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Explanation of 1 Corinthians 10: “The Bread That We Break, Is It Not a Fellowship of the Body of Christ?”
Answer of Andreas Karlstadt to Luther’s Book, and How Karlstadt Recants
(March 1525)
The Erklerung des x. Capitels Cor. i. . . . Antwurt Andresen Carolstats: auf Luthers schrift Vnd wie Carolstat widerriefft was Karlstadt’s immediate response to his reading of part 2 of Luther’s Against the Heavenly Prophets. It was printed only once, in mid-March 1525, by Philipp Ulhart of Augsburg (VD16, B6157; Barge and Freys, “Verzeichnis,” no. 142). There is a modern edition in Laube, Flugschriften vom Bauernkrieg, 1:51–73. Both the original (Köhler, Flugschriften, 106, no. 275) and the modern edition were used for this translation.
[A2r] Last night I received a copy of Dr. Luther’s second part of Against the Heavenly Prophets, and today, 27 February 1525, I have extracted these articles and intend to write short pamphlets, one pamphlet for each article, one after the other.1 This I have done for the benefit of the common man and so that my answer will be printed more rapidly, to the praise of God and the annoyance of the devil.
ARTICLES
[1] Whether Karlstadt is a murderer of souls and sinful spirit because he attacks the word sacrament and wants to use the word Supper.2
[2] An explanation of these words, “This is my body, which is given for you” [Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24].3
[3] That these words, “The bread that we break is a fellowship of the body of Christ” [1 Cor. 10:16], harm more than help the Lutheran sacrament.4
[4] This text, “Whoever eats the Lord’s bread unworthily,” etc. [1 Cor. 11:27–29], is falsely applied and turned against Paul by Dr. Luther.5
[5] On Frau Hulda, whether baker’s bread is given for us; here you’ll note Luther’s sophistry.6
[6] Whether the bread and the body of Christ can be the same thing, as the new pope writes.7
[7] The flesh is of no use [John 6:63].8
[8] Whether the body of Christ may be broken for us in the sacrament [1 Cor. 11:24].9
[9] Whether the sacrament can assure the conscience.10
[10] Explanation of this statement of Christ, “The cup, the new testament [A2v] in my blood” [Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25], as the new pope insists on and persists with.11
[11] Whether priests have power to bring the body of Christ into the sacrament.12
[12] Whether the mortal body is within it. Here the new pope is a good papist, but Peter Rültz won’t take off his hat.13
[13] Whether Christ obtained and didn’t distribute forgiveness of sins except in the sacrament.14
[14] On the vocation of Dr. Luther and of Karlstadt.15
[15] When they say, “Here is Christ,” etc. [Matt. 24:23], Luther scornfully sings “Eli,” but the sacrament will sing to Luther “ut quid dereliquisti me,” and Luther will sing about the truth, “Why have you forsaken me?”16
Now in this pamphlet I will discuss the third article, namely, the words of Paul, “The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship of the body of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 10[:16]. And here we must pay attention, for Luther says that this saying “is a thunderbolt on Karlstadt’s head and his whole party.” Luther also says that this statement is “a life-giving medicine of my heart in my trials concerning this sacrament.”17 So we must open our ears and hear whether Dr. Luther is as ungracious to us in deeds as he is with words, attacks, thunderbolts, and outbursts. First, we’ll look at the text as it stands. Then we’ll look at Dr. Luther’s thunderbolt to see if it falls and strikes from scripture or if it comes from Dr. Luther’s dream and blows over like the wind.
In the previous chapter, Paul said that an athlete who wants to obtain the prize must exercise self-control in all things [1 Cor. 9:24–25], and on the same basis the tenth chapter follows, in which Paul speaks of two kinds of food: spiritual and corporeal. And he announces that our fathers also proceeded in external and internal things and that God punished them when they [A3r] got mixed up with those things that hindered God’s fellowship or ordinance, saying, “Our fathers passed through the sea and were under the cloud, and were also baptized into Moses, and they all ate one spiritual food and all drank from one spiritual drink. This drink was Christ who was still to come” (Exod. 13[:21; 1 Cor. 10:1–5]).18
These two things Paul presented and he said with clear words that Christ is a spiritual rock from which they drank. Note this, Luther, and understand so that you can remember it when you accuse me of inverting the order and nature, making spiritual what Christ made corporeal,19 for you know that you are doing violence to me, and see that both the food and drink of the fathers were spiritual, which they ate and drank from Christ. It wasn’t a corporeal drink or corporeal food that they put in their external mouths, but spiritual, which one receives only in the inner man and in spirit (as Christ teaches, John 6[:47–58]). He rebukes the coarse bumpkins who want to eat or drink corporeally from Christ when he says, “The flesh is of no use” [John 6:63], for it is, it is20 a spiritual food and a spiritual drink, and not a corporeal drink and food. You must have faith and the knowledge of Christ, not an external mouth and sharp teeth. You must extend the internal man if you want to drink from the blood of the spiritual rock (which is Christ) (Eph. 3[:16–17]), and you must whet and sharpen the powers of your faith and prepare rightly when you want to eat the spiritual food that is the flesh of Christ. If you come in another way, then you come as a mouth that has no understanding, and the closer you step bodily, the farther away you go with your heart. To this belongs what it says in John 6[:61], “Do you take offense at this? What will you do when you see the Son of man ascending into heaven, [A3v] whence he came?” (John 6[:61–62]).
Christ taught sufficiently whether and how he is our food and drink, and richly expressed that we eat and drink of him in no other power or way than through faith or knowledge. All Christians who want to eat the Lord’s flesh and blood blessedly must direct themselves according to this same teaching, in spite of anyone who undertakes any way of eating the Lord’s flesh and drinking his blood other than spiritually, just as Christ’s words are spirit and life, John 6[:63].
