God, we praise you, Lord, we praise you; You, eternal Father, the whole world honors, All the angels, the heavens and all the mighty. Cherubim and seraphim sing to you loudly without ceasing:
Holy, holy, holy is God, the Lord of hosts.
Heaven and earth is full of your glorious majesty.
You are praised by the glorious assembly of the apostles
And the praiseworthy bunch of prophets, Also the pure martyrs crowd.
You are praised by the Holy Church in all the world, You, Father, who are of immeasurable majesty,
Glory also to your right united Son and to the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.
You are, O Christe, a King of honors, You are the eternal Son of the Father.
You did not spare the Virgin's body to become man and redeem us.
You have overcome the sting of death.
and opened the kingdom of heaven to the believers.
You sit at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father
And will come a judge, as faith hopes.
So we ask you to come to the aid of your servants, whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.
Help us to be endowed with eternal glory together with your saints.
Help your people, O Lord, and bless your inheritance.
Guide them and lift them up forever.
We praise you every day.
We praise your name forever and ever.
May You, O Lord, graciously protect us from sins this day.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us.
Let your goodness be upon us as we hope in you.
We hope in you, O Lord, let us never be put to shame.
(1) I have experienced and noticed in all the histories of all Christendom that all those who have rightly held and kept the main article of Jesus Christ have remained fine and secure in the right Christian faith. And even if they have erred and sinned in other ways, they have been preserved in the end. For whoever stands right and firm in this, that Jesus Christ is true God and man, died for us and rose from the dead, all other articles fall to him and stand firmly with him, so certain is it that St. Paul says, Eph. 1, 22: Christ is the chief possession, the foundation, the ground and the whole sum; to whom and under whom all things are gathered and found, and in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and understanding, Col. 2, 3. He also says himself, Joh. 15, 5: "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit"; Luc. 11, 23: "He that is not with me is against me, and he that is not with me is against me.
who does not gather with me, scatters" etc. For thus it is decreed, says St. Paul, Col. 2, 9, that in Jesus Christ dwells bodily, or personally, the whole complete Godhead; so that whoever does not find or get God in Christ, shall never have nor find God apart from Christ, even if he goes beyond heaven, among the nations, out of the world. For here I will dwell, says God, in this humanity, born of Mary the Virgin etc. If you believe it, good for you! If not, as you wish; your unbelief will not change anything, and Christ will remain well before you with all his believers, as he has remained until now against all the power of the devil and the world.
2. again, I have also noticed that all error, heresy, idolatry, vexation, abuse, and wickedness in the church originally came from the fact that this Article
or part of the faith of Jesus Christ has been despised or lost. And if one looks at it in the light and rightly, all heresies fight against the dear article of Jesus Christ, as Simeon says of him, Luc. 2, 34: that he is set for the fall and resurrection of many in Israel and for the goal, which is contradicted; and Isaias, Cap. 8, 14, long before proclaimed him as a "rock of offence and stumbling". For that which stumbles certainly stumbles against this rock, which lies in everyone's way and is rejected by the builders, as he himself shows from the 118th Psalm, v. 22; that also St. John in his epistle, 2 John v. 7, gives no other nor more certain sign to recognize the false and counterchristian spirits, except where they deny Jesus Christ. For they have all wished to glory in Him, and yet have brought shame upon Him.
Some have attacked his divinity, and have done so in various ways: some have said that he is no more than another man and no God at all; some that he is one person with the Father, and that the Father suffered for us; but some that he is a creature above all angels and is to be called such a God, through whom all other creatures were created; but not a true, natural, eternal God with the Father. Wunder, Wunder siehet man, wie die spitzigen Köpfe sich hier verdreht und versucht haben, daß sie ja nicht mußten Christum als einen rechten wahren GOtt glauben, und haben diesen Artikel und die Schrift immer wollen mit ihrer Vernunft messen, fassen und meistern. But he has passed, and they have all passed away; although the devil has sown his seed in the hearts of the unbelievers, his children, until Mahomet has come, who has almost deceived all the world from Christ in the morning.
