This fifteenth volume brings together the documents against the papists from the years 1517 to 1524, which belong to the history of the Reformation. It may seem strange to some that so many atrocious papist writings have been included in an edition of Luther's works. The task of defending ourselves against this, as if this could be asserted as an accusation against our edition, is one that Luther himself has elevated us to. He has repeatedly printed even the most wretched works of his papist opponents, such as "Des Silvester Prierias Dialogue on the Violence of the Pope" and his "Replica" (St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVIII, 310 and 412). Through the contrast of the papist darkness, the light of the Gospel, which Luther again put out of the lampstand for us, the great grace of God granted to us in the same, only emerges in full splendor and encourages us to praise and glory for God's bestowal of grace, which has been granted to us. In his preface to the booklet: "What was decided at the Imperial Diet of Nuremberg in 1522 to 1523 by papal sancti
ligkeit bei kaiserlicher Majestät Statthalter und Ständen halben Lutherischer Sachen gesucht, und darauf geantwortet worden worden," which Luther reissued in 1538, he says (St. Louis edition, vol. XIV, 422 f.): "Our people, in my opinion, would do well to take care that this and similar books are preserved for their descendants in order to perceive the incredible and innumerable cunning of Satan.): "In my opinion, our people would do very well if they took care that this and similar books were preserved for the descendants, in order to perceive and hand down to memory the incredible and innumerable cunning of Satan, which reigns in the Roman trousers, the den of sin and ruin." (Ibid. Col. 426:) "Therefore, if this and similar books (as I have said) are preserved and brought down to posterity, it will be useful and salutary, not only for Germany, but also for the whole world, against this exceedingly harmful mountain of Roman Babel, which corrupts all the world (to use the words of Jeremiah). For here you see that the princes of Germany, who have finally awakened from a deep sleep, have dared to confront the pope and the Roman court (that is, the dunghill).
to the face,1 ) what he could not hear, cannot hear and will not be able to hear. And they have not been moved (which is a miracle) by the splendid pretenses and arts of the Roman court, which one can read here in the message of the Roman Pontiff." 2) And the same princes, most of whom were papists, already testify in 1523,3 ) enlightened by Luther's teachings, that it was not possible, as the pope desired, to execute the papal sentences and the imperial mandates on Luther, "because (they say) all the estates of the German nation are so unmistakably burdened by manifold abuses of the court of Rome and of the ecclesiastical estates, and now so much informed by Luther's letters, where one should act against it in earnest or in fact, according to the content of reported judgments or mandates, that it would certainly be considered by them as if one wanted to suppress evangelical truth by tyranny and handle unchristian abuses" etc.
After many documents have been presented to us in the first chapter of this volume, which vividly show us the ghastly evil and corruption in the Roman Church, namely the indulgences of Tetzel, which gave the next cause for the Reformation, the remaining eight chapters contain the documents, which, as already mentioned, describe the most important events of the Reformation in its beginning and progress.
1) In No. 722 of this volume.
2) No. 719 in this volume.
3) In No. 720 of this volume, § 9.
in the years 1517 to 1524. The second chapter deals with Luther's opposition to indulgences, especially through his 95 Theses; the third with the events between the papal legate Cajetan and Luther at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg in 1518, and presents the Acta Augustana in full.
The fourth is about Luther's negotiations with the papal nuncio Carl von Miltitz; the fifth about the Leipzig disputation, which is reported in its entirety; the sixth about the papal ban against Luther and its consequences; the seventh about Luther's standing before the emperor and the imperial estates at the Diet of Worms in 1521, his declaration of eight and his hidden stay at Wartburg Castle; the eighth, on the good and bad changes that occurred during Luther's absence in Wittenberg, especially on all the events between Carlstadt and Luther, up to Carlstadt's complete escape from Saxony; the ninth, on two imperial congresses held in Nuremberg in the years 1522 to 1524, and what consequences the latter in particular had.
