Martin Luther
The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
A prelude 1520
Jesus
Martin Luther,
Augustinian, to his friend, Herman Tulich,
Greeting
1.1 Like
it or not, I am compelled to learn more every day, with so many and such able
masters vying with one another to improve my mind. Some two years ago I wrote a
little book on indulgences, which I now deeply regret having published. For at
the time I still clung to the Roman tyranny with great superstition and held
that indulgences should not be altogether rejected, seeing they were approved
by the common consent of men. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I was then
engaged single-handed in my Sisyphean task. Since then, however, through the
kindness of Sylvester and the friars, who so strenuously defended indulgences,
I have come to see that they are nothing but an fraud
of the Roman flaterers by which they rob people of their faith and fortunes. I
wish I could convince the booksellers and all my readers to burn up the whole
of my writings on indulgences and to substitute for them this proposition:
are a Swindler's Trick of the Roman flaterers.
1.3 Next,
Eck and Emser, with their fellows, undertook to instruct me concerning the
primacy of the pope. Here too, not to be ungrateful to such learned folk, I
acknowledge how greatly I have profited by their labors. For, while denying the
divine authority of the papacy, I still admitted its human authority. But after hearing and reading the subtle subtleties of these
pretentious and conceited men, with which they skilfully prop their idol – for
in these matters my mind is not altogether unreachable – I now know of a
certainty that the papacy is the kingdom of Babylon and the power of Nimrod
the mighty hunter. Once more, therefore, that all may fall out to my friends'
advantage, I beg both booksellers and readers to burn what I have published on
that subject and to hold to this proposition:
1.4 THE
PAPACY IS THE MIGHTY prey of the Roman Bishop.
This
follows from the arguments of Eck, Emser and the Leipzig lecturer on the Holy
Scriptures.
1.5 Now they send me back to school again to teach me about communion in both
kinds and other weighty subjects. And I must begin to study with all my
strength, so as not to hear my teachers without profit. A certain Italian friar
of Cremona has written a Revocation of Martin
Luther to the Holy See – that is, a revocation in which I do not revoke
anything (as the words declare) but he revokes me. That is the kind of Latin
the Italians are now beginning to write. Another friar, a German of Leipzig,
that same lecturer, you know, on the whole canon of the Scriptures, has written
a book against me concerning the sacrament in both kinds, and is planning, I
understand, still greater and more marvelous things. The Italian was canny
enough not to set down his name, fearing perhaps the fate of Cajetan and Sylvester.
But the Leipzig man, as becomes a fierce and valiant German, boasts on his
ample title page of his name, his career, his saintliness, his scholarship, his
office, glory, honour, yes, almost of his very shoes. Doubtless I shall gain
here a lot of information, since indeed his dedicatory epistle is addressed to
the Son of God Himself. On so familiar a footing are these saints with Christ
Who reigns in heaven! Moreover, I think I hear three magpies chattering in this
book: the first in good Latin, the second in better Greek, the third in purest
Hebrew. What do you think, my Herman, what is there for me to do but to prick
up my ears? The thing emanates from Leipzig, from the Order of the
Observance of the Holy Cross.
1.6 Fool
that I was, I used to think it would be good if a general council decided that the sacrament be administered to the laity in both
kinds. The more than learned friar wants to correct my opinion, and declares
that neither Christ nor the apostles commanded or commended the administration
of both kinds to the laity. It was, therefore, left to the judgment of the
Church what to do or not to do in this matter, and the
Church must be obeyed. These are his words.
1.7 You
will perhaps ask, what madness has entered into the man, or against whom he is
writing, since I have not condemned the use of one kind, but have left the
decision about the use of both kinds to the judgment of the Church – the very
thing he attempts to assert and which he turns against me. My answer is, that
this sort of argument is common to all those who write against Luther. They
assert the very things they assail, or they set up a man of straw whom they may
attack. Thus Sylvester, Eck and Emser! Thus the theologians of Cologne and Louvain! If this friar had not
been of the same type, he would never have written against Luther.
1.8 Yet in
one respect this man luckier than his fellows. For in undertaking to prove that
the use of both kinds is neither commanded nor commended, but left to the will of
the Church, he brings forward passages of Scripture to prove that by the
command of Christ one kind only was appointed for the laity. So that it is
true, according to this new interpreter of the Scriptures, that one kind was
not commanded, and at the same time was commanded by Christ! This novel sort of
argument is, as you know, the particular forte of the Leipzig dialecticians. Did not
Emser in his earlier book profess to write of me in a friendly spirit, and
then, after I had convicted him of filthy envy and foul lying, did he not
openly acknowledge in his later book, written to refute my arguments, that he
had written in both a friendly and an unfriendly spirit? A sweet fellow,
certainly, as you know.
1.9 But
listen to our distinguished distinguisher of "kinds," for whom the
will of the Church and a command of Christ, and a command of Christ and no
command of Christ, are all one and the same! How
ingeniously he proves that only one kind is to be given to the laity, by the
command of Christ, that is, by the will of the Church. He puts it in capital
letters, thus: THE INFALLIBLE FOUNDATION. Thereupon he treats John 6 with
incredible wisdom, in which passage Christ speaks of the bread from heaven and
the bread of life, which is He Himself. The learned fellow not only refers
these words to the Sacrament of the Altar, but because Christ says: " I am the living bread" and not, "I am the
living cup" he actually concludes that we have in this passage the
institution of the sacrament in only one kind for the laity. But here follow
the words: " For my flesh is food indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed," and, " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink his blood." When it dawned upon the good friar that these
words speak undeniably for both kinds and against one kind – Poof! – how
happily and learnedly he slips out of the quandary by asserting that in these
words Christ means to say only that whoever receives the one kind receives
under it both flesh and blood. This he puts for the "infallible foundation"
of a structure well worthy of the holy and heavenly Observance.
1.10 Now, I
beg you, learn with me from this passage that Christ, in John 6, enjoins the
sacrament in one kind, yet in such a way that His commanding it means leaving
it to the will of the Church. Further, that Christ is speaking in this chapter
only of the laity and not of the priests. For to the latter the living bread
from heaven does not pertain, but presumably the deadly bread from hell! And
how is it with the deacons and subdeacons, who are neither laymen nor priests?
According to this brilliant writer, they ought to use neither the one kind nor
both kinds! You see, dear Tulich, this novel and observant method of treating
Scripture.
1.11 But learn this, too – that
Christ is speaking in John 6 of the Sacrament of the Altar – although He
Himself teaches that His words refer to faith in the Word made flesh, for He
says, "This is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has
sent." But our Leipzig professor of the
Scriptures must be permitted to prove anything he pleases from any Scripture
passage whatsoever. For he is an Anaxagorian, or rather an
Aristotelian theologian, for whom nouns and verbs, interchanged, mean the same
thing and any thing. So aptly does he cite Scripture proof-texts throughout
the whole of his book, that if he set out to prove the presence of Christ in
the sacrament, he would not hesitate to commence thus: "Here begins the
book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine." All his quotations are as
apt as this one would be, and the "wise man" imagines he is adorning
his drivel with the multitude of his quotations.
1.12 The rest I pass over, lest you
should smother in the filth of this vile toilet. In conclusion, he brings
forward: 1 Corinthians 11:23, where Paul says he received
from the Lord, and delivered to the Corinthians, the use of both the bread and
the cup. Here again our distinguisher of kinds, treating the Scriptures with
his usual brilliance, teaches that Paul did not deliver, but permitted both
kinds. Do you ask where he gets his proof? Out of his own head, as he did in
the case of John 6: For it does not behoove this lecturer to give a reason for
his assertions. He belongs to the order of those who teach and prove all things
by their visions. Accordingly we are here taught that the Apostle, in this
passage, addressed not the whole Corinthian congregation, but the laity alone –
but then he "permitted" nothing at all to the clergy, and they are
deprived of the sacrament altogether! – and further, that, according to a new
kind of grammar, "I have received from the Lord" means "It is
permitted by the Lord," and "I have delivered it to you" means
"I have permitted it to you." I beg you, mark this well. For by this
method, not only the Church, but every passing swindler will be at liberty,
according to this master, to turn all the commands, institutions and ordinances
of Christ and the apostles into a mere "permission."
1.13 I perceive, therefore, that this man is driven by an angel of Satan, and that he and his
partners seek but to make a name for themselves through me, as men who were
worthy to cross swords with Luther. But their hopes shall be dashed. I shall
ignore them and not mention their names from now on – not ever. This one reply
shall suffice me for all their books. If they be worthy of it, I pray Christ in
His mercy to bring them to a sound mind. If not, I pray that they may never
leave off writing such books and that the enemies of the truth may never
deserve to read any other. It is a popular and true saying:
1.14 This I know is true – whenever I
fought with filth, whether I was a Victor or was vanquished,
I came away from the fight defiled.
1.15 And, since I perceive that they
have an abundance of leisure and of writing paper, I
shall see to it that they may have ample opportunity for writing. I shall run
on before, and while they are celebrating a glorious victory over one of my
so-called heresies, I shall be meanwhile devising a new one. For
I too am desirous that these gallant leaders in battle should win to themselves
many titles and decorations. Therefore, while they complain that I laud
communion in both kinds, and are happily engrossed in this most important and
worthy matter, I will go yet one step farther and undertake to show that all
those who deny communion in both kinds to the laity are wicked men. And the
more conveniently to do this, I will compose a prelude on the captivity of the
Roman Church. In due time I shall have a great deal more to
say, when the learned papists have disposed of this book.
1.16 I take this course, lest any pious
reader who may chance upon this book, should be offended at my dealing with
such filthy matters, and should justly complain of finding in it nothing to
cultivate and instruct his mind or even to furnish food for learned thought.
For you know how impatient my friends are because I waste my time on the sordid
fictions of these men, which, they say, are amply refuted in the reading. They
look for greater things from me, which Satan seeks in this way to hinder. I
have at length resolved to follow their counsel and to leave to those hornets
the pleasant business of wrangling and hurling violent accusations.
1.17 Of
that friar of Cremona I will say nothing. He
is an unlearned man and a simpleton, who attempts with a few rhetorical
passages to recall me to the Holy See, from which I am not as
yet aware of having departed, nor has any one proved it to me. He is
chiefly concerned in those silly passages with showing that I ought to be moved
by the vow of my order and by the fact that the empire has been transferred to
us Germans. He seems thus to have set out to write, not my
"revocation," but rather the praises of the French people and the
Roman Pontiff. Let him attest his loyalty in his little book. It is the best he
could do. He does not deserve to be harshly treated, for I think he was not
prompted by malice. Nor should he be learnedly refuted, for all his chatter is
sheer ignorance and simplicity.
1.18 AT THE OUTSET I must deny that
there are seven sacraments, and hold for the present to but three – baptism,
penance and the bread. These three have been subjected to a miserable captivity
by the Roman curia, and the Church has been deprived of all her liberty. To be
sure, if I desired to use the term in its scriptural sense, I should allow but
a single sacrament, with three sacramental signs. But of this I shall treat
more fully at the proper time.
2.1 Now,
about the Sacrament of the Bread, the most important of all sacraments:
2.2 Let me
tell you what progress I have made in my studies on the administration of this
sacrament. For when I published my treatise on the Eucharist, I clung to the
common usage, being in no way concerned with the question whether the papacy
was right or wrong. But now, challenged and attacked, no, forcibly thrust into
the arena, I shall freely speak my mind, let all the papists laugh or weep
together.
2.3 IN THE
FIRST PLACE, John 6 is to be entirely excluded from
this discussion, since it does not refer in a single syllable to the sacrament.
For not only was the sacrament not yet instituted, but the whole context
plainly shows that Christ is speaking of faith in the Word made flesh, as I
have said above. For He says, " My words are spirit, and they are life,"
which shows that He is speaking of a spiritual eating, whereby whoever eats has
life, while the Jews understood Him to be speaking of bodily eating and
therefore disputed with Him. But no eating can give life save the eating which
is by faith, for that is the truly spiritual and living eating. As Augustine also says: "Why make ready teeth and stomach?
Believe, and you have eaten." For the sacramental eating
does not give life, since many eat unworthily. Therefore, He cannot be
understood as speaking of the sacrament in this passage.
2.4 These
words have indeed been wrongly applied to the sacrament, as in the decretal
Dudum and often elsewhere. But it is one thing to misapply the Scriptures, it
is quite another to understand them in their proper meaning. But if Christ in
this passage enjoined the sacramental eating, then by saying, " Except you
eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you," He would
condemn all infants, invalids and those absent or in any way hindered from the
sacramental eating, however strong their faith might be. Thus Augustine, in the
second book of his Contra Julianum, proves from Innocent that even infants eat
the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, without the sacrament, that is, they
partake of them through the faith of the Church. Let this then be accepted as
proved – John 6 does not belong here. For this reason I have elsewhere written
that the Bohemians have no right to rely on this passage in support of their
use of the sacrament in both kinds.
2.5 Now
there are two passages that do clearly bear upon this matter – the Gospel
narratives of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Let us examine these. Matthew, Mark and
Luke agree that Christ gave the whole sacrament to all the disciples, and it is
certain that Paul delivered both kinds. No one has ever had the temerity to
assert the contrary. Further, Matthew reports that Christ did not say of the
bread, "All of you, eat of it," but of the cup, " Drink of it
all of you." Mark likewise does not say, "They all ate from it,"
but, " They all drank from it."
Both
Matthew and Mark attach the note of universality to the cup, not to the bread,
as though the Spirit saw this schism coming, by which some would be forbidden
to partake of the cup, which Christ desired should be common to all. How
furiously, do you think, would they rave against us, if they had found the word
"all" attached to the bread instead of the cup! They would not leave
us a loophole to escape, they would cry out against us and set us down as heretics,
they would damn us for schismatics. But now, since it stands on our side and
against them, they will not be bound by any force of logic – these men of the
most free will, who change and change again even the things that are God's, and
throw everything into confusion.
2.6 But imagine me standing over against them and interrogating my lords the
papists. In the Lord's Supper, I say, the whole sacrament, or communion in both
kinds, is given only to the priests or else it is given also to the laity. If it
is given only to the priests, as they would have it, then it is not right to
give it to the laity in either kind. It must not be rashly given to any to whom
Christ did not give it when He instituted it. For if we permit one institution
of Christ to be changed, we make all of His laws
invalid, and every one will boldly claim that he is not bound by any law or
institution of His. For a single exception, especially in the Scriptures,
invalidates the whole. But if it is given also to the laity, then it inevitably
follows that it ought not to be withheld from them in either form. And if any
do withhold it from them when they desire it, they act impiously and contrary
to the work, example and institution of Christ.
2.7 I
confess that I am conquered by this, to me, unanswerable
argument, and that I have neither read nor heard nor found anything to
advance against it. For here the word and example of Christ stand firm, when He
says, not by way of permission but of command, "All of you, drink from
it." For if all are to drink, and the words cannot be understood as
addressed to the priests alone, then it is certainly an impious act to withhold
the cup from laymen who desire it, even though an angel from heaven were to do
it. For when they say that the distribution of both kinds was left to the
judgment of the Church, they make this assertion without giving any reason for
it and put it forth without any authority. It is ignored just as readily as it
is proved, and does not stand up against an opponent who confronts us with the
word and work of Christ. such a one must be refuted
with a word of Christ, but this we do not possess.
2.8 But if one kind may be withheld from the laity, then with equal right and
reason a portion of baptism and penance might also be taken from them by this
same authority of the Church. Therefore, just as baptism and absolution must be
administered in their entirety, so the Sacrament of the Bread must be given in
its entirety to all laymen, if they desire it. I am amazed to find them
asserting that the priests may never receive only the one kind, in the mass, on
pain of committing a mortal sin – that for no other reason, as they unanimously
say, than that both kinds constitute the one complete sacrament, which may not
be divided. I beg them to tell me why it may be divided in the case of the
laity, and why to them alone the whole sacrament may not be given. Do they not
acknowledge, by their own testimony, either that both kinds are to be given to
the laity, or that it is not a valid sacrament when only one kind is given to
them? How can the one kind be a complete sacrament for the laity and not a
complete sacrament for the priests? Why do they flaunt the authority of the
Church and the power of the pope in my face? These do not make void the Word of
God and the testimony of the truth.
2.9 But further, if the Church can withhold the wine from the laity,
it can also withhold the bread from them. It could, therefore, withhold the
entire Sacrament of the Altar from the laity and completely annul Christ's institution
so far as they are concerned. I ask, by what authority? But if the Church
cannot withhold the bread, or both kinds, neither can it withhold the wine.
This cannot possibly be contradicted. For the Church's power must be the same
over either kind as over both kinds, and if she has no power over both kinds,
she has none over either kind. I am curious to hear what the Roman flaterers
will have to say to this.
2.10 What carries most weight with me,
however, and quite decides the matter for me is this. Christ says: "This
is my blood, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of
sins." Here we see very plainly that the blood is given to all those for
whose sins it was shed. But who will dare to say it was not shed for the laity?
Do you not see whom He addresses when He gives the cup? Doesn't He give it to
all? Doesn't He say that it is shed for all? "For you," He says –
Well, we will let these be the priests– "and for many" – these cannot
be priests. Yet He says, "All of you, drink of
it." I too could easily trifle here and with my words make a mockery of
Christ's words, as my dear trifler does. But they who
rely on the Scriptures in opposing us, must be refuted by the Scriptures.
2.11 This is what has prevented me from
condemning the Bohemians, who, whether they are wicked men or good, certainly
have the word and act of Christ on their side, while we have neither, but only
that hollow device of men – "the Church has appointed it." It was not
the Church that appointed these things, but the tyrants of the churches,
without the consent of the Church, which is the people of God.
2.12 But where in all the world
is the necessity, where the religious duty, where the practical use, of denying
both kinds, i.e., the visible sign, to the laity, when every one concedes to
them the grace of the sacrament without the sign? If they
concede the grace, which is the greater, why not the sign, which is the lesser?
For in every sacrament the sign as such is of far less importance than the
thing signified. What then is to prevent them from conceding the lesser, when
they concede the greater? I can see but one reason. It has come about by the
permission of an angry God in order to give occasion for a schism in the
Church. It is to bring home to us how, having long ago lost the grace of the
sacrament, we contend for the sign, which is the lesser, against that which is
the most important and the chief thing, just as some men for the sake of
ceremonies contend against love. No, this monstrous perversion seems to date
from the time when we began for the sake of the riches of this world to rage
against Christian love. Thus God would show us, by this terrible sign, how we
esteem signs more than the things they signify. How preposterous would it be to
admit that the faith of baptism is granted the candidate for baptism, and yet
to deny him the sign of this faith, namely, the water!
2.13 Finally, Paul stands invincible and
stops every mouth, when he says in 1 Corinthians 11,
"I have received from the Lord what I also delivered to you." He does
not say, "I permitted to you," as that friar lyingly asserts. Nor is
it true that Paul delivered both kinds on account of the contention in the
Corinthian congregation. For, first, the text shows that their contention was
not about both kinds, but about the contempt and envy among rich and poor, as
it is clearly stated: "One is hungry, and another is drunken,
and you put to shame those that have nothing." Again, Paul is not speaking
of the time when he first delivered the sacrament to them, for he does not say,
"I receive from the Lord and give to you," but, " I received and
delivered" – namely, when he first began to preach among them, a long
while before this contention. This shows that he delivered both kinds to them. "Delivered"
means the same as "commanded," for elsewhere he uses the word in this
sense. Consequently there is nothing in the friar's fuming about permission. It
is an assortment of arguments without Scripture, reason or sense. His opponents
do not ask what he has dreamed, but what the Scriptures decree in this matter.
Out of the Scriptures he cannot adduce one dot of an I
or cross of a T in support of his dreams, while they can bring forward mighty
thunderbolts in support of their faith.
2.14 Come here then, popish
flatterers, one and all! Fall in line and defend yourselves against the charge
of godlessness, tyranny, treason against the Gospel, and the crime of
slandering your brethren. You decry as heretics those who will not be wise
after the vaporings of your own brains, in the face of such patent and potent
words of Scripture. If any are to be called heretics and schismatics, it is not the Bohemians nor the Greeks, for they take their stand
upon the Gospel. But you Romans are the heretics and godless schismatics, for
you presume upon your own fictions and fly in the face of the clear Scriptures
of God. Parry that stroke, if you can!
2.15 But what could be more ridiculous,
and more worthy of this friar's brain, than his saying that the Apostle wrote
these words and gave this permission, not to the Church universal, but to a
particular church, that is, the Corinthian? Where does he get his proof? Out of
his one storehouse, his own impious head. If the Church universal receives,
reads and follows this epistle in all points as written for itself,
why should it not do the same with this portion of it? If we admit that any epistle, or any part of any epistle, of Paul does not apply
to the Church universal, then the whole authority of Paul falls to the ground.
Then the Corinthians will say that what he teaches about faith in the epistle
to the Romans does not apply to them. What greater blasphemy and madness can be
imagined than this! God forbid that there should be one dot of an I or cross of
a T in all of Paul which the whole Church universal is
not bound to follow and keep! Not so did the Fathers hold, down to these
perilous times, in which Paul foretold there should be blasphemers and blind
and foolish men, of whom this friar is one, no, the chief of them.
2.16 However, suppose we
grant the truth of this intolerable madness. If Paul gave his permission to a
particular church, then, even from your own point of view, the Greeks and
Bohemians are in the right, for they are particular churches. Hence it is
sufficient that they do not act contrary to Paul, who at least gave permission.
Moreover, Paul could not permit anything contrary to Christ's institution.
Therefore I throw in your face, O Rome, and in the face of all you flaterers,
these sayings of Christ and Paul, on behalf of the Greeks and the Bohemians.
You cannot prove that you have received any authority to change them, much less
to accuse others of heresy for disregarding your arrogance. Rather you deserve
to be charged with the crime of godlessness and despotism.
2.17 Furthermore,
Cyprian, who alone is strong enough to hold all the Romanists at bay, bears
witness, in the fifth book of his treatise On the Lapsed, that it was a
wide-spread custom in his church to administer both kinds to the laity, and
even to children, yes, to give the body of the Lord into their hands, of which
he cites many instances. He condemns, for example, certain members of the
congregation as follows: "The sacrilegious man is angered at the priests
because he does not receive the body of the Lord right away with unclean hands,
or drink the blood of the Lord with defiled lips." He is speaking, as you
see, of laymen, and irreverent laymen, who desired to receive the body and the
blood from the priests. Do you find anything to snarl at here, wretched
flatterer? Say that even this holy martyr, a Church Father preeminent for his
apostolic spirit, was a heretic and used that permission in a particular
church.
2.18 In the same place, Cyprian narrates
an incident that came under his own observation. He describes at length how a
deacon was administering the cup to a little girl, who drew away from him,
whereupon he poured the blood of the Lord into her mouth. We read the same of
St. Donatus, whose broken chalice this wretched flatterer so lightly disposes
of. "I read of a broken chalice," he says, "but I do not read
that the blood was given." It is no wonder! He who finds what he pleases
in the Scriptures will also read what he pleases in histories. But will the authority
of the Church be established, or will heretics be refuted, in this way?
2.19 Enough of this! I did not undertake
this work to reply to him who is not worth replying to, but to bring the truth
of the matter to light.
2.20 I
conclude, then, that it is wicked and despotic to deny both kinds to the laity,
and that this is not in the power of any angel, much less of any pope or
council. Nor does the Council of Constance give me pause, for if its authority
carries weight, why does not that of the Council of Basel also carry weight?
For the latter council decided, on the contrary, after much disputing, that the
Bohemians might use both kinds, as the extant records and documents of the
council prove. And to that council this ignorant flatterer refers in support of
his dream. In such wisdom does his whole treatise abound.
