The Social History of Communion and the Reformation of the Eucharist

Väärin koettu, eli kaukaisten vuosisatojen varoituksia kokemuksen historiasta

“…He tulkitsivat kohtaamansa oman kulttuurinsa mukaisesti. Se synnytti kokemuksia siitä, miten noidat lensivät paholaisen pitoihin, ehtoollisleivät muuttuivat lapsiksi tai vuotivat verta ja taivaankappaleet vaikuttivat maailman ja ihmisten kohtaloihin niin, että hallitsijoiden horoskooppeja pidettiin valtioiden kannalta merkittävinä (Bossy 1973, Burnett 2011Dooley 2014. ) Syntyi kokemuksia äärimmäisestä pahasta ja uhasta, ja kun niiden pohjalta toimittiin myös jatkossa, syntyi noitaoikeudenkäyntejä, pahimmillaan noitavainoja, uskonnollisia ja etnisiä vainoja, sotia ja marttyyreita.…”

Instruments of immolation: Giorgio Agamben and the Eucharistic reformations of the sixteenth century

“…It was designed for the hundreds of priests who ministered in Zurich while desiring to perform their duties more in line with evangelical teaching. This was important because the Large Council had ruled that even though no priest was obliged to say Mass, Masses still were required to be said each Sunday (Burnett 2011, 108). Eventually this meant that the traditional practice of the Mass became detached from preaching and communion services in a way that reflected the late-medieval distinction between the Mass proper and the pronaus , a preaching and communion service that did not include the Canon (108).…”

“…Luther never attempted to rewrite the Canon; he simply dropped it and emphasized the Words of Institution in his Latin form of the ritual and eventually the German Mass (Burnett 2011, 99). In both cases, he continued to refer to the service as a Mass, while Zwingli rejected the term.…”

“…This difference is significant: Luther’s reformed Mass bans the sacrifice proper to the external priesthood, while still creating a space for individuals to serve as their own priests and as their own sacrificial offerings to Christ via prayerful devotion. Sacrifice is thus rendered invisible, personal, yet still clerical (Burnett 2011, 96, 100). For Zwingli, this personal sacrifice to Christ is mediated by patriotic duty to the city-church of Zurich (Stephens 1986, 218).…”

“…Influenced by the symbolic Eucharistic theology of Coernelius Hoen, Zwingli came to deny that the sacraments imparted grace and faith to those who communicated (227–228). Nor did they represent any sort of sacramental sign to God; these “signs of duty” were directed not upward but horizontally, to one’s fellow Christians assembled at the church service (Burnett 2011, 100). This view seems to have persisted until about 1525, when Zwingli was differentiating his ecclesiology from the Anabaptists’ and his sacramental theology from Luther’s.…”