Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes (Volume II)
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Title: Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes (Volume II)
Author: Martin Luther
Contributor: Adolph Spaeth
Release date: January 10, 2011 [eBook #34904]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF MARTIN LUTHER, WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES (VOLUME II) ***
Produced by Michael McDermott, from scans obtained at the
Internet Archive
WORKS OF MARTIN LUTHER
WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES
VOLUME II
PHILADELPHIA
A. J. HOLMAN Company
1916
Copyright, 1915, by
A. J. HOLMAN Company
WORKS OF MARTIN LUTHER
CONTENTS
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
AND CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOODS (1519).
Introduction (J. J. Schindel)
Translation (J. J. Schindel)
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BAN (1520).
Introduction (J. J. Schindel)
Translation (J. J. Schindel)
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY (1520).
Introduction (C. M. Jacobs)
Translation (C. M. Jacobs)
THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH (1520).
Introduction (A. T. W. Steinhaeuser)
Translation (A. T. W. Steinhaeuser)
A TREATISE ON CHRISTIAN LIBERTY (1520).
Introduction (W. A. Lambert)
Translation (W. A. Lambert)
A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS,
THE CREED, AND THE LORD'S PRAYER (1520).
Introduction (C. M. Jacobs)
Translation (C. M. Jacobs)
THE EIGHT WITTENBERG SERMONS (1522).
Introduction (A. Steimle)
Translation (A. Steimle)
THAT DOCTRINES OF MEN ARE TO BE REJECTED (1522).
Introduction (W. A. Lambert)
Translation (W. A. Lambert)
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY AND TRUE BODY
OF CHRIST AND CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOODS
1519
INTRODUCTION
This treatise belongs to a series of four which appeared in the latter
half of the year 1519, the others treating of the Ban, Penance, and
Baptism. The latter two with our treatise form a trilogy which Luther
dedicates to the Duchess Margaret of Braunschweig and Luneburg.
He undertakes the work, as he says, "because there are so many
troubled and distressed ones--and I myself have had the
experience--who do not know what the holy sacraments, full of all
grace, are, nor how to use them, but, alas! presume upon quieting
their consciences with their works, instead of seeking peace in God's
grace through the holy sacrament; so completely are the holy
sacraments obscured and withdrawn from us by the teaching of men."[1]
In a letter to Spalatin[2] of December 18, 1519, he says that no one
need expect treatises from him on the other sacraments, since he
cannot acknowledge them as such.
A copy from the press of John Grunenberg of Wittenberg reached Duke
George of Saxony by December 24, 1519, who on December 27th already
entered his protest against it with the Elector Frederick and the
Bishops of Meissen and Merseburg[3]. Duke George took exception
particularly to Luther's advocacy of the two kinds in the
Communion[4]. This statement of Luther, however, was but incidental to
his broad and rich treatment of the subject of the treatise.
It was Luther's first extended statement of his view of the Lord's
Supper. As such it is very significant, not only because of what he
says, but also because of what he does not say. There is no reference
at all to that which was then distinctive of the Church's doctrine,
the sacrifice of the mass. Luther has already abandoned this position,
but is either too loyal a church-man to attack it or has not as yet
found an evangelical interpretation of the idea of sacrifice in the
mass, such as he gives us in the later treatise on the New
Testament[5]. However, already in this treatise he gives us the
antidote for the false doctrine of sacrifice in the emphasis laid upon
faith, on which all depends[6]. The object of this faith, however, is
not yet stated to be the promise of the forgiveness of sins contained
in the Words of Institution, which are a new and eternal testament[7].
The treatise shows the influence of the German mystics[8] on Luther's
thought, but much more of the Scriptures which furnish him with
argument and illustration for his mystical conceptions. Christ's
natural body is made of less importance than the spiritual body[9],
the communion of saints; just as in the later treatise on the New
Testament the stress is placed on the Words of Institution with their
promise of the forgiveness of sins. Luther does not try to explain
philosophically what is inexplicable, but is content to accept on
faith the act of the presence of Christ in the sacrament, "how and
where,--we leave to Him."[10]
Of interest is the emphasis on the spiritual body, the communion of
saints. Luther knows that although excommunication is exclusion from
external communion, it is not necessarily exclusion from real
spiritual communion with Christ and His saints[11]. No wonder, then,
that he can later treat the papal bull with so much indifference; it
cannot exclude him from the communion of saints.
The treatise consists of three main divisions: sections 1 to 3
treating of the outward sign of the sacrament; sections 4 to 16, of
the inner significance; sections 17 to 22, of faith. Added to this is
the appendix on the subject of the brotherhoods or sodalities,
associations of laymen or charitable and devotional purposes. Of these
there were many at this time, Wittenberg alone being reported as
having twenty-one. Luther objects not only to their immoral conduct,
but also to the spiritual pride which they engendered. He finds in the
communion of saints the fundamental brotherhood instituted in the holy
sacrament, the common brotherhood of all saints.
The modern world needs to have these truths driven home anew, and,
barring a few scholastic phrases here and there, cannot find them
better expressed than in the remarkably elevated and devotional
language of Luther in this treatise.
The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar
Ed., vol. ii, 742; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 28; Walch Ed., Vol. xix,
522; St. Louis Ed., xix, 426; Clemen, vol. i, 196; Berlin Ed., vol.
iii, 259.
Literature besides that mentioned:
Tschackert, _Enstehung der lutherischen und reformierten
Kirchenlehre_, 1910, pp. 174-176.
K. Thieme, _Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Sakramentslehre Luthers_,
Neueu Kirchl. Zeitschrift, XII (1901), Nos. 10 and 11.
F. Graebke, _Die Konstruktion der Abendmahlslehre Luthers in ihre
Entwicklung dargestellt_, Leipzig 1908.
J. J. SCHINDEL.
Allentown, PA.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See Clemen, 1, p. 175.
[2] Enders, II, no. 254. Smith, _Luther's Correspondence_, I, no.
206.
[3] Gess, _Akten und Briefe zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs von
Sachsen_, Leipzig, 1905.
[4] See below, p. 9.
[5] In this edition, Vol. I, pp. 294-336. See especially pp. 312 ff.
[6] See below, pp. 19, 25.
[7] _Treatise on the New Testament_, Vol. I, pp. 297 ff.
[8] See Kostlin, _Luther's Theologie_, I, 292 f.; also Hering, _Die
Mystik Luthers_, Leipzig, 1879, pp. 171-174.
[9] See below, p. 23.
[10] See below, p.20.
[11] See _Treatise concerning the Ban_, below, p. 37.
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY AND TRUE BODY
OF CHRIST AND CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOODS
1519
1. Like the sacrament of holy baptism[1] the holy sacrament of the
altar, or of the holy and true body of Christ, has three parts which
it is necessary or us to know. The first is the sacrament, or sign,
the second is the significance of this sacrament, the third is the
faith required by both of these; the three parts which must be found
in every sacrament. The sacrament must be external and visible, and
have some material form; the significance must be internal and
spiritual, within the spirit of man; faith must apply and use both
these.
[Sidenote: The First Part of the Sacrament: the Sign]
2. The sacrament, or outward sign, is in the form of bread and wine,
just as baptism has as its sign water; although the sign is not simply
the form of bread and wine, but the use of the bread and wine in
eating and drinking, just as the water of baptism is used by immersion
or by pouring. For the sacrament, or sign, must be received, or must
at least be desired, if it is to work a blessing. Although at present
the two kinds are not given the people daily, as of old,--nor is this
necessary,--yet the priesthood partakes of it daily in the sight of
the people, and it is enough that the people desire it daily and
receive one kind at the proper time, as the Christian Church ordains
and offers[2].
3. I deem it well, however, that the Church in a general council
should again decree[3] that all persons, as well as the priests, be
given both kinds. Not that one kind were insufficient, since indeed
the simple desire of faith suffices, as St. Augustine says: "Why
preparest thou stomach and teeth? Only believe and thou hast already
partaken of the sacrament";[4] but because it would be meet and right
that the form, or sign, of the sacrament be given not in part only,
but in its entirety, just as I have said of baptism[5] that it were
more fitting to immerse than to pour the water, for the sake of the
completeness and perfection of the sign. For this sacrament signifies
the complete union and the undivided fellowship of the saints, as we
shall see, and this is poorly and unfittingly indicated by only one
part of the sacrament. Nor is there as great a danger in the use of
the cup as is supposed, since the people seldom go to this sacrament,
and Christ was well aware of all future dangers[6], and yet saw it to
institute both kinds or the use of all His Christians.
[Sidenote: The Second Part of the Sacrament: the Significance]
4. The significance or purpose of this sacrament is the fellowship of
all saints, whence it derives its common name _synaxis_ or _communio_,
that is, fellowship; and _communicare_ means to take part in this
fellowship, or as we say, to go to the sacrament, because Christ and
all saints are one spiritual body, just as the inhabitants of a city
are one community and body, each citizen being a member of the other
and a member of the entire city. All the saints, therefore, are
members of Christ and of the Church, which is a spiritual and eternal
city of God, and whoever is taken into this city is said to be
received into the community of saints, and to be incorporated into
Christ's spiritual body and made a member of Him. On the other hand,
_excommunicare_ means to put out of the community and to sever a
member from this body, and that is called in our language "putting one
under the ban"; yet there is a difference, as I shall show in the
following treatise, concerning the ban[4].
To receive the bread and wine of this sacrament, then, is nothing else
than to receive a sure sign of this fellowship and incorporation with
Christ and all saints. As though a citizen were given a sign, a
document, or some other token as a proof that he is a citizen of the
city, a member of the community. Even so St. Paul says: "We are all
one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of one bread and of
one cup." [1 Cor. 10:17]
5. This fellowship is of such a nature that all the spiritual
possessions of Christ and His saints[8] are imparted and communicated
to him who receives this sacrament; again, all his sufferings and sins
are communicated to them, and thus love engenders love and unites all.
To carry out our homely figure: it is like a city where every citizen
shares with all the others the name, honor, freedom, trade, customs,
usages, help, support, protection and the like, of that city, and on
the other hand shares all the danger of fire and flood, enemies and
death, losses, imposts and the like. For he who would have part in the
common profits must also share in the losses, and ever recompense love
with love. Here we see that whoever wrongs a citizen wrongs the entire
city and all the citizens; whoever benefits one deserves favor and
thanks from all the others. So, too, in our natural body, as St. Paul
says in i Corinthians xii, where this sacrament is given a spiritual
explanation: the members have a care one or another; whether one
member suffer, all the members suffer with it; whether one member be
honored, all the members rejoice with it. [1 Cor. 12:25 f.] It is
apparent then that if any one's foot hurts him, nay, even the smallest
toe, the eye at once looks toward it, the fingers grasp it, the face
frowns, the whole body bends to it, and all are concerned with this
small member; on the other hand, if it is cared for, all the other
members rejoice. This figure must be well weighed if one wishes to
understand this sacrament; for the Scriptures employ it or the sake of
the unlearned.
6. In this sacrament, therefore, God Himself gives through the priest
a sure sign to man, to show that, in like manner, he shall be united
with Christ and His saints and have all things in common with them;
that Christ's sufferings and life shall be his own, together with the
lives and sufferings of all the saints, so that whoever does him an
injury does injury to Christ and all the saints, as He says by the
prophet, "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of My eye" [Zech.
2:8]; on the other hand, whoever does him a kindness does it to Christ
and all His saints, as He says, "What ye have done unto one of the
least of My brethren, that ye have done unto Me." [Matt. 25:40] Again,
he must be willing to share all the burdens and misfortunes of Christ
and His saints, their sorrow and joy. These two sides of the
fellowship we shall consider more fully.
7. Now, adversity assails us in more than one form. There is, in the
first place, the sin remaining in our flesh after baptism, the
inclination to anger, hatred, pride and unchastity, and so forth,
which assails us as long as we live. Against this we not only need the
help of the congregation and of Christ, in order that they may fight
with us against it, but it is also necessary that Christ and His
saints intercede or us before God, that sin may not be accounted to us
according to God's strict judgment. Therefore, in order to give us
strength and courage against these sins, God gives us this sacrament,
as though He said: "Behold, many kinds of sin assail thee; take this
sign by which I give thee My pledge that sin assails not only thee but
My Son Christ, and all His saints in heaven and on earth. Therefore,
be bold and confident; thou fightest not alone; great help and support
are round about thee." King David, also, says of this bread: "The
bread strengtheneth man's heart" [Ps. 104:15]; and the Scriptures in
other places characterize this sacrament as a strengthening. So in
Acts ix it is written of St. Paul that he was baptised and when he had
received meat, he was strengthened. [Acts 9:19] In the second place,
the evil spirit assails us unceasingly with many sins and afflictions.
In the third place, the world is full of wickedness and entices and
persecutes us and is altogether bad. Finally, our own guilty
conscience assails us with our past sins, with the fear of death, and
with the pains of hell. All of these afflictions make us weary and
weaken us, unless we seek and find strength in this fellowship.
8. If any one be in despair, if he be distressed by his sinful
conscience or terrified by death, or have any other burden on his
heart, and desire to be rid of them all, let him go joyfully to the
sacrament of the altar and lay down his grief in the midst of the
congregation and seek help from the entire company of the spiritual
body; just as when a citizen whose property has suffered injury or
misfortune at the hands of his enemies makes complaint to his town
council and fellow citizens and asks them for help. Therefore, the
immeasurable grace and mercy of God are given us in this sacrament,
that we may there lay down all misery and tribulation and put it on
the congregation, and especially on Christ, and may joyfully
strengthen and comfort ourselves and say: "Though I am a sinner and
have fallen, though this or that misfortune has befallen me, I will go
to the sacrament to receive a sign from God that I have on my side
Christ's righteousness, He and sufferings, with all holy angels and
all the blessed in heaven, and all pious men on earth. If I die, I am
not alone in death; if I suffer, they suffer with me. I have shared
all my misfortune with Christ and the saints, since I have a sure sign
of their love toward me." Lo, this is the benefit to be derived from
this sacrament, this is the use we should make of it; then the heart
cannot but rejoice and be comforted.
9. When you have partaken of this sacrament, therefore, or desire to
partake of it, you must in turn also share the misfortunes of the
congregation, as was said[9]. But what are these? Christ in heaven and
the angels together with all the saints have no misfortunes of their
own, save when injury is done to the truth and to God's Word; yea, as
we said, every bane and blessing of all the saints on earth affects
them. There your heart must go out in love and devotion and learn that
this sacrament is a sacrament of love, and that love and service are
given you and you again must render love and service to Christ and His
needy ones. You must feel with sorrow all the dishonor done to Christ
in His holy Word, all the misery of Christendom, all the unjust
suffering of the innocent, with which the world is everywhere filled
to overflowing: you must fight, work, pray, and, if you cannot do
more, have heartfelt sympathy. That is bearing in your turn the
misfortune and adversity of Christ and His saints. Here the saying of
Paul applies. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ." [Gal. 6:2] Lo, thus you uphold them all, thus they all again
in turn uphold you, and all things are in common, both good and evil.
Then all things become easy, and the evil spirit cannot prevail
against such a community. When Christ instituted the sacrament He
said: "This is My body which is given for you, this is My blood which
is shed for you; as oft as ye do this, remember Me." [Luke 22:19 f.]
As though He said: "I am the Head, I will first give Myself for you,
will make your suffering and misfortune Mine own and bear it for you,
that you in your turn may do the same or Me and for one another, have
all things in common in Me and with Me, and let this sacrament be unto
you a sure token of this all, that you may not forget Me, but daily
call to mind and admonish one another by what I have done or you and
still am doing, that you may be strengthened thereby, and also bear
with one another."
10. This is also a reason, indeed the chief reason, why this sacrament
is received many times, while baptism is administered but once.
Baptism is the beginning and entrance to a new life, in the course of
which boundless adversities assail us through sins and suffering, our
own and those of others. The devil, the world and our own flesh and
conscience, as was said[10] never cease to pursue us and oppress us.
Therefore we need the strength, support and help of Christ and of His
saints, which are pledged us in this sacrament as by a sure token, by
which we are made one with them and are incorporated with them, and
all our suffering is laid down in the midst of the congregation.
Therefore, this holy sacrament is of little or no benefit to those who
have no misfortune or anxiety or do not feel their adversity. For it
is given only to those who need strength and comfort, who have timid
hearts and terrified consciences, and who are assailed by sin, or have
even fallen into sin. What could it do or untroubled and falsely
secure spirits, which neither need nor desire it? For the Mother of
God[11] says, "He filleth only the hungry, and comforteth them that
are distressed." [Luke 1:53]
11. That the disciples, therefore, might by all means be worthy and
well prepared for this sacrament He first made them sorrowful, held
before them His departure and death, by which they were exceeding
troubled. And then He greatly terrified them when He said that one of
them should betray Him. [Matt. 25:21 ff.] When they were thus full of
sorrow and anxiety and were concerned about the sorrow and sin of
betrayal, then they were worthy, and He gave them His holy Body to
strengthen them. By which He teaches us that this sacrament is
strength and comfort for those whom sin and evil trouble and distress;
as St. Augustine also says[12], "This food demands only hungry souls
and is shunned by none so greatly as by a sated soul which does not
need it." Just as the Jews were required to eat the Passover with
bitter herbs, standing and in haste, which also signifies that this
sacrament demands souls that are desirous, needy and sorrowful. Now if
one will make the afflictions of Christ and of all Christians his own,
will defend the truth, oppose unrighteousness, help bear the need of
the innocent and the sufferings of all Christians, he will find
affliction and adversity enough, besides that which his evil nature,
the world, the devil and sin daily inflict upon him. And it is God's
will and purpose to set so many hounds upon us and drive us, and
everywhere provide us bitter herbs, that we may long for this strength
and take delight in the holy sacrament, and thus be worthy of it, that
is, desire it.
12. It is His will, then, that we partake of it frequently, in order
that we may remember Him and exercise ourselves in this fellowship
according to His example. For if His example were no longer kept
before us, the fellowship also would soon be forgotten. So we at
present see to our sorrow that many masses are held and yet the
Christian fellowship which should be preached, practiced and kept
before us by Christ's example has quite perished; so that we hardly
know what purpose this sacrament serves, or how it should be used,
nay, with our masses we frequently destroy this fellowship and pervert
everything. This is the fault of the preachers who do not preach the
Gospel nor the sacraments, but their humanly devised fables concerning
the many works[13] to be done and the ways to live aright.
But in times past this sacrament was so properly used, and the people
were taught to understand this fellowship so well, that they even
gathered material food and goods[14] in the church and there
distributed them among those who were in need, as St. Paul writes [1
Cor. 11:21]. Of this we have a relic in the word "collect,"[15] which
still remains in the mass, and means a general collection, just as a
common fund is gathered to be given to the poor. That was the time
when so many became martyrs and saints. There were fewer masses, but
much strength and blessing resulted from the masses; Christians cared
for one another, assisted one another, sympathized with one another,
bore one another's burden and affliction. This has all disappeared,
and there remain only the many masses and the many who receive this
sacrament without in the least understanding or practicing what it
signifies.
13. There are those, indeed, who would share the benefits but not the
cost, that is, who gladly hear in this sacrament that the help,
fellowship and assistance of all the saints are promised and given to
them, but who, because they fear the world, are unwilling in their
turn to contribute to this fellowship, to help the poor, to endure
sins, to care for the sick, to suffer with the suffering, to intercede
for others, to defend the truth, to seek the reformation of the Church
and of all Christians at the risk of life, property and honor. They
are unwilling to suffer disfavor, harm, shame or death, although it is
God's will that they be driven, for the sake of the truth and their
neighbors, to desire the great grace and strength of this sacrament.
They are self-seeking persons, whom this sacrament does not benefit.
Just as we could not endure a citizen who wanted to be helped,
protected and made free by the community, and yet in his turn would do
nothing for it nor serve it. No, we on our part must make others' evil
our own, if we desire Christ and His saints to make our evil their
own; then will the fellowship be complete and justice be done to the
sacrament. For the sacrament has no blessing and significance unless
love grows daily and so changes a man that he is made one with all
others.
