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 Christian faith, which can well exist without any of
these distinctions, is lost by both sides, and a good Christian life
is valued and sought after only in outward laws, works and forms; and
this results only in the devising of hypocrisy and the destruction of
souls, as everyone may see with his own eyes.
The pope must also be forbidden to found and confirm any more of these
orders; nay, he must be commanded to abolish some of them and reduce
their number, since the faith of Christ, which is alone the highest
good and which exists without any orders, is in no small danger,
because these many different works and forms easily mislead men into
living for them instead of giving heed to the faith. Unless there are
in the monasteries wise prelates, who preach and who concern
themselves with faith more than with the rules of the orders, the
order cannot but harm and delude simple souls who think only of works.
In our days, however, the prelates who have had faith and who founded
the orders have almost all passed away. Just as in olden days among
the children of Israel, when the fathers, who knew God's works and
wonders, had passed away, the children, from ignorance of God's works
and of faith, immediately became idolatrous and set up their own human
works; so now, alas! these orders have lost the understanding of God's
works and of faith, and only torture themselves pitifully, with labor
and sorrow, in their own rules, laws and customs, and withal never
come to a right understanding of a good spiritual life, as the Apostle
declared when he said, in II Timothy iii: "They have the appearance of
a spiritual life, yet there is nothing back of it; they are ever and
ever learning, but they never come to a knowledge of what a true
spiritual life is." [2 Tim. 3:5, 7] There should be no monastery
unless there were a spiritual prelate, learned in the Christian faith,
to rule it, for no other kind of prelate can rule without injury and
ruin, and the holier and better he appears to be in his outward works
and life, the more injury and ruin he causes.
To my way of thinking it would be a necessary measure, especially in
these perilous times of ours, that all foundations and monasteries
should be re-established as they were at the first, in the days of the
Apostles and for a long time afterwards, when they were all open to
every man, and every man might remain in them as long as he pleased.
For what were the foundations and monasteries except Christian schools
in which the Scriptures and Christian living were taught, and people
were trained to rule and to preach? So we read that St. Agnes[159]
went to school, and we still see the same practice in some of the
nunneries, like that at Quedlinburg[160] and others elsewhere. And in
truth all monasteries and convents ought to be so free that God is
served in them with free will and not with forced avarice. Afterward,
however, they hedged them about with vows and turned them into a
lifelong prison, so that these vows are thought to be of more account
than the vows of baptism. What sort of fruit this has borne, we see,
hear, read and learn more and more every day.
I suppose this advice of mine will be regarded as the height of
foolishness; but I am not concerned about that just now. I advise what
I think best; let him reject it who will! I see how the vows are kept,
especially the vow of chastity, which has become so universal through
these monasteries and yet is not commanded by Christ; on the contrary,
it is given to very few to keep it, as He himself says [Matt. 19:11
ff.], and St. Paul [1 Cor. 7:7, Col. 2:20]. I would have all men to be
helped, and not have Christian souls caught in human, self-devised
customs and laws.
[Sidenote: Marriage of the Clergy]
14. We also see how the priesthood has fallen, and how many a poor
priest is overburdened with wife and child, and his conscience
troubled, yet no one does anything to help him though he might easily
be helped. Though pope and bishops may let things go as they go, and
let them go to ruin if they will, I will save my conscience and open
my mouth freely, whether it vex pope, bishops or any one else.
Wherefore I say that according to the institution of Christ and the
Apostles every city should have a priest or bishop, as St. Paul
clearly says in Titus i [Tit. 1:6]; and this priest should not be
compelled to live without a wedded wife, but should be permitted to
have one, as St. Paul says in I Timothy iii, and Titus i, "A bishop
should be a man who is blameless, and the husband of but one wedded
wife, whose children are obedient and virtuous," etc. [1 Tim. 3:2,
Tit. 1:6] For with St. Paul a bishop and a priest are one and the same
thing, as witness also St. Jerome[161]. But of bishops as they now
are, the Scriptures know nothing; they have been appointed by the
ordinance of the Christian Church, that one of them may rule over many
priests.
So then we clearly learn from the Apostle that it should be the custom
for every town to choose out of the congregation[162] a learned and
pious citizen, entrust to him the office of the ministry, and support
him at the expense of the community, leaving him free choice to marry
or not. He should have with him several priests or deacons, who might
also be married or not, as they chose, to help him rule the people of
the community[163] by means of preaching and the sacraments, as is
still the practice in the Greek Church. At a later time[164], when
there were so many persecutions and controversies with heretics, there
were many holy fathers who of their own accord abstained from
matrimony, to the end that they might the better devote themselves to
study and be prepared at any time for death or for controversy. Then
the Roman See interfered, out of sheer wantonness, and made a
universal commandment forbidding priests to marry[165]. This was done
at the bidding of the devil, as St. Paul declares in I Timothy iv,
"There shall come teachers who bring doctrines of devils, and forbid
to marry." From this has arisen so much untold misery, occasion was
given for the withdrawal of the Greek Church[166], and division, sin,
shame and scandal were increased without end,--which is the result of
everything the devil does.
What, then, shall we do about it? My advice is that matrimony be again
made free[167], and that every one be let free choice to marry or not
to marry. In that case, however, there must be a very different
government and administration of Church property, the whole canon law
must go to pieces and not many benefices find their way to Rome[168].
I fear that greed has been a cause of this wretched unchaste chastity,
and as a result of greed every man has wished to become a priest and
everyone wants his son to study for the priesthood, not with the idea
of living in chastity, for that could be done outside the priesthood,
but of being supported in temporal things without care or labor,
contrary to the command of God in Genesis iii, "In the sweat of thy
face shat thou eat thy bread." [Gen. 3:19] They have construed this to
mean that their labor was to pray and say mass.
I am not referring here to popes, bishops, canons and monks. God has
not instituted these offices. They have taken burdens on themselves;
let them bear them. I would speak only of the ministry which God has
instituted[169] and which is to rule a congregation by means of
preaching and sacraments, whose incumbents are to live and be at home
among the people. Such ministers should be granted liberty by a
Christian council to marry, for the avoidance of temptation and sin.
For since God has not bound them, no one else ought to bind them or
can bind them, even though he were an angel from heaven [Gal. 1:8],
still less if he be only a pope; and everything that the canon law
decrees to the contrary is mere fable and idle talk.
Furthermore, I advise that henceforth neither at his consecration to
the priesthood nor at any other time shall any one under any
circumstances promise the bishop to live in celibacy, but shall
declare to the bishop that he has no authority to demand such a vow,
and that to demand it is the devil's own tyranny.
But if anyone is compelled to say or wishes to say, as do some, "so
far as human frailty permits,"[170] let everyone frankly interpret
these words negatively, to mean "I do not promise chastity."[171] For
human frailty does not permit a chaste life[172], but only angelic
power and celestial might[2 Pet. 2:11][173] Thus he should keep his
conscience free from all vows.
On the question whether those who are not yet married should marry or
remain unmarried, I do not care to give advice either way. I leave
that to common Christian order and to everyone's better judgment. But
as regards the wretched multitude who now sit in shame and heaviness
of conscience because their wives are called "priests' harlots" and
their children "priests' children" I will not withhold my faithful
counsel nor deprive them of the comfort which is their due. I say this
boldly by my jester's right[174]. You will find many a pious priest
against whom no one has anything to say except that he is weak and has
come to shame with a woman, though both parties may be minded with all
their heart to live always together in wedded love and troth, if only
they could do it with a clear conscience, even though they might have
to bear public shame. Two such persons are certainly married before
God. And I say that where they are thus minded, and so come to live
together, they should boldly save their consciences; let him take and
keep her as his wedded wife, and live honestly with her as her
husband, caring nothing whether the pope will have it so or not,
whether it be against canon law or human law. The salvation of your
soul is of more importance than tyrannical, arbitrary, wicked laws,
which are not necessary for salvation and are not commanded by God.
You should do like the children of Israel, who stole from the
Egyptians the hire they had earned [Ex. 12:35 f.], or like a servant
who steals from his wicked master the wages he has earned. In like
manner steal thou from the pope thy wife and child! Let the man who
has faith enough to venture this, boldly follow me; I shall not lead
him astray. Though I have not the authority of a pope, I have the
authority of a Christian to advise and help my neighbor against sins
and temptations; and that not without cause and reason.
_First_, Not every priest can do without a woman, not only on account
of the weakness of the flesh, but much more because of the necessities
of the household. If he, then, may have a woman, and the pope grants
him that, and yet may not have her in marriage,--what is that but
leaving a man and a woman alone and forbidding them to fall? It is as
though one were to put fire and straw together and command that it
shall neither smoke nor burn.
_Second_, The pope has as little power to command this, as he has to
forbid eating, drinking, the natural movement of the bowels or growing
fat. No one, therefore, is bound to keep it, but the pope is
responsible for all the sins which are committed against this
ordinance, for all the souls which are lost thereby, for all the
consciences which are thereby confused and tortured; and therefore he
has long deserved that some one should drive him out of the world, so
many wretched souls has he strangled with this devil's snare; though I
hope that there are many to whom God has been more gracious at their
last hour than the pope has been in their life. Nothing good has ever
come out of the papacy and its laws, nor ever will.
