LUTHER'S WORKS TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION, AND
ON THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.
In a dedication to his friend and colleague Amsdorf, prefixed to the
first of these works, he begins, 'The time of silence is past, and
the time for speaking is come.' He had several points, he tells us,
concerning the improvement of the Christian condition, to lay before
the Christian nobility of Germany; perhaps God would help His Church
through the laity, since the clergy had become entirely careless. If
charged with presumption in venturing to address such high people on
such great matters, so be it, then perhaps he was guilty of a folly
towards his God and the world, and might one day become court-jester.
But inasmuch as he was a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, he rejoiced
in the opportunity of satisfying his oath in this manner.
He then turns to the 'Most illustrious, Most powerful Imperial
Majesty, and to the Christian nobility of the German nation,' with
the greeting, 'Grace and strength from God first of all, most
illustrious, gracious, and beloved Lords!'
The need and troubles of Christendom, and especially of Germany,
constrained him, as he said, to cry to God that He might inspire
some one to stretch out his hand to the suffering nation. His hopes
were in the noble young blood now given by God as her head. He would
likewise do his part.
The Romanists, in order to prevent their being reformed, had shut
themselves within three walls. Firstly, they said, the temporal
power had no rights over them, the spiritual power, but the
spiritual was above the temporal; secondly, the Scriptures, which
were sought to be employed against them, could only be expounded by
the Pope; thirdly, no one but the Pope could summon a Council.
Against this, Luther calls to God for one of those trumpets which
once blew down the walls of Jericho, in order to blow down also,
these walls of straw and paper.
His assault upon the first wall was decisive for the rest. He
accomplished it with his doctrine of the spiritual and priestly
character of all Christians, who had been baptised and consecrated
by the blood of Christ (1 Peter ii. 9; Rev. v. 10). Thus, according
to Luther, they are all of one character, one rank. The only thing
peculiar to the so-called ecclesiastics or priests, is the special
office or work of 'administering the Word of God and the Sacraments'
to the congregation. The power to do this is given, indeed, by God
to all Christians as priests, but, being so given, cannot be assumed
by an individual without the will and command of the community. The
ordination of priests, as they are called, by a bishop can in
reality only signify that, out of the collective body of Christians,
all possessing equal power, one is selected, and commanded to
exercise this power on behalf of the rest. They hold, therefore,
this peculiar office, like their fellow-members of the community who
are entrusted with temporal authority, namely, to wield the sword
for the punishment of the bad and the protection of the good. They
hold it, as every shoemaker, smith, or builder holds office in his
particular trade, and yet all alike are priests. Moreover, this
temporal magisterial power has the right to exercise its office free
and unhindered in its own sphere of action; no Pope or bishop must
here interfere, no so-called priest must usurp it.
As a consequence of this spiritual character of Christians, the
second wall was also doomed to fall. Christ said of all Christians,
that they shall all be taught of God (St. John vi. 45). Thus any
man, however humble, if he was a true Christian, could have a right
understanding of the Scriptures; and the Pope, if wicked and not a
true Christian, was not taught of God. If the Pope alone were always
in the right, one would have to pray 'I believe in the Pope at Rome,'
and the whole Christian Church would then be centred in one man,
which would be nothing short of devilish and hellish error. After
this the third wall fell by itself. For, says Luther, when the Pope
acts against the Scriptures, it is our duty to stand by the Scriptures
and to punish him as Christ taught us to punish offending brethren
(St. Matthew xviii. 17), when He said, 'Tell it unto the Church.' Now
the Church or Christendom must be gathered together in a Council. And
like as the most famous of the Councils, that of Nice, and others after
it, had been summoned by the Emperor, so must everyone, as a true member
of the whole body, and when necessary, do what he can to make it a
really free Council: 'which nobody can do so well as the temporal
authorities, who meet these as fellow-Christians, fellow-priests.' Just
as if a fire broke out in a city, no one, because he had not the power
of the burgomaster, durst stand still and let it burn, but every
citizen must run and call others together, so was it in the spiritual
city of Christ, if a fire of trouble and affliction should arise. The
question as to the composition of such a Council Luther does not proceed
to discuss. That he wished, however, the laity to be represented, we may
safely assume from the whole context, though it is doubtful how far he
may then have thought of a representation of the temporal authorities as
such, and, above all, of the Christian body collectively, through
its political members. But the main point on which he insisted was,
that the Council should be a free and really Christian one, bound by
no oath to the Pope, fettered by no so-called Canon law, but subject
only to the Word of God in Holy Writ.
