3. Carlstadt's Dialogus, or Conversation Book, of the Abominable Idolic Abuse of the Reverend Sacrament of Jesus Christ.

I wish all believers in Christ God's grace and knowledge.

1) Let no one think, dear brothers, that I am writing of the anti-Christian custom of the most reverend Sacrament in an unheard-of way out of spite and impudence: although I know for certain that the greatest part will respect that I have sought nothing but innovation and strangeness, because this work of mine is set against so many thousands of Christian scholars. Especially since the princes of the high scholars and the scribes have rejected the old papist abuse.

2) Yellowness - yellow-beakedness. Cf. De Wette, Vol. II, p. 381.

The common man runs after them and dances up and down to their whistles, and considers everything they hear from the scribes to be a reason for righteousness, and that they do right everywhere when they follow the same highly learned preachers, or jump after them, or echo them and say yes and amen to all their advice.

(2) But if the bound consciences would cast off some cords, and let the persons and worldly men trot by, and hold to the truth, and think that it is unseemly and unrighteous to direct the truth according to the larvae of men, or to judge the Scriptures according to the likeness of men, they would no longer rely on the arm of man for it.

*) This approximate timing is given by us because this booklet is already mentioned in the sixth paragraph of the paper No. 3 in this volume, which is probably to be set in September.

but on the unconfessed grounds of truth, and obtain an everlasting peace, and drink a drink of the water which Christ giveth, which satisfieth them wholly, and bringeth them unto everlasting life. 1) This I desire, that the truth may be earnestly regarded. I am also without any doubt that many would remember better and receive the named sacrament more worthily than it is therefore received.

3. If you, brothers, could also take to heart 2) how divine love, together with faith, hope and trust in God, cut itself off and, through the misuse of all outward well-meant signs, perish and become nothing, everyone would say: that I was neither invited and brought to this work by folly, nor innovation, nor self-glory, nor anything else, but only this, that through the false custom of the Sacrament, the love of God has gone out, faith has been prevented, and the consciences have been caught with horrible insanity, which they wanted to fortify in God's love and faith through the old custom and make them free of all fears.

God understands all things better than we do, how skillful one is or can become. That is why He often abolished and completely forbade the custom of external things, which He Himself had instituted; because He saw how the simple were offended by them out of ignorance. So God promised sacrifice, fire, smoke, the Temple, the serpent and the ark 3) and said: "Why do I ask for your sacrifice, for your incense? what is it that you say: the Temple of God, the Temple of God, the Temple of God? You shall call the ark no more. Ezekiel took away the erected serpent and broke it because of the abuse, which was also disregarded, that God Himself had erected it and that it was a special sign of the body of Christ, which was to be given into the hands of the wicked to the cross.

5 What do you think, brothers, that we should do? We, who see so many abominable abuses of the reverend Sacrament? We, who understand how the wretched and blind Christians act and behave with the Sacrament in such a way that they fall into the error of believing that Christ suffered for our sin in the Host, or,

1) So put by us instead of: jumpet.

2) In the old edition: "könnet", "the faith", "well-meant". This last word will probably mean: m good opinion applied. It would be possible, however, that "wohlgenenneten" i.e. "blessed" should be read, because Carlstadt translates, as we see later in this dialogue, benedicere by: wohlsagen.

3) arca - the Ark of the Covenant.

That Christ washes away and forgives our sins in the Host, or that Christ remains with us forever in the Sacrament? We, who see that some make more boast of the Sacrament than of Christ's suffered death?

6. my matter will seem new to you. But I will present the truth to you as if I were to present it before the eyes of God and the strict judgment seat. Therefore I admonish you in your duty of oath that you look neither to me nor to anyone else, but to the reasons of my booklet, and that you measure the truth in itself seriously and wittily.

(7) You must not think that I am scandalizing you or making fun of you, because I have made a booklet of discussions. I am very concerned about your blessedness, and I have been very serious about this matter, and I have called the people who discuss it together brevity for half of this sacramental act, because the arguments can be made shorter in a discussion than in a single speech. Therefore, you should know that I have sought brevity and your benefit, and first of all God's glory and honor, and not mockery or pleasure.

8. it behooves you to put diligence on each one's foundation and to ask God to protect and keep us from all kinds of his dishonor, which is mostly in the wrong mind and will against God, by his known truth. 4. Amen.

Sub-speakers: Gemser, 5) Victus, and Peter, a layman.

Gemser. Dear Brother Victe, why are you so sad?

Victus. What is the use of my complaining to you? You cannot help me.

Gemser. Do you not know that it is written: Ad aliquem sanctorum convertere, you should call upon a saint in times of need?

Victus. This was said by one who was a companion like you, who also wanted to make the afflicted Job flee from God to the creatures. I also think you are more cunning than he, for your counsel is as if I should flee to you as to a saint.

Gemser. What's the harm?

4) So put by us instead of: transfigured.

5) "Gemser", a papist; the name probably refers to Emser. Carlstadt introduces himself under "Victus". But soon the layman "Peter" takes his place and overcomes Gemser. But, as we see from Luther's writing "Against the Heavenly Prophets", especially from § 62 of the second part, Luther's teaching is also condemned by Carlstadt in the person of "Gemser".

Victus. Much; for you are drowned in the sacramental doctrines and consider that a health, which to me is a disease and horrible ulcer.

Gemser. I smell that you doubt the sacraments.

Victus. You have seen my ulcer.

Gemser. We have seven sacraments; which one are you distressed about?

Victus. I do not know about one, nor about seven sacraments.

Gemser. Oho!

Victus. I do not know what kind of word the word sacrament is, much less what it means; therefore it is possible that I am mistaken and straying when Aristotle says: Ignorantes virtutes vocabulorum, defacile 1) etc..

Gemser. Sacrament is a Latin word, not Greek; but the Jews say it is a Hebrew word and in German means a false, lying image. Seker in their language means false, untruthful and useless. Ment is supposed to be an image far away.

Victus. I thought you were a patron of the sacraments, so you are a scoffer.

Gemser. I have told you what the Jews think of the word sacrament and wanted to tell you what it means in Latin, so you fall into my speech as a peasant and want to shame me.

Victus. Your speech and gestures of your face seem as if your mind is of one mind with the Jews.

Gemser. Protect and keep me God!

Victus. But what does the word sacrament mean?

Gemser. Sacramentum is a Latin word and means in good German a sign of a holy thing, as the master of high senses teaches and speaks: Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum. For when the Latin speak: Hoc est sacramentum militare, hoc est castrense; nihil ad propositum.

Victus. You are a master of high senses, who disregard God's word, to whom God also does not reveal many things; whom God also hates and corrupts their senses and wisdom. I want to have a right, clear biblical word.

Gemser. Hoc sacramentum magnum est. [Eph. 5, 32.]

Victus. Rhyme yourself, wolfsbane, to ^den(s foot! You know that our old translation has a lot of fictitious words, which are similar to the Greek and the

1) defacile. This is how it reads in the autotype [original print].

Whether it should`d be called difficile or de facili, or still differently, one cannot decide from it. (Walch.)

Hebrew are inappropriate, that also the sentence of our Latin Bible is at times unruly with the original tongue, therefore you would not reject me with bad words, you must lead me in the tongues, as Jerome teaches.

Gemser. The Christian church uses the word.

Victus. Therefore, I want to know where the word Sacrament has a reason in the Word in which the Church lives, and therefore I want to have a divine and true reason.

Gemser. We have seven sacraments, among which one is the highest and most excellent, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Victus. God has a pleasure in His words, as the prophet Nehemiah says; therefore tell me: whether God, or a prophet, or apostles have used the word sacrament in the things you call sacraments? God gives His creatures their own names.

Gemser. God brought all animals to Adam and let them be called by Adam.

Victus. Therefore, will you give the church this power, that it may call history and practice, as Adam did the animals?

Gemser. Well and truly.

Victus. Uneven and wrong, because too slow.

Gemser. How so, slowly?

Victus. Christ and the apostles gave names to baptism and communion much earlier than the church of high senses came to earth. You have missed out and were born too late.

Gemser. We have the power that Adam had.

Victus. So I hear that you have power to call that which is white black, that which is evil good, and to punish Christ and his apostles, as you did some hundred years ago, when Adam neither received nor ever used such power.

Gemser. Propter bonum sensum.

Victus. Thus the apostles and Christ would have had an evil mind and spirit; nor would the apostles and Christ have been wise enough to give proper names to the things which you call sacraments.

Gemser. I realize that the names annoy you.

Victus. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the sick and the weak, if you lead them onto the slippery ice with such words and prevent them from continuing and coming to God. One thing must follow the other: Either that Christ has not been wise enough, or that he has not been good enough, since he has not been

The Lord's Supper was instituted and not left behind, so that his bread and cup should be called a sacrament or a sign of holy things. Although in good sense it would be permissible to call baptism, bread and wine signs of things, as the apostles figured them in times past, Rom. 6. 1 Cor. 10. If you papists would leave such an interpretation, it would be without danger.

Gemser. You have discovered your disease.

Victus. Let's hear it!

Gemser. You are distressed because of the Most High Sacrament.

Victus. If you hit me, I will scream.

Gemser. Are you concerned whether Christ is in the sacrament after mankind?

Victus. You have guessed it. For to ask whether Christ is there or thereabouts according to the Godhead is to ask whether Christ is in all creatures according to his Godhead, which is foolish, for God is in hell as in heaven, and fills all creatures.

Gemser. That is why I spoke of the humanity of Christ.

Victus. I truly doubt whether the body of Christ is in the bread, and his blood in the cup.

Gemser. Why?

Victus. Therefore, they say that his natural body, which was conceived in the womb and then crucified, should be as large, wide, thick and long in the sacrament as he hung on the cross.

Gemser. Oportet credere, one must believe.

Victus. Maledictus, qui credit verbis mendacii, cursed is he who believes lies.

Gemser. This is the truth that Christ is as great in the Sacrament as He was when He hung on the Cross.

Victus. I know nothing of the truth, and cannot believe it, you show me God's truthful speeches, which indicate this freely and brightly.

Gemser. You have not been a priest. For the priests have some words (which they call verba consecrationis) which are so powerful that they bring the body and blood of Christ down from high heaven to earth in a little host; if you understood such speech, you would speak more wittily.

Victus. You pretend many things to me, since I should ask you about them. One is this: You say that the priests or monks bring down the body and blood of Christ from heaven, which is contrary to your previous speech and stands when you said: Christ is as great in the sacrament as he hung on the cross. Therefore, 1) you should have brought Christ from

1) In the old edition: müssest.

