The Property of God: Luther, Calvin, and Herbert's Sacrifice Sequence

I argue here that William Empson's interpretation of George Herbert's "The Sacrifice" as well as Debora Shuger and Michael Schoenfeldt's Calvinist readings must be called into question in the light of a Christology that is distinctively Lutheran, not Calvinist. In fact, Herbert's The Temple makes central to its poetics an erotic and sacrificial exchange, evident in Martin Luther's Christology as the act of a dying God, which is subsequently developed and given form in Herbert's "The Sacrifice." This exchange transforms identity and agency by placing divine property in human hands and by making poetry an ongoing, erotic celebration of this communion. To close on a property that transforms politics, economics, and spirituality, I argue that Herbert's "Redemption" makes Luther's "communion of properties" the ultimate exchange.