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

| The Lord’s Supper
The faculty gave a negative answer, although granting that “quod cessante actione cesset
sacramentum” (“when the action ceases, the sacrament ceases”). But the faculty then insists
that the sacramental action must be correctly defined. They insist that the three parts of the
action must be done entirely together in “ipso usu sacramenti”; otherwise the sacramental
action is not carried out. From this it follows that such action does not end until all that has
been consecrated has been consumed. For this reason it is not proper to take consecrated
wine home for common table use. Then excerpts from Luther’s two letters to Wolferinus are
quoted to support this decision, and the reference is precisely given, “Tom 4, Jenensi Lat.,
fol. 585b” (Redekin: Thesauri Conciliorum, I, Hamburg, 1671, p. 139).
79. This translation was published by the Henkel brothers at New Market, Virginia, the first
edition in 1851, and the second in 1854. The folio number on p. 677 of the second edition
is 597. It should be noted that there were three Jena editions, 1558, 1570 (reprinted without
change in 1583), and a 1611 edition (see Kurt Aland’s Hilfsbuch zum Luther Studium, 3rd ed.,
1970, p. 587). The Henkel folio reference is to the 1558 Jena edition. The other editions have
different folio numbers for the Wolferinus correspondence.
80. Peter Fraenkel,“Ten Questions concerning Melanchthon, The Fathers and the Eucharist,”
in Luther and Melanchthon, edited by Vilmos Vajta, Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961,
p. 147.
Quere states that “Melanchthon’s characteristic language is that with the bread and
wine Christ is present in the ritual action to forgive” (Ralph Walter Quere, Melanchthon’s
Christum Cognoscere — Christ’s Efficacious Presence in the Eucharistic Theology of
Melanchthon, Nieuwkoop: B. DeGraaf, 1977, p. 9). It is quite remarkable to read in a
conservative twentieth century theologian that the logical essence (genus) of the Sacrament
is action, not sign or thing, is with respect to the Lord’s Supper especially important in the
polemic against the papists (Ad. Hoenecke, Dogmatik IV, 125; see note #91). This trend
of thought on what the Sacrament is cannot be reconciled with the doctrinal position of
Chemnitz (see p. 98 f. and 101).
81. Peters has translated the Latin phrase, “Ab initio orationis dominicae” with the words,
“with the beginning of our Father” (see note #76). Considering the context and the
consistently stated doctrine of Luther, it should be translated, “from the beginning of the
word (or discourse, etc.) of the Lord.” Prof. Becker holds that it must be translated, “from
the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer,” and because of this he believes that one can no longer
maintain that Luther teaches that the body and blood of Christ are present from the time
of the consecration when those words are used by the pastor in a valid celebration of the
Lord’s Supper (see Luther Lives, etc., p. 164 f.; see note #77). Further, he asserts that since
the phrase must be translated as the “Lord’s Prayer,” then the Real Presence, according to
Luther, begins sometime before the Words of Institution are spoken. Prof. Becker’s basis for
the necessity of accepting his translation is that ever since the time of Cyprian the phrase
oratio dominica has become wedded to the Lord’s Prayer (p. 164).
But there are several cogent reasons for here translating oratio as “words” or “speech,” etc.
To have Luther saying in this one place that the Lord’s Prayer achieves the Real Presence
contradicts everything he has said about the consecration, as even the contents of Chapter
V of this treatise demonstrate. It even contradicts the Wolferinus correspondence itself, for
in it he says that the “speaking of the Words [of Institution] . . . is the most powerful and
principal action in the Sacrament.”
There is no doubt that Luther may have used the expression oratio dominica for what in
English is called “The Lord’s Prayer,” in more formal and solemn contexts. But he usually
employed the term “das Vater Unser” or the Latin Pater Noster, which had become the