_Third_, Although the law of the pope is against it, nevertheless,
when the estate of matrimony has been entered against the pope's law,
then his law is at an end, and is no longer valid; for the commandment
of God, which decrees that no one shall put man and wife asunder
[Matt. 19:6], takes precedence of the law of the pope; and the
commandments of God must not be broken and neglected for the sake of
the pope's commandment, though many mad jurists, in the papal
interest, have devised "impediments"[175] and have prevented,
destroyed and confused the estate of matrimony, until by their means
God's commandment has been altogether destroyed. To make a long story
short, there are not in the whole "spiritual" law of the pope two
lines which could be instructive to a pious Christian, and there are,
alas! so many mistaken and dangerous laws that the best thing would be
to make a bonfire of it[176].
But if you say that this[177] would give offence, and the pope must
first grant dispensation, I reply that whatever offence is in it, is
the fault of the Roman See, which has established such laws without
right and against God; before God and the Scriptures it is no offence.
Moreover, if the pope can grant dispensations from his avaricious and
tyrannical laws for money's sake, then every Christian can grant
dispensations from them--for the sake of God and the salvation of
souls. For Christ has set us free from all human laws, especially when
they are opposed to God and the salvation of souls, as St. Paul
teaches in Galatians v [Gal. 5:1] and I Corinthians xi [1 Cor. 9:4
ff.; 10:23].
[Sidenote: Abolition of Reserved Cases in the Monasteries]
15. Nor must I forget the poor convents! The evil spirit, who by human
laws now confuses all estates in life, and has made them unbearable,
has taken possession of in certain abbots, abbesses and prelates also,
and causes them so to govern their brethren and sisters as to send
them the more speedily to hell, and make them lead a wretched life
even here; for such is the lot of all the devil's martyrs. That is to
say, they have reserved to themselves in confession, all, or at least
some, of the mortal sins which are secret, so that no brother, on his
obedience and on pain of the ban, can absolve another from these
sins[178]. Now we do not always find angels everywhere, but we find
also flesh and blood, which suffers all bannings and threatenings
rather than confess secret sins to the prelates and the appointed
confessors. Thus they go to the sacrament with such consciences that
they become "irregular"[179] and all sorts of other terrible things. O
blind shepherds! O mad prelates! O ravening wolves!
To this I say: If a sin is public or notorious, then it is proper that
the prelate alone should punish it, and of these sins only and no
others he may make exceptions, and reserve them to himself; over
secret sins he has no authority, even though they were the worst sins
that are or ever can be found, and if the prelate makes exceptions of
these sins, he is a tyrant, for he has no such right and is
interfering in the judgment of God.
And so I advise these children, brethren and sisters: If your
superiors are unwilling to grant you permission to confess your secret
sins to whomever you wish, then take them to whatever brother or
sister you will and confess them, receive absolution, and then go and
do whatever you wish and ought to do; only believe firmly that you are
absolved, and nothing more is needed. And do not allow yourself to be
troubled by ban, "irregularity," or any of the other things they
threaten; these things are valid only in the case of public or
notorious sins which one is unwilling to confess; they do not affect
you at all. Why do you try by your threatenings, O blind prelate, to
prevent secret sins? Let go what you cannot publicly prove, so that
God's judgment and grace may also have its work in your subjects! He
did not give them so entirely into your hands as to let them go
entirely out of His own! Nay, what you have under your rule is but the
smaller part. Let your statutes be statutes, but do not exalt them to
heaven, to the judgment-seat of God.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Mortuary Masses]
16. It were also necessary to abolish all anniversary, mortuary and
"soul" masses[180], or at least to diminish their number, since we
plainly see that they have become nothing but a mockery, by which God
is deeply angered, and that their only purpose is money-getting,
gorging and drunkenness. What kind of pleasure should God have in such
a miserable gabbling of wretched vigils and masses, which is neither
reading nor praying, and even when prayed[181], they are performed not
for God's sake and out of willing love, but for money's sake and
because they are a bounden duty. Now it is not possible that any work
not done out of willing love can please God or obtain anything from
Him. And so it is altogether Christian to abolish, or at least
diminish, everything which we see growing into an abuse, and which
angers rather than reconciles God. It would please me more--nay, it
would be more acceptable to God and far better--that a foundation,
church or monastery should put all its anniversary masses and vigils
together, and on one day, with hearty sincerity, devotion and faith,
hold a true vigil and mass for all its benefactors, rather than hold
them by the thousand every year, for each benefactor a special mass,
without this devotion and faith. O dear Christians! God cares not for
much praying, but for true praying! Nay, He condemns the many and long
prayers, and says in Matthew vi, they will only earn more punishment
thereby [Matt. 67:7; 23:14]. But avarice, which cannot trust God,
brings such things to pass, earing that otherwise it must die of
hunger!
[Sidenote: Abolition of the Interdict]
17. Certain of the penalties or punishments of the canon law should
also be abolished, especially the interdict[182], which is, beyond all
doubt, an invention of the evil Spirit. Is it not a devil's work to
try to atone for one sin with many greater sins? And yet, to put God's
Word and worship to silence, or to do away with them, is a greater sin
than strangling twenty popes at once, and far greater than killing a
priest or keeping back some Church property. This is another of the
tender virtues taught in the "spiritual law." For one of the reasons
why this law is called "spiritual" is because it comes from the
Spirit; not, however, from the Holy Spirit, but from the evil spirit.
The ban[183] is to be used in no case except where the Scriptures
prescribe its use, i. e., against those who do not hold the true
faith, or who live in open sin; it is not to be used for the sake of
temporal possessions. But now it is the other way around. Everyone
believes and lives as he pleases, most of all those who use the ban to
plunder and defame other people, and all the bans are now laid only on
account of temporal possessions, or which we have no one to thank but
the holy "spiritual lawlessness."[184] Of this I have previously said
more in the Discourse[185].
The other punishments and penalties,--suspension, irregularity,
aggravation, reaggravation, deposition, lightnings, thunderings,
cursings, damnings and the rest of these devices,--should be buried
ten fathoms deep in the earth, so that there should be neither name
nor memory of them left on earth. The evil spirit, who has been let
loose by the "spiritual law" has brought this terrible plague and
misery into the heavenly kingdom of the holy Church, and has
accomplished by it nothing else than the destruction and hindrance of
souls, so that the word of Christ may well be applied to them[186]:
"Woe unto you scribes! Ye have taken upon you the authority to teach,
and ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Ye go not in
yourselves, and ye suffer not them that are entering." [Matt. 23:13]
[Sidenote: Abolition of Saints'-Days]
18. All festivals[187] should be abolished, and Sunday alone retained.
If it were desired, however, to retain the festivals of Our Lady and
of the greater saints, they should be transferred to Sunday, or
observed only by a morning mass, after which all the rest of the day
should be a working-day. The reason is this: The feast-days are now
abused by drinking, gaming, idleness and all manner of sins, so that
on the holy days we anger God more than on other days, and have
altogether turned things around; the holy days are not holy and the
working days are holy, and not only is no service done to God and His
saints by the many holy days, but rather great dishonor. There are,
indeed, some mad prelates who think they are doing a good work if they
make a festival in honor of St. Ottilia or St. Barbara or some other
saint, according to the promptings of their blind devotion; but they
would be doing a far better work if they honored the saint by turning
a saint's-day into a working day.
Over and above the spiritual injury, the common man receives two
material injuries from this practice, i. e., he neglects his work and
he spends more than at other times; nay, he also weakens his body and
unfits it for work. We see this every day, yet no one thinks to make
it better. We ought not to consider whether or not the pope has
instituted the feasts, and whether we must have dispensation and
permission to omit them. If a thing is opposed to God, and harmful to
man in body and soul, any community[188], council[189] or government
has not only the right to abolish it and put a stop to it, without the
will or knowledge of pope or bishop, but they are bound on their
souls' salvation to prevent it, even against the will of pope and
bishop, though these ought to be themselves the first to forbid it.