2.21 The
first captivity of this sacrament, therefore, concerns its substance or
completeness, of which we have been deprived by the despotism of Rome. Not that they sin
against Christ, who use the one kind, for Christ did not command the use of
either kind, but left it to every one's free will, when He said: "As often
as you do this, do it in remembrance of me." But they sin who forbid the
giving of both kinds to such as desire to exercise this free will. The fault
lies not with the laity, but with the priests. The sacrament does not belong to
the priests, but to all, and the priests are not lords but ministers, in duty
bound to administer both kinds to those who desire them, and as often as they
desire them. If they wrest this right from the laity and forcibly withhold it,
they are tyrants. But the laity are without fault, whether they lack one kind
or both kinds. They must meanwhile be sustained by their faith and by their
desire for the complete sacrament. The priests, being ministers, are bound to
administer baptism and absolution to whoever seeks them, because he has a right
to them. But if they do not administer them, he that seeks them has at least
the full merit of his faith, while they will be accused before Christ as wicked
servants. In like manner the holy Fathers of old who dwelt in the desert did
not receive the sacrament in any form for many years together.
2.22 Therefore I do not urge that both
kinds be seized by force, as though we were bound to this form by a rigorous
command. But I instruct men's consciences that they may endure the Roman
tyranny, knowing well they have been deprived of their rightful share in the
sacrament because of their own sin. This only do I desire – that no one justify
the tyranny of Rome, as though it did well to forbid
one of the two kinds to the laity. We ought rather to abhor it, withhold our
consent, and endure it just as we should do if we were held captive by the Turk
and not permitted to use either kind. That is what I meant by saying it seemed
well to me that this captivity should be ended by the decree of a general
council, our Christian liberty restored to us out of the hands of the Roman
tyrant, and every one left free to seek and receive this sacrament, just as he
is free to receive baptism and penance. But now they compel us, by the same
tyranny, to receive the one kind year after year. So utterly lost is the
liberty which Christ has given us. This is but the due reward of our godless
ingratitude.
2.23 The
second captivity of this sacrament is less grievous so
far as the conscience is concerned, yet the very gravest danger threatens the
man who would attack it, to say nothing of condemning it. Here I shall be
called a Wycliffite and a heretic a thousand times over. But
what of that? Since the Roman bishop has ceased to be a bishop and become a
tyrant, I fear none of his decrees, for I know that it is not in his power, nor
even in that of a general council, to make new articles of faith. Years ago,
when I was delving into scholastic theology, the Cardinal of Cambrai gave me
food for thought, in his comments on the fourth Book of the Sentences, where he
argues with great acumen that to hold that real bread and real wine, and not
their accidents only, are present on the altar, is much more probable and
requires fewer unnecessary miracles – if only the Church had not decreed
otherwise. When I learned later what church it was that had decreed this –
namely, the Church of Thomas, i.e., of Aristotle – I waxed bolder, and after
floating in a sea of doubt, at last found rest for my conscience in the above
view – namely, that it is real bread and real wine, in which Christ's real
flesh and blood are present, not otherwise and not less really than they assume
to be the case under their accidents. I reached this conclusion because I saw
that the opinions of the Thomists, though approved by pope and council, remain
but opinions and do not become articles of faith, even though an angel from
heaven were to decree otherwise. For what is asserted without Scripture or an
approved revelation, may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed. But this opinion of Thomas hangs so completely in the air,
devoid of Scripture and reason, that he seems here to have forgotten both his
philosophy and his logic. For Aristotle writes about subject and accidents so
very differently from St. Thomas, that I think this great man is to be pitied,
not only for drawing his opinions in matters of faith from Aristotle, but for
attempting to base them on him without understanding his meaning – an
unfortunate superstructure upon an unfortunate foundation.
2.24 I therefore permit every man to
hold either of these views, as he chooses. My one concern at present is to
remove all scruples of conscience, so that no one may fear to become guilty of
heresy if he should believe in the presence of real bread and real wine on the
altar, and that every one may feel at liberty to ponder, hold and believe
either one view or the other, without endangering his salvation. However, I
shall now more fully set forth my own view. In the first place, I do not intend
to listen or attach the least importance to those who will cry out that this
teaching of mine is Wycliffite, Hussite, heretical, and contrary to the decision
of the Church, for they are the very persons whom I have convicted of manifold
heresies in the matter of indulgences, the freedom of the will and the grace of
God, good works and sin, etc. If Wycliffe was once a heretic, they are heretics
ten times over, and it is a pleasure to be suspected and accused by such
heretics and perverse sophists, whom to please is the height of godlessness.
Besides, the only way in which they can prove their opinions and disprove those
of others, is by saying, "That is Wycliffite, Hussite, heretical!"
They have this feeble retort always on their tongue, and they have nothing
else. If you demand a Scripture passage, they say, "This is our opinion,
and the decision of the Church – that is, of ourselves!"
Thus these men, " reprobate concerning the
faith" and untrustworthy, have the audacity to set their own fancies
before us in the name of the Church as articles of faith.
2.25 But there are good grounds for my view, and this above all – no violence is to be done to the
words of God, whether by man or angel. But they are to be retained in their
simplest meaning wherever possible, and to be understood in their grammatical
and literal sense unless the context plainly forbids, lest we give our
adversaries occasion to make a mockery of all the Scriptures. Thus Origen was
repudiated, in ancient times, because he despised the grammatical sense and
turned the trees, and all things else written concerning Paradise, into allegories. For it
might be concluded from this that God did not create trees. Even so here, when
the Evangelists plainly write that Christ took bread and broke it, and the book of Acts and Paul, in their turn, call it bread, we have
to think of real bread and real wine, just as we do of a real cup. For even they do not maintain that the cup is transubstantiated.
But since it is not necessary to assume a transubstantiation wrought by Divine
power, it is to be regarded as a figment of the human mind, for it rests
neither on Scripture nor on reason, as we shall see.
2.26 Therefore
it is an absurd and unheard-of juggling with words, to understand
"bread" to mean "the form, or accidents of bread," and
"wine" to mean "the form, or accidents of wine." Why do
they not also understand all other things to mean their forms, or accidents?
Even if this might be done with all other things, it would yet not be right
thus to emasculate the words of God and arbitrarily to empty them of their
meaning.
2.27 Moreover,
the Church had the true faith for more than twelve hundred years, during which
time the holy Fathers never once mentioned this transubstantiation – certainly,
a monstrous word for a monstrous idea – until the pseudo-philosophy of
Aristotle became rampant in the Church these last three hundred years. During
these centuries many other things have been wrongly defined, for example, that
the Divine essence neither is begotten nor begets, that the soul is the
substantial form of the human body, and the like assertions, which are made
without reason or sense, as the Cardinal of Cambray himself admits.
2.28 Perhaps
they will say that the danger of idolatry demands that bread and wine be not
really present. How ridiculous! The laymen have never become familiar with
their subtle philosophy of substance and accidents, and could not grasp it if
it were taught them. Besides, there is the same danger in the case of the
accidents which remain and which they see, as in the case of the substance
which they do not see. For if they do not adore the accidents, but Christ
hidden under them, why should they adore the bread, which they do not see?
2.29 But
why could not Christ include His body in the substance of the bread just as
well as in the accidents? The two substances of fire and iron are so mingled in
the heated iron that every part is both iron and fire. Why could not much
rather Christ's body be thus contained in every part of the substance of the
bread?
2.30 What will they say? We believe that in His birth Christ came forth out of
the unopened womb of His mother. Let them say here too that the flesh of the
Virgin was meanwhile annihilated, or as they would more aptly say,
transubstantiated, so that Christ, after being enfolded in its accidents,
finally came forth through the accidents! The same thing will have to be said
of the shut door and of the closed opening of the tomb, through which He went
in and out without disturbing them. Hence has risen
that Babylonian philosophy of constant quantity distinct from the substance,
until it has come to such a pass that they themselves no longer know what are
accidents and what is substance. For who has ever proved beyond the shadow of a
doubt that heat, colour, cold, light, weight or shape are mere accidents?
Finally, they have been driven to the fancy that a new substance is created by
God for their accidents on the altar – all on account of Aristotle, who says,
"It is the essence of an accident to be in something," and endless
other monstrosities, all of which they would be rid if they simply permitted
real bread to be present. And I rejoice greatly that the simple faith of this
sacrament is still to be found at least among the common people. They do not
understand, so they do not dispute, whether accidents are present or substance,
but believe with a simple faith that Christ's body and blood are truly
contained in whatever is there, and leave to those who have nothing else to do
the business of disputing about that which contains them.
2.31 But
perhaps they will say: From Aristotle we learn that in an affirmative
proposition subject and predicate must be identical, or, to set down the
beast's own words, in the sixth book of his Metaphysics: "An affirmative
proposition demands the agreement of subject and predicate," which they
interpret as above. Hence, when it is said, "This is my body," the
subject cannot be identical with the bread, but must be identical with the body
of Christ.
2.32 What
shall we say when Aristotle and the doctrines of men are made to be the
arbiters of these lofty and divine matters? Why do we not put aside such
curiosity, and cling simply to the word of Christ, willing to remain in
ignorance of what here takes place, and content with this, that the real body
of Christ is present by virtue of the words? Or is it necessary to comprehend
the manner of the divine working in every detail?
2.33 But
what do they say to Aristotle's assigning a subject to whatever is predicated
of the attributes, although he holds that the substance is the chief subject?
Hence for him, "this white," "this large," etc., are
subjects of which something is predicated. If that is correct, I ask: If a transubstantiation must be assumed in order that Christ's
body is not predicated of the bread, why not also a transaccidentation in order
that it be not predicated of the accidents? For the same danger remains if one
understands the subject to be "this white" or "this round"
is my body, and for the same reason that a transubstantiation is assumed, a
transaccidentation must also be assumed, because of this identity of subject
and predicate.
2.34 [Si
autem, intellectu excedens, eximis accidens, ut non velis subjectum pro eo
supponere, cum dicis, "Hoc est corpus meum," Cur non eadem facilitate
transcendis substantiam panis, ut et illam velis non accipi per subiectum, ut
non minus in substantia quam accidente sit, "hoc corpus meum?"
Praesertim, cum divinum illud sit opus, virtutis omnipotentis, quae tantum et taliter in substantia, quantum et qualiter in accidente
potest operari.]
2.35 Let us
not, however, dabble too much in philosophy. Does not Christ appear to have
admirably anticipated such curiosity by saying of the wine, not, "Hoc est
sanguis meus," but " Hic est sanguis meus"? And yet more
clearly, by bringing in the word "cup," when He said, "This cup
is the new testament in my blood." Does it not seem as though He desired
to keep us in a simple faith, so that we might but believe His blood to be in
the cup? For my part, if I cannot fathom how the bread is the body of Christ, I
will take my reason captive to the obedience of Christ, and clinging simply to
His word, firmly believe not only that the body of Christ is in the bread, but
that the bread is the body of Christ. For this is proved by the words, "
He took bread, and giving thanks, He broke it and said, Take, eat; this [i.e.,
this bread which He took and broke] is my body." And Paul says: " The
bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" He
says not, in the bread, but the bread itself, is the communion of the body of
Christ. What does it matter if philosophy cannot fathom this? The Holy Spirit
is greater than Aristotle. Does philosophy fathom their transubstantiation, of
which they themselves admit that here all philosophy breaks down? But the
agreement of the pronoun "this" with "body," in Greek and
Latin, is owing to the fact that in these languages the two words are of the
same gender. But in the Hebrew language, which has no neuter gender,
"this" agrees with "bread," so that it would be proper to
say, "Hic est corpus meum." This is proved also by the use of
language and by common sense. The subject, certainly, points to the bread, not
to the body, when He says, "Hoc est corpus meum," "Das ist mein
Leib," – i.e., This bread is my body.
2.36 Therefore
it is with the sacrament even as it is with Christ. In order that divinity may
dwell in Him, it is not necessary that the human nature be transubstantiated
and divinity be contained under its accidents. But both natures are there in
their entirety, and it is truly said, "This man is God," and
"This God is man." Even though philosophy cannot grasp this, faith
grasps it, and the authority of God's Word is greater than the grasp of our
intellect. Even so, in order that the real body and the real blood of Christ
may be present in the sacrament, it is not necessary that the bread and wine be
transubstantiated and Christ be contained under their accidents. But both
remain there together, and it is truly said, "This bread is my body, this
wine is my blood," and vice versa. Thus I will for now understand it, for
the honour of the holy words of God, which I will not allow any petty human
argument to override or give to them meanings foreign to them. At the same
time, I permit other men to follow the other opinion, which is laid down in the
decree Firmiter. Only let them not press us to accept their opinions as
articles of faith, as I said above.
2.37 The
third captivity of this sacrament is that most wicked abuse of all, in
consequence of which there is today no more generally accepted and firmly
believed opinion in the Church than this – that the mass is a good work and a
sacrifice. This abuse has brought an endless host of others in its wake, so
that the faith of this sacrament has become utterly extinct and the holy
sacrament has truly been turned into a fair, tavern, and place of merchandise.
Hence participations, brotherhoods, intercessions, merits, anniversaries,
memorial days, and the like wares are bought and sold, traded and bartered in
the Church, and from this priests and monks derive their whole living.
2.38 I am
attacking a difficult matter, and one perhaps impossible to abate, since it has
become so firmly entrenched through century-long custom and the common consent
of men that it would be necessary to abolish most of the books now in vogue, to
alter almost the whole external form of the churches, and to introduce, or
rather re-introduce, a totally different kind of ceremony. But my Christ lives,
and we must be careful to give more heed to the Word of God than to all the
thoughts of men and of angels. I will perform the duties of my office, and
uncover the facts in the case. I will give the truth as I have received it,
freely and without malice. For the rest let every man
look to his own salvation. I will faithfully do my part that none may cast on
me the blame for his lack of faith and knowledge of the truth, when we appear
before the judgment seat of Christ.
2.39 IN THE
FIRST PLACE, in order to grasp safely and fortunately a true and unbiased
knowledge of this sacrament, we must above all else be careful to put aside
whatever has been added by the zeal and devotion of men to the original, simple
institution of this sacrament – such things as vestments, ornaments, chants,
prayers, organs, candles, and the whole pageantry of outward things. We must
turn our eyes and hearts simply to the institution of Christ and to this alone,
and put nothing before us but the very word of Christ by which He instituted
this sacrament, made it perfect, and committed it to us. For in that word, and
in that word alone, reside the power, the nature, and the whole substance of
the mass. All else is the work of man, added to the word of Christ. And the
mass can be held and remain a mass just as well without it. Now the words of
Christ, in which He instituted this sacrament, are these:
2.40 "And
while they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it: and
gave to His disciples, and said: Take it and eat. This is my body, which shall
be given for you. And taking the chalice, He gave
thanks, and gave to them, saying: All of you, drink of this. This is the
chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be
shed for you and for many the remission of sins. This do
to commemorate me."
2.41 These
words the Apostle also delivers and more fully expounds in 1 Corinthians 11. On
them we must lean and build as on a firm foundation, if we would not be carried
about with every wind of doctrine, even as we have until now been carried about
by the wicked doctrines of men, who turn aside the truth. For in these words
nothing is omitted that concerns the completeness, the use and the blessing of
this sacrament and nothing is included that is superfluous and not necessary
for us to know. Whoever sets them aside and meditates or teaches concerning the
mass, will teach monstrous and wicked doctrines, as they have done who made of
the sacrament an opus operatum and a sacrifice.
2.42 Therefore
let this stand at the outset as our infallibly certain proposition – the mass,
or Sacrament of the Altar, is Christ's testament which He left behind Him at
His death, to be distributed among His believers. For that is the meaning of
His word – "This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood." Let
this truth stand, I say, as the immovable foundation on which we shall base all
that we have to say, for we are going to overthrow, as you will see, all the
godless opinions of men imported into this most precious sacrament. Christ, who
is the Truth, said truly that this is the new testament
in His blood, which is shed for us. Not without reason do
I dwell on this sentence. The matter is not at all trivial, and must be most
deeply impressed upon us.
2.43 Let us
inquire, therefore, what a testament is, and we shall learn at the same time
what the mass is, what its use is, what its blessing
is, and what its abuse is.
2.44 A
testament, as every one knows, is a promise made by one about to die, in which
he designates his bequest and appoints his heirs. Therefore a testament
involves, first, the death of the testator, and secondly, the promise of the
bequest and the naming of the heir. Thus St. Paul discusses at length the
nature of a testament in Romans 4, Galatians 3 and 4, and Hebrews 9. The same
thing is also clearly seen in these words of Christ. Christ testifies
concerning His death when He says: "This is my body, which shall be given;
this is my blood, which shall be shed." He designates the bequest when He
says: "For remission of sins." And He appoints the heirs when He
says: "For you, and for many" – i.e., for such as accept and believe
the promise of the testator. For here it is faith that makes men heirs, as we
shall see.
2.45 You
see, therefore, that what we call the mass is the promise of remission of sins
made to us by God – the kind of promise that has been confirmed by the death of
the Son of God. For the one difference between a promise and a testament is
that a testament is a promise which implies the death of him who makes it. A
testator is a man who is about to die making a promise. While
he that makes a promise is, if I may so put it, a testator who is not about to
die. This testament of Christ was forshadowed in all the promises of God
from the beginning of the world. Yes, whatever value those ancient promises
possessed was altogether derived from this new promise that was to come in
Christ. This is why the words "covenant" and "testament of the
Lord" occur so frequently in the Scriptures, which words signified that
God would one day die. For where there is a testament, the death of the
testator must follow (Hebrews 9). Now God made a testament. Therefore it was
necessary that He should die. But God could not die unless He became man. Thus
both the incarnation and the death of Christ are briefly understood in this one
word "testament."
2.46 From
the above it will at once be seen what is the right and what is the wrong use
of the mass, what is the worthy and what is the
unworthy preparation for it. If the mass is a promise, as has been said, it is
to be approached, not with any work, strength or merit, but with faith alone.
For where there is the word of God Who makes the promise, there must be the
faith of man who takes it. It is plain, therefore, that the first step in our
salvation is faith, which clings to the word of the promise made by God, Who
without any effort on our part, in free and unmerited mercy makes a beginning
and offers us the word of His promise. For He sent His Word,
and by it healed them. He did not accept our work and thus heal us.
God's Word is the beginning of all. Faith follows it, and love follows faith.
Then love works every good work, for it does cause harm, no, it is the
fulfilling of the law. In no other way can man come to God and deal with Him
than through faith. That is, not man, by any work of his, but God, by His
promise, is the author of salvation, so that all things depend on the word of
His power, and are upheld and preserved by it, with which word He conceived us,
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
2.47 Thus,
in order to raise up Adam after the fall, God gave him this promise, addressing
the serpent: "I will put hostility between you and the woman, and you seed
and her seed. She shall crush your head, and you will lie in wait for her
heel." In this word of promise Adam, with his descendants, was carried as
it were in God's arms, and by faith in it he was preserved, patiently waiting
for the woman who should crush the serpent's head, as God had promised. And in
that faith and expectation he died, not knowing when or in what form she would
come, yet never doubting that she would come. For such a promise, being the
truth of God, preserves, even in hell, those who believe it and wait for it.
After this came another promise, made to Noah – to last until the time of
Abraham – when a rainbow was set as a sign in the clouds, by faith in which
Noah and his descendants found a gracious God. After that He promised Abraham
that all nations should be blessed in his seed. This is Abraham's arms, in
which his posterity was carried. Then to Moses and the children of Israel, and especially to
David, He gave the plain promise of Christ, thereby at last making clear what
was meant by the ancient promise to them.
2.48 So it
came finally to the most complete promise of the new
testament, in which with plain words life and salvation are freely
promised, and granted to such as believe the promise. He distinguished this
testament by a particular mark from the old, calling it the "new
testament." For the old testament, which He gave
by Moses, was a promise not of remission of sins or of eternal things, but of
temporal things – namely, the land of Canaan – by which no man was
renewed in his spirit, to lay hold of the heavenly inheritance. Therefore it was also necessary that irrational beasts
should be slain, as types of Christ, that by their blood the testament might be
confirmed. So the testament was like the blood, and the promise like the
sacrifice. But here He says: "The new testament in my blood" – not in
another's, but in His own. By this blood grace is promised, through the Spirit,
for the remission of sins, that we may obtain the inheritance.
2.49 The
mass, according to its substance, is, therefore, nothing else than the words of
Christ mentioned above – "Take and eat." It is as if He said:
"Behold, condemned, sinful man, in the pure and unmerited love with which
I love you, and by the will of the Father of all mercies, I promise you in
these words, even though you do not desire or deserve them, the forgiveness of
all your sins and life everlasting. And, so that you may be most certainly assured
of this my irrevocable promise, I give my body and shed my blood, thus by my
very death confirming this promise, and leaving my body and blood to you as a
sign and memorial of this same promise. As often, therefore, as you partake of
them, remember me, and praise, magnify, and give thanks for my love and bounty
for you."
2.50 From
this you will see that nothing else is needed to have a worthy mass than a
faith that confidently relies on this promise, believes these words of Christ
are true, and does not doubt that these infinite blessings have been bestowed
upon it. Following closely behind this faith there follows, by itself, a most
sweet stirring of the heart, by which the spirit of man is enlarged and grows
fat – that is love, given by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ – so that
he is drawn to Christ, that gracious and good Testator, and made quite another
and a new man. Who would not shed tears of gladness, no, nearly faint for the
joy he has for Christ, if he believed with unshaken faith that this inestimable
promise of Christ belonged to him! How could one help loving so great a
Benefactor, who offers, promises and grants, all unasked, such great riches,
and this eternal inheritance, to someone unworthy and deserving of something
far different?
2.51 Therefore,
it is our one misfortune, that we have many masses in the world, and yet none
or but the fewest of us recognize, consider and receive these promises and
riches that are offered, although truly we should do nothing else in the mass
with greater zeal (yes, it demands all our zeal) than set before our eyes,
meditate, and ponder these words, these promises of Christ, which truly are the
mass itself, in order to exercise, nourish, increase, and strengthen our faith
by such daily remembrance. For this is what He commands, saying, "This do in remembrance of me." This should be
done by the preachers of the Gospel, in order that this promise might be
faithfully impressed upon the people and commended to them, to the awakening of
faith in the same.
2.52 But
how many are there now who know that the mass is the promise of Christ? I will
say nothing of those godless preachers of fables, who teach human traditions
instead of this promise. And even if they teach these words of Christ, they do
not teach them as a promise or testament, and, therefore, not to the awakening
of faith.
2.53 O the
pity of it! Under this captivity, they take every precaution that no layman
should hear these words of Christ, as if they were too sacred to be delivered
to the common people. So mad are we priests that we arrogantly claim that the
so-called words of consecration may be said by ourselves alone, as secret
words, yet so that they do not profit even us, for we too fail to regard them
as promises or as a testament, for the strengthening of faith. Instead of
believing them, we reverence them with I know not what superstitious and
godless fancies. This misery of ours, what is it but a device of Satan to
remove every trace of the mass out of the Church? although he is meanwhile at
work filling every nook and corner on earth with masses, that is, abuses and
mockeries of God's testament, and burdening the world more and more heavily
with grievous sins of idolatry, to its deeper condemnation. For what worse
idolatry can there be than to abuse God's promises with perverse opinions and
to neglect or extinguish faith in them?
