Defender of the exceedingly biting Silvester Prierias,
with the interpretation of the face, Daniel 8th, about the Antichrist. *)
April 1521.
Translated from the Latin by Paul Speratus. 1524.
Paul Speratus to the reader.
Just as the Scriptures everywhere portray Christ to us, whom we should hold on to and rely on, so they also everywhere portray the Antichrist, whom we should beware of and avoid.
Also, just as we may not know white and black from each other in the bright day, indeed, one without the other: so, to us Christ and the Antichrist alone the bright light of Scripture, yes,
*) This writing first appeared in Wittenberg on April 1, 1521 under the title: Vä librum eximii magistri nostri Magistri Vmdrosil Outlmrim äekensoris Lilvestri krioratis aoorrimi resxonsio Älartim I-utdori. lVittomdorMo Nens" ^prili. Oum exposita visiono vaniolis VIII ve Vntiekristo. Then once again in the month of July. The German translation of Paul Speratus appeared in Wittenberg in 1524 under the title: Offenbarung. des Endchrists aus dem Propheten Daniel Wider Catharinum Martinus Luther, and again under the title: Der Garaus von dem Endchrist, seinem Reich und Regiment, aus dem Propheten Daniel wider Catharinum Martinus Luther. Wittenberg. Without year. In the collective Latin editions in the Wittenberg, Dom. II, col. 141; in the Jena, Dom. II, col. 370; German in the Wittenberg (1554), vol. VII, 194; in the Altenburg, vol. I, p. 653; in the Leipzig, vol. VII, p. 498. We have compared the Latin of the Erlanger, oxx. vur. arZ., vol. V, 289 and the German of the Wittenberg edition.
**Paul Speratus - the author (1523) of the song that soon resounded throughout Germany: Es ist das Heil uns kommen her - (born Dec. 13, 1484, died Sept. 17, 1554). 1554), from the noble Swabian family of the von Spreiten, taught and preached the gospel with great frankness in St. Stephen's Church in Vienna, then in Ofen and in Moravia, after many persecutions (e.g., he was "hardly imprisoned" in Olmütz for twelve weeks). Cf. Wittb. Vol. 7, 391), he came to Wittenberg in 1523 to Luther, who recommended him to Duke Albrecht of Prussia; in 1524 he became his court preacher and in 1525 bishop at Liebmühl in the Pomesan district. Cf. Guericke, Kirchengesch., Vol. Ill, 243. - This writing of Luther, which Speratus translated in 1524, is, as Mathesius reports, written at the Wartburg. Cf. Mathesius, Luthers Leben, St. Louis Edition, p. 47. - Speratus' letter is not in the Erlangen edition,
1436 L. V. L. V, 289 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1756-1759. 1437
also does not indicate one without the other. Without the Scriptures, however, one does not know what Christ or Antichrist is. We must recognize Christ and the one who sent him, so that we may be saved through him. The antichrist must also be recognized in Christ through contradiction, so that the knowledge of Christ will not be distorted again to condemnation. For he does not leave his way; everything that Christ can always say, put, comfort, warn, teach and do, he wants to have according to his name of contradiction. And because he so exceedingly conceals and secretly does all his things, so that even from the outside it has a fine, praiseworthy, honest and almost good reputation, one must all the more diligently watch out for this rogue, wisely spy out all his ways and actions. Otherwise, no matter how clever and wise he may be, if he does not learn to recognize his treachery, he may and will throw him over the rope, yes, damnably deceive him, so that before he realizes it, he is up to his neck and ears in the abyss of hell.
But if you are inexperienced and untrained in the Scriptures, come here and read this book, and you will find
you will find and learn what is the right wolfish way of the son of perdition.
But to whom do we want to give or ascribe this interpretation of mine? Precisely to the most holy chair, on which the end-Christ sits. Not that he will thereby recognize himself and improve himself, for he is and shall remain who he is; but first of all, that he may be enraged by it and only then begin to rage and rage against Christ in his members, so that he may help God's wrath to come upon him and then (which all creatures long for) be the sooner overthrown from his hope. Secondly, it will not be otherwise, the true Christians, that they may be recognized for it, must be raised by persecution, so that the number of the martyrs and our brothers may be fulfilled, because where there is no cross, there may not be Christians either. Christ did not say in vain, Matth. 16, 24: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Hoc lao, et viv68; do this and you will live, amen.
(Luther's letter to Wenceslaus Link.)
Jesus.
To the worthy and right theologian, Wenceslaus Link, Augustinian Order Vicarius and Ecclesiastes 1) at Nuremberg, in Christ, Martin Luther sends his greetings.
Behold, in Christ worthy Wenceslaus, you have your Ambrosius Catharinus, this noble new fruit of the highly famous French country. Truly, he is a fine all-embracing 2) finisher of the register which Silvester has begun to make. But you will say, what is the meaning of this coarse fool to me? You might say, like the poet, that there is not a grain of salt in his whole body. So I will answer you: Why did you send him to me? Why didn't you throw it into the Pegnitz or into a fire as soon as you received it? Then I wouldn't have spent so many hours with it uselessly until I had read it. Yes, it would have been better for me if I had in the meantime been involved in some kind of jugglery.
1) i.e. preacher.
2) Instead of "freer", which is found in Walch and also in the Wittb. Edition, Wohl would prefer to be read "finer". The Orig. offers insigiiEm.
I have read myself to death over this, until I have seen the filth of this washful and blasphemous Thomist. Just that I now take revenge on you, you must have him back by right, so that you henceforth send me no more such monstrous abominations, as if Germany itself did not have enough of the mad [people like] Eck and Emser, plus the sophists rabble without number. Beware further that you send me more of such filth from Endor, otherwise be sworn to you by Catharine wisdom that it shall be thrown back to you so often until it finally sticks to you, or until it disappears in the throwing back and forth of it.
2) Yes, do you laugh and think that I am joking with you? Would to God that, as this [Welsche's] 3) foolishness is to be laughed at, so also no German would be poisoned by such mad wisdom. But because we have so far treated everything that has been raised under the Welsh or Roman name, with inhuman
3) The words and phrases placed in square brackets here and in the following are missing in Speratus and have been inserted by us according to the Latin.
When these proud and arrogant people have noticed that they have taken stupidity for God, they dare to inflict even more and more shameful abominations on us every day, as if Germany had to be their eternal mockery; they still let them dream that we are beasts, blocks and lumps. And yet they do not see that they themselves, deafened by divine order with palpable blindness, are becoming two-fold beasts with their king in Babylon and, deprived of the wholesome grain, eat only grass, like an ox, as Job says [Cap. 40, 10.].
3 It came out on the first New Year's Eve, kicked like a mouse and perished. After that, Cajeta entered; finally Catharinus had to fulfill the sacred number, the third among these Thomists. Behold, these are the heroes of the Thomists [in Italy, from which one may notice what the others all are. For these filthy birds come of course not from the bad rabble, [but from high blood, Trojans and people like Astyanax 1) in Troy. What shall we take the Trojans themselves for, if their hectors are like this?]
4 But it is useful for us to read the books of these ill-mannered people, so that we may realize from what kind, art, moderation or friendship they take us for beasts against them. For nothing annoys this Catharinus so much as that I called Silvester the Catfish and said: The laymen also understand something. But now I see that this is also true: A mere 2) Thomist is a real jackass, be he Welsh or German. And what else should become of them? Because they only read and eat the one Thomas, and so that I speak in their way, they transform all his essence into themselves. Although I do not begrudge him that the pope has made him holy (for what can he not make holy who is the holiest of all?), which holiness they boast of with inhuman arrogance for the others. 3)
1) Astvanax, the son of Hector, the most excellent Trojan hero.
2) In the Wittb. Edition: louder.
3) should probably mean: "before others". The words "for the others" are not expressed in Latin.
(5) But neither do I doubt that his doctrine, which is without all spirit, is one of the bowls full of God's wrath, which he has sent upon this earth, (D&C. 15:7, 16, 17) for the sake of which doctrine he has most of all been made a saint, so that, as he deserves, such a sanctifier should oppose him. Not that I say he is not holy, though he has taught what is in truth heretical, and thereby he devastates the doctrine of Christ. But it may have been through ignorance. But I am sorry that so many noble hearts of the believers in Christ are deceived by his reputation, have accepted dirt for saffron flowers (as Jeremiah complains, [Klagl. 4, 5.]). But do you hear? I would have forgotten him; do not think that with this letter I should be subdued again under your power, otherwise the most holy governor of God on earth would command you to stain your hands with my blood. I say this so that Catharinus may not [also] catch me here, as if I were carrying out things that were directly against each other; for he is very clever and astute in noticing such things, so that he could almost be compared to a donkey in skill.
Beginning of this book.
How must I then hold myself against your Catharinus? He presses upon me with such severity that he wants to have by force whether I would already answer for all the heresies laid upon me (of which he accords me more than there is sand in the sea), but if I would only be overcome in one, then I shall be damned and overcome with each other. Behold, dear one, how this is such a fine Thomistic impression. To me some man, even the beast, shall not be overlooked some error, and that by the French Thomists, when so much error the whole church overlooks the holy fathers. How does he snort after the victory, this Catharinus? How much cheaper it would be that all errors would be overlooked for me, beast and block, because of a few Christian sayings, but he, such a [Welsh] hero and excellent man, connected with such a law.
that, if he were to be taken in an error, he would definitely have to be considered erroneous.
(7) However, so that the Frenchman sees that even the beasts in the German country have something of a human nature about them, I do not ask anything else, except that we fight with equal advantage against each other, even if we may not be equal fencers against each other, so that Catharinus is also a heretic to me everywhere, if he will answer for all the other [pieces] and yet be overcome in one piece by the beast. But I think I will easily obtain this from Catharinus, as he is undoubtedly ready, before the rest of the art, to fight with disadvantage against such a mad and foolish beast, so that afterwards his victory would be all the more honest and greater; yes, as I let myself think, he should well be angry with the beast, that it misses to fight with equal advantage with such a man, that is, with a French Thomist. But because the beast's manner is thus done, Catharinus will think it too good, according to his French and Thomistic manhood.