Above all, we ought utterly to abolish the consecration days[190],
since they have become nothing else than taverns, airs and gaming
places[191], and serve only to the increase of God's dishonor and to
the damnation of souls. All the pretence about the custom having had a
good beginning and being a good work is of no avail. Did not God
Himself set aside His own law, which He had given from heaven, when it
was perverted and abused? And does He not still daily overturn what He
has appointed and destroy what He has made, because of such perversion
and abuse? As it is written of Him in Psalm xviii, "With the perverted
Thou wilt show Thyself perverse." [Ps. 18:27]
[Sidenote: Extension of Right of Dispensation]
19. The grades or degrees within which marriage is forbidden should be
changed, as, for instance, the sponsorships and the third and fourth
degrees; and if the pope can grant dispensation in these matters or
money and for the sake of his shameful traffic[192], then every parish
priest may give the same dispensations gratis and or the salvation of
souls. Yea, would to God that all the things which we must buy at Rome
to free ourselves from that money-snare, the canon law,--such things
as indulgences, letters of indulgence, "butter-letters,"[193]
"mass-letters,"[194] and all the rest of the _confessionalia_[195] and
knaveries for sale at Rome, with which the poor folk are deceived and
robbed of their money; would to God, I say, that any priest could,
without payment, do and omit all these things! For if the pope has
the authority to sell his snares for money and his spiritual nets (I
should say laws)[196], surely any priest has much more authority to
rend his nets and for God's sake to tread them under foot. But if he
has not this right, neither has the pope the right to sell them at his
shameful fair[196].
This is the place to say too that the fasts should be matters of
liberty, and all sorts of food made free, as the Gospel makes them
[Matt. 15:11]. For at Rome they themselves laugh at the fasts, making
us foreigners eat the oil with which they would not grease their
shoes, and afterwards selling us liberty to eat butter and all sorts
of other things; yet the holy Apostle says that in all these things we
already have liberty through the Gospel [1 Cor. 10:25 ff.]. But they
have caught us with their canon law and stolen our rights from us, so
that we may have to buy them back with money. Thus they have made our
consciences so timid and shy that it is no longer easy to preach about
this liberty because the common people take such great offence,
thinking it a greater sin to eat butter than to lie, to swear, or even
to live unchastely. Nevertheless, what men have decreed, that is the
work of man; put it where you will[198], nothing good ever comes out
of it.
[Sidenote: Prohibition of Pilgrimages]
20. The forest chapels and rustic churches[199] must be utterly
destroyed,--those, namely, to which the recent pilgrimages have been
directed,--Wilsnack[200], Sternberg[201], Trier[202], the
Grimmenthal[203], and now Regensburg[204] and a goodly number of
others. Oh, what a terrible and heavy account will the bishops have to
render, who permit this devilish deceit and receive its profits![205]
They should be the first to forbid it, and yet they think it a divine
and holy thing, and do not see that it is the devil's doing, to
strengthen avarice, to create a false, feigned faith, to weaken the
parish churches, to multiply taverns and harlotry, to waste money and
labor, and to lead the poor folk by the nose. If they had only read
the Scriptures to as good purpose as they have read their damnable
canon law, they would know well how to deal with this matter.
That miracles are done at these places does not help things, for the
evil spirit can do miracles, as Christ has told us in Matthew xxiv
[Matt. 24:24]. If they took the matter seriously and forbade this sort
of thing, the miracles would quickly come to an end; on the other
hand, if the thing were of God their prohibition would not hinder it
[Acts 5:39]. And if there were no other evidence that it is not of
God, this would be enough,--that people run to these places in excited
crowds, as though they had lost their reason, like herds of cattle;
for this cannot possibly be of God. Moreover, God has commanded
nothing of all this; there is neither obedience nor merit in it; the
bishops, therefore, should boldly step in and keep the folk away. For
what is not commanded--and is concerned for self rather than for the
commands of God--that is surely the devil himself. Then, too, the
parish churches receive injury, because they are held in smaller
honor. In short, these things are signs of great unbelief among the
people; if they truly believed, they would have all that they need in
their own churches, for to them they are commanded to go.
[Sidenote: Canonisations to be Prohibited]
But what shall I say? Every one[206] plans only how he may establish
and maintain such a place of pilgrimage in his diocese and is not at
all concerned to have the people believe and live aright; the rulers
are like the people; one blind man leads another [Matt. 13:14]. Nay,
where pilgrimages are not successful, they begin to canonise
saints[207], not in honor of the saints--for they are sufficiently
honored without canonisation--but in order to draw crowds and bring in
money. Pope and bishop help along; it rains indulgences; there is
always money enough for that. But for what God has commanded no one
provides; no one runs after these things; there is no money or them.
Alas, that we should be so blind! We not only give the devil his own
way in his tricks, but we even strengthen him in his wantonness and
increase his pranks. I would that the dear saints were let in peace,
and the poor folk not led astray! What spirit has given the pope the
authority to canonise the saints? Who tells him whether they are
saints or not? Are there not already sins enough on earth, that we too
must tempt God, interfere in His judgment and set up the dear saints
as lures for money?
Therefore I advise that the saints be left to canonise themselves.
Yea, it is God alone who should canonise them. And let every man stay
in his own parish, where he finds more than in all the shrines of
pilgrimage, even though all the shrines were one. Here we find baptism,
the sacrament, preaching and our neighbor, and these are greater
things than all the saints in heaven, for it is by God's Word and
sacrament that they have all been made saints. So long as we despise
such great things God is just in the wrathful judgment by which He
appoints the devil to lead us hither and thither, to establish
pilgrimages, to found churches and chapels, to secure the canonisation
of saints, and to do other such fool's-works, by which we depart from
true faith into new, false misbelief. This is what he did in olden
times to the people of Israel, when he led them away from the temple
at Jerusalem to countless other places, though he did it in the name
of God and under the plausible guise of holiness, though all the
prophets preached against it and were persecuted or so doing. But now
no one preaches against it, perhaps or fear that pope, priests and
monks would persecute him also. In this way St. Antoninus of
Florence[208] and certain others must now be made saints and
canonised, that their holiness, which would otherwise have served only
for the glory of God and as a good example, may serve to bring in fame
and money.
Although the canonising of saints may have been good in olden times,
it is not good now; just as many other things were good in olden times
and are now scandalous and injurious, such as feast-days,
church-treasures and church-adornment. For it is evident that through
the canonising of saints neither God's glory nor the improvement of
Christians is sought, but only money and glory, in that one church
wants to be something more and have something more than others, and
would be sorry if another had the same thing and its advantage were
common property. So entirely, in these last, evil days, have spiritual
goods been misused and applied to the gaining of temporal goods, that
everything, even God Himself, has been forced into the service of
avarice. And even these special advantages lead only to dissensions,
divisions and pride, in that the churches, differing from one another,
hold each other in contempt, and exalt themselves one above another,
though all the gifts which God bestows are the common and equal
property of all churches and should only serve the cause of unity. The
pope, too, is glad or the present state of affairs; he would be sorry
if all Christians were equal and were at one.
[Sidenote: Prohibition of Special Privileges]
pThis is the place to speak of the church licenses, bulls and other
things which the pope sells at his laying-place in Rome. We should
either abolish them or disregard them, or at least make them the
common property of all churches. For if he sells or gives away
licenses and privileges, indulgences, graces, advantages,
faculties[209] to Wittenberg, to Halle, to Venice and, above, all to
his own Rome, why does he not give these things to all churches alike?
Is he not bound to do for all Christians, gratis and for God's sake,
everything that he can, and even to shed his blood for them? Tell me,
then, why he gives or sells to one church and not to another? Or must
the accursed money make, in the eyes of His Holiness, so great a
difference among Christians, who all have the same baptism, Word,
faith, Christ, God and all things? [Eph. 4:4 f.] Are we to be blind
while we have eyes to see, fools while we have our reason, that they
expect us to worship such greed, knavery and humbug? He is a
shepherd,--yes, so long as you have money, and no longer! And yet they
are not ashamed of their knavery, leading us hither and yon with their
bulls! Their one concern is the accursed money, and nothing else!
My advice is this: If such fool's-work cannot be abolished, then every
pious Christian man should open his eyes, and not be misled by the
hypocritical Roman bulls and seals, stay at home in his own church and
be content with his baptism, his Gospel, his faith, his Christ and
with God, Who is everywhere the same; and let the pope remain a blind
leader of the blind. Neither angel nor pope can give you as much as
God gives you in your parish-church. Nay, the pope leads you away from
the gifts of God, which you have without pay, to his gifts, which you
must buy; and he gives you lead[210] for gold, hide for meat, the
string for the purse, wax for honey, words for goods, the letter for
the spirit. You see this before your very eyes, but you are unwilling
to notice it. If you are to ride to heaven on his wax and parchment,
your chariot will soon go to pieces, and you will fall into hell, not
in God's name!
Let this be your fixed rule: What you must buy from the pope is
neither good nor of God; for what is from God, to wit, the Gospel and
the works of God, is not only given without money, but the whole world
is punished and damned because it has not been willing to receive it
as a free gift. We have deserved of God that we should be so deceived,
because we have despised His holy Word and the grace of baptism, as
St. Paul says: "God shall send a strong delusion upon all those who
have not received the truth to their salvation, to the end that they
may believe and follow after lies and knavery," [2 Thess. 2:11 f.]
which serves them right.
[Sidenote: Mendicancy to be Prohibited, and the Poor to be Cared for]
21. One of our greatest necessities is the abolition of all begging
throughout Christendom. Among Christians no one ought to go begging!
