a heroic Christianity which takes its position without regard to any era and establishes itself on itself alone can escape the fate of Jesuitizing’ (p. 126). ‘He who is to represent Christianity is not thereby called to represent “the truth”, although he may be convinced and show himself convinced that both are identical’ (p. 268). No presentation which attempts to ‘establish Christianity historically will ever be possible; only that composed from the heart of the matter itself, the non-historical Christianity’ (pp. 9–10).
Would it not be worth the effort to consider the spiteful assertion that ‘theologians are the fools of human society’ more seriously than Ritschl did? ‘Perhaps it might be concluded that the foolishness asserted is not such an unmitigated misfortune, and that just because of it theologians may be a necessary ballast and consequently be prized as necessary in human society’ (p. 173). ‘The eternal permanence of Christianity can be claimed only from the eternal viewpoint (sub specie aeterni), that is, from a standpoint which knows nothing of time and of the contrast of youth and age existing only in time’ (p. 71). ‘Religion does not so much bring us information about God (where do we have such information?) as assure us that God knows us. Furthermore, knowledge about God in itself could not help us where we feel in need of help; but everything which concerns us depends on his knowledge of us’ (p. 266).
The man who could express such thoughts, even if he himself developed them no further, as a theologian certainly wanted more than ‘to provide culture with information about theology’ as the editor asserts (p. x).
But we must urgently warn all those who desire positive results and directions that they should not rush too quickly towards the standpoint which Overbeck indicated, but did not himself employ. Still less should they suppose that the promised land will be reached tomorrow—perhaps even today! Our next task is to begin the desert wandering. Otherwise a new misfortune and a new disappointment could come. The matters dealt with in this audacious undertaking are too large for the theologian to be able to pass all the way through the narrow door of Overbeck’s negation—even if we think we know something of Blumhardt’s Yes, which is the other side of Overbeck’s No.
There were good reasons for Overbeck himself to refrain from the attempt to pass all the way through—and we are grateful to him for so refraining. A theology which would dare that passage—dare to become eschatology—would not only be a new theology but also a new Christianity; it would be a new being, itself already a piece of the ‘last things’, towering above the Reformation and all ‘religious’ movements. Whoever would dare to build on that tower would truly do well to sit down first and count the cost.
The next work for all of us, and the best we can do the more we feel ourselves forced under the pressure of present events to make decisions, to break through our limits, is to remain standing before that narrow door in fear and reverence, and without clamouring for positive proposals; to understand what is at stake and to realize that only the impossible can save us from the impossible.
We have the question of the practical significance of the ‘last things’, the question of the insights and possibilities which none can assume for himself unless they were given him from above. We have the question of pre-suppositions. To have thrown these questions at us, and, as was proper, only to have hinted at the answers—that is the service of Overbeck, for which presumably there is great appreciation in heaven.
Let us be content with the mighty STOP! which the dead has here given us. Let us not undertake to believe in the impossible, since we see, with Overbeck, that this STOP will not be the last word ‘on the threshold of metaphysical possibilities’. ‘It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.’
Σπείρεται ἐν φθορᾷ, ἐγείρεται ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ· σπείρεται ἐν ἀτιμίᾳ, ἐγείρεται ἐν δόξῃ· σπείρεται ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ, ἐγείρεται ἐν δυνάμει.
1 Cor. 15:42–3.
LUTHER’S DOCTRINE OF THE EUCHARIST: ITS BASIS AND PURPOSE (1923)
I
‘A CHRISTIAN must know that there is no reliquary on earth more holy than the Word of God, for the sacrament itself is created and blessed and hallowed through God’s Word.’1 In the context in which Luther wrote these words, the statement has primarily a critical significance. There are similar statements also in his earlier writings. The sacrament is what it is only through the Word of God and not otherwise.
Luther defended the validity of this truth on two fronts. First, by repudiating the equation of sacrament with sacrifice. It was not man’s act for God which established the sacrament as such; it was the act of God in joining his Word to a sign. ‘In the sacrament thy God, Christ himself, acts, speaks, works with thee through the priest; and what happens there is no human work or word. There God himself tells thee plainly all the things which have been said by Christ.’2 ‘When a man is to undertake a work together with God and is to receive something from him, it necessarily follows that the man does not begin and lay the first stone. God alone, without any solicitation or demand from men, must come forward and give men direction and promise. The same Word of God comes first, and the Word is the foundation, the rock on which every work, word, thought of men is built. This Word a man must thankfully accept and he must truly believe the divine promise. And he must not doubt that as God promises, so it happens.’3
The Mass is nothing other than ‘a testament and sacrament, in which God makes a promise to us and gives us grace and mercy. So it will not do for us to make out of it a good work, an act of service to God. For a testament gives a benefit; it does not receive one (beneficium datum not acceptum). It is not the acceptance of any benefit from us, but is the gift of a benefit to us.’ How can the acceptance of a bequest be a good work? ‘Only if one were to call it a good work for a man to stand still and let himself be benefited, be given food and drink, be clothed and healed, be helped and set free.’ Therefore ‘there is here not duty (officium) but benefit (beneficium), not work or service, but only enjoyment and profit’.1 It is ‘not my work but God’s; with it I merely let myself be helped and benefited. Therefore, as far apart as are God’s work and my work, so far separated also are conceiving this sacrament to be God’s work and conceiving it to be our work.’2
Certainly at times Luther made the attempt to re-interpret the idea of sacrifice instead of discarding it. We are to ‘offer’ to God ‘an empty and hungry heart’,3 or ‘ourselves and all that we have, with constant prayer’, to offer ‘praise and thanksgiving’. But in the continuation of the last passage, it becomes clear that reinterpretation become rejection. For we are not ourselves to present this sacrifice before the eyes of God; we are to lay it upon Christ and let him present it. He ‘prays for us in heaven, receives our prayer and offering, and through himself as a good priest makes them acceptable before God.’ Therefore, ‘we do not offer Christ, but Christ offers us’.4 The fact that blessing and thanksgiving are included in the Mass, according to the example of Christ, ‘bears witness that men are receiving or have received something from God and are not offering something to God’.5
Luther also repudiated, validating this position again by the Word of God, the identification of sacrament and the sacramental elements. The sacrament as such did not depend on the sacramental character of an element, but on the Word joined to the element. ‘If you cannot accept … the Word, then you do not accept the sacrament, for if the elements are without the Word, they are not sacraments.’6 ‘If the Word of God were not with the bread and wine, there would be no spiritual food, and there would be no exercise of faith. Therefore, food and drink on which God has set his Word and sign are equally spiritual food everywhere,