Ubiquity

UBIQUITY.

Preliminary History (� 1).
Luther's Doctrine (� 2).
The Reformed Doctrines; Brenz (� 3).
Chemnitz (� 4).
Formula of Concord (� 5).
The Two Schools (� 6).

1. Preliminary History.

Ubiquity is the term applied to the non-spatial ("repletive") omnipresence of the body of Christ set forth by Luther in the eucharistic controversy. All statements of the Eastern Church which apparently involve the question of ubiquity from Origen to John of Damascus affirm, on the unity of the natures, the logical, not the real, transfer of the qualities of one nature to the other, thus teaching an "exchange," or "community," of names, not an exchange of attributes. Augustine, with his local concept of the "right hand of God" as contrasted with the non-local view of John of Damascus, gained favor in the Middle Ages, and later

51
with the Reformed and with Melanchthon. He nowhere clearly expresses the realistic concept of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but confines the omnipresence to the divine nature of Christ. Scholasticism gained increasing interest in the question of omnipresence in proportion as the doctrine of the real presence gained the recognition of the Church and obtained its theory in the dogma of Transubstantiation. Here Augustine remained the prime authority, and Hugo of St. Victor held that "Christ is humanly in heaven, divinely everywhere." Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas followed John of Damascus, in distinguishing between Christ as totus and totum, Christ being omnipresent in the former case in virtue of the unity of his person, but not in the latter as conception of both natures. Thus the omnipresence of the body was rejected. According to the anhypostasis of Leontius the Logos is essentially the person of Christ; deity follows humanity everywhere, but not vice versa. Radbertus taught that in each case the body was created anew from the bread by a special miracle. Arno of Reichersberg taught "a special power of Christ of being bodily present wherever he wished," not exercised until after death; and in like manner Peter Lombard taught the presence in one place of the exalted body of Christ, omnipresence of his divinity, and multipresence of his sacramental body. This remained, in all essentials, the teaching of scholasticism. The difficult problem now arose of explaining how the circumscribed celestial body of Christ, with its attributes of quantity and dimension, could replace the bread in the host. Albert the Great (see Albertus Magnus), distinguishing between a natural and a spiritual body, held that "the glorious body" of Christ was present in the host "in the fashion of the spiritual body." This, however, combined with the subintration theory (see Transubstantiation, II., § 4), rendered uncertain not only the spatiality but also the actuality of the body of Christ in the host. Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas accordingly sought to prove "the dimensive quantity of Christ's body" in the host, and to unite their teaching with the theory later taught by William of Occam as "definitive existence," namely, "whenever anything is in place so that the whole is in the whole and in any part whatsoever." The theory of Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas, however, was self-contradictory in that the portion present in the host was conceived as at once quantitative and non-quantitative. Occam resolved this realistic doctrine of space and quantity critically. To him quantity was something substantial involving "circumscribed existence." "Definitive existence" (ut sup.) pertains only to non-quantitative things. The body of Christ in the host must, therefore, be conceived as non-quantitative, thus returning to the original position of scholasticism, except that the theory of subintration was replaced by a sort of condensation hypothesis, whereby, through divine omnipotence, a substance might be reduced to the mathematical non-extensibility of a point. But Occam proceeded still further, dialectically postulating, at least, the possibility of the "repletive existence" (and thus of the ubiquity) of the body of Christ. He accordingly taught, (1) the actual "repletive existence" of God; (2) the local presence of the body of Christ in heaven; (3) the non-quantitative, definitive presence in many places of the body of Christ in the host; and the possibility of the ubiquity of this body in the universe.