But now, since everyone knows that by unanimous judgment of all Thomists, Scotists, Modernists, and Albertists it is decided (there must be a tail in which these foxes come together) that the beasts have neither free will nor power to choose anything, by which prudence and all virtue consist, but drive without reason, as nature gives in. But nature, because it works what it does by its own impulse 1) and not by free will, also works (as the scholars say) everywhere according to all its ability. Therefore, Catharine will still admit to this thoughtless beast that it drives along without any order, and first fights about the main thing (that is, about the papacy), although here, too, success [or, as Aristotle says, the favor of luck and chance] 2) will somewhat reimburse this thoughtlessness of nature.
1) I. e. by necessity.
2) What is put here and in the following in square brackets are scholastic sayings of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and others, with which Luther draws Catharinus. Speratus has omitted them because they are difficult to reproduce and little understandable to the common man.
For as soon as the dispute about this piece is over, either the whole Babylon and the fuss of the Catharine Commentary will stand or lie; 3) because everything that he writes, says, does, acts and lives in it, hangs on this one piece. It will also be too good for me, otherwise six blasphemy books would grow under my hands against the life of my adversary, where I would deal with the matter as finely human and rationally as Catharinus. Then Catharinus would say: You beast, you wanted to refute my teaching, see, you do nothing but spoil the paper with profanity and blasphemy; for that I Catharinus, as a man, have thus blasphemed you, that has its cause, because, as St. Thomas, Aristotle and Porphyrius teach that man is a rational animal, therefore I had to curse and blaspheme, which is well befitting a man.
(10) I therefore leave aside here what concerns the indulgences, those of Leuven and the conciliar, also all my other pieces, which Catharinus introduces, as if they were repugnant to each other. I myself confess that I first did not think right of the indulgence, of the pope and the Roman church, of the conciliar, high schools and ecclesiastical rights; therefore, I have also recanted all of this with each other in several little books, which I have subsequently written, as each one in the "Babylonian Prison", and in the "Assertion 4) of my articles against the papal bull", whoever may want to read them. Ah, dear Catharinus, you have truly come too slowly, as they say. Now one no longer asks whether the pope is something; this question whether he is something [and the first activity of the mind] has long since ended.
We have already come to the other question [and to the second activity of the mind], what he is; and there it has finally been decided [5] that the pope is the Antichrist. Now only the third is still there [the third activity (if you are not
3) eommsutum - fiction.
4) I.e. the reason and cause of all articles that were unlawfully condemned by the Roman Bull. (Latin January 1521, German March 1.)
5) D. i final.
(If you were not only a Thomist, but also an Aegidian), the discursus), which is to come into course and swing; this, we hope, should happen almost [immediately]. Also in this way our fire (as we hope) has begun happily, since it has burned up all the rights of the most holy Father in Christ and governor of God on earth, as the doctrine of the Antichrist. Therefore I ask: Dear Catharinus, you are too slow, too slow, these are old tales that you remember. But lest you think that you have blasphemed in vain (I meant to say written), because you require me to go one mile with you, I will go another two of myself with you [Matth. 5, 40.] and will again blow this question out of the ashes and deal with you again, but in the very shortest way, if I am able, so that I do not become a beast seven times over, if I do not give an answer to a [so great] whale and Thomist.
12. this is the summa and main matter of the first question among all, whether Christ by the words Matth. 16, 18.: "You are Peter, and on the rock I will build my church" has made the Roman church the head, master, princess, women and ruler over all other churches of the whole world 2c? Here I leave again all what I have said before, so that I have given the brave Catharinus so much trouble, difference and glosses (from his own head) to invent, that I, although I am a beast, have taken pity on this manly man in his work. If I were to bring it all out again and refute it, the book would be too big for me. Also, I know that everything he says in his writing, if one holds it against my writing, would already) be invented by anyone who has only a little sense [as] miraculous ridiculousness and foolish plodding 2). I will come to a new thing, which the so reasonable Catharinus would never have meant or provided, if he had already eaten Porphyrius' tree with all its fruits.
The first, Christ, (as Catharine himself confesses) speaks of the rock and the church.
1) Actually "cowherd", because the original does not offer Viearil, but Vaeearii.
2) I. e. fictional chats.
Secondly, he promises, as Catharine will also have to confess, that the church and the rock of hell gates shall not prevail. Do you hear it, Catharinus? Is this not clear enough? For this is not said by the beast, but by Christ himself. So now this decree stands: That the gates of hell shall not prevail against the rock nor against the church.
014 But then the gates of hell overpower, if they bring any into sin; or say thou what else the "overcoming of the gates of hell" is called. Again, "being built upon the rock" is nothing else but increasing in grace and good works, so that you might call it "overcoming the gates of Zion"; in which way Peter also speaks, 1 Pet. 2:5: "But you, as the living stones, build yourselves into a spiritual house"; and Eph. 2:22: "Upon whom also you are being built into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."
(15) And that thou mayest not escape me anywhere, let it be thus, that thy pope, thy rock, or thy church, hath already the unformed faith (as ye call it); nevertheless, if it be not in the love of God, it must be under the power of the devil, and under the gates of hell: for the epistle to the Romans [8:9.] thus says, "He that hath not the Spirit of Christ is not his"; and Matt. 7:21-23. it is found that they who had unformed faith, though they did wondrous works, and taught well and truly, yet heard, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity."
16 I beg you, dear Catharinus, you worldly man and Thomist, will be so gracious to me, and listen a little, me beast. I conquer you by these things now said, that you must ever admit to me that he who is without the love of God is under the devil and does not belong to Christ at all, that even the gates of hell have overpowered him, rule over him as over a servant of sin, as Christ says, John 8:34: "He that committeth sin is the servant of sin." Is this not clear enough? Or is there a need here for Origen, Chrysostom or all the Fathers' glosses?
17. you also freely admit to me that the
Pabst, whom you called the rock, and those who are built on this rock, subject to him in the visible regiment, whom you called the church, that they may sin and have sinned; is it not so? Do you not admit this? Yes, if you want to confess the truth, there is no more shameful people on earth than those who are so stubbornly attached to the pope and those who are mostly built on him; but also because of this they are subject to the gates of hell and servants of all vices with each other.
18 Now answer me, where is now your talk and chatter of this whole disputation? Now point to this church, point to the rock, which may not overcome the gates of hell. If so? 1) Don't you hear, Catharinus? I know you will not denounce the pope, nor his papists. Which one will you denounce? You will not denounce any external church, let alone the Roman one. For if thou wilt hear Christ, thou wilt denounce no other, save that which is without sin, which also is a ruler over the gates of hell. For if thou dost put another before us, as thou wilt, we shall never know whether she is in sin and under the gates of hell or not. If you throw up Rome, it will testify of itself that it is a basic soup of all vices.
(19) Therefore I decree against you and hereby irrefutably conquer you, that this word Matth. 16:16, reported above, shall not be laid to anyone but the one church, which in spirit is built on the rock Christ, not on the pope, not even on the Roman church. For as long as you do not show us a holy pope, you have shown us neither rock nor church, but a basic soup of sin and a synagogue of Satan, Revelation 2:9. Since no one would want to know about St. Peter, if he were now present, whether he would be holy or remain without sin or not, it follows that he himself will not be the rock, but Christ alone, of whom we are most certain that he alone is without sin and will remain forever.
The people of the world also share with him his holy church, which is gathered in him in the spirit.
20 Now let us come back to the covenant, as we have presumed to fight with each other 2). So behold, my Catharinus, I have caught you in a mistake. I have already entangled you with a bond that you can never break. Therefore, I publicly proclaim you as a conquered heretic, together with your so great book, already damned and condemned. May you also protest against this, Catharinus? Up, up, you Thomistic man, and trample on this cursed beast, which has not only answered to all your abominations, but has also destroyed [them] with each other.
Just as the rock, which is without sin, is invisible and spiritual, so also the church, which is without sin, must be invisible and spiritual, which is understood by faith alone. It is ever necessary that the foundation be of one kind with that which is built upon it; as we also say in faith, "I believe that there is one holy Christian church or community in the whole world." But what one apparently sees from the outside, one must not believe, but recognize it bodily. Therefore this saying of Matthew: "You are Peter" 2c belongs far, far behind the papacy and its visible church, yes, even pushes it to the ground and makes a synagogue of Satan out of it.
(22) Furthermore, if by the rock is understood the pope, and by the church built upon it, the assembly subject to the pope: it follows that the pope is not the pope, and the church is not the church. This I will prove to thee manifestly thus: For the rock and the church must be without sin, not subject to the gates of hell. But since no one in the world can be so, certainly and unconfessedly, and yet there must be a certain rock and a certain church, it follows that there is no pope and no church.
(23) Therefore, if the mighty saying of Christ strives straight against the pope and against his papist church, it is evident that the opinion of Catharine and his Thomas, as well as of all those whom he introduces, is exceedingly casteful.
1) I.e. why don't you show them?
2) I.e. conditioned.
must be heretical. He is ever a heretic who interprets the Scriptures differently than the spirit requires. Not only does Catharinus do this with his heretical Thomas, but he also gives it the mind, which is blasphemous, that he calls the one rock, which is a man of sin and a servant of the devil [2 Thess. 2, 3], and says that this is the church, which is only Satan's synagogue. Here I do not want, Catharinus, that thou shouldest reproach me with thy dreams, or reproach me with the sayings of the fathers, and so foolishly punish me, as thou hast done before], since I have proved by that which follows mightily from the text, that it is not spoken to St. Peter alone, "Thou art Peter. "2c For thou dost not stay at all on One Speech. And because you must not contradict the Fathers whom I have introduced, you say that the keys are to the Church; again, they are given to St. Peter alone. Now you say that the keys are given to St. Peter; now, the use of the keys is given to the other apostles 1); now they are promised to St. Peter, now they are given to him, and so you are driven by my objections that you can nowhere base yourself on one opinion and insist. And with this very inconsistency of yours, you yourself strengthen all my cause.
24. But do you think that I will have enough of your glossing over in such a disputation? Should I suffer this from you, that you would interpret to me the use of the keys for the lending of the keys, Matth. 18, 18. Not yet. Yes, I still do not admit to you that you now say: The keys were given to the church, but again, they were given to St. Peter by the church alone. Where does this inconsistency come from? Why do I ask that you attribute so much interpretation to a single word? I have enough that you yourself admit to me what I say, that it is right and well-sewn and proven by the Scriptures. I do not care that you already desire much without scripture, which is also to be admitted. Do thou one thing, and either say that all my cause is without ground and for nothing; or else admit,
1) D. i.: sonst.
That all thy cause is without ground, a vain spittle. The truth of Christ is not so diverse and so inconstant as are the conceits of the Thomists; it is one, and has even a simple face. Hold thou the keys without the use; let us be content that the use of the keys is given us; which we have received in thee, however much thou hast differed.