2.54 For
God does not deal, nor has He ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a
word of promise, as I have said. Again, we cannot deal with God otherwise than
through faith in the word of His promise. He does not desire works, nor has He need of them. We deal with men and with ourselves on the
basis of works. But He has need of this – that we deem Him true to His
promises, wait patiently for Him, and thus worship Him with faith, hope and
love. Thus He obtains His glory among us, since it is not of ourselves who run,
but of God who shows mercy, promises and gives, that we have and hold every
blessing. That is the true worship and service of God which we must perform in
the mass. But if the words of promise are not proclaimed, what exercise of
faith can there be? And without faith, who can have hope or love? Without
faith, hope and love, what service can there be? There is no doubt, therefore,
that in our day all priests and monks, together with all their bishops and
superiors, are idolaters and in a most perilous state, by reason of this
ignorance, abuse and mockery of the mass, or sacrament, or testament of God.
2.55 For
any one can easily see that these two – the promise and faith – must go
together. For without the promise there is nothing to believe, while without
faith the promise remains without effect, for it is established and fulfilled
through faith. From this every one will readily gather that the mass, which is
nothing else than the promise, is approached and observed only in this faith,
without which whatever prayers, preparations, works, signs of the cross, or
genuflections are brought to it, are incitements to impiety rather than
exercises of piety. For they who come thus prepared are likely to imagine themselves on that account justly entitled to approach the
altar, when in reality they are less prepared than at any other time and in any
other work, by reason of the unbelief which they bring with them. How many
priests will you find every day offering the sacrifice of the mass, who accuse
themselves of a horrible crime if they – wretched men! – commit a trifling
blunder – such as putting on the wrong robe or forgetting to wash their hands
or stumbling over their prayers – but that they neither regard nor believe the
mass itself, namely, the divine promise. This causes them not the slightest
qualms of conscience. O worthless religion of this our age, the most godless
and thankless of all ages!
2.56 Hence the
only worthy preparation and proper use of the mass is faith in the mass, that
is to say, in the divine promise. Whoever, therefore, is minded to approach the
altar and to receive the sacrament, let him beware of appearing empty before
the Lord God. But he will
appear empty unless he has faith in the mass, or this new testament. What
godless work that he could commit would be a more grievous crime against the
truth of God, than this unbelief of his, by which, as much as in him lies, he
convicts God of being a liar and a maker of empty promises? The safest course,
therefore, will be to go to mass in the same spirit in which you would go to
hear any other promise of God, that is, not to be ready to perform and bring
many works, but to believe and receive all that is there promised, or
proclaimed by the priest as having been promised to you. If you do not go in
this spirit, beware of going at all. You will surely go to your condemnation.
2.57 I was right,
then, in saying that the whole power of the mass consists in the words of
Christ, in which He testifies that the remission of sins is bestowed on all
those who believe that His body is given and His blood shed for them. For this
reason nothing is more important for those who go to hear mass than diligently
and in full faith to ponder these words. Unless they do this, all else that
they do is in vain. But while the mass is the word of Christ, it is also true
that God usually adds to nearly every one of His promises a certain sign as a
mark or memorial of His promise, so that we may thereby the more faithfully
hold to His promise and be the more forcibly admonished by it. Thus, to his
promise to Noah that He would not again destroy the world by a flood, He added
His rainbow in the clouds, to show that He would be mindful of His covenant.
And after promising Abraham the inheritance in his seed, He gave him the sign
of circumcision as the seal of his righteousness by faith. Thus, to Gideon He
granted the sign of the dry and the wet fleece, to confirm His promise of
victory over the Midianites. And to Ahaz He offered a
sign through Isaiah concerning his victory over the kings of Syria and Samaria, to strengthen his faith
in the promise. And many such signs of the promises of God do we find in the
Scriptures.
2.58 Thus
also to the mass, that crown of all His promises, He adds His body and blood in
the bread and wine, as a memorial sign of this great promise, as He says, " This do in remembrance of me." Even so in
baptism He adds to the words of the promise, the sign of immersion in water. We
learn from this that in every promise of God two things are presented to us –
the word and the sign – so that we are to understand the word to be the
testament, but the sign to be the sacrament. Thus, in the mass, the word of
Christ is the testament, and the bread and wine are the sacrament. And as there
is greater power in the word than in the sign, so there is greater power in the
testament than in the sacrament. For a man can have and use the word, or
testament, apart from the sign, or sacrament. "Believe," says
Augustine, "and you have eaten." But what does one believe save the
word of promise? Therefore I can hold mass every day, yes, every hour, for I
can set the words of Christ before me, and with them refresh and strengthen my
faith, as often as I choose. That is a truly spiritual eating and drinking.
2.59 Here
you may see what great things our theologians of the Sentences have produced.
That which is the principal and chief thing, namely, the testament and word of
promise, is not treated by one of them. Thus they have obliterated faith and
the whole power of the mass. But the second part of the mass – the sign, or
sacrament – this alone do they discuss, yet in such a manner that here too they
teach not faith but their preparations and opera operata, participations and
fruits, as though these were the mass, until they have fallen to babbling of
transubstantiation and endless other metaphysical quibbles, and have destroyed
the proper understanding and use of both sacrament and testament, altogether
abolished faith, and caused Christ's people to forget their God, as the prophet
says, days without number. Let the others count the manifold fruits of hearing
mass. Focus your attention on this: say and believe with the prophet, that God
prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies, at which your soul
may eat and grow fat. But your faith is fed only with the word of divine
promise, for " not by bread alone does man live,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Hence, in the mass
you must above all things pay closest heed to the word of promise, as to your
rich banquet, green pasture, and sacred refreshment. You must esteem this word
higher than all else, trust in it above all things, and cling firmly to it even
through the midst of death and all sins. By thus doing you will attain not
merely to those tiny drops and crumbs of "fruits of the mass," which
some have superstitiously imagined, but to the very fountainhead of life, which
is faith in the word, from which every blessing flows. As it is said in John 4:
"He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living
water" and again: " He who will drink of the water that I will give
him, it shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up to life
everlasting."
2.60 Now
there are two roadblocks that commonly prevent us from gathering the fruits of
the mass. First, the fact that we are sinners and unworthy of
such great things because of our exceeding vileness. Secondly, the fact
that, even if we were worthy, these things are so high that our faint-hearted
nature dare not aspire to them or ever hope to attain to them. For to have God for our Father, to be His sons and heirs of all His
goods – these are the great blessings that come to us through the forgiveness
of sins and life everlasting. If you see these things clearly, aren't
you more likely to stand in awe before them than to desire to possess them?
Against this twofold faintness of ours we must lay hold on the word of Christ
and fix our gaze on it much more firmly than on those thoughts of our weakness.
For "great are the works of the Lord; all who enjoy them study them,"
" who is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think." If they did not surpass our worthiness, our
grasp and all our thoughts, they would not be divine. Thus Christ also
encourages us when He says: "Fear not, little flock, for your Father is
pleased to give you a kingdom." For it is just this overflowing goodness
of the incomprehensible God, lavished upon us through Christ, that moves us to
love Him again with our whole heart above all things, to be drawn to Him with
all confidence, to despise all things else, and be ready to suffer all things for
Him. For this reason, this sacrament is correctly called "a fount of
love."
2.61 Let us take an illustration of this from human experience. If a
thousand gold coins were bequeathed by a rich lord to a beggar or an unworthy
and wicked servant, it is certain that he would boldly claim and take them
regardless of his unworthiness and the greatness of the bequest. And if any one
should seek to oppose him by pointing out his unworthiness and the large amount
of the legacy, what do you suppose he would say? Certainly, he would say:
"What is that to you? What I accept, I accept not on my merits or by any
right that I may personally have to it. I know that I am unworthy and receive
more than I have deserved, no, I have deserved the very opposite. But I claim
it because it is so written in the will, and on the account of another's
goodness. If it was not an unworthy thing for him to bequeath so great a sum to
an unworthy person, why should I refuse to accept this other man's gracious
gift?" With such thoughts we need to fortify the consciences of men
against all qualms and scruples, that they may lay hold of the promise of
Christ with unwavering faith, and take the greatest care to approach the
sacrament, not trusting in their confession, prayer and preparation, but rather
despairing of these and with a proud confidence in Christ Who gives the
promise. For, as we have said again and again, the word of promise must here
reign supreme in a pure and unalloyed faith, and such faith is the one and
all-sufficient preparation.
2.62 Hence
we see how angry God is with us, in that he has permitted godless teachers to
conceal the words of this testament from us, and thereby, as much as in them
lay, to extinguish faith. And the inevitable result of this extinguishing of
faith is even now plainly to be seen – namely, the most godless superstition of
works. For when faith dies and the word of faith is silent, works and the
traditions of works immediately crowd into their place. By them we have been
carried away out of our own land, as in a Babylonian captivity, and despoiled
of all our precious possessions. This has been the fate of the mass. It has
been converted by the teaching of godless men into a good work, which they
themselves call an opus operatum and by which they presumptuously imagine
themselves all-powerful with God. Thereupon they proceeded to the very height
of madness, and having invented the lie that the mass works ex opere operato,
they asserted further that it is none the less profitable to others, even if it
be harmful to the wicked priest celebrating it. On such a foundation of sand
they base their applications, participations, sodalities, anniversaries and
numberless other money-making schemes.
2.63 These
lures are so powerful, widespread and firmly entrenched that you will scarcely
be able to prevail against them unless you keep before you with unremitting
care the real meaning of the mass, and bear well in mind what has been said
above. We have seen that the mass is nothing else than the divine promise or
testament of Christ, sealed with the sacrament of His body and blood. If that
is true, you will understand that it cannot possibly be a work, and that there
is nothing to do in it, nor can it be dealt within any
other way than by faith alone. And faith is not a work, but the mistress and
the life of all works. Where in all the world is there
a man so foolish as to regard a promise made to him, or a testament given to
him, as a good work which by his acceptance of it he renders to the testator?
What heir will imagine he is doing his departed father a kindness by accepting
the terms of the will and the inheritance bequeathed to him? What godless
audacity is it, therefore, when we who are to receive the testament of God come
as those who would perform a good work for Him! This ignorance of the
testament, this captivity of the sacrament – are they not too sad for tears?
When we ought to be grateful for benefits received, we come in our pride to
give that which we ought to take, mocking with unheard-of perversity the mercy
of the Giver by giving as a work the thing we receive as a gift. So the
testator, instead of being the dispenser of His own goods, becomes the
recipient of ours. What sacrilege!
2.64 Who
has ever been so mad as to regard baptism as a good
work, or to believe that by being baptised he was performing a work which he
might offer to God for himself and communicate to others? If, therefore, there
is no good work that can be communicated to others in this one sacrament or
testament, neither will there be any in the mass, since it too is nothing else
than a testament and sacrament. Hence it is a manifest and wicked error to
offer or apply masses for sins, for satisfactions, for the dead, or for any
necessity whatsoever of one's own or of others. You will readily see the
obvious truth of this if you but hold firmly that the mass is a divine promise,
which can profit no one, be applied to no one, intercede for no one, and be
communicated to no one, save him alone who believes with a faith of his own.
Who can receive or apply, in behalf of another, the promise of God, which
demands the personal faith of every individual? Can I give to another what God has promised, even if he does not believe?
Can I believe for another, or cause another to believe? But this is what I must
do if I am able to apply and communicate the mass to others. For
there are but two things in the mass – the promise of God, and the faith of man
which takes that which the promise offers. But if it is true that I can
do this, then I can also hear and believe the Gospel for others, I can be
baptised for another, I can be absolved from sins for another, I can also
partake of the Sacrament of the Altar for another, and – to run the gamut of
their sacraments also – I can marry a wife for another, be ordained for
another, receive confirmation and extreme unction for another!
2.65 So,
then, why didn't Abraham believe for all the Jews? Why was faith in the promise
made to Abraham demanded of every individual Jew? Therefore, let this
irrefutable truth stand fast. Where there is a divine promise every one must
stand upon his own feet, every one's personal faith is demanded, every one will
give an account for himself and will bear his own burden, as it is said in the
last chapter of Mark: "He that believes and is baptised, shall be saved.
But he that does not believe, shall be damned."
Even so everyone may derive a blessing from the mass for himself alone and only
by his own faith, and no one can commune for any other. Just as the priest
cannot administer the sacrament to any one in another's place, but administers
the same sacrament to each individual by himself. For in consecrating and
administering, the priests are our ministers, through whom we do not offer a
good work or commune (in the active), but receive the promises and the sign and
are communed (in the passive). That has remained to this day the custom among
the laity, for they are not said to do good, but to receive it. But the priests
have departed into godless ways. Out of the sacrament and testament of God, the
source of blessings to be received, they have made a good work which they may
communicate and offer to others.
2.66 But
you will say: "How is this? Will you not overturn the practice and
teaching of all the churches and monasteries, by virtue of which they have
flourished these many centuries? For the mass is the foundation of their
anniversaries, intercessions, applications, communications, etc. – that is to
say, of their fat income." I answer: This is the very thing that has
constrained me to write of the captivity of the Church, for in this manner the
adorable testament of God has been subjected to the bondage of a godless
traffic, through the opinions and traditions of wicked men, who, passing over
the Word of God, have put forth the thoughts of their own hearts and misled the
whole world. What do I care for the number and influence of those who are in
this error? The truth is mightier than they all. If you are able to refute
Christ, according to Whom the mass is a testament and
sacrament, then I will admit that they are right. Or if you can bring yourself
to say that you are doing a good work, when you receive the benefit of the
testament, or when you use this sacrament of promise in order to receive it,
then I will gladly condemn my teachings. But since you
can do neither, why do you hesitate to turn your back on the multitude who go
after evil, and to give God the glory and confess His truth? Which
is, indeed, that all priests today are perversely mistaken, who regard the mass
as a work whereby they may relieve their own necessities and those of others,
dead or alive. I am uttering unheard-of and startling things. But if you
will consider the meaning of the mass, you will realize that I have spoken the
truth. The fault lies with our false sense of security, in which we have become
blind to the wrath of God that is raging against us.
2.67 I am
ready, however, to admit that the prayers which we pour out before God when we
are gathered together to partake of the mass, are good works or benefits, which
we impart, apply and communicate to one another, and which we offer for one
another. As James teaches us to pray for one another that we may be saved, and
as Paul, in 1 Timothy 2, commands that supplications, prayers and intercessions
be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in high station. These are
not the mass, but works of the mass – if the prayers of heart and lips may be
called works – for they flow from the faith that is kindled or increased in the
sacrament. For the mass, being the promise of God, is
not fulfilled by praying, but only by believing. But when we believe, we shall
also pray and perform every good work. But what priest offers the sacrifice of
the mass in this sense and believes that he is offering up nothing but the
prayers? They all imagine themselves to be offering up Christ Himself, as
all-sufficient sacrifice, to God the Father, and to be performing a good work
for all whom they have the intention to benefit. For they put
their trust in the work which the mass accomplishes, and they do not ascribe
this work to prayer. Thus, gradually, the error has grown, until they
have come to ascribe to the sacrament what belongs to the prayers, and to offer
to God what should be received as a benefit.
2.68 It is
necessary, therefore, to make a sharp distinction between the testament or sacrament itself and the prayers which are there offered.
And it is no less necessary to bear in mind that the prayers avail nothing,
either for him who offers them or for those for whom they are offered, unless
the sacrament be first received in faith, so that it is faith that offers the
prayers, for it alone is heard, as James teaches in his first chapter. So great
is the difference between prayer and the mass. The prayer may be extended to as
many persons as one desires. But the mass is received by none but the person
who believes for himself, and only in proportion to his faith. It cannot be
given either to God or to men, but God alone gives it, by the ministration of
the priest, to such men as receive it by faith alone, without any works or
merits. For no one would dare to make the mad assertion that a ragged beggar
does a good work when he comes to receive a gift from a rich man. But the mass
is, as has been said, the gift and promise of God, offered to all men by the
hand of the priest.
2.69 It is
certain, therefore, that the mass is not a work which may be communicated to
others, but it is the object, as it is called, of faith, for the strengthening
and nourishing of the personal faith of each individual. But there is yet
another stumbling-block that must be removed, and this is much greater and the
most dangerous of all. It is the common belief that the mass is a sacrifice,
which is offered to God. Even the words of the canon tend in this direction,
when they speak of "these gifts," "these offerings,"
"this holy sacrifice," and farther on, of "this offering."
Prayer also is made, in so many words, "that the sacrifice may be accepted
even as the sacrifice of Abel," etc., and hence Christ is termed the
"Sacrifice of the altar." In addition to this
there are the sayings of the holy Fathers, the great number of examples, and
the constant usage and custom of all the world.
2.70 We
must resolutely oppose all of this, firmly entrenched as it is, with the words
and example of Christ. For unless we hold fast to the truth, that the mass is
the promise or testament of Christ, as the words clearly say, we shall lose the
whole Gospel and all our comfort. Let us permit nothing to prevail against
these words, even though an angel from heaven should teach otherwise. For there
is nothing said in them of a work or a sacrifice.
Moreover, we have also the example of Christ on our side. For at the Last
Supper, when He instituted this sacrament and established this testament,
Christ did not offer Himself to God the Father, nor did He perform a good work
on behalf of others, but He set this testament before each of them that sat at
table with Him and offered him the sign. Now, the more closely our mass
resembles that first mass of all, which Christ performed at the Last Supper,
the more Christian will it be. But Christ's mass was most simple, without the
pageantry of vestments, genuflections, chants and other ceremonies. Indeed, if
it were necessary to offer the mass as a sacrifice, then Christ's institution
of it was not complete.
2.71 Not that any one should condemn the Church universal for
embellishing and amplifying the mass with many additional rites and ceremonies. But this is what we contend
for: no one should be deceived by the glamour of the ceremonies and entangled
in the multitude of pompous forms, and thus lose the simplicity of the mass
itself, and indeed practice a sort of transubstantiation – losing sight of the
simple substance of the mass and clinging to the manifold accidents of outward
pomp. For whatever has been added to the word and example of Christ, is an
accident of the mass, and ought to be regarded just as we regard the so-called
monstrances and corporal cloths in which the host itself is contained.
Therefore, as distributing a testament, or accepting a promise, differs
diametrically from offering a sacrifice, so it is a contradiction in terms to
call the mass a sacrifice. The former is something that we receive, while the
latter is something that we offer. The same thing cannot be received and
offered at the same time, nor can it be both given and taken by the same
person. Just as little as our prayer can be the same as that
which our prayer obtains, or the act of praying the same as the act of
receiving the answer to our prayer.
2.72 What
shall we say, then, about the canon of the mass and the sayings of the Fathers?
First of all, if there were nothing at all to be said against them, it would
yet be the safer course to reject them all rather than admit that the mass is a
work or a sacrifice, lest we deny the word of Christ and overthrow faith
together with the mass. Nevertheless, not to reject altogether the canons and
the Fathers, we shall say the following: The Apostle instructs us in 1
Corinthians 11 that it was customary for Christ's believers, when they came
together to mass, to bring with them meat and drink, which they called
"collections" and distributed among all who were in need, after the
example of the apostles in Acts 4. From this store was taken the portion of
bread and wine that was consecrated for use in the sacrament. And since all
this store of meat and drink was sanctified by the word and by prayer, being
"lifted up" according to the Hebrew rite of which we read in Moses,
the words and the rite of this lifting up, or offering, have come down to us,
although the custom of collecting that which was offered, or lifted up, has
fallen long since into disuse. Thus, in Isaiah 37, Hezekiah commanded Isaiah to
lift up his prayer in the sight of God for the remnant. The Psalmist sings: "Lift up your hands to the holy places" and "To you
will I lift up my hands." And in 1 Timothy
2 we read: "Lifting up pure hands in every place." For this reason
the words "sacrifice" and "offering" must be taken to
refer, not to the sacrament and testament, but to these collections, from this
also the word "collect" has come down to us, as meaning the prayers
said in the mass.
2.73 The
same thing is indicated when the priest elevates the bread and the chalice
immediately after the consecration, whereby he shows that he is not offering
anything to God, for he does not say a single word here about a victim or an
offering. But this elevation is either a survival of that Hebrew rite of lifting
up what was received with thanksgiving and returned to God, or else it is an
admonition to us, to provoke us to faith in this testament which the priest has
set forth and exhibited in the words of Christ, so that now he shows us also
the sign of the testament. Thus the offering of the bread properly accompanies
the demonstrative this in the words, "This is my body," by which sign
the priest addresses us gathered about him. In like manner the offering of the
chalice accompanies the demonstrative this in the words, "This chalice is
the new testament, etc." For it is faith that the priest
ought to awaken in us by this act of elevation. I wish that, as he
elevates the sign, or sacrament, openly before our eyes, he might also sound in
our ears the words of the testament with a loud, clear voice, and in the
language of the people, whatever it may be, in order that faith may be the more
effectively awakened. For why may mass be said in Greek and Latin and Hebrew,
and not also in German or in any other language?
2.74 Let
the priests, therefore, who in these corrupt and perilous times offer the
sacrifice of the mass, take heed, first, that the words of the greater and the
lesser canon together with the collects, which smack too strongly of sacrifice,
be not referred by them to the sacrament, but to the bread and wine which they
consecrate, or to the prayers which they say. For the bread and wine are
offered at the first, in order that they may be blessed and thus sanctified by
the Word and by prayer. But after they have been blessed and consecrated, they
are no longer offered, but received as a gift from God. And let the priest bear
in mind that the Gospel is to be set above all canons and collects devised by
men. The Gospel does not sanction the calling of the mass a sacrifice, as has
been shown.
2.75 Further,
when a priest celebrates a public mass, he should determine to do nothing else
through the mass than to commune himself and others.
Yet he may at the same time offer prayers for himself and for others, but he
must beware lest he presume to offer the mass. But let him determine to commune
himself, if he holds a private mass. The private mass does not differ in the
least from the ordinary communion which any layman receives at the hand of the
priest, and has no greater effect, apart from the special prayers and the fact
that the priest consecrates the elements for himself and administers them to
himself. So far as the blessing of the mass and
sacrament is concerned, we are all of us on an equal footing, whether we be
priests or laymen.
2.76 If a
priest be requested by others to celebrate so-called "votive" masses,
let him beware of accepting a reward for the mass, or of presuming to offer a
votive sacrifice. He should be careful to refer all to the prayers which he
offers for the dead or the living, saying within himself, "I will go and
partake of the sacrament for myself alone, and while partaking I will say a
prayer for this one and that." Thus he will take his reward – to buy him
food and clothing – not for the mass, but for the prayers. And
let him not be disturbed because all the world holds and practices the
contrary. You have the most sure Gospel, and relying
on this you may well despise the opinions of men. But
if you despise me and insist upon offering the mass and not the prayers alone,
know that I have faithfully warned you and will be without blame on the day of
judgment. You will have to bear your sin alone. I have said what I was bound to
say as brother to brother for his soul's salvation. Yours will be the gain if
you observe it, yours the loss if you neglect it. And if some should even
condemn what I have said, I reply in the words of Paul: " But evil men and
seducers shall grow worse and worse: erring and driving into error."
2.77 From
the above every one will readily understand what there is in that often quoted
saying of Gregory's: "A mass celebrated by a wicked priest is not to be
considered of less effect than one celebrated by any godly priest. St. Peter's
mass would not have been better than Judas the traitor's, if they had offered
the sacrifice of the mass." This saying has served many as a cloak to
cover their godless doings, and because of it they have invented the
distinction between opus operati and opus operantis, so as to be free to lead
wicked lives themselves and yet to benefit other men. Gregory speaks truth, but
they misunderstand and pervert his words. For it is true beyond a question,
that the testament or sacrament is given and received through the ministration
of wicked priests no less completely than through the ministration of the most
saintly. For who has any doubt that the Gospel is preached by the ungodly? Now
the mass is part of the Gospel, no, its sum and substance. For what is the
whole Gospel but the good tidings of the forgiveness of sins? But whatever can
be said of the forgiveness of sins and the mercy of God, is all briefly
comprehended in the word of this testament. So popular
sermons ought to be nothing else than expositions of the mass, that is, a
setting forth of the divine promise of this testament. Doing this
teaches faith and truly edifies the Church. But in our day the expounders of
the mass play with the allegories of human rites and make it a joke to people.
