Matth. 20, 20-23.
Then the mother of the children of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and fell down before him, and asked something of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? And she said unto him, Let these my two sons sit in thy kingdom, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left. But Jesus ant-
and said: Ye know not what ye ask. Can ye drink the cup that I shall drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I shall be baptized with? They said to him, "Yes, indeed. And he said to them: Ye shall indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give, but it is prepared for them of my Father.)
This Saint James, whose feast is celebrated today, is greatly respected by God, as is John, his brother, and Salome, both their mothers, who stood under the cross while Christ was suffering. Now no more was said of St. James, except that Herod had killed him with the sword; that is all, as Lucas writes in the stories of the apostles. But how he came to Hispania, to Compostel, where the great pilgrimage is, we have nothing certain about. Some say that he is in France at Thalosa, but they are not sure of their own. Therefore, let them lie as they wish, and do not run there; for one does not know whether St. James, or a dead dog, or a dead horse lies there. And it serves them right who run there. For because one neglects the good deeds that God commands, he falls and runs to St. James or to other pilgrimages, and before he gives or helps a poor man with ten guilders, he runs and consumes forty or a hundred. Therefore, let whoever wants to preach, let indulgences be indulgences, let whoever wants to travel: stay at home and wait for your food, provide for your house, and help your neighbor who needs it with the same money that you thus waste uselessly.
(2) But this is the most fearful thing, that one should set his heart on St. Jacob, and Christ should go beside it and be cast out of the remedy. This does no honor to St. Jacob, indeed, it does great dishonor to God, for he did not command this and is not required to do so. He is not a God who approves and is pleased with what he has not commanded. But if anyone has made a vow to go to St. James or to other places, let him go: it is a vow against your soul.
*Marginal gloss on v. 22: The cup, that is, suffering. The flesh always wants to be glorified rather than crucified, to be exalted rather than humbled.
Blessedness; for God has no pleasure in foolish works nor in such vows: yet you shall repent of such your foolish ungodly vows, and ask God for mercy, that he may forgive you such ignorance and unbelief. For God does not want to deal with Himself by works, but only by faith.
(3) But now I must push a block out of the way before I reach for the gospel. The gospel also our enemies lead, and want to draw it so that they close the gospel to us, and say: The gospel and Scripture is dark and obscure; therefore it should be left lying, and not let a common man read it, lest he draw out an erroneous understanding; but it should be understood alone, as it is interpreted by the pope, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose and the holy fathers. So they have poured into us their slobber, poison, and dreams, and have pushed the Scriptures under the bench.
004 But know this: If it is said to you that the Scriptures are dark, and that you must have the sayings of the fathers to enlighten them, believe it not, but turn the page, and say, The sayings of the fathers are dark, and the doctrine of all men is dark; which need to be enlightened by the Scriptures; to whom also alone give the light, and the sayings of the fathers the darkness, and by no means teach you their poison. For thus Isaiah saith of them, Cap. 5:20: "Woe unto you that call evil good, and darkness that is light, and sourness that is sweet." So they have called the Scripture, which is light, dark; and their thing, which is darkness, they have called light, that they might deceive and beguile many.
(5) So they have also done here in this gospel, and have confirmed the saying
*) (d)
of their avarice and seduction, since Christ says: "Sitting on my right and on my left is not to be given to my power, but to whom it has been prepared by my Father. Behold, they say, if a layman would do this saying, he would soon fall into the error of thinking that Christ is not God, because he says it is not his power to give such things. O thou coarse hemlock, thou art coarser than a stick; wilt thou thus let the saying be hard controverted, as if this place alone, since he doeth a man's work, or speaketh like a man, and the saying alone should prove that he is not God, and not many other things, to and fro? as that he is born of a virgin, and lieth in the womb of virgins, and sucketh milk. Just as these sayings cannot make your conscience err and lead you to think that Christ is not God, so neither can this saying in today's gospel.