He was brought to the cross in the sacrament when he died and shed blood. In heaven Christ was not formed, nor extended, when he was on the cross; therefore one must be false. For the other, you report some words which you call verba consecrationis etc., I have not read about them. I also think that the priests invented them. For the third, you speak of a host. Explain this article to me.

Gemser. Host is a bread which the priests consecrate and bring Christ in.

Victus. But I can not understand it.

Gemser. The priests make the bread into nothing, leaving only the form of the bread, and in the same form, instead of the bread, they put the body of Christ.

Victus. So I hear, it is not sacramentum, but fermentum Pharisaeorum; because the shape of the bread remains ever so small .and so large, so thick, and everywhere as before, before the priests breathe over it, or blow and cackle as the geese. Therefore I ask: whether Christ's body, arm, breast, thigh and bone, crown of thorns, nails and spear, are in the bread, which is smaller than Christ's little finger was?

Gemser. Yes.

Victus. Must he then shrink and curl up when the clergy blow out such words.

Gemser. What can you do?

Victus. I have doubts, that's why I'm asking.

Gemser. You should not scold.

Victus. I don't know any other words to use for it.

Gemser. One should not investigate.

Victus. So say you priests, when you are quite uncertain of your things. But I consider it (if it were true what you say), 2) that one should investigate and search the Scriptures, which bear witness of our Lord Christ, because the Scriptures praised the Thessalonians for investigating. For if the Scriptures tell of other things of Christ and teach us how Christ was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb, how he lived and spoke, suffered and died, rose again and ascended into heaven, the Scriptures should also tell how Christ is in the sacrament, which is as miraculous as any of the articles told.

Gemser. As I go, says Christ, you know nothing about it.

Victus. Bock 3) you, you bump.

2) These brackets are set by us.

3) "Bock" is here from Carlstadt, because of the mockery" called "Bock Emser", set for "bend".

Gemser. Isn't it proper ?

Victus. Like this speech, that one should preach until the carved, cast, or painted idols run out of the church, that one should not lay a hand on them before.

Gemser. You don't have to do research on such things.

Victus. Why then does the truth say: Search the scriptures! and in another place thus: My sheep hear my voice, but the voice of the stranger they hear not; and thus: Ye shall not hear the word of false prophets, but the word of God shall we search day and night? You have never said this to any stone or wood, that Christ was in the host when he was on the cross.

Gemser. Christ's body is so great in the host when he hung on the cross.

Victus. You sing your song like a raven, but I cannot believe it yet. I would rather believe that Christ's body is as small in the host as he is born or conceived; but I believe none, unless you put the word of faith before me; otherwise, if I had to believe your wind, my cause would be worse than a reed's cause.

Gemser. Why?

Victus. A reed has only 12 or 24 winds blowing on it; but I would have to suffer as many winds as there are heads if I were to listen to and believe every priest.

Gemser. He who does not believe is condemned.

Victus. Cry out over your neck. I believe in Christ, in his suffering and all his words; but he who does not believe in Christ is condemned. Show me Christ's word, or a letter of faith from the Bible, that Christ's body is in a small host; and see if I do not believe!

Gemser. You are bound by the Bible.

Victus. I seek God in the Bible, and not Scripture in the Scriptures.

Gemser. What is the purpose of [the] Scripture for you?

Victus. To a testimony of truth.

Gemser. Let us speak Greek, Jewish and Latin.

Victus. Do you know these tongues?

Gemser. In the emergency.

Victus. What need is there?

Gemser. Do you not see the farmer standing behind us, diligently taking in and measuring all our words and speech?

Victus. Is it evil?

Gemser. So evil that the laymen of all first in

The people of the country would come to their Christian freedom and would not give a penny more to a priest for the sake of a sacrament.

Victus. So I hear you have something in your quiver that you could and should pour out.

Gemser. I am not scolding you, for you see that God now reveals to the simple some things that He hides from the wise.

Victus. Do you want to hinder God's power?

Gemser, egg, so no! But I wanted to keep my honor and supreme place.

Victus. Teach me, I will be silent like a water mill.

Gemser. One has understood this text Hoc est corpus W6um a long time thus: The bread is my body; as if it had been written: Hoc panis est corpus meum, which the Latin language does not suffer.

Victus. Is this not the text so that the priests, the new and old papists, want to lap and mend, cover and hide, and maintain that Christ's body is in the bread and his blood in the chalice?

Gemser. You hit it.

Victus. Did you cover yourselves with a shawl?

Gemser. Don't scold me, so I will tell you miracles.

Victus. You are a scribe.

Gemser. I scoff.

Victus. You cannot step back.

Gemser. How so?

Victus. This verse: Hoc est corpus meum, quod pro vobis traditur, is a fully adequate verse, which Christ placed alone in the gospels, although with different words, since he spoke nothing of the sacrament, as Matth. 16, Joh. 3, 6.

Gemser. Prove it!

Victus. Obviously 1) , because the pronoun Hoc has a capital 8. But a capital letter means a beginning of a new sentence and verse. Accordingly, this verse is placed in the speech of the Lord's bread, as one tends to add something that serves to the speech or sermon and yet is a fully adequate speech for itself.

Gemser. But what is the purpose of this verse?

Victus. To whom the disciples learned what their memorial should be, and whom the Lord commanded to eat his bread.

Gemser: But where did Christ say about his body, which he would give and has now given for us?

1) In the original: dissolute.

Victus. In all the prophets and gospels in which his suffering is written.

Gemser. It does not sound.

Victus. The old violin, and the pope's laws and customs, and your honor have filled your ears with creaturely sounds, therefore it does not sound to you. But unstop thine ears, and stop thine ears, and naked ears, unto the words of God, and see if they sound not unto thee, which I have now told thee.

Gemser. It's hard to leave old habit and own honor.

Victus. That is why the path to the Kingdom of Heaven is narrow and bitter.

Gemser. Since you have begun, continue.

Victus. I should learn from you.

Gemser. Drive on!

Victus. The Greek tongue serves this division and also the perfection of the verse, that it is a special verse; because the Greek writing and speech has this verse: Hoc est oorpus sto. with punctuation and letters, and better than the Latin.

Gemser. Vide, quomodo omnia rusticus ille perpendit.

Victus. You shall search and read, but I will listen.

Gemser. Ôïàôü Ýóôé ôü óùìÜ ìïõ.

Victus. Interpret these words.

Gemser. Istud est hoc corpus meum, quod pro vobis etc..

Victus. I want you to tell me in German.

Gemser. But do you not see how this farmer opens his mouth and acts as if he wants to eat all our speech?

Victus. That is why you should speak German.

Gemser. It is not good that we reveal these things to the laity. For first of all, the peasants will be considered as much as the priests.

Victus. It does not harm me, nor you. I will be your guarantor that the godly man would love you because of the truth; without that you should confess God's justice, even with your harm, yes, even with your death.

Gemser. In such hope I say that I wanted to translate it thus: Tuto is the body of mine, which etc. And it would be good, that one would have left the Greek pronoun and mixed it into the Latin.

Victus. Why?

Gemser. That one would have read thus: Tuto

est hoc corpus meum.

Victus. I ask: Why?

Gemser. So people would have thought: What is the little word

Victus. But it would not have been unhelpful to the priests.

Gemser. The better it would be.

Victus. You always want to go the way of the monk.

Gemser. Mocker!

Victus. For reasons, because it would have been a question or delusion that a thing had been called, and the same must have been the body of Christ.

Gemser. What would be the point?

Victus. Much; for you priests would have persuaded us laymen that Christ had, I know not what, in the evening, and had changed his body therein, whereon we had hanged silver and gold.

Gemser. You should not believe that.

Victus. Do not believe? I hear what you have made of the chalice, and how you say that you must have goblets of gold and silver, and lure our silver and gold from our bags.

-Gemser. I wanted to have given notice for my person gem and to have known that luto is a Greek pronoun.

Victus. Who knows what you would have done if the old mothers had brought pennies and guilders?

Gemser. I am too pious.

Victus. But the stingy and fools would have actually made a silver or golden box out of the little word.

Gemser. It would have been a fine speech: the body is mine, as the evangelists all say.

Victus. But what do you understand from the Greek lectionary, and what is it in German?

Gemser. Tuto esti to soma mu etc.

Victus. Speak German!

Gemser. The peasant will notice, quia verba sunt apertissime contra nos sacerdotes.

Peter, [a] layman. 1) Dear sirs! With leave that I speak! Do not resent me for asking, for I understand that you are talking about the body and blood, bread and cup of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gemser. Prius, o Victe, dixi de rustico, quod audiret et ruminaret verba nostra.

Victus. What harm does it do?

Peter. Gentlemen, I notice that you are quarreling over a word that is not too familiar to me.

Victus. Therefore you, Gemser, shall speak German

1) In the old edition: "Peter. Läy."

and say what is said in German: Ôïàôü ßóç ôä óùìÜ ìïõ, ôä äðåñ äìùí äßäüìåíïí. [Luc. 22, 19.] Peter. This also I desire fervently.

Gemser. is the body of mine, which is given for you.

Peter. That is a strange language.

Victus. Truly a mixed language.

Peter. I want to ask and hear if I would like to become more understanding from you.

it would probably stand.

Victus. How? if some had come who would soon have said that a golden loaf had been made when you made the word calix into a golden drinking vessel?

Peter. Gentlemen! Speak more intelligibly, and hat German; for although I understand you in part, I do not understand you completely.

Gemser. In good German the Greek tongue reads thus: This is the body mine, which gave for you etc. But it seems to me that it would be better to let the pronoun stand than I said.

Peter. But it would read strangely.

Gemser. Every language or tongue has something of its own, which cannot be interpreted into other tongues; and if someone wants to speak of a property of foreign languages, he must use the words of the same foreign tongue; therefore we have many Latin words in our offices. So also now we have fallen into the Latin and Greek language, and are to tell you idiots about the hidden content and sound of both tongues; therefore we have to talk to you by Latin and Greek words.

Peter. Go ahead! Who knows if I would like to memorize something. I have ever been struck on the hand with the Greek, Hebrew and Latin tablets, and have learned less than I have forgotten.

Gemser. Do you understand us? You are unfavorable and ugly to us.

Peter. Speak for yourself.

Gemser. The Greek tongue has articulos and pronouns that teach the genera nominum, and instruct that one can certainly see which word is entitled to the article or pronoun and which is not.

Peter. This wants to be good! talk forder.