Some have attacked his humanity and played the game strangely enough. The Manichaeans said that a shadow had come through Mary like a ghost, which did not have the right body and soul. Some said that he had no soul, but that the divinity ruled the body instead of the soul. Some, that he was not Mary's true natural son; and the Jews think themselves wise men, that they can say he was of Joseph.
and among them some so shamefully that it is not to be said. But they have done it exceedingly well, when they reason, how in the Godhead there cannot be three persons; for they cannot be brothers nor friends, otherwise they would not know how to reckon, how there could be three equal persons. O perceptive people! who judge God's inscrutable, eternal being according to mortal men or dogs. And summa: the devil can have no peace where the dear Christ is preached according to the first symbol: that he is God and man, died for us and rose again; it is the seed of the woman that bruises his head and bites him in the heel, therefore the enmity does not cease until the last day.
And what have we, the last greatest saints, done in the papacy? We have confessed that he is God and man, but that he is our Savior, as having died for us and risen from the dead, we have denied and persecuted with all our might, and have not yet ceased. Some have taught that he died for original sin alone, and that we must do enough for the others ourselves. But some have said that if we sin after baptism, Christ is no longer of any use to us. Then they invented the saints' worship, pilgrimage, purgatory, masses, monasteries, and an infinite number of vermin, so that we would want to atone for Christ Himself, as if He were not our intercessor, but our judge before God. And even now, those who want to be the best Christians and boast of the holy church, burn the others and bathe themselves in innocent blood, consider this to be the best teaching, that we obtain grace and salvation through our works. And Christ has no other glory in us than that he began it; but we are the heroes who accomplish it with merit. Christ must be called dead for us, for the beginning and forgiveness of sins, but we may obtain salvation by works.
(6) So the devil has to do and attacks Christ with three heads of armies. One will not let him be God; the other will not let him be man; the third will not let him do what he has done. Each of the three wants to bring Christ to nothing.
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For what is the use of confessing that he is God, if you do not also believe that he is man? for in this you do not have the whole of Christ, but a specter of the devil. What is the use of confessing that he is man, if you do not also believe that he is God? What is the use of confessing that he is God and man, if you do not also believe that he has become and done everything for you? Just as it did not help those who confessed that he died for us etc., and yet did not believe that he was God - like the Arians - or not man - like the Manichaeans. Truly all three parts must be believed, namely: that he was God; item, that he was man; item, that he became such a man for us, that is, as the first symbol says: conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary the Virgin, suffered, crucified, died and rose again etc. If one piece is missing, then all pieces are missing; for faith should and must be whole and round; even though it can be weak and challenged, it should and must be whole and not false. To be weak does no harm, but to be false is eternal death.
(7) From the third house there will come, and there are already many, who will not believe that Christ has risen from the dead, nor that he sits at the right hand of God, and what more of Christ follows in faith, they will push out the bottom of the barrel and put an end to the game. For with this the whole Christ will perish; and if the world think nothing of the life to come, then Christ is nothing. For he who does not hope for the life to come has no more need of Christ than the cows and other animals of paradise, because Christ's kingdom is not on earth, nor can it be, as he himself confessed before Pilate, John 18:36: "My kingdom is not of the world" etc. Such faith began in Rome in the pope's court, and the same leaven leavened all the clergy, from the cardinals to the altarists. They may say that Christ is God and man and has suffered, and they also rebuke the old heretics, because it carries money, honor and power, but it proves that they are not serious,
that they think nothing of the resurrection and eternal life.
8 These are called epicureans by the pagans; the poets consider them sows and call them sows. Christ also found such saints among his people when he came to earth, and in the Gospel they are called the Σαδδυυχαΐυι or Sadducees,
How much more will he find the world full of them when he comes from heaven, and will not be simple tame swine, but completely wild swine, who will not only despise God, but also have no reason nor human fear. For he will come at midnight, when it is darkest and the people are most angry, as it is fitting to be at the end of the world, just as he came in the Flood, in Egypt, over Babylon etc.
(9) Now here are some disgraceful, shameful people who can mockingly accuse holy Christianity of having so much discord, sectarianism, error, heresy, and trouble, as if the teaching of the gospel should be considered rightly wrong and unjust, because Christianity should be united and peaceful. These are wise and excellent people who can teach the Holy Spirit how to govern the Christian church. Yes, dear one, if the devil did not want to bite Christ's heels or had to let him, it would be easy to have such a quiet, peaceful church. But now that he is Christ's enemy and wreaks war, sectarianism, and sedition in his church without ceasing, great violence is done to the dear church by blaming it for such strife and desolate nature, which it does not do, but must suffer. Why are we Christians not also blamed for the fact that there is such strife and bloodshed between us and the Turk in the world? It is said that no one can have peace longer than his neighbor wants it. The dear church must be unpeaceful, if it does not want to hear the enemy of its Lord Jesus Christ; how should it do otherwise to him? The heel-biter, the devil, will not rest, nor give peace to his head-biter, so the head-biter, our Lord, will not suffer such heel-biter. Be thou now wise and prudent, and meddle thou in this strife; what matter, thou shalt receive Scheidemann's reward for it, that
Christ condemns you and the devil tears you apart. Therefore, let it go as it goes, do not mix between door and hinge, you will not get along with Christ and Belial, the enmity is sworn too hard to each other, one must perish in the end and the other must remain, nothing else will come of it.