Of the documents in this volume, many have been newly translated from Latin, such as Luther's disputation with Eck at Leipzig and about two hundred letters; others have been thoroughly revised from the Latin. We have only added No. 158b, a short message about the order of the Vicar General of the Augustinian Order, Gabriel Venetus, to seize Luthern and imprison him bound hand and foot.
and No. 644 instead of the "Extract of the Instruction of the Elector Friedrich for Johann Oswald, Amtmann in Eisenach, to Luther", the complete text. No. 643, a fragment in poor translation, is replaced by the complete text. On the other hand, the duplicates have been omitted, namely No. 5, p., because once again No. 10; the note b. at No. 72, because contained in No. 73; No. 225, §§ 14-19, because already No. 200; No. 585 (the Worms Edict), because contained in No. 747 (at Walch wrongly "647"); No. 590, because already St. Louis edition, Vol. XIX, 1007; Appendix, No. 98, because already in St. Louis Edition, Vol. XIX, 560, and Appendix, No. 108, because already in No. 663. Otherwise, we have retained Walch's entire arrangement and even the numbers of the old edition. We have left the pieces that Walch placed in an incorrect position in their place, but have indicated each time where they should have been placed.
In many cases, it was necessary to correct the erroneous, often completely wrong headings of the documents in the old edition, also to add the time determinations, which are very much in disorder in Walch, partly, partly to resolve them (which did not happen in Walch), partly to indicate them more correctly. As an indication of what had to be done in this respect, we give a sample from the ninth chapter. At the beginning of this chapter, we were obliged to give a short historical overview of the three imperial diets held at Nuremberg in the years 1522 to 1524, so that the reader may feel at ease with the rather jumbled up information given by Walch.
documents. Then we had to separate four documents, namely No. 727 to 730, which do not belong in this chapter, but in the first section of the preceding eighth chapter. Furthermore, we had to change the heading of No. 743, in which Walch relocates to the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg what took place at a convention at Regensburg. We have added a time determination to the numbers 720, 722, 723, 731, 733, and 747; time determinations dissolved in No. 724, 732, 742, 756, and 758; corrected in No. 734, 735, 736, 743, 750, 751, and 754. Those dates in Walch, which are designated by a weekday in a Latin original, are almost always wrong, because he takes feria prima as Monday, not as Sunday.
At the beginning of the fifteenth volume Walch has a 96 pages (192 columns) long preliminary report, in which he proves the necessity, the divinity and the sufficiency of the Reformation. We consider such a proof to be completely superfluous in this place, because we are convinced that he who reads the writings contained in this volume, even just the table of contents, does not need such a proof; therefore, we have omitted it.
The preliminary report is followed by Walch's "Anzeige, woraus die in diesem Theile befindlichen Documente genommen worden". We were able to omit this as well, since we have provided this proof for every single number,
saving the reader the trouble of having to look things up.
On the other hand, we have added to the table of contents an index of the documents and letters of Luther contained in this volume, arranged in chronological order. This was prompted by Seidemann, who in his "Erläuterungen zur Reformationgeschichte," p. 61, note, says: "A new, better edition of Luther's works than the excellent Walch gave and was able to give, would be very necessary. It would have to be chronological and give the impacting documents chronologically in a special volume." Since we are now bound to the order given by Walch in the task that has become ours, we have had to limit ourselves to satisfying the certainly justified requirement made by Seidemann, at least to some extent, by a chronological register. Only the documents of the first chapter, which concern the papal indulgences, we have not included in this chronological register, because they are on the whole already arranged by Walch according to the chronological order, and can be found so, but several times with corrected dates, also in our table of contents. That we, although the letters are already
The fact that we have included some of the documents in the index, but have nevertheless made a special index of them, will certainly be welcome to many. We have indicated the locations of the documents in these two registers according to the numbers, so that we did not have to wait for the completion of the printing before preparing them. Finding the documents in this way is not difficult for the reader, since the numbers are inserted in the heads of the pages. Because we had to break the course in the chronological work, we hope that this attempt will be judged favorably.
Whoever reads the documents in this volume carefully will see very clearly how God has held His protective hand over His chosen armament, Doctor Martin Luther, through whom He has brought His holy gospel to light again against all the power of darkness, despite the resistance, raging and blustering of the pope, the emperor and many powerful princes. This must serve to greatly strengthen our faith and make us certain that God will not forsake us, if we hold fast to his holy word in faith, but will preserve us to eternal blessedness. God grant this in mercy. Amen.
St. Louis, on Reformation Day, 1899.