Gemser. Ôïàôï is a Greek pronoun indicating a neuter name. Now the word Latin panis, in German Brod, is masculinum; therefore the pronoun Ôïàôï cannot be added to it, nor can the opi-

1) Here the old original print says Peter, which is an oversight.

nion does not consist of those who say: The bread is the body etc. For the Greek language does not suffer it, as little it would be suitable in Latin, if I wanted to say: Istud panis est hoc corpus meum, or in German: The bread is my body.

Peter. That's good.

Gemser. Do you like it?

Peter. Well, because for a long time I could not find out how it would be possible that the bread should have become the body of Christ. I have always estimated it in the way that Christ pointed to his body and thus said: This is the body of mine, which is given for you. For Christ did not point to the bread, nor did he say, "The bread is my body, which is given for you. But they that say that the bread is the body, speak from their own selves, and lie, or make their wills very small. Listen: Jesus took the bread, and gave thanks to God, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying that they should eat it in remembrance of him, and in the midst of his word he set forth the cause and manner of his remembrance, namely, because of this, and so that his disciples should remember that he gave his body for them. This opinion led Paul strongly, and those who speak otherwise are perverting God's word and are perverse people.

Gemser. Who taught this?

Peter. I heard his voice, but I did not see him, nor did I know how he came to me or left me.

Gemser. Who is he?

Peter. Our Father in Heaven.

Gemser. Oh, I wish I'd learned it from him!

Peter. Didn't you promise his spirit? Aren't you the poor man who gives God's living voice a creaturely form?

Gemser. Weiland, but not now.

Peter. If thou hast a desire in righteousness, as righteousness, and a fervent heart for it; then the Greek Scripture, which thou hast now read over, is a means bestowed upon thee.

Gemser. What assurance could you think of, that you have so firmly laid on your delusion, and have stood in it until now?

Peter. I have not a delusion, but truth and certainty, and can seal that the text is true.

Gemser. That's why I ask from the insurance.

Peter. If Christ should have redeemed us with his body when he was united with the bread, as you say, then Christ would have suffered in the host, or in the bread, or with the bread; without bread he would not have come to the cross, nor could he have suffered except in the bread; which is all obviously false.

Gemser. Who ever said that?

Peter. Those say it (though out of ignorance) who say that Christ's body was united with the bread, or in the bread, or under the form of the bread.

Gemser. How does that follow?

Peter. So they say: Christ said: The bread is the body, which is given for you. Is this not as much as saying, "The bread will be given for you and will suffer?" or, "My body under the bread, or my body, which is the bread, will be given for you? Is it not as much, My body is not given for you before it became bread, or when it is under the form of bread? From this it follows that Christ suffered secretly and concealed, as he is secretly and concealed in the Sacrament; this is contrary to God's truth and all the prophets. It also follows that Christ would not have given his body for us on the cross, for you priests are not able to represent a man who at the same time brought the body of Christ in bread. If you want to show Christ, tell how he took the bread when his hands were nailed to it. If you want to point out an apostle, prove that the apostles consecrated the sacrament at the time you are speaking, when they were all scattered and had fled from their shepherd and were suffering trouble in Christ. As to the third, it will follow that a loaf of bread baked by the baker must have been the body of which the Scriptures write much that it should be given for us; but this would be a strong contradiction of all the Scriptures.

Gemser. If you had been so experienced in your matters, why did you become very cheerful when I told you how the Greek language held up?

Peter. Therefore, that I may hear an outward testimony, by which I may now raise up and edify those who have fallen away, and now quiet and overcome those who resist. For my own sake I should not have the outward testimony; I want to have my testimony of the Spirit in my inwardness, which Christ has promised.

Gemser. Where.

Peter. Again, do you not know that Christ thus said, "The Spirit, the Comforter, will bear witness to you, and you also will bear witness to me? This is what happened to the apostles, who were assured inwardly by the Spirit's testimony, and then preached Christ outwardly and confirmed by the Scriptures that Christ had to suffer for us, and that the same Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was the Crucified One.

Gemser. This is what is said by the apostles.

Peter. Are we not to be apostles, why did Peter say of Cornelio that he had received the Spirit like them? Why does Paul say that we should be his followers? Did not Christ promise us his Spirit as to the apostles? The Spirit alone leads us into knowledge of God's sayings, therefore it follows that those who do not hear God's Spirit speak do not understand God's sayings. They are also not Christians, as Christ says: Those are Christ's who have the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, God's Spirit alone gives testimony and assurance, Rom. 8. This is the reason that God's Spirit is a pledge and is called.

Gemser. Behold, if the Spirit bears witness, thou also shalt bear witness; why hast thou not brought thy mind to light sooner?

Peter. The spirit did not drive me fast enough; if it had driven and conquered me sufficiently, I would have concealed 1) or hidden much less than if I had had a ravenous fire in my bones. One must [at] times conceal the spirit, by reason of its honor, and fence with outwardly accepted testimonies at times. I almost knew that you and all the world, especially the scribes, would have laughed at me and said, "He would have raved if I had broken out sooner. But now the tongues are much more denouncing and meaner, therefore I push it to the tongues proclaimers in their own knowledge.

Gemser. Because you are so earnest and strict about hearing God's truth, I will also discover to you that this oration: This is my body, which is given for you, is closed with dots, and has dots in front and behind.

Peter. Is that good to what I said? Gemser. Ausbündlich gut.

Peter. Why didn't you say it before?

Gemser. I was afraid of the madness of some princes who claim to be learned in the Scriptures and have read nothing or little in them.

Peter. You shall confess God's words with joyfulness.

Gemser. I lacked the strength of spirit. Even though I didn't take it into condemnation [before], which I now hold in high esteem.

Peter. One should watch and not be hasty in the matter, and look at Pünktlein and everything with leisure and diligence.

Gemser. I must also not restrain you that this speech, this is my body etc., is begun with a large letter in Lucae, is meant by the verse: This is my body, which is for you.

1) In the original: gehelen.

is not connected with the preceding words, but is a speech for itself.

Peter. How they GOtt has spoken for itself?

Gemser. Yes, yes, and that is why I soon had to stand with you and confess that Christ had said straight: This is my body, etc. that he pointed to his body and not to the bread.

Peter. If you can raise something against it and outline my reasons, or even move them, do it.

Gemser. Although I cannot speak against it, I cannot remain silent.

Peter. Let us go away and continue to talk about the matter of how to eat Christ's bread worthily and how Christ's body is given.

Gemser. Tell me, what is this said: My body is given for you? when, how and why is it given, if it is a special speech, and not attached to the bread or united, as you and Victus speak, and I must confess it?

Peter. You should have enjoyed the Lord's bread and cup as the dogs eat the grass.

Gemser. Dear! Do not mock me.

Peter. He who does not eat the Lord's bread worthily spits out the body of Christ and becomes guilty of the Lord's body.

Gemser. I am a priest, and I have prepared it for myself and offered it in the Sacrament.

Peter. Oho! With four boots in one misten. 1) Fie you! you forgotten priest.

Gemser. Are you punishing me?

Peter. Freely and joyfully.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. That you are blind as a bat and do not know that the priests killed Christ.

Gemser. We are talking about the worthy reception of the sacrament.

Peter. I meant that we wanted to talk about the surrender of the body of Christ.

Gemser. You said not long ago that we should deal with these two articles in their entirety.

Peter. I let it happen.

Gemser. Why do you accuse me as if I had eaten the sacrament unworthily?

Peter. You pretend to be a good Paulensem and do not know that?

Gemser. I often eat mustard so that my eyes glaze over and sweat, and I still bite it.

Peter. You are a courtier, you can interrogate and keep silent when you are mocked.

Gemser. Tell me, why did you say that I ate the Lord's bread unworthily?

1) With the word "misten" Carlstadt mockingly calls the "fair".

Peter. O Paulensis! But do you not know how all Christianity sings, namely, that everyone should eat the Lord's bread in the judgment and sentence of the Lord's body? But if any man eat without knowledge of the body of Christ, he is guilty of the body of Christ.

Gemser. Cunning.

Peter. How so?

Gemser. I wanted to use these words of Paul, "He who eats the Lord's bread without distinction," against you, and to see you with them and to conquer you severely, so that you would confess that Christ's body is under the sacrament, and that we fall under the feet of the sacrament and show it divine honor, and are obligated to do everything that Christians now do. But you are cunning, and run away from my place of choice, and you dare to beat me with my own weapons.

Peter. Dismiss me the word "cunning", because I fight against you with truth and not with cunning. But that will probably be found in the sweep, whether Pauli's presented words serve you or me and are entitled to.

Gemser. Do not mock me, for I have Wittenberg letters.

Peter. It is nevertheless mocking and shameful to you that you boast of Paul as if he were your own and yours alone, and almost write from him, and carry on with him daily, and do not know what you are dealing with. And if I were to remain silent, the late Quintus Mutius would rise from the dead and say: "It is bad for such a brave man who wants to be like the Gospel, because he does not really look at and understand Paul, whom he carries daily in his mouth and in his pen.

Gemser. Do you think I don't understand Paulum?

Peter. The star 2) means ignorance and blindness.

Gemser. Let me catch Paulum Wider you.

Peter. Hit it!

Gemser. Every man shall eat the bread of the Lord worthily: he that eateth it unworthily is guilty of the body of Christ. He who drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily drinks judgment. 1 Cor. 11.

Peter. What is this new? Solomon said this more comfortably when he said, "Whoever eats the king's bread should eat it with great fear and honor, lest he fall into the king's wrath. If I were to eat with a prince, and eat my own bread, or such bread as I have, I should sit more honorably, and eat more politely,

2) Should the word "gestiren" perhaps mean gesturing - making gestures?

and with greater caution and timidity than in my house. How much more shall I eat with guilty honor the bread of the most high King, my Lord Jesus Christ, who innocently allowed himself to be choked for my sake?

Gemser. I shall eat the bread of the Lord worthily, that is: I shall know what kind of bread it is, how it is the Lord's bread, how the Lord is in it and under it, and shall beat my breast, give Him glory, and kneel down, and wait for forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament, and receive it as surely as I receive the Sacrament, and shall throw away all doubt, and rely on it and take comfort.

Peter. You have caught the sword by the edge, and hold the hilt out to me; how [g'e-] fchwinder you fence with it, the deeper you would wound yourself.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. Whoever misuses God's word, needs it for his own harm.

Gemser. I need it right.

Peter. On Pfäffisch and Papal Law.

Gemser. Is it not good?

Peter. It is evil and diabolical.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. Because he steals God's honor and glory and contradicts the truth and destroys Paul's teaching and makes nonsense people.

Gemser. You rave.

Peter. I will gladly swarm with you, so that I may be true and wise before God.

