Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (18.2018)

talking about the non-sacrificial naturę of the Eucharist, focusing instead on reject-
ing the unique role of priesthood in offering communion, and the importance of
all people united by the Holy Sacrament in one brotherhood.
In the “Sermon on the New Testament” (1520), as Volker Leppin38 pointed
out, Luther rejected the double-direction dynamie of the Eucharist, establishing
a top-down understanding instead. It meant that the Lords Supper was no longer
regarded as a sacrifice offered by priest to God: man became only a receiver of grace.
He later reiterated this point in Formula Missae et communionis pro ecclesia
Vuittembergensi (1523), harshly rejecting offertory (“Offertorium”) and several other
prayers from the Catholic Canon Missae as purely human inventions and claiming
them to be shoppy.39 The same year, Zwingli at the Second Disputation followed
on October 26-28, which also rejected the understanding of Mass as a sacrifice.40
“The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” was published later than the above-
mentioned sermons, it provided morę details, and had a bigger impact in the Nether-
lands. We consider it as the principal publication, which summed up the statements
expressed in the earlier sermons. Luther wrote: “To begin with, I must deny that
there are seven sacraments, and for the present, maintain that there are but three:
baptism, penance, and the bread. All three have been subjected to a miserable
captivity by the Roman curia, and the church has been robbed of all her liberty”.41
Then the Reformer argues for “the liberation from captivity” of three true Sacra-
ments: the Eucharist, Baptism and Penance. Luther listed the captivities of the
Eucharist, naming first the coercion of laity to communion with just one kind (the
bread): “It follows, further, that if the church can withhold from the laity one kind,
the winę, it can also withhold from them the other, the bread”42. Then he names
the Transubstantiation: “They come then to profundities, babble of transubstantia-
tion and endless metaphysical trivialities, destroy the proper understanding and
use of both sacrament and testament with faith...”.43 And, finally the perception
of the mass as a good deed and sacrifice (“opus bonum et sacrificiurnf: “out of
the sacrament and testament of God, which ought to be a good gift received, they
have madę for themselves a good deed performed, which they then give to others
and offer up to God”44. Year later, Luther will develop this thesis in “The Misuse of
the Mass” (Latin version “De Abroganda Missa Privata”, 1521), arguing that “Each
time you eat the bread and drink from the cup you annunciate the Lords death
until He comes. One has not to offer, or to serve, but only to receive, to eat and to
drink”.45 This work sparked fiery disputes. Erasmus of Rotterdam who had been
cit. from A Treatise Concerning the Blessed Sacrament ofthe Holy and True Body of Christ and
Concerning the Brotherhoods, in: Works of Martin Luther, vol. 2, transl. J. Schindel, Philadelphia
1916, p. 15.
38 V. Leppin, Martin Luther, in: L.P. Wandel (ed.), A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reforma-
tion, p. 44.
39 M. Luther, Formula missae et communionis pro ecclesia Wittembergensi, Wittenberg 1523, sine
paginatio (p.3)
40 U. Zwingli, In Search ofTrue Religiom. Reformation, Pastorał, and Eucharistic Writings, Oregon
1984, p. 45.
41 M. Luther, On the Babylonian captivity, in: M. Luther, Three treatises, Minneapolis 1970, p. 132.
42 Ibidem, p. 136.
43 Ibidem, p. 163.
44 Ibidem, pp. 168-169.
45 M. Luther, De Abroganda Missa Privata, 1521, s.p.

Two Suppers: lllustrations by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen to Passio DominiNostri...

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