(25) And to say what the opinion is, I will not admit to you that you give more than one interpretation to the Scriptures. It counts for nothing with me, how often you try it, when you speak at length: One may also say thus, one may understand it thus, one may also answer thus, according to the letter one may speak thus, thus one may speak according to the spiritual understanding. Dear Catharinus, remove the little word "one may". They are nothing but false arguments, all of them together, and nothing but evasion; yes, indeed, they are also confirmation of my very opinion. For therefore one judges you, that you only come along on straw-covered stilts, and want to turn all things into a doubt. But say, "This is to be understood in this way and not in another, so that you may bring about a consistent and simple understanding of the Scriptures, as I do and have done. For thus it behooves a theologian; the other is the way of the sophists. You know that where one wants to argue, one must only use the written sense according to the letter, which is only one in the whole of Scripture. Origen, Jerome, and all those who have given much interpretation to the Scriptures are of no avail here, for they may say it, but they do not prove it. It may well teach something, but it does not argue and does not hold the sting.
(26) But you will say, "Have so many fathers erred? Yes, I confess that they, as men, have often erred; but I forgive them and wisely guard against it. But you, as unclean animals without cloven hooves [Deut. 11:26], without a tongue that chews the cud, eat everything in yourselves. Since they have erred Christianly, you teach the others heretically. For to err does not make one a heretic, but where one stubbornly defends and protects error.
Here, then, is your certain reason, which relies much more 1) on the sayings of the fathers than on the words of Christ, and yet you have no other way to protect them, but that you alone seek your evasion in the Thomistic way with the miserable interpretation of a thing in various ways, which you nevertheless invent from your own brain alone, but only and without any defense; and yet you hear from me that I alone desire cause and scripture; yes, you suppress the right sayings of the fathers from me and bring forth only the erroneous ones, you pious man.
27 Also, how finely you catch yourself in the word of your own mouth when you say that the keys, Matt. 16:9, were promised to Peter alone and were not given to him. Then you prove that they were also given to him, but you prove it with no other force than that you say that Christ, as the true One, has undoubtedly given what he promised. Listen, dear Catharinus, it is not enough that the promise is in the Scriptures; the fulfillment and bestowal must also be in them. For of the bestowal of the same, outside of the Scriptures, one will not believe your unreal dreams and fairy tales. Christ was promised to Abraham before time, but it is certain that it has also been fulfilled, since Christ was given to us in the New Testament; both of these things are written in the Scriptures, and the fulfillment is even more clearly written than the promise. But where will you prove that the keys have been given to St. Peter? Will this not have to be done, as I have proved it from the saying of John without one the last, 2) which is very urgent and distressing to you: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you remit, they are remitted to them" 2c [John 20:23] The saying I have brought up for myself, bring forth also one for yourself.
28 We also know that God is true in His promise. But it is necessary that the place, person and time of the fulfilled promise not be shown according to our imagination, but by His own testimony.
1) I. e.: support.
2) I.e., in the penultimate chapter.
so that no cause is given to the heretics to wash against this faith and to put all things in doubt. For if this fulfillment is nowhere indicated in Scripture, we are still not certain to this day when St. Peter received the keys. But let God forbid that Christ should have left us thus uncertain; which would be nothing else than that he had not built faith on the rock, but only on human delusion. Therefore I also hold you here entangled with your own words, that if you do not show me where this promise is fulfilled, my cause is again strengthened. Truly Christ knew well that you ungodly puffers would come, who would raise this Roman chair for the highest; therefore he wanted to occur and gave such a fulfillment, which would sink you into the dung, before you would start your building right. For I will not have your mere 3) differences and dreams, that you may have your book entirely filled; but the holy scripture I will; which you would then bring forth for your heresy, if it were now raining swine.
29 Well then, let us come to the plan of victory with it, and so that you may not object that I am handling the matter too darkly with you, I will write it in a nutshell according to school law. So:
1. Nothing may be the rock that is overwhelmed by the gates of hell. But
Every sinner is overwhelmed by the gates of hell: Therefore
3. so no sinner may be the rock.
So also:
1. nothing may be the church built on the rock, which is overwhelmed by the gates of hell. But
2. the Papist mob is overwhelmed by hell: Therefore
3. so the church built on the rock may not be the papist mob.
From these follows further:
(1) Every pope who sins will be overwhelmed by the gates of hell. But
3) Wittb. Edition: For I loudly thy distinction 2c
2. the pope sins: therefore
3 Thus, the pope is overwhelmed by the gates of hell.
Likewise:
(1) Any church that sins will be overwhelmed by the gates of hell. But
2. the pabst's church sins: therefore
Thus, the church of Pabst is overwhelmed by the gates of hell.
Item further:
1. nothing may be pabst, which is uncertain whether it is the rock. But
2. every pope, even St. Peter, is uncertain whether he is the rock: therefore
3. so also no pope, yes. St. Peter may not be pope.
At the same time:
1. Nothing may be the church that is uncertain whether it is built on the rock. But
(2) Every papist's fleet is uncertain whether it is built upon the rock: therefore
3. so may not be a papist fleet the church.
30 Behold, thou flush Thomist, the beast also hath learned school law (dialecticam); which pieces wilt thou deny in all these propositions? Wilt thou deny the foremost (majores)? You may not, for Christ Himself set them and built the rock and the church against the gates of hell, also assuring us of this in Matthew 16. But would you deny the following pieces (minores)? You cannot; for everyone knows it well, it is also publicly evident, and it is learned daily that it happens this way. Where will you go before the spirit of this beast? Where will you hide from it? Where is your pope? Where is your church? Listen, I will tell you:
The pope who sins is the devil's servant.
Pabst's church is a school of the devil.
Again: 1)
Christ, the righteous, is a king of righteousness.
The Church of Christ is the communion of saints.
1) By contrast.
. From this, everything that the pope now sets, does or suffers is condemned. Here all spiritual rights and all his kingdom fall away. For Christ stands firm who says: "He who is not with me is against me." Also "do not agree with one another (as St. Paul says [2 Cor. 6, 15.]) Christ and Belial, the light and the darkness." What do you say here, Catharinus? Let there be so much difference between them. If you want to dampen, come in with scriptures; or if you ever need distinctions, prove the distinctions by scripture, and we will hear you.
32 From all the above, I conclude that you misuse the word "church" in an unchristian way when you claim that everything that is done by the pope and you is done by the church. We also confess that the church does right and well what it does. But you do not do right, if you call that the church, which you cannot prove to be a church; and that alone is the school of the devil [Revelation 2:9], which you hold against us under the name of the church. For this, you damned servants of the same Satan, you force us to worship what Satan does, and then say that the church did it. It is true that the church is governed by the Holy Spirit. Yes, but we have now proven that the pope and his church are often ruled by the devil. Now the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the devil cannot rule in one place. You must not shout here, Hussite, Hussite, for shouting does not answer for anything; nor does it help that you complain that it rhymes badly with the papacy. First dissolve what I have reproached you with, then shout. But you must resolve it for me through Scripture, not through lazy distinctions that you use to write poetry. And that I also act here louder and clearer, so I will also write it in a short school law. So:
1. all that the church does, the Holy Spirit does. And:
2. whatever the pope does with his own, that does the church: therefore
All that the pope does with his own is done by the Holy Spirit.
Listen, Catharine, you must not prove the first part, it exists for itself. Only make the other true, so that you do not strive in vain, but usefully. But when will you be able to do it? Not until you prove that the pope is built on the rock, that he will not be overcome by the gates of hell [Matt. 16:18] and that he is without sin, as you have learned from the above sayings. As long as you do not do this and prove it, you cannot force the Holy Spirit to do what the pope does with his own; but we have the right and power to reject and judge these laws and all spiritual rights. For they are suspect to us, whether they come from Satan or from the Holy Spirit.
(34) Here I will not have thee plead old usage, the great heap that standeth with thee. Nothing penetrates me, but only the word of Christ; he alone is to be believed, before all saints, yes, also before all angels. Of which angel has God ever said: "You shall hear him"? I do you or your saints no injustice if I set Christ against you, who by the voice of the Father and by the testimony of the Holy Spirit is shown to us to be the right, irrefutable teacher, as you may call some of them. 1) Also, if you yield to me, you yield not to me but to Christ. If thou resist, thou resistest not me, but Christ. But if thou resist Christ, thou resistest also his Father, who hath so exalted him that we should hear him.
35 Now we boast in the Lord and thank him that we have torn this sentence from you, Matt. 16. Yes, and should you burst and grit your teeth over it, all you papists in one heap, I still say that we have already fought for this sentence and won it with victory. Yes, he himself is victorious, so that your papacy will fall thoroughly to the ground, for it will be found that it has been nothing else but a deception and a ghost of the world;
1) In the Wittenb. In the Wittenberg edition: "thüret", i.e. to call you measured.
But you have been the ones who have deceived the people of God and perverted His word; you must obviously let this be said of you. Also the spiritual rights of all popes are publicly recognized for having been shameful teachings of the Antichrist. O what voice! O what scripture! O what thoughts would tell all your abominations that follow from it! For when this cover of your mischievousness has been pulled off and revealed to you, then, then, then one may see as into a hell full of lies, full of error, full of deceit, full of wickedness and completely full of all vices. All of which you have hidden with one another under this thin sheet of [unworthy] pabstry, so that the pabstry has always and ever been nothing else, but just in truth the quite famous kingdom of the Counter-Christ. For this reason, many have felt this abomination standing in the holy place, and wondered how it could happen that so many unskillful abominations come daily from this chair, which is famous for being ruled by the Most Holy One. O wretched papacy! Here you lie; there, I say, you lie cruel lion and have died, who before frightened all the world with your screams; but now the little dogs and the mice pluck your beard.
From all this, what I have said about the papacy is now confirmed, how reluctantly Catharine allows it and how much he is enraged by it. He is more angry than any Catharine, 2) and can do nothing at all, but thus womanishly defile and blaspheme. If you heard him, you would swear that you were listening to an insolent scoundrel. In the meantime, do not show off with anything but pottery, as the saying goes. Therefore, dear reader, I beseech thee by Christ, mark only, and behold, how doth he wash, this ass, which (as they say) beareth the [divine] mysteries (mysteria), so ridiculously and mockingly, as he speaketh of these four words, that is, of the rock, of building, of the church, and of the little word Mine. For
2) Wittenb. For I know no Catharinen. Latin: gnavis Oatüarina eoneitatior.