This is the reason that Christ said not even one little word in the Supper that the disciples should eat his body and drink his blood when he taught them why they should eat his bread and drink from his cup. On the contrary, when Christ taught how his flesh is our food and his blood our drink, Christ didn’t think about the Supper with one word. He did all this so that we wouldn’t be so mad as our popes, old and new,21 who have become mad and crazy and who want to make us so mad and blind that we must receive the Lord’s body corporeally in the Supper when we want to partake of the Lord’s Supper and assure our consciences. For it is unbelieving and destructive folly before God to eat Christ’s flesh corporeally, as I will prove in a better way, God willing, when I treat these words (“the flesh is of no use” [John 6:63]) against Dr. Luther.
Many can realize this from what Paul says with clear words, “The fathers have eaten this food that we eat (Paul speaks of the spiritual food), and have drunk from the spiritual drink that we drink” [1 Cor. 10:3–4], for our fathers have eaten and drunk the spiritual drink and the spiritual food that we eat and drink, and they ate and drank both food and drink. For Christ was born corporeally, yes, [A4r] even before Abraham was born [John 8:58], to whom the seed of our blessing was promised [Gen. 22:18]. Thus the fathers could not eat or drink Christ corporeally, but because their faith and our faith have the same spiritual food and spiritual drink, so we must eat and drink from Christ as our fathers, in spirit and not bodily, because Paul uses the little word “spiritual, spiritual.” Whoever wants to eat in another way, he eats in unbelief, John 6 and throughout 1 Corinthians 10 and John 12 and 16.
This is the only difference, that Christ was promised to the fathers and was in the future, and he was given to us and is not in the future. But time doesn’t change anything concerning the spiritual nature of the food that feeds spiritually and not in a fleshly way. What they waited for we have, and what they hoped for has been granted and given to us. They rejoiced to see what we now see through faith. But they drank from the rock that followed them or came after them, and the rock was Christ [1 Cor. 10:3–4].
This is the summary: whoever wants to eat and drink of Christ must not eat and drink corporeally from Christ, as our new papists claim, but spiritually in faith or in glorious, ardent, hearty, and loving knowledge of Christ the crucified. For our fathers Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc., ate and drank from Christ in their faith, through which they knew that Christ should come and be crucified, and woe to those who want to eat of Christ in any way other than spiritually, John 6[:52].
For although they have overcome their horror at Christ’s flesh, they still have disbelief, for they dare to eat the flesh of the Lord Jesus bodily when they claim it is covered over with bread and want to eat it like a coated pill. I say this to honor my savior and not to mock; but to Satan, who attacks Christ Jesus, our food and drink, so iniquitously [A4v] in his teaching and who blasphemes the great grace of the cross, to him I say this to mock and to scorn, and I say that some act with Christ’s flesh and blood like apothecaries who bring to the sick their sugarcoated medicines, etc.
Paul stands and says, “They all ate the spiritual food and drank the spiritual drink,” etc. [1 Cor. 10:3]. How do you understand this? Is it not a strong beginning and entrance that turns your thunderbolt into a piece of butter or a plumage feather? Do you hear? Do you hear that our fathers received the food and the drink that we receive? Do you hear that the drink is spiritual? Do you hear that the food is spiritual? Do you hear that Christ in that same time had neither flesh nor blood and was not yet born? Do you hear that Christ would come afterwards and was not yet there? Do you hear that Christ is the spiritual rock from which one drinks? If you don’t notice what and who the spiritual food is, look at what Paul wants when he says, “Christ was the spiritual rock.” Go now, dear Luther, and make a corporeal drink and a corporeal food from Christ in your sacrament. Don’t you know what the spiritual drink is? Hear Christ, who says, “My blood is truly a drink” [John 6:55]. If you don’t know how it is called a spiritual food, listen to Christ, “My flesh is truly a food” [John 6:55]. If you don’t know that we must eat the flesh and the blood of Christ spiritually and not corporeally, read John 6[:29] where it says that it is God’s work that you believe on him whom the Father has sent. Likewise, “Whoever comes to me will not hunger” [John 6:35]. Don’t you know (oh Luther) what to come means? Listen, whoever hears and learns from God the Father (hear and learn, hear and learn) will come to me. Do you hear now the living and heavenly voice of God, whom you insult? Do you hear that whoever wants to come to Christ and be filled must hear and learn from God? [B1r] Isn’t this learning to know and believe? Isn’t it faith that comes and brings to Christ, stills hunger, and satisfies the hungry according to God’s righteousness [Matt. 6:6]?
It is, it is that all coming and eating is lost if you don’t come in the bare and living knowledge or recognition of Christ and eat in it. Does Luther still doubt this, that Christ’s blood is a spiritual drink that one can draw from and drink only by faith, and not a corporeal drink that one is accustomed to drink with the mouth? So listen, Dr. Luther, to what Christ teaches, who says, “Whoever believes in me will never thirst” [John 4:14]. Do you thirst? Do you want to drink Christ’s blood? Then know and believe, and you have drunk; listen and learn it from the father of Jesus Christ.
Whoever draws water from the wells of the savior will rejoice, Isaiah 9[12:3]. How can anyone suffer thirst or need who has received living water through faith in Christ, that wells up to eternal life, John 4[:14], and flows into his belly, John 7[:37–38]. The spirit alone reveals the spiritual food and the spiritual drink of Christ, John 7[:39]. Thus it is to be understood spiritually—spiritually, Luther, and not corporeally, as often as we hear in scripture that Christ is our food and our drink, and all believers in Christ drink and eat in a spiritual way before Christ and after Christ’s coming, but the one more than the other. The one who knows much, eats and drinks much.
There is also a difference between Christ known as he still was presented in prophecy and as he came and suffered on the cross (Eph. 3[:4–5]).