2. Luther's Doctrine.

On this dialectic straining of the doctrine of the ubiquity of the body of Christ Luther based his doctrine. Luther's original eucharistic theory was based entirely on opposition to the Roman Catholic opus operatum. The essential part of the Eucharist was held to be the word, faith being the right disposition. Luther affirmed his belief in the real presence and transubstantiation in 1519, but within a year he had replaced the latter by the teaching of the consubstantiation (of Occam), postulating, without any attempt at explanation, the substantial coexistence of the bread and the body of Christ in the Eucharist. When, however, Johann Carlstadt and Zwingli denied the real presence, Luther proceeded further than Occam; and in Wider die himmlischen Propheten von den Bildern und Sakramenten, in reply to Carlstadt, he set forth the initial statement of the synecdochical theory of the real presence, and the first intimations of the doctrine of ubiquity. Luther maintained that the "this" of the words of institution implied the presence of the body already in the unbroken bread. When Christ says, "This is my body," he takes the "whole" (bread and body) "for the part" (body); this is the synecdoche of Luther, later modified by Melanchthon. Luther introduced his teaching on ubiquity in his Sermon vom Sakrament des Leibes (Wittenberg, 1526), and developed it in his polemics against Zwingli and Œcolampadius. Dass diese Worte (das ist mein Leib) noch fesfstehen (1527), and Bekenntnis vom Abendmahl (1528). Maintaining the real presence as an immutable article of faith established by the Scriptures, Luther sought with equal zeal to defend the doctrine of the true reality of the body as well as to dispel all gross notions. He teaches that the body of Christ is exceptional and supernatural, different from ordinary human flesh and blood; that his flesh is born of the spirit, of a spiritual nature, and fit for spiritual food; and that the attributes of magnitude and extension do not apply to his body. Two deductions were then drawn: all things being present and permeable to Christ, he can enter and pass through them, being as energy without matter (as proved by the sealed tomb and the closed door), and the entire body of Christ may be in the smallest atom, though not circumscribed by it. This mode of "definitive existence" explains, however, only how it is possible for a corporeal being to be present in material substances without changing itself or them. For an answer to the further problem, how the body of Christ can be present simultaneously in heaven and in the host in countless celebrations of the Lord's Supper, recourse becomes necessary to the omnipotence of God, and Luther returns to the doctrine of the presence in an indefinite number of localities according to his will (Arno) taught by scholasticism. He continually emphasizes the necessity

52
of the belief that with God all things are possible, and that, therefore, the heavenly body of Christ is miraculously present in the host. Such is wrought by the creative word and the command of God. Although satisfied that "definitive existence" and presence in as many places as Christ willed to be were sufficient to faith in view of the omnipotence of God, he brought still higher arguments to bear against his opponents, developing the one into "repletive existence," and the other into omnipresence. This was done by the symbolic interpretation of the "right hand of God" and by the logical consequences of the Communicatio idiomatum. Definitive existence and multipresence pertain, through divine omnipotence, also to angels and demons. The body of Christ, however, possesses a far higher supernatural character, especially as he was at once God and man. Luther then affirmed that "the right hand of God" everywhere followed the divine omnipotence, and he deduced that Christ's body was at the same time at the right hand of God, and in the Eucharist by his syllogism: The body of Christ is at the right hand of God; the right hand of God is everywhere; therefore the body of Christ is in the bread. The same conclusion he reaches also by his Christology, as is fully set forth in his larger Bekenntnis. Accordingly, the two natures of Christ in one person demand the participation of the exalted humanity of Christ in the omnipresence of God. Luther now sought to complete his demonstration of ubiquity by developing the communicatio idiomatum from the premise of personal union. That the real presence in the host naturally follows repletive existence is self-evident, but proved too much; for it imperiled the unique sacramental presence, making it superfluous. To avert this Luther asserted that the sacramental, distinct from the ubiquitous, presence was such only by the word of God, whereby he binds himself to the bread for the reception of the communicant. This was a recourse to a particular act of the divine will or a retreat to a multiple presence subject to Christ's will. Luther's doctrine of ubiquity remains important only for Christology. There are, then, according to Luther, three demonstrable ways in which the humanity of Christ may anywhere be present: "circumscriptive or local existence," as it was on earth; "definitive existence," as it was during the resurrection through the sealed tombstone, and afterward through the closed door, and as it is also in the host; and "repletive existence," as the humanity is, in virtue of its personal union with God and exaltation to his right hand, everywhere and nowhere, also in the communion substances, yet in itself inapprehensible and inactive (wirkungslos). Luther did not restrict the body of Christ or the omnipotence of God to these three modes of being, but merely emphasized the ways human thought can and must establish the doctrine in accordance with faith and the Bible. Though transcending reason, if not contrary to it, yet here is primarily a matter of faith in the miracles of God in nature and grace.

