During the sixteenth century few areas of doctrine proved more contentious than the sacraments, especially the eucharist. In her study, Dorothea Wendebourg offers a fresh perspective on these debates by focusing on a single eucharistic motif: the notion of the lord's supper as a memorial. After sketching out the late medieval background, Wendebourg follows the treatment of this theme through the works of Erasmus, Luther, Karlstadt, Zwingli, Oecolampadius and Melanchthon. For pre-Reformation theologians such as Johannes Altenstaig and Gabriel Biel, she argues, the primary purpose of the eucharist was to make present, and to encourage devotion to, the historical passion of Christ. However, this understanding was in tension, to some extent, with their view of the mass as a sacrifice in its own right – an inconsistency that was at the root of the divergent approaches that Wendebourg identifies for the early Reformation. In his works of the early 1520s, for example, Luther equates the remembrance of Christ in the sacrament with the reception of his promise of salvation by believers, but for Erasmus it was primarily an expression of Christ's love. Later in the same decade, the designation of the lord's supper as a commemoratio provided the basis for the rejection, first by Karlstadt and then by the Swiss reformers, of the real presence. Thus Zwingli argues that the eucharistic memorial is by definition both temporally and theologically separate from Christ's sacrifice on the cross, the uniqueness of which is imperilled by any suggestion of real presence. Significantly, the commemorative aspect of the eucharist is downplayed in the later writings of Zwingli's opponent Luther, who was concerned instead to emphasise the immediacy and concreteness of Christ's presence in the sacrament; a solitary exception, noted by Wendebourg, is afforded by his Vermahnung zum Sakrament (1530), in which the eucharist is reconfigured as a rite of communal thanksgiving. According to Wendebourg, the eucharistic doctrine of the early Luther is best preserved not in his own works but in those of his colleague Philipp Melanchthon, who – while retaining a doctrine of real presence – understands the lord's supper primarily as a memoria publica, linking the Church to its historical foundations.

Whereas Wendebourg confines her attention to the first generation of reformers, Emidio Campi and Ruedi Reich focus on a subsequent development: the consolidation of the Swiss Reformed doctrine of the eucharist under the aegis of John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger. The centrepiece of their work is a meticulous critical edition (with an accompanying German translation) of the correspondence exchanged by the two theologians between June 1548 and March 1549, and of the joint statement on the sacraments, the Consensus Tigurinus, that their dialogue ultimately produced. The volume also includes modern French, Italian and English translations of the Consensus, a number of scholarly articles and nearly fifty illustrations. In his contribution, Campi provides a clear and detailed account of the agreement's genesis. While giving due weight to external factors – especially for Calvin, whose wooing of Bullinger was born in part out of a desire to resolve the persistent theological conflict between ‘Calvinist’ and ‘Zwinglian’ ministers in neighbouring Bern – Campi makes a convincing case for seeing in the Consensus not so much a political compromise as a genuine convergence of views between Zurich and Geneva. Although differences of emphasis remained, Calvin surrendered his mediating role between Swiss and German Protestantism, and a clear line was drawn between the Lutheran and Reformed positions on the sacraments. Campi's arguments are reinforced by Peter Opitz, who compares Bullinger's and Calvin's treatment of the key scriptural texts relating to the eucharist in commentaries predating the Consensus. From his analysis, Opitz concludes that the two theologians were already essentially in agreement on the main points of contention; the intensive exchange of views that preceded the Consensus had the effect primarily of clearing away misunderstandings. Other contributions discuss the document's relationship to more recent efforts to achieve unity among European Protestant Churches. Fulvio Ferrario contrasts the ecumenical methodology of the Consensus, which entailed agreement on a fixed set of doctrinal propositions, with the more flexible approach of the Leuenberg Concord (1973), in which the establishment of visible unity in worship was not predicated on the resolution of pre-existing theological differences. Eberhard Busch, on the other hand, questions the traditional characterisation of the Consensus as a self-consciously ‘Reformed’ confession, highlighting the extent to which it draws on both Lutheran and Zwinglian themes and suggesting that, in its aspirations to a broader evangelical unity, the Consensus may in fact be regarded as a precursor of the Leuenberg Concord. The remaining contributors, François Dermange and Ruedi Reich, also emphasise the continued relevance of the agreement to contemporary Reformed theology and worship. Combining as it does accessibility and scholarly rigour, this volume should act as the springboard for further investigation of a key early modern confessional text.