(10) Yes, there was good peace and tranquility in the priesthood before, when people were walking in harmony; but now so many factions and various spirits have arisen that people are going astray and cannot have peace. In the name of God! Who is holding the other? Who is asking you? Stay with the pope or run to him again. Our doctrine is not sufficient for your sake; we will be able to do without you in the end, whether God wills it or not. Christ himself confesses, Luke 11:21, that where he is not, the devil is silent and leaves people in good peace, and says: "If the strong-armed man keeps his court, his own remains in peace. But when a stronger man comes upon him," etc. no doubt peace ceases, and a rumbling arises, until he is overcome, and must give up his armor and spoil.
(11) Before Christ's coming, the world was as full of various idols as no dog is full of fleas around Saint John's day, so that it was teeming and swarming with idols everywhere; no devil drove out another, no idol stepped on another's head, and no one bit another's heel; they could well live side by side and get along with each other. So the Romans also gathered all the idols from all over the world and built a church, which they called Pantheon, the church of all the gods, because the worldly lords wanted to have all the gods in their city. But when this true God, Jesus Christ, came, they would not suffer him. Is it not a strange thing to accept all gods and to reject and persecute only this one? The others are all quiet and keep peace among themselves; but when this one comes, the game and the discord arise, then all the gods want to become mad together with their servants, the Romans; they kill apostles, martyrs and everything that may call this Christ; they do no harm to the servants of the other gods, but all honor and virtue.
12 If Christ had also been a devil, like the other idols, how gladly and gloriously would the devils have accepted and worshipped him beside them. But since they all rage and rage against him, they confess that he must be the right one God, who kicks them on the head and storms their court, overcomes them, and hands out their household goods. Then they cry out and bite him in the heel, blame him for causing strife in Rome and in all the world, and think they are doing great service to God by persecuting him so fiercely and shedding so much blood. Of course, if we do what the devil wants and let Christ go, we have good peace before him; for he can well leave us all kinds of idolatry and error, but without this his head-holder, whom he cannot suffer.
13 Under the papacy, the world was as full of sects as it had been among the pagans. There are so many orders, monasteries, churches, pilgrimages, brotherhoods, etc., that they cannot be counted. All of them were at peace with each other and increased daily, none of them outbid the others, even though some of them were enemies of each other. But the pope has confirmed them all, and they have been called holy orders, holy estates, holy pillars, holy lights of Christendom. But now the gospel comes and preaches of the one general order of Christianity, which in Christ is one body, without sects; for here, says St. Paul, Gal. 3:28, there is no Jew, no Greek, no barefooter, no Carthusian etc., but all are one, and in one Christ: therefore the holy orders rage and rage against this one order of Christ, and against none else; thus they confess that they are the orders of the church and of the devil, and that this order must be the one true order.
14 If we had started a new and different order, as their orders are, this would not have been called an innovation; the pope would have confirmed it immediately, and the others would have gladly accepted it and honored and promoted it with all silence and peace. But now we again praise the general order of Christ, that it is the best and holiest, yes, the only true holy order, so that
we tread on the head of the serpent; he will not and cannot suffer this, bites at the heel of Christ and cries out through his holy fathers in his sects that we are causing strife, unrest and turmoil. Indeed, if we would let the common order of Christ go and teach what would please the rat king and rat king, the pope, together with his sects, we would have peace with all honors.
