes, that is true when Christ converted⁵² himself into the sacrament.

P. It’s true in the morning when you’re sober; [g3r] in the afternoon it’s a dream when you’re so drunk.

G. Why do you mock?

P. Can you bring another body of Christ into the sacrament than the one Christ brought into it?

G. No, but with another form and figure.

P. In which?

G. Christ brought himself into the bread with lowly form and in the form of a servant [Phil. 2:8]. But I and others like me bring Christ into the sacrament in glorified form.

P. Where do you have the grounds for that?

G. Ground here, ground there, so it is thus: “He who does not receive my word will not be saved” [John 12:48].

P. No. You won’t entice me into your snare with such a tune. May the devil accept your words in every respect.

G. How could we otherwise justify the verba consecrationis?

P. I too fear you’re unable to do anything with them.

G. How so?

P. If your verba consecrationis are right, then they have this meaning: “This is my body, which is given for you,” that is, which is laid aside and will die at the hands of evildoers; but they don’t serve you in your delusion.

G. That’s why we have only five words that we call the verba consecrationis.

P. Count them!

G. Hoc, est, enim, corpus, meum.

P. You left out the attached words, “which is given for you.”

G. Certainly, we stand firm on that.

P. Like butter in the sun and a thief on the gallows.

G. Don’t be so wicked!

P. A thousand times worse.

G. Why?

P. Because you interpret Christ’s word differently than he does.

G. Prove that!

P. Easily. Christ says it is the body in the form and figure that could and would suffer, but you reverse it and say it is the body that could not suffer.

G. What causes you to attack me so violently?

P. The truth and righteousness of God.

G. If only I could hear it from you!

P. Christ redeemed us and wants to lead us out of the devil’s kingdom and power, as out of Egypt, into God’s kingdom and power. But Christ could accomplish that only through his death, as God had ordained. [g3v] He had to fulfill the figure of the Passover lamb and stretch out his hands on the wood.

G. Say more.

P. Christ had to justify us who receive him from our sins with his righteousness; but he had to accomplish this through his death.

G. What is that righteousness?

P. Obedience unto death.

V. Do you have scripture?

P. “Through one man’s obedience, many have become righteous” [Rom. 5:19]. Christ proved this obedience with his humiliating death, where he became obedient unto death, in the death of the cross [Phil. 2:8].

G. Don’t we have this righteousness through the resurrection?

P. No. We have the righteousness of our mortification through the death of Christ and not through the resurrection.

G. It is written, “Christ was raised for the sake of our righteousness” [Rom. 4:25].

P. That is the righteousness of the resurrection of the spirit, which has only its beginning here and will break forth after death. The righteousness of mortification precedes, the other follows.

G. You would soon draw me to your position.

P. If Christ’s glorified and immortal body were in the sacrament and entered it by the power of his word, then we don’t have the first righteousness. But anyone who doesn’t have the first, doesn’t have the second either, and so it is also false that his body is given for us. But if Christ’s mortal body were in the sacrament, then by the power of Christ’s words that he spoke you could bring his body into the bread in no other form and figure than he brought himself there. Then you must say that Christ’s mortal body is in your sacrament and that Christ dies every day when you sacrifice him; that opposes God’s truth in every way.

G. I saw this snare easily and note that you would trap me before I would answer. If I say, “Christ’s mortal body is in the sacrament,” then you rise up [g4r] and snare me and say, “Then Christ is still mortal.” But if I say, “Christ’s immortal body is in the sacrament,” then it would follow that we don’t have any verba consecrationis and that the ground upon which we build collapses. So I don’t know what I should say.

P. Confess the truth and say Christ’s body isn’t in the bread and his blood isn’t in the cup. But we should eat the Lord’s bread in remembrance or knowledge of his body that he gave for us into the hands of the unrighteous; and we should drink of the cup in the knowledge of his blood, which Christ poured out for us. In sum, we should eat and drink in the knowledge of Christ’s death.

G. If only I could evade the trap just presented.

P. Good.

G. But how?

P. Christ didn’t speak of the resurrection when he gave his bread and cup; therefore it isn’t necessary that the recipients be concerned with the resurrection. Christ will drink and will give us a new and second cup when he brings his resurrection to completion in us, and the bread and wine of mortification will cease. Therefore Paul said, “You shall proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” [1 Cor. 11:26]; as if he said, when he comes, your mortification with Christ is at an end. But now before we sufficiently mortify our powers, as often as we want to eat the Lord’s bread and drink of his cup, so often we must confess the Lord’s death with heart and soul. That is, we must also experience our death of Christ in us and feel the righteousness of Christ, not our own.

G. God be praised!

P. God help us into the fervent knowledge of the death of Christ!

G. Amen.

Let anyone who can better instruct us do so, and soon, for God’s sake; for we are ready, willing, and eager to receive and to honor God’s truth, to whom be honor forever! [g4v]

Anyone who has the desire to read about this subject without derision in straightforward form may read these pamphlets:

[1] Whether One Can Prove from Holy Scripture That Christ Is in the Sacrament with Body, Blood, and Soul.

[2] Also, The Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11.

[3] Also, Exegesis of this Word of Christ, “This Is My Body, Which Is Given for You.

[4] Also, That the sacrament is not a sign by which men can strengthen and secure their consciences.

[5] Also, Against the Old and New Papistic Masses.

[6] Also, The faith in the promise and the sacrament, as the new papists speak, is a false faith, brings forth sin, and forgives no sin.⁵³