As an example of how the fathers ate the spiritual food of Christ, Isaiah 52[:13] speaks of the Messiah, who is Christ Jesus: “My servant will be understanding and wise, and exalted and shown forth.” Everyone who wants to eat and drink from Christ must know [B1v] that Christ is higher than any man or angel (Eph. 1[:21]), full of grace and full of truth [John 1:14]; this is also explained in part from Isaiah 9[:6–7] and 11[:2–5], John 6[:38–40].
Isaiah tells what the Messiah will accomplish and says that he will sprinkle or make clean many nations, Isaiah 52[:15]. He will arise from dry ground, that is, without male seed, Isaiah 53[:2]. [He says] that the servant of God, Jesus Christ, was the most rejected and most despised man, who had neither color nor form nor comeliness. So the world thought nothing of him; yes, they thought he was rejected by God. But he bore our sins and was wounded for our sakes. Likewise, he offered himself freely and willingly, Isaiah 53[:3–9]. He was taken away from fear and judgment. The seed of grain has fallen and died and gathered to itself, John 12[:24]. Thus no one can tell of his birth or family. He gave his soul for sin and so he will sow the eternal seed; he will never again die but will bring the people to himself, and God’s will shall prosper in Christ [Isa. 53:8–10]; that is, Christ will preserve all of those whom the Father has given and he will bring them to his Father. For because Christ’s soul had this work, Christ will see and be satisfied. He will be honored and will take up his kingdom. His food is to do the Father’s will [John 4:34], that he drink the cup and declare his Father, who sanctifies his own, John 17[:6–18]. Thus he sees the fruits of his passion and will be satisfied. In knowledge of him the righteous servant of God will justify, Isaiah 53[:11–12].
See, Luther, how Christ justifies, how he feeds, how he sprinkles and cleanses us all in knowledge of him or faith and not bodily. Note that Isaiah and other pious servants of God among the Chaldaeans and Jews ate and drank of Christ, who write what Isaiah in the two chapters prophesied [B2r] concerning the Messiah, and tell me in what sort of bread they received Christ? Tell me, tell me, in what kind of bread does one learn to recognize the Messiah in the form in which Christ bore and paid for sins and redeemed us from our sins? You can’t show me any bread or any cup that the fathers received in which was Christ’s food and drink; how much less will you persuade us that we may have any use at all if we eat or drink Christ bodily in bread and wine?
This is said about the beginning of 1 Corinthians 10[:1–4], that the fathers had the external and internal things that we also have, and that we are united with the fathers in the spiritual food and the spiritual drink; that we must be maintained spiritually and not corporeally, as the fathers were maintained; that our eating is called believing and knowing, and our drinking is also believing and knowing.
Paul says further and asks all those who use the Lord’s cup or bread to flee idol worship, for one can’t at the same time participate in the Lord’s cup and bread and serve idols, 1 Corinthians 6[:9], 9[:13], and 10[:21], 2 Corinthians 6[:14–18]. From this the papists want to conclude that Christ is in the bread and cup, and although they have long since concluded this, they have neither gate nor bolt nor lock, and the matter lies further open than they will concede.22 Their reasoning is based on these words, “The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship of the body of Christ?” [1 Cor. 10:16]. Here I confess that Paul writes about an external bread, as he did about the external clouds and sea.
Second, the bread breaking should be understood [B2v] as distributing bread, as one can interpret, “Break your bread with the hungry” Isaiah 58[:7].23 But to speak about breaking bread as our New Testament is accustomed to use it, I find that breaking means “to break apart or to divide into pieces,” as in “to cut up,” and that he breaks bread who cuts it up or otherwise breaks it, as Paul broke the bread on the ship, Acts 27[:35], before he distributed it. You have in Luke 9[:16] and 24[:30] the word break and the word distribute next to each other. Thus to say “to break” and “to distribute” is to say two different things. I agree in this with Luther, that Paul spoke of an external bread of the Lord, which some ate but still wanted to have fellowship with idols, as my new pope does.
THE BODY OF CHRIST
Paul uses another word, that is, “the body of Christ.” Here one should note that Christ has two bodies. The one is natural, conceived by the Holy Spirit in his mother’s body, which Christ gave unto death on the cross for us; the other body is his holy congregation or church.24 On the first body, Luke 2[:7], 17[:25], 22[:63] and 24[:3]; John 2[:21], Hebrews 10[:5]. On the second, Ephesians 1[:22–23], 4[:12] and 5[:30], 1 Corinthians 12[:12–27]. The second body of Christ is brought together from the head, which is Christ, and this one Christ loved so greatly that he gave himself for it so that he would sanctify it and cleanse it through the water bath in the word, so that he would present it as a glorious church, and we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bone (Eph. 5[:25–27]; John 17[:17]. There is now in our text, 1 Corinthians 10[:16], a question concerning which body Paul speaks about.
FELLOWSHIP
The third word is the word society or fellowship. I’ve written previously about this fellowship25 and so [B3r] it would be enough that I let what I’ve written stand. But since I wish to serve consciences, I will explain through an example what a fellowship is and will examine the Greek word—and no other—that Paul uses here in 1 Corinthians 10 and that we translate as society or fellowship.26
Fellowship is sometimes a voluntary sharing of possessions or goods, as when the Corinthians sent taxes and shared what they had, 1 Corinthians 9 [2 Cor. 9:5]. This is perhaps the fellowship in Acts 2[:45–46]. Thus they have fellowship with each other, each one extends aid to the other, helps, loans, or gives. Those who have such fellowship don’t become a natural body but are a figured body and a true society. And no one becomes the thing that he gives to another. For example, when I share with or help someone, I have fellowship with him, but I am not naturally his body, nor is he my body. Likewise, my body isn’t the aid that I [give] him, nor is my body the money that I give, although we have a society or fellowship in money or goods. If I now say that the money we share is a fellowship of the one who gives it, it doesn’t follow that the money is in the body of the one who gives or receives it or, conversely, that he is in the money he gives or receives. But instead, the opposite follows more strongly, that the giver is neither in his gift nor the gift in him, as is clear from this example in Galatians 6[:4–5]. I find nothing in all of scripture that a thing must be in that of which it is a fellowship, as the new pope writes that the bread is the body of Christ because the bread is called a fellowship of Christ’s body.