2.78 Therefore,
just as a wicked priest may baptise, that is, apply the word of promise and the
sign of the water to a candidate for baptism, so he may also set forth the
promise of this sacrament and administer it to those who partake, and even
himself partake, like Judas the traitor, at the Lord's Supper. It still remains
always the same sacrament and testament, which works in the believer its own
work, in the unbeliever a "strange work." But when it comes to
offering a sacrifice the case is quite different. For not the mass but the
prayers are offered to God, and therefore it is as plain as day that the
offerings of a wicked priest avail nothing, but, as Gregory says again, when an
unworthy intercessor is chosen, the heart of the judge is moved to greater
displeasure. We must, therefore, not confound these two – the mass and the
prayers, the sacrament and the work, the testament and the sacrifice. For the
one comes from God to us, through the ministration of the priest, and demands
our faith, the other proceeds from our faith to God, through the priest, and demands
His answer. The former descends, the latter ascends. Therefore the former does
not necessarily require a worthy and godly minister, but the latter does indeed
require such a priest, because " God does not
hear sinners." He knows how to send down blessings through evildoers, but
He does not accept the work of any evildoer, as He showed in the case of Cain,
and as it is said in Proverbs 15, "The victims of the wicked are
abominable to the Lord" and in Romans 14, "All that is not of faith
is sin."
2.79 But in
order to make an end of this first part, we must take up one remaining point
against which an opponent might arise. From all that has been said we conclude
that the mass was provided only for such as have a sad, afflicted, disturbed,
perplexed and erring conscience, and that they alone commune worthily. For,
since the word of divine promise in this sacrament sets forth the remission of
sins, that man may fearlessly draw near, whoever he be, whose sins distress
him, either with remorse for past or with temptation to future wrongdoing. For
this testament of Christ is the one remedy against sins, past, present and
future, if you but cling to it with unwavering faith and believe that what the
words of the testament declare is freely granted to you. But if you do not
believe this, you will never, nowhere, and by no works or efforts of your own,
find peace of conscience. For faith alone sets the conscience
at peace, and unbelief alone keeps the conscience troubled.
3.1
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to the
riches of His mercy has preserved in His Church this sacrament at least,
untouched and untainted by the ordinances of men, and has made it free to all
nations and every estate of mankind, nor suffered it to be oppressed by the
filthy and godless monsters of greed and superstition. For He desired that by
it little children, incapable of greed and superstition, might be initiated and
sanctified in the simple faith of His Word. Even today baptism's chief blessing
is for them. But if this sacrament were to be given to adults and older people,
I think it could not possibly have retained its power and its glory against the
tyranny of greed and superstition which has everywhere laid waste to divine
things. Doubtless the wisdom of the flesh would here too have devised its
preparations and worthinesses, its reservations, restrictions, and I know not
what other snares for taking money, until water fetched as high a price as
parchment does now.
3.2 But Satan, though he could
not quench the power of baptism in little children, nevertheless succeeded in
quenching it in all adults, so that scarcely anyone calls to mind their baptism
and still fewer glory in it. So many other ways have they discovered of ridding
themselves of their sins and of reaching heaven. The source of these false
opinions is that dangerous saying of St. Jerome's – either unhappily
phrased or wrongly interpreted – which he terms penance "the second
plank" after the shipwreck, as if baptism were not penance. Accordingly,
when men fall into sin, they despair of "the first plank," which is
the ship, as though it had gone under, and fasten all their faith on the second
plank, that is, penance. This has produced those endless burdens of vows,
religious works, satisfactions, pilgrimages, indulgences, and sects, from this
has arisen that flood of books, questions, opinions and human traditions, which
the world cannot contain. So that this tyranny plays worse havoc with the Church of God than any tyrant ever did
with the Jewish people or with any other nation under heaven.
3.3 It was
the duty of the pontiffs to abate this evil, and with
all diligence to lead Christians to the true understanding of baptism, so that they
might know what manner of men they are and how Christians ought to live. But instead of this, their work is now to lead the people as
far astray as possible from their baptism, to immerse all men in the flood of
their oppression, and to cause the people of Christ, as the prophet says, to
forget Him days without number. ( Jeremiah 2:32) How
unfortunate are all who bear the name of pope today! Not only do they not know
or do what popes should do, but they are ignorant of what they ought to know
and do. They fulfill the saying in Isaiah 56: "His watchmen are all blind,
they are all ignorant. The shepherds themselves knew no understanding. All have
declined into their own way, every one after his own
gain."
3.4 Now,
the first thing in baptism to be considered is the divine promise, which says: " He that believes and is baptised shall be
saved." This promise must be set far above all the glitter of works, vows,
religious orders, and whatever man has added to it. For on it all our salvation
depends. We must consider this promise, exercise our faith in it and never
doubt that we are saved when we are baptised. For unless this faith be present
or be conferred in baptism, we gain nothing from baptism. No, it becomes a
hindrance to us, not only in the moment of its reception, but all the days of
our life. For such lack of faith calls God's promise a lie,
and this is the blackest of all sins. When we try to exercise this faith, we
shall at once perceive how difficult it is to believe this promise of God. For
our human weakness, conscious of its sins, finds nothing more difficult to
believe than that it is saved or will be saved. Yet unless it does believe
this, it cannot be saved, because it does not believe the truth of God that
promises salvation.
3.5 This
message should have been persistently impressed upon the people and this
promise diligently repeated to them. Their baptism should have been called
again and again to their mind, and faith constantly awakened and nourished.
Just as the truth of this divine promise, once pronounced over us, continues to
death, so our faith in the same ought never to cease, but to be nourished and
strengthened until death, by the continual remembrance of this promise made to
us in baptism. Therefore, when we rise from sins, or repent, we are only
returning to the power and the faith of baptism from this we fell, and
find our way back to the promise then made to us, from which we departed when
we sinned. For the truth of the promise once made remains steadfast, ever ready
to receive us back with open arms when we return.
This, if I am not mistaken, is the real meaning of the obscure saying, that
baptism is the beginning and foundation of all the sacraments, without which
none of the others may be received.
3.6 Therefore
a penitent will gain much by laying hold of the memory of his baptism above all
else, confidently calling to mind the promise of God, which he has forsaken. He
should plead it with His Lord, rejoicing that he is baptised and therefore is
yet within the fortress of salvation. He should detest his wicked ingratitude
in falling away from its faith and truth. His soul will find wondrous comfort,
and will be encouraged to hope for mercy, when he considers that the divine
promise which God made to him and which cannot possibly lie, still stands
unbroken and unchanged, yes, unchangeable by any sins, as Paul says in 2
Timothy 2. "If we do not believe, He continues to be faithful, He cannot
deny Himself." Yes, this truth of God will sustain him, so that if all
else should sink in ruins, this truth, if he believes it, will not fail him.
For in it he has a shield against all assaults of the enemy, an answer to the
sins that disturb his conscience, an antidote for the dread of death and
judgment, and a comfort in every temptation – namely, this one truth – he can
say, " God is faithful that promised, Whose sign I have received in my
baptism. If God be for me, who is against me?"
3.7 The
children of Israel, whenever they repented
of their sins, turned their thoughts first of all to
the exodus from Egypt, and, remembering this,
returned to God Who had brought them out. This memory and this refuge were many
times impressed upon them by Moses, and afterward repeated by David. How much
rather ought we to call to mind our exodus from Egypt, and, remembering, turn
back again to Him Who led us forth through the washing of regeneration, which
we are bidden remember for this very purpose. And this we can do most fittingly
in the sacrament of bread and wine. Indeed, in ancient times these three
sacraments –penance, baptism and the bread – were all celebrated at the same
service, and one supplemented and assisted the other. We read also of a certain
holy virgin who in every time of temptation made baptism her sole defense,
saying simply, "I am a Christian." Immediately the adversary fled
from her, for he knew the power of her baptism and of her faith which clung to
the truth of God's promise.
3.8 See,
how rich therefore is a Christian, the one who is baptised! Even if he wants
to, he cannot lose his salvation, however much he sin, unless he will not
believe. For no sin can condemn him save unbelief alone. All other sins – so
long as the faith in God's promise made in baptism returns or remains –all
other sins, I say, are immediately blotted out through that same faith, or
rather through the truth of God, because He cannot deny Himself. If only you
confess Him and cling believing to Him that promises. But as for contrition,
confession of sins, and satisfaction – along with all those carefully thought
out exercises of men – if you turn your attention to them and neglect this
truth of God, they will suddenly fail you and leave you more wretched than
before. For whatever is done without faith in the truth of God, is vanity of
vanities and vexation of spirit.
3.9 Again, how perilous, no, how false it is to suppose that penance is
the second plank after the shipwreck! How harmful an error it is to
believe that the power of baptism is broken, and the ship has foundered,
because we have sinned! No! That one, solid and unsinkable ship remains, and is
never broken up into floating timbers. It carries all those who are brought to
the harbor of salvation. It is the truth of God giving us its promise in the
sacraments. Many, indeed, rashly leap overboard and perish in the waves. These
are they who depart from faith in the promise and plunge into sin. But the ship
herself remains intact and holds her steady course. If one be able somehow to
return to the ship, it is not on any plank but in the good ship herself that he
is carried to life. Such a one is he who through faith returns to the sure
promise of God that lasts forever. Therefore Peter, in 1 Peter 1, rebukes those
who sin, because they have forgotten that they were purged from their old sins,
in which words he doubtless chides their ingratitude for the baptism they had
received and their wicked unbelief.
3.10 What is the good, then, of writing
much on baptism and yet not teaching this faith in the promise? All the
sacraments were instituted for the purpose of nourishing faith, but these
godless men so completely pass over this faith that they even assert a man dare
not be certain of the forgiveness of sins, that is, of the grace of the
sacraments. With such wicked teachings they delude the world, and not only take
captive but altogether destroy the sacrament of baptism, in which the chief
glory of our conscience consists. Meanwhile they madly rage against the
miserable souls of men with their contritions, anxious confessions,
circumstances, satisfactions, works and endless other absurdities. Read,
therefore, with great caution the Master of the Sentences in his fourth book,
or, better yet, despise him together with all his commentators, who at their
best write only of the material and form of the sacraments, that is, they
discuss the dead and death-dealing letter of the sacraments, but pass over in
utter silence the spirit, life and use, that is, the truth of the divine
promise and our faith.
3.11 So be careful, that the external
pomp of works and the deceits of human traditions mislead you, so that you may
not wrong the divine truth and your faith. If you would be saved, you must
begin with the faith of the sacraments, without any works whatever. But on
faith the works will follow. Only do not think lightly of faith, which is a
work, and of all works the most excellent and the most difficult to do. Through
it alone you will be saved, even if you should be compelled to do without any
other works. For it is a work of God, not of man, as Paul
teaches. The other works He works through us and with our help, but this
one He works in us and without our help.
3.12 From
this
we can clearly see the difference, in baptism, between man the minister and God
the Doer. For man baptises and does not baptise. He baptises, for he performs
the work, immersing the person to be baptised. He does not baptise, for in that
act he officiates not by his own authority, but as God's representative. Hence,
we ought to receive baptism at the hands of a man just as if Christ Himself,
no, God Himself, were baptising us with His own hands. For it is not man's
baptism, but Christ's and God's baptism, which we receive by the hand of a man,
just as every other created thing that we make use of by the hand of another,
is God's alone. Therefore beware of dividing baptism in such a way as to
ascribe the outward part to man and the inward part to God. Ascribe both to God
alone, and look upon the person administering it as the instrument in God's
hands, by which the Lord sitting in heaven thrusts you under the water with His
own hands, and speaking by the mouth of His minister promises you, on earth
with a human voice, the forgiveness of your sins.
3.13 This the words themselves indicate,
when the priest says: " I baptise you in the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen," and not:
"I baptise you in my own name." It is as though he said: " What I do, I do not by my own authority, but in the
name and as God's representative, so that you should regard it just as if our
Lord Himself had done it in a visible manner. The Doer and the minister are
different persons, but the work of both is the same work, or, rather, it is the
work of the Doer alone, through my ministry." For I hold that "in the
name of" refers to the person of the Doer, so that the name of the Lord is
not only to be uttered and invoked while the work is being done, but the work
itself is to be done not as one's own work, but in the name and as another's
representative. In this sense, in Matthew 24, Christ says, "Many shall come
in my name," and in Romans 1 it is said, "By whom we have received
grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith, in all nations, for His
name."
3.14 This view I freely endorse. It is
very comforting and greatly aids faith to know that one has been baptised not
by man, but by the Triune God Himself through a man acting among us in His
name. This will dispose of that fruitless quarrel about the "form" of
baptism, as these words are called. The Greeks say: "May the servant of
Christ be baptised," while the Latins say: "I baptise." Others
again, pedantic triflers, condemn the use of the words, "I baptise you in
the name of Jesus Christ" – although it is certain that the Apostles used
this formula in baptising, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles – they would
allow no other form to be valid than this: " I baptise you in the Name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But their contention
is in vain, for they bring no proof, but merely assert their own dreams.
Baptism truly saves in whatever way it is administered, as long as it is not
administered in the name of man but in the name of God. No, I have no doubt
that if one received baptism in the name of the Lord, even though the wicked
minister should not give it in the name of the Lord, he would yet be truly
baptised in the name of the Lord. For the effect of baptism depends not so much
on the faith or practice of him that confers it as on the faith or practice of
the one who receives it – of which we have an illustration in the case of the play-actor
who was baptised as a joke. Such anxious disputings and questionings are
aroused in us by those who ascribe nothing to faith and everything to works and
forms, while we owe everything to faith alone and nothing to forms, and faith
makes us free in spirit from all those scruples and fancies.
3.15 The second part of baptism is the
sign, or sacrament, which is that immersion into water from this also it derives its name. For the Greek baptize means "I immerse," and baptisma means
"immersion." For, as has been said, signs are added
to the divine promises to represent that which the words signify, or, as they
now say, that which the sacrament "effectively signifies." We
shall see how much of truth there is in this.
3.16 The great majority have supposed
that there is some hidden spiritual power in the word or in the water, which
works the grace of God in the soul of the recipient. Others deny this and hold
that there is no power in the sacraments, but that grace is given by God alone,
Who according to His covenant aids the sacraments He
has instituted. Yet all are agreed that the sacraments are effective signs of
grace, and they reach this conclusion by this one argument: If the sacraments
of the New Law merely "signified," it would not be apparent in what
respect they surpassed the sacraments of the Old Law. Hence they have been
driven to attribute such great power to the sacraments of the New Law that in
their opinion they benefit even such men as are in mortal sins, and that they
do not require faith or grace. It is sufficient not to oppose a
"bar," that is, an actual intention to sin again.
3.17 But these views must be
carefully avoided and shunned, because they are godless and faithless, being
contrary to faith and to the nature of the sacraments. For it is an error to
hold that the sacraments of the New Law differ from those of the Old Law in the
effectiveness of their "signifying." The "signifying" of
both is equally effective. The same God Who now saves me by baptism saved Abel
by his sacrifice, Noah by the rainbow, Abraham by circumcision, and all the
others by their respective signs. So far as the "signifying" is
concerned, there is no difference between a sacrament of the Old Law and one of
the New – provided that by the Old Law you mean that which God did among the
patriarchs and other fathers in the days of the law. But those signs which were
given to the patriarchs and fathers must be sharply distinguished from the legal
types which Moses instituted in his law, such as the priestly rites concerning
robes, vessels, meats, dwellings, and the like. Between these and the
sacraments of the New Law there is a vast difference, but no less between them
and those signs that God from time to time gave to the fathers living under the
law, such as the sign of Gideon's fleece, Manoah's sacrifice, or the sign which
Isaiah offered to Ahaz, in Isaiah 7. for to these
signs God attached a certain promise which required faith in Him.
3.18 This, then, is the difference
between the legal types and the new and old signs is
that the types do not have attached to them any word of promise requiring
faith. Hence they are not signs of justification, for they are not sacraments
of the faith that alone justifies, but only sacraments of works. Their whole
power and nature consisted in works, not in faith, and he that observed them
fulfilled them, even if he did it without faith. But our signs, or sacraments,
as well as those of the fathers, have attached to them a word of promise, which
requires faith, and they cannot be fulfilled by any other work. Hence they are
signs or sacraments of justification, for they are the sacraments of justifying
faith and not of works. Their whole efficacy, therefore, consists in faith
itself, not in the doing of a work. For whoever believes them fulfils them,
even if he should not do a single work. From this has arisen the saying,
"Not the sacrament but the faith of the sacrament justifies." Thus
circumcision did not justify Abraham and his seed, and yet the Apostle calls it
the seal of the righteousness of faith, because faith in the promise, to which
circumcision was added, justified him and fulfilled that which circumcision
signified. For faith was the spiritual circumcision of the
foreskin of the heart, which was symbolised by the literal circumcision of the
flesh. And in the same manner it was obviously not Abel's sacrifice that
justified him, but it was his faith, by which he offered himself wholly to God
and which was symbolised by the outward sacrifice.
3.19 Even
so it is not baptism that justifies or benefits anyone, but it is faith in the
word of promise, to which baptism is added. This faith justifies, and fulfils
that which baptism signifies. For faith is the submersion
of the old man and the emerging of the new. Therefore it cannot be that the new
sacraments differ from the old, for both have the divine promise and the same
spirit of faith. But they do differ vastly from the ancient types on account of
the word of promise, which is the one decisive point of difference. Even so,
today, the outward show of vestments, holy places, meats and of all the endless
ceremonies has doubtless a fine symbolical meaning, which is to be spiritually
fulfilled. Yet because there is no word of divine promise attached to these
things, they can never be compared with the signs of baptism and of the bread,
nor do they in any way justify or benefit one, since they are fulfilled in the
very observance, apart from faith. For while they are taking
place or are being performed, they are being fulfilled. The Apostle says
of them, in Colossians 2,"Which are all to perish with the using, after
the commandments and doctrines of men." The sacraments, on the contrary,
are not fulfilled when they are observed, but when they are believed.
3.20 It
cannot be true, therefore, that there is in the sacraments a power efficacious
for justification, or that they are effective signs of grace. All such
assertions tend to destroy faith, and arise from ignorance of the divine
promise. Unless you should call them effective in the sense
that they certainly and efficaciously impart grace, where faith is unmistakably
present. But it is not in this sense that efficacy is now ascribed to
them. Witness the fact that they are said to benefit all men, even the godless
and unbelieving, provided they do not put an "obstacle" in the path
of grace – as if such unbelief were not in itself the most obstinate and
hostile of all obstacles to grace. That is how firmly they are bent on turning
the sacrament into a command, and faith into a work. For if the sacrament
confers grace on me because I receive it, then indeed I obtain grace by virtue
of my work and not of faith. I lay hold not on the promise in the sacrament,
but on the sign instituted and commanded by God. Do you not see, then, how
completely the sacraments have been misunderstood by our theologians of the
Sentences? They do not account for either faith or the promise, in their
discussions on the sacraments. They only cling to the sign and the use of the
sign, and draw us away from faith to the work, from the word to the sign. Thus
they have not only carried the sacraments captive (as I have said), but have
completely destroyed them, as far as they were able.
3.21 Therefore,
let us open our eyes and learn to give more heed to the word than to the sign,
and to faith than to the work, or the use of the sign, remembering that
wherever there is a divine promise there faith is required, and that these two
are so necessary to each other that neither can be efficacious apart from the
other.
For it is not possible to believe unless there be a promise,
and the promise is not established unless it be believed. But where
these two meet, they give a real and most certain efficacy to the sacraments.
Hence, to seek the efficacy of the sacrament apart from the promise and apart
from faith, is to labor in vain and to find damnation.
Thus Christ says: "He that believe and is baptised, shall be saved. He
that does not believe shall be damned." He shows us in this word that
faith is so necessary a part of the sacrament that it can save even without the
sacrament. For which reason He did not see fit to say: "He that does not
believe, and is not baptised..."
3.22 Baptism, then, signifies two things
–death and resurrection – that is, full and complete justification. When the
minister immerses the child in the water, baptism signifies death. When he
draws the child forth again, baptism signifies life. Thus Paul expounds on this
in Romans 6, "We are buried together with Christ by baptism into death. As
Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the
Father, so we also may walk in newness of life." This death and
resurrection we call the new creation, regeneration, and the spiritual birth.
And this must not be understood only in a figurative sense, of the death of sin
and the life of grace, as many understand it, but of actual death and
resurrection. The significance of baptism is not an imaginary significance, and
sin does not completely die, nor does grace completely rise, until the body of
sin that we carry about in this life is destroyed. This the Apostle teaches in
the same chapter. For as long as we are in the flesh, the desires of the flesh
stir and are stirred. When we begin to believe, we also begin to die to this
world and to live to God in the life to come. Faith is truly a death and a
resurrection, that is, it is that spiritual baptism in which we are submerged
and from which we rise.
3.23 Hence it is indeed correct to
say that baptism washes sins away, but that expression is too weak and mild to
bring out the full significance of baptism, which is rather a symbol of death
and resurrection. For this reason I would have the candidates for baptism
completely immersed in the water, as the word says and as the sacrament
signifies. Not that I deem this necessary, but it would be well to give to so
perfect and complete a thing a perfect and complete sign. Thus it was also
doubtless instituted by Christ. The sinner does not so much need to be washed
as he needs to die, in order to be wholly renewed and made another creature,
and to be conformed to the death and resurrection of Christ, with Whom, through baptism, he dies and rises again. Although you
may properly say that Christ was washed clean of mortality when He died and
rose again, yet that is a weaker way of putting it than if you said He was
completely changed and renewed. In the same way it is far more forceful to say
that baptism signifies that we die completely and rising
to eternal life, than to say that it signifies merely our being washed clean
from sins.
3.24 Here, again, you see that the
sacrament of baptism, even in respect to its sign, does not last only for a
moment, but continues on forever. Although its administration is soon over, yet
the thing it signifies continues until we die, no, until we rise at the last
day. For as long as we live we are continually doing that which our baptism
signifies, that is, we die and rise again. We die, that
is, not only spiritually and in our affections, by renouncing the sins and
vanities of this world, but in reality we die. We begin to leave this bodily
life and to lay hold on the life to come. So there is, as they say, a real and
even a bodily leaving of this world to go to the Father.
3.25 We must, therefore,
beware of those who have reduced the power of baptism, making it
something thin and small. While they do say that baptism indeed pours the grace
of God into us, but afterwards sin pours it out again. So, they say, one must
reach heaven by another way. As if baptism had then become entirely useless! Do
not hold such a viewpoint, but know that baptism signifies that you die and
live again. Therefore, whether it is by penance or by any other way, you can
only return to the power of your baptism, and once again do what you were
baptised to do and what your baptism signified. Never does baptism lose its
power, unless you despair and refuse to return to its salvation. You may,
indeed, for a time wander away from the sign, but that does not mean that the
sign is powerless. You have, thus, been baptised once in the sacrament, but you
must be constantly baptised again through faith, you must constantly die, you
must constantly live again. Baptisms absorbs your
whole body, and gives it back again. Even so that which
baptism signifies should absorb your whole life in body and soul, and give it
back again at the last day, clothed in robes of glory and immortality. We are,
therefore, never without the sign of baptism nor yet without the thing it signifies. No, we must be baptised ever more and more
completely, until we perfectly fulfill the sign, at the last day.