14. To symbolize this fellowship, God has appointed such signs of the
sacrament as in every way serve this purpose and by their very form
incite and move us to this fellowship. Just as the bread is made out
of many grains which have been ground and mixed together, and out of
the many bodies of grain there comes the one body of the bread, in
which each grain loses its form and body and acquires the common body
of the bread, and as the drops of wine losing their own form become
the body of one wine: so should it be with us, and is, indeed, if we
use this sacrament aright. Christ with all saints, by His love, takes
upon Himself our form, fights with us against sin, death and all evil
[Phil. 2:7]; this enkindles in us such love that we take His form,
rely upon His righteousness, life and blessedness, and through the
interchange of His blessings and our misfortunes are one loaf, one
bread, one body, one drink, and have all things in common. This is a
great sacrament,[Eph. 5:32][16] says Paul, that Christ and the Church
are one flesh and bone [Eph. 5:31]. Again, through this same love are
to be changed and to make the infirmities of all other Christians our
own, take upon ourselves their form and their necessity and make
theirs all the good that is within our power, that they may enjoy it
[Judg. 9:2]. That is a real fellowship, and that is the true
significance of this sacrament. In this way we are changed into one
another and are brought into fellowship with one another by love,
without which there can be no such change.
15. He appointed this twofold form, bread and wine, rather than any
other, as a further indication of the union and fellowship in this
sacrament. For there is no more intimate, deep and inseparable union
than the union of the food with him who partakes of it, since the food
enters into and is assimilated with his very nature and becomes one
with his being. Other unions, effected by means of nails, glue, cords
and the like, do not make one indivisible substance of the objects
joined together. In the sacrament we become united with Christ, and
are made one body with all the saints, so that He concerns Himself for
us, acts in our behalf, as though He were what we are--what concerns
us concerns Him as much as us, and even more than us; and, on the
other hand, that we also concern ourselves or Him, as though we were
what He is, as indeed we shall finally be, when we are conformed to
His likeness, as St. John says, "We know that when He shall appear we
shall be like Him" [1 John 3:2]; so complete is the fellowship of
Christ and all the saints with us. Our sins assail Him, His
righteousness protects us; for the union makes all things common,
until at last He completely destroys sin in us and makes us like unto
Himself, at the last day. In like manner, by the same love we are to
be united with our neighbors, we in them and they in us.
16. In addition to this, He did not appoint this twofold form by
itself, but gave His true natural flesh, in the bread, and His natural
and true blood, in the wine, that He might give us a really perfect
sacrament or sign. For just as the bread is changed[17] into His true
natural body and the wine into His true natural blood, so truly are we
also drawn and changed into the spiritual body, that is, into the
fellowship of Christ and all saints, and put by this sacrament in
possession of all the virtues and mercies of Christ and His saints; as
was said above[18] of a citizen who is taken and incorporated into the
city and the protection and freedom of the entire community.
Therefore He instituted not simply the one form, but the two separate
forms, His flesh under the bread, His blood under the wine, to
indicate that not only His life and good works, which are represented
by His flesh and which He accomplished in His flesh, but also His
passion and martyrdom, which are represented by His blood and in which
He shed His blood, are all our own, and by being drawn into this
fellowship we may use and enjoy them.
17. All this makes it clear that this holy sacrament is naught else
than a divine sign, in which Christ and all saints are pledged,
granted and imparted, with all their works, sufferings, merits,
mercies and possessions, or the comfort and strengthening of all who
are in anxiety and sorrow, and are persecuted by the devil, sin, the
world, the flesh and every evil; and that to receive the sacrament is
nothing else than to desire all this and firmly to believe that it
shall be done.
[Sidenote: The Third part of the Sacrament: Faith]
There follows the third part of the sacrament, that is faith, on which
all depends. For it is not enough to know what the sacrament is and
signifies. It is not enough that you know it is a fellowship and a
gracious exchange or blending of our sin and suffering with the
righteousness of Christ and His saints; you must also desire it and
firmly believe that you have received it. Here the devil and our own
nature wage their fiercest fight, that faith may by no means stand
firm. There are those who practice their arts and subtleties to such
an extent that they ask where the bread remains when it is changed
into Christ's flesh, and the wine when it is changed into His blood;
also in what manner the whole Christ, His flesh and His blood, can be
comprehended in so small a portion of bread and wine. What does it
matter? It is enough to know that it is a divine sign, in which
Christ's flesh and blood are truly present--how and where, we leave to
Him.[19]
18. See to it that you exercise and strengthen your faith, so that
when you are sorrowful or your sins afflict you and you go to the
sacrament or hear mass, you do so with a hearty desire for this
sacrament and for what it means, and doubt not that you have what the
sacrament signifies, that is, that you are certain Christ and all His
saints come to you bringing all their virtues, sufferings and mercies,
to live, work, suffer and die with you, and be wholly yours, to have
all things in common with you. If you will exercise and strengthen this
faith, you will experience what a rich and joyous wedding-supper and
festival your God has prepared upon the altar or you. Then you will
understand what the great feast of King Ahasuerus signifies [Esth.
1:5], you will see what that wedding is for which God has slain His
oxen and fatlings, as it is written in the Gospel [Matt. 22:2 ff.],
and your heart will grow right free and confident, strong and
courageous, against all enemies. For who will fear any calamity if he
is sure that Christ and all His saints are with Him and share all
things, evil or good, in common with him? So we read that the
disciples of Christ broke this bread and ate with great gladness of
heart. Since, then, this work is so great that our insignificant
souls dare not desire it, to say nothing of hoping for or expecting it,
it is necessary and profitable to go often to the sacrament, or at
least in the daily mass to exercise and strengthen this faith, on
which all depends and or the sake of which it was instituted. For if
you doubt[20] you do God the greatest dishonor and regard Him as
unfaithful and a liar. If you cannot believe, pray for faith, as was
said above in the other treatise[21].
19. See to it also that you make yourself a fellow of every man and by
no means exclude any one in hatred or anger; for this sacrament of
fellowship, love and unity cannot tolerate discord and dissension. You
must let the infirmities and needs of others burden your heart, as
though they were your own, and offer them your strength, as though it
were their own, as Christ does for you in the sacrament. That is what
we mean by being changed into one another through love, out of many
particles becoming one bread and drink, giving up one's own form and
taking one that belongs to all.[22]
For this reason slanderers and those who wickedly judge and despise
others cannot but receive death in the sacrament, as St. Paul writes
[1 Cor. 11:29]. For they do not unto their neighbor what they seek
from Christ and what the sacrament indicates; they wish them no good,
have no sympathy with them, do not receive them as they desire to be
received by Christ, and then all into such blindness that they do not
know what else to do in this sacrament except to fear and honor Christ
in the sacrament with their prayers and devotion. When they have done
this they think they have done their whole duty, although Christ has
given His body for this purpose, that the significance of the
sacrament, that is, fellowship and mutual love, may be put into
practice, and His own natural body be less regarded than His spiritual
body,[23] which is the fellowship of His saints. What concerns Him
most, especially in this sacrament, is that faith in the fellowship
with Him and with His saints may be rightly exercised and become
strong in us, and that we, in accordance with it, may rightly exercise
our fellowship with one another. This purpose of Christ they do not
perceive and, in their devoutness, they daily say and hear mass, and
remain every day the same; nay, become worse daily, and mark it not.
Therefore take heed; it is more needful that you discern the spiritual
than that you discern the natural body of Christ, and faith in the
spiritual is more needful than faith in the natural. For the natural
without the spiritual profiteth us nothing in this sacrament; a
change[24] must occur and manifest itself through love.
20. There are many who, regardless of this change of love and faith,
rely upon the fact that the mass or the sacrament is, as they say,
_opus gratum opere operato_, that is, a work which of itself pleases
God, even though they who perform it do not please Him. From this they
conclude that, however unworthily masses are said, it is none the less
a good thing to have many masses, since the harm comes to those who
say or use them unworthily. I grant every one his opinion, but such
fables please me not. For, if you desire to speak thus, there is no
creature nor work that does not of itself please God, as is written,
"God saw all His works and they pleased Him." [Gen. 1:31] What good
can result therefrom, if one misuse bread, wine, gold, and every good
creature, though of themselves they are pleasing to God? Nay,
condemnation is the result. So too, here: the more precious the
sacrament, the greater the harm which comes upon the whole
congregation from its misuse. For it was not instituted or its own
sake, that it might please God, but for our sake, that we might use it
rightly, exercise our faith by it, and by it become pleasing to God.
If it is merely an _opus operatum_[25], it works only harm; it must
become an _opus operantis_[26]. Just as bread and wine work only harm
if they are not used, no matter how much they please God of
themselves; so it is not enough that the sacrament be prepared (that
is, _opus operatum_), it must also be used in faith (that is, _opus
operantis_). And we must take heed lest with such dangerous glosses
our minds be turned away from the sacrament's power and virtue, and
faith perish entirely through such false security in the outwardly
completed sacrament. All this results because they give heed in this
sacrament to Christ's natural body more than to the fellowship, the
spiritual body. Christ on the cross was also a completed work[27],
which was well-pleasing to God; but the Jews unto this day have found
it a stumbling block, for the reason that they did not make of it a
work that must be used in faith[28]. See to it, then, that the
sacrament be or you an _opus operantis_, that is, a work that is made
use of, and that it be well-pleasing to God, not because of what it is
in itself, but because of your faith and your right use of it. The
Word of God is also of itself pleasing to God, but it is harmful to me
when it does not please God also within me. In short, such expressions
as _opus operatum_ and _opus operantis_ are nothing but useless words
of men, more of a hindrance than a help. And who could tell all the
abominable abuses and misbeliefs which daily multiply about this
blessed sacrament, although some of them are so spiritual and holy
that they might almost lead an angel astray? Briefly, whoever would
understand the abuses need only keep before him the aforesaid use and
faith of this sacrament; namely, that there must be a sorrowing,
hungry soul, desiring heartily the love, help, and support of the
entire communion of Christ and of all saints, doubting not that in
faith it obtains them, and then, on the other hand, making itself one
with everyone. Whoever does not thus direct and order the hearing or
reading of masses and the reception of the sacrament, errs and does
not use this sacrament to his salvation. For this reason also the
world is overwhelmed with pestilences, wars and other horrible
plagues[29], since with our many masses we only call upon us the more
disfavor.
21. We see now how necessary this sacrament is for those who must face
death, or other dangers of body and soul, since they are not let alone
in them, but are strengthened in the communion of Christ and all
saints. Therefore also Christ instituted it and gave it to His
disciples in their extreme need and danger. Since we are all daily
surrounded by all kinds of danger, and must at last die, we should
humbly and heartily and with all our powers thank the God of all mercy
for giving us a gracious sign, by which, if we hold fast thereto by
faith. He leads and draws us through death and every danger to
Himself, to Christ, and to all saints.
Therefore it is also profitable and necessary that the love and
fellowship of Christ and all saints be hidden, invisible and
spiritual, and that only a bodily, visible and outward sign of it be
given us. For were this love, fellowship and help known to all, like
the temporal fellowship of men, we should not be strengthened nor
trained thereby to put our trust in the invisible and eternal things,
or to desire them, but should much rather be trained to put our trust
only in the temporal, visible things and to become so accustomed to
them as to be unwilling to let them go and to follow God onward; we
should thus be prevented from ever coming to Him, if we followed God
only so far as visible and tangible things led us. For everything of
time and sense must fall away, and we must learn to do without them,
if we are to come to God.
Therefore the mass and this sacrament are a sign by which we train and
accustom ourselves to let go all visible love, help, and comfort, and
to trust in Christ and in the invisible love, help, and comfort of His
saints. For death takes away everything visible, and separates us from
men and temporal things; hence, to meet death, we must have the help
of the invisible and eternal things; and these are indicated to us in
the sacrament and sign, to which we cling by faith, until we attain to
them also by sight. Thus the sacrament is or us a ford, a bridge, a
door, a ship, and a litter, in which and by which we pass from this
world into eternal life. Therefore all depends on faith. He who does
not believe is like one who must cross the sea, but is so timid that
he does not trust the ship; and so he must remain and never be saved,
because he does not embark and cross over. This is due to our
dependence on the senses and to our untried faith which shrinks from
the passage across the Jordan of death--the devil also cruelly helps
toward this.
22. This was indicated of old in Joshua iii [Josh. 3:7 ff.]. After the
children of Israel had gone dry-shod through the Red Sea, a type of
baptism, they went through Jordan in like manner; but the priests
stood with the ark in Jordan, and the water below them lowed by, while
that above them stood upon a heap, a type of this sacrament. The
priests carry and uphold the ark in Jordan when in the hour of our
death or peril they preach and administer to us this sacrament,
Christ, and the fellowship of all saints. I we believe, the waters
below us depart, that is, the temporal, visible things harm us not,
but flee from us. And those above us stand up high, as though they
would overwhelm us; these are the horrors and apparitions of the other
world, which at the hour of death terrify us. If, however, we pay no
heed to them, and pass on with a firm faith, we shall enter into
eternal life dry-shod and unharmed.
We have, therefore, two principal sacraments in the church, baptism
and the bread. Baptism leads us into a new life on earth; the bread
guides us through death into eternal life. And the two are typified by
the Red Sea and the Jordan, and by the two lands, one beyond and one
on this side the Jordan. Therefore our Lord said at the Last Supper:
"I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day
when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." [Matt. 26:29] So
entirely is this sacrament intended and ordained to strengthen us
against death, and to give us entrance into eternal life.
Finally, the blessing of this sacrament is fellowship and love, by
which we are strengthened against death and all evil. This fellowship
is twofold: on the one hand we partake of Christ and all saints, on
the other hand we permit all Christians to be partakers of us, in
whatever way they and we are able; so that by this sacrament all
self-seeking love is uprooted and gives place to love which seeks the
common good of all, and through this mutual love there is one bread,
one drink, one body, one community,--that is the true union of
Christian brethren. Now let us see how the pretentious brotherhoods,
of which there are now so many, measure up to this and resemble it.
CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOODS.[30]
1. First, let us consider the evil practices of the brotherhoods. One
of these is their gluttony and drunkenness,--one or more masses are
held[31], afterward the entire day and night, and other days besides,
are given over to the devil, and they do only what displeases God.
Such mad reveling has been introduced by the evil spirit, and is
called a brotherhood, whereas it is rather a debauch and altogether a
heathenish, nay, swinish mode of life. There would far better be no
brotherhoods in the world than that such an abomination should be
permitted. Temporal lords and cities should unite with the clergy in
abolishing it. For God, the saints, and all Christians are greatly
dishonored thereby, and the divine services and feast-days made a
sport for the devil. Saints' days should be kept and hallowed with
good works; and the brotherhood should also be a special treasury of
good works; instead it has become a treasury of beer money. What have
the names of Our Lady, of St. Anne, St. Sebastian[32], or other saints
to do with your brotherhoods, in which you have nothing but gluttony,
drunkenness, squandering of money, howling, yelling, chattering,
dancing and wasting of time? If a sow were made the patron saint of
such a brotherhood she would not consent. Why then do they afflict the
dear saints so sorely by taking their names in vain in such shameful
practices and sins, and by dishonoring and blaspheming the
brotherhoods named after them with such evil practices? Woe unto them
who do and permit this!
2. If men desire to maintain a brotherhood, they should gather
provisions, and feed and serve a tableful or two of poor people, for
the sake of God; the day previous they should fast, and on the
feast-day remain sober, and pass the time in prayer and other good
works. Then God and His saints would be truly honored; this would lead
to better conditions, and a good example would be given others. Or
they should gather the money which they intended to squander or drink
and form a common treasury, each trade[33] by itself, so that needy
fellow-workmen might be assisted, or be lent money, or a young couple
of that trade might be fitted out respectably from the common
treasury: these would be true works of brotherhood, which would make
God and His saints look with pleasure upon the brotherhoods, of which
they would then gladly be the patrons. But where they are unwilling to
do this, and follow after the old mummery, I admonish that it be not
done on the saints' day's, nor in the name of the saints or of the
brotherhood. Let them take some other weekday and leave off the names
of the saints and of their brotherhoods, lest the saints at some time
mark it with disapproval. Although there is no day which is not
dishonored by such doings, at least the festivals and the names of the
saints should be spared. For such brotherhoods call themselves
brotherhoods of the saints while they do the work of the devil.
3. Another evil feature of the brotherhoods is of a spiritual nature;
it is a false opinion of themselves, in that they think their
brotherhood is to be a benefit to no one but to themselves,--to those
who are members and are on the roll or contribute. This damnably
wicked opinion is an even worse evil than the first, and is one of the
reasons why God has brought it about that the brotherhoods are
becoming such a mockery and blasphemy of God through gluttony,
drunkenness and the like. For there they learn to seek their own good,
to love themselves, to be faithful only to one another, to despise
others, to think themselves better than others and presume to stand
higher before God than others. And thus perishes the communion of
saints, the Christian love, and the true brotherhood, established in
the holy sacrament. Thus a selfish love grows in them; that is, by
these many external work-brotherhoods they oppose and destroy the one,
inner, spiritual, essential, common brotherhood of all saints.
When God sees this perverted state of affairs, He perverts it still
more, as is written in Psalm xviii[34], "With the perverse thou wilt
be perverted" [Ps. 18:26]; and He brings it to pass that they make
themselves and their brotherhoods a mockery and a disgrace, and He
casts them out from the common brotherhood of saints, which they
oppose and do not make common cause with, into their brotherhood of
gluttony, drunkenness and unchastity, so that they, who have neither
sought nor thought of anything more than their own, may find their
own; and then He blinds them that they do not recognize it as an
abomination and disgrace, but adorn their unseemliness with the names
of saints, as though they were doing right; beyond this He lets some
fall into so deep an abyss that they openly boast and say whoever is
in their brotherhood cannot be condemned, as though baptism and the
sacrament, instituted by God Himself, were of less worth and were less
certain than that which they have thought out with their darkened
minds. Therefore their God will dishonor and blind those who, with
their mad conduct and the swinish practices of their brotherhoods,
mock and blaspheme His easts, His name, and His saints, to the injury
of the common Christian brotherhood, which flowed from the wounds of
Christ.
4. Therefore, for the right understanding and use of the brotherhoods,
one must learn to distinguish rightly between brotherhoods. The first
is the divine, the heavenly, the noblest, which surpasses all others,
as gold surpasses copper or lead--the fellowship of all saints, of
which we spoke above[35]. In this we are all brothers and sisters, so
closely united that a closer relationship cannot be conceived, for
here we have one baptism, one Christ, one sacrament, one food, one
Gospel, one faith, one Spirit, one spiritual body, and each is a
member of the other; no other brotherhood is so close. For natural
brothers are, to be sure, brothers of one flesh and blood, of one
heritage and home, but they must separate and join themselves to
others' blood and heritage[36]. Organized brotherhoods have one roll,
one mass, one kind of good works, one festival day, one treasury, and,
as things are now, their common beer, common feast and common debauch,
but none of these binds men so closely together as to produce one
spirit, for that is done by Christ's brotherhood alone.
Since, then, the greater, broader and more embracing Christ's
brotherhood is, the better it is, therefore all other brotherhoods
should be so conducted as to keep this first and noblest brotherhood
constantly before their eyes, to regard it alone as great, and with
all their works to seek nothing for themselves, but do them for God's
sake, to entreat God that He keep and prosper this Christian
fellowship and brotherhood from day to day. Hence, when a brotherhood
is formed, they should let it be seen that its members outstrip other
persons in order to do Christianity some special service with their
prayers, fastings, alms and good works, and not in order to seek
selfish profit or reward, nor to exclude others, but to serve as the
free servants of the whole community of Christians.
If men had such a correct conception, God would restore good order, so
that the brotherhoods might not be brought to shame by debauchery.
Then God's blessing would follow, so that a general fund might be
gathered, with which other men also might be given material aid; then
the spiritual and bodily works of the brotherhoods would be done in
their proper order. Whoever will not follow this method in his
brotherhood I advise to flee from it and let the brotherhood alone; it
will do him harm in body and soul.
But if you say, If the brotherhood is not to give me some special
advantage, of what use is it to me? I answer: If you are seeking some
special advantage, how can the brotherhood or sisterhood help you?
Serve the community and other men by it, as is the nature of love, and
you will have your reward for this love without any effort and desire
on your part. But if you deem the service and reward of love too
small, it is evidence that yours is a perverted brotherhood. Love
serves freely and for nothing, therefore God also gives again to it
every blessing freely and or nothing. Since, then, everything must be
done in love, if it is to please God at all, the brotherhood must also
be a brotherhood in love. It is the nature, however, of that which is
done in love not to seek its own, nor its own profit, but that of
others, and, above all, that of the community.