I search here and there, but I find nowhere that one thing is another, much less that one thing must be another thing [B3v] or in that with which it has fellowship or is called its fellowship; and if I did find such an example, that example doesn’t prove that it must therefore be so in all things, particularly since one also finds the opposite and has already found it. So Luther has very little to compel me to his position, namely, that the body of Christ is in the bread, because the bread is supposed to be a fellowship of the body of Christ. This is no more compelling than that a fellowship is corporeally in the action in which it has its fellowship. I’m surprised that Dr. Luther has given his body to such dark medication, when he always cries, “the word, the word,”27 and claims to have a clear, bright, strong, and powerful word that compels, pushes, conquers, and takes captive. Where then, Luther, is your sure word on which you insist? Your ground position is dark, obscure, and weak, and doesn’t compel. Yes, he pronounces his sentence with no word that he claims to have, but I must also teach him that he has himself invented and dreamed up such grounds (which are supposed to be so strong) against what Paul says. So listen, Luther, to what I say!
You know that at the beginning of [1 Cor.] chapter 10[:1–4], Paul speaks about the food of faith, that it is a spiritual food; likewise that the drink of faith is a spiritual drink. After that Paul writes briefly about the corporeal food that cannot bring, support, or nourish faith. Thus, dear Luther, you should have employed your great brilliance to write about these two foods, about each one as the truth has written it and nothing else, which would have been fitting. But Dr. Luther doesn’t do this, for Luther wants us to put Christ in the mouth as a [B4r] bodily food, as he presents the bread to us, but the bread is visible and the body of Christ invisible, although still corporeal. [This is] against Paul, who writes at the beginning about the spiritual food and drink, and who separates the spiritual food from the corporeal food. If Luther says, “the scripture,” I answer that this is scripture, “They ate one kind of spiritual food and drank one kind of spiritual drink” [1 Cor. 10:3–4]. How do you like that, Luther? Don’t you have scripture? Do you want more scripture? Haven’t you heard that whoever believes will not thirst? Who comes to me will not hunger? The flesh is of no use? John 6[:35, 63]. Haven’t you heard how one draws water with joy from the well of the savior [Isa. 12:3]? Isn’t this joyfulness a fruit of the spirit and of faith? How many priests drink from the Lord’s cup sadly and sorrowfully, who know Christ as well as a sow knows a pearl [Matt. 7:6]? Whoever draws water in joy from the well of the savior, won’t he draw in the right and true knowledge of Christ, about which knowledge Isaiah prophesied? Haven’t you understood how the prophet Isaiah came to Christ? How he was sprinkled, given drink, and fed? Don’t you know that the blood of Christ flows into the conscience and heart and not into the mouth, and so is a blood of the new testament? Don’t you know that the blood of Christ makes us free from our sins? That it frees the conscience from dead works and washes the conscience of sins [Heb. 9:14]?
See, it is in Paul, Romans 3[:24–25], Ephesians 1[:7] and 2[:13], 1 Peter 1[:19–21], 1 John 1[:9], and Revelation 5[:9] and 7[:14]. What kind of blood do you think it is? The blood in the cradle or in your cup? No! Or is it the blood of the cross? I believe so and I’m certain that it is the blood of the cross, Colossians 1[:22], Revelation 5[:9], 1 Peter 1[:19–21], Hebrews 9[:12], which is signified by the figures of the shedding of blood.
[B4v] How should we drink the blood of the cross? With the mouth or only with faith? Should the blood of the cross be our spiritual drink? Yes! Or must we also drink the blood of the cross bodily? No! “So let us, so let us,” it stands written, “approach with true heart and full faith, sprinkled in our hearts from a bad conscience,” Hebrews 9 [10:22]. Do you hear, Luther, that we drink Christ’s blood only in faith or in knowledge, 2 Peter 1 [1 Pet. 1:18–21], Hebrews 12[:24] and 13[:20–21]? The blood through which Christ entered into the sanctuary, Hebrews 9[:11–12] and 13[:11–12], the blood that washes away evil works, Hebrews 9[:14], and sanctifies and sprinkles us, Hebrews 9[:13–14] and 13[:12], Isaiah 9, Leviticus 14[:6–7] and 16[:14–15]—that blood sprinkles (note this word, sprinkles) our conscience, sprinkles and washes our soul. How then are you so thirsty that you dare to pour the blood of Christ bodily into our mouths in your wine? Which apostle ever spoke in this way about the drink and the food of Christ? How does it happen that the author of Hebrews doesn’t say a word about the sacrament, who refers us to Christ outside the gate [Heb. 13:12–13] and writes even more about the shed blood of Christ than anyone else ever wrote?
But it hasn’t yet been decided which body Paul is speaking about. We know that Christ has two bodies and gave his natural body for the one he obtained, which is us, and the text speaks more surely and at more length about Christ’s body—we, the many—than about the natural body of Christ; who, then, can prove firmly and with clear words that Paul meant Christ’s natural body when he said, “The bread that we break, is it not the fellowship of Christ’s body?” [1 Cor. 10:16]. It is so unbelievable that Paul speaks about the natural body in these words that I’ve just mentioned; it is much more believable that Paul spoke of the body of Christ that Christ redeemed, sanctified, and made blameless, Ephesians 5[:25–27]—we [C1r] who are believers. For the text is clear and says this, “We many are one bread and one body, because we all partake of one bread” [1 Cor. 10:17]. If we are many, we many are one bread and one body, of which the bread of Christ is a fellowship. It follows that Paul spoke not about Christ’s natural body that is our food but about the body of Christ that is us who are fed spiritually through the natural body of Christ.