Since with these four storm witnesses I had pushed to the ground the whole ghastly pabstacy of the Roman idol, so that he himself could not deny that the rock, according to the right spiritual understanding, means Christ, or (which is the same as much) the faith of Christ; Nor does the fine, insurmountable Thomist help himself with this certain evasion of the Thomistic heresy, that is, with the interpretation of a word in various ways according to his own will, and thus makes nothing else out of it than an inconstant Proteus and alternate idol, called Vertumnus, of which the poets speak; indeed, in the end, nothing but mere words are made out of it.
37 Still, he does not want to notice, this great head, who was neither of Welsh descent nor worthy of a name, that he cannot prove anything with such inconstancy and fickleness. For if my disputation is admitted to be true in one sense only, in the spiritual sense first (as Catharinus himself admits to me), then it is certain that I have already won, even by the testimony of my own opponent. But because he is as adept at disputing as a donkey is at whistling (according to the proverb), I have to take a rough school law against such a coarse head, who has such a hard head. So, if Heinz disputes with Kunz, and it comes so far that Heinz admits to Kunz that he has spoken well and rightly according to the spirit, but he (that is, Heinz) wanted to understand it differently, that is, bodily, and would have neither reason nor right to do so, he alone would do it by force. If Heinz then wanted to boast that he had won, and refuted the other part, and wanted to do nothing after that, but keep up a fight with disgrace and blasphemy; so whoever saw it from him, what would he judge from it? Would he not say that he was more senseless than the drunken mad cads called Bacchas and those called Corybantes 1) by the poets? It is the same with us here. Catharinus admits to me that according to true right understanding Christ is the rock, but also wants to have that
1) Bacchantes, priestesses of Bacchus, and Corybantes, priests of Cybele, who celebrated their worship with great noise.
the pope may also be called a rock, and that because of the unformed faith he has, even though he is otherwise godless. O, what an unholy pontificalism this is, which is thus deplored and overcome by this wretched speaker's intercession. Why do you not say even more that the Turk and the devil should also be given this and all other such names? because they both have such unformed faith.
38 Ah, you unbundling disputer! Did you not think that you had first proved (as is proper) that my opinion was false and yours alone true, so that they could not both be considered true together? As I have done, and still do, so that only my opinion is true and yours is proven false; which I have already received by your own testimony, how much you have agonized over it. For if my opinion is true, and no more to it than is a plain and simple understanding of Scripture, it certainly follows that your opinion must be false. Further, I am not a Catharine reed, woven hither and thither by so many winds of interpretation of one word. I also do not speak: Thus one may say once; thus another time; but the third time differently. For to speak in this way is to speak in the Catharine and Thomistic way; that is as much as if one spoke nothing at all. But I go the plain and right way; yea, I walk freely along the highway; but thou stumbleest miserably only by the way and in over a rough field.
39 Truly, since you had no other confidence than that you alone would force and coerce the Scriptures with fictitious glosses from your head according to Thomistic (that is, according to the devil's way) and tear them apart in so many different interpretations according to your sense, it is obvious to everyone how great a fool you are and how ungodly before God that you have set yourself up against me. Now, what do you mean by this, but that you make room for me, so that I may once speak the right truth with all seriousness, to you false scripture rippers and godless cretins of the word of God? so that you may remove us from the
The truth is not as bad and simple as St. Paul says [1 Tim. 6:4]. But I refrain from it as much as I can. For there is no thing that distresses me so much as this spiritual robbery, as the apostle calls it [Rom. 2:22], which is committed against the Scriptures, or, as the prophets complain, that idols are made of the gold and silver of the Lord [Hos. 2:8, 8:4, 13:2]. Nor should anyone be surprised, since this sin, as Scripture itself testifies, angers and emboldens God more than any other.
(40) Behold now, beloved, what a fine refutation of my opinion is this, that, as also the fine Romish and Thomistic Catharine himself testifies, the rock signifies Christ. For so I had taught, since one should overcome me. So I still teach, since I must now be a heretic who has been overcome, and I will keep it that way until Catharine will prove from Scripture that a godless pope is to be called the rock; which he will not do (the honorable man) until just when a mule, which is unruly by nature, gives birth to a young one. For that some fathers have called St. Peter the rock, that might be suffered on account of Peter's faith. But since they do not prove this by Scripture, they should not penetrate us here in this disputation of ours, in which one should fight with Scripture alone.
(41) And that I may show to this scholar, who regards himself so artificially that he despises all my introductions and conclusions, how fine and masterly they are, and how well they are founded according to the law of the school; tell me, dear Catharine, where did you learn this art, that one should say of every godless pope according to St. Peter everything that the fathers say of St. Peter? Item, that one should also think of the wrong faith what one thinks of the right faith? Bring up only one of the Fathers who says that the Roman bishop is the head, the rock, the supreme and master of all the other churches. You mischievous sophists have brought us into these errors with fictitious words. What a beautiful consequence this is: St. Peter is a
St. Peter was an apostle; therefore it should follow that the bishop of Rome is also an apostle. Item St. Peter was a saint; therefore it should follow that the Roman bishop is also holy. Yes, I admit it, he is holy, but still unformed, that is so much as to say that he is the most holy. O truly! he is an unformed successor of Peter. But, as I have said, I care nothing for the sayings of the fathers, as often as they speak without Scripture, on which you rely so much that you rage at it, and blaspheme the right understanding of Scripture, even known by yourself.
(42) Above all this, you false hypocrites of the Roman idol are still so insolent that you do not care, even though you are overcome by your own testimony, that you do not have a clearer and louder saying in all of Scripture that would be on your side in this great matter. You also cannot interpret this saying of Matthew 16, where you want to do it badly and justly, in your own opinion, and until you do, you must have so many interpretations and glosses on a word that it is a miracle; and yet you do nothing more with it than to give it a little form, as if it were as you say. Yes, this also comes from the fact that you do not give this saying its simple meaning, but admit that the opposite has the right meaning of it; so you publicly show and are witnesses of it yourselves that this very saying is even contrary to you.
(43) Herewith you are also already conquered and overcome, as you have deceived the world with so many impudent lies until now and these two words "church" and "rock" are only required to serve your loud will of courage. For you have not gone about proving your understanding from this saying; but you have previously invented your own sacrilege, 1) and only then subjected yourselves to it, as you would like to force it upon us through this saying. Therefore you also, like Adam and Eve, covered your nakedness and shame with the leaves of this fig tree [Gen. 3:17]. But now, because you do not want it to happen to you, and
1) Wittb. Edition: Dünkel.
the chastity of the Scripture does not want to let you adulterers in, but you must stay out in front of the Scripture; so you invent and make us a new face of the Scripture and such a Bible, which would only (that one would have to laugh) be good in a carnival play; nor do you want to fix all your abominations with it. You call a godless man the rock. Also you call the church, which is also nothing but godless people]. Into these filthy places ye will entrap 1) the Holy Ghost, saying that he maketh you not to err. Item, that the building is your outward authority and obedience of ungodly men; as if Christ alone had meant this by his holy institution, that only ungodly men should rule in his church, ungodly men should be subject to him.
44 But I beg you, you shrewd school bully, who know well that one must give another example of Scripture, outside of the one presented (if one wants to prove something). Otherwise, show me some place in Scripture where a word means at the same time a completely godless person and also a Christian and holy one; as you let your nonsense appear here in this little word "rock. The same little word must mean to you at the same time St. Peter and every godless pope who (as you say) is supposed to be St. Peter's successor. Where did you learn these unchristian pieces and heretical abominations? for only from your master St. Thomas did you learn them without a doubt. Now, because you do this, you write against me as if we were arguing with each other in a sophist school quarrel, since you want to be the best everywhere with your evasive middle fiddles (propriis distinctionibus). It seems to be enough for you, if you only don't have to be silent. So you also meant here with me that it is one thing to be overcome and to be silent, to overcome and to speak. You did not even think that you had founded your cause on holy scripture, which would have been obvious and constant. Therefore the children of the German country laugh at you; yes, not only the laity (as you are highly annoyed), but also the women, that
1) Orig.: incLresus - to imprison.
you, such our Lord Master and a Welsh man at that, present to us for the word of God alone your own slobber, snot and filth.
45 Therefore let our Lord Jesus curse your and your Thomas' shameful and blasphemous iniquity, in that you have given the holy name of the rock to a godless man, and in that you have built the holy church of God on a godless being. For if the pope has a false faith, that is, as you say, the unformed faith, truly, he has no Christian nature in him, but he is full of ungodly nature, a servant of sin [John 8:34], a seat where Satan dwells, and the gates of hell overpower him. Nor givest thou to the church such a foundation, such a head, such a rock, upon which it fei built. I am horrified that I have to tell such an abomination. It is an abomination and blasphemy to say that Christ intended anything other than a holy and Christian thing by the word "rock. For what Christian would suffer such to be heard in his ears? Also, you have invented this most mischievous talk of unformed faith only so that you can the more easily and surely drive your spiritual thievery into the Scriptures as the murderers of Moab. But St. Paul tells us [2 Cor. 6, 14]: "How are light and darkness alike in multitude? How do Christ and Belial rhyme together? Therefore the rock must mean either light or darkness; that is, it must mean a saint or an ungodly one; it cannot mean either of these. For Christ says (Luc. 11, 23.], "He that is not with me is against me." Thus it follows that the bishop of Rome, if he is ungodly, cannot be the rock, and therefore the rock can never mean the pope. Do you also have something to complain about, you poor Thomist?
46 Therefore, we will no longer suffer this blasphemy of the Papists and Thomists, that in the Holy Scriptures sin and grace, virtue and vice, the good and the evil, the Christian and the godless are one thing, and that the godless being is preserved under the name of the true worship of God.
1460 V. a. V, 306 f. 61. L.'s answer to the book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1786-1789. 1461
and rule; lest we should hear with them, as Isaias, Cap. 5:20, says: "Woe unto you, all that say that evil is good, and good is evil; and that light is darkness, and darkness is light; that bitter is sweet, and sweet is bitter." But the Thomistic heresy is just the same of which Daniel, Cap. 8, 23, says: "It has an insolent face." Item Jeremiah, Cap. 3, 3: "Thou hast overcome a whore's face, therefore thou hast not been ashamed." For those who have gained such an insolent face that they may publicly do a thing that is good and that is evil in the church, and put God and the devil, Christ and Belial, in heaps: what should they not be allowed to do there, whatever abominations may be conceived? Now go, you wretched Catharinus, and invent for us means, make for us also new means, make for us also unformed good and evil things, an unformed Christ and Belial, and be one who is worthy of a Thomist, that is, a right spiritual robber and an evenly taxing murderer in the Scripture of God.