5. To return once more to the sacrament; since the Christian
fellowship also is at present in a bad way, as never before, and daily
grows worse, especially among the rulers, and all places are full of
sin and shame, you should not consider how many masses are said, or
how often the sacrament is celebrated, or this will make things worse
rather than better,--but how much you and others increase in that
which the sacrament signifies and in the faith it demands,--for
therein alone lies improvement; and the more you find yourself being
incorporated into Christ and into the fellowship of His saints, the
better it is with you,--that is, if you find that you are becoming
strong in the confidence of Christ and of His dear saints, and are
certain that they love you and stand by you in all the trials of life
and in death, and that you in turn take to heart the shortcomings and
lapses of all Christians and of the whole Church, that your love goes
out to everyone, and that you desire to help everyone, to hate no one,
to suffer with all and pray or them: then will the work of the
sacrament proceed aright, then you will often weep, lament and mourn
or the wretched condition of Christendom to-day. If, however, you find
no such confidence in Christ and His saints, and the needs of the
Church and of every fellowman do not trouble or move you, then beware
of all other good works, if in doing them you think you are godly and
will be saved. Be assured they are only hypocrisy, sham and deceit, or
they are without love and fellowship, and without these nothing is
good. For the sum of it all is, _Plenitudo legis est dilectio_, "Love
is the fulfilling of the law." [Rom. 13:10] Amen.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See _Treatise on Baptism_, Vol. I, pp. 56 ff.
[2] Note the advance in _The Babylonian Captivity_, below, pp. 178
ff.
[3] Cf. _Babylonian Captivity_, below, p. 186.
[4] Cf. _Sermo_, 112, cap. 5 (Migne, xxxviii, 615).
[5] See Vol. I, p. 56.
[6] E. g., the danger of spilling the wine.
[7] See p. 37.
[8] Used here and above in the New Testament sense of true Christians,
living or dead, cf. 1 Cor. 1:2.
[9] See p. 11.
[10] See above, pp. 12, 13, and Vol. I, pp. 59 ff.
[11] The virgin Mary.
[12] Cf. _Enarratio in Ps. XXI_ (Migne, xxxvi, 178).
[13] Penitential works.
[14] Cf. Acts 2:46.
[15] See Vol. I, p. 310.
[16] In the Vulgate the Greek word "mystery" is translated by
_sacramentum_. See below, p. 258.
[17] Luther still adheres to the doctrine of transubstantiation. But
see below, pp. 187 ff.
[18] See p. 11.
[19] Cf. below, p. 192.
[20] See Luther's explanation of the First Commandment in the
Catechisms. Also the answer to the last question in Part V, Small
Catechism.
[21] _Treatise on Penance_ (_Weimer Ed._, II, 721), where Luther
exhorts the troubled conscience to pray with the father of the lunatic
boy, "Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief," and with the
Apostles, "Lord, increase our faith."
[22] Cf. above, p. 17.
[23] The Church.
[24] A transubstantiation in the communicant.
[25] A work that is done without reference to the doer of it.
[26] A work considered with reference to the doer of it.
[27] An _opus operatum_.
[28] An _opus operantis_.
[29] Cf. 1 Cor. 11:30.
[30] Sodalities; see Introduction, p. 8, and below, pp. 137 f.
[31] On festival days of the order and on saints' days.
[32] The Carmelites are supposed to have been the first to organize
sodalities, having organized in the fourteenth century the Sodality of
Our Lady of Carmel. St. Anne was the mother of the Holy Virgin. Her
sodalities were, as Kolde says, epidemic in 1520. Luther's appeal to
St. Anne in the thunderstorm is well known (Comp. Kostlin-Kawerau, I,
55). There was a sodality of St. Anne, besides one of St. Augustine
and one of St. Catherine, in the monastery at Erfurt in Luther's day.
St. Sebastian was a martyr of the fourteenth century. His day is
January 20. Comp. Arts. _Anna_, _Sebastian_ and _Bruderschaten_ in
_Prot. Realencyk_., I, SS2; II, 534 l.
[33] A trades' guild brotherhood.
[34] Douay Version, based on Vulgate, from which Luther quotes.
[35] See above, p. 10.
[36] I. e., in marriage.
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BAN
1520
INTRODUCTION
The ban, or excommunication, is the correlative of communion. Our
conception of excommunication depends then, of course, upon our view
of what constitutes communion. Luther gives us his view of communion
in the preceding _Treatise concerning the Blessed Sacrament_. From the
premise there laid down it follows that excommunication, or the ban,
excludes only from external membership in the Church, but cannot
really separate a man from the Church if he is in personal fellowship
with his Lord[1]. Sin and unbelief cause this separation from Him, and
the real ban, therefore, is put into effect not by the Church, but by
the man himself when he sins against God. The ban of the Church cannot
even deprive one of the Sacrament, but only of the outward use of it,
for it can still be partaken of spiritually. This whole position, of
course, is fatal to the Roman Catholic conception of the Church, and
we do not wonder that it was vigorously opposed by the hierarchy.
Of like significance is Luther's advocacy of the separation of the
temporal and spiritual powers, practically of Church and State,--the
position which he develops later in the _Open Letter to the Nobility_.
But in this treatise, again, Luther shows himself to be anything but
the immoral monster his vilifiers have tried to make of him. He is
again the man of conscience--will his critics say, "of oversensitive
conscience"? Thank God that there were some sensitive consciences in
an almost conscienceless age! Luther fears sin more than the ban, and
sin has for him more than an ecclesiastical meaning. Sin is not
primarily an act against the Church, but an offence against God. This
the ban is to teach; it is to be the symbol of God's wrath against sin
and it is to be used by the Church only remedially and in love. When
so used it becomes the chastening rod of the dear Mother Church,
provided it be accepted and borne in this spirit.
Why, then, did not Luther bear his own ban in this way? The
justification for his subsequent conduct is to be found in two brief
but important conditional clauses in this treatise. "God," he says,
"cannot and will not permit authority to be wantonly and impudently
resisted, _when it does not force us to do what is against God or His
commandments_."[2] Again he says, "When unjustly put under the ban we
should be very careful not to do, omit, say or withhold that on
account of which we are under the ban, _unless we cannot do so without
sin and without injury to our neighbor_."[3] God and his neighbor were
for Luther the actors which made it necessary for him to speak and
act, when for selfish reasons he would often rather have remained
passive.
The inception of our treatise is to be found in a sermon preached in
Wittenberg in the spring of 1518. Luther's pastoral concern for his
people made it necessary for him to speak on this subject in order to
quiet the consciences both embittered and distressed by the wanton and
unjust use of the power of excommunication. Added to this must have
been his own personal interest in the ban certain to fall on him. In a
letter to Link[4], dated July 10, 1518, he speaks of having preached a
sermon on the power of the ban which produced general consternation
and fear that the ire enkindled by the XCV Theses would start afresh.
He had desired a public disputation on the subject, but the Bishop of
Brandenburg persuaded him to defer the matter. Under date of September
1st, Luther writes Staupitz[5] that because his sermon had been
misrepresented and spread by unfriendly spies it became necessary for
him to publish it. It appeared in August after Luther's summons to
Rome, under the title _De Virtute Excommunicationis_. Our treatise is
an elaboration in popular form of this Latin treatise of 1515.
The Grunberg text given in Clemen, Vol. I, which we have followed in
most cases, is dated 1520, and must have appeared in its original
edition at the end of 1519 or the beginning of 1520.
The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar
Ed., vol. vi, 63; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 51; Walch Ed., vol. xix,
1089; St. Louis Ed., vol. .xix, 884; Clemen, vol. i, 213; Berlin Ed.,
vol. iii, 291.
J. J. SCHINDEL.
Allentown, PA.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See below, p. 37.
[2] See below, p. 50.
[3] See below, p. 51.
[4] See Enders, I, No. 84. Smith. _Luther's Correspondence_, I, No.
69.
[5] See Enders, I, No. 90. Smith, _Luther's Correspondence_, I, No.
77.
A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BAN
1520
JESUS
1. We have seen[1] that the sacrament of the holy body of Christ is a
sign of the communion of all saints, therefore it becomes necessary to
know also what the ban is which is employed in the Church by the power
of the spiritual estate. For its chief and peculiar function and power
is to deprive guilty Christians of the holy sacrament and forbid it to
them. Therefore the one cannot be understood apart from the other,
because the one is the opposite of the other; for the Latin word
_communio_ means fellowship, and thus do the learned designate the
Holy Sacrament. Its opposite is the word _excommunicatio_, which means
exclusion from this fellowship, and so the learned term the ban.
2. There is a twofold fellowship, corresponding to the two things in
the sacrament, the sign and the thing signified, as was said in the
treatise[2]. The first is an inner, spiritual and invisible fellowship
of the heart, by which one is incorporated by true faith, hope and
love in the fellowship of Christ and of all the saints, signified and
bestowed in the sacrament; and this is the effect and virtue of the
sacrament. This fellowship can neither be given nor taken away by any
one, be he bishop, pope, or angel or any creature. God alone through
His Holy Spirit must pour it into the heart of the one who believes in
the sacrament, as was said in the treatise[3]. This fellowship no ban
can touch or affect, but only the unbelief or sin of the person
himself; by these he can excommunicate himself, and thus separate
himself from the grace, the and salvation of the fellowship. This St.
Paul proves in Romans viii: "Who shall separate us from the God? Can
anguish or need, or hunger or poverty, or danger or persecution, or
shedding of blood? Nay, I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor principalities nor angelic hosts, neither things
present nor things to come, naught that is mighty on the earth,
neither height nor depth nor any other creature can separate us from
the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Rom. 8:35,
38] And St. Peter says: "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be
followers of that which is good?" [1 Peter 3:13]
3. The second kind of fellowship is an outward, bodily and visible
fellowship, by which one is admitted to the Holy Sacrament and
receives and partakes of it together with others. From this fellowship
or communion bishop and pope can exclude one, and forbid it to him on
account of his sin, and that is called putting him under the ban. This
ban was much in vogue of old, and is now known as the lesser ban. For
the ban goes beyond this and forbids even burial, selling, trading,
all association and fellowship with men, finally, as they say, even
fire and water[4], and this is known as the greater ban.
Not satisfied with this, there are some who go still farther and use
the temporal powers against those under the ban, to coerce them with
sword, fire, and war[5]. These, however, are new inventions, rather
than the real meaning of Scripture. To wield the temporal sword
belongs to the emperor, to kings, to princes, and to the rulers of
this world, and by no means to the spiritual estate[6], whose sword is
not to be of iron, but the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word and
commandment of God, as St. Paul says. [Eph. 6:17]
4. This external ban, both the lesser and the greater, was instituted
by Christ when He said in Matthew xviii: "If thy brother shall
trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him
alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. If he will
not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth
of two or three witnesses every word or transaction may be
established. If he will not hear them, then tell it unto the whole
congregation, the Church. If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be
unto thee a heathen man and a publican." [Matt. 18:15 ff.]
Likewise St. Paul says in I Corinthians v: "If any man among you be a
fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard,
or an extortioner, with such an one keep not company, neither eat with
him." [1. Cor. 5:11] Again he says in II Thessalonians iii: "If any
man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no
company with him, that he may be ashamed." [2 Thess. 3:14] Again, John
says in his second Epistle: "If any one come unto you, and bring not
this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God
speed, and he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil
deeds." [2 John 10]
From all these sayings we learn how the ban is to be used. First, we
should seek neither vengeance nor our own profit, as is at present the
disgraceful practice everywhere, but only the correction of our
neighbor. Second, the penalty should stop short of his death or
destruction; or St. Paul limits the purpose of the ban to the
correction of our neighbor, that he be put to shame when no one
associates with him, and he adds in 11 Thessalonians iii: "Count him
not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." [2 Thess. 3:15] But
now the ruthless tyrants deal with men as though they would cast them
down to hell, and do not in any wise seek their correction.
5. It may often happen that a person under the ban is deprived of the
holy sacrament, and also of burial, and is nevertheless inwardly[7]
secure and blessed in the fellowship of Christ and of all saints,
signified in the sacrament. On the other hand, there are many who are
not under the outward ban and who freely partake of the sacrament, but
are nevertheless inwardly quite estranged and excommunicated from the
fellowship of Christ; even though they be buried under the high altar
in a golden pall with much pomp and singing and tolling of bells.
Therefore, no one is to be judged, even if he be under the ban,
especially if he has not been put under the ban for heresy or sin, but
for the purpose of correction. For to put men under the ban for the
sake of money or other temporal considerations is a new invention, of
which the apostles and Christ knew nothing.
6. To put under the ban is not, as some think, to deliver a soul to
Satan and deprive it of the intercession and of all the good works[8]
of the Church. For where the true faith and love of God remain in the
heart, there remains a real participation in all the possessions and
intercessions of the Church, together with all the benefits of the
sacrament, since the ban is and can be nothing else than exclusion
from the external sacrament or from association with men. If I were
cast into prison I would, of course, be deprived of the outward
companionship of my friends, and yet not be deprived of their favor
and friendship; so he that is put under the ban must relinquish the
sacrament and association with men, but is not on that account cut off
from their love, intercession and good works.
7. It is true that the ban, when it is rightly and deservedly applied,
is a sign, an admonition and a chastisement, whereby the one under the
ban should recognize that he himself has delivered his soul unto Satan
by his transgression and sin, and has deprived himself of the
fellowship of all the saints and of Christ. For by the penalty of the
ban our mother, the holy Church, would show her dear son the awful
consequences of sin and thereby bring him back from the devil to God.
When an earthly mother rebukes and chastises her erring son, she does
not give him over to the hangman or to the wolves, nor make a knave of
him, but she restrains him and shows him by her chastisement that he
is in danger of the hangman, and thus keeps him at home in his
father's house. In the same way, when the spiritual power puts any one
under the ban, it should be in this spirit: "Behold, thou has done
this or that, whereby thou hast delivered thy soul unto the devil,
deserved God's wrath, and deprived thyself of all Christian
fellowship; thou art fallen under the inward spiritual ban in the
sight of God and art unwilling to cease or to return. So then, I put
thee also outwardly under the ban in the sight of men, and to thy
shame I deprive thee of the sacrament and of fellowship with men,
until thou come to thyself and bring back thy soul."
8. Let every bishop, provost or official[9], who uses the ban for any
other purpose, take heed lest he put himself under the everlasting ban
from which neither God nor any creature shall deliver him. There are
none to whom the ban is more harmful and dangerous than those who
apply it, even though it be laid quite justly and only on account of
wrongdoing, for the reason that they seldom if ever have this object
in view. Besides they go about it without fear and do not consider how
perchance they themselves may be more worthy of a hundred bans in the
sight of God, as the Gospel records of the servant who owed his Lord
ten thousand pounds and yet would not have patience with his fellow
servant who owed him a hundred pence. What will become of these
miserable taskmasters, who for the sake of money have brought things
to such a pass with their bans, often violently and unjustly imposed,
that Turks and heathen have an easier life than Christians? It is very
evident that many of them are under the ban in the sight of God, and
are deprived of the blessing of the sacrament and of inward, spiritual
fellowship, although they do nothing day and night but cite others to
appear, harass them and put them under the ban, and deprive of the
external sacrament those who are a thousandfold better inwardly and in
the sight of God and are living in the spiritual fellowship of the
sacrament. O miserable business! O terrible existence maintained by
this abominable trade! I am not sure whether such publicans and
officials were wolves before becoming officials or whether they are on
the way to becoming wolves; their work is certainly wolves' work.
9. From this there follows the truth that the ban of itself ruins,
condemns or harms no one, but seeks and finds the ruined and condemned
soul for the purpose of bringing it back. For all chastisement is for
the correction of sin; the ban is simply a chastisement and motherly
correction; therefore it makes no one worse or more sinful, but is
ordained solely to restore the inward spiritual fellowship when justly
laid, or to deepen it when unjustly imposed. This is proved by St.
Paul when he says in II Corinthians xiii: This I write to you
according to the power which the Lord hath given me, to edification
and not to destruction," [2 Cor. 13:10] And thus, when he rebukes him
who had taken his step-mother to wife, he says in I Corinthians v: "I
together with you deliver him unto the devil for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved at the last day." [1 Cor. 5:5]
Thus also in the passage quoted above he said: "We should not count
him who is under the ban as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother,
in order that he may be put to shame and not be lost." [2 Thess. 3:15]
Nay, even Christ Himself, as man, had not the power to cut off and
deliver a single soul to the devil, as He says in John vi: "Him that
cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out, and this is the will of My
Father Who sent Me, that I should not destroy or lose what He giveth
Me." [John 6:37, 39] Again He says: "The Son of Man is not come to
destroy, but to save men's souls." [Luke 9:56] If Christ Himself and
all the apostles had no other power than to help souls, and have let
behind them no other power in the Church, how dare the blind tyrants
presume and boast in their presumption that they have power to curse,
to condemn and to destroy, which power is even denied them by their
own canon law; for in the Liber Sextus[10], which treats of the
sentence of excommunication, we read: "Since the ban is a medicine and
not a poison, only a discipline, not a destructive uprooting, in so
far as the one subjected to it does not despise it: therefore let
every spiritual judge give diligence to prove himself one who seeks by
the ban naught but to correct and to cure."
10. From the above passage it is evident that the ban, when it is not
despised, is wholesome and harmless, and not fatal to the soul, as
certain timid and dejected consciences, frightened by the outrageous
abuses of some, imagine; although in apostolic times it was able to
deliver the body to the devil and to death[11], as indeed it might
still be, if the judges would wield the ban, not in the abuse of
power, but in humble faith and love, for the correction of their
neighbor. It follows further that the ban brings greater danger and
terror to those who apply it and are not careful to seek only the
correction and salvation of those under the ban, according to the
words of the above passage[12]. For the ban can be nothing else than a
kind, motherly scourge applied to the body and temporal possessions,
by which no one is cast into hell, but rather drawn out of it, and
freed from condemnation unto salvation. Therefore we should not only
endure it without impatience, but receive it with all joy and
reverence. But for the tyrants, who seek therein nothing else than
power, awe and gain for themselves, the ban must be a terrible injury,
because they pervert it and its purpose, turn the medicine into a
poison, and seek only to become a terror to a frightened people; of
correction they never think. For this they will have to give an awful
reckoning--woe unto them!
11. They have devised a saying, to wit: "Our ban must be feared, right
or wrong." With this saying they insolently comfort themselves, swell
their chests and puff themselves up like adders, and almost dare to
defy heaven and to threaten the whole world; with this bugaboo they
have made a deep and mighty impression, imagining that there is more
in these words than there really is. Therefore we would explain them
more fully and prick this bladder, which with its three peas makes
such a rightful noise.
Now, it is true, the ban must be feared and not be despised, whether
it be just or unjust. But why apply this only to the ban, which is a
motherly chastening, and not to all the other and greater penalties
and tribulations as well? For what great thing have you done or the
ban by saying it must be feared? Must we not also fear when we are
sick, poor, slandered, despised, or deprived of goods, income or
justice, nay, when the Turk and other enemies attack or afflict us?
For all these and other adversities, whether deserved or undeserved,
we should fear, suffer and endure, and in all things conduct ourselves
as though we but received our deserts, as the Lord teaches: "O him
that taketh away thy goods ask them not again." [Luke 6:30] Why are
you not also afraid, dear tyrant, when you suffer injustice, when your
income is refused, your property stolen, your rights denied, and why
do you not think that you should endure these things in fear, whether
they be right or wrong? Do you think that others are commanded to
endure your power in ear, whether right or wrong, and that you are
free from this commandment and need not endure violence or wrong in
fear? You will learn that you also are human and under the same law
with which you threaten others, puffing yourself up in your folly.
12. What perversity! The spiritual powers come along with their ban
and say it should be eared and endured, whether right or wrong. But if
they are subjected to violence and injustice they will not endure it
to the extent of a single heller, but without any fear at all, cast up
the accounts in their favor and demand what is theirs. Thus they
withdraw themselves from God's commandment, in keeping which they,
most of all, should be an example to others. For if it is true that
pope, bishop and the whole spiritual estate may without fear resist
injustice, injury and contempt in their own interest, then it is also
true that the ban may be resisted and be repelled, as vigorously as
they seek their interest. There is no distinction in God's
commandment, it concerns every one alike. But may God forbid that! We
are to bear both the ban and whatever tribulation may befall us in
fear, as the Gospel teaches. Therefore, if any one wrong you or take
your income, and you do not endure it in fear, but would frighten him
with the ban[13], especially when you are seeking not his improvement,
but your own benefit or self-will, take heed, you are already worse
than he. For you intend to draw yourself out of fear and to draw him
in, which you have no right to do, and compel him to keep the Gospel
which you tear to pieces. How will you be able to stand before God?