Gemser. You have told a lot of articles now. Tell me why Pope's teaching makes people nonsensical in this case?

Peter. When wise men eat great lords' bread at lords' tables, they are never afraid of the bread, nor do they bow down to the food, but to the Lord, and keep themselves honest and chaste before the Lord, and see not how the bread is, but why and how they eat with the king; this also the pope wants from those who eat with him. But when he speaks of the bread of Christ, he speaks of how we recognize, honor, and honestly eat the bread, though we never remember Christ, which is ever a nonsensical way; therefore the pope makes nonsensical people. He teaches how to bless the teeth, how to rinse the mouth, but how to look at and take care of the body of the Lord Jesus, the end-Christ does not teach.

Gemser. How does he steal GOtte's honor?

Peter. Dieblich.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. That he speaks, we are to the figure

of bread say: My God, until 1) you are merciful to me.

Gemser. Don't you have anything more?

Peter. The pope makes the suffering of Christ useless and null.

Gemser. As how?

Peter. If Christ forgave and redeemed sins for us in the form of bread, Christ died on the cross for nothing.

Gemser. How does the pope contradict the truth?

Peter. He says that we should remember the bread - but Christ did not tell us to do this - and makes us forget the Lord's body, of which we should be suspicious 2) as often as we eat the Lord's bread. Therefore, no one has eaten the bread of the Lord more unworthily than the papal crowd.

Gemser. Have you not eaten the bread of the Lord after the appointment of the priest?

Peter. Not in twenty years.

Gemser. How do you get so lucky?

Peter. I was under Pabst's spell, for my salvation, and learned that it is written: I will say goodbye to their ban and malediction. 3)

Gemser. How does the pope devastate the teaching of Paul?

Peter. Paul takes great pains to make us understand and suspect the death of the Lord, which the pope overthrows and puts before us his figure of bread and raises it so high that we forget the Lord's body and death because of great fear, sorrow and knowledge of his figure, and then pay no attention to what the Lord suffered on the cross, when we should have the greatest respect for it. Paul, however, leaves us in our senses and instructs us that we should enjoy the bread and wine of the Lord, which we do not see and feel, with the fear of the Lord, as the food of the most high Lord.

Gemser. Now I know that memory makes one worthy.

Peter. You have to add something.

Gemser. I have a delicious memory, because I just remember that the shape of the bread is the body of Christ.

Peter. Did Christ command you to remember? Does he say, "Do this in my memory?" or does he say, "Do this in the memory of the sacrament, or of the form of the bread under which my body is? Have you not yourself confessed,

1) to--be.

2) suspicious --- mindful.

3) Hiemrt is perhaps Zech. 14, 11. meant: "There will be no more ban".

[that the pronoun cannot demonstrate the word? Does not Christ want us to remember his body, which was given for us? Is thy form of bread also given for us? Has it been crucified and died? If we laymen confessed this, we would be as bad as the worst priests. You are a priest, and you feel what you want to encounter.

Gemser. Spare mine!

Peter. Spare yours; we're not bickering about money, but about the truth.

Gemser. For days and days I have heard. How we should prepare ourselves to receive the sacrament and the body of Christ, that I have always held that one thing is to receive the sacrament and to receive the body of Christ; therefore I have held one for the other, as have those from whom I heard it.

Peter. We say neither of your preachers, nor of your hearing. We discuss whether you are right or wrong. If you want to say: I speak right; then you must prove the right with divine justice and truth; without that I believe you nothing.

Gemser. How much I have heard: Prepare yourselves worthily to receive the body of Christ!

Peter. I believe you, but give me one word of Christ or of an apostle who speaks in this way. This I know, that Christ has nowhere given us his body to receive it, which our following disputation will explain. Christ also says, that his flesh is not profitable to us; and so also, that it is profitable for you that I should depart; if I go not, the Comforter cometh not. If all this is true, it is also true that we do not receive the body of Christ, either naturally or sacramentally.

Gemser. Prove that better!

Peter. Did Christ ever say: Receive my body! when he said: Take bread and eat it! etc.? Therefore your preachers 1) would have preached to you more correctly, "See to it that you receive and eat the bread of the Lord more worthily, as Paul preaches.

Gemser. Is it not written: Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, there is no heaving in you?

Peter. Is this what Christ said when he said, Take bread and eat etc.?

Gemser. No, but it is written at a different end.

1) Concerning this word "Hutzelprediger" Luther remarks in his writing Wider die himmlischen Propheten: "0 schön Deutsch!"

Peter. Yes, at the end when Christ says: The flesh is not useful!

Gemser. Yes.

Peter. So also the reception of the flesh of Christ is not useful. Further I ask: whether Christ does not want to say by the above words that we will not feel life in us unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood?

Gemser. Right:

Peter. If you confess this to me, you must also confess that the eating of Christ's flesh is an inward taste of Christ's suffering, and that there is one meaning, that the Son of Man is exalted, that whoever looks at Him, that is, believes, should not perish but have eternal life.

Gemser. I punish you with not[en].

Peter. To receive Christ in this way is to accept Christ, that is, to recognize Christ warmly and fervently.

Gemser. This belongs on the Sacrament.

Peter. If one does not take the sacrament for eternity, he would still be blessed if he were otherwise justified. But to attain salvation without the taste of Christ is impossible; neither can anyone be justified without the art [i.e., knowledge] of Christ, Isa. 53. The sacrament is not necessary, the knowledge of Christ is necessary. You also know that Christ spoke long before the institution of the sacrament: Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son [of man] etc. Therefore, you have not used Christ's words correctly.

Gemser. It is a little word, that is sacramentaliter, that answers many questions.

Peter. With the foolish, but with the intelligent it does not work; because the God-denouncers speak with Christ and say: spiritualiter, that is, spiritually we must eat the flesh of the Lord. Sacramentaliter is no more useful than the natural outward flesh of Christ.

Gemser. You pour out everything that is in your criticisms 2).

Peter. It will be better; for those who want to eat Christ sacramentally are worse than those who went away from Christ, or those who wanted to eat Christ bodily, than the unicorns and lions, from whom Christ wanted to be protected, since it is written: Libera a cornibus unicornium, et erue de ore leonis animam. [Ps. 22, 22.]

Gemser. Talk away!

Peter. The body of Christ sacramentaliter is of no use at all, because neither the death nor the resurrection of Christ can be seen in it.

2) "tripe"---intestines; i.e., inside you.

understood sacramentally, he is neither carnally nor spiritually useful, he is also nothing.

Gemser. You have struck the pope on the ear so that his whole face is blackened.

Peter. And all the papists too.

Gemser. And also the new papists. But what must we do to spiritually accept or receive the body of Christ?

Peter. We must leave and not do.

Gemser. This is too sharp for me. Tell me, how shall we receive the bread of the Lord worthily as you speak?

Peter. He who has a fervent remembrance of the body of Jesus Christ, and desires to prove it outwardly in the church by eating the bread of the Lord, is worthy to receive the bread of the Lord, as Christ says, "Do this in my remembrance. He that hath not the right remembrance of Christ is not fit, as Christ would have him fit.

Gemser. Until willing and undaunted to continue talking.

Peter. See! Do we want to bring a speech back often?

Gemser. Yes, it does no harm, because this matter is strange. In which article is the memory thorough?

Peter. You are a master and should answer me, and ask me.

Gemser. Turn to nothing, neither to my worthiness nor to my great clamor, and answer my question.

Peter. The memory has many parts in Christ, but one article is the most important, which we must understand and be aware of, if we want to eat the bread of the Lord worthily.

Gemser. Make him nameable.

Peter. The delivered body of Christ is that which must be remembered by every one who will eat the Lord's bread without judgment. But we will speak of it at the proper time and place.

Gemser. What does Paul call this article and his knowledge?

Peter. Paul calls him the death of the Lord, and he calls the memory the proclamation. But you shall understand this by circumstantial speech.

Gemser. You talk, I want to hear.

Peter. You are doing this out of humility.

Gemser. From Nothdurft.

Peter. The words of Paul are thus: Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you; do this in my memory. This is the new testament in my blood; do this as often as you can.

you drink it in remembrance of me. Paul says with bright words that we should do everything in remembrance of Christ, as eating the bread of the Lord and drinking from His cup; but by this Paul instructs us that the remembrance of Christ should set us on fire and drive us to take the bread and the cup of Christ.

Gemser. You wipe over there, as a frightened hare over the bush.

Peter. What is it?

Gemser. You are afraid of the little word "broken".

Peter. Why?

Gemser. Paul fixed our opinion, the priest, for he says: This is my body, which is broken for you; but this has no reason, if you will not let the body of Christ come in the form of bread 1); for the bread is broken, and the body of Christ cannot be broken in itself, but in the form of bread Christ's body is broken per consequens.

Peter. Oh poor and unfunny man! Do you think that Christ's body must be broken as bread is broken? Do you not know that it is written: You shall not break a bone of him? Knowest thou not the manner of speaking, that it is said, Thou hast a broken spirit? a broken spirit? Do you want to say that Christ was broken in the form of bread? You cannot obtain that. Tell me, who broke him? Will you say: Did Christ himself break the bread? I answer, "If Christ was not in the bread when he broke it, nothing was broken in his body when he gave the bread to his disciples.

Gemser. There is another nature of Christ in the Sacrament, and outside.

Peter. Therefore you priests have another Christ in the sacrament than we laymen have on the cross. He who has broken limbs has them where he is broken. Now I ask further: Did Christ break Himself without hands?

Gemser. No.

Peter. So you cannot point to an apostle who broke Christ's body in the bread, as you can point to the fact that they ate the bread. It is false that Christ's body was broken in the bread, and false that Christ's body was broken on the cross in the form of the bread.

1) want". This word is required by the context, but in its place in the original print is "nit", i.e. not. (Walch.)

Gemser. Let us remain in the matter we have begun and see with what words Paul speaks of memory and of that which we are to remember.

Peter. Paul calls the broken body and the shed blood the death of the Lord; we are to remember it. But Paul calls the remembrance the proclamation, as I said.

Gemser. Speak more, and give me the words of Paul!

Peter. As often as you eat of this bread (says Paul) and drink of this cup, you shall proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Gemser. Explain.

Peter. It is so clear to me as a bright light.

Gemser. I realize what we need for the worthy reception of the Lord's bread and cup, namely, the remembrance and proclamation of Christ's death. But still I do not understand the proclamation.

Peter. Learn to understand this: In the heart is believed unto righteousness, with the mouth unto salvation [Rom. 10:10].

Gemser. Add this verse to the memory and proclamation!