3.26 Therefore,
whatever we do in this life that promotes the mortifying of the flesh and the
giving life to the spirit, belongs to baptism. The sooner we depart this life
the sooner we fulfill our baptism. The greater our sufferings the more closely
do we conform to our baptism. Hence those were the Church's happiest days, when
the martyrs were being killed everyday and accounted as sheep for the
slaughter. For then the power of baptism reigned supreme in the Church, which
power we have today lost sight of in the midst of the multitude of works and
doctrines of men. For all our life should be baptism, and the fulfilling of the
sign, or sacrament, of baptism. We have been set free from all else and wholly
given over to baptism alone, that is, to death and resurrection.
3.27 This
glorious liberty of ours, and this understanding of
baptism have been carried captive in our day. And whom
have we to thank for this but the Roman pontiff with his despotism? More than
all others, it was his first duty, as chief shepherd, to preach and defend this
liberty and this knowledge, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 "Let a man so
account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the
mysteries, or sacraments, of God." Instead of this, he seeks only to
oppress us with his decrees and his laws, and to enslave and ensnare us in the
tyranny of his power. By what right, in God's name, does the pope impose his
laws upon us – to say nothing of his wicked and damnable neglect to teach these
mysteries? Who gave him power to despoil us of this liberty, granted us in
baptism? One thing only (as I have said) has been enjoined upon us all the days
of our life – be baptised – That is, to be put to death and to live again,
through faith in Christ. This faith alone should have been taught, especially
by the chief shepherd. But now there is not a word
said about faith, and the Church is laid waste with endless laws concerning
works and ceremonies So the power and right understanding of baptism are put
aside, and faith in Christ is prevented.
3.28 Therefore
I say: neither the pope nor a bishop nor any other man has the right to impose
a single syllable of law upon a Christian man without his consent. If he does,
it is done in the spirit of tyranny. Therefore the prayers, fasts, donations,
and whatever else the pope decrees and demands in all of his decretals, as
numerous as they are evil, he demands and decrees without any right whatever.
He sins against the liberty of the Church whenever he attempts any such thing.
In fact, today's churchmen are indeed such vigorous defenders of the liberty of
the Church, that is, of wood and stone, of land and rents – for
"churchly" is nowadays the same as "spiritual" – yet with
such fictions they not only take captive but utterly destroy the true liberty
of the Church, and deal with us far worse than the Turk, in opposition to the
word of the Apostle, "Do not be enslaved by men." Yes, to be
subjected to their statutes and tyrannical laws is to be enslaved by men.
3.29 This
impious and sinful tyranny is fostered by the pope's disciples, who here drag
in and pervert that saying of Christ, "He that hears you hears me."
With puffed cheeks they blow up this saying to a great size in support of their
traditions. Though Christ said this to the apostles when they went forth to
preach the Gospel, and though it applies solely to the Gospel, they pass over
the Gospel and apply it only to their fables. He says in John 10 "My sheep
hear my voice, but the voice of a stranger they do not hear." To this end
He left us the Gospel, that His voice might be uttered by the pontiffs. But they utter their own voice, and themselves desire to be
heard. Moreover, the Apostle says that he was not sent to baptise but to preach
the Gospel. Therefore, no one is bound to the traditions of the pope, nor does
he need to give ear to him unless he teaches the Gospel and Christ, and the
pope should teach nothing but faith without any restrictions. But since Christ
says, "He that hears you hears me," and does not say to Peter only,
"He that hears you," why doesn't the pope also hear others? Finally,
where there is true faith, there must also be the word of faith. Why then does
not an unbelieving pope now and then hear a believing servant of his, who has
the word of faith? It is blindness, sheer blindness, that
holds the popes in their power.
3.30 But
others, more shameless still, arrogantly ascribe to the pope the power to make
laws, on the basis of Matthew 16, "Whatever you shall bind," etc.,
though Christ treats in this passage of binding and loosing sins, not of taking
the whole Church captive and oppressing it with laws. So this tyranny treats
everything with its own lying words and violently wrests and perverts the words
of God. I admit indeed that Christians ought to bear this accursed tyranny just
as they would bear any other violence of this world, according to Christ's
word: " If someone strikes you on your right
cheek, turn to him also the other cheek." But this is my complaint –നat the godless pontiffs boastfully claim the right to do this, that they
pretend to be seeking the Church's welfare with this Babylon of theirs, and that they
foist this fiction upon all mankind. For if they did these things, and we
suffered their violence, well knowing, both of us, that it was godlessness and
tyranny, then we might number it among the things that contribute to the
mortifying of this life and the fulfilling of our baptism, and might with a
good conscience rejoice in the inflicted injury. But now they seek to deprive
us of this consciousness of our liberty, and would have us believe that what
they do is well done, and must not be censured or complained of as wrongdoing.
Since they wolves, they want to look like shepherds.
Since they are antichrists, they want to be honored as Christ.
3.31 I only
lift my voice to defend this freedom of conscience. I confidently cry out: No
one – not men – not angels – may justly impose laws upon Christians without their
consent, for we are free from all things. If any laws are laid on us, we must
bear them in such a way as to preserve the consciousness of our liberty. We
must know and strongly affirm that the making of such laws is unjust, that we
will bear and rejoice in this injustice. We will be careful neither to justify
the tyrant nor complain against his tyranny. "For who is he," says
Peter, "that will harm you, if you are followers of that which is
good?" " All things work together for good
to the elect." Nevertheless, since few know this glory of baptism and the
blessedness of Christian liberty, and cannot know them because of the tyranny
of the pope, I for one will walk away from it all and redeem my conscience by
bringing this charge against the pope and all his papists: Unless they will
abolish their laws and traditions, and restore to Christ's churches their
liberty and have it taught among them, they are guilty of all the souls that
perish under this miserable captivity, and the papacy is truly the kingdom of
Babylon, yes, the kingdom of the real Antichrist! For who is "
the man of sin" and "the son of perdition" but he that
with his doctrines and his laws increases sins and the perdition of souls in
the Church, while he sits in the Church as if he were God? All this the papal tyranny has fulfilled, and more than
fulfilled, these many centuries. It has extinguished faith, obscured the
sacraments and oppressed the Gospel. But its own laws,
which are not only impious and sacrilegious, but even barbarous and foolish, it
has enjoined and multiplied world without end.
3.32 Behold, then, our miserable captivity. How empty is the city
that was full of people! The mistress of the Gentiles has become like a widow.
The princess of provinces has been made a client nation! There is none to
comfort her. All her friends despise her. There are so many orders, so many
rites, so many sects, so many vows, exertions and works, in which Christians
are engaged, that they lose sight of their baptism. This swarm of locusts,
cankerworms and caterpillars – not one of them is able to remember that he is
baptised or what blessings his baptism brought him. Are engaged in no efforts
and no works, but are free in every way, secure and saved only through the
glory of their baptism. For we are indeed little children,
continually baptised anew in Christ.
3.33 Perhaps
someone will oppose what I have said by pointing to the baptism of infants.
Infants do not understand God's promise and cannot have baptismal faith. So
either faith is not necessary or else infant baptism is useless. Here I say
what everyone says: the faith of others, namely, the faith of those who bring
them to baptism aids infants. For the Word of God is
powerful, when it is uttered. It can change even a godless heart, which
is no less unresponsive and helpless than any infant. Even so the infant is
changed, cleansed and renewed by faith poured into it, through the prayer of
the Church that presents it for baptism and believes. All things are possible
for this prayer. Nor should I doubt that even a godless adult might be changed,
in any of the sacraments, if the same Church prayed and presented him. We read
in the Gospel of the paralytic, who was healed through the faith of others. I
should be ready to admit that in this sense the sacraments of the New Law
confer grace effectively, not only to those who do not resist, but even to
those who do resist it very obstinately. Is there any obstacle that the faith
of the Church and the prayer of faith cannot remove? We believe that Stephen by
this powerful means converted Paul the Apostle, don't we? But then the
sacraments accomplish what they do not by their own power, but by the power of
faith, without which they accomplish nothing at all, as has been said.
3.34 The
question remains, whether it is proper to baptise an infant not yet born, with
only a hand or a foot outside the womb. Here I will decide nothing hastily, and
confess my ignorance. I am not sure whether the reason given by some is
sufficient – that the soul resides in its entirety in every part of the body.
After all, it is not the soul but the body that is externally baptised with
water. Nor do I share the view of others that he who is not yet born cannot be
born again, even though it has considerable force. I leave these matters to the
teaching of the Spirit. For the moment I permit every
one to be convinced by his own opinion.
3.35 One
thing I will add – and I wish I could persuade everyone to do it! – namely, to completely abolish or avoid all the making of
vows, whether they are vows to enter religious orders, to make pilgrimages or
to do any works whatsoever. Then we could remain in the freedom of our baptism,
which is the most religious, rich in works, state of all. It is impossible to
say how greatly that widespread delusion of vows weakens baptism and obscures
the knowledge of Christian liberty. This is to say nothing now of the
unspeakable and infinite peril to souls which that mania for making vows and
that ill-advised rashness daily increase. Godless pontiffs and unhappy pastors!
You slumber on without heeding, and indulge your evil lusts, without pity for
this "affliction of Joseph," so dreadful and fraught with peril!
3.36
Vows
should be abolished by a general edict, especially life-long vows, and
all men
diligently recalled to the vows of baptism. If this is not possible,
everyone
should be warned not to take a vow rashly. No one should be encouraged
to do
so. Permission to make vows should be given only with difficulty and
reluctance. For we have vowed enough in baptism – more than we can ever
fulfill. If we devote ourselves to the keeping of this one vow, we shall
have
all we can do. But now we travel over earth and sea to make many
converts. We
fill the world with priests, monks and nuns, and imprison them all in
life-long
vows. You will find those who argue and decree that a work done in
fulfilment
of a vow ranks higher than one done without a vow. They claim such works
are
rewarded with I know not what great rewards in heaven. Blind and godless
Pharisees, who measure righteousness and holiness by the greatness,
number or
other quality of the works! But God measures them by faith alone, and
with Him
there is no difference between works except in the faith which performs
them.
3.37 These
wicked men inflate with bombast their own opinions and human works. They do
this to lure the unthinking populace, who are almost always led by the glitter
of works to make shipwreck of their faith, to forget their baptism and to harm
their Christian liberty. For a vow is a kind of law or requirement. Therefore,
when vows are multiplied, laws and works are necessarily multiplied. When this
is done, faith is extinguished and the liberty of baptism taken captive.
Others, not content with these wicked allurements, go on to say that entrance into a religious order is like a new baptism
which may be repeated later and as often as the commitment to live the
religious life is renewed. Thus these "votaries" have taken for
themselves alone all righteousness, salvation and glory, and left to those who
are merely baptised nothing to compare with them. No, the Pope of Rome, that
fountain and source of all superstitions, confirms, approves and adorns this
mode of life with high-sounding bulls and dispensations, while no one deems
baptism worthy of even a thought. And with such glittering pomp (as we have
said) they drive the easily led people of Christ into certain disaster, so that
lose their gratitude for baptism and presume to achieve greater things by their
works than others achieve by their faith.
3.38 Therefore,
God again shows Himself perverse to the perverse. He
repays the makers of vows for their ingratitude and pride, causes them to break
their vows or to keep them only with prodigious labor. He compels them to
remain sunk in these vows, never coming to the knowledge of the grace of faith
and baptism. He makes them continue in their hypocrisy to the end – since God
does not approve their spirit –and that at last makes them a laughing-stock to
the whole world, always persuing righteousness, yet never achieving
righteousness. God ordains all this so that they fulfill the word of Isaiah: " The land is full of idols."
3.39 I am
indeed far from forbidding or discouraging any one who may desire to take a vow
privately and of his own free choice; for I would not altogether despise and
condemn vows. But I would most strongly advise against setting up and
sanctioning the making of vows as a public mode of life. It is enough that
every one should have the private right to take a vow at his peril; but to commend
the vowing of vows as a public mode of life – this I hold to be most harmful to
the Church and to simple souls. And I hold this, first, because it runs
directly counter to the Christian life; for a vow is a certain ceremonial law
and a human tradition or presumption, and from these the Christian has been set
free through baptism. For a Christian is subject to no laws but the law of God.
Again, there is no instance in Scripture of such a vow, especially of life-long
chastity, obedience and poverty. But whatever is without warrant of Scripture
is hazardous and should by no means be commended to any one, much less
established as a common and public mode of life, although whoever will must be
permitted to make the venture at his own peril. For certain works are wrought
by the Spirit in a few men, but they must not be made an example or a mode of
life for all.
3.40 Moreover,
I greatly fear that these modes of life of the religious orders belong to those
things which the Apostle foretold: " They shall
teach a lie in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God
has created to be received with thanksgiving." Let no one retort by
pointing to Sts. Bernard, Francis, Dominic and others, who founded or fostered
monastic orders. Terrible and marvelous is God in His counsels toward the sons
of men. He could keep Daniel, Ananias, Azarias and Misael holy at the court of
the king of Babylon, that is, in the midst of godlessness; why could He not
sanctify those men also in their perilous mode of living or guide them by the
special operation of His Spirit, yet without desiring it to be an example to
others? Besides, it is certain that none of them was saved through his vows and
his "religious" life; they were saved through faith alone, by which
all men are saved, and with which that splendid slavery of vows is more than
anything else in conflict.
3.41 But every one may hold to his own
view of this. I will return to my argument. Speaking now in behalf of the
Church's liberty and the glory of baptism, I feel myself in duty bound publicly
to set forth the counsel I have learned under the Spirit's guidance. I
therefore counsel the magnates of the churches, first of all, to abolish all
those vows, or at least not to approve and extol them. If they will not do this,
then I counsel all men who would be assured of their salvation, to abstain from
all vows, above all from the great and life-long vows; I give this counsel
especially to all growing boys and youths. This I do, first, because this
manner of life has no witness or warrant in the Scriptures, as I have said, but
is puffed up solely by the bulls (and they truly are "bulls") of
human popes. And, secondly, because it greatly tends to hypocrisy, by reason of its outward show and its unusual character,
which engender conceit and a contempt of the common Christian life. And if
there were no other reason for abolishing these vows, this one were reason
enough, namely, that through them faith and baptism are slighted and works are
exalted, which cannot be done without harmful results. For in the religious
orders there is scarce one in many thousands, who is not more concerned about
works than about faith, and on the basis of this
madness they have even made distinctions among themselves, such as "the
more strict" and "the more lax," as they call them.
3.42 Therefore
I advise no one to enter any religious order or the priesthood – no, I dissuade
everyone – unless he be forearmed with this knowledge and understand that the
works of monks and priests, be they never so holy and arduous, differ no whit
in the sight of God from the works of the rustic toiling in the field or the
woman going about her household tasks, but that all works are measured before
Him by faith alone; as Jeremiah says: " O Lord, thine eyes are upon faith";
and Ecclesiasticus: " In every work of thine regard your soul in faith:
for this is the keeping of the commandments." no, he should know that the
menial housework of a maidservant or manservant is ofttimes more acceptable to
God than all the fastings and other works of a monk or a priest, because the
latter lacks faith. Since, therefore, vows seem to tend nowadays only to the
glorification of works and to pride, it is to be feared that there is nowhere
less of faith and of the Church than among the priests, monks and bishops, and
that these men are in truth heathen or hypocrites, who imagine themselves to be
the Church or the heart of the Church, and "spiritual," and the
Church's leaders, when they are everything else but that. And it is to be
feared that this is indeed " the people of the
captivity," among whom all things freely given us in baptism are held
captive, while "the people of the earth" are left behind in poverty
and in small numbers, and, as is the lot of married folk, appear vile in their
eyes.
3.43 From
what has been said we learn that the Roman pontiff is guilty of two glaring
errors.
3.44 In the
first place, he grants dispensations from vows, and does it as though he alone
of all Christians possessed this authority; such is the temerity and audacity
of wicked men. If it be possible to grant a dispensation from a vow, then any
brother may grant one to his neighbour or even to himself. But if one's
neighbour
cannot grant a dispensation, neither can the pope by any right. For from this
has he his authority? From the power of the keys? But
the keys belong to all, and avail only for sins (Matthew 18:15). Now they themselves claim that vows are "of divine right."
Why then does the pope deceive and destroy the poor souls of men by granting
dispensations in matters of divine right, in which no dispensations can be
granted? He babbles indeed, in the section "Of vows and their
redemption," of having the power to change vows, just as in the law the
firstborn of an ass was changed for a sheep (Exodus 13:13) – if the firstborn
of an ass, and the vow he commands to be everywhere and always offered, were
one and the same thing, or as if when God decrees in His law that a sheep shall
be changed for an ass, the pope, a mere man, may immediately claim the same power,
not in his own law but in God's! It was not a pope, but an ass changed for a pope, that made this decretal; so egregiously senseless and
godless is it.
3.45 The
other error is this. The pope decrees, on the other hand, that marriage is dissolved
if one party enter a monastery even without the consent of the other, provided
the marriage be not yet consummated. Grammercy, what
devil puts such monstrous things into the pope's mind! God commands men to keep
faith and not break their word to one another, and again, to do good with that
which is their own; for He hates "robbery in a holocaust," as he says
by the mouth of Isaiah. (Isaiah 61:8) But one spouse is bound by the marriage
contract to keep faith with the other, and he is not his own. He cannot break
his faith by any right, and whatever he does with himself is robbery if it be
without the other's consent. Why does not one who is burdened with debts follow
this same rule and obtain admission to an order, so as to be released from his
debts and be free to break his word? O more than blind! Which is greater; the
faith commanded by God or a vow devised and chosen by man? you
art a shepherd of souls, O pope? And ye that teach such things are doctors of
sacred theology? Why then do ye teach them? Because, forsooth, ye have decked
out your vow as a better work than marriage, and do not exalt faith, which
alone exalts all things, but ye exalt works, which are nothing in the sight of
God, or which are all alike so far as any merit is concerned.
3.46 I have
no doubt, therefore, that neither men nor angels can grant a dispensation from
vows, if they be proper vows. But I am not fully clear in my own mind whether
all the things that men nowadays vow come under the head of vows. For instance,
it is simply foolish and stupid for parents to dedicate their children, before
birth or in early infancy , to "the religious
life," or to perpetual chastity; no, it is certain that this can by no
means be termed a vow. It seems a mockery of God to vow things which it is not
at all in one's power to keep. As to the triple vow of the monastic orders, the
longer I consider it, the less I comprehend it, and I marvel from this the
custom of exacting this vow has arisen. Still less do I understand at what age
vows may be taken in order to be legal and valid. I am pleased to find them
unanimously agreed that vows taken before the age of puberty are not valid.
Nevertheless, they deceive many young children who are ignorant both of their
age and of what they are vowing; they do not observe the age of puberty in
receiving such children, who after making their profession are held captive and
devoured by a troubled conscience, as though they had afterward given their
consent. As if a vow which was invalid could afterward become valid with the
lapse of time.
3.47 It
seems absurd to me that the terms of a legal vow should be prescribed to others
by those who cannot prescribe them for themselves. Nor do I see why a vow taken
at eighteen years of age should be valid, and not one taken at ten or twelve
years. It will not do to say that at eighteen a man feels his carnal desires.
How is it when he scarcely feels them at twenty or thirty, or when he feels
them more keenly at thirty than at twenty? Why do they not also set a certain
age-limit for the vows of poverty and obedience? But at what age will you say a
man should feel his greed and pride? Even the most spiritual hardly become
aware of these emotions. Therefore, no vow will ever become binding and valid
until we have become spiritual, and no longer have any need of vows. You see,
these are uncertain and perilous matters, and it would therefore be a wholesome
counsel to leave such lofty modes of living, unhampered by vows, to the Spirit
alone, as they were of old, and by no means to change them into a rule binding
for life.
3.48 But
let this suffice for the present concerning baptism and its liberty; in due
time I may discuss the vows at greater length. Of a truth they stand sorely in
need of it.
4.1 We
come in the third place to the sacrament of penance. On this subject I have
already given no little offense by my published treatise and disputations, in
which I have amply set forth my views. These I must now briefly rehearse, in
order to unmask the tyranny that is rampant here no less than in the sacrament
of the bread. For because these two sacraments furnish opportunity for gain and
profit, the greed of the shepherds rages in them with incredible zeal against
the flock of Christ; although baptism, too, has sadly declined among adults and
become the servant of avarice, as we have just seen in our discussion of vows.
4.2 This is the first and chief
abuse of this sacrament: They have utterly abolished the sacrament itself, so
that there is not a vestige of it left. For they have overthrown both the word
of divine promise and our faith, in which this as well as other sacraments
consists. They have applied to their tyranny the word of promise which Christ
speak in Matthew 16:19, "Whatsoever you
shall bind," etc., in Matthew 18:18, " Whatsoever ye shall bind," etc.,
and in John, the last chapter, (John 20:23) "Whosesoever sins
ye remit, they are remitted to them," etc. In these words the faith of
penitents is aroused, to the obtaining of remission of sins. But in all their
writing, teaching and preaching their sole concern has been, not to teach
Christians what is promised in these words, or what they ought to believe and
what great comfort they might find in them, but only to extend their own
tyranny far and wide through force and violence, until it has come to such a
pass that some of them have begin to command the very angels in heaven and to
boast in incredible mad wickedness of having in these words obtained the right
to a heavenly and an earthly rule, and of possessing the power to bind even in
heaven. Thus they say nothing of the saving faith of
the people, but babble only of the despotic power of the pontiffs, while Christ
speaks not at all of power, but only of faith.
4.3 For Christ has not ordained
principalities or powers or lordships, but ministries, in the Church; as we
learn from the Apostle, who says.: " Let a man so account of us as of the
ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God." (1
Corinthians 4:1) Now when He said: " He that believe and is baptised shall
be saved," (Mark 16:16) He called forth the faith of those to be baptised,
so that by this word of promise a man might be certain of being saved if he
believed and was baptised. In that word there is no impartation of any power whatever,
but only the institution of the ministry of those who baptise. Similarly, when
He says here: "Whatsoever you shall bind," etc., (Matthew 16:19) He calls forth the faith of the penitent, so that by this word of
promise he may be certain of being truly absolved in heaven, if he be absolved
and believe. Here there is no mention at all of power, but of the ministry of
him that absolves, it is a wonder these blind and arrogant men missed the
opportunity of arrogating a despotic power to themselves
from the promise of baptism. But if they do not do this in the case of baptism,
why should they have presumed to do it in the case of the promise of penance?
For in both there is a like ministry, a similar promise, and the same kind of
sacrament. So that, if baptism does not belong to Peter
alone, it is undeniably a wicked usurpation of power to claim the keys for the
pope alone. Again, when Christ says: "Take, eat; this is my body,
which is given for you. Take, drink; this is the chalice in my blood," ( 1
Corinthians 11:24 f.) etc., He calls forth
the faith of those who eat, so that through these words their conscience may be
strengthened by faith and they may rest assured of receiving the forgiveness of
sins, if they have eaten. Here, too, He says nothing of power, but only of a
ministry.
4.4 Thus the promise of baptism remains in some sort, at least to
infants; the promise of bread and the cup has been destroyed and made
subservient to greed, faith becoming a work and the testament a sacrifice;
while the promise of penance has fallen prey to the most oppressive despotism
of all and serves to establish a more than temporal rule.