(47) Also how finely Thomistic you refute that which I have said, how by the one little word "my" in the oft-repeated saying all spiritual rights are overthrown, because in the same saying Christ speaks in a common 1) of the whole Christian church or assembly, not of the Roman alone, as the devilish and blasphemous spiritual rights want. But you say, therefore, that Christ does not speak of many churches, that is, "I will build them"; but he says of one church alone, which he will build a few: so that the same must be understood of the Roman church alone, that is, that it alone is built on the rock, that is, on the pope. This is a fine refutation, and I do not dislike it more than an exceedingly Catharine and Romanistic one. For it follows that nowhere in the whole world is there a church built on the rock, except the Roman one. But if this is so, then what does the Roman idol dare to do, to drive all the other churches so miserably around?
1) I.e. in general.
and to master, if there are no more churches than the Roman alone in the whole world? If this is so, it follows that the Christian church must never be called the single and general Christian church, as the Scriptures do, but must be called many churches.
48 Item, he also exercises such skill on me, when I punished the fictitious Pope Anacletus because of the word "Cephas", which means a rock, and he interprets it for a head. Then Catharinus answered me thus: Pope Anacletus had paid more attention to the reason than to the little word Cephas, namely, that St. Peter, who is to be understood by the little word Cephas, is the head, although Cephas is not interpreted as a head. Behold, my dear reader, what thinkest thou of this Welsh head? I would also like to laugh, if these poisoned Thomists had not introduced us to so many all too serious errors and ruin without number by such sophistical alfanzereien 2) and juggleries.
49. Let us now listen to this new jurist, that is, this unchristian, who perverts all rights, and this desecrator of the Scriptures, who makes himself famous for an interpreter. He says that one should no longer pay attention to the meaning of words, but only to the skillfulness of what is signified by them; that is, so that I may speak to him from the [dialectical] art, one should not pay attention to what one speaks of, but only to what is attributed to it. Take an example, if you want to talk about the wall, then you should not understand the wall by the wall, but that it is white, that you only badly understand a white thing, even in simple expressions outside of a sentence]. O what a fine Welsh and Thomistic head this is to me!
(50) Therefore, perhaps, by this art they also bring about that this little word "rock" also means an ungodly man; not that the ungodly man is the rock, but that he to whom the rock is put (that is, the one who
2) In Walch "Alfenze", in the Wittb. Edition, "alfentze," plural of "der Alfanz," i.e., foolishness, jugglery. Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XI, 490, § 31.
Pabst), is in truth nothing else but a godless man. What is there to prevent the little word Cephas from meaning not only a head, but also everything you want it to mean? Because it means the one who is all in all, that is, the pope, so that all words would become one word, and again one word would become all words, as one only wanted. There, here we German beasts must first learn the right Latin language now in our times from the French heroes, so that this little word Cephas must mean an apostle, a head, a prince of the apostles, an ungodly, a drunkard, a fornicator, a usurer, a tyrant, a deceiver, a Simonist, a boy-abuser, and all that in addition, which the whole world constantly and so highly praises from the most holy vicars (that is, governors of Christ) and from his cardinals, as the tender virtues, which are inherent and natural to them all.
But, dear reader, so that you don't read yourself to death by the Thomistry and the French foolishness of this French Thomist, I will put an end to it here. I have had enough of their having overcome themselves with these clumsy, laborious abominations, but must confess myself the conqueror against their will, by some that these poor people only work themselves out alone, as they may fly out. For see how this Thomist for and for does nothing else in his whole book, but that he invents new means and differences, by which he may gloss over his evasion. That he wanted to attack me, he does not think of that. Yes, how would he manage it, who is so careful, how he may escape. May my Lord Jesus protect me so that my adversary does not bring me into such distress in this war, that I would also have to seal so many differences and seek nothing but my escape; truly, then I would be overcome. Until now, I have based myself only on the true and constant sayings of the gospel, and that same in the understanding that they themselves must admit to be the right one.
52 Therefore, in order to prove the godless papacy, other sayings must be used:
This saying Matth. 16, 18. is already gone because it only speaks of Christian people who are built on the rock in the spirit. Neither does it speak of any other rock than Christ. Neither does he speak of any other church than the one called the general Christian church, united in the whole world, which is holy, in which St. Peter himself, as a member, is built on the same rock, and on nothing else, with all the others, in which all Christians are equal. For Christ speaks here in the saying of holy things, which may not be appropriated to ungodly men in any way. So that this word of Christ is no more spoken to the pope than this saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" [Matth. 5, 3], or another like it, which Christ says to all in general. Therefore we thank God that we have snatched this saying, which affects the whole church and all believers in one community, out of the tyrannical hands of the Thomists and Papists, who had made it solely the property of the Roman idol; so that they have kept themselves quite unchristian, not only against the whole common church or assembly, but also against the holy Scriptures.
But we give thanks to God for this. For from Him the same idol of this abomination, which until now has been erected, maintained and protected by pure lies, must fall completely to the ground. We have already taken away their consolation, we have robbed them of all their armor, on which they had relied and insisted [Luc. 11, 22.]. We have cut off the head of the great giant Goliath with his own sword [1 Sam. 17, 51.]. We also torment these Palestinians 1) with no plague harder than with their own robbery. They had taken the ark of the Lord from us by force; but they, without our doing, avenged themselves on them, plagued them in secret places, laid an everlasting reproach upon them. He is fallen and lies outside on his face, their idol Dagon, that is, the idol of spiritual rights, which are made by human poems alone. The mice swarm forth. It.
1) So in the original and in Specatus. Under it the "Philistines" are to be understood. Perhaps "Philistines" is to be read.
1464 D- rt. 309 f. 61. L.'s response to d. Book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, I79I-I794. 1465
Their entrails are hanging out at the bottom and rotting; that is, their thoughts have become obvious, as has the doctrine of their ungodly nature, and it stinks badly throughout the world. And the poor beasts 1) have only the work before them to make chairs out of the skins of the animals against the above-mentioned plague. For this is what Catharine does; he has become a tanner and chairmaker, in his whole book he does nothing else but mend hides and skins in heaps, and does his shoemaker's work; that is, he mends whatever he likes in heaps of futile protection, responsibility, protection and comfort, in honor of the most holy God and his teaching. But the hand of God continues and becomes heavy over them; it will not let go until they send the ark of the Lord home to us unharmed. And in addition to this, they will send ashes and mice with it for a guilt offering, for a confession of their shameful godless nature and so many lies, so that they have deceived us [1 Sam. 5, 6. f.].
(54) But you might say: If the church is entirely in the spirit and entirely a spiritual thing, then no one will know where any part of it is in the whole world; that would be a strange and unheard-of thing. For this reason alone do we indicate the pope, so that the church may be found in a certain place. Otherwise, what would it be that Christ teaches us to feed the sheep [John 21:16, 17], and Paul to govern the church [Acts 20:28], and Peter [1 Ep 5:2] to feed the flock of Christ; if the faithful are not to be found anywhere in the whole world in certain places? For who will preach to the spirits? Or what spirit will preach to us? Therefore the church must have its body and its place. Then also among the bodies and places of the church there must be one that is the supreme body and place.
55) This is my answer: Although the church lives in the flesh, it does not live according to the flesh, as St. Paul says, Gal. 2, 20. and 2 Cor. 10, 3. So also.
1) These words may be used to describe the inhabitants of Gath. Compare 1 Sam. 6, 17. 5, 8. 9.
Even though the church conducts its business and works of this world in one place, it is not to be judged according to them. For Christ takes away all places when he says: "The kingdom of God does not come with outward appearances, nor will it be said, 'Look, here or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is within you" [Luc. 17, 20. 21.]. St. Paul also abolishes all kinds of bodies, since he says: "Before God there is no respect of person" [Rom. 2, 11. Gal. 2, 6.]. Now in the same way, as the church cannot be without food and drink in this temporal life, and yet the kingdom of God is neither food nor drink, as Paul teaches [Rom. 14:17]: so it is also not without a place and without a body; nor are these places and bodies the church, nor do they concern the church at all. Therefore, just as it is not necessary that one should give certain and special food, drink, and clothing to the church, nor to all the faithful, although they cannot live in this world without food, drink, and clothing, but all things are free to them and all things are equal to them; so also it is not necessary that one should have a special place or person, although the church cannot be without a place and without a person; but here also all things are equal and everyone is free. Every place is suitable for a Christian, and yet it is not necessary that one should be specially marked out for him. Any person may feed a Christian, but it is not necessary to designate a special person to feed him, and no other. Here in things only the freedom of the spirit rules, which makes all things free, so that all bodily and earthly things are free for him, but not necessary for a Christian being.
(56) And this is no wonder, because even if you are a man, you do not need a special place or person to be a man; but you may well be a man in all places and before all persons. Yes, show me something in all the world that is so vitally attached to another and bound to it that it would not have its being without it. One sees that every creature holds itself free against every other,
so that in this the freedom of the spirit in all creatures can be seen in its fullness; as we also sing: "Heaven and earth are full of your glory" [Is. 6, 5.]. What nonsense is it, then, of the godless papists that they are allowed to bind the church of God, which is the most beloved, to a special place and person, as if it did not want to be deprived of it? and say that he is not a Christian who does not want to worship this pope, although he is godless, living in the holy place, and should not help anyone, if he freely goes where he wants, to have someone for a shepherd. This is the right abomination, who has placed himself in the holy place [Matt. 24:15]. These are the strong errors that God sent upon the wicked [2 Thess. 2, 4. 11.]. For if a place and a particular person are necessary to salvation, it follows that all those who have and honor the same place and person are blessed and holy. For in such matters it is possible to infer from one thing to another, according to the art of the school, as the wicked schoolmen teach. 1) It is not possible, whoever has one thing that is necessary for salvation, that he also does not have everything else that is necessary for salvation; likewise it is also impossible, whoever does not have one thing that is necessary for salvation, that he may have one thing among all that is necessary for such salvation; as one can then easily prove by schoolcraft 2). However, this is to be discussed elsewhere.