It would also be easy to make a law, if only we had the courage and
the serious intention, to the effect that every city should provide
for its own poor, and admit no foreign beggars by whatever name they
might be called, whether pilgrims or mendicant monks. Every city could
support its own poor, and if it were too small, the people in the
surrounding villages also should be exhorted to contribute, since in
any case they have to feed so many vagabonds and knaves in the guise
of mendicants. In this way, too, it could be known who were really
poor and who not.
There would have to be an overseer or warden who knew all the poor and
informed the city council or the priests what they needed; or some
other better arrangement might be made. In my judgment there is no
other business in which so much knavery and deceit are practised as in
begging, and yet it could all be easily abolished. Moreover, this free
and universal begging hurts the common people. I have considered that
each of the five or six mendicant orders[211] visits the same place
more than six or seven times every year; besides these there are the
common beggars, the "stationaries"[212] and the palmers[213], so that
it has been reckoned that every town is laid under tribute about sixty
times a year, not counting what is given to the government in taxes,
imposts and assessments, what is stolen by the Roman See with its
wares, and what is uselessly consumed. Thus it seems to me one of
God's greatest miracles that we can continue to support ourselves.
To be sure, some think that in this way[214] the poor would not be so
well provided for and that not so many great stone houses and
monasteries would be built. This I can well believe. Nor is it
necessary. He who wishes to be poor should not be rich; and if he
wishes to be rich, let him put his hand to the plow and seek his
riches in the earth! It is enough if the poor are decently cared for,
so that they do not die of hunger or of cold. It is not fitting that
one man should live in idleness on another's labor, or be rich and
live comfortably at the cost of another's discomfort, according to the
present perverted custom; for St. Paul says, "If a man will not work,
neither shall he eat." [2 Thess. 3:10] God has not decreed that any
man shall live from another's goods save only the priests, who rule
and preach, and these because of their spiritual labor, as Paul says
in I Corinthians ix [1 Cor. 9:14], and Christ also says to the
Apostles, "Every laborer is worthy of his hire." [Luke 10:7]
[Sidenote: Prohibition of Endowed Masses]
22. It is also to be feared that the many masses[215] which are
endowed in the foundations and monasteries are not only of little use,
but greatly arouse the wrath of God. It would therefore be profitable
not to endow any more, but rather Masses to abolish many that are
already endowed, since we see that they are regarded only as
sacrifices and good works[216], though they are really sacraments,
just like baptism and penance[217], which profit only those who
receive them, and no others. But now the custom has crept in, that
masses are said for the living and the dead, and all hopes are built
upon them; for this reason so many of them have been founded and the
present state of affairs has come about.
My proposal is perhaps too novel and daring, especially for those who
fear that through the discontinuance of these masses their trade and
livelihood may be destroyed, and so I must refrain from saying more
about it until we have come back to a correct understanding of what
the mass is and what it is good for. These many years, alas, it has
been made a trade practised for a temporal livelihood, so that I would
henceforth advise a man to become a shepherd or to seek some other
trade rather than become a priest or a monk, unless he first knows
well what it is to celebrate mass. I am not speaking, however, of the
old foundations and cathedrals, which were doubtless established in
order that the children of the nobility (since, according to the
customs of the German nation not all of them can become heirs or
rulers), might be provided for in these foundations, and there be free
to serve God, to study, to become scholars and to make scholars. But I
am speaking of the new foundations, which have been established only
for the saying of prayers and masses; for after their example, even
the old foundations have been burdened with like prayers and masses,
so that they are of little or no profit; though it is also of God's
grace that they too come at last, as they deserve, to the dregs, i.
e., to the wailing of organs and of choral singers, and to dead, cold
masses, by which the incomes of the worldly endowments are gotten and
spent. Such things pope, bishops and doctors should examine and
proscribe; but now it is they who are most given to them. They let
everything pass, if only it brings in money; one blind man is always
leading another. This is the work of avarice and of the spiritual law.
Again, no one person should be allowed any longer to hold more than
one canonry or prebend. He must be content with a modest position,
that some one else may also have something. This would do away with
the excuses of those who say that they must hold more than one such
office to "maintain a proper station." A "proper station" might be so
broadly interpreted that a whole land would not be enough to maintain
it! Moreover avarice and veiled distrust of God assuredly go with it,
so that what is alleged to be the need of "a proper station" is often
nothing else than avarice and distrust.
[Sidenote: Sodalities and Indulgences]
23. Sodalities[218], indulgences, letters of indulgence,
"butter-letters,"[219] mass-letters[220], dispensations, and
everything else of the sort, are to be drowned and destroyed. There is
nothing good in them. If the pope has the power to grant you
dispensation to eat butter and to absent yourself from mass, then he
ought also be able to leave this power to the priests, from whom,
indeed, he has no right to take it. I speak especially of those
fraternities in which indulgences, masses and good works are portioned
out. Dear friend, in your baptism you entered into a fraternity with
Christ, all the angels, saints and Christians on earth. Hold to this
fraternity and live up to its demands, and you have fraternities
enough. The others--let them glitter as they will--are but as counters
compared with _guldens_. But if there were a fraternity which
contributed money to feed the poor or to help somebody in some other
way, such a one would be good, and would have its indulgence and its
merit in heaven. Now, however, they have become excuses or gluttony
and drunkenness[221].
Above all, we should drive out of German lands the papal legates with
their "faculties,"[222] which they sell us for large sums of money,
though that is sheer knavery. For example, in return for money they
legalize unjust gains, dissolve oaths, vows and agreements, break and
teach men to break the faith and fealty which they have pledged to one
another; and they say the pope has the authority to do this. It is the
evil Spirit who bids them say this. Thus they sell us a doctrine of
devils, and take money or teaching us sin and leading us to hell.
If there were no other evil wiles to prove the pope the true
Antichrist, yet this one thing were enough to prove it. Hearest thou
this, pope, not most holy, but most sinful? O that God from heaven
would soon destroy thy throne and sink it in the abyss of hell! Who
hath given thee authority to exalt thyself above thy God, to break and
to loose His commandments, and to teach Christians, especially the
German nation, praised in all history for its nobility, its constancy
and fidelity, to be inconstant, perjurers, traitors, profligates,
faithless? God hath commanded to keep oath and faith even with an
enemy, and thou undertakest to loose this His commandment, and
ordainest in thine heretical, antichristian decretals that thou hast
His power. Thus through thy throat and through thy pen the wicked
Satan doth lie as he hath never lied before. Thou dost force and wrest
the Scriptures to thy fancy. O Christ, my Lord, look down, let the day
of thy judgment break, and destroy the devil's nest at Rome! Here
sitteth the man of whom St. Paul hath said that he shall exalt himself
above Thee, sit in Thy Church and set himself up as God [2 Thess. 2:3
f.],--the man of sin and the son of perdition! What else is the papal
power than only the teaching and increasing of sin and evil, the
leading of souls to damnation under Thy name and guise?
In olden times the children of Israel had to keep the oath which they
had unwittingly been deceived into giving to their enemies, the
Gibeonites [Josh. 9:19 ff.], and King Zedekiah was miserably lost,
with all his people, because he broke this oath to the King of Babylon
[2 Kings 24:20; 25:4 ff.]. Even among us, a hundred years ago, that
fine king of Hungary and Poland, Wladislav[223], was slain by the
Turk, with so many noble people, because he allowed himself to be
deceived by the papal legate and cardinal, and broke the good and
advantageous treaty which he had sworn with the Turk. The pious
Emperor Sigismund had no good fortune after the Council of Constance,
when he allowed the knaves to break the safe-conduct which had been
given to John Hus and Jerome[224] and all the trouble between us and
the Bohemians was the consequence. Even in our own times, God help us!
how much Christian blood has been shed over the oath and alliance
which Pope Julius made between the Emperor Maximilian and King Louis
of France[225], and afterwards broke? How could I tell all the
troubles which the popes have stirred up by the devilish presumption
with which they annul oaths and vows which have been made between
great princes, making a jest of these things, and taking money for it.
I have hopes that the judgment day is at the door; nothing can
possibly be worse than the Roman See. He suppresses God's commandment,
he exalts his own commandment over it; if he is not Antichrist, then
let some one else tell who he can be! But more of this another time,
and better.
24. It is high time that we seriously and honestly consider the case
of the Bohemians[224], and come into union with them so that the
terrible slander, hatred and envy on both sides may cease. As befits
my folly, I shall be the first to submit an opinion on this subject,
with due deference to every one who may understand the case better
than I.
_First_, We must honestly confess the truth, stop justifying
ourselves, and grant the Bohemians that John Hus and Jerome of Prague
were burned at Constance in violation of the papal, Christian,
imperial safe-conduct and oath; whereby God's commandment was sinned
against and the Bohemians were given ample cause for bitterness; and
although they ought to have been perfect and to have patiently endured
this great injustice and disobedience of God on our part, nevertheless
they were not bound to approve of it and to acknowledge that it was
well done. Nay, even to-day they should give up life and limb rather
than confess that it is right to violate an imperial, papal, Christian
safe-conduct, and faithlessly to act contrary to it. So then, although
it is the impatience of the Bohemians which is at fault, yet the pope
and his followers are still more to blame for all the trouble, error
and loss of souls that have followed upon that council.
