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.