15 St. Bernard speaks about the saying of Isaiah, Cap. 38, 17: Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima, that is: "In peace my sorrow is greatest of all": let the church never be worse than when it has peace and tranquility. And is also the truth, if the Christians are not in battle with the devil or heel-biter, it is not a good sign. For it means that the heel-biter has peace and his will. But if the heel-biter rages and is not at peace, it is a sign that he is to be touched, and that Christ is storming his court. Therefore, whoever wants to see or know the Christian church in such a way that it stands in quiet peace without any cross, without heresy, without mobs, will never see it again or must regard the false church of the devil as the true church. Christ Himself says, Matth. 18, 7: "Aversions must come, but woe to him through whom they come." And St. Paul, 1 Cor. 11, 19: "There must be heresies or mobs, so that those who are proven may be revealed"; also, the Lord's Prayer must first be taken away, in which we pray that His name be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done, and that we not fall into temptation etc. When there will be no more blasphemous teaching under God's name, it is time to stop praying: Hallowed be thy name, let thy kingdom come etc.
16 But they do not listen and are always angry for and for, wanting to make a church as they would like it, quietly and peacefully. Again, God does not ask about their anger, but if they are still angry, he goes away and makes the church the way he wants it, until they keep neither church nor windows, neither lime nor stones in it, as happened to the Jews in Jerusalem with their temple. Therefore you must
Father-Ours thus read: your name is already sanctified; your kingdom has come; your will is done; that is, we are holy and perfect, no longer in need of forgiveness of sins, nor protection against temptation. For they do not want to have trouble, sects or unrest in their church and do not want to suffer the serpent in their paradise, nor the devil among the children of God, Job 1, 6. Let them go and walk according to their heart's conceit, as Psalm 81, 13. says. Let us come back to our symbols and stay with them.
(17) And indeed, we Christians are not so senseless or without all reason, as the Jews regard us, who consider us to be vain mad geese and ducks, as if we could not feel, nor realize, how foolish it is to believe that God is man and that in the one Godhead there are three different persons. No, praise God, we feel well that such a doctrine does not want nor can go into reason; we do not need a high Jewish reason to show us such, we believe such knowingly and willingly. We also confess and experience that, where the Holy Spirit does not shine into the heart through reason, it is not possible to grasp or believe such an article and to remain with it, but there must remain a Jewish, hopeful, arrogant reason, which mocks and ridicules such an article, and thus sets itself up as judge and master over the divine being, which it has never seen nor can see, nor does it know what it judges or what it writes or says about; for God "dwells in a light that no one can approach," 1 Tim. 6, 16; but he must come to us, yet hidden in the lanterns, and, as Jn. 1, 18. says: "No one has ever seen God, the Son in the Father's heart has revealed it to us"; and Moses speaks before, 2 Mos. 33, 20.: "No man can see me and live."
(18) Therefore, let us take some sayings from the Scriptures to confirm this article, especially in the part where St. Athanasius distinguishes the three persons thus: The Father is not born of anyone, nor made, nor created. The Son is not made, nor created, but born of the Father. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and
Son not born, nor created, but proceeding. For the Scripture describes the Son as being born of the Father, Ps. 2:7: "The Lord said to me, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you,'" or born. And Christ describes the Holy Spirit, John 15:26, thus: "When the Comforter shall come, whom I will send unto you, the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me." There we hear that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son^ but a messenger is also called proceeding. Just as the Son is born of the Father and yet does not fall from the Godhead, but remains in the same Godhead with the Father and is One God with Him; so the Holy Spirit goes forth from the Father and is sent by the Son, and does not fall from the Godhead either, but remains with the Father and the Son in the same Godhead and is One God with both.
(19) Therefore this is a very different birth from man's birth, and a very different going forth from man's going forth. For a man born of another becomes not only a special person of his own from his father, but also a special being of his own, and does not remain in his father's being, nor does the father remain in his son's being. But here the son is born into another person, and yet remains in his father's nature, and the father in the son's nature; thus they separate according to the persons, but remain in one unseparated and undivided nature. So when one man goes out from another and is sent, not only do the persons separate from one another, but also the essence, and one comes far from the other. But here the Holy Spirit goes out from the Father and the Son, just as he is sent from the Father and the Son, and separates into another person, but still remains in the essence of the Father and the Son, and the Father and the Son in the essence of the Holy Spirit, that is, all three persons in one unified Godhead.
20 Therefore, theologians call such a birth of the Son an indwelling birth, which does not fall out of the Godhead, but comes from the Father alone and remains in the Godhead. Thus, the Holy Spirit's origin is called a
The end that does not come out of the Godhead, but only from the Father and the Son, and remains in the Godhead. How this happens we are to believe, for it is not known even to the angels, who see it with joy without ceasing: and all who want to understand it have their necks broken over it. It is enough that we may catch a certain difference of persons with faith, namely, that the Father is born of no man, but the Son of the Father, but the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son. For this going forth is spoken of as a messenger or ambassador goes forth, even as the birth of the Son is spoken of as a man begotten of the Father.