3. The Reformed Doctrines; Brenz.

Zwingli, on the grounds of humanistic and rationalistic criticism, denied ubiquity and the real presence, and opposed the communicatio idiomatum with the disparity of the mode of existence of the two natures, maintaining the presence of Christ to be circumscriptive and local in heaven. Calvin advanced to the doctrine that the predicates of redemptive activity apply also really to the human nature of Christ, but recoiled from the doctrine of ubiquity. He held that the redemptive powers of the passion and resurrection of Christ are really imparted through the symbols of bread and wine. The believer receives, not the substance, but "the communion of the body of Christ" (I Cor. x. 16), mediated by the Holy Ghost. Melanchthon at first adhered to Luther's concept of the real presence, but always remained skeptical regarding the doctrine of ubiquity. The real presence he desired to see established on mandatory, not magical, grounds. His loyalty to the doctrine is shown by his stanch defense at the Marburg Conference (1529), as well as in art. 10 of the Augsburg Confession (1530-31). But after his dialogue with Œcolampadius he inclined more and more to restrict this presence to Christ as God. As early as 1535, in a letter to Johann Brenz, he adopted the figurative exegesis of the "is" in the words of institution, and he finally came absolutely to deny the doctrine of ubiquity, coming to prefer the "communion of the body of Christ" as the membership of the faithful in the body of Christ, later emphasized by Calvin. His increasing hostility to ubiquity led to the local view of "the right hand of God"; and the eucharistic presence of Christ was to him his "power in the believing." Melanchthon thus stood much closer to Calvin than to Luther. However favorable the prospects for Protestantism, they were definitely destroyed by the Stuttgart Synod in 1559, when the confession drawn up by Brenz, and adopted, fastened the tenet of ubiquity as a symbol upon the church in Württemberg. The result was that in the bitter polemics with Heinrich Bullinger and Pietro Martire Vermigli , Brenz in a series of writings erected on the basis of Luther's arguments an imposing Cbristological system. In his De majestate Domini nostri (1562) he re-affirms the two natures in one person upon the broader basis of the incarnation of the Son of God, and consequently the deification of the Son of man. This afforded a double point of departure for the demonstration of ubiquity: "the personal union," and the "deification." The first, which is indissoluble and effected by divine omnipotence, does not involve a mutation of humanity into deity nor a duplication of persons; it is the immediate ground of the communicatio idiomatum, which is not an interchange of specific properties in name only but in fact. To save the human nature from total elimination Brenz drew a distinction between essential and separable, accidental qualities. Deity being without accidental properties, humanity is composite with a constant substance but with such accidents as suffering, mortality, and locality, which may be discarded and replaced by hyperphysical qualities, as accidental accessories, however. Brenz's weakness consisted in reducing local existence to an accident or negligible quantity, when it was the brunt of his contention. As to the second basis,

