Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/150

100 a sermon which exhorted to prayer for those about to be ordained.

With the exception of a report of an ordination which we know through the Table-talk and a Latin formula for those unversed in German, we now possess five forms for the order of ordination that date back to the time until 1539. One of these, obligatory for use in Wittenberg since 1539, was recast by Bugenhagen after his return from Denmark by using an existing sketch. Did the other four have their origin in Luther? Drews believed that he certainly had traced one to Luther, which he published as "the oldest formula for ordination in the Lutheran Church," in the 38th volume of the Weimar Luther Edition (p. 401 ff.). But later Vetter contended that this formula could by no means be considered the oldest, and that it does not date back to Luther. On the contrary, it may be that the formula C — taken back by the preachers of Kulmbach, Schnabel and Eberhard, from Wittenberg to their home in 1538 — and that the formula F — in the minutes of the visitators of Freiberg from the year 1538 — are the oldest that we possess and are directly traceable to Luther,80

It was a momentous event when, in 1536, the Wittenberg-Concord was established between Luther and the upper Germans, and when Luther said: "We have now heard the answer and confession that all of you believe and teach that in the Eucharist the true body and the true blood of the Lord is given and received and not only bread and wine; also that this giving and receiving takes place in reality and not in imagination; you only take offense, because the real presence is there also for the