(21) The Son and the Holy Spirit keep and have the same name, since they reveal themselves to us apart from the Godhead in the creatures. For the Son is born of his mother in the flesh and is also called "Son" and born here; and yet he is the same Son of God in both births. And the Holy Spirit goes out bodily, as in the form of a dove, in fiery tongues, in a strong wind, etc., and is also called here a messenger, and yet is the same Holy Spirit in both departures, and not the Father nor the Son.
(22) Wherefore it was well that the middle person should be born in the flesh, and become a son, who was before born in eternity, and is a son; and that neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost should be born in the flesh, or become a son; even as it is well that the Holy Ghost should come forth in the flesh, who was before born in eternity, and is neither born nor a son. So the Father remains of himself, that the persons are all three in majesty; but that the Son has deity from the Father by his eternal indwelling birth, and not again; and the Holy Spirit has his deity from the Father and Son by his eternal indwelling going forth. So the Son shows his eternal birth through the bodily birth, and the Holy Spirit his eternal exit through the bodily exit. Each one has an outward likeness or image of his inner being.
23) These are the differences of the persons, given to us in the Gospel, about which may be further explained.
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But whoever wants to will not find anyone else who wants to be sure. Therefore we should remain simple-minded and be content with it until we come to the point where we will no longer hear or believe it, but will see and recognize it clearly. The epistle to the Hebrews also gives a fine likeness of the differences between the Father and the Son, saying, Cap. 1:3: "He is the brightness of his glory, and the image of his being." But it is too little in that it does not show that the other person in God is a son and born, although it shows quite nicely that the same other person with the first is a divine being and not a separate creature. And such a difference is undoubtedly taken from the sun and its radiance; as all the ancient fathers compared the Father to the sun, the Son to the radiance, the Holy Spirit to the heat. In order that the simple Christian might have a gross, outward, visible likeness to grasp such an article the more easily, he now says: "He is a brightness of his clarity." Scripture gives the created light no other origin than that it came out of darkness, that is, out of nothing, as Genesis 1:2, 3: When it was dark on the face of the waters, it became light out of the same darkness or nothingness through God's speaking. And St. Paul, 2 Cor. 4, 6: "God made light shine out of darkness." Therefore the light, to speak thus, is a brightness or shining of the darkness, for the darkness gave the light by God's word; but darkness is nothing. But here he says that Christ is a radiance, not of darkness, and darkness did not give him forth, and does not shine out of nothing, but shines and shines out of the Father's own clarity, that is, out of his inner natural Godhead and being. Therefore, the origin of this radiance or light is the divine essence itself, which is why it cannot be a creature, for the Scriptures do not speak of any creature as being the radiance of a divine essence or clarity.
(24) Thus also the word "clarity" implies that he is truly God from the Father; for clarity here means the divine majesty and glory in himself. Now, to be the splendor or light of this divine majesty and glory is so great and glorious.
than the majesty and glory itself is; otherwise, if Christ were not the splendor of the whole divine majesty, but only of a part, he would not be a splendor of his glory at all. For God's glory and majesty is one inseparable majesty, which he must have either completely or not at all. Now if he is the radiance of divine glory or divine essence, he must be the radiance of the whole essence and as great as the clarity or divinity of the Father himself is, all things equal to him. If he did not spring from nothing, nor from darkness, as other creatures and creatures, but from the natural eternal essence of the Father himself, he must be true, natural and one God with the Father, and not separated from the divinity or divine essence, as all other creatures are separated. Thus in these words it is mightily taught that Christ is one true God with the Father, equal to him in all things without distinction, except that he is of the Father, and not the Father of him; just as the brightness is of the clarity of the divine essence, and not the clarity of the divine essence of the brightness.