(57) Now you ask, by what sign must I recognize the church? There must ever be a visible sign by which we are gathered together to hear God's word. Answer: Yes, such a sign is necessary, which we also have; namely, baptism, bread, and most of all the gospel. These three are the Christian's watchword and emblem. Wherever you see these going on, that is, baptism, bread and the gospel, wherever or whomever it may be, do not doubt that it is a sign.
1) This sentence' reads according to the original as follows: Because in such things a conclusion from the particular has very well taken place, because it is certain from the following sentences (because I must show these admirable conclusion artists also my conclusion art).
2) Latin: iuckuetive.
Church there. For Christ willed that in these three signs we should all agree, when St. Paul, Eph. 4:5, says: "One faith, One baptism, One Lord." Where then there is One Gospel, there also is but One Faith, Hope, and Love, One Spirit; yea, all things there are one and the same. This is the unity of the Spirit, not of place, not of person, not of outward things or bodies. To keep this unity St. Paul commanded us to be careful. But where you see that there is no gospel (as we see in the Papist and Thomist groups), do not doubt that there is no church there, even if they baptize and go to the divine table (you want to exclude the children and the simple), but know that there is nothing else but a Babylon full of abominations and monsters, full of owls, as Isaiah says [13:21. 22], with other abominable beasts; that is so much as said, there are there all magistri nostri, as they call them. Truly the gospel is the only, most certain and noblest sign of the church, much more certain than baptism or bread, because it alone is received, made, fed, born, raised, fed, clothed, adorned, strengthened, armed and preserved by the gospel. Recently, the whole life and essence of the Church is in the Word of God, when Christ says [Matth. 4, 4.]: "In every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, man lives."
(58) I am not speaking of the written gospel, but of that which is spoken in the bodily voice; neither am I speaking of any preaching that is done in the churches in the pulpit; but I am speaking of the word of the right kind, which teaches the right faith of Christ, not the unformed and Thomistic; which right faith has been extinguished and stifled by the pope and papists, and is even silent with one another in all the world. For this reason Christ did not want any other thing more seriously from the apostles than this, that they should preach the gospel [Matth. 28, 19. 20. Marc. 16, 15.]. So he did not demand anything else from St. Peter, instead of all shepherds, but that he should feed the sheep [Joh. 21, 16, 17.
1468 D- V. a. V, 312 f, 61. L. 's reply to d. Book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, I7S6-I799. 1469
Voice teach the faith. Which word Catharinus truly interprets in a fine Catharine way, since he says that one should not understand it to preach from the gospel, but from the ruling power of the pope without the gospel. Since he then again makes as much sense out of the plain, simple meaning of Christ's words 1) as seems good to him for his cause. He knew well that preaching the gospel (which alone is meant in this saying) would not rhyme with the papacy, which is overloaded with so much business of this world; therefore he had to see how he could invent another meaning of the ruling rule, as St. Peter, 2 Pet. 2, 3, has recently said: "And by covetousness with invented words they will deal with you. I do not want to talk about this now, because enough has been said about it elsewhere.
(59) Therefore, the poetry of such papists must always be scorned when they say that there is another thing about the power of authority and another thing about the ministry of brotherly love. The Gospel and the Church know nothing about what is dominion; it is nothing but the tyrannical invention of men. It knows only about love and its servants; it knows nothing about violence and such tyranny. Therefore, the pope who preaches the gospel is a successor of Peter who does not do so; he is Judas, a betrayer of Christ. For Satan wants to accomplish nothing else through the poem of such supreme power, but that these tyrants may sin freely without fear and without punishment; that they may also thereby gain freedom and power to extinguish the gospel: so he has won. You see, no one remembers that he wanted to preach the gospel; yet even the others do not let the gospel be preached; so that Christ well said of them [Matt. 23:13], "You do not enter the kingdom of heaven, and those who want to enter, you do not let in either; woe to you!"
60. these signs, and especially of the gospel, i respect, were signified before times in the temple of Solomon [1 Kings 8, 8.
1) I.e. various interpretations.
The two knobs of the poles for carrying the ark came out in front of the mercy seat. So that the Spirit would make it understood that only by the clear and public voice of the gospel would one know where the church is and where the secret of the kingdom of heaven is. For in the same way as one would know by the protruding knobs of the staves, as by certain indications, that the ark was in the holy of holies, though it was hidden; so also no one sees the church, [one] must believe it only by the sign of the word; which word it is impossible that it should sound, but only in the church by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in the 9th Psalm, v. 1, the church is called almuth, that is, hidden. And this article of faith: "I believe a holy Christian church" publicly confesses that the church cannot be seen anywhere from the outside. It also takes away, this article, all place and person; as also St. Paul to the Galatians, Cap. 3:28, "In Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek nor Gentile, bond nor free, Jew nor Gentile: for ye are all of you one in Christ." So the net of the apostles does not pull the fish into the water, but to the shore out of the water [Joh. 21, 11.]. Also no fisherman thinks to do this, that the fish come into the water, which without this nature gives; but that they are pulled out of the water. So does Christ. With the voice of his word he wants to draw Christians out of all the business of this world, out of all places and bodies; he does not want to draw them into business, places and bodies first, because they are already in them by nature. So now I think that with these arguments all the matter is sufficiently proven to every Christian heart and mind; I also think that the nonsense of the papists has now been revealed enough for them to want to rob us of the church from within and to present it to us for miserly gain, in places and persons.
(61) But as to all this, I do not deny that there is a Papist Church, nor do I say that the Papist Church has no power at all, since we do not know of any other (except Christ) in the Scriptures, before in the
New Testament, have so great a testimony, likewise not a little in the Old Testament. And why did I not want to do so much to please my Catharine, and the most holy in Christ Father Pabst, the governor of God, so much to serve, that I also indicated by abundant and constant testimonies of the Scriptures, how his sovereignty may be so finely proven, so that all those may have their mouths shut who may say: one could not prove it by divine Scripture. I will prove it firmly and in the strongest possible way. The prophet Daniel shall be the first to stand out for me", who says from word to word according to the Hebrew text in the 8th chapter [v. 23-25]:
The prophecy of the prophet Daniel about the power and principality of the pope.
And after the kingdom of the same, when men are darkened by transgressions, there shall arise a king, mighty in countenance, and understanding in suggestions. And his doings will be strengthened, not by his power. He shall be a marvelous destroyer, and it shall prosper him, and he shall bring it forth. He will destroy the strong and the people of the saints. And he will go according to his purpose. And deceit shall prosper in his hand. And in his heart he will think highly of himself. And because there will be abundance enough, he will destroy much with it. He will also set himself against the prince of all princes. But he shall be broken without hand.
62. for the first, one should not obey those who understand this and similar sayings of the prophets from one person alone, ignorant of the use and custom of the prophets, which usually mean a whole kingdom through one person. For therefore they interpret the word "end-Christ" only to one person, whom St. Paul calls the "man of sin and the son of perdition" [2 Thess. 2, 3.], although Paul wants to understand the whole body and the whole ulcer of ungodly men and all their [the rulers'] descendants for the same end-Christ. Item, so also the ram means the kingdom in
Persia, the goat the kingdom in Greece in the prophet Daniel at the 8th chapter [v. 20-22.].
(63) Therefore if the prophet say, This king shall arise, when the four kingdoms shall come to an end, of which the Roman kingdom is one that hath been mighty with the sword; he will no doubt touch upon this, that the tyranny of the pope began at hand, and immediately the Roman kingdom declined and perished: [But he was to arise from the Roman empire, and in the Roman empire, and to have his place; as all history clearly proves, and experience shows, even to this day. As the apostle also foretold, 2 Thess. 2, 8, that he who held it up should endure until he was taken away, and then the wicked man should be revealed. 2c But the mere name of the Roman Empire came out of the Germans and was attributed to them, when it was already over and had been destroyed. And by this this man took a right access, that he exalted himself over all kings, over all bishops, over heaven and earth and thus confirmed his empire in his hand also by a great lie, which was invented for this purpose, that is, letter and seal of the handover of Constantius, which he is supposed to have done to the pope Silvester, which is not only a lie, but is even foolish and foolish.
When people are darkened by the transgressions.
64) Says the prophet, which Jerome interprets differently and says: "When iniquities shall abound. With this the prophet wants to instruct us that this kingdom will be the fierce wrath of God and will come because of sins. Also for the same reason Paul says in 2 Thess. 2, 10-12 that the same son of perdition will come in, when he says: "They have not received the love of the truth, that they might be saved: therefore God will send them strong errors, that they may believe the lie, that all may be judged who have not believed the truth [but have pleasure in unrighteousness].
1472 L. V. L. V, 315 f. 61... L.'s answer to the book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1801-1801. 1473
ciency]. Here the apostle expresses sufficiently with these words what unrighteousness or transgressions would be. Which also the prophet Daniel calls in Hebrew actually, and with a special meaning "Peschaim", which is actually a transgression and apostasy from the faith; in the same sense, as 2 Kings 1, 1. is written of Moab, that the Moabites fell away from Israel. Item Isa. 1, 2: "I have brought up and exalted sons, but they have fallen away from me." The same is said in the 5th Psalm [v. 11], "For the multitude of their transgressions cast them out." And Paul, in the above saying, speaks of it superfluously, saying [2 Thess. 2:11, 12], "They will not receive the love of the truth"; item, "They will not believe the truth, but will believe the lie"; so that he doubtless means nothing else than the vice of false doctrine, erroneous opinions, unrighteous faith, and apostasy, as he had said before [v. 3], "He cometh not, except the apostasy come first."
65) Likewise 1 Tim. 4, 1: "But the Spirit saith clearly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, and shall cleave unto erring spirits." 2c Item, again he saith [2 Tim. 4, 4], "They shall turn away their ears from the truth." But he here calls the "truth" in his own way the faith of Christ, as is also the manner of the Hebrew tongue; sets up a distinction by contradiction between the truth and the glitter, or, which is as much, between the truth and the mere appearance of the Christian being, as namely, to the Ephesians, Cap. 4, 15: "Let us perfect the truth in love," that is, let us be righteous in love, "and grow in him." Again he says there [v. 24.], "Put on the new man, created after God in righteousness and holiness." Of course, he wants to reject the righteousness and holiness of vain vanity and glittering superstition.
66Therefore the prophet Daniel is called nothing else but the beautiful glittering sins, which are against the truth.
