Abstract
In this sophisticated and learned new book, Richard Cross sets out to correct what he takes to be anachronistic readings of Luther and the early Lutheran tradition. The foremost of these is the attribution to Luther of a strong version of the theory of the genus maiestaticum, the doctrine that Christ’s human nature receives divine attributes in the hypostatic union, resulting most notably in the omnipresence of his humanity. Cross contends that the formulation of this doctrine is due rather to the Württemberg Lutheran Johannes Brenz than to Luther himself. Cross’s argument rests primarily on a reading of the three modes of presence outlined in Luther’s Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper. The first mode is local, circumscribed presence; the second is non-local, uncircumscribed presence that nonetheless occupies a definite amount of space (the key examples being the Eucharist and the presence of a spirit in a building or a city); and the third is the repletive mode, which Cross takes to be like the second mode in every way except for its extent, which is universal. As he points out, however, medieval theologians had already held that Christ’s body was present in the Eucharist in something approaching Luther’s second mode. It would seem, then, that Luther’s innovation lay only in the amount of space that he took Christ’s body to occupy in an uncircumscribed mode, and this does not obviously amount to an acceptance of the genus maiestaticum. Cross also points to a passage in which Luther expressly denies that Christ’s body receives any kind of infinity because of its omnipresence (LW 37:232), which he takes to be a denial that its omnipresence was a divine attribute. Other apparent cases of the genus maiestaticum in Luther’s corpus (such as the communication of omnipotence and life-giving power) are, on Cross’s reading, ambiguous at best. The communication of power, for example, seems to be ‘moral and judicial, not metaphysical’ in several passages (p. 66).
Cross’s argument is strong, but there are a few exegetical matters that deserve comment. (I am grateful to Prof. Cross for discussion of the following points, though we are not in full agreement about all of them.)
First, Luther expressly states that repletive presence is a mode of presence that belongs to God alone (LW 37:216). Cross quotes the sentence immediately preceding this statement but offers no explanation of what follows. It is true that Luther must be speaking somewhat imprecisely in this passage, since he is clear elsewhere that the body of Christ is not, in any straightforward sense, God—a point on which he was followed by the even more radical Brenzians, as Cross points out. For example, in his response to Schwenckfeld, who maintained precisely that Christ was the Creator even according to his human nature, Luther says, ‘Christiani quidem loquuntur: Christum secundum humanitatem creaturam esse . . . Christus secundum divinitatem est creator’ (Die Disputation de divinitate et humanitate Christi [WA 39/II:107]). Still, this is not the same as a denial of the real communication of divine attributes to the flesh, as the case of Brenzian christology demonstrates. It is possible to affirm both that omnipresence belongs to God alone and the genus maiestaticum so long as one does not hold that the human nature possesses the ipsissima omnipresence of God in separation from God himself, that is, in a way that sharply distinguishes the possession of God’s omnipresence from the possession (as it were) of God himself. And the denial of such a distinction seems to be very much in Luther’s mind when he grounds the omnipresence of Christ’s body in its inseparable union with the person of the Word.
Second, the passage in which Luther denies that Christ’s body is made infinite is not a denial that it receives a divine attribute. Luther, responding to an objection from Zwingli, states that Christ’s body is not made infinite because the universe itself is not infinite: ‘He [Zwingli] could easily see, if his wrath did not blind him, that this does not follow at all. If the world is not infinite in itself, how should it follow that Christ’s body is infinite if he is everywhere?’ (LW 37:232). Not only is this not a denial that Christ’s humanity receives divine attributes, but it would also seem to imply that God himself lacks the sort of infinity that Zwingli ascribes to him (which is not to say that Luther did not regard God as infinite in a different way).
Third, it is not entirely clear that Luther meant to distinguish the third mode of presence from the second only in degree. Such a position would seem to undermine the Eucharistic theology that the second mode of presence was meant to support, since it implies that Christ is no more and no differently present in the Eucharist than he is in any given place. Luther, however, gives no decisive clarification of this point. There is, of course, the fact that he attributes the third mode to God alone; and his description of repletive presence also emphasizes the simultaneity of Christ’s presence in every place. But it is not clear that either of these is theoretically decisive, especially because Luther would presumably want to say that simultaneity is involved in the second mode as well, particularly in the case of the Eucharist. But it does suggest that Luther thought that there was a difference beyond one of degree, even if the distinction was still inchoate.
Despite these concerns, which I do not think are unresolvable, Cross’s argument is, on the whole, compelling. For those who remain unconvinced, it may be useful to compare Luther’s position with the doctrine of certain of his scholastic predecessors. Aquinas, for example—despite his repeated insistence that Christ’s human nature does not receive any divine attribute in the hypostatic union (e.g. ST III, q. 16, a. 5, ad 3)—argues that Christ’s soul has knowledge of all things past, present, and future in the Word. Thomas goes so far as to say that the knowledge possessed by Christ’s soul is infinite (ST III, q. 10, a. 3, co.). Thomas evidently sees Christ as sharing in what looks very much like a divine attribute without taking this to involve the real transfer of divine properties to his human nature. It is notable, moreover, that Aquinas justifies this using the very same argument by which Luther defends omnipresence throughout the Confession: the intimate and undivided union of the human nature with the Word (e.g. ST III, q. 10, a. 4, co.). Luther was not Thomas, but the comparison serves as a useful check to modern intuitions about what constitutes a real communication of divine attributes and what does not.
Cross discusses three figures who established diverging trajectories in post-Luther Lutheran christology: Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and Brenz. Although Melanchthon seems to have originated the idea of ubiquity, he came to reject it, together with the genus maiestaticum. Chemnitz accepts a highly attenuated version of the genus maiestaticum. He rejects out of hand the idea that the divine attributes are communicated to the human nature in the sense that they come to inhere in the human nature. Rather, the communication occurs by way of the divine nature’s activity. Similarly, Chemnitz does not affirm the necessary omnipresence of Christ’s body after the resurrection. Rather, ‘Christ’s body is circumscriptively present in heaven, and . . . it can be non-circumscriptively present wherever the divine person uses the human nature as an instrument’ (p. 187), as in the Eucharist. Brenz, on the other hand, unequivocally affirms the genus maiestaticum in the fuller sense that is usually attributed to Luther, together with the necessary omnipresence of Christ’s human nature. Moreover, Brenz takes the remarkable step of arguing that the union of the natures was constituted by the genus maiestaticum. For other writers, the communication of attributes is a consequence of the union. For Brenz, however, the communication of attributes is itself the way in which the natures are united; that is, the transfer of attributes is the union, and not only a result of it. (This seems to approach something like Cyril’s henôsis kata physin.)
Cross convincingly shows that the Formula of Concord can only be understood as a compromise, and a partly incoherent one, between Chemnitzian and Brenzian christologies and a rejection of the views of Melanchthon’s followers. The Epitome clearly affirms the Brenzian view of the genus maiestaticum, which is not found in the Solid Declaration, and the two parts of the Formula evince the rival views of Brenz and Chemnitz on the mode of union. Despite the tensions and even contradictions between the two parts, however, C. thinks that it is unified in several respects. For instance, both parts of the Formula affirm the actual omnipresence of Christ’s flesh, not merely the possible omnipresence that Chemnitz attributed to it.
To sum up, much of the book’s argument is compelling, and it is groundbreaking both in the fresh historical narrative that it offers and in its rigorous study of the arguments, which are expounded with Cross’s usual technical sophistication and philosophical expertise. It will prove useful and stimulating to historical and systematic theologians alike.