Therefore when they say, "Our ban must be feared, right or wrong," we
reply: "Yes, that is true, but it is also true that your unjust ban
harms no one but yourselves, and harms you in body and soul. And the
just ban harms you more than it harms me. Therefore you should also
endure your injury in fear, be it right or wrong, and if you glory
over me because of the ban I will glory over you because of your
suffering. If a criminal took my coat and said: 'You should endure it
in fear and humility,' I would say, 'I will; not for the sake of your
theft, which harms me not, but for the sake of Christ's commandment
[Matt. 5:40].' Just so I fear your ban, not for the ban's sake (it
does not harm me, but rather yourself), but for the sake of Christ's
commandment."
13. Though it is true that the ban must be feared, whether it be right
or wrong, yet those who lay the ban are always in greater danger than
those on whom it is laid. He who is banned is in no danger but that of
despising the ban and not bearing it, whether it be right or wrong.
But he who bans is in danger, in the first place, of not enduring
injustice in fear; in the second place, of avenging himself through
the ban without any fear; in the third place, of not seeking, with
singleness of purpose, his sinful neighbor's correction by means of
the ban. This is evident because he despises his own sin and that of
others, and only attacks the man who injures him, all of which is
contrary to the Gospel. Hence it comes that by means of their dreadful
perverseness those who use the ban nowadays pick up the spoon and
tread in the dish[14]; they put others under the external ban and put
themselves under condemnation inwardly; in addition, they become so
blinded that they boast how greatly their external ban is to be
feared, and inwardly they condemn themselves, and rejoice boldly and
without fear like fools and madmen. For this reason I am sure that the
Holy Spirit did not invent the saying, Our ban must be feared, right
or wrong. It does not become a Christian, not to say one in the
spiritual estate[15], to wrong another, much less to lord it over him
and boast that this injustice must be feared. It behooves me to say,
Thy injustice makes me tremble; it behooves thee much more to take
heed and be in fear lest thou do me wrong and threaten me besides,
saying that I must endure it in fear; or thy injustice can harm me
only in time, but thee it harms to all eternity. So evil and
lamentable are these present times, in which such furious tyrants
shamelessly and openly boast of their sin and everlasting hurt (which
would be horrible even in Turks and heathen), in order that they may
be defiant now and mock at the misfortunes of those who suffer, whom
they do not seek to correct, but only to inspire with fear and false
terror.
In a word, the higher estate is always, with all its works, in greater
danger than the lower estate, and where the lower estate must needs be
in fear once, there the higher estate needs be in fear ten times over.
On this account those who exercise the ban have no reason to lord it
over those who are under the ban or to deal arrogantly with them, but
all the more reason to weep or themselves. For God's judgment will not
be pronounced on the lowly, but on the mighty, as Wisdom the wise man
says [Wisdom 6:8 f.].
14. It were indeed better if Christians were taught to love the ban
rather than to fear it[16], as we are taught by Christ to love
chastisement, pain and even death, and not to fear them. But these
prattlers speak only of fear in the ban, though they teach that all
other chastisements and misfortunes are to be borne cheerfully.
Whereby they betray their blind and cursed purpose, which is to rule
by force over the people of Christ, and as it were to take the free
Christian Church captive in fear. Therefore let us learn what is our
chief duty with respect to the ban, namely, not to despise it or bear
it impatiently, and this for two reasons. First, because the authority
of the ban was given by Christ to the holy mother, the Christian
Church, that is, to the community of all Christians. Therefore, in
this matter we should honor and submit to our dear mother Church and
to Christ. For what Christ and the Church do should have our approval,
our love and our filial fear. Secondly, because the effect and purpose
of the ban is beneficial and salutary and never injurious, if one
endures it and does not despise it. To use a homely illustration: When
a mother punishes her beloved son, whether he has deserved it or not,
she certainly does not do it with evil intent, but it is a maternal,
harmless and salutary punishment, if the son bears it patiently. Only
when he becomes impatient, and is not influenced by it to leave the
wrong or to do the good for the sake of which he is punished, but
turns against his mother and despises her, does the punishment begin
to do him harm; or then he offends against God, Who has commanded:
"Thou shalt honor thy father and mother" [Ex. 20:12]; and out of a
light, harmless, yea even beneficial chastisement he makes a terrible
wrong and sin, to his everlasting pain and punishment.
15. Thus it happens in our day that certain officials[17] and their
associates are murdered, beaten and bound, or are in constant fear of
death. Doubtless this would not occur at all, or at least much less
frequently, if the people did not hold the wrong opinion that the ban
is more harmful than profitable. For this reason they venture
everything, and commit such crimes as it were in despair. Although
this is terrible, yet by God's dispensation the tyrants get what they
deserve, because they conceal the real benefit of the ban from the
people, and misuse it, making no effort toward correction, but aiming
simply to increase their own power. For although every one ought to
endure the ban, they too ought not to despise a poor human being, be
he guilty or innocent, as Christ says: "Take heed that ye despise not
one of these little ones that believe on Me, for I say unto you that
their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in
heaven." [Matt. 18:10] Why should they wonder if, in the providence of
God, at times their heads are broken and their commands despised,
because of the unjust tyrannical ban, since without ceasing they act
so insolently against God's commandment? True, there is great wrong on
both sides. Yet if the people were taught that the power of the ban is
wholesome and necessary and that it is not ordained nor used to their
hurt, but to their benefit, the officials would be in less danger, and
find greater and readier obedience, nay, greater love, good will and
honor among all the people.
16. Therefore the people should be taught in some such way as this: My
dear people, let not those who have and use the power of the ban drive
you to despair, whether they be pious or evil, whether they do you
justice or injustice. The power of the ban cannot harm you, but must
always be beneficial to the soul, if only you bear and endure it
aright; their abuse of the ban does not hinder its virtue. Or if you
cannot endure it, then try to escape from it with meekness, not with
revenge and retaliation by word or deed. And in all things look not to
them, but to the dear mother Church. What difference does it make to
you whether she lays her rods of chastisement upon you through pious
or through wicked rulers? It is and remains, nevertheless, your
dearest mother's most salutary rod. From the beginning of the world it
has been so, and will ever remain, that spiritual and temporal power
is more often given to the Pilates, Herods, Annases and Caiaphases
than to the pious Peters, Pauls and the like, and as in all other
estates so in that of government there are always more of the wicked
than of the pious. It is not to be supposed or hoped that we shall
ever have an entirely pious government, nay, it must come as a pure
git of grace or by special prayer and merit, if good government or a
right use of power is to be had at all. For God punishes wicked
subjects by wicked rulers, as He says: "I will give children to be
their prelates and their rulers shall be childish men, I will take
from them every mighty man, the wise, the prudent and the man of war,"
[Isa. 3:4] etc. Since, then, incapable or evil rulers are God's
chastisement, and there are so many among us who deserve such
chastisement, we must not be surprised if the government wrongs us and
abuses its power toward us, nay, we must wonder and thank God when it
does not wrong us and do us injustice.
17. Wherefore, since the world is at present overburdened, as it has
abundantly deserved to be because of its heinous sins, with young,
imprudent and inexperienced rulers, especially in the spiritual
estate, so that this age of ours is extraordinarily perilous, we must
act very prudently and by all means see to it that we hold the
government and all authority in the highest honor, even as Christ
honors the authority of Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas, and of the
temporal rulers of His time we must not permit such grievous abuses
and the childish rule of the prelates to move us to despise all
authority, so that despite those unworthy persons who bear rule we may
not at the same time despise their authority, but cheerfully bear what
it imposes, or reuse to bear it at least with humility and proper
respect. For God cannot and will not permit authority to be wantonly
and impudently resisted when it does not force us to do what is
against God or His commandments[18], though they themselves do as much
as they can against God, or injure us as much as they will. There are
some whom He Himself would judge and condemn, and such are those great
and powerful tyrants; so too, there are those whom He would help, and
such are the oppressed sufferers. Therefore we should yield to this
His will and leave the mighty to His sword and judgment, and allow Him
to help us, as St. Paul says: "O dearly beloved brethren, neither
avenge nor defend yourselves, but rather give place unto the wrath of
God, because it is written. Vengeance belongs to Me alone and I will
repay each one [Deut. 32:35]." [Rom. 12:19]
And yet we should humbly tell these prelates (especially should the
preachers rebuke them, yet only by showing them from the Word of God)
that they are acting against God and show them what He would have them
do, and in addition diligently and earnestly pray to God or them; even
as Jeremiah wrote to the children of Israel in Babylon that they
should zealously pray or the king of Babylon, or his son and for his
kingdom, although he had taken them captive, had troubled and slain
them and done them all manner of evil.
And we can easily do this if we remember that the ban and all
unrighteous authority cannot harm our souls, provided we submit to
them, and they must ever be of profit, unless they are despised. So
also are the authorities a thousandfold worse in the sight of God than
we, and are therefore to be pitied rather than wickedly to be
despised. For this reason we are also commanded in the law of Moses
that no one shall revile the rulers, be they good or evil, even though
they give great occasion. In short, we must have evil or childish
rulers,--if it is not the Turk, then it must needs be the Christians.
The world is far too wicked to be worthy of good and pious lords, it
must have princes who go to war, levy taxes and shed blood, and it
must have spiritual tyrants who impoverish and burden it with bulls
and letters[19] and laws. This and other chastisements are rather what
it has deserved, and to resist them is nothing else than to resist
God's chastisement. As humbly as I conduct myself when God sends me a
sickness, so humbly should I conduct myself toward the evil
government, which the same God also sends me.
18. When we are justly and deservedly put under the ban our chief
concern should be to correct the sins of commission and omission which
caused the ban, since the ban always is imposed on account of sin
(which is far worse than the ban itself), and yet here as elsewhere
things are perverted, so that we only consider how much the rod hurts
and not why we are punished. Where can you find men to-day who are as
much in fear of sinning and provoking God as they are in fear of the
ban? Thus it happens that we are more in fear of the wholesome
chastisement than of the heinous sins. We must let men think and act
thus, because the natural man does not see the spiritual harm in sin
as he feels the smarts of chastisement; although the fear of the ban
has also been exaggerated by the tyrannous methods and threatenings of
the spiritual judges who drive the people to fear punishment more than
sin.
When, however, we are unjustly put under the ban, we should be very
careful that we in no way do, omit, say or withhold that on account of
which we are under the ban (unless we cannot do so without sin and
without injury to our neighbor)[20], but rather should we endure the
ban in humility, die happily under it, if it cannot be otherwise, and
not be terrified, even though we do not receive the sacrament and are
buried in unconsecrated ground. The reason is this: Truth and
righteousness belong to the inner, spiritual fellowship[21] and may
not be abandoned under penalty of falling under God's eternal ban.
Therefore they dare not be surrendered for the sake of the external
fellowship, which is immeasurably inferior, nor because of the ban. To
receive the sacrament and to be buried in consecrated ground are of
too little consequence that or their sake truth and righteousness be
neglected. And that no one may think this strange I will go further
and say that even he who dies under a just ban is not damned, unless
indeed he did not repent of his sin or despised the ban. For sorrow
and repentance make all things right, even though his body be exhumed
or his ashes cast into the water[22].
19. The unjust ban then is much more to be desired than either the
just ban or the external fellowship. It is a very precious merit in
the sight of God, and blessed is he who dies under an unjust ban. God
will grant him an eternal crown for the truth's sake, on account of
which he is under the ban. Then let him sing in the words of Psalm
cix, "They have cursed me, but Thou hast blessed me." [Ps. 109:28]
Only let us beware of despising the authorities, and humbly declare
our innocence; if this does not avail, then we are free and without
guilt in the sight of God. For if we are in duty bound by the
commandment of Christ to agree with our adversary [Matt. 5:25]; how
much more should we agree with the authority of the Christian Church,
be it exercised justly or unjustly, by worthy or unworthy rulers.
An obedient child, though it does not deserve the punishment it
receives from its mother, suffers no harm from the unjust
chastisement, nay, by its very patience it becomes much dearer and
more pleasing to the mother; how much more do we become lovable in
God's sight, if at the hands of evil rulers we endure the unmerited
punishment of the Church, as our spiritual mother. For the Church
remains our mother because Christ remains Christ, and she is not
changed into a step-mother simply because of our evil rulers.
Nevertheless, the prelates and bishops and their officials should be
temperate and not hastily use the ban, for many bans means nothing
else than many laws and commandments, and prescribing many laws is to
set many snares for poor souls. And so by numerous ill-advised bans
nothing more results than great offence and an occasion or sin, by
which the wrath of God is provoked, although the ban was ordained to
reconcile Him. And although we are truly bound to obey them, still
more are they bound to direct, change and regulate their decree and
authority according to our ability and need and for our correction and
salvation; for we have shown from St. Paul[23] that power is given not
for destruction but for edification [2 Cor. 13:10].
20. The ban should be applied not only to heretics and schismatics,
but to all who are guilty of open sin, as we have shown above from St.
Paul, who commands that the railer, extortioner, fornicator and
drunkard be put under the ban [1 Cor. 5:11]. But in our day such
sinners are let in peace, especially if they are bigwigs; and to the
disgrace of this noble form of authority, the ban is used only for the
collection of debts of money, often so insignificant that the costs
amount to more than the original debt. In order to gloss this over
they have hit upon a new device, saying they put under the ban not
because of debt but because of disobedience, because the summons was
not respected; were it not for debt, however, they would forget the
disobedience, as we see when many other sins, even their own, escape
the ban. A poor man must often be disobedient if he is cited to go so
many miles, lose time and money and neglect his trade. It is utter
tyranny to summon a man to come such a distance across country to
court.
And I commend the temporal princes[24] who will not permit the ban and
the abuses connected with it in their lands and among their people.
What are princes and counsellors for if they do not concern themselves
with and judge such temporal matters as debts, each in their city and
province and among their subjects? The spiritual powers should be
concerned with the Word of God, with sin, and with the devil, in order
to bring souls to God, and should relinquish temporal cases to the
temporal judges, as Paul writes[25][1 Cor. 6:1]. Indeed, as things are
now, it is almost necessary to use the ban in order to drive the
people into the Church and not out of it.
21. Whether one be justly or unjustly under the ban, no one may
exclude him from the Church until the Gospel has been read or the
sermon preached[26]. For from the hearing of the Gospel and the sermon
no one shall or can exclude or be excluded. The hearing of the Word of
God should remain free to every one[27]. Nay, those who are under a
just ban ought most of all to hear it, that they may perchance be
moved by it to acknowledge their sin and to reform. We read that it
was the ancient practice of the Church to dismiss those under the ban
after the sermon, and if a whole congregation were under the ban the
sermon must be allowed to proceed just as though there were no ban. In
addition, even though he who is under the ban may not remain for the
mass after the sermon, nor come to the sacrament[28], nevertheless he
should not neglect it, but spiritually come to the sacrament, that is,
he should heartily desire it and believe that he can spiritually
receive it, as was said in the treatise on the sacrament[29].
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the preceding treatise on the _Blessed Sacrament_.
[2] See above, p. 10.
[3] See above, p. 18.
[4] I. e., the necessaries of life.
[5] E. g., the crusades against heretics, and the inquisition of the
thirteenth century. Luther's statement that to burn heretics is
contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit was condemned in the Bull
_Exsurge Domine_, of July 15, 1520.
[6] Cf. p. 53.
[7] Cf. p. 10.
[8] See Vol. I, pp. 53, 163 ff.
[9] The officials were officers of the bishops' courts; see also
below, p. 103.
[10] In Vito, lib. V, tit. xi, c. I,_Cum medicinalis_.
[11] According to Luther's interpretation of 1 Cor. 5:5. Cf. also Acts
5:5.
[12] The passage quoted from the canon law.
[13] For instances see the _Gravamina of the German Nation_ (1521),
Wrede, _Deutsche Reichstagsakten_, II, 685.
[14] Thiele, _Luthers Sprichwortersammlung_, No. 276.
[15] I. e., a cleric.
[16] This statement also was condemned in the papal bull.
[17] The "officials" were the administrators of this discipline, see
above, p. 41.
[18] A very important limitation for Luther's position.
[19] See Open Letter to the Nobility, below, p. 98.
[20] Again an important limitation.
[21] See above, p. 41.
[22] The ashes of Hus were cast into the Rhine (1415), and the body of
Wycliff was exhumed and cremated and the ashes cast into the water
(1427).
[23] See above, p. 42.
[24] In 1518 both George and Frederick of Saxony took the position
that spiritual jurisdiction should be limited to spiritual matters.
Gess, _Akten und Briefe zur Kirchen politik Georgs_ 1, 44.
[25] Luther puts a peculiar construction upon this passage.
[26] The ancient service was divided into the service of the Word
(_missa catechumenorum_) and the celebration of the sacrament (_missa
fidelium_); before the second, those under the ban as well as the
catechumens were required to withdraw.
[27] The "great ban" excluded from all services.
[28] According to Roman Catholic usage there is a distinction between
hearing mass and receiving the sacrament.
[29] Compare Treatise Concerning the Blessed Sacrament, above, p. 25.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION
CONCERNING THE REFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN ESTATE
1520
INTRODUCTION
The _Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation_ is
closely related to the tract on _The Papacy at Rome: A Reply to the
Celebrated Romanist at Leipzig_[1]. In a letter to Spalatin[2] dated
before June 8, 1520, Luther says: "I shall assail that ass of an
Alveld in such wise as not to forget the Roman pontiff, and neither of
them will be pleased." In the same letter he writes, "I am minded to
issue a broadside to Charles and the nobility of Germany against the
tyranny and baseness of the Roman curia." The attack upon Alveld is
the tract on _The Papacy at Rome_; the _scheda publica_ grew into the
_Open Letter_. At the time when the letter to Spalatin was written,
the work on _The Papacy at Rome_ must have been already in press, for
it appeared in print on the 26th of the month[3], and the composition
of the Open Letter had evidently not yet begun. On the 23d Luther sent
the manuscript of the _Open Letter_ to Amsdorf[4], with the request
that he read it and suggest changes. The two weeks immediately
preceding the publication of the work _On the Papacy_ must, therefore,
have been the time when the Open Letter was composed.
In the conclusion to the earlier work Luther had said: "Moreover, I
should be truly glad if kings, princes, and all the nobles would take
hold, and turn the knaves from Rome out of the country, and keep the
appointments to bishoprics and benefices out of their hands. How has
Roman avarice come to usurp all the foundations, bishoprics and
benefices of our fathers? Who has ever read or heard of such monstrous
robbery? Do we not also have the people who need them, while out of
our poverty we must enrich the ass-drivers and stable-boys, nay, the
harlots and knaves at Rome, who look upon us as nothing else but
arrant fools, and make us the objects of their vile mockery? Oh, the
pity, that kings and princes have so little reverence for Christ, and
His honor concerns them so little that they allow such heinous
abominations to gain the upper hand, and look on, while at Rome they
think of nothing but to continue in their madness and to increase the
abounding misery, until no hope is let on earth except in the temporal
authorities. Of this I will say more anon, if this Romanist comes
again; let this suffice for a beginning. May God help us at length to
open our eyes. Amen."
This passage may fairly be regarded as the germ of the _Open Letter_.
The ideas of the latter work are suggested with sufficient clearness
to show that its materials are already at hand, and its plan already
in the author's mind. The threat to write it is scarcely veiled. That
Luther did not wait for that particular Romanist to "come again" may
have been due to the intervention of another Romanist, none other than
his old opponent, Sylvester Prierias. Before the 7th of June[5] Luther
had received a copy of Prierias' _Epitome of a Reply to Martin
Luther_[6], which is the boldest and baldest possible assertion of the
very theory of papal power which Luther had sought to demolish in his
tract on the Papacy. In the preface to his reprint of the Epitome,
Luther bids farewell to Rome: "Farewell, unhappy, hopeless,
blasphemous Rome! The wrath of God hath come upon thee, as thou hast
deserved! We have cared for Babylon, and she is not healed; let us,
then, leave her, that she may be the habitation of dragons, spectres
and witches, and true to her name of Babel, an everlasting confusion,
a new pantheon of wickedness."[7]
These words were written while the _Open Letter_ was in course of
composition. The _Open Letter_ is, therefore, Luther's first
publication after the time when he recognized that the breach between
him and the papal church was complete, and likely to be permanent.
