Held 1516.
Matth. 9, 9-13.
And as Jesus departed from thence, he saw a man sitting at the receipt of custom, whose name was Matthew, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat in the house, behold, there came many publicans and sinners, and sat at meat with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners? When JE heard this, he said to them: The strong have no need of a physician, but the sick. But go and learn what this is: I am pleased with mercy, and not with sacrifice. I have come to call sinners to repentance, not the pious.
1. this gospel seems so easy that everyone, as soon as he has heard it, thinks he understands it; but it is so deep and difficult that it may be enough if two are found who understand it completely. For if someone is asked: To what number does he count himself? I think he would answer, To the number of the sick, sinners, and companions of Matthew; for where Christ is, we all want to be, always thinking the best of ourselves, and not wanting to be of the number of the Pharisees, especially those who are righteous and wise, since they are in the midst of them. Therefore the truth and righteousness, that is, Christ, comes nowhere except where he is not; indeed, he comes not except to liars, fools, and sinners.
(2) In order that we may understand what the Lord wants, it is to be known that there are three kinds of sick people, of which the Lord here mentions only one, and professes to be their physician. The first are sick and do not know it, nor do they want to believe that they are sick, yes, they imagine themselves as if they were healthy; the same is described by Persius in the fifth satyr, where one says to the physician: You look even more miserable [than I look]. These are incurable; therefore he [namely Persius] also says there: I have long since buried this one. Here belong all
*) Löscher I, 289; Erl. A. oxx. var. arx. 1, 127 8<i<i.
D. Red.
Proud saints of works, whose nature is not to want to be taught, not to want to be healed; but always say to the one who teaches: You are in greater ignorance than I am; you live worse than I do etc. Whoever therefore imagines that he knows what he ought to know, and that he is not blind, that he has no need of a master, in regard to reason; likewise, whoever imagines that he wants, loves, and desires no evil, in regard to the covetous power; Likewise, he who imagines that he hates and rejects nothing good, true, and just, in regard to the detesting power, and keeps himself wholly enlightened, chaste, and pure: This is he, I say, who is sick and has not Christ for his physician. For there is none among us who is not sick and wounded in these three vices of the first sin, and in need of a physician to heal this threefold power of souls, namely, the detesting power by the power of the Father, the rational power by the truth of the Son, and the desiring power by the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. And therefore you will find more than too many of them, who will accept it in the most sensitive way when they are accused of being blind, evil and vain. These, in fact, he calls ungodly, and their life wickedness, which are worse than those who are false, vain, liars, unjust, and unwise: not only because they are such, but also, by a far worse sin, vanity and falsehood.
than seeking justice and truth, and contending against justice and truth.
(3) Thus the whole blessedness consists not in our becoming sinners, but in our knowing and seeing that we are sinners, after having been driven out of blindness; as it is said in Ps 51:6: "Against you alone have I sinned" (2c). But those do not attain to this knowledge who are only concerned to beware of real sins, and who hold original sin in low esteem; which original sin, in turn, brings forth the real ones. In order to understand this, we must know that sin is twofold, original sin and real sin. Just as there is a double evil in one who has a fever, namely, the thirst for water as the basic evil, and the drinking itself, to which this thirst leads if it is not resisted^ so also in us is original sin, which, like an innate fever, provokes us to wantonness, indulgence, intemperance, and anger. Now there are many who look only at the works of pride, but not at the pride itself in its reason and origin, which we have from Adam and which Christ has begun to heal by his grace. Just as if a man who has a fever were to be grieved and distressed by drinking water, he should rather be grieved and distressed by the feverish thirst and by the fever itself, and should not rest until it is cured; and then the thirst and the drinking would cease of their own accord. So we should always recognize ourselves as sick, and sigh over the fact that we are thus inclined to hope, anger etc., so that we would soon be cured of this hereditary disease, and we would have no more pleasure in sin. But now, just as if there were no sin in
We are safe and occupied only with the works, and when these cease, we also cease to grieve; therefore, we fall behind all the time and so often.
(4) Now the others are those who know these things which are now spoken, as David said in the 32nd Psalm, v. 2: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, in whose spirit there is no falsity. These believe and trust that sin will be healed, not by their repentance, but by God's grace. Which is beautifully expressed in Hebrews, where it says: "Blessed is he who is delivered and set free, who is covered in sin; blessed is the man, for the Lord will not impute sin to him. When he says, "He who is delivered," he means that he is living in the redemption of sins. For he does not say: he who is freed from guilt; but: he who is freed. And by this he understands the real sin, which is a guilt and crime that someone gets into by himself. God does not hate sinners, but the perverse. Such a person is blessed because God does not impute the iniquity to him alone, since he imputes it to all the rest; and in their spirit there is no falsehood, because the hypocrites are only outwardly apparent and righteous, but inwardly they are very wounded and sick, through their severe and great disease.
The third are those who know and recognize this evil and take pleasure in it. These cannot be compared with the rest, not even with the frenzied ones, who, though they rejoice, laugh, and rejoice in their harm, error, and evil as frenzied ones, do so ignorantly, and thus unwillingly.