The treatise consists of three main divisions: sections 1 to 3 treating of the outward sign of the sacrament; sections 4 to 16, of the inner significance; sections 17 to 22, of faith. Added to this is the appendix on the subject of the brotherhoods or sodalities, associations of laymen or charitable and devotional purposes. Of these there were many at this time, Wittenberg alone being reported as having twenty-one. Luther objects not only to their immoral conduct, but also to the spiritual pride which they engendered. He finds in the communion of saints the fundamental brotherhood instituted in the holy sacrament, the common brotherhood of all saints.
The modern world needs to have these truths driven home anew, and, barring a few scholastic phrases here and there, cannot find them better expressed than in the remarkably elevated and devotional language of Luther in this treatise.
The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar Ed., vol. ii, 742; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 28; Walch Ed., Vol. xix, 522; St. Louis Ed., xix, 426; Clemen, vol. i, 196; Berlin Ed., vol. iii, 259.
Literature besides that mentioned:
Tschackert, Enstehung der lutherischen und reformierten
Kirchenlehre, 1910, pp. 174-176.
K. Thieme, Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Sakramentslehre Luthers,
Neueu Kirchl. Zeitschrift, XII (1901), Nos. 10 and 11.
F. Graebke, Die Konstruktion der Abendmahlslehre Luthers in ihre
Entwicklung dargestellt, Leipzig 1908.
J. J. SCHINDEL.
Allentown, PA.