The next day was Sunday, the 3d October. The conference was continued, perhaps because of an epidemic (the Sweating Sickness) that had just broken out at Marburg, and did not allow of the conference being prolonged. Luther, returning to the discussion of the previous evening, said:
"Christ's body is in the sacrament, but it is not there as in a place."
Zwingle.—"Then it is not there at all."
Luther.—"Sophists say that a body may very well be in several places at once. The universe is a body, and yet we cannot assert that it is in a particular place."
Zwingle.—"Ah! you speak of sophists, doctor: really you are, after all, obliged to return to the onions and flesh-pots of Egypt.[252] As for what you say, that the universe is in no particular place, I beg all intelligent men to weigh this proof." Then Zwingle, who, whatever Luther said, had more than one arrow in his quiver, after having established his proposition by exegesis and philosophy, resolved on confirming it by the testimony of the Fathers of the Church.
TESTIMONY OF AUGUSTIN.
"Listen," said he, "to what Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspa, in Numidia, said, in the fifth century, to Trasamond, king of the Vandals: 'The Son of God took the attributes of true humanity, and did not lose those of true Divinity. Born in time, according to his mother, he lives in eternity according to the Divinity that he holds from the Father: coming from man, he is man, and consequently in a place; proceeding from the Father, he is God, and consequently present in every place. According to his human nature, he was absent from heaven while he was upon earth, and he quitted the earth when he ascended into heaven; but, according to his Divine nature, he remained in heaven when he came down thence, and he did not abandon the earth when he returned thither.'"[253]
But Luther still replied: "It is written, This is my body." Zwingle, becoming impatient, said, "All that is idle wrangling. An obstinate disputant might also maintain this expression of our Saviour to his mother, Behold thy son, pointing to St. John. Vain would be all explanation; he would not cease to cry, No, no! He said, Ecce filius tuus, Behold thy son, behold thy son! Listen to a new testimony; it is from the great Augustin: 'Let us not think,' says he, 'that Christ, according to his human form, is present in every place; let us beware, in our endeavour to establish his Divinity, of taking away his truth from his body. Christ is now every where present like God; and yet, in consequence of his real body, he is in a definite part of heaven.'"[254]
"St. Augustin," replied Luther, "is not here speaking of the Eucharist. Christ's body is not in the Eucharist as in a place."
Œcolampadius saw that he might take advantage of this assertion of Luther's. "The body of Christ," said he, "is not locally in the Eucharist, therefore no real body is there; for every one knows that the essence of a body is its existence in a place."