53
the exaltation, Brenz argues the "assumption of humanity into deity," and the infinite domination of the latter. The incarnation is really deification, which transpired in utero; then was Christ raised to the right hand of God and to full divine majesty, as Lord of all creatures. The human nature is only passively endowed with this power through the grace of the hypostatic union. There is, therefore, a threefold ascension: at the instant of the incarnation, immediately after the resurrection, and, finally, a merely spectacular one. In the state of exinanition Christ lived, during his earthly period, a twofold existence; a divine-human in heaven dominated by his deity, and a human-divine on earth, dominated by his humanity. The "repletive existence," by virtue of the exaltation at the incarnation, is the real state also of his humanity, only temporarily interrupted or rather attended by the "circumscriptive existence." The "inanition," therefore, postulates only a figurative mode of existence of the man Christ; there was only a "concealment," not a real "kenosis of the function" of the divine properties. Nevertheless, deity was, in an indefinable manner, involved in the process by the communicatio idiomatum. God, although impassible, so appropriated the suffering and death of Christ, or was affected by the same, through the hypostatical union, as though he himself suffered and died. But to take part in suffering and mortality and be impassible at once is a contradiction; so is also an indissoluble union in one person of deity and humanity, both dwelling in bliss and reigning over all the world, and at the same time suffering, dying, and rising again on earth; or, that the man Christ was at once alive and dead. The communicatio proved incapable of logical conclusion. On the other hand, the humanity was imperiled, inasmuch as the man Jesus, invisible by his exaltation, i.e., incarnation, was only in loco subject to his condescension. With the proof of ubiquity, the real presence was also established for Brenz. The Maulbronn Conference of 1564 served to reveal the weakness of the Christology of Brenz, yet more enfeebled by Jakob Andre�;. The doctrine prevailed in W�rttemberg for the remainder of the century.

4. Chemnitz.

Martin Chemnitz sought vainly to mediate between the Swabian followers of Brenz and the Philippists of Wittenberg, who rejected ubiquity and the "scholastic disputations" over the real presence. His teachings, however, remained a mass of disparate elements of both factions (De duabus naturis in Christo, 1571). Like Melanchthon, following Aristotle's dictum, "properties do not pass out of their subjects," he held properties to be essential, not accidental; and locality was, therefore, an essential, not accidental, property of human nature. The genus majestaticum (see Christology, VIII., 1) thus negated was by degrees regained. Although conceding that human nature can appropriate divine properties only according to the finite human capacity, in the manner of a reenforeement, yet he argued that in Christ this capacity was so augmented by the "personal union" that the humanity possessed the divine attributes not in substance but efficient power. The humanity was the automatic organ dynamically of the Logos; the humanity is permeated with deity, after the analogy of heat in the iron, by a process which he termed Perich�resis. In the humiliation, the Logos, though never wholly quiescent, retreated to a "concealment of function," and even to its "kenosis." Thus, at the same time, a compensation was rendered for the doctrine of inherent ubiquity, which as an intrinsic possession of the humanity was positively declined, and then regained as a sort of potential ubiquitous presence. This was in conflict with his other assertion of the hypostatic union according to which the humanity embracing all creatures is ever present in the Logos. Chemnitz loses himself, therefore, in distraction between an a priori ubiquity and an a posteriori potential multipresence, and in conflict with his Aristotelian dictum as premise. The logical result of his theories was that the humanity of Jesus was at once essentially circumscribed and potentially omnipresent.

5. Formula of Concord.

The Formula of Concord presented a loose and incongruous combination of the views of Luther and Brenz and those of Chemnitz. Directly, it may be said, the potential ubiquitous presence is taught by the admission of the views of Chemnitz just mentioned seriatim. While the full possession of the divine majesty is ascribed to the humanity, omnipresence is never mentioned as one of its attributes, being assumed as implied in omnipotence; and the "repletive existence" is never expressly asserted of the humanity. Indirectly is taught the essential ubiquity of the body of Christ, by the adoption of large citations from Luther's eucharistic writings, not excluding the statements on ubiquity and the "repletive existence," particularly by falling back on Luther's idea of the "right hand of God" for a figure of the divine majesty. Moreover, the realistic communicatio idiomatum, as the basis of all Christology, was so carried through with strong emphasis on the integrity of the natures and their properties, the non-receptivity of the divine nature for human properties, and the separation of the two states, that the moderated views of Brenz as promulgated by Andrea and the advanced Melanchthonism of Chemnitz could both accept it.