Meanwhile, the opposing party had come to the same conclusion. The
verdict of the pope upon Luther had been long delayed, but on the 15th
of June, midway between the letter to Spalatin, above mentioned, and
the completion of the _Open Letter_, Leo X signed the bull of
excommunication, though it was not published in Germany until later.
Thus the _Open Letter_ shows us the mind of Luther in the weeks when
the permanent separation between him and Rome took place.
It was also the time when he had the highest hopes from the promised
support of the German knights[8], who formed the patriotic party in
Germany and are included in the "nobility" to whom the Open Letter is
addressed[9].
The first edition of 4000 copies came off the press of Melchior
Lotther in Wittenberg before the 18th of August[10]. It is
surmised[11] that the earlier portion[12] of the work was not
contained in the original manuscript, but was added while it was in
the printer's hands; perhaps it was added at the suggestion of
Amsdorf. Less than a week later a second edition was in course of
preparation[13]. This "enlarged and revised edition"[14] contained
three passages not included in the first[15]. They are indicated in
the notes to the present edition.
He who would know the true Luther must read more than one of his
writings; he must not by any chance omit to read the _Open Letter to
the Christian Nobility of the German Nation_. In his other works we
learn to know him as the man of God, or the prophet, or the
theologian; in this treatise we meet Luther the German. His heart is
full of grief for the affliction of his people, and grief turns to
wrath as he observes that this affliction is put upon them by the
tyranny and greed of the pope and the cardinals and the "Roman
vermin." The situation is desperate; appeals and protests have been
all in vain; and so, as a last resort, he turns to the temporal
authorities,--to Charles V, newly elected, but as yet uncrowned; to
the territorial lords, great and small, who have a voice in the
imperial diet and powers of jurisdiction in their own
domains,--reciting the abuses of "Roman tyranny," and pleading with
them to intervene in behalf of the souls that are going to destruction
"through the devilish rule of Rome." It is a cry out of the heart of
Germany, a nation whose bent is all religious, but which, from that
very circumstance, is all the more open to the insults and wrongs and
deceptions of the Roman curia.
Yet it is no formless and incoherent cry, but an orderly recital of
the ills of Germany. There are times when we feel in reading it that
the writer is laying violent hands on his own wrath in the effort to
be calm. For all its scathing quality, it is a sane arraignment of
those who "under the holy name of Christ and St. Peter" are
responsible for the nation's woes, and the remedies that are proposed
are, many of them, practicable as well as reasonable.
The materials of the work are drawn from many sources,--from hearsay,
from personal observation, from such histories as Luther had at his
command, from the proceedings of councils and of diets; there are
passages which would seem to bear more than an accidental resemblance
to similar passages in Hutten's _Vadiscus_. All was grist that came to
Luther's mill. But the spirit of the work is Luther's own.
For the general historian, who is concerned more with the practical
than with the theoretical or theological aspects of the Reformation,
the _Open Letter_ is undoubtedly Luther's greatest work. Its rank
outspokenness about the true condition of Germany, the number and
variety of the subjects that it treats, the multiplicity of the
sources from which the subject-matter is drawn, and the point of view
from which the whole is discussed make it a work of absorbing interest
and priceless historical value. It shows, as does no other single work
of the Reformation time, the things that were in men's minds and the
variety of motives which led them to espouse the cause of the
Protestant party. Doctrine, ethics, history, politics, economics, all
have their place in the treatise. It is not only "a blast on the
war-trumpet,"[16] but a connecting link between the thought of the
Middle Ages and that of modern times, prophetic of the new age, but
showing how closely the new is bound up with the old.
The text of the _Open Letter_ is found in _Weimar Ed_., VI, 404-469;
_Erl. Ed._, XXI, 277-360; _Walch Ed._, X, 296-399; _St. Louis Ed._, X,
266-351; _Berlin Ed._, I, 203-290; _Clemen_ I, 363-425. The text of
the Berlin Ed._ is modernized and annotated by E. Schneider. The
editions of _K. Benrath_ (Halle, 1883) and E. Lemme (_Die 3 grossen
Reformationsschriften L's vom J. 1520_; Gotha, 1884) contain a
modernized text and extensive notes. A previous English translation in
_Wace_ and _Buchheim_, _Luther's Primary Works_ (London and
Philadelphia, 1896). The present translation is based on the text of
Clemen.
For full discussion of the contents of the work, especially its
sources, see _Weimar Ed._, VI, 381-391; _Schafer, Luther als
Kirchenhistoriker_, Gutersloh, 1897; Kohler, _L's Schrift an den Adel
. . . im Spiegel der Kulturgeschichte_, Halle, 1895, and _Luther und
die Kirchengeschichte_, Erlangen, 1900. Extensive comment in all the
biographies, especially Kostlin-Kawerau I, 315 ff.
CHARLES M. JACOBS.
Lutheran Theological Seminary,
Mount Airy, Philadelphia.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In this edition, I, 337 ff.
[2] Enders, II, 414; Smith, _L.'s Correspondence_, I, No. 266.
[3] Enders, II, 424.
[4] See below, p. 62.
[5] See letter of June 7th to John Hess, Enders, II, 411; Smith, I,
No. 265.
[6] Published at Rome 1519; printed with Luther's preface and notes,
Weimar Ed., VI, 328ff.; Erl. Ed., op. var. arg., II, 79 ff.
[7] _Weimar Ed._, VI, 329.
[8] See Enders, II, 415, 443; Smith, Nos. 269, 279, and documents in
_St. Louis Ed._, XV, 1630 ff.
[9] See Kostlin-Kawerau, _Martin Luther_, I, 308 ff., and _Weimar
Ed._, VI, 381 ff.
[10] See Luther's letters to Lang and Staupitz, who wished to have the
publication withheld (Enders, II, 461, 463).
[11] _Clemen_, I. 362.
[12] Below, pp. 65-99.
[13] See _Weimar Ed._, VI, 397.
[14] See title _B_, _ibid_., 398.
[15] Printed as an appendix in _Clemen_, I, 421-425.
[16] So it was called by Johann Lang (Enders, II, 461).
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION
CONCERNING THE REFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN ESTATE
1520
To the
Esteemed and Reverend Master
NICHOLAS VON AMSDORF,
Licentiate of Holy Scripture and Canon at Wittenberg, my special and
kind friend;
Doctor Martin Luther.
The grace and peace of God be with thee, esteemed and reverend dear
sir and friend.
The time to keep silence has passed and the time to speak is come, as
saith Ecclesiastes [Eccl. 3:7]. I have followed out our intention[1]
and brought together some matters touching the reform of the Christian
Estate, to be laid before the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
in the hope that God may deign to help His Church through the efforts
of the laity, since the clergy, to whom this task more properly
belongs, have grown quite indifferent. I am sending the whole thing to
your Reverence, that you may pass judgment on it and, if necessary,
improve it.
I know full well that I shall not escape the charge of presumption in
that I, a despised monk, venture to address such high and great
Estates on matters of such moment, and to give advice to people of
such high intelligence. I shall offer no apologies, no matter who may
chide me. Perchance I owe my God and the world another piece of folly,
and I have now made up my mind honestly to pay that debt, if I can do
so, and for once to become court-jester; if I fail, I still have one
advantage,--no one need buy me a cap or cut me my comb[2]. It is a
question which one will put the bells on the other[3]. I must fulfil
the proverb, "Whatever the world does, a monk must be in it, even if
he has to be painted in."[4] More than once a fool has spoken wisely,
and wise men often have been arrant fools, as Paul says, "If any one
will be wise, let him become a fool." [1 Cor. 3:18] Moreover since I
am not only a fool, but also a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, I am
glad for the chance to fulfil my doctor's oath in this fool's way.
I pray you, make my excuses to the moderately intelligent, for I know
not how to earn the grace and favor of the immoderately intelligent,
though I have often sought to do so with great pains. Henceforth I
neither desire nor regard their favor. God help us to seek not our own
glory, but His alone! Amen.
Wittenberg, in the house of the Augustinians, on the Eve of St. John
the Baptist (June 23d), in the year fifteen hundred and twenty.
To
His Most Illustrious and Mighty Imperial Majesty,
and to
the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
Doctor Martin Luther.
Grace and power from God, Most Illustrious Majesty, and most gracious
and dear Lords.
It is not out of sheer frowardness or rashness that I, a single, poor
man, have undertaken to address your worships. The distress and
oppression which weigh down all the Estates of Christendom, especially
of Germany, and which move not me alone, but everyone to cry out time
and again, and to pray for help[5], have forced me even now to cry
aloud that God may inspire some one with His Spirit to lend this
suffering nation a helping hand. Ofttimes the councils[6] have made
some pretence at reformation, but their attempts have been cleverly
hindered by the guile of certain men and things have gone from bad to
worse. I now intend, by the help of God, to throw some light upon the
wiles and wickedness of these men, to the end that when they are
known, they may not henceforth be so hurtful and so great a hindrance.
God has given us a noble youth to be our head and thereby has awakened
great hopes of good in many hearts[7]; wherefore it is meet that we
should do our part and profitably use this time of grace.
In this whole matter the first and most important thing is that we
take earnest heed not to enter on it trusting in great might or in
human reason, even though all power in the world were ours; for God
cannot and will not suffer a good work to be begun with trust in our
own power or reason. Such works He crushes ruthlessly to earth, as it
is written in the xxxiii. Psalm, "There is no king saved by the
multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength."
[Ps. 33:16] On this account, I fear, it came to pass of old that the
good Emperors Frederick I[8] and II[9], and many other German emperors
were shamefully oppressed and trodden under foot by the popes,
although all the world feared them. It may be that they relied on
their own might more than on God, and therefore they had to all. In
our own times, too, what was it that raised the bloodthirsty Julius
II[10] to such heights? Nothing else, I fear, except that France, the
Germans and Venice relied upon themselves. The children of Benjamin
slew 42,000 Israelites[11] because the latter relied on their own
strength.
That it may not so fare with us and our noble young Emperor Charles,
we must be sure that in this matter we are dealing not with men, but
with the princes of hell, who can fill the world with war and
bloodshed, but whom war and bloodshed do not overcome. We must go at
this work despairing of physical force and humbly trusting God; we
must seek God's help with earnest prayer, and fix our minds on nothing
else than the misery and distress of suffering Christendom, without
regard to the deserts of evil men. Otherwise we may start the game
with great prospect of success, but when we get well into it the evil
spirits will stir up such confusion that the whole world will swim in
blood, and yet nothing will come of it. Let us act wisely, therefore,
and in the fear of God. The more force we use, the greater our
disaster if we do not act humbly and in God's fear. The popes and the
Romans have hitherto been, able, by the devil's help, to set kings at
odds with one another, and they may well be able to do it again, if we
proceed by our own might and cunning, without God's help.
I. THE THREE WALLS OF THE ROMANISTS
[Sidenote: The Three Walls Described]
The Romanists[12], with great adroitness, have built three walls about
them, behind which they have hitherto defended themselves in such wise
that no one has been able to reform them; and this has been the cause
of terrible corruption throughout all Christendom.
_First_, when pressed by the temporal power, they have made decrees
and said that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but,
on the other hand, that the spiritual is above the temporal power.
_Second_, when the attempt is made to reprove them out of the
Scriptures, they raise the objection that the interpretation of the
Scriptures belongs to no one except the pope. Third, if threatened
with a council, they answer with the fable that no one can call a
council but the pope.
In this wise they have slyly stolen from us our three rods[13], that
they may go unpunished, and have ensconced themselves within the safe
stronghold of these three walls, that they may practise all the
knavery and wickedness which we now see. Even when they have been
compelled to hold a council they have weakened its power in advance by
previously binding the princes with an oath to let them remain as they
are. Moreover, they have given the pope full authority over all the
decisions of the council, so that it is all one whether there are many
councils or no councils,--except that they deceive us with
puppet-shows and sham-battles. So terribly do they fear for their skin
in a really free council! And they have intimidated kings and princes
by making them believe it would be an offence against God not to obey
them in all these knavish, crafty deceptions[14]. Now God help us, and
give us one of the trumpets with which the walls of Jericho were
overthrown [Josh. 6:20], that we may blow down these walls of straw
and paper, and may set free the Christian rods or the punishment of
sin, bringing to light the craft and deceit of the devil, to the end
that through punishment we may reform ourselves, and once more attain
God's favor.
Against the first wall we will direct our first attack.
[Sidenote: The First Wall--the Spiritual Estate above the Temporal]
It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be
called the "spiritual estate"; princes, lords, artisans, and farmers
the temporal estate. That is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy.
Yet no one should be frightened by it; and for this reason--viz., that
all Christians are truly of the "spiritual estate," and there is among
them no difference at all but that of office, as Paul says in I
Corinthians xii. We are all one body, yet every member has its own
work, whereby it serves every other, all because we have one baptism,
one Gospel, one faith, and are all alike Christians [1 Cor. 12:12
ff.]; for baptism, Gospel and faith alone make us "spiritual" and a
Christian people.
[Sidenote: The Priesthood of Believers]
But that a pope or a bishop anoints, confers tonsures, ordains,
consecrates, or prescribes dress unlike that of the laity,--this may
make hypocrites and graven images[15], but it never makes a Christian
or "spiritual" man. Through baptism all of us are consecrated to the
priesthood, as St. Peter says in I Peter ii, "Ye are a royal
priesthood, a priestly kingdom," [1 Pet. 2:9] and the book of
Revelation says, "Thou hast made us by Thy blood to be priests and
kings." [Rev. 5:10] For if we had no higher consecration than pope or
bishop gives, the consecration by pope or bishop would never make a
priest, nor might anyone either say mass or preach a sermon or give
absolution. Therefore when the bishop consecrates it is the same thing
as if he, in the place and stead of the whole congregation, all of
whom have like power, were to take one out of their number and charge
him to use this power for the others; just as though ten brothers, all
king's sons and equal heirs, were to choose one of themselves to rule
the inheritance or them all,--they would all be kings and equal in
power, though one of them would be charged with the duty of ruling.
To make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen
were taken captive and set down in a wilderness, and had among them no
priest consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they
were to agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and
were to charge him with the office of baptising, saying mass,
absolving and preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as
though all bishops and popes had consecrated him. That is why in cases
of necessity any one can baptise and give absolution[16], which would
be impossible unless we were all priests. This great grace and power
of baptism and of the Christian Estate they have well-nigh destroyed
and caused us to forget through the canon law[17]. It was in the
manner aforesaid that Christians in olden days chose from their number
bishops and priests, who were afterwards confirmed by other bishops,
without all the show which now obtains. It was thus that Sts.
Augustine[18], Ambrose[19] and Cyprian[20] became bishops.
[Sidenote: The Temporal Rulers, Priests]
[Sidenote: The Priest an Office-holder]
Since, then, the temporal authorities are baptised with same baptism
and have the same faith and Gospel as we, we must grant that they are
priests and bishops, and count their office one which has a proper and
a useful place in the Christian community. For whoever comes out of
the water of baptism[21] can boast that he is already consecrated
priest, bishop and pope, though it is not seemly that every one should
exercise the office. Nay, just because we are all in like manner
priests, no one must put himself forward and undertake, without our
consent and election, to do what is in the power of all of us. For
what is common to all, no one dare take upon himself without the will
and the command of the community; and should it happen that one chosen
for such an office were deposed for malfeasance, he would then be just
what he was before he held office. Therefore a priest in Christendom
is nothing else than an office-holder. While he is in office, he has
precedence; holder when deposed, he is a peasant or a townsman like
the rest. Beyond all doubt, then, a priest is no longer a priest when
he is deposed. But now they have invented _characteres
indelebiles_[22], and prate that a deposed priest is nevertheless
something different from a mere layman. They even dream that a priest
can never become a layman, or be anything else than a priest. All this
is mere talk and man-made law.
From all this it follows that there is really no difference between
laymen and priests, princes and bishops, "spirituals" and "temporals,"
as they call them, except that of office and work, but not of
"estate"; or they are all of the same estate[23],--true priests,
bishops and popes,--though they are not all engaged in the same work,
just as all priests and monks have not the same work. This is the
teaching of St. Paul in Romans xii [Rom. 12:4 ff.] and I Corinthians
xii [1 Cor. 12:12 ff.], and of St. Peter in I Peter ii [1 Pet. 2:9],
as I have said above, viz., that we are all one body of Christ, the
Head, all members one of another. Christ has not two different bodies,
one "temporal," the other "spiritual." He is one Head, and He has one
body.
Therefore, just as those who are now called "spiritual"--priests,
bishops or popes--are neither different from other Christians nor
superior to them, except that they are charged with the administration
of the Word of God and the sacraments, which is their work and office,
so it is with the temporal authorities,--they bear sword and rod with
which to punish the evil and to protect the good [Rom. 13:4]. A
cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office of his trade,
and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops, and every
one by means of his own work or office must benefit and serve every
other, that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily
and spiritual welfare of the community, even as all the members of the
body serve one another.
See, now, how Christian is the decree which says that the temporal
power is not above the "spiritual estate" and may not punish it[24].
That is as much as to say that the hand shall lend no aid when the eye
is suffering. Is it not unnatural, not to say unchristian, that one
member should not help another and prevent its destruction? Verily,
the more honorable the member, the more should the others help. I say
then, since the temporal power is ordained of God to punish evil-doers
and to protect them that do well [Rom. 13], it should therefore be
left free to perform its office without hindrance through the whole
body of Christendom without respect of persons, whether it affect
pope, bishops, priests, monks, nuns or anybody else. For if the mere
act that the temporal power has a smaller place among the Christian
offices than has the office of preachers or confessors, or of the
clergy, then the tailors, cobblers, masons, carpenters, pot-boys,
tapsters, farmers, and all the secular tradesmen, should also be
prevented from providing pope, bishops, priests and monks with shoes,
clothing, houses, meat and drink, and from paying them tribute. But if
these laymen are allowed to do their work unhindered, what do the
Roman scribes mean by their laws, with which they withdraw themselves
from the jurisdiction of the temporal Christian power, only so that
they may be free to do evil and to fulfil what St. Peter has said:
"There shall be false teachers among you, and through covetousness
shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you." [2 Pet. 2:1
ff.]
On this account the Christian temporal power should exercise its
office without let or hindrance, regardless whether it be pope, bishop
or priest whom it affects; whoever is guilty, let him suffer. All that
the canon law has said to the contrary is sheer invention of Roman
presumption. For thus saith St. Paul to all Christians: "Let every
soul (I take that to mean the pope's soul also) be subject unto the
higher powers; for they bear not the sword in vain, but are the
ministers of God for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise
of them that do well." [Rom. 13:1, 4] St. Peter also says: "Submit
yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, for so is
the will of God." [1 Pet. 2:13, 15] He has also prophesied that such
men shall come as will despise the temporal authorities [1 Pet. 2:10];
and this has come to pass through the canon law.
So then, I think this first paper-wall is overthrown, since the
temporal power has become a member of the body of Christendom, and is
of the "spiritual estate," though its work is of a temporal nature.
Therefore its work should extend freely and without hindrance to all
the members of the whole body; it should punish and use force whenever
guilt deserves or necessity demands, without regard to pope, bishops
and priests,--let them hurl threats and bans as much as they will.
This is why guilty priests, if they are surrendered to the temporal
law[25], are first deprived of their priestly dignities, which would
not be right unless the temporal sword had previously had authority
over them by divine right. Again, it is intolerable that in the canon
law so much importance is attached to the freedom, life and property
of the clergy, as though the laity were not also as spiritual and as
good Christians as they, or did not belong to the Church. Why are your
life and limb, your property and honor so free, and mine not? We are
all alike Christians, and have baptism, faith, Spirit and all things
alike. If a priest is killed, the land is laid under
interdict,[26]--why not when a peasant is killed? Whence comes this
great distinction between those who are equally Christians? Only from
human laws and inventions!