(25) So also, when he says, "He is the image of his being," he also testifies powerfully that Christ must be a true, natural God, and yet is not many (gods), but one God. It is now called contrafei when an image is made even and equal to the image of which it is made. But all images lack that they neither have nor are the same essence or nature of the one depicted, but are of a different nature or essence. As when a painter, carver, or stonemason forms a king or prince on a cloth, wood, or stone, as evenly and similarly as he ever can, that all eyes also must say, Behold, this is the or this king, prince, or man etc. Such is indeed a likeness or likeness, but it is not the essence or nature of the king, prince or man etc., but a simple image, figure or form of it, and has a different essence, because its nature or essence is stone, wood, cloth or paper; and whoever looks at it or touches it, does not see or touch the essence, nature or substance.
of man, and everyone says: this is a wooden, stone, cloth image; but it is not the living, essential image of man. For its nature is wood, stone, cloth etc., and has not, as said, the king's, prince's or man's nature in it or on it. Therefore it cannot be called nor be an image of a man's nature; though it is called and is an image of man or made in man's image, it cannot be an image of his nature or nature, nor is it of his nature, nor has it come into being or become of his nature. Therefore it remains and must remain a made image of man from another being or nature.
(26) But here Christ is the image of the Father, so that he is the image of his divine essence, and not made of another nature, but is, where it should be said, a divine image, which is of God and has the Godhead in itself or in itself; as a crucifix is called a wooden image of Christ, made of wood, and all men and angels are also made in the image of God, but they are not the image of his essence or nature, nor made or originated from his divine nature. But Christ came into being out of his divine nature from eternity, his essential image, ubstantialis imago, non artificialis, aut facta vel creata (an image out of his substance, not an artificial, made or created one), which has his divine nature wholly in itself and is itself also; not made nor created out of anything else, just as the divine essence itself is not made nor created out of anything else. For if he did not have the whole divinity of the Father in him and was completely God, he could not be the image of his being nor be called his name; because the Father still had something in which the Son was not like or similar to him; thus he would finally be completely unlike the Father and not at all his image according to the nature. For the divine essence is the most simple essence, indivisible, so that it must be completely where it is, or it must be nothing.
27 Thus these two words indicate that the Father and the Son are two and distinct in person, but one and indivisible in essence. For the word "likeness" indicates that the Son is not the Father.
Father, but the image of the Father and another person. The word "of his nature" indicates that he is not separated from the Father by nature, but is in one Godhead and one nature with him, and is therefore an image of his nature, not made, nor begun before times, but has become and been from eternity, just as the divine nature neither made nor began, but has been from eternity. For if Christ had begun before times according to the divine essence, he would not have been an image of the divine essence, since the divine essence had been before him long ago and eternally, and had been another thing, to which he was not at all like or in the image of. For the divine being is eternal, but what begins to be is temporal. Now temporal and eternal are immeasurably unequal, so that none of them can be like the image of the other, let alone that it should be the image of its being.
This is now the conclusion and final understanding of this saying, that Christ Jesus is a true natural, eternal God, unmade, uncreated, having been from eternity, originated, born, or as it can be called, another person from the Father, but not another God from the Father, but equal to Him in an eternal, unified, divine being. This is the faith, so teaches the faith, here remains the faith, I mean the Christian faith, which is founded in the holy scripture. But he who does not want to believe the Scriptures, but will go according to reason, let him always go. But if he is advised, let him leave the ass and the servants on the mountain, as Abraham did, and come not up into that mountain: for Moses saith, Whatsoever toucheth that mountain shall die." It means believe or perish. This is what Abraham experienced first, and all of us afterwards.
(29) The prophets of the Old Testament also believed and understood this article, but because of the stiff-necked, unbelieving, wicked people, they did not come out as clearly as the New Testament does, but nevertheless they showed it very clearly. For Moses, the first, begins his book thus: "In the beginning he created the heavens and the earth. Now it is obvious, that Elohim
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pluralis numeri (the plural is), and means not one, but many, that one must interpret it after the grammar thus: In the beginning the gods created heaven and earth. That he does not say: In the beginning created, as many, but "created" or created, as one, in singulari (in the singular), he makes it clear that there is no more than one God and Creator; but that he says: the Gods, he shows that in the same one, divine being there is nevertheless a number, which is called much or more than one; and thus preserves our faith that we should believe no other God besides the one eternal God, and yet learn that the same one Godhead is more than One Person. From then on, throughout the Scriptures, God is called Elohim, that is, Gods. Which name is also given to the creatures that sit in the place of God, as Exodus 22:20 and Psalm 82:1, 6: "God stands among the gods and judges the gods"; item: "I say that you are gods.