The first thing we must do is to fight against faith, not without the danger of all kinds of other sins, but to become godly by works, to hold some superstitions, to pay much attention to the extravagant practices of worship, thereby departing from the faith that alone makes righteous godliness and holiness, as St. Paul admonished us in Galatians, Cap. 3 and in many other places. And this he indicates when he says: "They will not accept the love of the truth" [2 Thess. 2, 10], that is, they will not love the truth that is in faith; but, like the children of Israel, they will have a disgust at this little food [4 Mos. 21, 5], will desire flesh [2 Mos. 16, 3], that is, they will turn to fables and to the doctrine of men.
67 Therefore, we may not point this unrighteousness or sin to any other heretics that have ever been before; we must understand it only from the doctrine of men and from ungodly righteousness. For the heretics of old contended with the Scriptures; but this king, rising outside the Scriptures, shall reign with his own doctrine of men alone. Therefore Daniel says that the transgressions will darken the people. But all the Scriptures, and St. Paul before him, attribute blindness, darkness, and ignorance to none so much as to one's own righteousness and works of ungodly presumption, as is evident to everyone who reads his epistle. Christ also calls himself the light, so that only faith in him enlightens and justifies all men.
68 Therefore it is clear that this king must be after Christ has already been preached, and against the illumination of the gospel, so that the world has been enlightened. For when the prophet says, "They shall be darkened through transgressions," he gives an indication that they have been enlightened before; which cannot be ascribed to any kingdom before the coming of Christ. For no such kingdom has ever been darkened, because it has never been enlightened; nor has it ever committed any transgression, because it has never walked in the right way; but it must be understood by the ages.
Christ foretold that this abomination would come with just such words when he said: "Because unrighteousness will abound, love will grow cold in many.
69. St. Paul also speaks thus [2 Thess. 2:12]: "That they all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have lusted after unrighteousness." And truly St. Peter, with very severe words, punishes those who will be in the last days and, like dogs, will eat again what they have eaten. He also explains what the unrighteousness is that should prevail at that time and that they should be darkened, because he [2 Petr. 2, 1-3.There were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will bring in corrupt sects" (see, he would have said that they would bring in the "son of perdition" [2 Thess. 2:3]), "and they will deny the Lord who bought them. But they will also bring upon themselves swift condemnation. But many will follow their destruction, through whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. And by avarice with fancied words they shall deal with you." Here St. Peter even touches with each other the papal authorities, the ranks of the bishops and (as they call it) the whole ecclesiastical regime; and indicates that such accidents should be dealt with only by taxation and the help of those who have placed themselves in the holy place, and should govern the people with the word of God. Therefore, no one else should be blamed for this accident, except the rulers and heads of the churches.
This is the real scourge of God's wrath, when God sends us powerful errors and false prophets. But the other things that he sends upon us, pestilence, war, the devil, along with other bodily evils, are only a scourge of his mercy, so that he may chastise us. But that he deprives us of the healing word and sends us the poison of error, that is the very last plague of divine wrath.
71. one would have thought that the pro
Daniel the prophet would have spoken of the Turks, because in his reign, too, unrighteousness darkened the people, if St. Peter had not come and taught us of what principality we should understand the prophet, namely, of that alone which is administered in the people of God, and of those who sit in place of the teachers and bishops. As Daniel then interprets himself and shows that he is speaking of these alone and not of others, but of those who were the same false prophets among the people in ancient times. These things cannot be attributed to the Turk, who has thrown away baptism and the gospel and is no longer a people of God, nor is he counted as those who have their bishops in these lands. Let this be the first reason why this king should be as powerful a king as a king of Persia or Greece, or as powerful as a Roman king was in ancient times. After that, that he would rule by the doctrine of men against the enlightenment of the gospel in the people of Christ.
But for an introduction and a better understanding of this prophecy, let us better examine the words of St. Peter. But who is it that does not see how these injustices, of which he speaks, are just like the nature that the shepherds of the Roman church now lead? And whom should Peter address with this, but his very Romans, among whom his books are accepted, among whom he counts so much with his teaching? Did not Moses and the prophets speak to their people? As St. Paul says Rom. 3:9: "But we know that whatsoever the law saith, that saith it unto them which are under the law." But now St. Peter says, "Among you also shall be false prophets." Who are they but those who hear St. Peter speak and recognize him as their shepherd? Therefore, these words apply to us alone, who are under Roman Babylon; among us it must be fulfilled all that Daniel, Christ, Peter, Paul, Jude and John proclaimed before in the book of Revelation.
73. He says, "There will be false teachers." Have we not suffered them for a long time, who have destroyed the gospel and taught us only the doctrine of men? Here all the bishops, shepherds and theologians are finely painted with one another, all of whom are at the same time senseless and furious in that they alone so highly exalt and drive into the people what the Roman bishop has set and commanded. But see how the apostle speaks with such noticeable and full words. He says, "They shall bring in beside" [for in the Greek it is said.
xxxxxx], that is, besides the Christian doctrine, which they gloriously boast of, they will introduce unchristian inversion, but with concealed alphabets and lists they will bring in their opinion along with the gospel. Not that they deny the gospel, but that next to the sayings of the gospel they will invent additions, glosses and statutes 1) by which they will in time, so subtly and secretly, lead people away from the right free road 2) of faith, so that it will not be easily noticed, namely by their own chosen works; so that the gospel will be corrupted and destroyed, so that it will have to become incapable of preaching the faith at all.
74. even the false prophets of old did not deny the name of the Lord, but in the same name of the Lord they came. This is also how Christ Himself depicts them, Matth. 24, 5. 23,24: "Many false prophets and false Christians will arise and will deceive many. Item: "Many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ." Again he says, "If they shall say unto you, Lo, here or there is Christ, believe it not."
(75) But what do the two words, "Here or there," mean to us, but only various kinds or sects of corruption? And what is this corruption but the destruction of faith and the gospel? This doctrine of various sects and works is mentioned by St. Paul to the Ephesians in the 4th chapter [v. 14]: [xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx, i.e..]
1) d. i. Statutes.
2) In the original: a rsgia via.
"Deception to deceive", or deceitful handles to deceive secretly; therefore the wicked, when they want to deceive the people, attack the matter deceitfully, with their preaching; They hold up the words of God to them, but either force them out of their teaching, or else introduce their own doctrine alongside, thereby putting such trouble in the way of the people; just as the "woman" means the one who sat down in the higher place of the city to deceive whoever passed by, as in Proverbs of Solomon in the 9th chapter. Chapter, v. 13. ff, is read.
(76) St. Paul also exhorts the Romans in the last chapter, v. 17, thus: "Take heed to them that cause divisions and vexations beside the doctrine which ye have learned. What are we to understand by division, for the very thing [which] Peter calls "divers sects," and Christ means by that which he speaks, when they say, here or there is Christ 2c [Matt. 24:23.]? What are the aversions, for that very thing, which Peter calls corruption, and Christ calls seduction? What is the meaning of "beside the doctrine" other than that Peter calls the beside introduction, and for that Christ says, "They will come in my name"? So even this desolation with actual words has been proclaimed long ago by the false preachers thus: Not that they would publicly do away with the way of Christ, and show another, or deny the doctrine of the gospel, if one will look at the outward appearance; But they will preach Christ and the gospel in appearance, and boast of them highly, but yet (as they do now) they will deceitfully bring in trouble and division, by which in time they will still destroy and corrupt the way of the Lord and the gospel, so that they will retain no more than the mere name and title of Christ and the gospel.
(77) Do we not see that it is thus fulfilled in these times? since there are so many sects of works and spiritual states, which are repugnant to one another with the utmost absurdity and storm against themselves, of which the Roman church is quite full, by which the one way of faith and love has been destroyed,
should be common to all Christians. What do they pretend with these sects, but only the highest divine walk? Have we not praised these ways or ways unto heaven? Are we not hereby instructed that it is more by the merit of works than by the glory of faith that we are subject to attain to blessedness? In other words, we have already begun to give our merit to others to buy. But is it not because faith and the gospel have thus been laid waste and perished? Therefore he does not speak here of the heretics, but only of the bishops and pastors and clergy, who have many sects and works among them, with which they deceive and corrupt themselves and the people through false hope and appearances, because they do not teach at all how one should rightly believe, but only cling to their works, and one blind man leads another [Luc. 6, 39].
(78) What is the meaning of the apostle's saying, "they will deny the Lord," but he adds, "he who bought them"? Undoubtedly he wants to announce in what form they would deny the Lord, [namely, in the doctrine of justification; but] not openly; otherwise they would not be false teachers, because they would be openly unchristians, whom no one would hear. Neither would they be those who, besides the doctrine of truth, introduced the sects of corruption, because they presented no doctrine of Christ at all; but so it should be, that they should keep the names and titles, as if they preached Christ and the gospel, not supposing to obtain salvation by faith in the same, but by the sect and work. For this is what Christ purchased for us, who bought us with his blood, that we might be justified before God through faith in him alone [Rom. 3:24, 25]. But this innumerable multitude of spiritual orders, works and sects makes it impossible for us to do enough for God and earn the kingdom of God even by our own efforts. All these orders and sects the pope confirms by his authority, and beautifies them and makes them better than the common orders of other Christians.
In this way, he arranges it so that one may have comfort and trust in it. So his most beloved sons, the monks, come along and glimpse this to the most holy father, that is, they strengthen all his tyranny in the best possible way. They confess Christ in words, but deny him in deeds. They make a Moses of him, not because he bought us with his blood, that he alone might be our schoolmaster, teaching us how to lead a good life; but that he himself might live and reign in us, and be our Lord, doing all works in us himself; which may be done by faith in him alone. But those who now preach the gospel and want to be the best make only a master and servant out of Christ, who remains outside us and teaches us only what is good, but does not say that he should rule inwardly and work good works in us himself.
But it is well done that St. Peter says: "They will bring upon themselves a swift condemnation"; because God "will shorten these days, otherwise no man would be saved" [Matth. 24, 22]. And right now we hope that this time is near.
80 Further follows in Petro [v. 2]: "And many will follow their destruction. Thereby he indicates that very few will be preserved from this destruction. Therefore Christ gives good advice in Matth. 24, 16, that one should flee to the mountains and not return home.