(6) Therefore, you must remember this: Christ is presented to us in two ways in the Scriptures, man and God. Now, the Scriptures, when they show how he was born, suckled, lay in his mother's womb, ate and drank, wandered, grew tired, and what other human works there are, show that he is a man. In other places it shows that he is God, especially John 10:17, 18, when he says: "Therefore my Father loves me, that I lay down my life, that I may take it again; no one takes it from me, but I myself lay it down; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. There he speaks powerfully as God. For the Scripture cannot at one place at the same time indicate the humanity of Christ and also the divinity; therefore it must speak in one place of the humanity, in the other of the divinity. As, if I say of St. Peter, I cannot say of St. Paul. If the saying is dark here, it must be much darker in Luke, since the evangelist says Cap. 2, 7: "Mary gave birth to her first son", and similar sayings from time to time, which, according to the minds and heads of the papists, are much darker than this one. Therefore, in some places where the
When the Scriptures say that Christ was born, suffered, was crucified, and all the other works and deeds of men, no one is so stupid, foolish, and foolish that he knows that the Scriptures say he is a man, for God cannot suffer or die. Item, when he indicates the Godhead and performs miraculous signs, there is no one so crude, he knows that he is God. So also here he speaks like a man when he says: "It is not in my power to give you these things.
007 But that the scripture is dark, we ought to thank the pope, who hath not suffered us to read therein: but if we had adhered to the scripture, we should have known that in one place it speaketh of him as of a man, and in another place as of God, and it should have been easy for us. But again you say that the sayings of the fathers are dark and obscure, and it is much easier to get through the Bibles than through Augustine or other teachers and writers; nor have they said that the sayings of the fathers explain the Bibles; therefore they have proposed to us the Decretal of Pabst, the book of mud and the devil's deceit, which is supposed to interpret the Scriptures, in which nevertheless no saying agrees with the other.
(8) Thus they have led us astray with confused and contradictory sayings and doctrines; thus they have added to us the Scriptures, and their slobber, poison and darkness, instead of wholesome doctrine, we have had to eat; spit out whoever can spit! Therefore, when they say that the Fathers, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and others, have illuminated the Scriptures, they lie about it; for they have not illuminated it, but have made the Scriptures clear with their own light, and have held one saying to another, that one has made another clear. So the Scripture is its own light. That is fine, when the Scripture interprets itself. Do not believe the Pabst's lies, and freely consider as dark what is not proven by the clear sayings of the Bible.
(9) Therefore, we must first remove this error, for it is almost deeply ingrained, that the Scriptures are dark and must be illuminated by the teachings of men.
This is an excellent error and blasphemy, and is really called leading the Holy Spirit to school or teaching him first. But the fact that the Scriptures seem obscure to us makes us disregard them when they speak of Christ's deity and humanity, and that we also want to interpret them according to our own minds; this will not rhyme in any way. Now, the Gospel here speaks of Christ as of a man, let us be well aware of this, so that it will not lead us into any error, of which the papists are foolishly afraid. Let us now turn to the main points of this gospel and discuss them a little.
(10) You have often heard the two things spoken of in all the Gospels, namely, faith and love; they are here also. Now you have heard that with faith we should act toward God, and with love toward our neighbor. We can serve them in two ways: first, with our goods, bodily and external, that we may give them, help them, advise them, and how they may use us, that we may be ready for them. And this is the least. Then our spiritual goods, namely, our piety and righteousness, are also to serve them, so that I give myself down with my righteousness and let it serve a sinner, yes, take care of his sins as if they were my own, cover them, help him from them, and pray for him, punish him, so that he may be rid of his sins and come to righteousness like me. Then I said that a virgin must serve a harlot, a pious woman an adulteress, a righteous man a sinner and an unrighteous man. And this is almost high and human reason cannot grasp it in any way. For reason cannot refrain from it, if it is gifted with any grace from God, it must turn up its nose at another who does not have such grace; as we see that sinners stink so badly before holy spiritual people. But love turns the game around and takes on the neighbor's sin and infirmity as its own, helps him and saves him, and does not soon despise them.
11 We see this in detail in this gospel. There the pious woman Salome, the mother of Jacob and John, enters,
and plays a crude monkey game, and lets the two sons persuade themselves, who thus thought: Well, she is his wife or girlfriend and we are his cousins, he will certainly listen to us. Yes, soon he does. He leads them to him and punishes them for their foolishness, but he does not throw them away or push them away, but he does not let them go unpunished. After this, the other ten on the other side are also displeased and become displeased with these two, as soon follows after this gospel. The Lord also meets them, punishes them, and yet deals with them gently, does not reject them; just as a mother does when the child becomes unclean, so she washes the swaddling clothes again, shows a motherly heart and does not throw the child away. In the same way Christ shows himself here against the disciples, since they stumbled rudely. For you see here such a coarse human thing in the apostles that it could not be coarser. These want to be hopeful and high; the others are angry, reluctant and unwilling.
