The Lord's Supper in the Theology of Martin Chemnitz Bjarne - Logia

| The Lord’s Supper
(“sondern was der Priester in der Hand hat”— as quoted by Salig). Salig rhetorically asks
whoever directed Dr. Moerlin to state that such doctrine was Lutheran that the priest has
the body and blood of Christ in his hand. Salig counters by claiming that Luther says: The
body and blood of Christ is in the Sacrament, and outside the use (Geniessung) there is no
sacrament. Salig continues by asserting that this is what Melanchthon also taught and all
true Lutherans still do, and, on the contrary, it is not Lutheran doctrine that apart from the
use (Geniessung) there is no sacrament. And he asks whether this is not papistic Artolatry
[i.e., when Moerlin holds that Luther taught that what the priest had in his hand was the
body and blood of Christ before the sumptio.] What else are the papists doing when they
lift up (aufstecken) the Host from the altar or carry it around in procession? And now, Salig
laments, Melanchthon must be considered Calvinist because he declaimed against this.
This is an important reference for several reasons. It shows that by 1735 the position
of Aegidius Hunnius (see p. 89 f.) has so completely won out over that of Chemnitz and
Luther that their real position is misrepresented. The consecration has been deprived of
its power and reduced to a general prayer in which, reminded of the first institution, the
communicant prepares himself for a worthy reception.
As has been already demonstrated, Luther and Chemnitz did teach that the consecration
achieves the Real Presence. Therefore it is a fair question to ask the officiant what he is
holding in his hand; as a matter of fact, it is a good test question to see whether one accepts
Luther’s doctrine, just as Moerlin evidently had used Luther’s letter (Sasse translates part
of this letter and discusses it in This is My Body, p. 229 f.).
Further, one realizes how important it is that Chemnitz, recognizing the confusion caused
by the use of such vague terms as “actio,”“usus,”“Geniessung,” in connection with the Lord’s
Supper, precises the definition of the terms so that the precise definition is incorporated
into the Formula (SD VII, 85 f.). Salig uses the term Geniessung, referring it only to the
sumptio. In his view the consecration lapses into an unimportant part of the Sacrament. Of
course, if the Real Presence exists only in the sumptio, then not only is the consecration a
conditional element depending on the sumptio by the communicant for its effective power,
but it also would be Artolatry to practice veneration of the Host after the consecration
but before the distribution, a custom which Luther and Chemnitz deemed permissible.
It need hardly be added that both Luther and Chemnitz condemned the Corpus Christi
processions because this is outside the use commanded by the Savior.
This footnote #2 (together with note #4 on p. 1016) indicates that the editor of the
Bekenntnisschrift (Dr. E. Wolf ) is sympathetic to a Melanchthonian view of the Lord’s
Supper. The Salig reference shows that the Melanchthonian view has been consistently
imposed on the Formula of Concord for nearly 400 years.
Salig, in this context, also mentions that Melanchthon was opposed to Heshusius, who,
while at Heidelberg, desired that the leftover wine not be put back into the canister. Salig’s
other examples that brought disapproval from Melanchthon included the demand at Erfurt
for the veneration of the Host, and also the practice in Schleswig, Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
and other places that insisted so strongly for the retention of the elevation. Salig asserts
that Melanchthon should not be considered a Calvinist when he objected to what Salig
calls papistic fragments, because they were examples of Artolatry. Neither Luther, nor
Chemnitz, nor SD VII, 108 and 126 condemn these Gnesio-Lutherans in this practice.
74. See note #59, where Pastor Kenneth Miller rejects the interpretation that the “This do”
includes the consecration, and thus he limits the sacramental union only to the time when
some of the elements are received. The sacramental union would not be effected in any
other sacramental elements that may have been upon the altar and had come under the