Peter. The memory of Christ may not be without faith and knowledge of Christ, as little as I could have a memory of my father if I had not known him. Therefore, the memory follows the knowledge or faith, with essence and types. If knowledge is fervent and loud, memory is fervent and loud. If it is by hearsay, the memory is also skillful.

Gemser. Can the memory also justify?

Peter. Why not?

Gemser. Prove it!

Peter. Isaiah paints the mocked and dead Messiah in his horrible bitterness; after that Isaiah says: that the Messiah will make many of his servants righteous by his art [i.e. the knowledge of him].

Gemser. Is this the text: scientia sui justificabit Ipse multos, Esa. 53, 11.?

Peter. You said it.

Gemser. Do you therefore mean that Christ's memory, in the way he was maledicted, ridiculed, nailed and strangled, also makes him just, as his art?

Peter. I want that. For it is written: They will say that they have done this in my memory.

Gemser. What could you rhyme with this clause: With the mouth one believes to salvation?

Peter. The proclamation of the death of Christ. For the proclamation is a speech of faith, which proceeds from the heart through the mouth. Therefore, the outward confession or preaching of the death of Christ is a sign or fruit of inward righteousness, that all those who hear such outward preaching must say: God is in the man who preaches, or God speaks from him.

Gemser. So I understand that the remembrance of Christ must be so rich, so abundant, and so powerful in the one who wants to eat the Lord's bread, that it compels the man to preach publicly before the congregation, or otherwise proclaim the death of Christ, and then to eat (out of great love and remembrance) the Lord's bread.

Peter. You have guessed this; do you not know how Paul preached about Christ in Troada, and the people were driven to eat the Lord's bread?

Gemser. Yes, as in the stories [of the apostles] at the 20th chapter.

Peter. Do you also know that the disciples remained steadfast in the teaching of Christ, and afterward also remained in the breaking of bread?

Gemser. Good.

Peter. Do you know that a proclamation of the death of Christ must always precede the breaking and taking of the Lord's bread? Gemser. From whom? and from what?

Peter. The preaching of the death of Christ is necessary, as Paul says: "You shall proclaim the death of the Lord as often as you take it", which is also indicated by the apostles' stories. The sermons of the resurrection or birth of Christ do not add anything to the reception of the Lord's bread, although the articles of the birth and ascension of Christ may be included.

Gemser. From whom?

Peter. From one who wants to break bread, or from another.

Gemser. But I think it is unnecessary to examine all the recipients, since Christ gave his bread to Jude the betrayer.

Peter. You have now heard me speak a great deal. I also consider it sufficient to understand how Christ's and Paul's words agree, and what man needs, so that he may take and eat the Lord's bread worthily.

Gemser. Good brother, in inexperienced matters it is not a multiplicity that one thing is brought out twice.

Peter. What is it?

Gemser. Again, we will speak of the worthy receiving or taking of the bread.

of the Lord, because I realize that there is still something in the pen.

Peter. What?

Gemser. The word dijudicare, which Paul used, means in German: to judge very well, to estimate well, to judge fiercely. The Greek word äéá÷ñßíùí means: to discriminate and to judge.

judge. Whoever wants to distinguish a thing correctly must look at the thing inside and out and consider it completely, which he wants to distinguish.

Peter. What are you talking about?

Gemser. To Paul's speech, which reads: "He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment for himself, so that he does not distinguish the body of the Lord.

Peter. This word we have acted temporally.

Gemser. Be at my service and let's do one more thing.

Peter. I want to hear how you heard me.

Gemser. You say that anyone who wants to receive the sacrament without harm must have the memory of Christ and judge the body of Christ with great diligence and also proclaim the death of Christ outwardly. But all this we priests take from Christ, as you say, and put on the sacrament.

Peter. What do you sacrament? Where did you learn the Word in the Scriptures?

Gemser. Take it for granted that I cannot speak out; and act as if you hear the word "bread" as often as I say "sacrament.

Peter. Stride henceforth!

Gemser. We clergymen, priests and monks say that the Sacrament forgives sin and preach thus: O sinner, if your conscience, because of sin, frightens or oppresses you, and you cannot get rid of your fear and burdens, go and take the Sacrament for your sin, and be satisfied.

Peter. You false prophets! You promise people God's kingdom for a piece of bread; what would you promise for silver and gold if you were not ashamed? You promise peace of conscience to the simple in things that are less than conscience, and that cannot give or make peace.

Gemser. Drive on!

Peter. It is true. I know that even by your secret hissing and hissing you can make the bread neither better nor different. Why do you say that sin can be forgiven when you have blown above? Would it not be as much, [as] if ye thus said, Men! press

If you have sinned and desire peace, take a handful of barley and eat it in God's name, and you will be absolved of your sins and satisfied in your conscience. In this way the pope gave letters of indulgence, and the false prophets of old took wheat and grain, and our priests took sacrificial pennies for sin. Men's consciences were also satisfied with themselves and with the people, but how before God? did they not have a false peace and security, when there was neither peace nor security? Let it not surprise thee that foolish men believe, and are satisfied with lies: for they let every wind that blows upon them pick them up, drive them about, and put them down; but they shall be put to shame in the end, and shall see rightly how they are deceived.

Gemser. Martin Luther gave the advice himself.

Peter. It is a great pity that the simple-minded people sell themselves with respect for some person; for they are not attached to the mere truth, but to the person, therefore they cannot hear or see the mere truth, because they have such a thick foreskin stuck in their ears and eyes.

Gemser. The bread has the body of Christ.

Peter. Even if I confess that Christ's body is united with the bread, it would be false and deceitful if I gave the bread of a little hermit so much power and strength that it would forgive and pacify our sins. What I give to the bread, I take away from the suffering of Christ. Also, Christ's body or death would be of no use at all if Christ had not been God and sealed by God the Father when he was and still is a man, and thus Christ had not recognized his suffering and death in the highest. Now reflect, dear Sophist, and see how Paul also instructs us to recognize the memory of Christ's bitter death, so that we remember, if we go back a thousand and about five hundred years, how well our knowledge and memory should go beyond time and place and be attached to none who do nothing for the forgiveness of sins.

Gemser. I fear that you are just, and that we are playing monkeys as often as we worship the sacrament, that we take it in silver and gold monstrances, that we carry it around our towns and villages, that we want to protect and preserve ourselves and ours with it, and that we want to chase out the devil; because what we give to the external bread, we take from the death of Christ.

Peter. Well, what do you think of it now?

Gemser. I consider it a lousy trumpery and cunning deceit that one has talked about the sacrament for a while. For the sacrament is an external thing that can neither make us blessed, nor holy, nor pious, nor better, nor righteous, nor free, even if we look at it a thousand times. I am afraid that the prophet Haggai 1) prophesied about us when he said [Cap. 2, 13]. They put a piece of holy flesh on the hem of their garment and say: what they touch is holy.

Peter. You are more unstable and fickle than a feather in the wind. Now you hold all things with me, you shout with the priests; one time you talk papistically, the other time truly about your sacrament; sometimes you step to me, sometimes from me, you Proteus you!

Gemser. So I am nimble out of great subtlety. It is also useful to me, because I flee the cross and have good days with the high ones.

Peter. I believe you.

Gemser. If I could not do this art, I would have been despised long ago.

Peter. However, it is not Biedermännisch, also not Christian. It would suit a careless liar better than you.

Gemser. I still say that Haggai prophesies about us.

Peter. How so?

Gemser. We say: If the bread is given, it can forgive sin and make everything holy that only adheres to it. So we give as much honor, praise, love, and fear to the sacrament as to the body and death of Christ.

Peter. You have no reason for this in Scripture.

Gemser. Not one letter. Christ said: Whoever loves father or mother more, or as much, than me, is unworthy of me [Matth. 10, 37.]. What will he say to us, that we honor, fear and love much less a lesser creature, which has neither soul nor body, that is, bread, than him?

Peter. He that esteemeth the bread of the Lord, or feareth, honoureth, or loveth it, as the Lord's bitter death, is unworthy of the death of Christ, and incomprehensible; and taketh, and eateth the bread of the Lord also unworthily, unto judgment, to his hurt and fall.

Gemser. If it were right that we should worship, or fear, the bread of the Lord, and honor it so magnificently, the prophets also prophesied of the holiness and righteousness of the bread, and foretold us that the bread would be our

1) In the original: "Aggaeus" and "weisgesagt".

Sin and pain would bear, and that [it] should be sought 2) when our sins terrified or grieved us.

Peter. You speak well and rightly. John the Baptist would not have pointed to the mere Christ if Christ, covered in the host, were to forgive our sins. Christ would also have been so favorable to us that he would have consecrated this to us, as we must eat his bread, if we wanted to be sure of the forgiveness of our sins.

Gemser. How then Paul?

Peter. He points us to the memory of Christ's death when we are oppressed by our sins, therefore he says: "Many have been justified through the obedience of one man. [Rom. 5, 19.]

Gemser. Resolve!

Peter. Whoever wants to be sure of the forgiveness of sins and to eat the bread of the Lord worthily and without harm, which you call "receiving," must be sure in the knowledge of the death of Christ, that is, must understand and accept the death of Christ as God our Father promised it and seal it with the heart that God is true. He who is thus skillful is skillful; but he who has a fault in one thing is unskillful and unworthy; it would be better for him to eat the bread of a peasant than the bread of the Lord.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. For the sake of his glibness and unworthiness.

Gemser. Decide!

Peter. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you shall proclaim the death of the Lord. Paul says of the Lord's death, and not of the Lord's bread, when he interprets to us remembrance and proclamation until he comes. With this, Paul knocks down all the missal keepers, monks and priests in one heap. For Paul says: "When the Lord comes, the Lord's bread will no longer be eaten, nor will the sermon be preached before it is received; and by this he implies that the Lord will not come into the bread or sacrament, but if he comes, the sacrament will die. Therefore Christ cannot come into the Sacrament. He remains above in heaven and holds it until the time of refreshing comes. (Apost. 3:20, 21) Whosoever therefore shall eat of this bread unworthily, and drink of the cup of the Lord, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

Gemser. That is frightening.

Peter. Let man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup of the Lord.

2) In the old edition: besuchet.

Gemser. So I hear that I should be certain of the matter?

Peter, He who is to examine or feel must know and not imagine. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, that he distinguish not the body of Christ.

Gemser. So it is better that we abstain than that we take it.

Peter. You said it.

