Thursday, March 31, 2022

Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583) on Transubstantiation not being Possible at the Last Supper

Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583), the author of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), wrote a lengthy commentary on this catechism. In the discussion of the Lord's Supper, he provides the following reason why Transubstantiaion could not have taken place at the Last Supper (and, as a result, the supper itself could not have been a propitiatory sacrifice):

 

If the bread is properly the body, and the cup the blood of Christ, it must follow, that in the first supper the blood was separated from the body of Christ, and then they are both exhibited to us separately, as they are separate signs. But neither was the blood in the first supper without the body, nor is the body of Christ now given to us without the blood; for then at the first supper Christ was not yet dead, or does he now die any more. The bread is, therefore, the body, and the cup the blood of Christ, not properly, but sacramentally. (The Commentary of Zacharias Ursinus: On the Heidelberg Catechism—The Protestant Christian Doctrines, Dating to 1563 [trans. G. W. Williard; Pantianos Classics, 1888], 404)