A Brief and Useful Booklet on the Lord’s Supper

Before the Formula of Concord gave the Lutheran Church its confession concerning the Lord’s Supper and the person of Christ, Nicolaus Selnecker had already assembled the biblical, grammatical, Christological, and patristic arguments that would remain central to the controversy.

Originally printed at Strasbourg in 1572, A Brief and Useful Booklet on the Lord’s Supper is organized in three divisions. The first defends the proper sense of Christ’s words of institution against transubstantiation and interpretations that reduce the Sacrament to a sign of an absent reality. The second treats Christ’s true presence, the power of His institution, and the relation of Eucharistic doctrine to the personal union and communication of properties. The third distinguishes natural, sacramental, and spiritual manducation, explaining both the oral reception of Christ’s body and blood by worthy and unworthy communicants and the saving reception of Christ by faith.

Selnecker’s prayer and doxology are followed by testimonies from the ancient Church concerning Christ’s two natures, the truth of His words, participation in Him, and the gravity of unworthy reception. The booklet therefore offers a compact view of the doctrine that one of the principal authors of the Formula of Concord was teaching five years before its completion.

This edition includes an historical introduction, a note on the text and translation, the original title page and contents, explanatory footnotes, a doctrinal glossary, and a bibliography and source list.