4.5 Not
content with these things, this Babylon of ours has so
completely extinguished faith that it insolently denies its necessity in this
sacrament; no, with the wickedness of Antichrist: it calls it heresy if any one
should assert its necessity. What more could this tyranny do that it has not
done? (Isaiah 5:4) Verily, by the rivers of Babylon we sit and weep, when we
remember you, O Zion. (Psalm 137:1, 2) We hang our harps upon the willows in
the midst thereof. The Lord curse the barren willows
of those streams! Amen.
4.6 Now
let us see what they have put in the place of the promise and the faith which they have blotted out and overthrown. Three
parts have they made of penance – contrition, confession, and satisfaction; yet
so as to destroy whatever of good there might be in any of them and to
establish here also their covetousness and tyranny.
4.7 In the
first place, they teach that contrition precedes faith in the promise; they hold
it, much too cheap, making it not a work of faith,
but a merit; no, they do not mention it at all. So deep are they sunk in works
and in those instances of Scripture that show how many obtained grace by reason
of their contrition and humility of heart; but they take no account of the
faith which wrought such contrition and sorrow of heart, as it is written of
the men of Nineveh in Jonah 3:5, "And the men of Nineveh believed in God:
and they proclaimed a fast," etc. Others, again, more bold and wicked,
have invented a so-called "attrition," which is, converted into
contrition by virtue of the power of the keys, of which they know nothing. This
attrition they grant to the wicked and unbelieving and thus abolish contrition
altogether. O the intolerable wrath of God, that such things
should be taught in the Church of Christ! Thus, with both faith
and its work destroyed, we go on secure in the doctrines and opinions of men –
yes, we go on to our destruction. A contrite heart is a precious thing, but it
is found only where there is a lively faith in the promises and the threats of
God. Such faith, intent on the immutable truth of God, startles and terrifies
the conscience and thus renders it contrite, and afterwards, when it is
contrite, raises it up, consoles and preserves it; so that the truth of God's
threatening is the cause of contrition, and the truth of His, promise the cause
of consolation, if it be believed. By such faith a man merits the forgiveness
of sins. Therefore faith should be taught and aroused before all else; and when
faith is obtained, contrition and consolation will follow inevitably and of
themselves.
4.8 Therefore, although there is something of truth in their teaching
that contrition is to be attained by what they call the recollection and
contemplation of sins, yet their teaching is perilous and perverse so long as
they do not teach first of all the beginning and cause of contrition – the
immutable truth of God's threatening and promise, to the awakening of faith –
so that men may learn to pay more heed to the truth of God, whereby they are
cast down and lifted up, than to the multitude of their sins, which will rather
irritate and increase the sinful desires than lead to contrition, if they be
regarded apart from the truth of God. I will say nothing now of the
intolerable burden they have bound upon us with their demand that we should
frame a contrition for every sin. That is impossible;
we can know only the smaller part of our sins, and even our good works are
found to be sins, according to Psalm 143:2, "Enter not into judgement with
your servant; for in your sight shall no man living be justified." It is
enough to lament the sins which at the present moment distress our conscience, as
well as those which we can readily call to mind. Whoever is in this frame of
mind is without doubt ready to grieve and fear for all his sins, and will do so
whenever they are brought to his knowledge in the future.
4.9 Beware,
then, of putting your trust, in your own contrition and of ascribing the
forgiveness of sins to your own sorrow. God does not have respect to you
because of that, but because of the faith by which you have believed His
threatenings and promises, and which wrought such sorrow within you. Thus we
owe whatever of good there may be in our penance, not to our scrupulous
enumeration of sins, but to the truth of God and to our faith. All other things
are the works and fruits of this, which follow of their own accord, and do not
make a man good, but are done by a man already made good through faith in the
truth of God. Even so, "a smoke goeth up in His wrath, because He is angry
and troubleth the mountains and kindleth them," as it is said in Psalm
18:8. First comes the terror of His threatening, which burns; up the wicked,
then faith, accepting this, sends up the cloud of contrition, etc.
4.10 Contrition, however, is less exposed to tyranny and gain than wholly given over
to wickedness and pestilent teaching. But confession and satisfaction have
become the chief workshop of greed and violence.
4.11 Let us first take up confession.
4.12 There is no doubt that confession
is necessary and commanded of God. Thus we read in Matthew (Matthew 3:6)
"They were baptised of John in Jordan, confessing their
sins." And in 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a
liar, and his word is not in us." If the saints may not deny their sin,
how much more ought those who are guilty of open and great sins to make
confession! But most effectively of all does Matthew 18:15 prove, the institution
of confession, in which passage Christ teaches that a sinning brother should be
rebuked, haled before, the Church, accused, and, if he will not hear,
excommunicated. But he hears when, heeding the rebuke, he acknowledges and
confesses his sin.
4.13 Of private confession, which is now observed, I am hearty in favor, even though, it
cannot be proved from the Scriptures; it is useful and necessary, nor would I
have it abolished – no, I rejoice that it exists in the Church of Christ, for it is a cure
without an equal for distressed consciences. For when we have laid bare our
conscience to our brother and privately made known to him the evil that lurked
within, we receive from our brother's lips the word of comfort spoken by God
Himself; and, if we accept it in faith, we find peace in the mercy of God
speaking to us through our brother. This alone do I abominate – that this
confession has been subjected to the despotism and extortion of the pontiffs.
They reserve to themselves, even hidden sins, and command that they be made
known to confessors named by them, only to trouble the consciences of men. They
merely play the pontiff, while they utterly despise the true duties of
pontiffs, which are to preach the Gospel and to care for the poor. yes, the godless despots leave the great sins to the plain
priests, and reserve to themselves those sins only which are of less
consequence, such as those ridiculous and fictitious things in the bull
Coenadoinini. no, to make the wickedness of their error the more apparent, they
not only do not reserve, but actually teach and approve, the sins, against the
service of God, against faith and the chief commandments; such as their running
on pilgrimages, the perverse worship of the saints, the lying saints'? legends,
the various forms of trust in works and ceremonies, and the practicing of them,
by all of which faith in God is extinguished and idolatry encouraged, as we see
in our day. We have the same kind of priests today as
Jereboam ordained of old in Dan and Beersheba,(1 Kings 12:26 ff.) ministers of the
golden calves, men who are ignorant of the law of God, of faith and of whatever
pertains to the feeding of Christ's sheep, and who inculcate in the people
nothing but their own inventions with terror and violence.
4.14 Although
my advice is that we bear this outrage of reserved cases, even as Christ bids
us bear all the tyranny of men, and teaches us that we must obey these
extortioners; nevertheless I deny that they have the right to make such
reservations, nor do I believe they can bring one dot of an I or cross of a T
of proof that they have it. But I am going to prove the contrary. In the first
place, Christ, speaking in Matthew 18:15 of open sins, says that
if our brother shall hear us when we rebuke him, we have saved the soul of our
brother, and that he is to be brought before the Church only if he refuse to
hear us; so that his sin may be corrected among brethren. How much more will it
be true of hidden sins, that they are forgiven if one
brother freely makes confession to another? So that it is not necessary to tell
it to the Church, that is, as these babblers interpret it, the prelate or
priest. We have another proof of this in Christ's words in the same chapter:
"Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and
whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew
18:18) For this is said to each and every Christian. Again, He says in the same
place: "Again I say to you, that if two of you
shall consent upon earth, concerning anything whatsoever that they shall ask,
it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven." ( Matthew 18:19) Now, the brother who lays his hidden sins
before his brother and craves pardon, certainly
consents with his brother upon earth in the truth, which is Christ. Of which
Christ says yet more clearly, confirming His preceding words: "Verily I
say to you, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in
the midst of them." (Matthew18:20)
4.15 Hence. I have no doubt but that
every one is absolved from his hidden sins when he has made confession, either
of his own accord or after being rebuked, has sought pardon and amended his
ways, privately before any brother, however much the violence of the pontiffs
may rage against it; for Christ has given to every one of His believers the
power to absolve even open sins. Add yet this little point: If any reservation
of hidden. sins were valid, so that one could not be
saved unless they were forgiven, then a man's salvation would be prevented most
of all by those aforementioned good works and idolatries, which are nowadays
taught by the popes. But if these most grievous sins do not prevent one's
salvation, how foolish it is to reserve those lighter sins! Verily, it is the
foolishness and blindness of the pastors that produce these monstrous things in
the Church. Therefore I would admonish these princes of Babylon and bishops of Bethaven ( Hosea 4:15; Hosea 10:5) to refrain from reserving any cases whatsoever. Let them,
moreover, permit all brothers and sisters freely to hear the confession of
hidden sins, so that the sinner may make his sins known to whomever he will and
seek pardon and comfort, that is, the word of Christ, by the mouth of his
neighbor. For with these presumptions of theirs they only ensnare the
consciences of the weak without necessity, establish their wicked despotism,
and fatten their avarice on the sins and ruin of their brethren. Thus they
stain their hands with the blood of souls, sons are devoured by their parents,
Ephraim devours Juda, and Syria Israel with open mouth, as Isaiah said. (Isaiah
9:20)
4.16 To these evils they have added the " circumstances," and also the mothers, daughters,
sisters, brothers-and sisters-in-law, branches and fruits of sins; since,
forsooth, astute and idle men have worked out a kind of family tree of
relationships and affinities even among sins so prolific is wickedness coupled
with ignorance. For this conceit, whatever rogue be
its author, has like many another become a public law. Thus do the shepherds
keep watch over the Church of Christ; whatever new work or superstition those
stupid devotees may have dreamed of, they immediately drag to the light of day,
deck out with indulgences and safeguard with bulls; so far are they from
suppressing it and preserving to God's people the true faith and liberty. For
what has our liberty to do with the tyranny of Babylon?
4.17 My advice would be to ignore all
circumstances utterly. With Christians there is only
one circumstance – that a brother has sinned. For there is no
person to be compared with a Christian brother. And the observance of
places, times, days, persons, and all other superstitious moonshine, only
magnifies the things that are nothing, to the injury of those which are
everything; as if aught could be greater or of more importance than the glory
of Christian brotherhood! Thus they bind us to places, days and persons, that
the name of brother may be lightly esteemed, and we may serve in bondage
instead of being free – we to whom all days, places, persons, and all external
things are one and the same.
4.18 How unworthily they have dealt with
satisfaction, I have abundantly shown in the controversies concerning
indulgences. They have grossly abused it, to the ruin of Christians in body and
soul. To begin with, they taught it in such a manner that the people never
learned what satisfaction really is, namely, the renewal of a man's life. Then,
they so continually harp on it and emphasize its necessity, that they leave no
room for faith in Christ. With these scruples they torture poor consciences to
death, and one runs to Rome, one to this place, another to that, this one to
Chartreuse, that one to some other place, one scourges himself with rods,
another ruins his body with fasts and vigils, and all cry with the same mad
zeal, "Lo here is Christ! lo there!" (Luke
17:20f.) believing that the kingdom of heaven, which
is within us, will come with observation. For these monstrous things we are
indebted to you, O Roman See, and thy murderous laws and ceremonies, with which
you hast corrupted all mankind, so that they think by works to make
satisfaction for sin to God, Who can be satisfied only by the faith of a
contrite heart! This faith thou not only keepest silent with this uproar of
thine, but even oppressest, only so your insatiable horseleech have those to
whom it may say, "Bring, bring!" and may traffic in sins. (Proverbs
30:15)
4.19 Some have gone even farther and
have constructed those instruments for driving souls to despair – their decrees
that the penitent must rehearse all sins anew for which he neglected to make
the imposed satisfaction. Yes, what would not they venture to do, who were born
for the sole purpose of carrying all things into a tenfold
captivity? Moreover, how many are possessed with the notion that they are in a
saved state and are making satisfaction for their sins, if they but mumble
over, word for word, the prayers the priest has imposed, even though they give
never a thought meanwhile to amending their life! They believe that their life
is changed in the one moment of contrition and confession, and it remains only
to make satisfaction for their past sins. How should they know better, when
they are not taught otherwise? No thought is given
here to the mortifying of the flesh, no value is attached to the example of
Christ, Who absolved the woman taken in adultery and said to her, "Go, and
sin no more!" (John 8:11) thereby laying upon her the
cross – the mortifying of her flesh. This perverse error is greatly
encouraged by our absolving sinners before the satisfaction has been completed,
so that they are more concerned about completing the satisfaction which lies
before them, than they are about contrition, which they suppose to be past and
over when they have made confession. Absolution ought rather to follow on the
completion of satisfaction, as it did in the ancient Church, with the result that,
after completing the work, penitents gave themselves with greater diligence to
faith and the living of a new life.
4.20 But
this must suffice in repetition of what I have more fully said on indulgences,
and in general this must suffice for the present concerning the three
sacraments, which have been treated, and yet not treated, in so many harmful
books, theological as well as juristic. It remains to attempt some discussion
of the other sacraments also, lest I seem to have rejected them without cause.
5.1 I wonder what could have possessed them to make a sacrament of
confirmation out of the laying on of hands, (Mark 16:18; Acts 6:6, Acts 8:17, Acts 19:6) which Christ
employed when He blessed young children, (Mark 10:16) and the apostles when
they imparted the Holy Spirit, ordained elders and cured the sick, as the
Apostle writes to Timothy, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." (1
Timothy 5:22) Why have they not also turned the sacrament of the bread into
confirmation? For it is written in Acts 9:19,
"And when he had taken meat he was strengthened," and in Psalm
104:15, "And that bread may cheer man's heart." Confirmation would thus
include three sacraments – the bread, ordination, and confirmation itself. But
if everything the apostles did is a sacrament, why have they not rather made
preaching a sacrament?
5.2 I do
not say this because I condemn the seven sacraments, but because I deny that
they can be proved from the Scriptures. Would to God we had in the Church such
a laying on of hands as there was in apostolic times, whether we called it
confirmation or healing! But there is nothing left of
it now but what we ourselves have invented to adorn the office of the bishops,
that they may have at least something to do in the Church. For after they relinquished
to their inferiors those arduous sacraments together with the Word, as being
too common for themselves – since, forsooth, whatever the divine Majesty has
instituted has to be despised of men –
it was no more than right that we should discover something easy and not
too burdensome for such delicate and great heroes to do, and should by no means
entrust it to the lower clergy as something common – for whatever human wisdom
has decreed has to be held in honor among men! Therefore, as are the priests,
so let their ministry and duty be. For a bishop who
does not preach the Gospel or care for souls, what is he but an idol in the
world, having but the name and appearance of a bishop? (1 Corinthians 8:4) But
we seek, instead of this, sacraments that have been divinely instituted, among
which we see no reason for numbering confirmation. For, in order that there be
a sacrament, there is required above all things a word of divine promise,
whereby faith, may be trained. But we read nowhere that Christ ever gave a
promise concerning confirmation, although He laid hands on many and included
the laying on of hands among the signs in Mark 16:18 "They shall lay
their hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Yet no one referred this
to a sacrament, nor can this be done.
5.3 Hence it is sufficient to regard confirmation as a certain churchly rite or
sacramental ceremony, similar to other ceremonies, such as the blessing of holy
water and the like. For if every other creature is sanctified by the word and
by prayer, (1 Timothy 4:4 f.) why should not much rather man be sanctified by
the same means? Still, these things cannot be called sacraments of faith,
because there is no divine promise connected with them, neither do they save;
but sacraments do save those who believe the divine promise.
6.1 Not
only is marriage regarded as a sacrament without the least warrant of
Scripture, but the very traditions which extol it as a sacrament have turned it
into a farce. Let me explain.
6.2 We said
that there is in every sacrament a word of divine promise, to be believed by
whoever receives the sign, and that the sign alone cannot be a sacrament. Now
we read nowhere that the man who marries a wife receives any grace of God. no, there is not even a divinely instituted sign in
marriage, or nowhere do we read that marriage was instituted by God to be a
sign of anything. To be sure, whatever takes place in a visible manner may be
regarded as a type or figure of something invisible; but types and figures are
not sacraments in the sense in which we use this term.
6.3 Furthermore,
since marriage existed from the beginning of the world and is
still found among unbelievers, it cannot possibly be called a sacrament
of the New Law and the exclusive possession of the Church. The marriages of the
ancients were no less sacred than are ours, nor are those of unbelievers less
true marriages than those of believers, and yet they are not regarded, as
sacraments. Besides, there are even among believers married folk who are wicked
and worse than any heathen; why should marriage be called a sacrament in their
case and not among the heathen? Or are we going to rant so foolishly of baptism
and the Church as to hold that marriage is a sacrament only in the Church, just
as some make the mad claim that temporal power exists only in the Church? That
is childish and foolish talk, by which we expose our ignorance and our
arrogance to the ridicule of unbelievers.
6.4 But
they will say: The Apostle writes in Ephesians 5:31, "They shall be two
in one flesh. This is a great sacrament." Surely you are not going to
contradict so plain a statement of the Apostle! I reply: This argument, like
the others, betrays great shallowness and a negligent and thoughtless reading
of Scripture. Nowhere in Holy Scripture is this word sacrament employed in the
meaning to which we are accustomed; it has an entirely different meaning. For
wherever it occurs it signifies not the sign of a sacred thing, but a sacred,
secret, hidden thing. Thus Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:1, "Let a man so
account of us as the ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries –
i.e., sacraments – of God." Where we have the word sacrament the Greek
text reads mystery, which word our version sometimes translates and sometimes
retains in its Greek form. Thus our verse reads in the
Greek: "They Shall be two in one flesh; this is a great mystery." (Ephesians 5:31 f.) This explains how they
came to find a sacrament of the New Law here – a thing they would never have
done if they had read the word "mystery", as it is in the Greek.
6.5 Thus
Christ Himself is called a sacrament in 1 Timothy 3:16, "And evidently
great is the sacrament – i.e., mystery – of godliness, which was manifested in
the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, has been preached
to the Gentiles, is believed, by the world, is taken up in glory." Why
have they not drawn out of this passage an eighth sacrament of the New Law,
since they have the clear authority of Paul? But if they restrained themselves
here, where they had a most excellent opportunity to unearth a new sacrament,
why are they so wanton in the former passage? It was their ignorance, forsooth,
of both words and things; they clung to the mere sound of the words, no, to
their own fancies. For, having once arbitrarily taken the word sacrament to
mean a sign, they immediately, without thought or scruple, made a sign of it
every time they came upon it in the Sacred Scriptures. Such new meanings of
words and such human customs they have also elsewhere
dragged into Holy Writ, and conformed it to their dreams, making anything out
of any passage whatsoever. Thus they continually chatter nonsense about the
terms: good and evil works, sin, grace, righteousness, virtue, and well-nigh
every one of the fundamental words and things. For they employ them all after
their own arbitrary judgment, learned from the writings of men, to the
detriment both of the truth of God and of our salvation.
6.6 Therefore, sacrament, or mystery, in Paul's writings, is that wisdom
of the Spirit, hidden in a mystery, as he says in 1 Corinthians 2, which is
Christ, Who is for this very reason not known to the princes of this world,
wherefore they also crucified Him, and Who still is to them foolishness, an
offense, a stone of stumbling, and a sign which is spoken against. (1 Corinthians 1:23; Romans 9:33; Luke 2:34; 1 Corinthians 1:23 f., 1 Corinthians 4:1)
The preachers he calls dispensers of these mysteries because they preach
Christ, the power and the wisdom of God, yet so that one cannot receive this
unless one believe. Therefore, a sacrament is a
mystery, or secret thing, which is set forth in words and is received by the
faith of the heart. Such a sacrament is spoken of in the verse before us – "They
shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament" (Ephesians
5:31 f.) – which they understand as
spoken of marriage, while Paul wrote these words of Christ and the Church, and
clearly explained his meaning by adding, "But I speak in Christ and in the
Church." Yes, how well they agree with Paul! He declares he is setting
forth a great sacrament in Christ and the Church, but they set it forth in a
man and a woman! If such wantonness be permitted in
the Sacred Scriptures, it is small wonder if one find there anything one
please, even a hundred sacraments.
6.7 Christ
and the Church are, therefore, a mystery, that is, a great and secret thing,
which it was possible and proper to represent by marriage as by a certain
outward allegory, but that was no reason for their calling marriage a
sacrament. The heavens are a type of the apostles, as Psalm 19:1 declares; the
sun is a type of Christ; the waters, of the peoples; but that does not make
those things sacraments, for in every case there are lacking both the divine
institution and the divine promise, which constitute a sacrament.
6.8
Hence Paul,
in Ephesians 5, following his own mind, applies to Christ these words in
Genesis 2 about marriage, or else, following the general view, he teaches that
the spiritual marriage of Christ is also contained therein, saying: "As
Christ cherisheth the Church: because we are members, of his body, of his flesh
and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great
sacrament; I speak in Christ and in the Church." You see, he would have
the whole passage apply to Christ, and is at pains to admonish the reader to
find the sacrament in Christ and the Church, and not in marriage.
6.9 Therefore we grant that marriage is a type of Christ and the
Church, and a sacrament, yet not divinely instituted but invented by men in the
Church, carried away by their ignorance both of the word and of the thing.
Which ignorance, since it does not conflict with the faith, is to be charitably
borne with, just as many other practices of human weakness and ignorance are
borne with in the Church, so long as they do not conflict with the faith and
with the Word of God. But we are now dealing with the certainty and purity of
the faith and the Scriptures; so that our faith be not exposed to ridicule,
when after affirming that a certain thing is contained in the Sacred Scriptures
and in the articles of our faith, we are refuted and shown that it is not
contained therein, and, being found ignorant of our own affairs, become a
stumbling block to our opponents and to the weak; no, that we destroy not the
authority of the Holy Scriptures. For those things which have been delivered to
us by God in the Sacred Scriptures must be sharply distinguished from those
that have been invented by men in the Church, it matters not how eminent they
be for saintliness and scholarship.
6.10 Thus
far concerning marriage itself.
6.11 But what shall we say of the
wicked laws of men by which this divinely ordained manner of life is ensnared
and tossed back and forth? Good God! it is dreadful,
to contemplate the audacity of the Roman despots, who want only tear marriages
asunder and again force them together. I ask you, is mankind given over to the
wantonness of these men, for them to mock and in every way abuse and make of
them whatever they please, for filthy lucre's sake?
6.12 There is circulating far and wide
and enjoying a great reputation, a book whose contents have been poured
together out of the cesspool of all human traditions, and whose title is,
"The Angelic Sum," though it ought rather to be "The More than
Devilish Sum." Among endless other monstrosities, which are supposed to
instruct the confessors, while they most mischievously confuse them, there are
enumerated in this book eighteen hindrances to
marriage. you will examine these with the just and unprejudiced eye of faith,
you will see that they belong to those things which the Apostle foretold:
"There shall be those that give heed to spirits of devils, speaking lies
in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry." ( 1 Timothy
4:1 ff.) What is forbidding to marry if it is not this – to invent all those hindrances and set
those snares, in order to prevent men from marrying or, if they be married, to
annul their marriage? Who gave this power to men? Granted that they were holy
men and impelled by godly zeal, why should another's holiness disturb my
liberty? why should another's zeal take me captive?
Let whoever will, be a saint and a zealot, and to his heart's content; only let
him not bring harm upon another, and let him not rob me of my liberty!