How do you like this thunderbolt? What would you think if you had such clear words in your favor as you now have against you? How would you thunder and send lightning, hail, and a downpour? Oho, if the text were to say, “The bread that we break is a fellowship of the natural body of Christ, because the bread is the natural body of Christ,” how badly it would go for me, and woe to me and my skin if I didn’t want to follow the truth. Yes, if Dr. Luther had such a text that said this, which he could turn and bend on its head, then I wouldn’t argue with him.
But Luther has no such text, but instead one in which Paul explains which body of Christ Paul is speaking of, that simply sends a thunderbolt into Luther’s own mouth. For now I ask you whether we many are in the bread that we break or are we the bread that we break and eat and so partake of? How will you answer? You won’t? Are we a figured and signified bread and not a natural baker’s bread that we break? Why aren’t we a natural bread from the baker? Answer me! For how can you answer me? For what you would respond to me, I have as an answer to you, if you were to ask me whether the body of Christ is baker’s bread, because the baker’s bread is called a fellowship of the body of Christ.
I say this: it isn’t true that the natural body of Christ is a natural, baked bread any more than that God is naturally a fortress or a rock or a wall, and [C1v] Christ is no more a natural rock, a natural vine, a natural lamb than he is a natural, baked bread. To support this I have as basis John 6[:35–57] and all those reasons that Dr. Luther has written that we many are not a right, natural, baked bread, but instead a signified bread. I also have to say that Christ’s body is not the baked bread that we break. So it is with the cup as well, that we are a signified cup or drink. That is first. Second, I ask whether we many are bodily in the bread that we break. If Luther would answer that we many are bodily in the baked bread that we break and could prove this sufficiently, then he could truly persuade me about his fantasy and I would believe that Christ must be bodily in the baked bread that he breaks. But I think that Luther won’t be able to attempt this. And if he did undertake this, I wouldn’t celebrate but would prove that the many in Wittenberg must be bodily in your sacrament, for the text says, “We many are one bread who partake of one bread.” I would also prove that each of you is in the other bodily and personally, for it is written, “We many are one bread and one body, one body, who partake of one bread.” How would that be?
But if, against this clear text, Luther would deny that you many are bodily in the sacrament that they eat, then he can’t be angry that I resist his gloss and lead people to the grace of the cross, since he is much less able to write with truth that the bread that we break is the natural body of Christ or that the natural body of Christ is in the broken bread. I think this because my gloss would have apparent support in this chapter in the Lutheran way, but the other has no apparent support or indication, not even a hint of it, in this chapter, 1 Corinthians 10[:16–17]. But because Luther pushes me away from this clear text, “We many are one bread because we partake of one bread,” and he won’t allow that we many [C2r] are bodily in the one bread that we break bodily, how can he be angry when I reject his gloss that he gives to the words, “The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship of the body of Christ?” He presents it and says, “Hear this thunderbolt: the bread is the body of Christ, or the body of Christ is in the bread that we break,” for these words aren’t in the text, but instead are a fictitious gloss against the words of Paul here cited.
Now from the particular love that we have for Luther, let’s keep that for the time being and grant that the text 1 Corinthians 10[:16] says with clear words, “The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship of the natural body of Christ that Christ gave for us?” What would he make from this? Would Luther say, “If the baked and natural bread is a fellowship of the natural body of Christ, then the natural body of Christ is in the natural bread of the baker that we break”? Could he say no? What would it matter if he became angry? But, friend, I want a sure pronouncement of scripture that pours forth its understanding just as the sun pours out its noonday light. But where is the text in scripture [saying] that the fellowship of something can enable and compel one thing to become something else naturally or to be in something with which it has fellowship? Luther must present me with plain and clear scripture, and not examples, if he wants to compel me.
This is a clear and plain text, “We many are one bread and one body, for we many partake of one bread [1 Cor. 10:17].” We eat one bread and put it in our mouths and have closer fellowship in the natural bread of the Lord than any kind of society or fellowship of goods has, but I can’t say from this that because of such fellowship or participation in the bread, we are essentially and bodily in the bread. Yes, if I wrote this, Luther would call me a fool and donkey’s head. How much less is the Lord Jesus Christ (who ascended bodily from us into heaven) in the natural bread bodily, if indeed the text was as Dr. Luther glosses it?
[C2v] Now we want to serve Luther again and allow that we many have fellowship with the natural body of Christ through the bread of the Lord that we break, so that the bread is a means of our fellowship to the body of Christ, just as the sacrifice was a means between the altar and Levi. What will Luther draw from this? Not these words, “It follows that the natural body of Christ is the bread or is corporeally in the bread that we break”? Doesn’t that follow from this? No, for where this river flows from such a spring, it must follow that the altar was corporeally and essentially in the priests and the sacrifices through which Levi had fellowship with the altar, because the words of Paul say this [1 Cor. 10:18], “Behold Israel according to the flesh; are not those who eat the sacrifices in the fellowship of the altar?” Here we have the word fellowship, as above. Likewise, many people, namely the Levites, are also many persons, just as we are. Likewise, a means, namely the sacrifice, as we have the Lord’s Supper, bread and wine, [is like] the altar, as we have the Lord’s body and the Lord’s blood. If Luther can now truthfully conclude, compel, and argue that the altar was corporeally and substantially in the priests or the sacrifices of the Levites, then he has the expectation and appearance [of being right]. But he still has not established that the natural body of Christ was in the bread or that he brings the body into the bread that he breaks.