30 Again in the same first book Moses writes in the first chapter, v. 26: "And God said: Let us - or we will - make man in our image and likeness. Here God calls Himself "we" and "us"; does not say: "I" will as an individual, as He does everywhere and speaks soon after, Cap. 2, 18: "I will make man a helper"; does not say: we will make him a helper. Item, v. 21: "God caused a sleep to fall on man" etc. Here the Scripture always speaks of God as One Who creates, makes, and does all things alone; and yet also of many who call themselves Us and Ours, who create man, etc. to indicate to the faithful how there is only one God, and yet the Godhead is more than One Person. Further, in the third chapter, v. 22, after Adam's fall, God the Lord spoke - spoke as One alone: "Adam became as Our One"; Our, as more than One etc.
(31) The fact that the Jews here slander that God has spoken with the angels, saying, "We will make man in our image," (2c) is nothing and does not hold. For the Scripture does not suffer that the angels made us and our gods, or that we are made in their image.
They are made in the image, so that we should honor and worship them as gods, or call them their creatures. It is only one God and one Creator. Much less is it said, as they fear and sweat in the gloss, that God has spoken these things to the earth: Let us make man, because we are made of the earth. No, blind Jew, the earth did not make us, as it says here, we want to make men, and we are not the image of the earth, but it is subject to men for service.
(32) This is even more wrong: since they cannot remain anywhere in front of such texts, they pretend that God speaks of Himself and calls Himself by honor, as the kings and princes now call themselves We and Us. For this is a new human way and has never been used by any king in Scripture, not even by the pagan kings; although God also calls Himself by his name and does not always call Himself by His name in Scripture. And if it would count for something with people of such alfalfa and excuse; should or would I therefore have to believe the Jews, if they therefore said par excellence, that the scripture is to be understood in this way? And I would have before my eyes a mighty scripture and bright dry words, which would have caught my conscience, so that I could not depart from any angel from heaven: yes, truly, I would leave the mighty text and build my heart and conscience on mere Jewish talk; although Moses himself says that they have been a disobedient, stiff-necked, wicked people from the beginning and always, and have never been able to suffer or hear a prophet who taught rightly. And they should now first of all teach me the Scriptures and prophets according to their mad head, bending and interpreting them? But of this another time, for I intend, if it be God's will, to keep our faith against the foolishness of the Jews, whether some of them may be won over. Now I must break off and go to the Concilium, where the Pope has lied with his own and perhaps also lied to them. This time, I want to have this matter addressed and drafted alone, so that I do not forget it.
33. Gen 18:1 Moses wrote: "The Lord appeared to Abraham in the grove of Mamre as he sat in his doorway. And when he had opened his eyes
1016 E. 23,277-279. The Three Symbols or Confessions of the Faith of Christ. W. X, 1226-1229. 1017
when three men stood against him, he ran to meet them, and fell down before him, and said, Lord, if I have found grace in thy sight, pass not over before thy servant, that a little water may be given you." There God speaks to Abraham and Abraham to God in both ways, as with a "you" and "her"; or, as with one and with many. And yet the text clearly says that this face or appearance was God Himself who appeared to him at his door. For the two angels who go to Sodom in the 19th chapter are another thing from these three who speak and eat with Abraham as one God, as the whole chapter shows. And against this nothing helps, what the Jews are faking. The text says that the Lord, who appeared to him in three persons, also worshipped them all three as one. Therefore Abraham recognized the holy trinity, as Christ says, Joh. 8, 56: "Abraham has seen my day.
34. item, 5 Mos. 6, 4. Moses thus writes: "Hear, Israel, the Lord our Gods is one Lord." Here it also says that the one Lord, which name is given in Scripture to no one but the right one God, as the Jews well know, is our Elohim or gods; indicating that one God is essential and yet three persons different than many, as is said. And Joshua in the 24th chapter, v. 19, said to the people, "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is holy gods." Here it says not only Elohim, gods, but also "holy ones," as there are many of them, or more than one; and yet says it is the Lord, the one God. Item, 2 Sam. 7, 23. David says in his prayer to God: "Where is there a people on earth like your people Israel, for whose sake gods have gone to redeem a people for him?" etc. Here he also calls God gods and says: "they have gone" as many; but immediately afterwards he says: "to redeem a people for him" as one who went to redeem a people for him out of Egypt. Item, Gen. 19, 24: "The Lord caused brimstone to rain from the Lord." And Zach. 3, 2: "The Lord said to Satan: the Lord rebuke thee." Here the Lord speaks of the Lord, and the Lord rains from the Lord, always as one and yet many. Therefore now
In the Psalter David freely prophesies, Ps. 110, 1: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand"; Ps. 2, 7: "You are my son, today I have begotten you"; does not say: I have created you today. And there are many such sayings in Isaiah and other prophets, where Christ's kingdom is described as the same as God's kingdom.