Gemser. We have gone far into the field, and see that the sun is coming to a head; 1) therefore let us turn back, and draw up the matter of the surrender, until a considerable time; then I will hear and learn how Christ is surrendered; to whom he has given himself; from what causes, and for whom, or to whom too well he has given himself; what we are to understand and know therein; and how our spirit must be assured by God's Spirit.

Peter. What do we want to talk about now?

Gemser. Of the matter that is now touched, in that you say that Christ does not come into the Sacrament; that would be too close to all priests and monks.

Peter. Are you the great warriors [i.e. giants] and children of Enakim who can pull down God from heaven?

Gemser. We can do it and do it in the power of others.

Peter. Who gave you such foreign power?

Gemser. Christ, in that he said: This do in my memory.

Peter. Did Christ also tell you to bring his body in a loaf?

Gemser. Yes.

Peter. I have believed it to be true, and I know that it is true that you priests are lying, for Christ did not command you to force his body to come into your hosts.

Gemser. What?

Peter. Christ says: You shall take his bread and eat it, with the addition that as often as you take and eat it, you shall take and eat it in his memory. As Paul says, "You should do this. And all Christians are able to do this, the unvarnished ones better than the varnished ones. 2) They are truly the female warriors, who by such words have forcibly stolen their supposed and falsely vaunted power, by which they pretend to bring Christ's body in a little bread.

1) "Rieß" i.e. Rüste, Rüst, Rast, or Ruhe, here means sunset. (Walch.)

2) d. i. Plate carrier.

Gemser. Methinks Paul almost and well fortified our power when he said: I have received it of the Lord, which I have given you. For the Lord Jesus, in the night that he was betrayed, took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, saying, Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. There, there, behold, Peter, how Paul is saying mass, repeating the words of the Lord, and bringing his body into the bread, and also giving us the power to ask for and bring the Lord's body into the sacrament.

Peter. Oho! Egg, how ridiculous is your talk to me!

Gemser. Why?

Peter. Did Paul give you with these words: This does etc. the power to conjure the body of the Lord into the bread and to hold mass? Would that a blind man could grasp this in the dark of the night, that Paul does not do otherwise than to relate the word of the Lord and the time when Christ instituted his supper, and to teach us that we should eat the Lord's bread, not as other bread, but in his remembrance. If you want to take from such repeated words a special power to drive the body of the Lord into a little bread, as Christ is said to have done, as you say, I would like to say that Moses gave us power to create heaven and earth, and that Moses created all creatures when he began to describe the creation of heaven and earth. If you want to take one, you must take the other. If then you would prove your creation of a new world by deed, I will also believe that you, or another seedling, can claim and bring the body of the Lord into the sacrament.

Gemser. But what did Paul do with the word of the Lord?

Peter. Much good; for he reminds us of the time of Christ's passion, the skill and manner in which we should eat the Lord's bread.

Gemser. Explain yourself!

Peter. For the sake of time, we are not to eat the Lord's bread as swine, for when he gave us bread in remembrance of him, it was the night in which he was innocently betrayed on our account; therefore it is right that we should stand in the bitterness of our lives when we eat his bread. Because of the suffering, it is evident that we contemplate the greatness and atrocity of our sins, and Christ's exuberant obedience and fervent love. The way stands in the remembrance and proclamation of Christ's death, as much has been said;

3) "more sinful" is probably meant to be as much as: sinking.

This is the reason why Christ pointed to his body and said, "The body is given for you; before there was none given, neither was there any who would have been given; neither will there be any after me, for it is I, and my body is the same, and truly the body which is given for you. Whosoever therefore shall take and eat the bread of the Lord, considering all things, hath cause enough to eat the bread of the Lord more earnestly, though it be neither holier nor better than any other bread.

Gemser. After all, Christ has blessed the bread.

Peter. So it is said: He gave thanks; hear: God, his Father. Therefore, some call the Sacrament a Eucharist, as if the Sacrament alone were a Eucharist, which follows its brain more than God's word.

Gemser. This thanksgiving was ever a real power through which Christ brought His Body into the Sacrament.

Peter. Prove it! You fled from your previous defense and now take another umbrella for yourself. If your first reason had been good, when you let yourself be heard with the word, "This is in my memory," you would have kept the place of election. But because thy foundation hath forsaken thee, and put thee to shame, thou seekest this: Christ gives thanks, but he will keep you as he did before.

Gemser. I have three kinds of ground or sword; when one ground sinks, I flee to the other. Is it not delicious, when I slay one sword, that I catch another 1) and protect myself?

Peter. This is a sure sign that the sunk foundation and the broken sword have not become firm and strong. But he who fights with truth has the very best foundation and the very strongest sword, since truth is the very strongest.

Gemser. I don't care much about protecting myself and barking back at you.

Peter. [Thus you are a born sophist, a deceiver, a deceiver. You should, however, according to your fame, force your cause, coerce your enemies, press them, frighten them and see them with power, and shut their mouths with truths, so that they could not contradict you.

Gemser. My reasons have good appearances.

Peter. You should not only have appearance, but also truth. Now put forth your appearance, and let us see how bright and light your appearance is.

Gemser. One is this: Jesus took the

1) In the original: Herwische.

Brod, and blessed's. The other: This is my body, which is given for you. The third: This do in my remembrance.

Peter. It still seems so far and so dark that I cannot see that one serves the priests for these reasons.

Gemser. You have stupid eyes.

Peter. If you have sharp eyes, lead me into your supposed light. But I fear that you have such sharp eyes that they see with great sharpness that there is nothing there.

Gemser. Jesus took the bread, and blessed it or thanked God.

Peter. Will you hold the Blessing and Thanksgiving for One Thing?

Gemser. Yes. For one evangelist wrote the word bless right at the end when the other wrote the word give thanks.

Peter. But show your semblance that Christ has made Himself into the Sacrament through His blessing, and that you priests can bring His Body and Blood into the Sacrament through Christ's blessing?

Gemser. This is so clear that [it] needs no proof.

Peter. But it is so dark to me that I can't believe anything the priests say.

Gemser. You show that [there is] darkness!

Peter. You have made yourself famous of the light and are not able to show it. Therefore, I am not guilty of showing the darkness. He who is famous of light or appearance must prove his cause with writings or witnesses.

Gemser. Christ gave thanks, and by the same words of thanksgiving He brought Himself into the Sacrament.

Peter. Since you talk so much about thanksgiving, I ask you what Christ said when he gave thanks? When Christ raised Lazarum, he also gave thanks to God, and the form of thanksgiving is included in the same history. But I know neither the manner nor the form of this thanksgiving; but if you know the form, then tell it!

Gemser. I have never heard of it all my life, nor have I paid any attention to it, nor have I asked about it.

Peter. So you boast that you do not understand. It must be necessary for you to know the words of thanksgiving that Christ used when you pretend that through the thanksgiving of Christ you can bring the Body and Blood of Christ into your Sacrament.

Gemser. Do you have more faults with me?

Peter. Much.

Gemser. Pour out!

Peter. If Christ brought Himself into the bread or into the cup by the blessing that you help yourselves, it would follow that Christ would have been in your sacrament before, because He spoke these words: This is my body etc., and that these words: This is my body, do not serve that you bring Christ into the sacrament.

Gemser. More here!

Peter. If Christ had come into the sacrament, he would have left his place where he was sitting; for Christ always left his former place when he came or went to a new place, as the Scriptures show, John 6:1, 3, 15, 17, 19, 25. Item, when Christ went up the mountain, he left the valley. When Christ also ascended into heaven, he left this world, speaking bodily. Is it not written: I will go from you and come to you again? [John 16:16, 22.]

Gemser. All this is true naturaliter, but sacramentaliter and supernaturaliter it is true that Christ is at the same time in many ends.

Peter. Do you also have a reason for this in Scripture?

Gemser. No.

Peter. You are a liar like that.

Gemser. So the whole bunch has to lie.

Peter. This is possible and human. 3 Mos. 4, 13. 2Mos. 19, 8. 1)

Gemser. Have you poured out your opinion completely?

Peter. No; I keep something in the barrel and in stock. But there is one thing I will not say to you, that this is a sandy reason, when the priests say that the words of benediction or thanksgiving, which they do not know, are so powerful that they could drive Christ into their sacrament. For if their speech existed, it would also have to exist and be that the priests of the old law would also have brought their bodies into the food and drink, yes, even into the people, which they blessed. In sum, it should follow that you priests and monks bring your bodies into your food and drink when you bless your food and drink or read the Benedicite, and that you yourselves and your guests eat your body and your flesh and blood; that you should also bring yourselves sacramentally into the food that you receive blessed or with thanksgiving. For Paul immediately uses the word Eucharist 1 Tim. 4, 3, when he speaks of the common custom of all kinds of food. So you see that your first light and reason is a dark lantern.

1) Instead of this last passage, which would not puff, it should perhaps read: 4 Mos. 15, 24.

and a sand drive, 2) to you who misuse the bright Scriptures.

Gemser. So the other reason will serve me: This is my body etc.

Peter. Little; yes, nothing.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. You priests say that Christ is in the bread, or under the bread, or in the form of the bread, therefore the words now reported do not serve you.

Gemser. It is written: This is my body etc.

Peter. Therefore it is against you. Forasmuch as it is written, This is my body, etc. this is another saying, Under this, or in the bread, is my body. So if Christ had said, Under the bread, or in the bread, is my body, you would have an appearance.

Gemser. Is it a sin that we add an "in" to it?

Peter. Truly a great sin, for God says: You shall not add to it [Deut. 4, 2]. Yes, a falsetto) The highest priest would burn you if someone falsified his bulls with such a little word and brought a different meaning into it than you bring Christ into his speech. If you priests wanted to defend your sacrament with such finances, you would have had a better reason in the words of the cup, since the words of the cup are thus: The cup, the new testament, in my blood etc. From these words you would have had a better reason to say that the cup is in the blood, and must be in the blood by virtue of the words of Christ, if you read them and said, The cup, the new testament, is in my blood. For that ye say, The body of Christ is in the bread, or in the form of the bread, is not right, because there is no "in" in the speech of the cup.

Gemser. Yes, dear, we would have hit the mark.

Peter. Not hit. You would have made a delicious mockery of the written text if you had said straight: The chalice is in the blood, which the text says, and is a new testament to it.

Gemser. What would the peasants have said? Not that: I don't see blood, in which the chalice is; the chalice I see, blood I don't see? Perhaps the peasants would have stoned us.

Peter. Ei, so no.

2) In the original: Sand Trip.

3) d. i. kalsatto - forgery. In the old edition: Falßet.

4) d. i. skirmishes.

Gemser. Ei, so yes.

Peter. I do not believe it.

Gemser. I know it for certain, for they would not have seen blood if the cup had been in it.

