Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

• In the Eucharist, Komensky maintains that all Christians must agreethat Jesus said ‘This is my body – blood’. The difficulty is explaining howit happens. But we are not told how, so why speculate? Komensky trieshard here to bring Catholic and Protestant together here by talking ofaccepting transubstantiation in a metaphysical sense, but this does notseem to be a satisfactory solution. But isn’t Komensky’s principle infinding what is ‘agreed on’ a sound one here?• On infant baptism, Komensky believed both paedo-baptists andAnabaptists should concede that their position could not, withoutcontention, be argued from Scripture. Infant baptism is neitherspecifically commanded not rejected by Scripture, so toleration of eachother’s position should prevail. Again, the ‘both-neither’ principle rules!Komensky is far too naive in his hope that the ‘both-neither’ principle wouldsatisfy protagonists in the 17 th Century, but perhaps he has something to sayto us in the 21 st Century.A notable contemporary of Komensky was a German, Georg Calixtus (1586-1656), whom the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church calls ‘anearly ecumenist’, and the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ‘aProtestant theologian.’He was Lutheran Abbot of Königslutter and, from 1614, professor of theologyat Helmstadt University. His view of what a true Christian is was remarkablylike that expressed by John Wesley in a letter to a Roman Catholic in 1749,except that Wesley did not mention baptism in his letter.Calixtus described a Christian as one who was baptised and who prays to God,Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He believes Jesus was the Son of God, born of aVirgin; that he redeemed us by his sufferings and death; that he was raisedfrom the dead and will return to earth as judge of all. Such a Christian does notpersist in wickedness (Wesley would have gone further on this point!).George Calixtus (his family name was the Danish ‘Kallison’) lived, as didKomensky, in the turbulence of the Thirty Years’ War, and was all his lifecaught up in religious controversy. Born in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, heentered Helmstadt University as a young man and studied mathematics,classics and philosophy. He came to see later in life that learning could becomea substitute for true faith and spirituality.Page 98