35 Whether or not the Jews are so wondrous, so poisonous of miracles, to turn back on such sayings, there is nothing to be done about it. Their contradictions are nothing else than their self-conceit, without any scripture, invented only for evasion. But here is text and scripture, which cannot be overthrown with human conceit. When they prove their wisdom, they teach us that there is no more than One God, as the Turks also do. But this we also confess and teach, even as firmly and stiffly as they, and there is no Christian who confesses or knows more or more than one God, the one Creator of heaven and earth. What can they teach higher or desire more from us? There stands our Christian faith and says: there is no more than one God, besides whom there is no other God, but all others are creatures and not gods.
What is it, then, that both Jews and Turks, either out of great malice or from great ignorance, reproach us Christians as having more than one God? when they should reasonably know that they are obviously and shamefully lying about it, so as to slander us treacherously and poisonously among their listeners, to strengthen their error and to denigrate our truth. But God's wrath has blinded them, and they sin unrepentantly.
(37) So that we may further recognize and believe in this one God, as he is three distinct persons within his Godhead, they should look at the Scriptures with us. For we have not invented it of our own accord, nor could we invent it if the Scriptures did not move us to do so, especially our New Testament, which they do not believe is founded and proclaimed in the Old, as now is not the time to prove it. And yet nothing is taken away from the true one Godhead if we believe that three persons are one God; he remains one God and one Godhead.
But that we should be so arrogant and presumptuous as to judge by reason that God must be, as it seems to us, a single person within his divinity, of which we have never seen anything, and no man can see; and yet have scriptural indications that there are three persons in the divine essence; we are too coarse fellows, who esteem our blind and poor reason in such high matters more and higher than scriptural indications. Yet the Scriptures are God's testimony of Himself, and reason can know nothing of the divine essence; and yet it wants to judge that which it does not know. That is right, to judge the blind of the color.
39 If then they insist on the Scriptures that there is one God, we insist again that the Scriptures indicate just as strongly that in the one God there are many. And our Scripture is as valid as theirs, since no letter in the Scripture is in vain. But that they should interpret our Scriptures we do not admit; nor have they any power or right to do so, for it is God's Scripture and God's Word, which no man should or can interpret.
(40) If they say that the Scripture teaches one God, we confess this absolutely and do not interpret anything. But if we say: the Scripture teaches, as we introduced above, that there is more than one in the one Godhead; here they want to interpret the Scripture and not confess it plainly. Yes, what devil has commanded them to interpret here, since it is God's Scripture just as much as it teaches about the one God. They want to interpret our Scripture, and we are not to interpret their Scripture. So much the more let the Scripture be left uninterpreted on both sides, as we do, and let it be known plainly that there is one God and yet more than one in the Godhead; because the Scripture teaches both publicly. But this time enough.
In the end, the Nicene faith, which is called Symbolum Nicaenum, which is also opposed to Arius, like Athanasius, is added to these three symbols, which is sung every Sunday in the office.
The Nicene Symbolum.
I believe in one almighty God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, all that is visible and invisible.
And to one Lord Jesus Christ, God's only Son, who was born of the Father before the whole world; God from God, light from light, true God from true God. Born, not created, with the Father in one being, through whom all things were created.
Who for us men and for our blessedness came down from heaven and became bodily 1) through the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, and became man. Also crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
1) bodily] received or body accepted, roughly Germanized, incarnatus, eingefleischt. (Marginal note of Luther.)
And rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And to the Lord the Holy Spirit, who gives life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Who is worshipped and honored with the Father and the Son at the same time. Who spoke through the prophets. And one holy Christian apostolic church.
2) Christian] Catholica, cannot be better German than Christian, as has been done so far; that is, where Christians are in all the world. Against this the pope rages and wants to have his court called the Christian church alone; but lies, like the devil, his idol. (Marginal note by Luther.)
I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. And wait for the resurrection of the dead and a life of the world to come. Amen.
This time I do not want to lead anything from the New Testament, because in it everything is clearly and powerfully testified of the holy divine trinity or Trinity, which is not so brightly emphasized in the Old Testament, but nevertheless also powerfully indicated.