I can’t conceal the fact that we do not come into the fellowship of the body and blood of Christ through the bread and wine of the Lord, but instead through baptism when we are baptized in Christ, as Paul writes in many places, Romans 6[:4], Ephesians 2[:16], Galatians 3[:27], Colossians 1[:21–22], and the old pope confesses and teaches in his books. For this reason I fear that the new pope will do greater violence to the gospel than the old if he compels us [to believe] that we should enter into the fellowship of the right body of Christ through the use of the Lord’s Supper. [C3r] For we eat the Lord’s bread in remembrance, Luke 22[:19], 1 Corinthians 11[:24], and we aren’t incorporated through bread or made partakers of Christ’s body. We partake of the body of Christ through knowledge, Isaiah 53[:11], 2 Peter 1[:3]—“If they knew, they would not have crucified him,” 1 Corinthians 2[:8], 1 Corinthians 12[:2–3]—or through loving faith, which is the same thing, Romans 3[:22], Galatians 2[:16], Acts 15[:9–11]. Through faith he cleanses the hearts, through love and faith Christ dwells in us, not in the belly or in the mouth but in the spirit, in the internal man, in the knowledge of the surpassing love of Christ; and through knowledge we have fellowship, Ephesians 3[:14–19]. As it is written, “If anyone loves me, the Father and I will come to him and have our dwelling in him,” John 14[:23].
Now see, dear Doctor Luther, that we have fellowship and society with Christ and with his fullness through faith, through love, through knowledge of the surpassing love of Christ, and we are filled with all kinds of gifts through knowing Christ, Ephesians 3[:18–19], 1 John 1[:7], John 15[:1–17] and 17[:1–26] (almost all the books of the apostles say this). Thus we must first have fellowship with the body and blood of Christ before we eat the bread and the cup of Christ, and our fellowship stands entirely and wholly in the love and knowledge of or faith in Christ. From this I let each one conclude whether an earthly, natural bread may have fellowship with the body of Christ or not. And I ask about the natural wine, whether it has a fellowship of Christ’s blood. Someone may say that the bread has this in common with the body of Christ, that it is also a body and a food, and the drink is like blood in that both quench thirst. But this is easily answered from John 6[:31–33], that bread has nothing more in common with Christ’s flesh than the bread of heaven, etc. Thus this fellowship doesn’t consist in bodily or spiritual unity. I’ve also explained fellowship in an earlier work.28
[C3v] Second, I ask whether the corporeal fellowship, which isn’t spiritual, isn’t against the true fellowship of Christ. I ask this for Luther has a Christ from whom he eats and drinks bodily and not spiritually in his sacrament.
Third, isn’t baptism just as rightly called a fellowship of the body and death of Christ as bread and wine are? Romans 6[:3–4], 1 Peter 3[:21], Titus 2[:13–14], Colossians 2[:12], Galatians 3[:27].
If it were written in plain words in scripture, wouldn’t it compel us to believe that Christ is corporeally with his body in baptism? I say no, it would neither drive nor compel us, so we should also remain undriven and uncompelled, even if we were to read that the natural bread is a fellowship of the natural body of Christ.
So this fellowship begins, “One God, one faith, one baptism, one Lord, one Christ,” Ephesians 4[:4–7], 1 John 1[:3], 1 Corinthians 12[:12–13]. See how the congregation has society with God among itself, for the same Greek word is used here as in 1 Corinthians 10[:16–17].
It should be noted that Luther wrote a book to the Waldensians, and in it he publicly confessed that we many are a signified bread and a figured or signified drink.29 Therefore Luther can write nothing particular about these words, “The cup that we bless, is it not a fellowship of the blood of Christ?” nor can he conclude from this that the natural blood of Christ is in the cup that we bless, since Luther has gone from the natural drink of Christ to the figured or signified drink, which drink is we many who drink from one cup of the Lord and have fellowship or friendship through knowledge or through faith in the blood of Christ and partake of him in our consciences and hearts, and so drink from the cup in remembrance of the shed blood of Christ.
[C4r] Paul announces in what understanding and will we should eat the Lord’s Supper, and he does this as a faithful servant of Christ, who shows how each should eat the Lord’s Supper, what each should guard against, what he should do for the good of his neighbor, what he is obliged before God to avoid. But idol worship is against God and the fellowship of idols is against the fellowship of the members of Christ’s body, which should be brought together from many members into one body to Christ and according to Christ for their edification [Eph. 4:15–16], and the Lord’s bread should be eaten as a remembrance; the same with the Lord’s cup. So we must separate and refrain from all things that stop, hinder, or confuse our faith, or that cut short or harm our love for our neighbors, 1 Corinthians 10[:20–22].
Thus no one should allow evil desires as our parents allowed their desires and perished at the “graves of craving.”30 Let each guard himself against idolatry in which our fathers sinned. Do not indulge in immorality, do not test Christ, let no one murmur against God’s mouth, for things went evilly for our fathers for these reasons, 1 Corinthians 10[:6–11].
You should not be in the fellowship of devils; you cannot at the same time drink from the Lord’s cup and the cup of the devil [1 Cor. 10:21]. Why? Because blood is in the cup? No, but because you should drink from the Lord’s cup in remembrance of Christ’s death. But such remembrance, if it is righteous, can neither allow nor see anyone drink from the devil’s cup without horror. You cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the devil’s table at the same time. Why? Because the body of Christ is corporeally in it? No, for where is this written? On what page? In these [words], “Take, eat, this is my body,” etc? In no way, for there is not even a syllable that Christ’s body is bodily in the bread. This is the reason that each one who sits at the Lord’s table should know and be encouraged that the Lord gave his body for us and shed his blood for us.
