June 18, 1523.
To the strict and best Jan von Schleinitz zu Janshausen, my special favorable lord and friend.
1 Grace and peace in Christ, stern sir. Nicolaus von Amsdorf, a licentiate, my special friend, has told me of such a case, as happened in your region, that a bachelor was inclined to marry a widow. However, because her previous husband had tied the vestment to this young man, the priest was not allowed to marry them nor to unite them. Then you petitioned the Bishop of Meissen and asked him, since both persons had love and desire for each other, to grant and indulge it. So the bishop answered: It would not be in his power, it would have to be sought and obtained from papal sanctity; and when the bishop now went to Rome, he promised you that he would go to papal sanctity. He promised you, when the bishop went to Rome, that he would try to obtain it from the papal sanctity for your benefit and that he would diligently try to obtain it. As if he could not obtain it from papal holiness, but papal holiness wants to discuss and decide it with his cardinals. As it shall also be decided that in such a case a peasant shall hand over and give one hundred, a nobleman two, a count four hundred ducats to the papal see for a dispensation.
(2) Now the question is: Whether this means to have women for sale, or to sell, or to rob? I have no doubt that your and every man's mind will be very displeased and ashamed that money can make injustice right with such great holy people, who eat Turks and destroy heresy, and sweep the holy church of God clean and pretend to govern it blessedly, and of course it would be a great shame for us if it came before the Turks or the pagans that our highest leaders are such blind, obdurate fools and so insolent as to
disgrace. But if the common man found out about it, he would spit at the pope and the bishops and say that the pope is not ashamed in his heart to admit such a thing, and the bishop does not have so much natural reason and respectability that he imposes and refuses such a thing on the pope, but follows and approves it as an obedient son. For where a hundred guilders are so powerful that they abolish the law of the spouses, should love, which is God Himself, ever be so valid that without money it would impose a great, blind human law on its neighbor in vain. Help God, how these tyrants struggle for their own unhappiness, and in this time, when they are almost worthless, they first of all begin to bring even more hatred and disfavor upon themselves.
But with me such papal and episcopal honesty is nothing special. For the pope is a magister noster (grand master) of lions, in the same high school such asses are crowned; Master Adrian is also crowned and knows nothing else to this day, except that men's commandments should be equal to God's commandments or more. For they let God's commandment be torn in vain, whoever tears; but their own commandment no one must keep for a day, unless he has golden hands and arms, which he leaves over it. Perhaps he thinks with his cardinals, because the indulgences are going away and much more abortions happen to the Most Holy See in Rome, he now wants to sell women's love all the more expensive. Dear, what good should be done to such popes and bishops? Who is here such a rough block that does not grasp what kind of spirit governs the Most Holy Father? Christ speaks, Matth. 10, 8.: "You have received it in vain, in vain you shall give it." But here Satan speaks from Master Adrian: one should give money also for his own law. O we poor, miserable Christians, that we allow ourselves to be ape with such coarse, shameful pieces, and still have the Holy Spirit in us.
We are waiting for them when we so publicly see the devil riding and mastering them. But I have otherwise written so much about the papal regiment and spiritual state that I no longer consider him worthy to write against. I will let those defend this delicate Adrian papacy who have taken upon themselves to protect the pope; they will need feathers and tongues to answer for this little piece.
I want to return to the article of paternity and express my opinion on it, which I also let go out earlier. First of all, marriage should not be considered either as paternity or godparenthood, nor should it be requested by the pope or bishops, but rather one godfather should freely take another, one godfather another, and the godfather the godfather, and again. The reason is that God has set it free and not forbidden it. But what God sets free and does not forbid, all angels and all creatures shall not bind nor forbid for loss of blessedness. And whoever does not keep above such divine freedom and follows the binders, he will go to the devil together with the binders, as one who has fallen into God's law and regiment, has committed Crimen laesae summae Majestatis (the crime of the highest majesty offense).
5 Therefore, my faithful advice is that in the present case the man should only freely and confidently take the woman in marriage, and not allow himself to be mistaken about either paternity or godparenthood; and he is guilty before God of doing this only in defiance of and contrary to both pope and bishop, not to mention that he should greet or fear them for it. "For one must be more obedient to God than to men," Apost. 5, 29, especially because he sees here publicly that in this play money, even the devil, rides the pope and bishop. And it is to be seen that it is a great thing that we all have the same baptism, sacrament, God and Spirit, through which we all become spiritual brothers and sisters. If then this spiritual brotherhood does not prevent me from taking a maidservant who has the same baptism with me, why should it prevent me from taking her out of baptism, which is much less? The evil spirit has invented such laws to defile God's free rule, and then to make money out of it.
6 I did not want to deny E. G. such a service at the suggestion of Mr. N. Amsdorf. For if I knew how to serve E. G., I would gladly do so. At Wittenberg, Thursday after Viti. Anno 1523.
Martinus Luther, D.