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Abstract

The Elements of the Eucharist and their Imagery

by Leif Kallesen

This paper is concerned with an aspect of the problem of Grundtvig’s doctrine of the relationship between spirit and flesh. The inquiry seeks to prove how, by applying his original imagery to the elements of the Eucharist, Grundtvig overcame the alternative interpretations of the Eucharist, which were wellknown from the history of dogmatics, that is - the realistic (the bread and wine are really Christ’s body and blood) and the symbolic (the elements symbolize the substance of the sacrament). This alternative goes back to the primitive Church, when Irenaeus represented the realistic interpretation and Origen the symbolic. Grundtvig knew both these interpretations and their primitive representatives, and this paper seeks to show how Grundtvig manages to rise above both sides and create his own doctrine of the Eucharist, containing the positive points of both Irenaeus and Origen. Thus Grundtvig agrees with Origen on the unique action of the Word, and from Irenaeus he has learnt to consider the visible and bodily as God’s own and blessed creation. The means to avoid both a symbolic view of the Eucharist, which in itself denies the reality of the created, and a realistic interpretation of the elements, which involuntarily ascribes a sacramental status and supernatural powers to the bread and wine, is Grundtvig’s independent imagery, which is legitimized by and justified by the theology of the Creation. The flesh is a true image of the spiritual and invisible because it is created by an everlasting and invisible God; but the bread and wine are not thereby made spiritual, and therefore they cannot have a spiritual and everlasting effect. Not until God’s Kingdom breaks out visibly will the flesh and the spirit coalesce, and then the bread and wine will realise what previously only the Word could achieve. This view of the final and definitive uniting of spirit and body gives rise to poetic utterances which remind one very much of the forms of expression connected with the realistic interpretation of the elements. In his poetry Grundtvig anticipates the definitive coalescence of spirit and body to such a degree that he can speak of bread and wine as if they already were spiritual, speak of what they will become, and of what the Word alone is up to that point, that is, the nourishment for eternal life. But the prerequisite for these apparently realistic utterances is always an imagery that sees our daily bread as a true image of the bread of life.