Newly translated from the Latin.
Martin Luther to the Godly Reader.
Grace and peace in Christ! First of all, I beg you, whoever you may be, who read this interpretation, that you may not believe that we have published something fictitious. I testify (if I have any credibility) that this book (codicem) was sent to me by very good men from the outermost borders of Germany, namely from the region of Poland and Ljubljana, unshaped by letters and syllables, which actually testify to its time, so that I cannot deny that it was written about seventy years before our time. From the book itself, however, it can be sufficiently recognized that the author of this interpretation lived at the time when the exceedingly great monster of the (so-called) last schism existed, which was finally stilled and ended by the miserable Concilium at Costnitz through the blood of John Hus and Jerome of Prague, as it were through a sacrifice. For the histories testify that through this schism, for forty years, there was a triple papacy in one and the same body of the church (namely, the derived one), by which God, as a certain miraculous sign of discord, undoubtedly wanted to indicate that shortly the end of the Antichrist would be there. Since no one understood this at that time, it pleased God to add a very clear word to this obvious and remarkable sign, namely the author of this book and many men like him, who distinguished themselves through holy life and scholarship; as he did not want to deceive the church and its people.
Even though the wicked do not even understand or realize (this is Pharaoh's blindness) what God threatens or promises, he sends some people like Elijah and Elisha or other prophets to them. This has also been sufficiently demonstrated by the doings and the outcome of the Concilium at Costnitz.
You should know, dear reader, that this preface is made by us for the sake of announcing to the world that we are not the first to declare the Pabstacy to be the kingdom of the Antichrist, since so many years before us so many and so great men (whose number is great and whose memory is eternal) have dared to say the same thing so clearly and obviously, and with great spirit and bravery, since they were driven away by the ravages of papal tyranny even to the farthest ends of the world and suffered the cruelest tortures. Nevertheless, they have bravely and faithfully persevered in the confession of the truth, so that we, although we are far more learned and free than they at this time, must nevertheless be ashamed, because, since they were held in such great ignorance and captivity, they have nevertheless been stronger and bolder than we in such great spirit and bravery. For even though this author was among the first in his time (as I believe) to seek scholarship and holy living most diligently, he, hindered by the infirmities of his time and by the realm of darkness, could neither speak it so purely nor see it so fully as we speak and see it in our time. Nevertheless, he says it quite rightly and truly that the pope (as he then is)
*The Commentary to which Luther wrote this preface was published in Wittenberg in 1528 under the title: Commentarius in Apocalypsin ante Centum annos aeditus. Wittembergae H).XXVIII. 8. The author of the same is said to have been Johannes Purvey, a pupil of Wikelf and Chaplain at Lutterworth lin the county of Leicester). As Baleus in his book: Ksriptorss musoris Urit. ssnt. VII. 50. sä. Lasilsus 1557, dead. 343, the same was made in 1390 in prison. In Latin, our preface is found in des Buddeus Lnxplsrnsnturn spistoluruin Ol AI. I^uttrsri, p. 313, and printed from it in the Erlanger, opp. vur. ur^., torn. VII, p. 506; German except in Walch still in the Leipzig edition, vol. XII, p. 87, We translate anew according to the Erlanger edition.
is the Antichrist, and that with undoubted faith and conscience and with the most reliable reasons of proof. Namely, he is a witness decreed by God so many years before us, in order to confirm our doctrine, which those wretched yeasts (as the last breath of the Antichrist, so to speak) now want to have eradicated with great and many, but vain and futile counseling suggestions. For also for us these bodies of the saints rise again with the resurrected gospel of Christ and give us a great confidence that these wretched bishops, the outermost adversaries of Christ (even though they rely in the greatest despair on their Herod and Pilate).
They will not be able to do anything by their loud and terrible threats, with which they have started badly and as an extreme and futile remedy to heal their lack of confidence and their extremely evil conscience. Christ, who by his word smote the body of this abomination, and then by the sword of Caesar wounded the head, will not cease nor desist, until he shall utterly tread down and destroy even the dying and vainly puffing up members. Let us only pray that he who has begun may also accomplish his work for his glory and for our salvation. Let every one who loves Christ say Amen. Amen.