Under twenty-six heads Luther then proceeds to enumerate the points
on which such a Council should treat, and which should be urged in
particular in connection with the question of reform.
The whole arrogance of the Papacy, the temporal pride with which the
Pope clothed himself, the idolatry with which he was treated, were
to Luther a scandal and unchristian. Lord of the universe, the Pope
styled himself, and paraded about with a triple crown in all
temporal splendour, and with an endless train of followers and
baggage, whilst claiming to be the vicegerent of the Lord who
wandered about in poverty, and gave Himself up to the Cross, and
declared that His kingdom was not of this world. Clearly and fully
Luther shows the various ways, embracing the whole life of the
Church, in which Romish tyranny had enslaved the Churches of other
countries, especially of Germany, and had turned them to account and
plundered them: by means of fees and taxes of all kinds, by drawing
away the trial of ecclesiastical cases to Rome, by accumulating
benefices in the hands of Papal favourites of the worst description,
by the unprincipled and usurious sale of dispensations, by the oath
which made the bishops mere vassals of the Pope, and effectually
prevented all reform. In this greed for money in particular, and in
the crafty methods of collecting it, Luther saw the genuine
Antichrist, who, as Daniel had foretold, was to gather the treasures
of the earth (Daniel xi. 8, 39, 43).
To confront this oppression and these acts of usurpation, Luther
would not have men wait for a Council. As for these impositions and
taxes, he says that every prince, noble, and town should straightway
repudiate and forbid them. This lawless pillaging of ecclesiastical
benefices and fiefs by Rome should be resisted at once by the
nobility. Anyone coming from the Papal court to Germany with such
claims, must be ordered to desist, or to jump into the nearest piece
of water with his seals and letters and the ban of excommunication.
Luther insists especially on demanding, as Hutten had already
demanded, that the individual Churches, and particularly those of
Germany, should order and conduct their own affairs independently of
Rome. The bishops were not to obtain their confirmation at Rome,
but, as already decreed by the Nicene Council, from a couple of
neighbouring bishops or an archbishop. The German bishops were to be
under their own primate, who might hold a general consistory with
chancellors and counsellors, to receive appeals from the whole of
Germany. The Pope, in other respects, was still to be left a
position of supremacy in the collective Christian Church, and the
adjudication of matters of importance on which the primates could
not agree. One other matter Luther dwells on, as affecting the
entire constitution of the Church. It is not the mere administrative
and judicial functions that constitute the true meaning of office,
whether in a priest, a bishop, or a Pope, but a constant service to
God's Word. Luther therefore is anxious that the Pope should not be
burdened with small matters. He calls to mind how once the Apostles
would not leave the Word of God, and serve tables, but wished to
give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word (Acts vi.
2, 4). But he would have a clean sweep made of the so-called
ecclesiastical law, contained in the law-books of the Church. The
Scriptures were sufficient. Besides, the Pope himself did not keep
that law, but pretended to carry all law in the shrine of his own
heart.
Consistently with all that he has said about the relative positions
of the temporal and spiritual powers, Luther goes on to protest, on
behalf especially of the German Empire, against the 'overbearing and
criminal behaviour' of the Pope, who arrogates to himself power over
the Emperor, and allows the latter to kiss his foot and hold his
stirrup. Granted that he is superior to the Emperor in spiritual
office, in preaching, in administering the Word of grace; in other
matters he is his inferior.
