Luther, vol. 5 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

The term Mass and the adaptation of the olden ritual would seem to speak in favour of the Supper.[532] If, however, the service was to consist principally of the celebration of the Supper it was necessary there should always be communicants. Without communions there was, according to Luther, no celebration of the Sacrament. Now at Wittenberg there were not always communicants, nor was there any prospect of the same presenting themselves at every Sunday service, or that things would always remain as in 1531 when Luther boasted, that “every Sunday the hundred or so communicants were always different people.”[533]

At the weekly services, communion in any case was very unusual. The custom had grown up under Luther’s eyes that, on Sundays, as soon as the sermon was over, the greater part of the congregation left the church.[534] From this it is clear that the ritual involved a misunderstanding. In practice the celebration of the Supper became something merely supplementary, whereas, according to Luther himself, it ought to have constituted either the culmination of the service, or at least an organic part of Divine worship; under him, however, it was soon put on the same level with the sermon though the organic connection between the two is not clear. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that predominance was assigned to the sermon,[535] which undoubtedly was only right if, as Luther maintains, worship was intended only for instruction.

In our own day some have gone so far as to demand that the sermon should be completely sundered from the Supper; and also to admit, that the creation of a real Lutheran liturgy constitutes “a problem still to be solved.”[536]

It is a fact of great ethical importance, that, what was according to Luther the Sacrament of His Real Presence instituted by Christ Himself, had to make way for preaching and edification by means of prayers and hymns. Even the Elevation had to go. From the beginning its retention had aroused “misgivings,”[537] and, to say the least, Luther’s reason for insisting on it, viz. to defy Carlstadt who had already abolished it, was but a poor one. It was abrogated at Wittenberg only in 1542; elsewhere, too, it was discontinued.[538] Thus the Sacrament receded into the background as compared with other portions of the service. But, like prayer and hymn-singing, preaching too is human and subject to imperfections, whereas the Sacrament, even though it be no sacrifice, is, even according to Luther, the Body of Christ. Luther was, indeed, ready with an answer, viz. that the sermon was also the Word of God, and, that, by means of both Sacrament and sermon, God was working for the strengthening of faith. Whether this reply gets rid of the difficulty may here be left an open question. At any rate the ideal Word of God could not be placed on the same footing with the sermons as frequently delivered at that time by expounders of the new faith, capable or otherwise, sermons, which, according to Luther’s own loud complaints, contained anything but the rightful Word of God, and were anything but worthy of being classed together with the Sacrament as one of the two component parts of Divine worship.

Three charges of a general character were made by Luther against Catholic worship. First, “the Word of God had not been preached ... this was the worst abuse.” Secondly, “many unchristian fables and lies found their way into the legends, hymns and sermons.” Finally, “worship was performed as a work whereby to win salvation and God’s grace; and so faith perished.”[539]

Of these charges it is hard to say which is the most unjust. His assertion that the Word of God had not been preached and that there was no Bible-preaching, has been refuted anew by every fresh work of research in the history of preaching at that time. Nor was the Bible-element in preaching entirely lacking, though it might not have been so conspicuous. The truth is, that, in many places, sermons were extremely frequent.[540]

Luther’s second assertion, viz. that Catholic worship was full of lying legends, does not contain the faintest trace of truth, more particularly there where he was most radical in his work of expurgation, i.e. in the Canon. The Canon was a part of the Mass-service, which had remained unaltered from the earliest times. It was only into the sermons that legends had found their way to a great extent.

If finally, as seems likely, Luther, by his third charge, viz. that the olden Church sought to “win salvation and God’s Grace” through her worship, means that this was the sole or principal aim of Catholic worship, here, too, he is at sea. The real object had always been the adoration and thanksgiving which are God’s due, offered by means of the sublime sacrifice united with the spiritual sacrifice of the whole congregation. Adoration and thanksgiving found their expression above all in the sublime Prefaces of the Mass. The thought already appears in the “Sursum corda, Gratias agamus, etc., Dignum et iustum est,” whereupon the priest, taking up again the “Dignum et iustum est,” proceeds: “Æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere ... per Christum Dominum nostrum.” It is not without significance that “dignum,” “iustum” and “æquum” stand first, and that “salutare” comes after; praise and thanksgiving are what it becomes us first of all to offer in presence of God’s Majesty, but they are also profitable to us because they render God gracious to us.[541]

The ritual of the Catholic sacrifice, dating as it does from the Church’s remotest past, expresses adequately the highest thoughts of Christian ethics, viz. the adoration of the Creator by the creature through the God-man Christ, Who alone worthily honours Him. To this idea Luther’s attempt at a liturgy does not do justice.