I have no desire to pass judgment at this time upon John Hus's
articles or to defend his errors, though I have not yet found any
errors in his writings, and I am quite prepared to believe that it was
neither fair judgment nor honest condemnation which was passed by
those who, in their faithless dealing, violated a Christian
safe-conduct and a commandment of God. Beyond doubt they were
possessed rather by the evil spirit than by the Holy Spirit. No one
will doubt that the Holy Spirit does not act contrary to the
commandment of God; and no one is so ignorant as not to know that the
violation of faith and of a safe-conduct is contrary to the
commandment of God, even though they had been promised to the devil
himself, still more when the promise was made to a mere heretic. It is
also quite evident that such a promise was made to John Hus and the
Bohemians and was not kept, but that he was burned in spite of it. I
do not wish, however, to make John Hus a saint or a martyr, as do some
of the Bohemians, though I confess that injustice was done him, and
that his books and doctrines were unjustly condemned; for the
judgments of God are secret and terrible, and no one save God alone
should undertake to reveal or utter them. All I wish to say is this:
though he were never so wicked a heretic, nevertheless he was burned
unjustly and against God's commandment, and the Bohemians should not
be forced to approve of such conduct, or else we shall never come into
unity. Not obstinacy but the open admission of truth must make us one.
It is useless to pretend, as was done at that time, that a
safe-conduct given to a heretic need not be kept[227]. That is as much
as to say that God's commandments are not to be kept to the end that
God's commandments may be kept. The devil made them mad and foolish,
so that they did not know what they were saying or doing. God has
commanded that a safe-conduct shall be kept. This commandment we
should keep though the world all. How much more, when it is only a
question of freeing a heretic! We should vanquish heretics with books,
not with burning; for so the ancient fathers did. If it were a science
to vanquish the heretics with fire, then the hang-men would be the
most learned doctors on earth; we should no longer need to study, but
he who overcame another by force might burn him at the stake.
_Second_, The emperor and the princes should send to the Bohemians
some pious and sensible bishops and scholars; but by no means a
cardinal or papal legate or inquisitor, for those people are utter
ignoramuses as regards things Christian; they seek not the welfare of
souls, but, like all the pope's hypocrites, only their own power,
profit and glory; indeed, they were the prime movers in this miserable
business at Constance. The men thus sent into Bohemia should inform
themselves about the faith of the Bohemians, and whether it be
possible to unite all their sects. Then the pope should, for their
souls' sake, lay aside his supremacy for the time being, and,
according to the decree of the most Christian Council of Nicaea[228],
allow the Bohemians to choose one of their number to be Archbishop of
Prague[229], and he should be confirmed by the bishop of Olmutz in
Moravia, or the bishop of Gran in Hungary, or the bishop of Gnesen in
Poland, or the bishop of Magdeburg in Germany[230]. It will be enough
if he is confirmed by one or two of these, as was the custom in the
time of St. Cyprian[231]. The pope has no right to oppose such an
arrangement, and if he does oppose it, he becomes a wolf and a tyrant;
no one should follow him and his ban should be met with a counter-ban.
If, however, it were desired, in honor of the See of St. Peter, to do
this with the pope's consent, I should be satisfied, provided it does
not cost the Bohemians a _heller_ and the pope does not bind them at
all nor make them subject to his tyrannies by oaths and obligations,
as he does all other bishops, in despite of God and of justice. If he
will not be satisfied with the honor of having his consent asked, then
let them not bother any more about him[232] and his rights, laws and
tyrannies; let the election suffice, and let the blood of all the
souls which are endangered cry out against him, for no one should
consent to injustice; it is enough to have offered tyranny an honor.
If it cannot be otherwise, then an election and approval by the common
people can even now be quite as valid as a confirmation by a tyrant;
but I hope this will not be necessary. Some of the Romans or the good
bishops and scholars will sometime mark and oppose papal tyranny.
I would also advise against compelling them to abolish both kinds in
the sacrament[233], since that is neither unchristian nor heretical,
but they should be allowed to retain their own practice, if they wish.
Yet the new bishop should be careful that no discord arise because of
such a practice, but should kindly instruct them that neither practice
is wrong[234]; just as it ought not to cause dissension that the
clergy differ from the laity in manner of life and in dress. In like
manner if they were unwilling to receive the Roman canon law, they
should not be forced to do so, but we should first make sure that they
live in accordance with faith and with the Scriptures. For Christian
faith and life can well exist without the intolerable laws of the
pope, nay, they cannot well exist unless there be fewer of these Roman
laws, or none at all. In baptism we have become free and have been
made subject to God's Word only; why should any man ensnare us in his
words? As St. Paul says, "Ye have become free, be not servants of
men," [1 Cor. 7:23; Gal. 5:1] i. e. of those who rule with man-made
laws.
If I knew that the Picards[235] held no other error touching the
sacrament of the altar except that they believe that the bread and
wine are present in their true nature, but that the body and blood of
Christ are truly present under them, then I would not condemn them,
but would let them enter the obedience of the bishop of Prague. For it
is not an article of faith that bread and wine are not essentially and
naturally in the sacrament, but this is an opinion of St. Thomas[236]
and the pope. On the other hand, it is an article of faith that in the
natural bread and wine the true natural body and blood of Christ are
present[237]. And so we should tolerate the opinions of both sides
until they come to an agreement, because there is no danger in
believing that bread is there or is not there. For we have to endure
many practices and ordinances so long as they are not harmful to
faith. On the other hand, if they had a different faith[238], I would
rather have them outside the Church; yet I would teach them the truth.
Whatever other errors and schisms might be discovered in Bohemia
should be tolerated until the archbishop had been restored and had
gradually brought all the people together again in one common
doctrine. They will assuredly never be united by force, nor by
defiance, nor by haste; it will take time and forbearance. Had not
even Christ to tarry with His disciples a long while and bear with
their unbelief, until they believed His resurrection? If they but had
again a regular bishop and church order, without Roman tyranny, I
could hope that things would soon be better.
The restoration of the temporal goods which formerly belonged to the
Church should not be too strictly demanded, but since we are
Christians and each is bound to help the rest, it is in our power, for
the sake of unity, to give them these things and let them keep them in
the sight of God and men. For Christ says, "Where two are at one with
each other on earth, there am I in the midst of them." [Matt. 18:19
f.] Would to God that on both sides we were working toward this unity,
offering our hands to one another in brotherly humility, and not
standing stubbornly on our powers or rights! Love is greater and more
necessary than the papacy at Rome, or there can be papacy without love
and love without papacy.
With this counsel I shall have done what I could. If the pope or his
followers hinder it, they shall render an account for seeking their
own things rather than the things of their neighbor, contrary to the
love of God [Phil. 2:4]. The pope ought to give up his papacy and all
his possessions and honors, if he could by that means save one soul;
but now he would let the world go to destruction rather than yield a
hair's-breadth of his presumptuous authority. And yet he would be the
"most holy"! Here my responsibility ends.
[Sidenote: The Universities]
[Sidenote: Aristotle]
25. The universities also need a good, thorough reformation--I must
say it no matter whom it vexes--for everything which the papacy has
instituted and ordered is directed only towards the increasing of sin
and error. What else are the universities, if their present condition
remains unchanged, than as the book of Maccabees says, _Gymnasia
Epheborum et Graecae gloriae_[239][2 Macc. 4:9, 12], in which loose
living prevails, the Holy Scriptures and the Christian faith are
little taught, and the blind, heathen Aristotle master Aristotle[240]
rules alone, even more than Christ. In this regard my advice would be
that Aristotle's _Physics_, _Metaphysics_, _On the Soul_, _Ethics_,
which have hitherto been thought his best books, should be altogether
discarded, together with all the rest of his books which boast of
treating the things of nature, although nothing can be learned from
them either of the things of nature or the things of the Spirit.
Moreover no one has so far understood his meaning, and many souls have
been burdened with profitless labor and study, at the cost of much
precious time. I venture to say that any potter has more knowledge of
nature than is written in these books. It grieves me to the heart that
this damned, conceited, rascally heathen has with his false words
deluded and made fools of so many of the best Christians. God has sent
him as a plague upon us for our sins.