Moreover, it can be no good spirit who has invented such exceptions
and granted to sin such license and impunity. For if we are bound to
strive against the works and words of the evil spirit, and to drive
him out in whatever way we can, as Christ commands and His Apostles,
ought we, then, to suffer it in silence when the pope or his
satellites are bent on devilish words and works? Ought we for the sake
of men to allow the suppression of divine commandments and truths
which we have sworn in baptism to support with life and limb? Of a
truth we should then have to answer for all the souls that would
thereby be abandoned and led astray.
It must therefore have been the very prince of devils who said what is
written in the canon law: "If the pope were so scandalously bad as to
lead souls in crowds to the devil, yet he could not be deposed."[27]
On this accursed and devilish foundation they build at Rome, and think
that we should let all the world go to the devil, rather than resist
their knavery. If the act that one man is set over others were
sufficient reason why he should escape punishment, then no Christian
could punish another, since Christ commands that every man shall
esteem himself the lowliest and the least. [Matt. 18:4]
Where sin is, there is no escape from punishment; as St. Gregory[28]
also writes that we are indeed all equal, but guilt puts us in
subjection one to another. Now we see how they whom God and the
Apostles have made subject to the temporal sword deal with
Christendom, depriving it of its liberty by their own wickedness,
without warrant of Scripture. It is to be feared that this is a game
of Anti-christ[29] or a sign that he is close at hand.
[Sidenote: The Second Wall--The Pope the Interpreter of Scripture;
Papal Infallibility]
The second wall is still more flimsy and worthless. They wish to be
the only Masters of the Holy Scriptures[31] even though in all their
lives they learn nothing from them. They assume for themselves sole
authority, and with insolent juggling of words they would persuade us
that the pope, whether he be a bad man or a good man, cannot err in
matters of faith[32]; and yet they cannot prove a single letter of it.
Hence it comes that so many heretical and unchristian, nay, even
unnatural ordinances have a place in the canon law, of which, however,
there is no present need to speak. For since they think that the Holy
Spirit never leaves them, be they never so unlearned and wicked, they
make bold to decree whatever they will. And if it were true, where
would be the need or use of the Holy Scriptures? Let us burn them, and
be satisfied with the unlearned lords at Rome, who are possessed of
the Holy Spirit,--although He can possess only pious hearts! Unless I
had read it myself[33], I could not have believed that the devil would
make such clumsy pretensions at Rome, and find a following.
But not to fight them with mere words, we will quote the Scriptures.
St. Paul says in I Corinthians xiv: anyone something better is
revealed, though he be sitting and listening to another in God's Word,
then the first, who is speaking, shall hold his peace and give place."
[1 Cor. 14:30] What would be the use of this commandment, if we were
only to believe him who does the talking or who has the highest seat?
[John 6:45] Christ also says in John vi, that all Christians shall be
taught of God. Thus it may well happen that the pope and his followers
are wicked men, and no true Christians, not taught of God, not having
true understanding. On the other hand, an ordinary man may have true
understanding; why then should we not follow him? Has not the pope
erred many times? Who would help Christendom when the pope errs, if we
were not to believe another, who had the Scriptures on his side, more
than the pope?
Therefore it is a wickedly invented fable, and they cannot produce a
letter in defence of it, that the interpretation of Scripture or the
confirmation of its interpretation belongs to the pope alone. They
have themselves usurped this power; and although they allege that this
power was given to Peter when the keys were given to him, it is plain
enough that the keys were not given to Peter alone, but to the whole
community[34]. Moreover, the keys were not ordained for doctrine or
government, but only for the binding and loosing of sin [John 20:22
ff.], and whatever further power of the keys they arrogate to
themselves is mere invention. But Christ's word to Peter, "I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not," [Luke 22:32] cannot be
applied to the pope, since the majority of the popes have been without
faith, as they must themselves confess. Besides, it is not only for
Peter that Christ prayed, but also or all Apostles and Christians, as
he says in John xvii: "Father, I pray for those whom Thou hast given
Me, and not for these only, but for all who believe on Me through
their word." [John 17:9, 20] Is not this clear enough?
Only think of it yourself! They must confess that there are pious
Christians among us, who have the true faith, Spirit, understanding,
word and mind of Christ. Why, then, should we reject their word and
understanding and follow the pope, who has neither faith nor Spirit?
That would be to deny the whole faith and the Christian Church.
Moreover, it is not the pope alone who is always in the right, if the
article of the Creed is correct: "I believe one holy Christian
Church"; otherwise the prayer must run: "I believe in the pope at
Rome," and so reduce the Christian Church to one man,--which would be
nothing else than a devilish and hellish error.
Besides, if we are all priests, as was said above[35], and all have
one faith, one Gospel, one sacrament, why should we not also have the
power to test and judge what is correct or incorrect in matters of
faith? What becomes of the words of Paul in I Corinthians ii: "He that
is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,"
[1 Cor. 2:15] and II Corinthians iv: "We have all the same Spirit of
faith"? [2 Cor. 4:13] Why, then, should not we perceive what squares
with faith and what does not, as well as does an unbelieving pope?
All these and many other texts should make us bold and free, and we
should not allow the Spirit of liberty, as Paul calls Him [2 Cor.
3:17], to be frightened off by the fabrications of the popes, but we
ought to go boldly forward to test all that they do or leave undone,
according to our interpretation of the Scriptures, which rests on
faith, and compel them to follow not their own interpretation, but the
one that is better. In the olden days Abraham had to listen to his
Sarah, although she was in more complete subjection to him than we are
to anyone on earth [Gen. 21:12]. Balaam's ass, also, was wiser than
the prophet himself [Num. 22:28]. If God then spoke by an ass against
a prophet, why should He not be able even now to speak by a righteous
man against the pope? In like manner St. Paul rebukes St. Peter as a
man in error [Gal. 2:11 ff.]. Therefore it behooves every Christian to
espouse the cause of the faith, to understand and defend it, and to
rebuke all errors.
[Sidenote: The Third Wall--Pope and Council]
The _third wall_ falls of itself when the first two are down. For when
the pope acts contrary to the Pope and Scriptures, it is our duty to
stand by the Scriptures, to reprove him, and to constrain him,
according to the word of Christ in Matthew xviii: "If thy brother sin
against thee, go and tell it him between thee and him alone; if he
hear thee not, then take with thee one or two more; if he hear them
not, tell it to the Church; if he hear not the Church, consider him a
heathen." [Matt. 18:15] Here every member is commanded to care for
every other. How much rather should we do this when the member that
does evil is a ruling member, and by his evil-doing is the cause of
much harm and offence to the rest! But if I am to accuse him before
the Church, I must bring the Church together.
They have no basis in Scripture or their contention that it belongs to
the pope alone to call a council or confirm its actions[36]; for this
is based merely upon their own laws, which are valid only in so far as
they are not injurious to Christendom or contrary to the laws of God.
When the pope deserves punishment, such laws go out of force, since it
is injurious to Christendom not to punish him by means of a council.
Thus we read in Acts xv. that it was not St. Peter who called the
Apostolic Council, but the Apostles and elders [Acts 15:6]. If, then,
that right had belonged to St. Peter alone, the council would not have
been a Christian council, but an heretical _conciliabulum_[37]. Even
the Council of Nicaea--the most famous of all--was neither called nor
confirmed by the Bishop of Rome, but by the Emperor Constantine[38],
and many other emperors after him did the like, yet these councils
were the most Christian of all[39]. But if the pope alone had the
right to call councils, then all these councils must have been
heretical. Moreover, if I consider the councils which the pope has
created, I find that they have done nothing of special importance.
Therefore, when necessity demands, and the pope is an offence to
Christendom, the first man who is able should, as a faithful member of
the whole body, do what he can to bring about a truly free
council[40]. No one can do this so well as the temporal authorities,
especially since now they also are fellow-Christians, fellow-priests,
"fellow-spirituals,"[41] fellow-lords over all things, and whenever it
is needful or profitable, they should give free course to the office
and work in which God has put them above every man. Would it not be an
unnatural thing, if a fire broke out in a city, and everybody were to
stand by and let it burn on and on and consume everything that could
burn, for the sole reason that nobody had the authority of the
burgomaster, or because, perhaps, the fire broke out in the
burgomaster's house? In such case is it not the duty of every citizen
to arouse and call the rest? How much more should this be done in the
spiritual city of Christ, if a fire of offence breaks out, whether in
the papal government, or anywhere else? In the same way, if the enemy
attacks a city, he who first rouses the others deserves honor and
thanks; why then should he not deserve honor who makes known the
presence of the enemy from hell, and awakens the Christians, and calls
them together?
But all their boasts of an authority which dare not be opposed amount
to nothing after all. No one in Christendom has authority to do
injury, or to forbid the resisting of injury. There is no authority in
the Church save for edification. Therefore, if the pope were to use
his authority to prevent the calling of a free council, and thus
became a hindrance to the edification of the Church, we should have
regard neither or him nor or his authority; and if he were to hurl his
bans and thunderbolts, we should despise his conduct as that of a
madman, and relying on God, hurl back the ban on him, and coerce him
as best we could. For this presumptuous authority of his is nothing;
he has no such authority, and he is quickly overthrown by a text of
Scripture; for Paul says to the Corinthians, "God has given us
authority not for the destruction, but for the edification of
Christendom." [2 Cor. 10:8] Who is ready to overleap this text? It is
only the power of the devil and of Antichrist which resists the things
that serve or the edification of Christendom; it is, therefore, in no
wise to be obeyed, but is to be opposed with life and goods and all
our strength.
Even though a miracle were to be done in the pope's behalf against the
temporal powers, or though someone were to be stricken with a
plague--which they boast has sometimes happened--it should be
considered only the work of the devil, because of the weakness of our
faith in God. Christ Himself prophesied in Matthew xxiv: "There shall
come in My Name false Christs and false prophets, and do signs and
wonders, so as to deceive even the elect," [Matt. 24:24] and Paul says
in II Thessalonians ii, that Antichrist shall, through the power of
Satan, be mighty in lying wonders [2 Thess. 2:9]. Let us, therefore,
hold fast to this: No Christian authority can do anything against
Christ; as St. Paul says, "We can do nothing against Christ, but for
Christ." [2 Cor. 13:8] Whatever does aught against Christ is the power
of Antichrist and of the devil, even though it were to rain and hail
wonders and plagues. Wonders and plagues prove nothing, especially in
these last evil times, for which all the Scriptures prophesy false
wonders [2 Thess. 2:9 f.]. Therefore we must cling with firm faith to
the words of God, and then the devil will cease from wonders.
Thus I hope that the false, lying terror with which the Romans have
this long time made our conscience timid and stupid, has been allayed.
They, like all of us, are subject to the temporal sword; they have no
power to interpret the Scriptures by mere authority, without learning;
they have no authority to prevent a council or, in sheer wantonness,
to pledge it, bind it, or take away its liberty; but if they do this,
they are in truth the communion of Antichrist and of the devil, and
have nothing at all of Christ except the name.
II. ABUSES TO BE DISCUSSED IN COUNCILS
We shall now look at the matters which should be discussed in the
councils, and with which popes, cardinals, bishops and all the
scholars ought properly to be occupied day and night if they loved
Christ and His Church. But if they neglect this duty, then let the
laity[42] and the temporal authorities see to it, regardless of bans
and thunders; for an unjust ban is better than ten just releases, and
an unjust release worse than ten just bans. Let us, therefore, awake,
dear Germans, and fear God rather than men [Acts 5:29], that we may
not share the fate of all the poor souls who are so lamentably lost
through the shameful and devilish rule of the Romans, in which the
devil daily takes a larger and larger place,--if, indeed, it were
possible that such a hellish rule could grow worse, a thing I can
neither conceive nor believe.
[Sidenote: Worldliness of the pope]
1. It is a horrible and frightful thing that the ruler of Christendom,
who boasts himself vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter, lives
in such worldly splendor that in this regard no king nor emperor can
equal or approach him, and that he who claims the title of "most holy"
and "most spiritual" is more worldly than the world itself. He wears a
triple crown, when the greatest kings wear but a single crown[43]; if
that is like the poverty of Christ and of St. Peter, then it is a new
kind of likeness. When a word is said against it, they cry out
"Heresy!" but that is because they do not wish to hear how unchristian
and ungodly such a practice is. I think, however, that if the pope
were with tears to pray to God, he would have to lay aside these
crowns, for our God can suffer no pride; and his office is nothing
else than this,--daily to weep and pray or Christendom, and to set an
example of all humility.
However that may be, this splendor of his is an offence, and the pope
is bound on his soul's salvation to lay it aside, because St. Paul
says, "Abstain from all outward shows, which give offence," [1 Thess.
5:21] and in Rom. xii, "We should provide good, not only in the sight
of God, but also in the sight of all men." [Rom. 12:17] An ordinary
bishop's crown would be enough for the pope; he should be greater than
others in wisdom and holiness, and leave the crown of pride to
Antichrist, as did his predecessors several centuries ago. They say he
is a lord of the world; that is a lie; for Christ, Whose vicar and
officer he boasts himself to be, said before Pilate, "My kingdom is
not of this world," [John 17:36] and no vicar's rule can go beyond his
lord's. Moreover he is not the vicar of the glorified, but of the
crucified Christ, as Paul says, "I was willing to know nothing among
you save Christ, and Him only as the Crucified" [1 Cor. 2:2]; and in
Philippians ii, "So think of yourselves as ye see in Christ, Who
emptied Himself and took upon Him the appearance of a servant" [Phil.
2:5]; and again in I Corinthians i, "We preach Christ, the Crucified."
[1 Cor. 1:23] Now they make the pope a vicar of the glorified Christ
in heaven, and some of them have allowed the devil to rule them so
completely that they have maintained that the pope is above the angels
in heaven and has authority over them[44]. These are indeed the very
works of the very Antichrist.
[Sidenote: The Cardinals]
2. What is the use in Christendom of those people who are called the
cardinals? I shall tell you. Italy and Germany have many rich
monasteries, foundations, benefices, and livings. No better way has
been discovered to bring all these to Rome than by creating cardinals
and giving them the bishoprics, monasteries and prelacies, and so
overthrowing the worship of God. For this reason we now see Italy a
very wilderness--monasteries in ruins, bishoprics devoured, the
prelacies and the revenues of all the churches drawn to Rome, cities
decayed, land and people laid waste, because there is no more worship
or preaching. Why? The cardinals must have the income[45]. No Turk
could have so devastated Italy and suppressed the worship of God.
Now that Italy is sucked dry, they come into Germany[46], and begin
oh, so gently. But let us beware, for Germany will soon become like
Italy. Already we have some cardinals; what the Romans seek by that
the "drunken Germans" are not to understand until we have not a
bishopric, a monastery, a living, a benefice, a _heller_ or a
_pfennig_ left. Antichrist must take the treasures of the earth, as it
was prophesied [Dan. 11:39, 43]. So it goes on. They skim the cream of
the bishoprics, monasteries and benefices, and because they do not yet
venture to turn them all to shameful use, as they have done in Italy,
they only practise for the present the sacred trickery of coupling
together ten or twenty prelacies and taking a yearly portion from each
of them, so as to make a tidy sum after all. The priory of Wurzburg
yields a thousand _gulden_; that of Bamberg, something; Mainz, Trier
and the others, something more; and so from one to ten thousand gulden
might be got together, in order that a cardinal might live at Rome
like a rich king.
"After they are used to this, we will create thirty or forty cardinals
in a day[47], and give to one Mount St. Michael at Bamberg[48] and the
bishopric of Wurzburg to boot, hang on to these a few rich livings,
until churches and cities are waste, and after that we will say, 'We
are Christ's vicars and shepherds of Christ's sheep; the mad, drunken
Germans must put up with it.'"
I advise, however, that the number of the cardinals be reduced, or
that the pope be made to keep them at his own expense. Twelve of them
would be more than enough, and each of them might have an income of a
thousand gulden a year[49]. How comes it that we Germans must put up
with such robbery and such extortion of our property, at the hands of
the pope? If the Kingdom of France has prevented it[50], why do we
Germans let them make such fools and apes of us? It would all be more
bearable if in this way they only stole our property; but they lay
waste the churches and rob Christ's sheep of their pious shepherds,
and destroy the worship and the Word of God. Even if there were not a
single cardinal, the Church would not go under. As it is they do
nothing for the good of Christendom; they only wrangle about the
incomes of bishoprics and prelacies, and that any robber could do.
[Sidenote: The Curia]
3. If ninety-nine parts of the papal court[51] were done away and only
the hundredth part allowed to remain, it would still be large enough
to give decisions in matters of faith. Now, however, there is such a
swarm of vermin yonder in Rome, all boasting that they are "papal,"
that there was nothing like it in Babylon. There are more than three
thousand papal secretaries alone; who will count the other offices,
when they are so many that they scarcely can be counted? And they all
lie in wait for the prebends and benefices of Germany as wolves lie in
wait for the sheep. I believe that Germany now gives much more to the
pope at Rome than it gave in former times to the emperors. Indeed,
some estimate that every year more than three hundred thousand gulden
find their way from Germany to Rome, quite uselessly and fruitlessly;
we get nothing for it but scorn and contempt. And yet we wonder that
princes, nobles, cities, endowments, land and people are impoverished!
We should rather wonder that we still have anything to eat!
Since we here come to the heart of the matter, we will pause a little,
and let it be seen that the Germans are not quite such gross fools as
not to note or understand the sharp practices of the Romans. I do not
now complain that at Rome God's command and Christian law are
despised; for such is the state of Christendom, and particularly of
Rome, that we may not now complain of such high matters. Nor do I
complain that natural or temporal law and reason count for nothing.
The case is worse even than that. I complain that they do not keep
their own self-devised canon law, though it is, to be sure, mere
tyranny, avarice and temporal splendor, rather than law. Let us see!
[Sidenote: The Annates]
In former times German emperors and princes permitted the pope to
receive the _annates_ from all the benefices of the German nation, i.
e., the half of the first year's revenues from each benefice[52]. This
permission was given, however, in order that by means of these large
sums of money, the pope might accumulate a treasure for fighting
against the Turks and infidels in defence of Christendom, so that the
burden of the war might not rest too heavily upon the nobility, but
that the clergy also should contribute something toward it. This
single-hearted devotion of the German nation the popes have so used,
that they have received this money for more than a hundred years, have
now made of it a binding tax and tribute, and have not only
accumulated no treasure, but have used the money to endow many orders
and offices at Rome, and to provide these offices with salaries, as
though the annates were a fixed rent.
[Sidenote: Saracen-tax]
When they pretend that they are about to fight against the Turks, they
send out emissaries to gather money. Ofttimes they issue an indulgence
on this same pretext of fighting the Turks[53], for they think the mad
Germans are forever to remain utter and arrant fools, give them money
without end, and satisfy their unspeakable greed; though we clearly
see that not a _heller_ of the annates or of the indulgence-money or
of all the rest, is used against the Turks, but all of it goes into
the bottomless bag. They lie and deceive, make laws and make
agreements with us, and they do not intend to keep any of them. All
this must be counted the work of Christ and St. Peter!
Now, in this matter the German nation, bishops and princes, should
consider that they too are Christians, and should protect the people,
whom they are set to rule and guard in things temporal and spiritual,
against these ravening wolves who, in sheep's clothing, pretend to be
shepherds and rulers; and, since the annates are so shamefully abused
and the stipulated conditions are not fulfilled, they should not
permit their land and people to be so sadly robbed and ruined, against
all justice; but by a law of the emperor or of the whole nation, they
should either keep the annates at home or else abolish them again[54].
For since the Romans do not keep the terms of the agreement, they have
no right to the annates. Therefore the bishops and princes are bound
to punish or prevent such thievery and robbery, as the law requires.
In this they should aid the pope and support him, or he is perchance
too weak to prevent such an abuse all by himself; or if he were to
undertake to defend and maintain this practice, they ought resist him
and fight against him as against a wolf and a tyrant, for he has no
authority to do or to defend evil. Moreover, if it were ever desired
to accumulate such a treasure against the Turks, we ought in the
future to have sense enough to see that the German nation would be a
better custodian or it than the pope; for the German nation has people
enough or the fighting, if only the money is forthcoming. It is with
the annates as it has been with many another Roman pretence.