[C4v] This is said and to be understood not only about the Lord’s table, but also about baptism and all external things. Anyone who wishes to hear the external word rightly and partake of its contents must cast off all things that hinder or darken the word or that stop up the ears. Anyone who wants to take baptism rightly and be baptized in the name of Christ must repent, forsake the old life, and put on the new one, Acts 2[:38], Romans 6[:3–4]. And it is not possible that one can have fellowship in baptism and share anything with the devil at the same time, although the water bath is an external thing and is nothing more than water.
The sin of idolatry or sins against the love of neighbor aren’t the only ones opposed to Christ’s Supper, but so are many other sins, such as drunkenness, debauchery, blindness, etc., as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 11[:21–22]. This isn’t because the body and the blood of Christ are in the sacrament, but because the Lord said, “Eat the bread and drink from the cup in remembrance of me.” The remembrance of Christ’s death can suffer no fellowship with the devil and it also opposes the desires of the flesh. Whoever eats without remembrance eats judgment.
We must understand these words, “You cannot at the same time eat the Lord’s bread and drink from his cup and eat of the devil’s flesh” [1 Cor. 10:21]. That is, you cannot without harm have society with the Lord’s bread and with the devil’s table. If you dare to do this, you should know that it will go the same for you as it did for our fathers who were baptized through the sea by Moses, who ate from the spiritual food that you eat and drank from the spiritual drink that you drink, and they stood up against God with their desires, murmured, tested, and played, and God had them destroyed. For God allowed them to be destroyed, and you will also experience the same thing if you forsake Christ in your spirit and want to make use of his Supper as well as the devil’s meal.
[D1r] Paul notes this when speaking of the fathers’ baptism and about the bread of the Lord that they broke daily during the times of the apostles, for through the use and breaking of bread Paul drove frivolous Christians from the devil’s table.
This is the first part, which has concluded that these words, “The bread that we break is a fellowship of the body of Christ,” do not help Luther nor do they show us with even a syllable that Christ is [present] with body and blood in the bread that we break or in the cup that we bless. But instead they show more the opposite, namely, that neither the natural body of Christ nor the natural blood of Christ is in the sacrament. It also proclaimed that the beginning of [1 Cor.] chapter 10 is opposed to all the interpretations or opinions of all popes, and it makes the body of Christ only a spiritual food and the blood of Christ only a spiritual drink for us, which the internal and spiritual man receives, and the external and corporeal [man] may not receive. For it is entirely impossible for the external man to receive a spiritual food with hands or teeth or mouth, whether or not the spiritual food is coated or covered over with bread.
Here follows the second article, in which we must regard the great, black, thick, and red-striped storm cloud, for it thunders and threatens to rip out the trees by their roots.
Dr. Luther: Note here where Paul says, “The bread that we break, that we break.” Not only that Christ breaks it, etc.31
Karlstadt: I see and hear it, but what do you want to make of it?
Dr. Luther: Paul speaks about the bread in the sacrament.
Karlstadt: Don’t you mean the bread in Christ’s Supper?
Dr. Luther: The bread breaking is nothing other than to divide into pieces or to distribute.
[D1v] Karlstadt: How so? Can you prove this other gloss better from the writings of the New Testament? Luther proposes this distribution out of his head, so that he can hide his anti-Christian trickery, which I will reveal at the proper time.
Dr. Luther: The fellowship of Christ’s body is nothing other than that those who each take a piece of the broken bread take in this same [piece of bread] the body of Christ.
Karlstadt: If Luther proves his gloss with clear, strong, and plain scripture, then I’ve written evilly, but I have no Bible in which Luther’s gloss has its clear and strong proof. Here I say that Dr. Luther’s storm can’t bring thunder or lightning or outbursts. Bring the sword of God, Luther, strike with scripture and not with dreams, and show me the scripture that each one receives the natural body of Christ in the broken bread or in its pieces.
Dr. Luther: Thus Paul said, “We many are one bread” [1 Cor. 10:17].
Karlstadt: Here Luther harms himself, as I’ve shown above. But I ask where Paul ever wrote that each one receives the body of Christ in the piece of bread that he takes? Second, which body is Paul talking about? How now, Luther, has your thunderbolt been gracious? I think it will become a cornerstone of offense for you [Ps. 118:22].
Dr. Luther: Karlstadt makes a spiritual fellowship that consists in the right meditation on the body of Christ. Where is his ground? Where is his scripture?
Karlstadt: Here you see well the understanding that Dr. Luther has in all the gospels and epistles in which it is written about faith in Christ, that our fellowship in Christ consists in a spiritual food and a spiritual drink. Paul shows this at the beginning of this tenth chapter [1 Cor. 10:1–4] so clearly and strongly that no one can deny it except the one who denies the sun, [D2r] fire, and water. Isn’t the text clear and bright? “They ate the spiritual food that we eat and drank the spiritual drink that we drink,” 1 Corinthians 10[:3–4], even if you take away the word “we.” Don’t you know, Luther, that we must have the remembrance of the Lord if we break and eat his bread, 1 Corinthians 11[:24]? Where is it written that we must put Christ in the mouth, which you write from your dream? If faith is sufficient to make fellowship with Christ, then Christ was wrong to say, “Whoever believes will not thirst, who comes to me will not hunger,” John 6[:35]. Don’t you know what to come means? What about this, “You are my friends,” John 15[:15]? Read John 15, Paul in 1 Corinthians 10. But I think the new pope wants to receive Christ bodily, as the old one did sacramentally, and not have Christ for any longer than the bread exists and remains. But when the bread has decomposed, he wants to send his Christ back to heaven, and when he wants to become pious again, he summons Christ down again and brings him into the bread and eats him anew, and then sends him back into heaven again. Who ever read such foolish things in the scripture? What Christian can be pleased by such a statement? I want to have a Christ who dwells in my heart through faith and is implanted through love, Ephesians 3[:17], Galatians 2[:20], so that I know the crucified Christ and have knowledge of him eternally, for knowledge of him is eternal life, John 17[:3]. For this Christ does just as much bodily in heaven as here below in my mouth, yes more, oh you Lutheran Christians.