6.13 Yet I am glad that those shameful
laws have at length attained to their full measure of glory, which is this: the
Romanists of our day have through them become
merchants. What is it they sell? The shame of men and women – merchandise,
forsooth, most worthy of such merchants grown altogether filthy and obscene
through greed and godlessness. For there is nowadays no hindrance that may not
be legalised upon the intercession of mammon, so that these laws of men seem to
have sprung into existence for the sole purpose of serving those grasping and
robbing Nimrods as snares for taking money and as nets for catching souls, and
in order that that "abomination" might stand "in the holy
place," (Matthew 24:15) the Church of God, and openly sell to men the
shame of either sex, or as the Scriptures say, "shame and nakedness,"
(Leviticus 18:6) of which they had previously robbed them by means of their
laws. O worthy trade for our pontiffs to ply, instead of the ministry of the
Gospel, which in their greed and pride they despise, being delivered up to a
reprobate sense with utter shame and infamy. (Romans 1:28)
6.14 But what shall I say or do?
If I enter into details, the treatise will grow to inordinate length, for
everything is in such dire confusion one does not know where to begin, whither
to go on, or where to leave off. I know that no state is well governed by means
of laws. If the magistrate be wise, he will rule more prosperously by natural
bent than by laws. If he be not wise, he will but
further the evil by means of laws; for he will not know what use to make of the
laws nor how to adapt them to the individual case. More stress ought,
therefore, to be laid, in civil affairs, on putting good and wise men in office
than on making laws; for such men will themselves be the very best laws, and
will judge every variety of case with lively justice. And if there be knowledge
of the divine law combined with natural wisdom, then written laws will be
entirely superfluous and harmful. Above all, love needs no laws whatever.
6.15 Nevertheless I will say and do what I
can. I admonish and pray all priests and brethren, when they encounter any
hindrance from which the pope can grant dispensation and which is not expressly
contained in the Scriptures, by all means to confirm any marriage that may have
been contracted in any way contrary to the ecclesiastical or pontifical laws.
But let them arm themselves with the divine law, which says, "What God has
joined together, let no man put asunder." (Matthew 19:6) For the joining
together of a man and a woman is of divine law and is binding, however it may
conflict with the laws of men; the laws of men must give way before it without
hesitation. For if a man leaves father and mother and
cleaves to his wife, how much more will he tread underfoot the silly and wicked
laws of men, in order to cleave to his wife! And if pope, bishop or official
annul any marriage because it was contracted contrary to the laws of men, he is
antichrist, he does violence to nature, and is guilty of lese-majesty toward
God, because this word stands – "What God has joined together, let no man
put asunder." (Matthew 19:6)
6.16 Besides this, no man had the right
to frame such laws, and Christ has granted to Christians a liberty
which is above all laws of men, especially where a law of God conflicts
with them. Thus it is said in Mark 2, "The Son of
man is lord also of the Sabbath," and, "The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)Moreover, such laws were condemned beforehand by Paul, when he
foretold that there would be men forbidding to marry. (1
Timothy 4:3) Here, therefore, those cruel hindrances arising from affinity,
spiritual or legal relationship, and consanguinity must give way, so far as the
Scriptures permit, in which the second degree of consanguinity alone is prohibited. Thus it is written in Leviticus 18, in which
chapter there are twelve persons a man is prohibited from marrying; namely, his
mother, his mother-in-law, his full sister, his half-sister by either parent,
his granddaughter, his father's or mother's sister, his daughter-in-law, his
brother's wife, his wife's sister, his stepdaughter, and his uncle's wife. Here
only the first degree of affinity and the second degree of consanguinity are
forbidden; yet not without exception, as will appear on closer examination, for
the brother's or sister's daughter, or the niece, is not included in the
prohibition, although she is in the second degree. Therefore, if a marriage has
been contracted outside of these degrees, it should by no means be annulled on
account of the laws of men, since it is nowhere written in the Bible that any
other degrees were prohibited by God. Marriage itself, as of divine institution,
is incomparably superior to any laws; so that marriage should not. be annulled for the sake of the laws, rather should the laws
be broken for the sake of marriage.
6.17 That nonsense about conpaternities,
conmaternities, confraternities, consororities, and confilieties must therefore be altogether abolished, when a marriage has
been contracted. What was it but the superstition of men that invented those
spiritual relationships? If one may not marry the person one has baptised or
stood sponsor for, what right has any Christian to marry any other Christian?
Is the relationship that grows out of the external rite, or the sign, of the
sacrament more intimate that that which grows out of the blessing of the
sacrament itself? Is not a Christian man brother to a Christian woman, and is
not she his sister? Is not a baptised man the spiritual brother of a baptised
woman? How foolish we are! If a man instruct his wife in the Gospel and in
faith in Christ and thus become truly her father in Christ, would it not be right
for her to remain his wife? Would not Paul have had the right to marry a maiden
out of the Corinthian congregation, of whom he boasts that he has begotten them
all in Christ? (1 Corinthians 4:15) See, thus has Christian liberty been
suppressed through the blindness of human superstition.
6.18 There is even less in the legal
relationship, and yet they have set it above the divine right of marriage. Nor
would I recognize that hindrance which they term "disparity of
religion," and which forbids one to marry any unbaptised person, even on
condition that she become converted to the faith. Who made this prohibition? God or man? Who gave to men the power to prohibit such a
marriage? The spirits, forsooth, that speak lies in
hypocrisy, as Paul says. (1 Timothy 4:1) Of them it must be said: "The wicked have told me fables;
but not as your law." (Psalm 119:85) The heathen Patricius married the
Christian Monica, the mother of St. Augustine; why should not the same
be permitted nowadays? The same stupid, no, wicked cruelty is seen in "the
hindrance of crime," – as when a man has married a woman with whom he had
lived in adultery, or when he plotted to bring about the death of a woman's
husband in order to be able to wed the widow. I pray you, from this comes this
cruelty of man toward man, which even God never demanded? Do they pretend not
to know that Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, was wed by David, a most saintly
man, after the double crime of adultery and murder? If the divine law did this,
what do these despotic men to their fellowservants?
6.19 Another
hindrance is that which they call "the hindrance of a tie," – when a
man is bound by being befaithfulnessed to another woman. Here they decide that,
if he has had carnal knowledge of the second, the betrothal with the first
becomes null and void. This I do not understand at all I hold that he who has
befaithfulnessed himself to one woman belongs no longer to himself, and because
of this fact, by the prohibition of the divine law, he belongs to the first,
though he has not known her, even if he has known the second. For it was not in
his power to give the latter what was no longer his own; he deceived her and
actually committed adultery. But they regard the matter differently because
they pay more heed to the carnal union than to the divine command, according to
which the man, having pledged his faithfulness to the first, is bound to keep
it for ever. For whoever would give anything must give of that which is his
own. And God forbids a man to overreach or circumvent his brother in any
matter. (1 Thessalonians 4:6) This prohibition must be kept, over and above all
the traditions of all men. Therefore, the man in the above case cannot with a
good conscience live in marriage with the second woman, and this hindrance
should be completely overthrown. For if a monastic vow make a man to be no
longer his own, why does not a promise, of betrothal given and received do the
same? – since this is one of the precepts and fruits
of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), (Ephesians 5:9) while
a monastic vow is of human invention. And if a wife may claim her husband
despite the fact that he has taken a monastic vow, why may not a bride claim
her betrothed, even though he has known another? But
we said above that he who has pledged his faithfulness to a maiden ought not to
take a monastic vow, but is in duty bound to keep faith with her, which faith
he cannot break for any tradition of men, because it is commanded by God. Much
more should the man here keep faith with his first bride, since he could not pledge
his faithfulness to a second save with a lying heart, and therefore did not
really pledge it, but deceived her, his neighbor, against God's command.
Therefore, the "hindrance of error" enters in here, by which his
marriage to the second woman is rendered null and void.
6.20 The
"hindrance of ordination" also is a lying invention of men,
especially since they rant that even a contracted marriage is annulled by it.
Thus they constantly exalt their traditions above the commands of God. I do not
indeed sit in judgment on the present state of the priestly order, but I
observe that Paul charges a bishop to be the husband of one wife; (1 Timothy
3:2) hence no marriage of deacon, priest, bishop or any other order can be
annulled – although it is true that Paul knew nothing of this species of
priests, and of the orders that we have today. Perish those cursed human
traditions, which have crept into the Church only to multiply perils, sins and
evils! There exists, therefore, between a priest and his wife a true and
indissoluble marriage, approved by the divine commandment. But what if wicked
men in sheer despotism prohibit or annul it? So be it! Let it be wrong among
men; it is nevertheless right before God, Whose command has to take precedence
if it conficts with the commands of men.
6.21 An equally lying invention is that
"hindrance of public decency," by which contracted marriages are
annulled. I am incensed at that barefaced wickedness which is so ready to put
asunder what God has joined together that one may well scent antichrist in it,
for it opposes all that Christ has done and taught. What earthly reason is
there for holding that no relative of a deceased husband, even to the fourth
degree, may marry the latter's widow? That is not a judgment of public decency,
but ignorance of public decency. Why was not this judgment of public decency
found among the people of Israel, who were endowed with
the best laws, the laws of God? (Deuteronomy 25:5) On the contrary, the next of
kin was even compelled by the law of God to marry the widow of his relative.
Must the people of Christian liberty be burdened with severer laws than the
people of legal bondage? But, to make an end of these figments, rather than
hindrances – thus far there seem to me to be no hindrances that may justly
annul a contracted marriage save these: impotence of the husband, ignorance of
a previously contracted marriage, and a vow of chastity. Still, concerning the
last, I am to this. day so far from certain that I do
not know at what age such a vow is to be regarded as binding; as I also said
above in discussing the sacrament of baptism. Thus you may learn, from this one
question of marriage, how wretchedly and desperately all the activities of the
Church have been confused, hindered, ensnared, and subjected to danger through
the pestilent, ignorant and wicked traditions of men, so that there is no hope
of betterment unless, we abolish at one stroke all the laws of all men, restore
the Gospel of liberty, and by it judge and rule all things. Amen.
6.22 We have to speak, then, of sexual
impotence, that we may the more readily advise the souls that are in peril. But
first I wish to state that what I have said of hindrances is intended to apply
after a marriage has been contracted; no marriage should be annulled by any
such hindrance. But as to marriages which are to be contracted, I would briefly
repeat what I said above. Under the stress of youthful passion or of any other
necessity for which the pope grants dispensation, any brother may grant a
dispensation to another or even to himself, and following that counsel snatch
his wife out of the power of the tyrannical laws as best he can. For with what
right am I deprived of my liberty by another's
superstition and ignorance? If the pope grants a dispensation, for money, why
should not I, for my soul's salvation, grant a dispensation to myself or to my
brother? Does the pope set up laws? Let him set them up for himself, and keep
hands off my liberty; else I will take it by stealth!
6.23 Now let us discuss the matter of
impotence.
6.24 Take the following case. A woman,
wed to an impotent man, is unable to prove her husband's impotence before
court, or perhaps she is unwilling to do so with the mass of evidence and all
the notoriety which the law demands; yet she is desirous of having children or
is unable to remain continent. Now suppose I had counseled her to demand a
divorce from her husband in order to marry another, satisfied that her own and
her husband's conscience and their experience were ample testimony of his
impotence; but the husband refused his consent to this. Then suppose I should
further counsel her, with the consent of the man (who is not really her
husband, but merely a dweller under the same roof with her), to give herself to
another, say her husband's brother, but to keep this marriage secret and to
ascribe the children to the so-called putative father. The question is: Is such
a woman in a saved state? I answer, Certainly. Because
in this case the error and ignorance of the man's impotence are a hindrance to
the marriage; the tyranny of the laws permits no divorce; the woman is free
through the divine law, and cannot be compelled to remain, continent. Therefore
the man ought to yield her this right, and let another man have her as wife
whom he has only in outward appearance.
6.25
Moreover, if the man will not give his consent, or agree to this division
– rather than allow the woman to burn or to commit adultery, I should counsel
her to contract a marriage with another and flee to distant parts unknown. What
other counsel could be given to one constantly in danger from lust? Now I know
that some are troubled by the fact that then the children of this secret
marriage are not the rightful heirs of their putative father. But if it was
done with the consent of the husband, then the children will be the rightful
heirs. If, however, it was done without his knowledge or against his will, then
let unbiased Christian reason, no, let Christian charity, decide which of the
two has done the greater injury to the other. The wife alienates the
inheritance, but the husband has deceived his wife and is completely defrauding
her of her body and her life. Is not the sin of the man who wastes his wife's
body and life a greater sin than that of the woman who merely alienates the
temporal goods of her husband? Let him, therefore, agree to a divorce, or else
be satisfied with strange heirs; for by his own fault he deceived the innocence
of a maiden and defrauded her of the proper use of her body, besides giving her
a wellnigh irresistible opportunity to commit adultery. Let both be weighed in
the same scales. Certainly, by every right, deceit should fall back on the
deceiver, and whoever has done an injury must make it good. What is the
difference between such a husband and the man who holds another's wife captive
together with her husband? Is not such a tyrant compelled to support wife and
children and husband, or else to set them free? Why should not the same hold
here? Therefore I maintain that the man should be compelled either to submit to
a divorce or to support the other man's child as his heir. Doubtless this would
be the judgment of charity. In that case, the impotent man, who is not really
the husband, should support the heirs of his wife in the same spirit in which
he would at great cost wait on his wife if she fell sick or suffered some other
ill; for it is by his fault and not by his wife's that she suffers this ill.
This have I set forth to the best of my ability, for the strengthening of anxious
consciences, being desirous to bring my afflicted brethren in this captivity
what little comfort I can.
6.26 As to
divorce, it is still a moot question whether it be allowable. For my part I so greatly detest divorce that I should prefer bigamy
to it, but whether it be allowable, I do not venture to decide. Christ Himself,
the Chief Pastor, says in Matthew 5:32, "Whosoever shall
put away his wife, Matthew excepting for the cause of fornication, maketh her
commit adultery; and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth
adultery." Christ, then, permits divorce, but for the cause of fornication
only. The pope must, therefore, be in error whenever he grants a divorce for
any other cause, and no one should feel safe who has obtained a dispensation by
this temerity (not authority) of the pope. Yet it is a still greater wonder to
me, why they compel a man to remain, unmarried after bring separated from his
wife, and why they will not permit him to remarry. For if Christ pennies
divorce for the cause, of fornication and compels no one to remain unmarried,
and if Paul would rather have one marry than burn, (1 Corinthians 7:9) then He
certainly seems to permit a man to marry another woman in the stead of the one
who has been put away. Would to God this matter were thoroughly threshed out
and derided, so that counsel might be given in the infinite perils of those
who, without any fault of their own, are nowadays compelled to remain
unmarried, that is, of those whose wives or husbands have run away and deserted
them, to come back perhaps after ten years, perhaps never. This matter troubles
and distresses me; I meet cases of it every day, whether it happen by the
special malice of Satan or because of our neglect of the word of God.
6.27 I, indeed, who, alone against all,
can decide nothing in this matter, would yet greatly desire at least the
passage in 1 Corinthians 7 to be applied here – "But if the unbeliever
depart, let him depart. For a brother or sister is not under servitude in such
cases." Here the Apostle gives permission to put away the unbeliever who
departs and to set the believing spouse free to marry again. Why should not the
same hold true when a believer – that is, a believer in name, but in truth as
much an unbeliever as the one Paul speaks of – deserts his wife, especially if
he never intends to return? I certainly can see no difference between the two.
But I believe that if in the Apostle's day an unbelieving deserter had returned
and had become a believer or had promised to live again with his believing
wife, he would not have been taken back, but he too would have been given the
right to marry again. Nevertheless, in these matters I decide nothing, as I
have said, although there is nothing I would rather see decided, since nothing
at present more grievously perplexes me and many more with me. I would have
nothing decided here on the mere authority of the pope or the bishops; but if
two learned and pious men agreed in the name of Christ (Matthew 18:19 f.) and published their opinion in the spirit of Christ, I should
prefer their judgment even to such councils as are nowadays assembled, famous
only for numbers and authority, not for scholarship and saintliness. Herewith I
hang up my harp, until another and a better man shall take up this matter with
me. (Psalm 137:2).
7.1 Of this
sacrament the Church of Christ knows nothing; it is an
invention of the pope's church. Not only is there nowhere any promise of grace
attached to it, but there is not the least mention of it in the whole New Testament.
Now it is ridiculous to put forth as a sacrament of God that which cannot be
proved to have been instituted by God. I do not hold that this rite, which has
been observed for so many centuries, should be condemned; but in sacred things
I am opposed to the invention of human fictions, nor is it right to give out as
divinely instituted what was not divinely instituted, lest we become a
laughing-stock to our opponents. We ought to see to it that every article of
faith of which we boast be certain, pure, and based on
clear passages of Scripture. But that we are utterly unable to do in the case
of the sacrament under consideration.
7.2 The Church has no power to make new
divine promises, as some rant, who hold that what is
decreed by the Church is of no less authority than what is decreed by God,
since the Church is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But the Church owes
its life to the word of promise through faith, and is nourished and preserved
by this same word. That is to say, the promises of God make the Church, not the
Church the promise of God. For the Word of God is incomparably superior to the
Church, and in this Word the Church, being a creature, has nothing to decree,
ordain or make, but only to be decreed, ordained and made. For who begets his
own parent? Who first brings forth his own maker? This one thing indeed the
Church can do – it can distinguish the Word of God from the words of men; as
Augustine confesses that he believed the Gospel, moved thereto by the authority
of the Church, which proclaimed, this is the Gospel.
7.3 Not that the Church is, therefore, above the Gospel; if that were
true, she would also be above God, in whom we believe because she proclaims
that He is God. But, as Augustine elsewhere says, the truth itself lays hold on the
soul and thus renders it able to judge most certainly of all things; but the
truth it cannot judge, but is forced to say with unerring certainty that it is
the truth. For example, our reason declares with unerring certainty that three
and seven are ten, and yet it cannot give a reason why this is true, although
it cannot deny that it is true; it is taken captive by the truth and does not
so much judge the truth as it is judged by the truth. Thus it is also with the
mind of the Church, when under the enlightenment of the Spirit she judges and
approves doctrines; she is unable to prove it, and yet is most certain of
having it. (1 Corinthians 2:16) For as in philosophy no one judges general
conceptions, but all are judged by them, so it is in the Church with the mind
of the Spirit, that judges all things and is judged by none, as the Apostle
says. (1 Corinthians 2:15) But
of this another time.
7.3 Let
this then stand fast – the Church can give no promises of grace; that is the
work of God alone. Therefore she cannot institute a sacrament. But even if she
could, it yet would not follow that ordination is a sacrament. For who knows
which is the Church that has the Spirit? since when such decisions are made
there are usually only a few bishops or scholars present; it is possible that
these may not be really of the Church, and that all may err, as councils have
repeatedly erred, particularly the Council of Constance, which fell into the
most wicked error of all. Only that which has the approval of the Church universal,
and not of the Roman church alone, rests on a trustworthy foundation. I
therefore admit that ordination is a certain churchly rite, on a par with many
others introduced by the Church Fathers, such as the blessing of vases, houses,
vestments, water, salt, candles, herbs, wine, and the like. No one calls any of
these a sacrament, nor is there in them any promise. In the same manner, to
anoint a man's hands with oil, or to shave his head, and the like, is not to
administer a sacrament, since there is no promise given to those things; he is
simply prepared, like a vessel or an instrument, for a certain work.
7.4 But you will reply: "What do you say to Dionysius, who in his
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy enumerates six sacraments, among which he also includes
orders?" I answer: I am well aware that this is the one writer of
antiquity who is cited in support of the seven sacraments, although he omits
marriage and thus has only six. We read simply nothing about these
"sacraments" in the other Fathers, nor do they ever refer to them as
sacraments; for the invention of sacraments is of recent date. Indeed, to speak
more boldly, the setting so great store by this Dionysius, whoever he may have
been, greatly displeases me, for there is scarce a line of sound scholarship in
him. I ask you, by what authority and with what reasons does he establish his
assortment of arguments about the angels, in his Celestial Hierarchy? – a book over which many curious and superstitious spirits
have cudgeled their brains. If one were to read and judge fairly, is not all Shaken out of his sleeve and very like a dream? But in his
Mystic Theology, which certain most ignorant theologians greatly puff, he is
downright dangerous, being more of a Platonist than a Christian; so that, if I
had my way, no believing mind would give the least attention to these books. So
far from learning Christ in them, you will lose even what you know of Him. I
know whereof I speak. Let us rather hear Paul, that we
may learn Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2) He is the way,
the life and the truth; He is the ladder by which we come to the Father, as He
said: "No man cometh to the Father but by me." (John 14:6)
7.5 And in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, what does this Dionysius do but
describe certain churchly rites and play round them with his allegories without
proving them? just as among us the author of the book
entitled Rationale divinorum. Such allegorical studies are the work of idle
men. do you think I should find it difficult to play
with allegories round anything in creation? Did not Bonaventure by allegory
draw the liberal arts into theology? And Gerson even converted the smaller
Donatus into a mystic theologian. It would not be a difficult task for me to
compose a better hierarchy than that of Dionysius, for he knew nothing of pope,
cardinals and archbishops, and put the bishop at the top. no,
who has so weak a mind as not to be able to launch into allegories? I would not
have a theologian give himself to allegorizing until he has perfected himself
in the grammatical and literal interpretation of the Scriptures; otherwise his
theology will bring him into danger, as Origen discovered.
7.6 Therefore a thing does not need to be a sacrament simply
because Dionysius describes it. Otherwise, why not also make a sacrament of the
processions, which he describes in his book, and which continue to this day?
There will then be as many sacraments as there have been rites and ceremonies
multiplied in the Church. Standing on so unsteady a foundation, they have
nevertheless invented "characters" which they attribute to this
sacrament of theirs and which are indelibly impressed on those who are
ordained. from this do such ideas come? By what
authority, with what reasons, are they established? We do not object to their
being free to invent, say and give out whatever they please; but we also insist
on our liberty and demand that they shall not arrogate to themselves the right
to turn their ideas into articles of faith, as they have hitherto presumed to
do. It is enough that we accommodate ourselves to their rites and ceremonies
for the sake of peace; but we refuse to be bound by such things as though they
were necessary to salvation, when they are not. Let them put by their despotic
demands, and we shall yield free obedience to their opinions, and thus live at
peace with them. It is a shameful and wicked slavery for a Christian man, who
is free, to be subject to any but heavenly and divine traditions.
7.7 We
come now to their strongest argument. It is this: Christ said at the Last
Supper: "Do this in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:24) Here,
they say, Christ ordained the apostles to the priesthood. From this passage
they also concluded, among other things, that both kinds are to be administered
to the priests alone. In fine, they have drawn out of this passage whatever
they pleased, as men who might arrogate to themselves the free will to prove
anything whatever from any words of Christ, no matter where found. But is that
interpreting the words of God? Pray, answer me! Christ gives us no promise
here, but only commands that this be done in remembrance of Him. Why do they
not conclude that He also ordained priests when He laid upon them the office of
the Word and of baptism, saying, "Go ye into all the
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptising them in the
name," etc.? (Mark 16:15) (Matthew 28:19) For it
is the proper duty of priests to preach and to baptise. Or, since it is
nowadays the chief and, as they say, indispensable duty of priests to read the
canonical hours, why have they not discovered the sacrament of ordination in
those passages in which Christ, in many places and particularly in the garden,
commanded them to pray that they might not enter into temptation? (Matthew
26:41) But perhaps they will evade this argument by saying that it is not
commanded to pray; it is enough to read the canonical hours. Then it follows
that this priestly work can be proved nowhere in the Scriptures, and thus their
praying priesthood is not of God, as, indeed, it is not.