Peter. Can you not overstate them, and say: You must see your reason and dull your senses, and act as if you can neither see nor taste nor understand.

Gemser. You mock.

Peter. You have persuaded the laity that they taste bread and wine, and yet they cannot say that they taste bread or wine when they receive your sacrament. Likewise, you would have made them believe that your cup was in the blood, which they could not see. You speak only thus: faith comprehends all things, understands all things, and is able to do all things; therefore faith also is able to see the blood which neither angelic nor human eyes see.

Gemser. I don't know if you are mocking ours or not.

Peter. How may I?

Gemser. But how, if he straightly said: The bread is my body; as Christ said?

Peter. Christ never said that the bread is his body; nor does the Greek tongue suffer us to apply this expression "that is" to the bread as indicated above. In addition it is mocking that one wants to say: the bread is my body etc. For it would read in this way: the body of the Lord, which was to suffer and be given for us, is bread, and not a natural human body. It is not the body born of the mother Mary, but a loaf made by the baker. Moreover it is contrary to the stream of all the prophets which are written of the giving of the body of Christ, and to all the gospel and apostolic books: for this is ever true, That whosoever is not with the scripture scattereth, and is contrary to the scripture.

Gemser. So let me serve the third reason.

Peter. This one: That does in my memory?

Gemser. Yes.

Peter. I have nevertheless heard great hempputters who use these words "das thut in meinem Gedächtniß" to the sense that they want [da^mit erhalten wollen, dass die Pfaffen den Lerb und das Blut Christi in das Papistische Sacrament laden und bannen könnten.

Gemser. Who are the hemp cleaners?

Peter. Who are called Doctores; who wear round, beautiful and pointed little hats, and go about in long dresses, and stand as the bristling and

wooden hemp plasters dressed in beggar's plundery.

Gemser. Gemach!

Peter. How can I speak of them in this way? Because one of them says that the bishops consecrate priests by these words "that do in my memory"; but another one says that the priests are gazing Christ into the sacrament; the third one leads in another way.

Gemser. I mean, Christ has given us by these words "das thut" etc. Machst given us to demand his flesh and blood into the sacrament, when we read such words.

Peter. O poor blindness! Is it one thing for you to read and to do? Did Christ speak before of reading or doing? or did Christ say before what his disciples should do, before he said: this do etc.?

Gemser. What should we do?

Peter. You shall take the bread and eat it; you shall do this in remembrance of the Lord, as Paul says, "You shall proclaim the Lord's death as often as you eat the Lord's bread and drink from his cup.

Gemser. Let's continue talking about some reasons.

Peter. From which?

Gemser. From the acknowledgement.

Peter. Do you think that Christ changed his body into bread through his thanksgiving?

Gemser. Yes.

Peter. So you must also confess that Christ changed His body into the five barley loaves, because there Christ also gave thanks, or blessed, as you say, because right there is the word: He said well [beneckixit, Matth. 14, 19. Marc. 6, 41. Luc. 9, 16.].

Gemser. Stay on your track.

Peter. If the blessing or the dedication and thanksgiving of Christ was the power by which Christ put his body into bread, and the power which Christ gave to the apostles, then Christ instituted his sacrament long before the night when he was betrayed, against all the scribes and also Paul. It also follows that Christ fed many thousands with his body; that Christ also gave his flesh and blood before others, except the apostles. You would also have to admit that. Christ thrust his body into Lazarus' body when he raised him from the dead.

Gemser. You make me almost doubt.

Peter. Now suppose that Christ put his body into bread on Thursday, when you were speaking; do the priests therefore have the same power as Christ?

Gems. Equal and greater. Majora his facietis. (Jn. 14, 12.)

Peter. Now I hear that the grind-dense parsons can bring the body of Christ into their supposed shape of bread, the Christ cloth could not.

Gemser. No. Christ also changed into bread, but with a bright voice: But the priests bring Christ into bread with silent blowing.

Peter. That's good! Rhyme! Let's clear our throats so that we don't laugh ourselves to death.

Gemser. Christ ever said: This is my body.

Peter. Christ stood present and said, This is my body etc. Therefore, if a priest says, This is my body; take, eat the bread; and we eat, we eat a lousy priest. But if the priests speak of the body of Christ, and think back as Christ stood, and said of his body, that his body was the body which was promised to be given for us, they speak rightly. But he was not in the bread when they say.

Gemser. Don't the priests have a command to put Christ's body in the bread?

Peter. We read all kinds of command and many articles by which God commanded His apostles all kinds of power; but among all of them we do not find one who said that Christ gave the ministers power to put His body into the bread and His blood into the cup.

Gemser. That would be it?

Peter. I say. Yes. For Christ gave his disciples power to preach, to baptize, to cast out devils, to heal the sick, to beat the dust from their feet. To raise the dead. But among all the commands I do not see one that said: You shall, or shall bring my body in a little bread. I would like to see a letter that you ink eaters may boast and base yourselves on, that Christ commanded you to bring his body into the bread or form of the bread. Therefore I say that you have imputed this power to yourselves shamelessly, deceitfully and fraudulently.

Gemser. Shall Christ then remain forever above?

Peter. It has ever been decided by Paul above, also by us, that we no longer need the sacrament or bread of the Lord until the Lord comes. When Christ comes again from heaven, the sacrament and all external things will pass away.

Peter. If Christ enters the Sacrament secretly, he must be ashamed of his future or afraid of you.

Gemser. To us priests, Christ comes secretly.

Peter. Truly, he comes so secretly that you yourselves do not know whether he comes into the sacrament or not. For there is no priest who may receive this by his oath, that Christ came into the Sacrament at his request as great as when he hung on the cross.

Gemser. I have said masses often and much, but never felt that he was coming.

Peter. I know that.

Gemser. Wouldn't Christ secretly descend from heaven?

Peter. No.

Gemser. Bring fonts!

Peter. Two men said to the apostles: Christ will come when you saw him ascend. [Christ visibly ascended into heaven, so he must also visibly return. I will not be persuaded any more, for the apostles of the secret Advent neither hoped nor longed for their bread.

Gemser. I don't know who the two men were, so I would much rather hear Scripture.

Peter. Take Christ's word, who thus said: If they say: Here is Christ! there is Christ! (as you priests did for a long time, saying: In the host is Christ, and in that host, and in every corner is Christ); you shall not go out, nor believe. For Christ's future will not be secret, but as apparent and visible as the lightning that shines from the beginning to the end (Matth. 24, 23. 27.).

Gemser. This is what Christ said about the other Advent.

Peter. There are not more than two Advent, one in the form of the cross and suffering, all here on earth; the other in glorious form. The third you must not make up, and you cannot add one of the two to the host. Christ will hold heaven until the day when all things shall be brought to an end; as Peter said in the Histories [Cap. 3, 21.], and we have set above.

Gemser. I think it is hard for you to believe that Christ should be in many places at the same time.

Peter. No. I believe it so easily that you can bring him to many ends and put him in a time when I believe that St. Anne had five heads, and an innocent child had a beard twelve cubits long.

Gemser. Do you not believe that Christ is present in ten thousand places in an instant?

Peter. I don't really believe it. But I believe that you would gladly bring him down from heaven if he were so forgotten and came down.

Gemser. Do you also not believe that Christ stands in many ciboria at the same time?

Peter. In your prisons?

Gemser. What are you doing in prison?

Peter. You are accustomed to shut your God with many iron doors, and to set many iron bars and locks against him, so that he may not escape from you, and thereby you do great mockery and scorn and shame to Christ our Savior.

Gemser. Scornful!

Peter. You have invented a God who is not a God.

Gemser. He is Christ.

Peter. Christ is in heaven bodily; if you show Scripture that he is in your bread, I will speak differently.

Gemser. We bring him down.

Peter. O you powerless priests! Do you want to ascribe such a great power to yourselves? It belongs to a greater power to bring Christ from heaven into the sacrament, to cast out devils, than to throw great rocky mountains into the sea, which you are not able to do, I know, if you would try to cast out devils, that you would be worse off than the seven sons of Skeva the Jew got. Apost. 19, 13-16.

Gemser. What we do, we do in good opinion and in honor of Christ.

Peter. You honor Christ as a cat honors its caged mouse.

Gemser. Ei, no.

Peter. Now even if you mean all things well, to speak from human opinion, nevertheless you should leave your good opinion, if you do not know that God the Lord likes your good opinion, and should think of Peter, who had a delicious good opinion to speak humanly, because it was repugnant to him that Christ should be thus mocked and martyred; and nevertheless he had to hear this: Depart from me, you Satan! (Matth. 16, 21-23.)

Gemser. We thought it would be honest to Christ and good for us to bring Christ into the bread and keep Him in it as in a wonderful temple.

Peter. Where do you have such a noble reason?

Gemser. In the writing.

Peter. Put down the fonts!

Gemser. What shall I put here? knowest thou not that Moses God built a tabernacle, and Solomon after him God built a house?

Peter. Where is your reason for building a house of bread for Christ?

Gemser. It is arAumsutum a mmili.

Peter. You should probably with such a roll fsirniH) devastate the whole of Scripture and make the dear suffering of Christ quite invaluable.

Gemser. Is it against the Scriptures and Christ?

Peter. There is too much against the Scriptures that you have no reason for it. But it is against Christ that you priests want to make a temple for him, which human hands have wrought. Christ is the highest priest, and has entered the eternal tabernacle through One sacrifice and One death, which God's hands alone have formed, without the action of any creature. From the same temple and tabernacle, you bold men may demand Christ into a thing that is consumed by worms, by fire, by mice and sows, or by fattening pigs, as you priests are.

Gemser. Is that wrong?

Peter. What house will ye build me? shall I rest in your bread? saith Christ; have ye not devised and invented all these things? have ye not chosen such ways and abominations yourselves? Out, out, you dogslayers!

Gemser. The cup we bless is a communion of the blood of Christ. Behold, and take it into thyself that we bless the cup, and that the cup is a communion of the blood of Christ.

Peter. The benediction stands in remembrance and proclamation of the death of Christ, as Paul interprets in the following chapter, and is reported above. Otherwise, I do not know what the form of the benediction has been, and I would like to know it.

Gemser. Answer me that the chalice is a communion!

Peter. In it is the communion that no one should drink the cup of the Lord except he who understands why Christ shed his blood; and out of great love and gratitude and fervent remembrance he should drink of the cup of the Lord, which is not drunk blessedly without the communion of the Lord.

Gemser. Verba consecrationis that act and create.

Peter. Who invented them?

Gemser. Fingere licet.