6. The Two Schools.

The inconclusiveness of the Formula proved itself in the reservation entered by Chemnitz with his signature, and the mutual efforts to advance the doctrine of ubiquity to the front on the part of the two Swabians, Leonhard Hutter, who essentially reproduced the views of Brenz; and Aegidius Hunnius, who, following Chemnitz (and perhaps even Luther), maintained an immanent universal presence of the humanity in the Logos, or a passive omnipresence. At the same time, he advanced be yond Chemnitz by raising the "internal presence," latent during Christ's humiliation, to an "external omnipresence" through his exaltation, alongside of which, however, was maintained the continuous spatial presence of the body of Christ in heaven, thus making permanent the dualism of the human existence of Christ which Luther and Brenz had restricted to his humiliation. Thus the doctrine of ubiquity had attained to recognition, and only its

54
closer definition was left to theology. Henceforth, the doctrine was a factor in the kenotic controversies (see Kenosis; Christology). Like Chemnitz and Hunnius, the Giessen theologians taught, beside potential possession, the "kenosis of the use" of the divine properties on the part of the humanity and the "immanent presence," in Christ's humiliation, thus reserving the omnipresence of his humanity for his exaltation. The Tübingen theologians, on the other hand, logically maintaining the communicatio idiomatum even during the humiliation, granted merely a "concealment of the use" of the divine properties, asserting also for the humanity in the state of humiliation an omnipresence merely dissimulated. A "kenosis of function" is conceded only of the high-priestly functions of Jesus with reference to omnipotence. Thus, however, the humanity of Christ was imperiled. These two types continued to exist side by side, in modified forms, for Lutheran theology, with the former generally in the ascendancy. The rise of Pietism and rationalism retired Christological speculation to the background, and the Lutheran theology of the nineteenth century had scant interest in ubiquity.

A. W. Hunzinger.

Bibliography: The subject is to be pursued in the histories of doctrine, such as Harnack, Dogma, vi. 239, vii. 243, 262 sqq.; F. A. Loots, Halle, 1908; and R. Seeberg, 2d ed., Leipsic, 1908; in the works on the history of Protestant theology, ouch as W. Gals, 4 vols., Berlin, 1854-1867; and G. W. Frank, 4 vols., Leipsic, 1882-1905; in the works on systematic theology, e.g., C. Hodge, ii. 408 sqq., iii. 670 sqq., 3 vols., New York, 1871-72; and W. G. T. Shedd, ii. 323-327, New York, 1889; and in those on Christology, e.g., I. A. Dorner, Person Christi, vol. ii., Berlin, 1854, Eng. transl., vol. iv., 5 vols., Edinburgh, 1861-63. Recourse should be had also to the articles mentioned in the text and the literature under them, such as Christology; Eucharist; Transubstantiation; and the like; under Lord's Supper to the works by J. H. A. Ebrard, Frankfort, 1845-46; K. F. A. Kahnis, Leipsic, 1851; A. W. Dieckhoff, Göttingen, 1854; and H. Schmid, Leipsic, 1888. Consult further: F. C. Baur, Die Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit and Menschwerdung Gottes, vol. iii., Tübingen, 1843; M. Schneckenburger, Zur kirchLichen. Christologie, Pforzheim, 1848; idem, Darstellung des Zutherischen and rejormirten Lehrbegriffs, Stuttgart, 1855; H. Heppe, Geschichte der deutschen Protestanten .

1666-81, 4 vols., Marburg, 1855-59; A. Schweizer, Die protestantischen Centraldogmen in ihrer EntwickeLung in der reformirten Kirche, 2 vols., Zurich, 1854-56; F. H. R. Frank, TheoLoyie der Concordienformel, 4 parts, Erlangen, 1858-64; G. Plitt, Einleitung in die Augustana, 2 parts, Erlangen, 1867-68; R. D. Hitchcock, in Journal of Christian Philosophy, ii (1883), 381 sqq.; K. G. Gotz, Die Abendmahlsfrage in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung, Leipsic, 1904; J. Köstlin, Luthers Theologie, 2d ed., 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1902; T. M. Lindsay, Hist. of the Reformation, pp 4, 7, 57, 412-413, New York, 1907; Schaff, Christian Church, vi. 62526, 628.