7.8 But which of the ancient Fathers claimed that in this passage priests were
ordained? from this comes this novel interpretation? I
will tell you. They have sought by this device to set up a nursery of implacable
discord, whereby clerics and laymen should be separated from each other farther
than heaven from earth, to the incredible injury of the grace of baptism and
the confusion of our fellowship in the Gospel. Here, indeed, are the roots of
that detestable tyranny of the clergy over the laity; trusting in the external
anointing by which their hands are consecrated, in the tonsure and in
vestments, they not only exalt themselves above lay Christians, who are only
anointed with the Holy Spirit, but regard them almost as dogs and unworthy to
be included with them in the Church. Hence they are bold to demand, to exact,
to threaten, to urge, to oppress, as much as they please. In short, the
sacrament of ordination has been and is a most approved device for the
establishing of all the horrible things that have been wrought hitherto and
will yet be wrought in the Church. Here Christian brotherhood has perished,
here shepherds have been turned into wolves, servants into tyrants, churchmen
into worse than worldlings.
7.9 If they were forced to grant that as many of
us as have been baptised are all priests without distinction, as indeed we are,
and that to them was committed the ministry only, yet with our consent, they
would presently learn that they have no right to rule over us except in so far
as we freely concede it. For thus it is written in 1
Peter 2:9, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a priestly
kingdom." Therefore we are all priests, as many
of us as are Christians. But the priests, as we call them, are ministers chosen
from among us, who do all that they do in our name. And the priesthood is
nothing but a ministry, as we learn from 1 Corinthians 4:1, "Let a man so
account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries
of God."
7.10 It follows from this that whoever
does not preach the Word, called by the Church to this very thing, is no priest
at all. And further, that the sacrament of ordination
can be nothing else than a certain rite of choosing preachers in the Church.
For thus is a priest defined in Malachi 2:7, "The lips of the priest shall
keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth: because he is the
angel of the Lord of hosts" You may be certain, then, that whoever is not
an angel of the Lord of hosts, or whoever is called to anything else than such
angelic service – if I may so term it – is never a priest; as Hosea says,
"Because you hast rejected knowledge, I will reject you, that you shall
not do the office of priesthood to me." (Hosea 4:6) They are also called
pastors because they are to pasture, that is, to teach. Therefore, they who are
ordained only to read the canonical hours and to offer masses are indeed
papist, but not Christian, priests, because they not only do not preach, but
are not called to preach; no, it comes to this, that such a priesthood is a
different estate altogether from the office of preaching. Thus they are
hour-priests and mass-priests, that is, a sort of living idol, having the name
of priest, while they are in reality such priests as Jeroboam ordained, in
Bethaven, of the off-scouring of the people, and not of the tribe of Levi. (1
Kings 12:31)
7.11 See, whither has the glory of the
Church departed! The whole earth is filled with priests, bishops, cardinals and
clerics, and yet not one of them preaches by virtue of his office, unless he be called to do so by another and a different call besides
his sacramental ordination. Every one thinks he is doing full justice to his
sacrament by mumbling the vain repetitions of his prescribed prayers and by
celebrating masses; moreover, by never really praying those hours, or if he
does pray them, by praying them for himself, and by offering his masses as a
sacrifice – which is the height of perversity! – while
the mass consists in the use of the sacrament. It is clear, therefore, that the
ordination which, as a sacrament, makes clerics of this sort of men, is in
truth nothing but a mere fiction, devised by men who understand nothing about
the Church, the priesthood, the ministry of the Word, or the sacraments. And as
is the sacrament, so are the priests it makes. To such errors and such
blindness has come a still worse captivity; in order to separate themselves
still farther from other Christians, whom they deem profane, they have unmanned
themselves, like the priests of Cybele, and taken upon them the burden of a
pretended celibacy.
7.12 It was
not enough for this hypocrisy and error to forbid bigamy, viz., the having of
two wives at the same time, as it was forbidden in the law, and as is the
accepted meaning of the term; but they have called it bigamy if a man married
two virgins, one after the other, or if he married a widow. no,
so holly is the holiness of this most holy sacrament, that no married man can
become a priest as long as his wife lives. And – here
we reach the very summit of holiness – even, he is prevented from entering the
priesthood, who without his knowledge or by an unfortunate chance married a
fallen woman. But if one have defiled a thousand
harlots, or ravished countless matrons and virgins, or even kept numerous
Ganymedes, that would be no hindrance to his becoming bishop or cardinal or
pope. Moreover, the Apostle's word, "the husband of one wife," (1
Timothy 3:2) must be interpreted to mean, "the
prelate of one church," and this has given rise to the incompatible
benefices." At the same time the pope, that munificent dispenser, may join
to one man three, twenty, one hundred wives – I should say churches – if he be
bribed with money or power – I should say, moved by godly charity and
constrained by the care of the churches.
7.13 O
pontiffs worthy of this holy sacrament of ordination! O princes, not of the
catholic churches, but of the synagogues, no, the black dens, of Satan!
(Revelation 2:9) I would cry out with Isaiah: (Isaiah 28:14) "Ye scornful
men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem"; and with Amos: (Amos
6:1) "Woe to you that are wealthy in Sion, and to you that have confidence
in the mountain of Samaria: ye great men, heads of the people, that go in with
state into the house of Israel." O the reproach that such monstrous
priests bring upon the Church of God! Where are there any
bishops or priests who know the Gospel, not to speak of preaching it? Why then
do they boast of being priests? Why do they desire to be regarded as holier and
better and mightier than other Christians, who are merely laymen? To read the
hours – what unlearned men, or, as the Apostle says, what men speaking with
tongues, cannot do that? (1 Corinthians 14:23) But to pray the hours – that
belongs to monks, hermits, and men in private life, all of them laymen. he duty of the priest is to preach, and if he does not
preach he is as much a priest as a painted man is a man. Does ordaining such
babbling priests make one a bishop? Or blessing churches and bells? Or
confirming boys? Certainly not. Any> deacon or
layman could do as much. The ministry of the Word makes the priest and the
bishop.
7.14 Therefore my advice is: Flee, all
ye that would live in safety; begone, young men, and do not enter upon this
holy estate, unless you are determined to preach the Gospel, and are able to
believe that you are not made one whit better than the laity through this
sacrament of ordination! For to read the hours is nothing, and to offer mass is
to receive the sacrament. What then is there left to you that every layman does
not have? Tonsure and vestments? A sorry priest,
forsooth, who consists of tonsure and vestment! Or the oil poured on your
fingers? But every Christian is anointed and sanctified with the oil of the
Holy Spirit, both in body and soul, and in ancient times touched the sacrament
with his hands no less than the priests do now. But
today our superstition counts it a great crime if the laity touch either the
bare chalice or the corporale; not even a nun who is a pure virgin would be
permitted to wash the palls and sacred linens of the altar. O God! how the sacrosanct sanctity of this sacrament of ordination
has grown and grown. I anticipate that ere long the laity will not be permitted
to touch the altar except when they offer their money. I can scarce, contain
myself when I contemplate the wicked tyrannies of these desperate men, who with
their farcical and childish fancies mock and overthrow the liberty and the
glory of the Christian religion.
7.15 Let every one, therefore, who knows
himself to be a Christian be assured of this, and
apply it to himself – that we are all priests, and there is no difference
between, us; that is to say, we have the same power in respect to the Word and
all the sacraments. (Ordination, the Rite of Choosing Preachers) However, no
one may make use of this power except by the consent of the community or by the
call of a superior. For what is the common property of all, no individual may
arrogate to himself, unless he be called. And therefore this sacrament of
ordination, if it have any meaning at all, is nothing else than a certain rite
whereby one is called to the ministry of the Church. Furthermore, the
priesthood is property nothing but the ministry of the Word, mark you, of the
Word – not of the law, but of the> Gospel. And the diaconate is not the
ministry of reading the Gospel or the Epistle, as is the present practice, but
the ministry of distributing the Church's alms to the poor, so that the priests
may be relieved of the burden of temporal matters and may give themselves more
freely to prayer and the Word. For this was the purpose of
the institution of the diaconate, as we read in Acts 6:4. Whoever,
therefore, does not know or preach the Gospel, is not only not a priest or
bishop, but he is a plague of the Church, who under the false title of priest
or bishop – in sheep's clothing, forsooth – oppresses the Gospel and plays the
wolf in the Church.
7.16 Therefore, unless those priests and
bishops with whom the Church is now filled work out their salvation, in some
other way, that is, realize that they are not priests or bishops and bemoan the
fact that they bear the name of an office whose duties they either do not know
or cannot fulfil, and thus with prayers and tears lament their wretched
hypocritical life – unless they do this, they are truly the people of eternal
perdition, and the words of Isaiah are fulfilled in them: Isaiah 5
"Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge,
and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up
with thirst. Therefore has hell enlarged her soul and opened her mouth without
any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and
generous ones shall go down into it." What a dreadful word for our age, in
which Christians are sucked down into so deep an abyss!
7.17 Since, therefore, what we call the
priesthood is a ministry, so far as we can learn from
the Scriptures, I cannot understand why one who has been made a priest cannot
again become a layman; for the sole difference between him and a layman is his
ministry. But to depose a man from the ministry is so far from impossible that
it is even now the usual penalty imposed upon guilty priests; they are either
suspended for a season or permanently deprived of their office. For that lying
"indelible character" has long since become a laughing-stock. I admit
that the pope imparts this character, but Christ knows nothing of it; and a
priest who is consecrated with it becomes thereby the life-long servant and
captive, not of Christ, but of the pope; as it is in our day. Moreover, unless
I am greatly mistaken, if this sacrament and this lie fall, the papacy itself
with its characters will scarcely survive; our joyous liberty will be restored
to us; we shall realize that we are all equal by every right, and having cast
off the yoke of tyranny, shall know that he who is a Christian has Christ, and
that he who has Christ has all things that are Christ's and is able to do all things.
(Philippians 4:13) Of this I will write more, and more tellingly, as soon as I
perceive that the above has displeased my friends the papists.
8.1 To the
rite of anointing the sick our theologians have made two additions which are
worthy of them; first, they call it a sacrament, and secondly, they make it the
last sacrament. So that it is now the sacrament of extreme unction, which may
be administered only to such as are at the point of death. Being such subtle
dialecticians, perchance they have done this in order to relate it to the first
unction of baptism and the two succeeding unctions of confirmation and
ordination. But here they are able to cast in my
teeth, that in the case of this sacrament there are, on the authority of James
the Apostle, both promise and sign, which, as I have all along maintained,
constitute a sacrament. For does not James say: (James 5:14 f.) "Is any man
sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray
over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of
faith shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven
him." There, say they, you have the promise of the forgiveness of sins,
and the sign of the oil.
8.2 But I reply: If ever there was a mad conceit, here is one indeed. I will
say nothing of the fact that many assert with much probability that this
Epistle is not by James the Apostle, nor worthy of an apostolic spirit,
although, whoever be its author, it has come to be esteemed as authoritative.
But even if the Apostle James did write it, I yet should say, no Apostle has
the right on his own authority to institute a sacrament, that is, to give a
divine promise with a sign attached; for this belongs to Christ alone. Thus Paul
says that he received from the Lord the sacrament of the Eucharist, (1
Corinthians 11:23) and that he was not
sent to baptise but to preach the Gospel. (1 Corinthians 1:17) And we read
nowhere in the Gospel of this sacrament of extreme unction. But let us also
waive that point. Let us examine the words of the Apostle, or whoever was the
author of the Epistle, and we shall at once see how little heed these
multipliers of sacraments have given to them.
8.3 In the first place, then, if they believe the Apostle's words to be
true and binding, by what right do they change and contradict them? Why do they
make an extreme and a particular kind of unction of that which the Apostle
wished to be general? For he did not desire it to be an extreme unction or
administered only to the dying; but he says quite generally: "If any man
be sick" – not, "If any man be dying." I care not what learned
discussions Dionysius has on this point in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; the
Apostle's words are clear enough, on which words he as well as they rely,
without, however, following them. It is evident, therefore, that they have
arbitrarily and without any authority made a sacrament and an extreme unction
out of the misunderstood words of the Apostle, to the detriment of all other
sick persons, whom they have deprived of the benefit of the unction which the
Apostle enjoined.
8.4 But what follows is still better. The Apostle's promise expressly declares
that the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him
up. The Apostle commands us to anoint the sick man and to pray, in order that
he may be healed and raised up; that is, that he may not die, and that it may
not be an extreme unction. This is proved also by the prayers which are said,
during the anointing, for the recovery of the one who is sick. But they say, on
the contrary, that the unction must be administered to none but the dying; that
is, that they may not be healed and raised up. If it were not
so serious a matter, who could help laughing at this beautiful, apt and sound
exposition of the Apostle's words? Is not the folly of the sophists,
here shown in its true colors? As here, so in many other places, they affirm
what the Scriptures deny, and deny what they affirm. Why should we not give
thanks to these excellent magisters of ours? I therefore spoke truth when I
said they never conceived a crazier notion than this?
8.5 Furthermore,
if this unction is a sacrament it must necessarily be, as they say, an
effective sign of that which it signifies and promises. Now it promises health
and recovery to the sick, as the words plainly say: "The prayer of faith
shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up." But who does
not see that this promise is seldom if ever fulfilled? Scarce one in a thousand
is restored to health, and when one is restored nobody believes that it came
about through the sacrament, but through the working of nature or the medicine;
for to the sacrament they ascribe the opposite power. What shall we say then?
Either the Apostle lies in making this promise or else this unction is no
sacrament. For the sacramental promise is certain; but this promise deceives in
the majority of cases. Indeed – and here again we recognize the shrewdness and
foresight of these theologians – for this very reason they would have it to be
extreme unction, that the promise should not stand; in other words, that the
sacrament should be no sacrament. For if it is extreme unction, it does not
heal, but gives way to the disease; but if it heals, it cannot be extreme
unction. Thus, by the interpretation of these magisters, James is shown to have
contradicted himself, and to have instituted a sacrament in order not to
institute one; for they must have an extreme unction just to make untrue what
the Apostle intends, namely, the healing of the sick. If that is not madness,
pray what is?
8.6 These
people exemplify the word of the Apostle in 1 Timothy
1:7, "Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither the things
they say, nor whereof they affirm." Thus they read and follow all things
without judgment. With the same thoughtlessness they
have also found auricular confession in our Apostle's words – "Confess
your sins one to another." (James 5:16) But they
do not observe the command of the Apostle, that the priests of the church be
called, and prayer be made for the sick. Scarce a single priestling is sent
nowadays, although the Apostle would have many present, not because of the
unction but of the prayer. Wherefore he says: "The prayer of faith shall
save the sick man," etc. I have my doubts, however, whether he would have
us understand priests when he says presbyters, that is, elders. For one who is
an elder is not therefore a priest or minister; so that the suspicion is justified
that the Apostle desired the older and graver men in the Church to visit the
sick; these should perform a work of mercy and pray in faith and thus heal him.
Still it cannot be denied that the ancient churches were ruled by elders,
chosen for this purpose, without these ordinations and consecrations, solely on
account of their age and their long experience.
8.7 Therefore,
I take it, this unction is the same as that which the
Apostles practiced, in Mark 6:13, "They anointed with
oil many that were sick, and healed them." It was a ceremony of the early
Church, by which they wrought miracles on the sick, and which has long since
ceased; even as Christ, in the last chapter of Mark, gave them that believe the
power to take up serpents, to lay hands on the sick, etc. (Mark 16:17) It is a
wonder that they have not made sacraments also of these things; for they have
the same power and promise as the words of James. Therefore, this extreme –
that is, this fictitious – unction is not a sacrament, but a counsel of James,
which whoever will may use, and it is derived from Mark 6, as I have shown. I
do not believe it was a counsel given to all sick persons, (Romans 5:3) for the
Church's infirmity is her glory and death is gain; (Philippians 1:21) but it
was given only to such as might bear their sickness impatiently and with little
faith. These the Lord allowed to remain in the Church,
in order that miracles and the power of faith might be manifest in them.
8.8 For this very contingency James provided with care and foresight by attaching
the promise of healing and the forgiveness of sins not to the unction, but to
the prayer of faith. For he says: "And the prayer of faith shall save the
sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be
forgiven him." A sacrament does not demand prayer or faith on the part of
the minister, since even a wicked person may baptise and consecrate without
prayer; a, sacrament depends solely on the promise and institution of God, and
requires faith on the part of him who receives it. But where is the prayer of
faith in our present use of extreme unction? Who prays over the sick one in
such faith as not to doubt that he will recover? Such a prayer of faith James
here describes, of which he said in the beginning of his Epistle: (James 1:6)
"But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering." And Christ says of it:
"Whatsoever you ask, believe that you shall receive and it shall be done
to you." (Mark 11:24)
8.9 If
such prayer were made, even today, over a sick man –
that is, prayer made in full faith by older, grave and saintly men – it is
beyond all doubt that we could heal as many sick as we would. For what could
not faith do? But we neglect, this faith, which the
authority of the Apostle demands above all else. By presbyters – that is, men
preeminent by reason of their age and their faith – we understand the common
herd of priests. Moreover, we turn the daily or voluntary unction into an
extreme unction, and finally, we not only do not effect the result promised by
the Apostle, namely, the healing of the sick, but we make it of none effect by
striving after the very opposite. And yet we boast that our sacrament, no, our
figment, is established and proved by this saying of the Apostle, which is
diametrically opposed to it. What theologians we are!
8.10 Now I do not condemn this our sacrament of extreme unction, but I firmly deny
that it is what the Apostle James prescribes; for his unction agrees with ours
neither in form, use, power nor purpose. Nevertheless; we shall number it among
those sacraments which we have instituted, such as the blessing and sprinkling
of salt and holy water. For we cannot deny that every creature is sanctified by
the word and by prayer, (1 Timothy 4:4 f.) as the Apostle Paul teaches us. We
do not deny, therefore, that forgiveness of sins and peace are granted through
extreme unction; not because it is a sacrament divinely instituted, but because
he who receives it believes that these blessings are granted to him. For the
faith of the recipient does not err, however much the minister may err. For one
who baptises or absolves in jest, that is, does not absolve so far as the
minister is concerned, does yet truly absolve and baptise if the person he
baptises or absolves believe. How much more will one who administers extreme
unction confer peace, even though he does not really confer peace, so far as his ministry is concerned, since there is no
sacrament there. The faith of the one anointed receives even that which the
minister either could not or did not intend to give; it is sufficient for him
to hear and believe the Word. For whatever we believe we shall receive, that we
do really receive, it >matters not what the minister may do or not do, or
whether he dissemble or jest. The saying of Christ stands fast – "All
things are possible to him that believe," (Mark 9:23) and, "Be it to you
even as you hast believed." (Matthew 8:13) But in treating the sacraments
our sophists say nothing at all of this faith, but only babble with all their
might of the virtues of the sacraments themselves – "ever learning, and
never attaining to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7)
8.11 Still it was a good thing that
this unction was made extreme unction, for, thanks to that, it has been
disturbed and subjected least of all the sacraments by tyranny and greed. This
one last mercy, forsooth, has been left to the dying – they may freely be
anointed, even without confession and communion. If it had remained a practice
of daily occurrence, especially if it had conferred health on the sick, even
without taking away sins, how many worlds would not the pontiffs have under
their control today? For through the one sacrament of penance and through the
power of the keys, as well as through the sacrament of ordination, they have
become such mighty emperors and princes. But now it is a fortunate thing that
they despise the prayer of faith, and therefore do not heal any sick, and that
they have made for themselves, out of an ancient ceremony, a brand-new
sacrament.
9.1 Let this suffice now for these four sacraments. I know how it
will displease those who believe that the number and use of the sacraments are
to be learned not from the sacred Scriptures, but from the Roman See. As though
the Roman See had given those sacraments and had not rather got them from the
lecture halls of the universities, to which it is unquestionably indebted for
whatever it has. The papal despotism would not have attained its present
position, had it not taken over so many things from the universities. For there
was scarce another of the celebrated bishoprics that had so few learned
pontiffs; only in violence, intrigue, and superstition has it hitherto
surpassed the rest. For the men who occupied the Roman See a thousand years ago
differ so vastly from those who have since come into power, that one is
compelled to refuse the name of Roman pontiff either to the former or to the
latter.
9.2 There
are yet a few other things it might seem possible to regard as sacraments;
namely, all those to which a divine promise has been given,
such as prayer, the Word, and the cross. Christ promised, in many places, that those who pray should be heard; especially in
Luke 11, where He invites us in many parables to pray. Of the Word He says:
"Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." (Luke
11.28) And who will tell how often He promises aid and glory to such as are
afflicted, suffer, and are cast down? no, who will
recount all the promises of God? The whole Scripture is concerned with
provoking us to faith; now driving us with precepts and threats, now drawing us
with promises and consolations. Indeed, whatever things are written are either
precepts or promises; the precepts humble the proud with their demands, the
promises exalt the humble with. their forgiveness.
9.3 Nevertheless,
it has seemed best to restrict the name of sacrament to such promises as have
signs attached to them. The remainder, not being bound to signs, are bare
promises. Hence there are, strictly speaking, but two sacraments in the Church of God – baptism and bread; for
only in these two do we find both the divinely instituted sign and the promise
of forgiveness of sins. The sacrament of penance, which I added to these two, lacks the divinely instituted visible sign, and is, as I
have said, nothing but a return to baptism. Nor can the scholastics say that
their definition fits penance, for they too ascribe to the sacrament a visible
sign, which is to impress upon the senses the form of that which it effects
invisibly. But penance, or absolution, has no such sign; wherefore they are
constrained by their own definition, either to admit that penance is not a
sacrament, and thus to reduce the number of sacraments, or else to bring
forward another definition.
9.4 Baptism,
however, which we have applied to the whole of life, will truly be a sufficient
substitute for all the sacraments we might need as long as we live. And the
bread is truly the sacrament of the dying; for in it we commemorate the passing
of Christ out of this world, that we may imitate Him. Thus we may apportion
these two sacraments as follows: baptism belongs to the beginning and the
entire course of life, the bread belongs to the end and to death. And the
Christian should use them both as long as he is in this poor body, until, fully
baptised and strengthened, he passes out of this world and is born to the new
life of eternity, to eat with Christ in the Kingdom of His Father, as He
promised at the Last Supper – "Amen I say to you, I will not drink from
henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of
God." (Matthew 26:29) Thus He seems clearly to have instituted the
sacrament of the bread with a view to our entrance into the life to come. Then,
when the meaning of both sacraments is fulfilled, baptism and bread will cease.
9.5 Herewith I conclude this prelude, and freely and gladly offer it to all pious
souls who desire to know the genuine sense of the Scriptures and the proper use
of the sacraments. For it is a gift of no mean importance, to know the things
that are given us, as it is said in 1 Corinthians 2, and what use we ought to
make of them. Endowed with this spiritual judgment, we shall not mistakenly
rely on that which does not belong here. These two things our theologians never
taught us, no, I think they took particular pains to conceal them from us. If I
have not taught them, I certainly did not conceal them, and have given occasion
to others to think out something better. It has at least been my endeavor to
set forth these two things. Nevertheless, not all can do all things. To the
godless, on the other hand, and those who in obstinate tyranny force on us
their own teachings inas God's representative's, I
confidently and freely oppose these pages, utterly indifferent to their
senseless fury. Yet I wish even them a sound mind, and do not despise their
efforts, but only distinguish them from such as are sound and truly Christian.
9.6 I hear
a rumor of new bulls and papal curses sent out against me, in which I am urged to recant or be declared a heretic. If that is
true, I desire this book to be a portion of the recantation I shall make; so
that these tyrants may not complain of having had their pains for nothing. The
remainder I will publish ere long, and it will, please Christ, be such as the
Roman See has hitherto neither seen nor heard. I shall give ample proof of my
obedience. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
9.7 Why
doth that impious Herod fear
When told
that Christ the King is near?
He takes
not earthly realms away,
Who gives
the realms that ne'er decay.
This
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Please direct any comments or
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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Walther Library
Concordia Theological Seminary
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