Peter. Lapidare jus est. How much is the strong words?

Gemser. Five, as five wounds are; he who omits one cannot consecrate.

Peter. How much is the same in Greek? Gemser. Four.

Peter. This is not how the apostles consecrated.

Gemser. Are you surprised at this? Let us increase daily in the knowledge of Christ.

Peter. It is said that Christ spoke Jewish and Syriac mixed together; if this is true, you would hardly have two words left.

Gemser. Our power is expanded and extended.

Peter. That's what I wanted to have.

Gemser. What do you want to do? Do you want to make other words?

Peter. I know this for certain, that the body of Christ, without suffering, would have been useless to us, when Christ said: "The Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who sees Him rise, will not perish (Joh. 3, 14. 15.). Therefore, this clause "who is given for you" is as firmly attached and of equal force as this clause: this is my body. I will prove this by memory, although I do not think nor believe that such words are verba consecrationis.

Gemser. You are stiff-necked.

Peter. Against lies; but to the truth I am soft.

Gemser. Shouldn't Christ come into our Sacrament when a priest reads such words?

Peter. Should Christ then jump on any priest for his stinking breath?

Gemser. Why not?

Peter. After all, the more part of the priests is the Pharisaic generation and viper breed, to which Christ does not want to approach, nor do they have much to do with them. .

Gemser. Christ must come because of the words.

Peter. After all, the Pharisees also had God's word, and so well that Christ said: You shall hear them! (Matth. 23, 3.) Nevertheless he did not want to approach them.

Gemser. He was afraid of them.

Peter... Christ should be much more afraid now, because now the priests tear Christ with teeth, and kill him for three pennies. God says to such sinners: Why do you take my word into your mouth? (Ps. 50, 16.) Therefore it does not help you etc.

Gemser. I ever meant that Christ should go into the Sacrament.

Peter. Christ has truly troubled days, and is tossed about by priests more mockingly than a log of wood.

Gemser. You're comparing Christ to a lotter wood?

Peter. No. But I say that the lottery boys are much more skilful with their wood than the clergy with Christ; for the lottery boys abstain and remain more sober and speak their rhymes well. But the priests stink early of wine or beer, as a jug of vinegar stinks of wine or beer, and some of them are still so full in the morning that they can neither bear their heads, nor stir their tongues properly, and slur their words, and do not read. Some sleep under the still mass, as one did, who fell asleep and stood in a dream and said, To me! for he dreamed that he sat in the wine cellar. But another stood in the still mass in his dream and said: Shuffle the cards. Now see if the lottery wood is not better handled by the lottery boys than the words of Christ by the priests! But who can believe that such a wine bottle can bring Christ into the Sacrament? But if Christ is in their power, his cause is worse than the lottery wood's nature.

Gemser. I myself do not believe that Christ has fellowship with such priests.

Peter. Why do you call us poor peasants to fall down and beat our chests when you drunkards 1) pick up your idol bread?

Gemser. Decide!

Peter. You priests have printed Christ's blasphemous image on your bread with a branding iron that stains all consciences, and God considers all images an abomination and hastes and scorns them; therefore I do not believe, even for this reason, that you are able to change Christ into your sacrament. For he ever did his Father's will here; should Christ now be contrary to the same will? I do not believe it at all. Your bread is idol bread, an abominable and rejected bread.

Gemser. Gemach!

Peter. The image also makes the simple think that Christ has turned into the image, and that Christ's feet are where the image's feet are; Christ's head where the image's head is. Some think that the priests spill Christ's stomach when they turn the image upside down, and so on.

Gemser. We know that images are nothing.

Peter. We also know that they are less than dirt, and ropes laid to the fall.

Gemser. How will it be if we need bread that is not idolatrous [i.e., not marked with a picture 5]?

1) In the original: drunkards.

Peter. Yet you are not able to bring Christ into it and walk in it. For a short time I ask you whether you are able to bring the mortal body of Christ into the sacrament or the glorious and immortal one.

Gemser. Your question is a noose, accused to the train and entanglement.

Peter. But you owe me an answer.

Gemser. Christ is in the Sacrament with his immortal and glorious body.

Peter. Why?

Gemser. Christ died once, will die no more; as Paul teaches to the Romans (Cap. 6, 9. 10.) and the stories of the apostles (Cap. 13, 34.).

Peter. You are a brave Paulensis.

Gemser. That's me.

Peter. But you know little of his teaching.

Gemser. More, because the whole world.

Peter. Are you so learned and do not know that Paul says: The Lord took the bread etc. and said: This is my body, which is given for you? The mortal body was given into the hands of the Jews and Gentiles to be strangled, and not the immortal.

Gemser. Yes, this is true, when Christ transformed Himself into the Sacrament.

Peter. It is true before noon if you are sober, after noon it is a dream if you are full.

Gemser. What are you mocking?

Peter. Can you bring another body of Christ into the sacrament, which Christ should have brought in?

Gemser. No, but with a different shape and form.

Peter. In which?

Gemser. Christ brought Himself into the bread with a poor form and with the form of a servant. But I and my like bring Christ into the sacrament with a glorious form.

Peter. Where do you have a reason for that?

Gemser. Reason or no reason, so it is. He who does not accept my word will not be saved.

Peter. No. You wouldn't lure me to your cob with such a pipe. The devil take your words in all pieces!

Gemser. How else could we defend verba consecrationis?

Peter. I am also afraid that you have nothing to do with it.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. If your verda consecrrationis are right, they have this meaning: this is my body, which is given for you, that is, which is taken away and given to you.

will die at the hands of the wicked; but they do not serve you for your delusion.

Gemser. Therefore, we have only five words, which we call verba consecrationis.

Peter. Count them!

Gemser. Hoc, est, enim, corpus, meum. [For, this, is, my, body.]

Peter. You leave out the pinned words: Who is given for you.

Gemser. Of course, so that we insist.

Peter. As butter in the sun, and a thief on the gallows.

Gemser. Not so evil!

Peter. A thousand times more annoying.

Gemser. Why?

Peter. Therefore, that you interpret Christ's word differently than he does.

Gemser. Prove it!

Peter. Easily. Christ says: it is the body in the form and shape that could and would suffer; you reverse that and say: it is the body that could not suffer.

Gemser. What causes you to bet so firmly against me?

Peter. Truth and justice of God.

Gemser. If I want to hear it from you!

Peter. Christ wanted to redeem us and lead us out of the devil's kingdom and power, as out of Egvpten, into God's kingdom and power. But Christ could not end that, because by his death, as God had decreed. He had to fulfill the figure of the Paschal Lamb and stretch out his hand to the wood.

Gemser. Talk more!

Peter. Christ had to make us, who accept him, righteous from our sins with his righteousness; but he had to accomplish this by dying.

Gemser. What is the same justice?

Peter. Obedience to death.

Gemser. Would you have writings?

Peter. Through the obedience of one man many men have been justified. (Rom. 5, 19.) But Christ showed obedience with his shameful death, when he was obedient unto death, the death of the cross (Phil. 2, 8.).

Gemser. Do we not have this righteousness through the resurrection?

Peter. No. We have the righteousness of our death through the death of Christ, and not through the resurrection.

Gemser. It is written: Christ arose for our righteousness' sake. (Rom. 4, 25.)

Peter. This is the justice of the Auf-

The first resurrection of the spirit, which only has its beginning here and will burst forth after the end of death. The righteousness of death precedes, the other follows.

Gemser. You should sheerly pull me into your orbit.

Peter. If Christ has been transfigured 1) and immortalized in the sacrament, and has come into it by virtue of his words, then we do not have the first righteousness. But he that hath not the first, hath not the other, and shall be false, that his body is given for us. But if Christ's mortal body was in the sacrament, you cannot, by virtue of the words of Christ which he spoke, bring his body into the bread in any other form or shape than he brought himself into it. Thus you must say that Christ's mortal body is in your sacrament, and that Christ dies every day when you offer him, which is contrary to God's truth.

Gemser. I soon saw these snares and realized that you would see me before I would answer you. If I say: Christ's mortal body is in the sacrament, then you witness and see me, and say: Christ is still mortal. But if I say: Christ immortal body is in the sacrament, it follows that we have no verba oov86orationi8, and that our foundation falls, on which we built. Therefore, I do not know what to say.

Peter. Confess the truth and say: Christ's body is not in the bread, nor is his blood in the cup. But we are to eat the bread of the Lord in remembrance or knowledge of his body, which he gave into the hands of the unrighteous for us; and to drink of the cup in knowledge of his blood, which Christ poured out for us; and, in sum, to eat and drink in knowledge of the death of Christ.

Gemser. If I could escape the noose held in front of me!

Peter. Good.

Gemser. But how?

Peter. Christ did not speak of the resurrection when he gave his bread and cup; therefore it is not necessary for the recipients to be concerned with the resurrection. Christ will drink and give us a new and different cup when he brings his resurrection to full fruition in us.

1) In the old edition: declared.

and the bread and wine of death will cease. Therefore Paul said (1 Cor. 11, 26.): You should proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes; as if he said: When he comes, your dying with Christ will have its end. But now, before we sufficiently die to our strength, as often as we want to eat the bread of the Lord and drink from his cup, so often we must confess the death of the Lord with heart and mouth; 2) that is, we must also feel the death of Christ in us, and feel the righteousness of Christ, not ours.

Gemser. God be praised!

Peter. God help us into the heated knowledge of the death of Christ!

Gemser. Amen.

He who can better instruct us, let him do so, and soon, for the sake of his spouse; for we are soft, willing, and eager to accept and honor God's truth, to whom be glory forever!

4) Whoever has the desire to read these matters in a straightforward manner, may read this booklet:

Whether one can prove with holy scripture that Christ is in the sacrament with body, and blood, and soul?

Item, the interpretation of the eleventh chapter 1 Cor.

Item, the interpretation of these words of Christ: This is my body, which was given for you.

Item, that the sacrament is not a sign by which men can strengthen and assure their consciences.

Item, against the old and new papist masses.

Item: the faith in the promise and sacrament, as the new papists speak, is a false faith, gives birth to sin, and does not forgive sin. In which he will also find more, and other reasons.

2) In the original: Muth.

3) "the" of us put instead of "our" in the old edition.

4) The following register of Carlstadt's writings does not originally belong to the "Gesprächbüchlein", but will have been added only in a second edition in 1525, because the writing mentioned in the second place, "the interpretation of the 11th Cap. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians" is identical with the "Schrift vom widerchristlichen Mißbrauch", No. 3 in this volume, in which (§ 6) already this "Gesprächbüchlein" is referred to.