Why, this wretched man, in his best book, _On the Soul_, teaches that
the soul dies with the body, although many have tried with vain words
to save his reputation. As though we had not the Holy Scriptures, in
which we are abundantly instructed about all things, and of them
Aristotle had not the faintest inkling! And yet this dead heathen has
conquered and obstructed and almost suppressed the books of the living
God, so that when I think of this miserable business I can believe
nothing else than that the evil spirit has introduced the study of
Aristotle. Again, his book on _Ethics_ is the worst of all books. It
flatly opposes divine grace and all Christian virtues, and yet it is
considered one of his best works. Away with such books! Keep them away
from all Christians! Let no one accuse me of exaggeration, or of
condemning what I do not understand! My dear friend, I know well
whereof I speak. I know my Aristotle as well as you or the likes of
you. I have lectured on him[241] and heard lectures on him, and I
understand him better than do St. Thomas or Scotus[242]. This I can
say without pride, and if necessary I can prove it. I care not that so
many great minds have wearied themselves over him for so many hundred
years. Such objections do not disturb me as once they did; for it is
plain as day that other errors have remained or even more centuries in
the world and in the universities.
I should be glad to see Aristotle's books on _Logic_, _Rhetoric_ and
_Poetics_ retained or used in an abridged form; as text-books for the
profitable training of young people in speaking and preaching. But the
commentaries and notes should be abolished, and as Cicero's _Rhetoric_
is read without commentaries and notes, so Aristotle's _Logic_ should
be read as it is, without such a mass of comments. But now neither
speaking nor preaching is learned from it, and it has become nothing
but a disputing and a weariness to the flesh. Besides this there are
the languages--Latin, Greek and Hebrew--the mathematical disciplines
and history. But all this I give over to the specialists, and, indeed,
the reform would come of itself, if we were only seriously bent upon
it. In truth, much depends upon it; for it is here[243] that the
Christian youth and the best of our people, with whom the future of
Christendom lies, are to be educated and trained. Therefore I consider
that there is no work more worthy of pope or emperor than a thorough
reformation of the universities, and there is nothing worse or more
worthy of the devil than unreformed universities.
[Sidenote: The Canon Law]
The medical men I leave to reform their own faculties; the jurists and
theologians I take as my share, and I say, in the first place, that it
were well if the canon law, from the first letter to the last, and
especially the decretals, were utterly blotted out. The Bible contains
more than enough directions for all our living, and so the study of
the canon law only stands in the way of the study of the Holy
Scriptures; moreover, it smacks for the most part of mere avarice and
pride. Even though there were much in it that is good, it might as
well be destroyed, for the pope has taken the whole canon law captive
and imprisoned it in the "chamber of his heart,"[244] so that the
study of it is henceorth a waste of time and a farce. At present the
canon law is not what is in the books, but what is in the sweet will
of the pope and his flatterers. Your cause may be thoroughly
established in the canon law; still the pope has his _scrinium
pectoris_[245], and all law and the whole world must be guided by
that. Now it is ofttimes a knave, and even the devil himself, who
rules this _scrinium_, and they boast that it is ruled by the Holy
Spirit! Thus they deal with Christ's unfortunate people. They give
them many laws and themselves keep none of them, but others they
compel either to keep them or else to buy release.
Since, then, the pope and his followers have suspended the whole canon
law, and since they pay no heed to it, but regard their own wanton
will as a law exalting them above all the world, we should follow
their example and for our part also reject these books. Why should we
waste our time studying them? We could never discover the whole
arbitrary will of the pope, which has now become the canon law. The
canon law has arisen in the devil's name, let it all in the name of
God, and let there be no more _doctores decretorum_[246] in the world,
but only _doctores scrinii papalis_, that is, "hypocrites of the
pope"! It is said that there is no better temporal rule anywhere than
among the Turks, who have neither spiritual nor temporal law, but only
their Koran; and we must confess that there is no more shameful rule
than among us, with our spiritual and temporal law, so that there is
no estate which lives according to the light of nature, still less
according to Holy Scripture.
[Sidenote: Secular Law]
The temporal law,--God help us! what a wilderness it has become![247]
Though it is much better, wiser and more rational than the "spiritual
law" which has nothing good about it except the name, still there is
far too much of it. Surely the Holy Scriptures and good rulers would
be law enough; as St. Paul says in I Corinthians vi, "Is there no one
among you can judge his neighbor's cause, that ye must go to law
before heathen courts?" [1 Cor. 6:1] It seems just to me that
territorial laws and territorial customs should take precedence of the
general imperial laws, and the imperial laws be used only in case of
necessity. Would to God that as every land has its own peculiar
character, so it were ruled by its own brief laws, as the lands were
ruled before these imperial laws were invented, and many lands are
still ruled without them! These diffuse and far-etched laws are only a
burden to the people, and hinder causes more than they help them. I
hope, however, that others have given this matter more thought and
attention than I am able to do.
[Sidenote: Theology]
My friends the theologians have spared themselves pains and labor;
they leave the Bible in peace and read the Sentences. I should think
that the Sentences[248] ought to be the first study of young students
in theology and the Bible ought to be the study for the doctors. But
now it is turned around; the Bible comes first, and is put aside when
the bachelor's degree is reached, and the Sentences come last. They
are attached forever to the doctorate, and that with such a solemn
obligation that a man who is not a priest may indeed read the Bible,
but the Sentences a priest must read. A married man, I observe, could
be a Doctor of the Bible, but under no circumstances a Doctor of the
Sentences. What good fortune can we expect if we act so perversely and
in this way put the Bible, the holy Word of God, so far to the rear?
Moreover the pope commands, with many severe words, that his laws are
to be read and used in the schools and the courts, but little is said
of the Gospel. Thus it is the custom that in the schools and the
courts the Gospel lies idle in the dust under the bench[249], to the
end that the pope's harmful laws may rule alone.
If we are called by the title of teachers[250] of Holy Scripture, then
we ought to be compelled, in accordance with our name, to teach the
Holy Scriptures and nothing else, although even this title is too
proud and boastful and no one ought to be proclaimed and crowned
teacher of Holy Scripture. Yet it might be suffered, if the work
justified the name; but now, under the despotism of the Sentences, we
find among the theologians more of heathen and human opinion than of
the holy and certain doctrine of Scripture. What, then, are we to do?
I know of no other way than humbly to pray God to give us Doctors of
Theology, Pope, emperor and universities may make Doctors of Arts, of
Medicine, of Laws, of the Sentences; but be assured that no one will
make a Doctor of Holy Scripture, save only the Holy Ghost from heaven,
as Christ says in John vi, "They must all be taught of God Himself."
[John 6:45] Now the Holy Ghost does not concern Himself about red or
brown birettas[251] or other decorations, nor does He ask whether one
is old or young, layman or priest, monk or secular, virgin or married;
nay He spake of old by an ass, against the prophet who rode upon it
[Num. 22:28]. Would God that we were worthy to have such doctors given
us, whether they were layman or priests, married or virgin. True, they
now try to force the Holy Ghost into pope, bishops and doctors,
although there is no sign or indication whatever that He is in them.
[Sidenote: Theological Textbooks]
The number of theological books must also be lessened, and a selection
made of the best of them. For it is not many books or much reading
that makes men learned; but it is good things, however little of them,
often read, that make men learned in the Scriptures, and make them
godly, too. Indeed the writings of all the holy fathers should be read
only for a time, in order that through them we may be led to the Holy
Scriptures. As it is, however, we read them only to be absorbed in
them and never come to the Scriptures. We are like men who study the
sign-posts and never travel the road. The dear fathers wished, by
their writings, to lead us to the Scriptures, but we so use them as to
be led away from the Scriptures, though the Scriptures alone are our
vineyard in which we ought all to work and toil.
[Sidenote: Schools]
Above all, the foremost and most general subject of study, both in the
higher and the lower schools, should be the Holy Scriptures, and for
the young boys the Gospel. And would to God that every town had a
girls' school also, in which the girls were taught the Gospel for an
hour each day either in German or Latin. Indeed the schools,
monasteries and nunneries began long ago with that end in view, and it
was a praiseworthy and Christian purpose, as we learn from the story
of St. Agnes[252] and other of the saints. That was the time of holy
virgins and martyrs, and then it was well with Christendom; but now
they[253] have come to nothing but praying and singing. Ought not
every Christian at his ninth or tenth year to know the entire holy
Gospel from which he derives his name[254] and his life? A spinner or
a seamstress teaches her daughter the trade in her early years; but
now even the great, learned prelates and bishops themselves do not
know the Gospel.
O how unjustly we deal with these poor young people who are committed
to us for direction and instruction! We must give a terrible accounting
or our neglect to set the Word of God before them. They are as
Jeremiah says in Lamentations ii: "Mine eyes are grown weary with
weeping, my bowels are terrified, my liver is poured out upon the
ground, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, or
the youth and the children perish in all the streets of the whole
city; they said to their mothers, Where is bread and wine? and they
swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city and gave up the
ghost in their mothers' bosom." [Lam. 2:11 ff.] This pitiful evil we
do not see,--how even now the young folk in the midst of Christendom
languish and perish miserably for want of the Gospel, in which we
ought to be giving them constant instruction and training.