[Sidenote: Papal Months]
Again, the year has been so divided between the pope and the ruling
bishops and canons[55], that the pope has six months in the
year--every other month--in which to bestow the benefices which all
vacant in his months[56]. In this way almost all the benefices are
absorbed by Rome, especially the very best livings and dignities[57],
and when once they fall into the hands of Rome, they never come out of
them again, though a vacancy may never again occur in the pope's
month. Thus the canons are cheated. This is a genuine robbery, which
intends to let nothing escape. Therefore it is high time that the
"papal months" be altogether abolished, and that everything which they
have brought to Rome be taken back again. For the princes and nobles
should take measures that the stolen goods be returned, the thieves
punished, and those who have abused privilege be deprived of
privilege. If it is binding and valid when the pope on the day after
his election makes, in his chancery, rules and laws whereby our
foundations and livings are robbed,--a thing which he has no right to
do; then it should be still more valid if the Emperor Charles on the
day after his coronation[58] were to make rules and laws that not
another benefice or living in all Germany shall be allowed to come
into the hands of Rome by means of the "papal months," and that the
livings which have already fallen into its hands shall be released,
and redeemed from the Roman robbers; for he has this right by virtue
of his office and his sword.
But now the Roman See of Avarice and Robbery has not been able to
await the time when all the benefices, one after another, would, by
the "papal months," come into its power, but hastens, with insatiable
appetite, to get possession of them all as speedily as possible; and
so besides the annates and the "months" it has hit upon a device by
which benefices and livings all to Rome in three ways:
_First_, If any one who holds a free[59] living dies at Rome or on the
way to Rome, his living must forever belong to the Roman--I should
rather say the robbing--See[60]; and yet they will not be called
robbers, though they are guilty of such robbery as no one has ever
heard or read about.
_Second_, In case any one who belongs to the household of the pope or
of the cardinals[61] holds or takes over a benefice, or in case one
who already holds a benefice afterwards enters the "household" of the
pope or of a cardinal. But who can count the "household" of the pope
and of the cardinals, when the pope, if he only goes on a
pleasure-ride, takes with him three or our thousand mule-riders,
eclipsing all emperors and kings? Christ and St. Peter went on foot in
order that their vicars might have the more pomp and splendor. Now
avarice has cleverly thought out another scheme, and brings it to pass
that even here many have the name of "papal servant," just as though
they were in Rome; all in order that in every place the mere rascally
little word "papal servant" may bring all benefices to Rome and tie
them fast there forever. Are not these vexatious and devilish
inventions? Let us beware! Soon Mainz, Madgeburg and Halberstadt will
gently pass into the hands of Rome, and the cardinalate will be paid
for dearly enough[62]. "Afterwards we will make all the German bishops
cardinals so that there will be nothing let outside."
_Third_, When a contest has started at Rome over a benefice[63]. This
I hold to be almost the commonest and widest road or bringing livings
to Rome. For when there is no contest at home, unnumbered knaves will
be found at Rome to dig up contests out of the earth and assail
livings at their will. Thus many a good priest has to lose his living,
or settle the contest for a time by the payment of a sum of money[64].
Such a living rightly or wrongly contested must also belong forever to
the Roman See. It would be no wonder if God were to rain from heaven
fire and brimstone and to sink Rome in the abyss, as He did Sodom and
Gomorrah of old [Gen. 19:24]. Why should there be a pope in
Christendom, if his power is used or nothing else than such
archknavery, and if he protects and practices it? O noble princes and
lords, how long will ye leave your lands and people naked to these
ravening wolves!
[Sidenote: The Pallium]
Since even these practices were not enough, and Avarice grew impatient
at the long time it took to get hold of all the bishoprics, therefore
my Lord Avarice devised the fiction that the bishoprics should be
nominally abroad, but that their land and soil should be at Rome, and
no bishop can be confirmed unless with a great sum of money he buy the
_pallium_[65], and bind himself with terrible oaths to be the pope's
servant[66]. This is the reason that no bishop ventures to act against
the pope. That, too, is what the Romans were seeking when they imposed
the oath, and thus the very richest bishoprics have fallen into debt
and ruin. Mainz pays, as I hear, 20,000 gulden. These be your Romans!
To be sure they decreed of old in the canon law that the _pallium_
should be bestowed gratis, the number of papal servants diminished,
the contests lessened, the chapters[67] and bishops allowed their
liberty. But this did not bring in money, and so they turned over a
new leaf, and all authority was taken from the bishops and chapters;
they are made ciphers, and have no office nor authority nor work, but
everything is ruled by the archknaves at Rome; soon they will have in
hand even the office of sexton and bell-ringer in all the churches.
All contests are brought to Rome, and by authority of the pope
everyone does as he likes.
What happened this very year? The Bishop of Strassburg[68] wished to
govern his chapter properly and to institute reforms in worship, and
with this end in view made certain godly and Christian regulations.
But my dear Lord Pope and the Holy Roman See, at the instigation of
the priests, overthrew and altogether condemned this holy and
spiritual ordinance. This is called "feeding the sheep of Christ!"
[John 20:15-17] Thus priests are to be encouraged against their own
bishop, and their disobedience to divine law is to be protected!
Antichrist himself, I hope, will not dare to put God to such open
shame! There you have your pope after your own heart! Why did he do
this? Ah! if one church were reformed, it would be a dangerous
departure; Rome's turn too might come! Therefore it were better that
no priest should be let at peace with another, that kings and princes
should be set at odds, as has been the custom heretofore, and the
world filled with the blood of Christians, only so the concord of
Christians should not trouble the Holy Roman See with a reformation.
So far we have been getting an idea of how they deal with livings
which become vacant. But for tender-hearted Avarice the vacancies are
too few, and so he brings his foresight to bear upon the benefices
which are still occupied by their incumbents, so that they must be
unfilled, even though they are not unfilled[69]. And this he does in
many ways, as follows:
[Sidenote: Coadjutorships]
_First_, He lies in wait for fat prebends or bishoprics which are held
by an old or a sick man, or by one with an alleged disability. To such
an incumbent, without his desire or consent, the Holy See gives a
coadjutor, i. e., an "assistant," or the coadjutor's benefit, because
he is a "papal servant," or has paid for the position, or has earned
it by some other ignoble service to Rome. In this case the rights of
the chapter or the rights of him who has the bestowal of the
living[70] must be surrendered, and the whole thing all into the hands
of Rome.
[Sidenote: Commendations]
_Second_, There is a little word _commend_[71], by which the pope
entrusts the keeping of a rich, fat monastery or church to a cardinal
or to another of his people, just as though I were to give you a
hundred gulden to keep. This is not called the giving or bestowing of
the monastery nor even its destruction, or the abolition of the
worship of God, but only "giving it into keeping"; not that he to whom
it is entrusted is to care or it, or build it up, but he is to drive
out the incumbent, to receive the goods and revenues, and to install
some apostate, renegade monk[72], who accepts five or six gulden a
year and sits in the church all day selling pictures and images to the
pilgrims, so that henceforth neither prayers nor masses are said
there. If this were to be called destroying monasteries and abolishing
the worship of God, then the pope would have to be called a destroyer
of Christendom and an abolisher of God's worship, because this is his
constant practice. That would be a hard saying at Rome, and so we must
call it a commend or a "command to take charge" of the monastery. The
pope can every year make commends out of our or more of these
monasteries, a single one of which may have an income of more than six
thousand gulden. This is the way the Romans increase the worship of
God and preserve the monasteries. The Germans also are beginning to
find it out.
[Sidenote: Incorporation]
[Sidenote: Union]
_Third_, There are some benefices which they call
_incompatibilia_[73], and which, according to the ordinances of the
canon law, cannot be held by one man at the same time, as for
instance, two parishes, two bishoprics and the like. In these cases
the Holy Roman See of Avarice evades the canon law by making
"glosses,"[74] called _unio_ and _incorporatio_, i. e., by
"incorporating" many _incompatibilia_, so that each becomes a part of
every other and all of them together are looked upon as though they
were one living. They are then no longer "incompatible," and the holy
canon law is satisfied, in that it is no longer binding, except upon
those who do not buy these "glosses"[75] from the pope or his
_datarius_[76]. The _unio_, i. e., "uniting," is of the same nature.
The pope binds many such benefices together like a bundle of sticks,
and by virtue of this bond they are all regarded as one benefice. So
there is at Rome one courtesan[77] who holds, for himself alone, 22
parishes, 7 priories and 44 canonries besides,--all by the help of
that masterly "gloss," which holds that this is not illegal. What
cardinals and other prelates have, everyone may imagine or himself. In
this way the Germans are to have their purses eased and their itch
cured.
[Sidenote: Administration]
Another of the "glosses" is the _administratio_, i. e., a man may have
beside his bishopric, an abbacy or a dignity[78], and possess all the
property which goes with it, only he has no other title than that of
"administrator."[79] For at Rome it is sufficient that words are
changed and not the things they stand for; as though I were to teach
that a bawdy-house keeper should have the name of "burgomaster's
wife," and yet continue to ply her trade. This kind of Roman rule St.
Peter foretold when he said, in II Peter ii: "There shall come false
teachers, who in covetousness, with feigned words, shall make
merchandise of you, to get their gains." [2 Pet. 2:3]
[Sidenote: Regression]
Again, dear Roman Avarice has invented the custom of selling and
bestowing livings to such advantage that the seller or disposer
retains reversionary rights[80] upon them: to wit, if the incumbent
dies, the benefice freely reverts to him who previously sold, bestowed
or surrendered it. In this way they have made livings hereditary
property, so that henceforth no one can come into possession of them,
except the man to whom the seller is willing to dispose of them, or to
whom he bequeaths his rights at death. Besides, there are many who
transfer to others the mere title to a benefice from which those who
get the title derive not a _heller_ of income. It is now an old
custom, too, to give another man a benefice and to reserve a certain
part out of the annual revenue[81]. In olden times this was
simony[82]. Of these things there are so many more that they cannot
all be counted. They treat livings more shamefully than the heathen
beneath the cross treated the garments of Christ. [Matt. 27:35]
[Sidenote: Reservation in pectore]
Yet all that has hitherto been said is ancient history and an
every-day occurrence at Rome. Avarice has devised one thing more,
which may, I hope, be his last morsel, and choke him. The pope has a
noble little device called _pectoralis reservatio_, i. e., his "mental
reservation," and _proprius motus_, i. e., the "arbitrary will of his
authority."[83] It goes like this. When one man has gotten a benefice
at Rome, and the appointment has been regularly signed and sealed,
according to custom, and there comes another, who brings money, or has
laid the pope under obligation in some other way, of which we will not
speak, and desires of the pope the same benefice, then the pope takes
it from the first man and gives it to the second[84]. If it is said
that this is unjust, then the Most Holy Father must make some excuse,
that he may not be reproved or doing such open violence to the law,
and says that in his mind and heart he had reserved that benefice to
himself and his own plenary disposal, although he had never before in
his whole life either thought or heard of it. Thus he has now found a
little "gloss" by which he can, in his own person, lie and deceive,
and make a fool and an ape of anybody--all this he does brazenly and
openly, and yet he wishes to be the head of Christendom, though with
his open lies he lets the Evil Spirit rule him.
This arbitrary will and lying "reservation" of the pope creates in
Rome a state of affairs which is unspeakable. There is buying,
selling, bartering, trading, trafficking, lying, deceiving, robbing,
stealing, luxury, harlotry, knavery, and every sort of contempt of
God, and even the rule of Antichrist could not be more scandalous.
Venice, Antwerp, Cairo[85] are nothing compared to this fair which is
held at Rome and the business which is done there, except that in
those other places they still observe right and reason. At Rome
everything goes as the devil wills, and out of this ocean like virtue
flows into all the world. Is it a wonder that such people fear a
reformation and a free council, and prefer to set all kings and
princes at enmity rather than have them unite and bring about a
council? Who could bear to have such knavery exposed if it were his
own?
[Sidenote: The Dataria]
Finally, for all this noble commerce the pope has built a warehouse,
namely, the house of the datarius[86], in Rome. Thither all must come
who deal after this fashion in benefices and livings. From him they
must buy their "glosses"[87] and get the power to practice such
archknavery. In former times Rome was generous, and then justice had
either to be bought or else suppressed with money, but now she has
become exorbitant, and no one dare be a knave unless with a great sum
he has first bought the right. If that is not a brothel above all the
brothels one can imagine, then I do not know what brothel means.
If you have money in this house, then you can come by all the things I
have said; and not only these, but all sorts of usury[88] are here
made honest, Phil. 2:5 for a consideration, and the possession of all
property acquired by theft or robbery is legalised. Here vows are
dissolved; here monks are granted liberty to leave their orders; here
marriage is on sale to the clergy; here bastards can become
legitimate; here all dishonor and shame can come to honor; all
ill-repute and stigma of evil are here knighted and ennobled; here is
permitted the marriage which is within the forbidden degrees or has
some other defect[89]. Oh! what a taxing and a robbing rules there!
It looks as though all the laws of the Church were made for one
purpose only--to be nothing but so many money-snares, from which a man
must extricate himself[90] if he would be a Christian. Yea, here the
devil becomes a saint, and a god to boot. What heaven and earth
cannot, that this house can do! They call them _compositiones_[91]!
"Compositions" indeed! rather "confusions"! Oh, what a modest tax is
the Rhine-toll[92], compared with the tribute taken by this holy
house!
Let no one accuse me of exaggeration! It is all so open that even at
Rome they must confess the evil to be greater and more terrible than
any one can say. I have not yet stirred up the hell-broth of personal
vices, nor do I intend to do so. I speak of things which are common
talk, and yet I have not words to tell them all. The bishops, the
priests and, above all, the doctors in the universities, who draw
their salaries or this purpose, should have done their duty and with
common consent have written and cried out against these things; but
they have done the very opposite[93].
[Sidenote: The Fuggers]
There remains one last word, and I must say that too. Since boundless
Avarice has not been satisfied with all these treasures, which three
great kings might well think sufficient, he now begins to transfer
this trade and sell it to Fugger of Augsburg[94], so that the lending
and trading and buying of bishoprics and benefices, and the driving of
bargains in spiritual goods has now come to the right place, and
spiritual and temporal goods have become one business. And now I would
fain hear of a mind so lofty that it could imagine what this Roman
Avarice might yet be able to do and has not already done; unless
Fugger were to transfer or sell this combination of two lines of
business to somebody else. I believe we have reached the limit.
As for what they have stolen in all lands and still steal and extort,
by means of indulgences, bulls, letters of confession[95],
"butter-letters"[96] and other _confessionalia_[97],--all this I
consider mere patch-work, and like casting a single devil more into
hell[98]. Not that they bring in little, for a mighty king could well
support himself on their returns, but they are not to be compared with
the streams of treasure above mentioned. I shall also say nothing at
present of how this indulgence money has been applied. Another time I
shall inquire about that, for Campoflore[99] and Belvidere[100] and
certain other places probably know something about it.
Since, then, such devilish rule is not only open robbery and deceit,
and the tyranny of the gates of hell, but also ruins Christendom in
body and soul, it is our duty to use all diligence in protecting
Christendom against such misery and destruction. If we would fight the
Turks, let us make a beginning here, where they are at their worst. If
we justly hang thieves and behead robbers, why should we let Roman
Avarice go free? For he is the greatest thief and robber that has come
or can come into the world, and all in the holy Name of Christ and of
St. Peter! Who can longer endure it or keep silence? Almost everything
he owns has been gotten by theft and robbery; that is the truth, and
all history shows it. The pope never got by purchase such great
properties that from his _officia_[101] alone he can raise about a
million ducats, not to mention the mines of treasure named above and
the income of his lands. Nor did it come to him by inheritance from
Christ or from St. Peter; no one ever loaned it or gave it to him; it
has not become his by virtue of immemorial use and enjoyment. Tell me,
then, whence he can have it? Learn from this what they have in mind
when they send out legates to collect money or use against the Turks.
III. PROPOSALS FOR REFORM
Now, although I am too small a man to make propositions which might
effect a reform in this dreadful state of things, nevertheless I may
as well sing my fool's song to the end, and say, so far as I am able,
what could and should be done by the temporal authorities or by a
general council.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Annates]
1. Every prince, nobleman and city should boldly forbid their subjects
to pay the annates to Rome and should abolish them entirely[102]; for
the pope has broken the compact, and made the annates a robbery, to
the injury and shame of the whole German nation. He gives them to his
friends, sells them for large amounts of money, and uses them to endow
offices. He has thus lost his right to them, and deserves punishment.
It is therefore the duty of the temporal authorities to protect the
innocent and prevent injustice, as Paul teaches in Romans xiii [Rom.
13:4], and St. Peter in I Peter ii [1 Pet. 2:14], Rom. and even the
canon law in Case 16, Question 7, _de filiis_[103]. Thus it has come
about that men are saying to the pope and his followers, _Tu ora_,
"Thou shalt pray"; to the emperor and his followers, _Tu protege_,
"Thou shalt guard"; to the common man, _Tu labora_, "Thou shalt work."
Not, however, as though everyone were not to pray, guard and work; for
the man who is diligent in his calling is praying, guarding and
working in all that he does, but everyone should have his own especial
task.
[Sidenote: Prohibition of Roman Appointments]
2. Since the pope with his Roman practices--his commends[104],
adjutories[105], reservations[106], _gratiae expectativae_[107], papal
months[108], incorporations[109], unions[110], _pallia_[111], rules in
chancery[112], and such like knavery--usurps all the German
foundations without authority and right, and gives and sells them to
foreigners at Rome, who do nothing in German lands to earn them; and
since he thereby robs the ordinaries[113] of their rights, makes the
bishops mere ciphers and figure-heads, and acts against his own canon
law, against nature and against reason, until it has finally gone so
far that out of sheer avarice the livings and benefices are sold to
gross, ignorant asses and knaves at Rome, while pious and learned folk
have no profit of their wisdom and merit, so that the poor people of
the German nation have to go without good and learned prelates and
thus go to ruin:
Therefore, the Christian nobility should set itself against the pope
as against a common enemy and destroyer of Christendom, and should do
this for the salvation of the poor souls who must go to ruin through
his tyranny. They should ordain, order, and decree, that henceforth no
benefice shall be drawn into the hands of Rome, and that hereafter no
appointment shall be obtained there in any manner whatsoever, but that
the benefices shall be brought out and kept out from under this
tyrannical authority; and they should restore to the ordinaries the
right and office of ordering these benefices in the German nation as
best they may. And if a "courtesan" were to come from Rome, he should
receive a strict command either to keep his distance, or else to jump
into the Rhine or the nearest river, and take the Roman ban, with its
seals and letters, to a cold bath. They would then take note at Rome
that the Germans are not always mad and drunken, but that they have
really become Christians, and intend to permit no longer the mockery
and scorn of the holy name of Christ, under which all this knavery and
destruction of souls goes on, but have more regard to God and His
glory than to the authority of men.
[Sidenote: Restoration of Local Church Rights]
3. An imperial law should be issued, that no bishop's cloak[114] and
no confirmation of any dignity[115] whatsoever shall henceforth be
secured from Rome, but that the Church ordinance of the most holy and
most famous Council of Nicaea[116] shall be restored, in which it is
decreed that a bishop shall be confirmed by the two nearest bishops or
by the archbishop. If the pope will break the statutes of this and of
all other councils, what is the use of holding councils; or who has
given him the authority thus to despise and break the rules of
councils?
If he has this power then we should depose all bishops, archbishops
and primates[117] and make them mere parish-priests, so that the pope
alone may be over them, as he now is. He leaves to bishops,
archbishops and primates no regular authority or office, usurps
everything for himself, and lets them keep only the name and empty
title. It has gone so far that by his "exemptions"[118] the
monasteries, the abbots and the prelates are withdrawn from the
regular authority of the bishops, so that there is no longer any order
in Christendom. From this must follow what has followed--relaxation of
discipline and license to do evil everywhere--so that I verily fear
the pope can be called the "man of sin." [2 Thess. 2:3] There is in
Christendom no discipline, no rule, no order; and who is to blame
except the pope? This usurped authority of his he applies strictly to
all the prelates, and takes away their rods; and he is generous to all
subjects, giving them or selling them their liberty.