But the most important demand advanced by Luther, while pushing
further his inquiries into the moral and social regulations and
condition of the Church, is the abolition of the celibacy of the
clergy. If Popes and bishops wish to impose upon themselves the
burden of an unmarried life, he has nothing to say to that. He
speaks only of the clergy in general, whom God has appointed, who
are needed by every Christian community for the service of preaching
and the sacraments, and who must live and keep house amongst their
fellow-Christians. Not an angel from Heaven, much less a Pope, dare
bind this man to what God has never bound him, and thereby
precipitate him into danger and, sin. A limit at least must be
imposed on monastic life. Luther would like to see the convents and
cloisters turned into Christian schools, where men might learn the
Scriptures and discipline, and be trained to govern others and to
preach. He would further give full liberty to quit such institutions
at pleasure. He reverts to the question of clerical celibacy, in
lamenting the gross immoralities of the priesthood, and complaining
that marriage was so frequently avoided on account simply of the
responsibilities it entailed, and the restraints it imposed on loose
living.
Luther would abolish all commands to fast, on the ground that these
ordinances of man are opposed to the freedom of the Bible. He would
do away also with the multitude of festivals and holidays, as
leading only to idleness, carousing, and gambling. He would check
the foolish pilgrimages to Rome, on which so much money was wasted,
whilst wife and child, and poor Christian neighbours were left at
home to starve, and which drew people into so much trouble and
temptation. As regards the management of the poor, Luther's
requirements were somewhat stringent. All begging among Christians
was to be forbidden; each town was to provide for its own poor, and
not admit strange beggars. As the universities at that time, no less
than the schools, were in connection with the Church, Luther offers
some suggestions for their reform. He singles out the writings of
the ancients which were read in the philosophical faculty, and
others, which might be done away with as useless or even pernicious.
With regard to the mass of civil law, he agreed with the complaint
often heard among Germans, that it had become a wilderness: each
state should be governed, as far as possible, 'by its own brief
laws.' For children, girls as well as boys, he would like to see a
school in every town. It grieved him to see how, in the very heart
of Christendom, the young folk were neglected and allowed to perish
for lack of timely sustenance with the bread of the gospel.
He reverts again to the question about the Bohemians, with a view to
silencing at length the vile calumniations of his enemies. And in so
doing he remarks of Huss, that even if he had been a heretic,
'heretics must be conquered with the pen and not with fire. If to
conquer them with fire were an art, the executioners would be the
most learned doctors on the earth.'
Lastly he refers briefly to the prevalent evils of worldly and
social life; to wit, the luxury in dress and food, the habits of
excess common among Germans, the practice of usury and taking
interest. He would like to put a bridle into the mouth of the great
commercial firms, especially the rich house of Fugger; for the
amassing of such enormous wealth, during the life of one man, could
never be done by right and godly means. It seemed to him 'far more
godly to promote agriculture and lessen commerce.' Luther speaks in
this as a man of the people, who were already suspicious about this
accumulation of money, from a right feeling really of the moral and
economical dangers thence accruing to the nation, even if ignorant
of the necessary relations of supply and demand. As to this, Luther
adds: 'I leave that to the worldly-wise; I, as a theologian, can
only say, Abstain from all appearance of evil.' (1 Thessalonians v.
22.)
So wide a field of subjects did this little book embrace. We have
only here mentioned the chief points. Luther himself acknowledges at
the conclusion: 'I am well aware that I have pitched my note high,
that I have proposed many things which will be looked upon as
impossible, and have attacked many points too sharply. I am bound to
add, that if I could, I would not only talk but act; I would rather
the world were angry with me than God.' But Rome always remained the
chief object of his attacks. 'Well then,' he says of her, 'I know of
another little song of Rome; if her ear itches for it, I will sing
it to her and pitch the notes at their highest.' He concludes, 'God
give us all a Christian understanding, and to the Christian nobility
of the German nation, especially, a true spiritual courage to do
their best for the poor Church. Amen.'
Whilst Luther was working on this treatise, new disquieting rumours
and remonstrances addressed from Rome to the Elector reached him
through Spalatin. But with them came also that promise of protection
from Schauenburg. Luther answered Spalatin, 'The die is cast, I
despise alike the wrath and the favour of Rome; I will have no
reconciliation with her, no fellowship.' Friends who heard of his
new work grew alarmed; Staupitz, even at the eleventh hour, tried to
dissuade him from it. But before August was far advanced, four
thousand copies were already printed and published. A new edition
was immediately called for. Luther now added another section
repudiating the arrogant pretension of the Pope, that through his
means the Roman Empire had been brought to Germany.