[Sidenote: Restriction of Number of Students]
Moreover, if the universities were diligent in the study of Holy
Scripture, we should not send everybody there, as we do when all we
ask is numbers, and everyone wishes to have a doctor's degree; but we
should send only the best qualified students, who have previously been
well trained in the lower schools. A prince or city council ought to
see to this, and permit only the well qualified to be sent. But where
the Holy Scriptures do not rule, there I advise no one to send his
son. Everyone not unceasingly busy with the Word of God must become
corrupt; that is why the people who are in the universities and who
are trained there are the kind of people they are. For this no one is
to blame but the pope, the bishops and the prelates, who are charged
with the training of the youth. For the universities ought to turn out
only men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, who can become
bishops and priests, leaders in the fight against heretics, the devil
and all the world. But where do you find this true? I greatly fear that
the universities are wide gates of hell, if they do not diligently
teach the Holy Scriptures and impress them on the youth.
[Sidenote: The Pope and the Holy Roman Empire]
26.[255] I know full well that the Roman crowd will make pretensions
and great boasts about how the pope took the Holy Roman Empire from
the Greek Emperor[256] and bestowed it on the Germans, for which honor
and benevolence he is said to have justly deserved and obtained from
the Germans submission and thanks and all good things. For this reason
they will, perhaps, undertake to throw to the winds all attempts to
reform them, and will not allow us to think about anything but the
bestowal of the Roman Empire. For this cause they have heretofore
persecuted and oppressed many a worthy emperor so arbitrarily and
arrogantly that it is pity to tell of it, and with the same adroitness
they have made themselves overlords of all the temporal powers and
authorities, contrary to the Holy Gospel. Of this too I must therefore
speak.
There is no doubt that the true Roman Empire, which the writings of
the prophets foretold in Numbers xxiv [Num. 24:24] and in Daniel [Dan.
2:39 ff.], has long since been overthrown and brought to an end, as
Balaam clearly prophesied in Numbers xxiv, when he said: "The Romans
shall come and overthrow the Jews; and afterwards they also shall be
destroyed." That was brought to pass by the Goths[257], but especially
when the Turkish Empire arose almost a thousand years ago[258]; then
in time Asia and Africa fell away, and finally Venice arose, and there
remained to Rome nothing of its former power.
Now when the pope could not subdue to his arrogant will the Greeks and
the emperor at Constantinople, who was hereditary Roman Emperor, he
bethought himself of this device, viz., to rob him of his empire and
his title and turn it over to the Germans, who were at that time
warlike and of good repute, so as to bring the power of the Roman
Empire under his control and give it away as a fief. So too it turned
out. It was taken away from the emperor at Constantinople and its name
and title were given to us Germans. Thereby we became the servants of
the pope, and there is now a second Roman Empire, which the pope has
built upon the Germans; for the other, which was first, has long since
fallen, as I have said.
So then the Roman See has its will. It has taken possession of Rome,
driven out the German Emperor and bound him with oaths not to dwell at
Rome. He is to be Roman Emperor, and yet he is not to have possession
of Rome, and besides he is at all times to be dependent upon the
caprice of the pope and his followers, so that we have the name and
they have the land and cities. They have always abused our simplicity
to serve their own arrogance and tyranny, and they call us mad
Germans, who let ourselves be made apes and fools at their bidding.
Ah well! For God the Lord it is a small thing to toss empires and
principalities to and fro! He is so generous with them that once in a
while He gives a kingdom to a knave and takes it from a good man,
sometimes by the treachery of wicked, faithless men and sometimes by
heredity, as we read of the Kingdoms of Persia and Greece, and of
almost all kingdoms; and Daniel ii and iv says: "He Who ruleth over
all things dwelleth in heaven, and it is He alone Who changeth
kingdoms, tosseth them to and fro, and maketh them." [Dan. 2:21; 4:14]
Since, therefore, no one can think it a great thing to have a kingdom
given him, especially if he is a Christian, we Germans too cannot be
puffed up because a new Roman Empire is bestowed on us; for in His
eyes it is a trifling gift, which He often gives to the most unworthy,
as Daniel iv says: "All who dwell upon the earth are in His eyes as
nothing, and He has power in all the kingdoms of men, to give them to
whomsoever He will." [Dan. 4:35]
But although the pope unjustly and by violence robbed the true emperor
of his Roman Empire, or of its name, and gave it to us Germans, it is
certain, nevertheless, that in this matter God has used the pope's
wickedness to give such an empire to the German nation, and after the
all of the first Roman Empire, to set up another, which still exists.
And although we gave no occasion to this wickedness of the popes, and
did not understand their false aims and purposes, nevertheless,
through this papal trickery and roguery, we have already paid too
dearly for our empire, with incalculable bloodshed, with the
suppression of our liberty, with the risk and robbery of all our
goods, especially the goods of the churches and canonries, and with
the suffering of unspeakable deception and insult. We have the name of
the empire, but the pope has our wealth, honor, body, life, soul and
all that is ours. So we Germans are to be cheated in the trade[259].
What the popes sought was to be emperors, and since they could not
manage that, they at least succeeded in setting themselves over the
emperors.
Because then, the empire has been given us without our fault, by the
providence of God and the plotting of evil men, I would not advise
that we give it up, but rather that we rule it wisely and in the fear
of God, so long as it shall please Him. For, as has been said, it
matters not to Him where an empire comes from; it is His will that it
shall be ruled. Though the popes took it dishonestly from others,
nevertheless we did not get it dishonestly. It is given us by the will
of God through evil-minded men; and we have more regard for God's will
than for the treacherous purpose of the popes, who, in bestowing it,
wished to be emperors themselves, and more than emperors, and only to
fool and mock us with the name. The King of Babylon also seized his
empire by robbery and force; yet it was God's will that it should be
ruled by the holy princes, Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael [Dan
3:30; 5:29]; much more then is it His will that this empire be ruled
by the Christian princes of Germany, regardless whether the pope stole
it, or got it by robbery, or made it anew. It is all God's ordering,
which came to pass before we knew of it.
Therefore the pope and his followers may not boast that they have done
a great favor to the German nation by the bestowal of this Roman
Empire. _First_, because they did not mean it for our good, but were
rather taking advantage of our simplicity in order to strengthen
themselves in their proud designs against the Roman Emperor at
Constantinople, from whom the pope godlessly and lawlessly took this
empire, a thing which he had no right to do. _Second_, because the
pope's intention was not to give us the empire, but to get it for
himself, that he might bring all our power, our freedom, wealth, body
and soul into subjection to himself and use us (if God had not
prevented) to subdue all the world. He clearly says so himself in his
decretals, and he has attempted it, by many evil wiles, with a number
of the German emperors. How beautifully we Germans have been taught
our German! When we thought to be lords, we became slaves of the most
deceitful tyrants; we have the name, title and insignia of the empire,
but the pope has its treasures, its authority, its law and its
liberty. So the pope gobbles the kernel, and we play with the empty
hulls.
Now may God, Who by the wiles of tyrants has tossed this empire into
our lap, and charged us with the ruling of it, help us to live up to
the name, title and insignia, to rescue our liberty, and to show the
Romans, for once, what it is that we, through them, have received from
God! They boast that they have bestowed on us an empire. So be it,
then! If it is true, then let the pope give us Rome and everything
else which he has got from the empire; let him free our land from his
intolerable taxing and robbing, and give us back our liberty,
authority, wealth, honor, body and soul; let the empire be what an
empire should be, and let his words and pretensions be fulfilled!
If he will not do that, then why all this shamming, these false and
lying words and juggler's tricks? Is he not satisfied with having so
rudely led this noble nation by the nose these many hundred years
without ceasing? It does not follow that the pope must be above an
emperor because he makes or crowns him. The prophet Samuel at God's
command anointed and crowned Kings Saul and David, and yet he was
their subject; and the prophet Nathan anointed King Solomon, but was
not set over him on that account [1 Sam. 16:1; 16:13]; Elisha too had
one of his servants anoint Jehu King of Israel [1 Kings 1:38 f.], and
yet they remained obedient and subject to him [2 Kings 9:1 ff.].
Except in the case of the pope, it has never happened in all the
world's history that he who consecrated or crowned the king was over
the king. He lets himself be crowned pope by three cardinals, who are
under him, and he is nevertheless their superior. Why then should he,
contrary to the example which he himself sets, and contrary to the
custom and teaching of all the world and of the Scriptures, exalt
himself above temporal authorities, or the empire, simply because he
crowns or consecrates the emperor? It is enough that he should be the
emperor's superior in divine things, to wit, in preaching, teaching
and administering the sacraments, in which things, indeed, any bishop
or priest is over every other man, as St. Ambrose in his See was over
the emperor Theodosius[260], and the prophet Nathan over David, and
Samuel over Saul. Therefore, let the German Emperor be really and
truly emperor, and let not his authority or his sword be put down by
this blind pretension of papal hypocrites, as though they were to be
excepted from his dominion and themselves direct the temporal sword in
all things.]
[Sidenote: Economic and Social Reforms]
27. Enough has now been said about the failings of the clergy, though
more of them can and will be found if these are properly considered.
We would say something too about the failings of the temporal estate.
