Note 13 — Chapter XXV · THE CONTRADICTION IN THE SACRAMENTS.

But although the imaginative activity of faith makes the objective existence the mere appearance, and the emotional, imaginary existence the truth and reality; still, in itself or in truth, that which is really objective is only the natural elements. Even the host in the pyx of the Catholic priest is in itself only to faith a divine body,—this external thing, into which he transubstantiates the divine being, is only a thing of faith; for even here the body is not visible, tangible, tasteable as a body. That is: the bread is only in its significance flesh. It is true that to faith this significance has the sense of actual existence;—as, in general, in the ecstasy of fervid feeling that which signifies becomes the thing signified;—it is held not to signify, but to be flesh. But this state of being flesh is not that of real flesh; it is a state of being which is only believed in, imagined, i.e., it has only the value, the quality, of a significance, a truth conveyed in a symbol.13 A thing which has a special significance for me, is another thing in my imagination than in reality. The thing signifying is not itself that which is signified. What it is, is evident to the senses; what it signifies, is only in my feelings, conception, imagination,—is only for me, not for others, is not objectively present. So here. When therefore Zwinglius said that the Lord’s Supper has only a subjective significance, he said the same thing as his opponents; only he disturbed the illusion of the religious imagination; for that which “is” in the Lord’s Supper, is only an illusion of the imagination, but with the further illusion that it is not an illusion. Zwinglius only expressed simply, nakedly, prosaically, rationalistically, and therefore offensively, what the others declared mystically, indirectly,—inasmuch as they confessed14 that the effect of the Lord’s Supper depends only on a worthy disposition or on faith; i.e., that the bread and wine are the flesh and blood of the Lord, are the Lord himself, only for him for whom they have the supernatural significance of the divine body, for on this alone depends the worthy disposition, the religious emotion.15