The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics
Luther communing John the Steadfast
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| Author | Martin Luther |
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| Original title | Sakrament des Leibes and Blutes Christi wider die Schwarmgeister |
| Translator | Frederick C. Ahrens |
| Language | German |
| Genre | Philosophy, Theology |
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Publication date
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Late September or Early October 1526 |
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Published in English
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1955 |
| Preceded by | Various Sacramentarian writings of Karlstadt, Krautwald, Schwenkfeld, Bucer, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius |
| Followed by | Friendly Rejoinder and Rebuttal to the Sermon of the Eminent Martin Luther against the Fanatics by Zwingli |
The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics is a book by Martin Luther, published in late September or early October 1526 to aid Germans confused by the spread of new ideas from the Sacramentarians. At issue was whether Christ's true body and blood were present in the Lord's Supper, a doctrine that came to be known as the sacramental union.
The real presence of Christ's true body and blood in the Lord's Supper was a controversial issue at the time of Luther. The Sacramentarians Andreas Karlstadt,Valentine Krautwald, Caspar Schwenckfeld,Huldrych Zwingli, and Johannes Oecolampadius were open combatants against Luther on this topic.Martin Bucer, while translating Johannes Bugenhagen's commentary on the Psalms, fraudulently replaced Bugenhagen's statements on the Lord's Supper with commentary aligning with Zwingli's views. Since this work included forewords from both Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, it gave the appearance that the Wittenberg faculty agreed with Zwingli. Later, Bucer, in the middle of translating Luther's sermons for publication, inserted his own comments rebutting Luther's teaching on the sacrament into the published book. Inspired by Bucer's tactics,Leo Jud put forth an essay in Zürich claiming that Luther agreed with the Swiss understanding of the Lord's Supper.
As a result of all these adversaries, Luther found it necessary to respond to them. However, he was both too busy to produce a new work and did not want to. Luther judged his opponents weak and felt he would have time to oppose them later. Instead of writing a new essay, he sent three sermons that he had preached the preceding March to a printer. The first one, dealing with the Lord's Supper, was from the Wednesday of Holy Week. One each of the second two from Maundy Thursday dealt with the Lord's Supper and Confession. After editing them and apparently adding extra material without Luther's involvement, the printer published them sometime in late September or early October 1526 under the name The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ–Against the Fanatics. Today, scholars have been able to compare this printed text with two records of notes taken down while Luther actually preached the original sermons.
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