[Sidenote: Luxury in Dress]
1. There is great need of a general law and decree of the German
nation against the extravagance and excess in dress, by which so many
nobles and rich men are impoverished[251]. God has given to us, as to
other lands, enough wool, hair, lax and every thing else which
properly serves or the seemly and honorable dress of every rank, so
that we do not need to spend and waste such enormous sums or silk and
velvet and golden ornaments and other foreign wares. I believe that
even if the pope had not robbed us Germans with his intolerable
exactions, we should still have our hands more than full with these
domestic robbers, the silk and velvet merchants[262]. In the matter of
clothes, as we see, everybody wants to be equal to everybody else, and
pride and envy are aroused and increased among us, as we deserve. All
this and much more misery would be avoided if our curiosity would only
let us be thankful, and be satisfied with the goods which God has
given us.
[Sidenote: The Spice Trade]
2. In like manner it is also necessary to restrict the
spice-traffic[263] which is another of the great ships in which money
is carried out of German lands. There grows among us, by God's grace,
more to eat and drink than in any other land, and just as choice and
good. Perhaps the proposals that I make may seem foolish and
impossible and give the impression that I want to suppress the
greatest of all trades, that of commerce; but I am doing what I can. I
reforms are not generally introduced, then let every one who is
willing reform himself. I do not see that many good customs have ever
come to a land through commerce, and in ancient times God made His
people of Israel dwell away from the sea on this account, and did not
let them engage much in commerce.
[Sidenote: The Traffic in Annuities]
3. But the greatest misfortune of the German nation is certainly the
traffic in annuities[264]. If that did not exist many a man would have
to leave unbought his silks, velvets, golden ties ornaments, spices
and ornaments of every sort. It has not existed much over a hundred
years, and has already brought almost all princes, cities, endowed
institutions, nobles and their heirs to poverty, misery and ruin; if
it shall continue or another hundred years Germany cannot possibly
have a _pfennig_ left and we shall certainly have to devour one
another. The devil invented the practice, and the pope, by confirming
it[265], has injured the whole world. Therefore I ask and pray that
everyone open his eyes to see the ruin of himself, his children and
his heirs, which not only stands before the door, but already haunts
the house, and that emperor, princes, lords and cities do their part
that this trade be condemned as speedily as possible, and henceforth
prevented, regardless whether or not the pope, with all his law and
unlaw, is opposed to it, and whether or not benefices or church
foundations are based upon it. It is better that there should be in a
city one living based on an honest freehold or revenue, than a hundred
based on an annuity; indeed a living based on an annuity is worse and
more grievous than twenty based on freeholds. In truth this traffic in
rents must be a sign and symbol that the world, for its grievous sins,
has been sold to the devil, so that both temporal and spiritual
possessions must fail us, and yet we do not notice it at all.
Here, too, we must put a bit in the mouth of the Fuggers and similar
corporations[266]. How is it possible that in the lifetime of a single
man such great possessions, worthy of a king, can be piled up, and yet
everything be done legally and according to God's will? I am not a
mathematician, but I do not understand how a man with a hundred gulden
can make a profit of twenty gulden in one year, nay, how with one
gulden he can make another[267]; and that, too, by another way than
agriculture or cattle-raising, in which increase of wealth depends not
on human wits, but on God's blessing. I commend this to the men of
affairs. I am a theologian, and find nothing to blame in it except its
evil and offending appearance, of which St. Paul says, "Avoid every
appearance or show of evil." [1 Thess. 5:22] This I know well, that it
would be much more pleasing to God if we increased agriculture and
diminished commerce, and that they do much better who, according to
the Scriptures, till the soil and seek their living from it, as was
said to us and to all men in Adam, "Accursed be the earth when thou
laborest therein, it shall bear thee thistles and thorns, and in the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." [Gen. 3:17 ff.] There is
still much land lying untilled.
[Sidenote: Excesses in Eating and Drinking]
4. Next comes the abuse of eating and drinking[268] which gives us
Germans a bad reputation in foreign lands, as though it were our
special vice. Preaching cannot stop it; it has become too common, and
has got too firmly the upper hand. The waste of money which it causes
would be a small thing, were it not followed by other sins,--murder,
adultery, stealing, irreverence and all the vices. The temporal sword
can do something to prevent it; or else it will be as Christ says:
"The last day shall come like a secret snare, when they shall be
eating and drinking, marrying and wooing, building and planting,
buying and selling." [Luke 21:34 f.] It is so much like that now that
I verily believe the judgment day is at the door, though men are
thinking least of all about it.
[Sidenote: The Social Evil]
5. Finally, is it not a pitiful thing that we Christians should
maintain among us open and common houses of prostitution, though all
of us are baptised unto chastity? I know very well what some say to
this, to wit, that it is not the custom of any one people, that it is
hard to break up, that it is better that there should be such houses
than that married women, or maidens, or those of more honorable estate
should be outraged. But should not the temporal, Christian government
consider that in this heathen way the evil is not to be controlled? I
the people of Israel could exist without such an abomination, why
could not Christian people do as much? Nay, how do many cities, towns
and villages exist without such houses? Why should not great cities
also exist without them?
In this, and in the other matters above mentioned, I have tried to
point out how many good works the temporal government could do, and
what should be the duty of every government, to the end that every one
may learn what an awful responsibility it is to rule, and to have high
station. What good would it do that an overlord were in his own life
as holy as St. Peter, if he have not the purpose diligently to help
his subjects in these matters? His very authority will condemn him!
For it is the duty of the authorities to seek the highest good of
their subjects. But if the authorities were to consider how the young
people might be brought together in marriage, the hope of entering the
married state would greatly help every one to endure and to resist
temptation.
[Sidenote: Celibacy and Its Abuses]
But now every man is drawn to the priesthood or the monastic life, and
among them, I fear, there is not one in a hundred who has any other
reason than that he seeks a living, and doubts that he will ever be
able to support himself in the estate of matrimony. Therefore they
live wildly enough beforehand, and wish, as they say, to "wear out
their lust," but rather wear it in[269], as experience shows. I find
the proverb true, "Despair makes most of the monks and priests"[270];
and so things are as we see them.
My faithful counsel is that, in order to avoid many sins which have
become very common, neither boy nor maid should take the vow of
chastity, or of the "spiritual life," before the age of thirty
years[271]. It is, as St. Paul says, a peculiar gift [1 Cor. 7].
Therefore let him whom God does not constrain, put off becoming a
cleric and taking the vows. Nay, I will go farther and say, If you
trust God so little that you are not willing to support yourself as a
married man, and wish to become a cleric only because of this
distrust, then for the sake of your own soul, I beg of you not to
become a cleric, but rather a farmer, or whatever else you please. For
if to obtain your temporal support you must have one measure of trust
in God, you must have ten measures of trust to continue in the life of
a cleric. If you do not trust God to support you in the world, how
will you trust him to support you in the Church? Alas, unbelief and
distrust spoil everything and lead us into all misery, as we see in
every estate of life!
Much could be said of this miserable condition. The young people have
no one to care for them. They all do as they please, and the
government is of as much use to them as if it did not exist; and yet
this should be the chief concern of pope, bishops, lords and councils.
They wish to rule far and wide, and yet to help no one. O, what a rare
bird will a lord and ruler be in heaven just on this account, even
though he build a hundred churches or God and raise up all the dead!
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
[Let this suffice for this time! Of what the temporal powers and the
nobility ought to do, I think I have said enough in the little book.
_On Good Works_[272]. There is room for improvement in their lives and
in their rule, and yet the abuses of the temporal power are not to be
compared with those of the spiritual power, as I have there
shown.][273]
I think too that I have pitched my song in a high key, have made many
propositions which will be thought impossible and have attacked many
things too sharply. But what am I to do? I am in duty bound to speak.
If I were able, these are the things I should wish to do. I prefer the
wrath of the world to the wrath of God; they can do no more than take
my life[274]. Many times heretofore I have made overtures of peace to
my opponents; but as I now see, God has through them compelled me to
open my mouth wider and wider and give them enough to say, bark, shout
and write, since they have nothing else to do. Ah well, I know another
little song about Rome and about them if I their ears itch for it I
will sing them that song too, and pitch the notes to the top of the
scale. Understandest thou, dear Rome, what I mean?
I have many times offered my writings for investigation and judgment,
but it has been of no use. To be sure, I know that if my cause is
just, it must be condemned on earth, and approved only by Christ in
heaven; or all the Scriptures show that the cause of Christians and of
Christendom must be judged by God alone. Such a cause has never yet
been approved by men on earth, but the opposition has always been too
great and strong. It is my greatest care and fear that my cause may
remain uncondemned, by which I should know or certain that it was not
yet pleasing to God.
Therefore let them boldly go to work,--pope, bishop, priest, monk and
scholar! They are the right people to persecute the truth, as they
have ever done.
God give us all a Christian mind, and especially to the Christian
nobility of the German nation a right spiritual courage to do the best
that can be done for the poor Church. Amen.
Wittenberg, 1520.