Nevertheless, for fear he may complain that he is robbed of his
authority, it should be decreed that when the primates or archbishops
are unable to settle a case, or when a controversy arises among
themselves, such a case must be laid before the pope, but not every
little matter[120]. Thus it was done in olden times, and thus the
famous Council of Nicaea decreed[121]. If a case can be settled
without the pope, then his Holiness should not be troubled with such
minor matters, but give himself to that prayer, meditation and care
for all Christendom, of which he boasts. This is what the Apostles
did. They said, "It is not meet that we should leave the Word of God
and serve tables, but we will keep to preaching and prayer and set
others over the work." [Acts 6:2] But now Rome stands or nothing else
than the despising of the Gospel and of prayer, and for the serving of
"tables," i. e., of temporal affairs, and the rule of the Apostles and
of the pope agree as Christ agrees with Lucifer, heaven with hell,
night with day; yet he is called "Vicar of Christ and Successor of the
Apostles."
[Sidenote: Exclusion of Temporal Matters from the Papal Court]
4. It should be decreed that no temporal matter shall be taken to
Rome[122], but that all such cases shall be left to the temporal
authorities, as the Romans themselves decree in that canon law of
theirs, which they do not keep. For it should be the duty of the pope,
as the man most learned in Papal the Scriptures and most Holy, not in
name only, but in truth, to administer affairs which concern the faith
and holy life of Christians, to hold the primates and archbishops to
these things, and to help them in dealing with and caring for these
matters. So St. Paul teaches in I Corinthians vi, and takes the
Corinthians severely to task or their concern with worldly things [1
Cor. 6:7]. For it works intolerable injury to all lands that such
cases are tried at Rome. It increases the costs, and moreover the
judges do not know the manners, laws and customs of the various
countries, so that they often do violence to the acts and base their
decisions on their own laws and opinions, and thus injustice is
inevitably done the contestants.
[Sidenote: and from the Bishops' Courts]
Moreover, the outrageous extortion practised by the _officiales_[123]
must be forbidden in all the dioceses, courts so that they may attend
to nothing else than matters of faith and good morals, and leave to
the temporal judges the things that concern money, property, life and
honor. The temporal authorities, therefore, should not permit
sentences of ban or exile when faith or right life is not concerned.
Spiritual authorities should have rule over spiritual goods, as reason
teaches; but spiritual goods are not money, nor anything pertaining to
the body, but they are faith and good works.
[Sidenote: A German Church Organization]
Nevertheless it might be granted that cases which concern benefices or
livings should be tried before bishops, archbishops and primates.
Therefore, in order to decide contests and contentions, it might be
possible for the Primate of Germany to maintain a general consistory,
with auditors and chancellors, which should have control over the
_signaturae gratiae_ and _signaturae justitiae_[124], that are now
controlled at Rome, and which should be the final court of appeal for
German cases. The officers of this consistory must not, however, be
paid, as at Rome, by chance presents and gifts, and thereby acquire
the habit of selling justice and injustice, which they now have to do
at Rome because the pope gives them no remuneration, but allows them
to fatten themselves on presents. For at Rome no one cares what is
right or not right, but only what is money or not money. This court
might, however, be paid out of the annates, or some other way might
easily be devised, by those who are more intelligent and who have more
experience in these matters than I. All I wish to do is to arouse and
set to thinking those who have the ability and the inclination to help
the German nation become once more free and Christian, after the
wretched, heathenish and unchristian rule of the pope.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Reservations]
5. No more reservations should be valid, and no more benefices should
be seized by Rome, even if the incumbent dies, or there is a contest,
or the incumbent is a "servant" of a cardinal or of the pope[125]; and
it should be strictly forbidden and prevented that any
"courtesan"[126] should institute a contest over any benefice, so as
to cite pious priests to Rome, harass them and drive them into
lawsuits. If, in consequence of this prohibition, there should come
from Rome a ban or an ecclesiastical censure, it should be
disregarded, just as though a thief were to lay a man under the ban
because he would not let him steal. Indeed they should be severely
punished because they so blasphemously misuse the ban and the name of
God to support their robbery, and with falsely devised threats would
drive us to endure and to praise such blasphemy of God's name and such
abuse of Christian authority, and thus to become, in the sight of God,
partakers in their rascality; it is our duty before God to resist it,
or St. Paul, in Romans i, reproves as guilty of death not only "those
who do such things," but also those who consent to such things and
allow them to be done [Rom. 1:32]. Most unbearable of all is the lying
_reservatio pectoralis_[127], whereby Christendom is so scandalously
and openly put to shame and scorn, because its head deals in open
lies, and out of love for the accursed money, shamelessly deceives and
fools everybody.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Reserved Cases]
6. The _casus reservati_[128], the "reserved cases," should also be
abolished, for not only are they the means of served extorting much
money from the people, but by means of them the ravening tyrants
ensnare and confuse many poor consciences, to the intolerable injury
of their faith in God. This is especially true of the ridiculous and
childish cases about which they make so much ado in the Bull _Coena
Domini_[129], and which are not worth calling daily sins, still less
cases so grave that the pope may not remit them by any indulgence; as
for example, hindering a pilgrim on his way to Rome, furnishing
weapons to the Turks, or tampering with papal letters. With such
gross, crazy, clumsy things do they make fools of us! Sodom and
Gomorrah, and all the sins which are committed and can be committed
against the commandments of God are not reserved cases; but sins
against what God has never commanded and what they have themselves
devised, these must be reserved cases, solely that no one be hindered
in bringing money to Rome, in order that, safe from the Turks, they
may live in luxury and keep the world under their tyranny with their
wanton, useless bulls and breves[130].
All priests ought rightly to know, or else there should be a public
ordinance to that effect, that no secret sin, of which a man has not
been publicly accused, is a reserved case, and that every priest has
the power to remit all sorts of sins, however they may be called, so
long as they are secret; moreover that no abbot, bishop or pope has
the power to reserve any such case to himself[131]. If they attempt
it, their reservation does not hold and is not valid, and they should
be reproved, as men who without authority interfere in God's judgment,
and without cause ensnare and burden poor, ignorant consciences. But
if great public sins are committed, especially sins against God's
commandments, then there is indeed a reason for reserved cases, but
even then there should not be too many of them, and they should not be
reserved arbitrarily and without cause; for Christ has set in His
Church not tyrants, but shepherds, as saith St. Peter [1 Pet. 5:3].
[Sidenote: Diminution of the Papal Household]
7. The Roman See should also do away with the _officia_[132], and
diminish the swarm of vermin at Rome, so that the pope's household can
be supported by the pope's own purse. The pope should not allow his
court to surpass in pomp and extravagance the courts of all kings,
seeing that such a condition not only has never been serviceable to
the cause of Christian faith, but the courtiers have been kept thereby
from study and prayer, until they are scarce able to speak about the
faith at all. This they proved quite plainly at the last Roman
Council[133], in which, amongst many other childish and frivolous
things, they decreed that the soul of man is immortal and that every
priest must say his prayers once a month on pain of losing his
benefice. How shall matters which concern faith and the Church be
decided by people so hardened and blinded by great avarice, wealth and
worldly splendor, that they have only now decreed that the soul is
immortal? It is no small shame to all Christians that at Rome they
deal so disgracefully with the faith. If they had less wealth and
pomp, they could pray and study better, and so become worthy and able
to deal with matters of faith, as was the case in olden times when
they were bishops, and did not presume to be kings over all kings.
[Sidenote: Bishops' Oaths]
8. The hard and terrible oaths should be abolished, which the bishops
are wrongfully compelled to render to the pope[134], and by which they
are bound like servants, as that worthless and unlearned chapter,
_Significasti_[135], arbitrarily and most stupidly decrees. It is not
enough that they burden us in body, soul and property with their many
mad laws, by which faith is weakened and Christendom ruined; but they
seize upon the person and office and work of the bishops, and now upon
the investiture[136] also, which was in olden times the right of the
German emperors, and in France and other kingdoms still belongs to the
kings. On this point they had great wars and disputes with the
emperors[137] until at last, with impudent authority, they took the
right and have kept it until now; just as though the Germans, above
all the Christians on earth, had to be the puppets of the pope and the
Roman See and do and suffer what no one else will do and suffer.
Since, then, this is sheer violence and robbery, hindering the regular
authority of the bishops and injuring poor souls, therefore the
emperor and his nobles are in duty bound to prevent and punish such
tyranny.
[Sidenote: Pope and Emperor]
9. The pope should have no authority over the emperor, except that he
anoints and crowns him at the altar, just as a bishop anoints and
crowns a king[138]; and we should not henceforth yield to that
devilish pride which compels the emperor to kiss the pope's feet or
sit at his feet, or, as they claim, hold his stirrup or the bridle of
his mule when he mounts for a ride; still less should he do homage and
swear faithful allegiance to the pope, as the popes have shamelessly
ventured to demand as if they possessed that right. The chapter
_Solite_[139], in which the papal authority is raised above the
imperial authority, is not worth a heller, nor are any of those who
rest upon it or fear it; for it does nothing else than force the holy
words of God out of their true meaning, and wrest them to human
dreams, as I have showed in a Latin treatise[140].
Such extravagant, over-presumptuous, and more than wicked doings of
the pope have been devised by the devil, in order that under their
cover he may in time bring in Antichrist, and raise the pope above
God, as many are already doing and have done. It is not proper for the
pope to exalt himself above the temporal authorities, save only in
spiritual offices such as preaching and absolving. In other things he
is to be subject, as Paul and Peter teach, in Romans xiii [Rom. 13:1],
and I Peter iii [1 Pet. 2:13 f.], and as I have said above.
He is not vicar of Christ in heaven, but of Christ as He walked on
earth [Phil. 2:7][142]. For Christ in heaven, in the form of a ruler,
needs no vicar, but He sits and sees, does, and knows all things, and
has all power. But He needs a vicar in the form of a servant, in which
He walked on earth, toiling, preaching, suffering and dying. Now they
turn it around, take from Christ the heavenly form of ruler and give
it to the pope, leaving the form of a servant to perish utterly. He
might almost be the "Counter-christ" whom the Scriptures call
Antichrist, for all his nature, work and doings are against Christ,
for the destruction of Christ's nature and work.
It is also ridiculous and childish that the pope, with such perverted
and deluded reasoning, boasts in his decretal _Pastoralis_[143], that
he is rightful heir to the Empire, in case of a vacancy. Who has given
him this right? Did Christ, when He said, "The princes of the Gentiles
are lords, but ye shall not be so" [Luke 22:25 f.]? Did St. Peter will
it to him? It vexes me that we must read and learn such shameless,
gross, crazy lies in the canon law, and must even hold them for
Christian doctrine, when they are devilish lies. Of the same sort is
also that unheard-of lie about the "Donation of Constantine."[144] It
must have been some special plague of God that so many people of
understanding have let themselves be talked into accepting such lies
as these, which are so manifest and clumsy that I should think any
drunken peasant could lie more adroitly and skilfully. How can a man
rule an empire and at the same time continue to preach, pray, study
and care for the poor? Yet these are the duties which properly and
peculiarly belong to the pope, and they were imposed by Christ in such
earnest that He even forbade His disciples to take with them cloak or
money [Matt. 10:10], since these duties can scarcely be performed by
one who has to rule even a single household. Yet the pope would rule
an empire and continue to be pope! This is a device of the knaves who
would like, under the pope's name, to be lords of the world, and by
means of the pope and the name of Christ, to restore the Roman Empire
to its former state.
[Sidenote: Temporal Power--the Kingdom of Naples]
10. The pope should restrain himself, take his fingers out of the pie,
and claim no title to the Kingdom of Naples the and Sicily[145]. He
has exactly as much right to that kingdom as I have, and yet he wishes
to be its overlord. It is plunder got by violence, like almost all his
other possessions. The emperor, therefore, should not grant him this
fief, and if it has been granted, he should no longer give his consent
to it, and should point him instead to the Bible and the prayer-books,
so that he may preach and pray, and leave to temporal lords the ruling
of lands and peoples, especially when no one has given them to him.
[Sidenote: The States of the Church]
The same opinion should hold as regards Bologna, Imola, Vicenza,
Ravenna and all the territories in the Mark of Ancona, in Romagna, and
in other Italian lands, which the pope has taken by force and
possesses without right[146]. Moreover, he has meddled in these things
against all the commands of Christ and of St. Paul. For thus saith St.
Paul, "No one entangleth himself with worldly affairs, whose business
it is to wait upon the divine knighthood."[147][2 Tim. 2:3] Now the
pope should be the head and front of this knighthood, yet he meddles
in worldly affairs more than any emperor or king. Why then he must be
helped out of them and allowed to attend to his knighthood. Christ
also, Whose vicar he boasts himself to be, was never willing to have
aught to do with temporal rule; indeed, to one who asked of him a
decision respecting his brother. He said, "Who made Me a judge over
you?" [Luke 12:14] But the pope rushes in unbidden, and boldly takes
hold of everything as though he were a god, until he no longer knows
what Christ is, Whose vicar he pretends to be.
[Sidenote: Papal Homage]
11. The kissing of the pope's feet[148] should take place no more. It
is an unchristian, nay, an antichristian thing for a poor sinful man
to let his feet be kissed by one who is a hundred times better than
himself. If it is done in honor of his authority, why does not the
pope do the same to others in honor of their holiness? Compare the
two--Christ and the pope! Christ washed His disciples' feet and dried
them [John 13:1 ff.], and the disciples never washed His feet; the
pope, as though he were higher than Christ, turns things around and,
as a great favor, allows people to kiss his feet, though he ought
properly to use all his power to prevent it, if anyone wished to do
it; like Paul and Barnabas, who would not let the people of Lystra pay
them divine honor, but said, "We are men like you." [Acts 14:11-16]
But our sycophants have gone so far as to make for us an idol, and now
no one ears God so much as he fears the pope, no one pays Him such
ceremonious honor. That they can endure! What they cannot endure is
that a hair's-breadth should be taken away from the proud estate of
the pope. Now if they were Christians, and held God's honor above
their own, the pope would never be happy while he knew that God's
honor was despised and his own exalted, and he would let no man pay
him honor until he saw that God's honor was again exalted and was
greater than his own.
[149][It is another piece of the same scandalous pride, that the pope
is not satisfied to ride or to be driven in a vehicle, but although he
is strong and in good health, he has himself borne by men, with
unheard-of splendor, like an idol. How, pray, does such satanic pride
agree with the example of Christ, Who went on foot, as did all His
disciples? Where has there ever been a worldly monarch who went about
in such worldly glory as he who wishes to be the head of all those who
are to despise and lee worldly glory, i. e., of Christians? Not that
this in itself should give us very much concern, but we should rightly
fear the wrath of God, if we flatter this kind of pride and do not
show our indignation. It is enough that the pope should rant and play
the fool in this wise; but that we should approve it and tolerate
it,--this is too much.
For what Christian heart can or ought to take pleasure in seeing that
when the pope wishes to receive the communion, he sits quiet, like a
gracious lord, and has the sacrament passed to him on a golden rod by
a bowing cardinal on bended knee? As though the holy sacrament were
not worthy that a pope, a poor stinking sinner, should rise to show
God honor, when all other Christians, who are much more holy than the
Most Holy Father, the pope, receive it with all reverence! Would it be
a wonder if God were to send a plague upon us all because we suffer
such dishonor to be done Him by our prelates, and approve it, and by
our silence or our flattery make ourselves partakers of such damnable
pride?
It is the same way when he carries the sacrament in procession. He
must be carried, but the sacrament is set before him, like a can of
wine on the table. In short, at Rome Christ counts for nothing, the
pope counts for everything; and yet they would compel us with threats
to approve, and praise and honor such antichristian sins, though this
is against God and against all Christian doctrine. Now God help a free
Council to teach the pope that he too is a man, and is not more than
God, as he presumes to be.]
[Sidenote: Abolition of Pilgrimages to Rome]
12. Pilgrimages to Rome[150] should either be abolished, or else no
one should be allowed to make such a pilgrimage out of curiosity or
because of a pious impulse, unless it is first recognized by his
parish-priest, his town authorities or his overlord, that he has good
and sufficient reason for it. I say this not because pilgrimages are
bad, but because they are at this time ill-advised. For men see at
Rome no good example, but only that which offends; and they have
themselves made the proverb, "The nearer Rome, the worse
Christians."[151] Men bring back with them contempt or God and His
commandments. It is said: "The first time one goes to Rome he seeks a
rascal, the second time he finds him, the third time he brings him
home with him."[152] Now, however, they have become so clever that
they make the three journeys at once, and they have verily brought
back from Rome such pretty things that it were better never to have
seen or known Rome.
Even if this reason did not exist, there is still another and a
better: to wit, that by these pilgrimages men are led away into a
false conceit and a misunderstanding of the divine commandments; or
they think that this going on pilgrimage is a precious, good work, and
this is not true. It is a very small good work, oftentimes an evil,
delusive work, for God has not commanded it. But He has commanded that
a man shall care for his wife and children, and look after such other
duties as belong to the married state, and besides this, to serve and
help his neighbor. Now it comes to pass that a man makes a pilgrimage
to Rome when no one has commanded him to do so, spends fifty or a
hundred gulden, more or less, and leaves his wife and child, or at
least his neighbor, at home to suffer want. Yet the foolish fellow
thinks to gloss over such disobedience and contempt of the divine
commandments with his self-willed pilgriming, when it is really only
curiosity or devilish delusion which leads him to it. The popes have
helped this along with their false, feigned, foolish, "golden
years,"[153] by which the people are excited, stirred up, torn away
from God's commandments, and drawn toward their own deluded
undertakings. Thus they have accomplished the very thing they should
have forbidden; but it has brought in money and strengthened false
authority, therefore it has had to continue, though it is against God
and the salvation of souls.
In order to destroy in simple Christians this false, seductive faith,
and to restore a true understanding of good works, all pilgrimages
should be given up; for there is in them nothing good--no commandment,
no obedience--but, on the contrary, numberless occasions for sin and
for the despising of God's commandments. Hence come the many beggars,
who by this pilgriming carry on endless knaveries and learn the habit
of begging when they are not in want. Hence, too, come vagabondage,
and many other ills which I shall not now recount.
If any one, now, wishes to go on pilgrimage or take a pilgrim's vow,
he should first show his reasons to his parish-priest or to his lord.
If it turns out that he wishes to do it for the sake of the good work,
the priest or lord should boldly tread the vow and good work under
foot, as though it were a lure of the devil, and show him how to apply
the money and labor necessary for the pilgrimage to the keeping of
God's commandments and to works a thousandfold better, viz., by
spending it on his own family or on his poor neighbors. But if he
wishes to make the pilgrimage out of curiosity, to see new lands and
cities, he may be allowed to do as he likes. If, however, he has made
the vow while ill, then such vows ought to be forbidden and canceled,
and the commandments of God exalted, and he ought to be shown that he
should henceforth be satisfied with the vow he made in baptism[154],
to keep the commandments of God. And yet, in order to quiet his
conscience, he may be allowed this once to perform his foolish vow. No
one wants to walk in the straight and common path of God's
commandments; everyone makes himself new roads and new vows, as though
he had fulfilled all the commandments of God.
[Sidenote: Reform of the Mendicant Orders]
13. Next we come to that great crowd who vow much and keep little. Be
not angry, dear lords! Truly, I mean it well. It is the truth, and
bitter-sweet, and it is this,--the building of mendicant-houses[155]
should no more be permitted. God help us, there are already far too
many of them! Would to God they were all done away, or at least given
over to two or three orders! Wandering about the land has never
brought any good, and never will bring any good. It is my advice,
therefore, to put together ten of these houses, or as many as may be
necessary, and out of them all to make one house, which will be well
provided and need no more begging. It is much more important to
consider what the common people need for their salvation, than what
St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Augustine[156] or any other man has
decreed; especially since things have not turned out as they expected.
The mendicants should also be relieved of preaching and hearing
confession, except when they are called to this work by the express
desire of bishops, parishes, congregations or the temporal
authorities. Out of their preaching and shriving there has come
nothing but hatred and envy between priests and monks, and great
offence and hindrance to the common people. For this reason it should
properly and deservedly cease, because it can well be dispensed
with[157]. It looks suspiciously as though it were not for nothing
that the Holy Roman See has increased this army, so that the priests
and bishops, tired of its tyranny, might not some time become too
strong or it and begin a reformation which would not be to the liking
of his Holiness.
At the same time the manifold divisions and differences within one and
the same order should be abolished. These divisions have at times
arisen for small reason and maintained themselves for still smaller,
combatting one another with unspeakable hatred and envy[158].
Nevertheless the Ch
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