Well might Luther's friend Lange call this treatise a war-trumpet.
The Reformer, who at first merely wished to point out and open to
men the right way of salvation, and to fight for it with the sword
of his word, now stepped forward boldly and with determination,
demanding the abolition of all unlawful and unchristian ordinances
of the Romish Church, and calling upon the temporal power to assist
him, if need be, with material force. The groundwork of this resolve
had been laid, as we have seen, in the progress of his moral and
religious convictions; in the inalienable rights which belong to
Christianity in general, and the mission with which God entrusts
also the temporal power or state; in the independence granted by Him
to this power on its own domain, and the duties He has imposed upon
all Christian authorities, even in regard to all moral and religious
needs and dangers. But he denied altogether, and we may well believe
him, that he had any wish to create disorder or disturbance; his
intention was merely to prepare the way for a free Council. Not
indeed that he shrank from the thought of battle and tumult, should
the powers whom he invoked meet with resistance from the adherents
of Rome or Antichrist. As for himself, though forced to make such a
stormy appearance, he had no idea of himself being destined to
become the Reformer, but was content rather to prepare the way for a
greater man, and his thoughts herein turned to Melancthon. Thus he
wrote to Lange these remarkable words: 'It may be that I am the
forerunner of Philip, and like Elias, prepare the way for him in
spirit and in strength, destroying the people of Ahab' (1 Kings
xviii). Melancthon, on the other hand, wrote to Lange just then
about Luther, saying that he did not venture to check the spirit of
Martin in this matter, to which Providence seemed to have appointed
him.
From the Electoral court Luther learned that his treatise was 'not
altogether displeasing.' And just at this time he had to thank his
prince for a present of game.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS
TREATISE, in a rather smaller size.]
There is no doubt that Luther received also from that quarter the
advice to approach the Emperor, who had just arrived in Germany, and
whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct
personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned
unheard. He addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in
dignified language. He issued at the same time a short public
'offer,' appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged
in vain for a proper refutation. These two writings were first
examined and corrected by Spalatin, and so appeared only at the end
of August, not, as is generally supposed, in the January of this
year. Luther never received an answer to his letter to the Emperor,
and therefore never heard how it was received.
The dangers which threatened Luther, and through him also the honour
and prosperity of his Order, affected further his companions and
friends who belonged to it. And of this Miltitz took advantage to
renew his attempts at mediation. He induced the brethren, at a
convention of Augustinian friars held at Eisleben, to persuade
Luther once more to write to the Pope, and solemnly assure him that
he had never wished to attack him personally. A deputation of these
monks, with Staupitz and Link at their head, came to Luther at
Wittenberg on the 4th or 5th of September, and received his promise
to comply with their wishes. At this convention, Staupitz, who felt
his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and
controversies of the time, had resigned his office as Vicar of the
Order, and Link had succeeded him. Luther saw him now at Wittenberg
for the last time. He retired in quiet seclusion to Salzburg, where
the Archbishop was his personal friend.
But Luther's spirit would not let him desist for a moment from
prosecuting his contest with Rome. He had yet 'a little song' to
sing about her. He was in fact at work in August, while rumours were
already afloat that Eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new
tract, and had even begun to have it printed. It was to treat of the
'Babylonian Captivity of the Church,' taking as its subject the
Christian sacraments. Luther knew that in this he cut deeper into
the theological and religious principles of the Church, which had
come under discussion in his quarrel with Rome, than in all his
demands for reform, put forward in his address to the nobility. For
while, in common with the Church herself, he saw in the Sacraments,
instituted by Christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the
channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and
strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them
limited by man's caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed
of their true significance, and made the instruments of Papal and
priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to
them, never instituted by Christ. On this account he complained of
the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the Church,
were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. Against him were
arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of Scholastic
learning. He knew that what he now propounded would sound
preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble
revilers feel their blood run cold. But he met them in the armour of
profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely
expressed in Latin. At the same time his language, where he explains
the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious
fervour which no layman could fail to understand.