Dr. Luther: Karlstadt says that the fellowship of the suffering and the fellowship of the body and blood of Christ are the same thing.
Karlstadt: I think Luther is mad and foolish. I’m truly angry and my spirit is wrathful that Dr. Luther speaks so scandalously about the Son of God, Jesus the crucified. Oh now I truly know who you are, and if God doesn’t [D2v] enlighten and convert you, other people will also learn to recognize you. What do you say, Luther? Do you think that we have a sophistic fellowship in the body of Christ? Let Christ answer you, who says, “This is my body, which is given for you, this is my blood,” etc. Doesn’t Christ speak of the passion of his body and shed blood? If this is still dark to you, look at what Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 11[:26], who says, “You should proclaim the Lord’s death as often as you eat the Lord’s bread and drink from the cup.” Do you see, Luther, that our fellowship of bread and wine is a fellowship of suffering? Unless Christ gave his body and shed his blood without suffering, which is impossible, 1 Peter 2[:21], Hebrews 9[:11–15], Luke 9[:22], 17, 24[:6–7], Acts 1[2:23–24], or unless Christ died without suffering, which also didn’t happen.
Yes, Luther says that the text 1 Corinthians 11[:23–29] says nothing about fellowship. I answer that it speaks of two kinds of fellowship, even though the word fellowship itself isn’t written there. One fellowship consists of the breaking of bread and eating as often as you come together. The other fellowship consists of discerning the body of Christ in the word or proclamation of Christ’s death in the remembrance of Christ, that Christ gave his body for us, that he suffered, for we many are one fellowship or one bread who break one bread; how much more are we one fellowship who know and believe in the one savior, who eat one spiritual food and drink one spiritual drink, 1 John 1[:3], 1 Corinthians 10[:3–4], 12[12–13], 6,32 Ephesians 4[:4–6]. This other fellowship is so much more heartfelt, pure, certain, and constant than the fellowship of an external thing.
Dr. Luther: The unworthy and traitors, such as Judas, partake of the body of Christ.
Karlstadt: Where is the scripture?
Dr. Luther: Judas ate and drank the body and the blood [D3r] of Christ with the others.
Karlstadt: This I destroyed [even] before Luther’s answer, writing that it isn’t true that an evil and unbelieving person may drink the Lord’s blood or eat the Lord’s body.33 I’ve proven this from the sixth chapter of John. For the flesh or the body and blood of Christ is a food and drink of life. Thus it is impossible that anyone can eat or drink from Christ and not live, that is, not have the faith by which the righteous lives, Romans 1[:17], John 13[:19] and 17[:8]. To eat means to believe, to drink also means to believe.34
For these reasons of Luther’s, each one can see how sinfully, without scripture and against the scripture, Luther has made up and imagined the phrase “corporeal fellowship of the body of Christ,” who uses the phrase “sacramental fellowship” so that he speaks something new and isn’t thought to be an old pope.
But neither the old nor the new inventions will help the new pope, for if it is true that one eats the body of Christ in the Supper bodily or sacramentally and likewise drinks the blood bodily, then the popes have an eating and drinking that no scripture ever spoke of. This is the first consequence; the second is that the corporeal reception of Christ’s body is of no use at all, for it is a reception that must be corporeal and not spiritual, as Luther writes. If it is only corporeal, then it can neither feed nor assure the soul, nor strengthen it or lead it to blessedness, and so in itself it is of no use.
Since this is a new form of unbelief, all Christians should guard themselves against the fellowship of the corporeal reception of Christ’s body or consider it as nothing, for Christ did not consider it great that he was conceived bodily and born from his mother’s body, but Christ praised this, that his mother believed and conceived through the Holy Spirit, as it is written, “These are my mothers [D3v] who hear and keep God’s word, those who do the will of my father,” Luke 8[:21], Matthew 12[:49–50]. Likewise, “Blessed are you who believed,” Luke 1[:45].
Third, it is not true that one can receive or eat Christ’s body corporeally and drink Christ’s blood corporeally, for Christ’s words are spirit and life that tell us about eating and drinking, John 6[:63]. The devil in hell, or in the priests and monks, has dreamed this up and taught that they eat the Lord’s body corporeally and not spiritually, without use.
It is shown sufficiently and at length above that we must approach with faith and must know in our spirit alone the surrendered body of Christ and the shed blood of Christ, Hebrews 10[:19–22].
Fourth, I ask whether Christ’s body is bodily a true food. If it is a true food, then he gives his life bodily against the clear text of John 6 and against our text here, 1 Corinthians 10. If the blood is a true drink drunk bodily, then he gives life and abolishes the spiritual drink, John 6[:63], “The spirit gives life, the flesh is of no use,” and 1 Corinthians 10[:4].
Fifth, the new popes murmur like Christ’s unbelieving disciples, John 6[:60–61]. These murmured because they had a horror of eating Christ’s flesh corporeally, but our popes murmur because they eat Christ’s flesh not bodily but coated in broken bread. But both of them are unbelieving and hit with this shot, “You must eat the flesh of the Son of man, when the Son of God has ascended to where he was before,” John 6[:53–58], for with this Christ showed that you must not put his flesh in the mouth or eat him corporeally, also that his blood is not drunk with the mouth or corporeally, for he will be taken up from the earth [D4r], from men, and will remain above until he comes again openly.
The prophets and apostles write about such spiritual eating and drinking; there is no scripture written about corporeal eating and drinking. Thus it is a dream and a fable of deception that Luther writes. God grant the true knowledge of Jesus Christ the Son of God to him and to all of us who desire it. Amen.