(12) Now Christ has undoubtedly made them start and stumble in such a way that he has worked the work of love in them, as an example to us, so that we may feel and know his fatherly and motherly heart and love, which he bears toward us; and that he may make us cling to him and believe, and know what we should have from him. For this is the nature of faith, that it relies on God's grace, and creates a good delusion and confidence in Him, thinking without doubt that God will look upon it and not forsake it; for right faith does not doubt the good gracious will of God. Behold, such a good delusion or free presumption toward God, or whatever you want to call it, that is called a Christian faith and good conscience in Scripture. The faith does not demand knowledge or certainty, but free surrender and cheerful daring to God's unperceived, untried and unrecognized goodness. In this way, the highly praised and proclaimed goodness, the friendly confidence in God, that He deals with us in such a motherly way, surrenders to them, infuses them and makes them affordable. For he keeps us so that we do not perish. Otherwise, if one wants to look at Christ as a strict judge, then one can
But if you grasp him as he is described here, as a gracious Savior, as he deals so sweetly and kindly with the disciples, punishes them and yet does not reject them, this sustains and comforts in all kinds of temptation. And this is the best and most noble thing we have in Christ.
(13) Christ must also be taken as an example, so that we also relate to our neighbor as Christ relates to us. He could have thrown the disciples away because they were rude, and he could have said: I am pious, you are boys, lift yourselves up from me. But he refrained from violence and spoke rightly, received them kindly and had patience with them, even if they stumbled a little, and hoped for their recovery, as love does. In the same way, we should be kind to our neighbors and treat our enemies with kindness and gentleness. For no one can soon run away from the world; today he will see one, tomorrow another fall. Then let him show himself friendly, and cover it up with his righteousness, as I said the other day.
(14) Now you have often heard before that as there are two kinds of government, spiritual and temporal, so there are two kinds of sin, secret and public. The spiritual government rules with the Word and with the Scriptures, as Christ does here; but those who do not want to be led by the Word are then led by the temporal sword, which is used and ordained by God to ward off the wicked, Rom. 13:4, so that, even if one cannot ward off the heart, one may still keep his hands alone. But of secret sins ye shall know, If thou seest any sin committed secretly, hold thy peace, and cover it with thy skirt and mantle: but if thou open it, thou shalt bring God into his judgment: for thou revealest that which God only knoweth. But this thou shalt do, thou shalt punish and rebuke him with a vengeance, but thou shalt not reject nor despise him. Sin thou shalt not allow, and yet have mercy: for we are all baked of the dough, as whores and knaves are made of. For if we stand, that alone is mercy; otherwise our godliness stands up
a straw and soon falls down. Therefore, what is done that is not public, cover it up; and not as some do, who want to show how pious they are, if they can only stink at sinners and carry their sin around from one house to another; as children go around playing with their fools. Which vice is now almost common, both among men and women. [And you shall show this especially to a woman. For a woman always has two disadvantages, as a man has two advantages. There one should cover specially. For when a woman falls, there it all lies; that alone must be enough for honor. A man, though he falls, may yet rise again and be useful for many things. Therefore, because this is the weakest limb, most honor should be put there, as Paul says, 1 Cor. 12].
(15) Now this is said of secret sins. But if it is public, and you have not broken it out, show love even then, warn and punish, and make it right, and help as you can, that he may be rid of sin and shame. But if he will not amend himself, it is no longer proper to keep silent or to spare him; another way must be used: after that the vice is, after that it must be restrained; so it may be that it must also be rooted out with the sword. But if he allows himself to be punished, then be merciful and kind, as Christ does to the apostles. God wants to have mercy, but he does not want to strengthen sin in any way. Therefore, first of all, in secret sins, cover up and act as God acts between Himself and you alone. But if it is public, cover and help again once or twice; but if there is no correction, let him who is commanded defend himself with the sword. But pray for him that his spirit may be saved, if you cannot help the body. Let this be the end of this gospel; let us now continue with it, and call upon God's grace, that we may attain a right faith toward Him and a true love toward our neighbors.