The subject of the deepest importance to Luther in this treatise was
the sacrament of the altar. He dwells on the mutilated form, without
the cup, in which the Lord's Supper was given to the laity; on the
doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping
to the simple word of Scripture; and, lastly, on the substitution of
a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to God by the priest, for the
institution ordained by Christ for the nourishment of the faithful.
The withholding of the cup he calls an act of ungodliness and
tyranny, beyond the power of either Pope or Council to prescribe.
Against the sacrifice of the mass he had published just before a
sermon in German. He was well aware that his principles involved, as
indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack
on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great
importance to the hierarchy, depended. But he ventured it, because
God's word obliged him to do it. So now he proceeds to describe, in
contrast to this mass, the one of true Christian institution, and
resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of Christ, when
instituting the Last Supper, 'Take, and eat,' etc. Christ would here
say, 'See, thou poor sinner, out of pure love I promise to thee,
before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of
all thy sins, and eternal life, and to assure thee of this I give
here my Body and shed my Blood; do thou, by my death, rest assured
of this promise, and take as a sign my Body and my Blood.'
For the worthy celebration of this mass, nothing is required but
faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith
will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold
itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him will
become a new creature.
As regards baptism Luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to
possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man's
whole life. Whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise
of mercy from God, to which time after time, even from the sins of
his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that
in sinning after baptism, the Christian was like a shipwrecked man,
who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the
sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities.
Whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole
life and conduct to God, other vows of human invention were now
demanded of him. Whereas he then became a full partaker of Christian
liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the Church, devised
by man.
Concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution,
and its other adjuncts, Luther rates at its full value the word of
forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free
confession made to his Christian brother by the Christian seeking
comfort. But confession, he said, had been perverted into an
institution of compulsion and torture. Instead of leading the
tempted brother to trust in God's mercy, he was ordered to perform
acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to God, but
in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the
Roman see.
From all these abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the
sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians.
Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the
mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and
the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer
in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a
hearty faith in the Divine promise. He who believes enjoys the
benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be
denied him.
The mediaeval Church ordained four other sacraments, namely,
confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme
unction. But Luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a
sacrament. Marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an
institution of the New Testament, nor was it connected with any
especial promise of grace. It was but a holy moral ordinance of
daily life, existing since the beginning of the world and among
those who were not Christians as well as those who were. At the same
time he takes the opportunity to protest against those human
regulations with which even this ordinance had been invaded by the
Romish Church, especially against the arbitrary obstacles to
marriage she had created. Even these were made a source of revenue
to her, by the granting of dispensations. For the other three
sacraments there was no especial promise. In the Epistle of St.
James (v. 14), where it speaks of anointing the sick with oil, the
allusion is not to extreme unction to the dying, but to the exercise
of that wonderful Apostolic gift of healing the sick through the
power of faith and prayer. With regard to the consecration of
priests, Luther repeats the principles laid down in his address to
the nobility. Ordination consists simply of this, that out of a
community, all of whom are priests, one is chosen for the particular
work of administering God's word. If, as in consecration, the hand
is laid upon him, this is a human custom and not instituted by the
Lord Himself. But in truth, says Luther, the outrageous tyranny of
the clergy, with their priestly bodily anointing, their tonsure, and
their dress, would arrogate a higher position than other Christians
anointed with the Spirit; these are counted almost as unworthy as
dogs to belong to the Church. And most seriously he warns a man not
to strive for that outward anointing, unless he is earnestly intent
on the true service of the gospel, and has disclaimed all pretension
to become, by consecration, better than lay Christians.
In conclusion Luther declares: he hears that Papal excommunication
is prepared for him, to force him to recant. In that case this
little treatise shall form part of his recantation. After that he
will soon publish the rest, the like of which has never been seen or
heard by the Romish see.
In the beginning of October, probably on the 6th of that month, the
book was issued. Luther had heard some ten days before that Eck had
actually arrived with the bull. He had already caused it to be
posted publicly at Meissen on September 21. Early in October he sent
a copy of it also to the university of Wittenberg.