(81) But here they say, Surely it is not evil what the fathers have set, for they were holy men, as Augustine, Benedictus, Bernard, Franciscus, Dominic, and the like of many others, of whom we have received it. Answer: This is what Christ and the apostles, Peter and Paul, mean, that these works will appear to be like those of which the Gospel says. For this they call secondary doctrine and secondary introduction, because they take the example from the fathers, but not the faith in which they thus lived. Thus happens
For what the fathers may have set by error, according to which it is here declared that even the elect shall be led astray. They plunge into it without sense and reason and accept the same error or the outward gestures for the right way, and are so deceived by it that, before they feel it, they depart from the gospel and from the faith; beforehand, if the Pope's power from Rome adds his own, it confirms the thing, strengthens it, so that one should trust in it; He goes on and makes necessary laws out of it, which the fathers made and kept only out of the free will of the Spirit, not wanting to bind anyone to it forever; or if they had already done so, they would have undoubtedly erred in doing so according to human nature.
Now it follows in St. Peter: "By whom shall the way of truth be forsaken. But what is this way of truth? Is it not the one that is contrary to the appearance and glitter of works? Neither did the apostles set up sects or rules, but only preached the Christian faith and showed it to all men as a common way; therefore also faith in Christ alone is the way of truth. Who then are the blasphemers? Without a doubt, they are those who deny the Lord. Take before you those who, by papal authority, extol their own cause, preach their sects, praise their orders as holy, righteous and wholesome. What are they doing by this, but depriving the way of truth of its praise and glory, and attributing this to their order?
Has not this blasphemy become so rampant that only the priests, first of all the monks, have been considered Christians? The others must be called laymen and worldly, and they are counted as a rabble that leads its life outside the way of blessedness; and when one enters a religious order, it is considered and praised as coming from the world and layman's state. Finally, we have been persuaded to think that if one wants to be saved, he must enter a religious order. Is this not "forsaking the way of truth"? Does not this mean, then, taught, "Here and there is Christ"? Is it not here that
Does not the way of faith be despised and forsaken, and the [sect and superstition of] works be accepted in its place? Must not then trust in Christ perish, and everyone want to be saved by works alone? Are not such gospelers now the most glorious in all the world, and held in great honor? So that the Christians, who live so simple in faith, are hardly considered to be the dung of the street.
(84) Further, if any man shall rise up against these chosen ways and manners of men, or (as St. Paul calls it to Colossians 2:25) against these [έ^ελο^ησζείας, i.e. ]
He had chosen his own clergy and chastised them, indicating that they were ways of blasphemy, devised to corrupt the faith, to destroy the gospel and to deceive souls, confirmed by the pope; he taught again that faith alone was the only way for all Christians to attain salvation; what do you think they would do to that? How often would he have to hear from them: You heretic, you end-Christian, you Satan, you devil, you disjointing, you erroneous man? Recently, they would not be able to bear the wrath, chastisement and disgrace that belonged to this worst enemy of the church, who would be so wicked, who would bring such dishonor to the fathers, and who would poison the people with such false teachings.
But the very thing Peter says here is that such false prophets will come, blaspheming the way of truth. Why? Because the way of their vanity must be praised, as the prophet says in the 10th Psalm, v. 3: "The wicked is praised in the lusts of his soul, and the unrighteous hypocrites to himself, and blasphemes the Lord." How bravely and finely does the Papist Church fulfill this prophecy to this day? Leave nothing to chance, everything must happen that is written in the prophets by the cunning, false, lying prophets, masters, shepherds and self-grown saints, whose names no one wants to tell; because at the end of the world there must be all the more of them.
86. further follows v. 3: "And by avarice with invented words they will tamper with you." That is clear enough in the day that it happens by the bulls, indults and spiritually.
The Church is not only a place for the sale of the right of the Church, but also a place for the sale of the right of the Church, through the stationers [relic merchants], quaestioners [indulgence collectors], terminators [mendicant monks] and mass sellers, so that no glosses are needed. What is the state of all priests different today than pure avarice, but only with fictitious words, not pretending to all, but also falsifying the words of God Himself? For these words, God, Christ, spirit, church, justice, truth, good works and merit, they misuse as many of them are. They do not rhyme them with faith, but with their own cause, so that the poor people must understand another thing by them than it means in Scripture. Therefore all that they preach is made up, because they do not preach the faith. For if they should preach the faith, all their things would be destroyed from the beginning. But now they have taken the people captive and made them fools with this glittering deception, robbing them of all their possessions and goods; because they have had enough, are idle, are powerful, are honored and highly praised, are also holy and spiritual people, and the holy name of God must serve them for such their abominations.
But let us return to Daniel the prophet, and there we shall hear much more of this abominable kingdom. That is now enough to say about one entrance.
(88) Truly, the prophet presents to us a strange and weird kingdom, which does not rhyme with any other kingdom that has ever been, is, or will be in the world. It wears new and unheard-of armor, uses new and unheard-of power and authority, does new and unheard-of things; indeed, everything in it is new and unheard-of. That is why the prophet says the following [Dan. 3, 23]:
There shall arise a king mighty of countenances.
Jerome has interpreted it correctly, thus: "A king with an insolent face. But we take it as the words read in Hebrew, Os Panim, which is interpreted: mighty of countenance or countenances. But that he should stand up is not spoken of one person, but of the whole kingdom.
and on the same descendants. This kingdom also does not mean that it should last a short time. Christ also says [Matth. 24, 15] that the abomination would stand in the holy place, that is, be firm, stable and strengthened with a great following. Also St. Paul [2 Thess. 2, 3. 4.] does not say that this son of perdition would pass by, but that he would "sit in the temple of God".
90 Now what a strange power has this strange king, who is powerful not with horns, not with claws, nor with sword or armor, but with gifts, so that he is not at all comparable to all others! He does not say, "He will be mighty with one gift, but with many gifts." Therefore, this prophecy does not rhyme with the Turk, nor with any other kingdom that is maintained by force and arms. For such as these are signified by teeth, horns and claws [Dan. 7:5, 23, 24]. So it may not be said of the kingdom of Christ, which has no ground at all [Luc. 17, 20], exists only in the spirit, and has only its spiritual horn to fight, which is the word of God. Therefore one must conclude that this kingdom is neither spiritual nor temporal, for it is not maintained with either spiritual or temporal weapons.
. 91. With what then is it maintained? Answer: With pretenses, that is, with a vain appearance, with pretense and with the splendor of glittering, namely, with all kinds of outward, unbelieving ways and customs in worship, which are only presented to the eyes from the outside, in clothing, in food and drink, in persons and special dwellings, in customs and the like. For among all pretenses or outward appearances, none is more powerful and pleasing than ungodly hypocrisy, which gives the appearance of a true spiritual being and has a Christian appearance; therefore it is also the most harmful. Never again will a man be attracted, seen or held by worldly figures, be they males, boys, 1) goods or friends; nor will there be any amusement games or whatsoever of the kind.
1) I.e.: of maidens, of young men.
otherwise would like to tell. But the spiritual spirits, because they seem to be divine, and pretend to be an indication of the eternal things, the same ones saw and deceive even the most wise, the most holy and the most powerful, yes, even the elect, as Christ says Matth. 24, 24.
It is therefore evident that this king must be the end Christ, that is, an adversary of Christ and his kingdom. For Christ is such a king, mighty in truth and fiercely opposed to appearance and form, as we see in the gospel. But this is such a king, who alone is mighty in giving, and is also fiercely opposed to the truth, for which reason, not without cause, the holy apostles Peter and Paul so often blow the word "truth" in our ears, that they may deter us from hypocrisy and appearance. For so says St. Paul, 2 Tim. 3, 2. 5, when he interprets this saying, namely, "There will be men who think much of themselves. "2c And then follows, "Those who have the appearance or form of godly conduct, but deny its power."
How many a pretense and pretence, ghost and glitter, in the most sacred of the Pabst's
Empire can be found.
Let us look at the kingdom of the pope, and first of all at the appearance, or the figures, of the persons in it. Can you, tell me, where was there ever a kingdom that had so many donors of persons? First of all, look at the pope, how he struts in with a three-fold crown, with immense pomp and grandeur, with so much splendor and courtiers. See then the splendor and wealth of his cardinals, who even among themselves are not of the same person and character; for this useless people makes itself equal to kings. After that, see the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, suffragan bishops, vicars, provosts, deans, canons, officials, clerks, and who can tell all of the unpleasantness? Among the monks alone, the stories are so varied that it would not be easy to tell them.
94. however, these are the things that one
The most spiritual rights of the most holy father, the pope, do not deal with any other things than these, although Christ and the apostles without them have governed the church in the best possible way with the most consistent truth. In the church and in the word of God there is also no need, nor benefit of it. Now do you understand what "the king mighty of givers" is? I also think you understand what "the abomination that stands in the holy place" is [Matth. 24, 15], where you want to hold the form of it against the truth of the apostles.
(95) And especially the Hebrew word os, that is, a mighty one, serves for this purpose; for it signifies the natural or inherent power of a thing; not the compelling power by which one protects oneself or denies other people's goods; but, as we speak of the power and might of herbs, if we want to signify the power and virtue of the same. So this king has no other natural virtue in him, but only the appearance and gestures and various outward appearances in various ways and in innumerable places, of which Jude the Apostle thus proclaimed [v. 16: "They respect the appearance of men for the sake of profit"; and Jac. 2, 1: "Dear brethren, do not think that faith in Jesus Christ our Lord suffers from respect of persons." Again Jude says [v. 4]: "For there are some men come in beside, of whom it is written in time past, unto such judgment, that they are ungodly, and draw the grace of God to lust, and deny God, that he only is the Lord, and the Lord Jehovah Christ."
I do not want to reject the interpretation of Jerome, who calls this king insolent and of an insolent face; I want to show the presumption of the gleissers. For it is unbelievable how sure, how bold, how presumptuous people make this figure of the God-blessed being, by which alone they consider themselves worthy of heaven before all men; make them, as the prophet says [Obad., v. 4.], "their nest up among the stars." Yes, they are so insolent and impudent that they have equal mercy on the other rabble;
Therefore they also give them their earnings, and sell them, that they may eat and devour their houses. Some of them, as the Pharisee did to the publican [Luc. 18, 11.], spurn and despise the poor. It looks at me that he also meant it, who in the book of Proverbs 21, 29. which is translated from the Hebrew: "The wicked man is mighty in his face, but the righteous man does right in his ways"; as if he said: "The wicked man is secure in himself, lacking the gifts of godliness, but the righteous man, with Paul [Phil. 3, 13.], gives himself up every day to that which is before him. Which certainty is also nicely described in Ps. 10, 6: "(He says in his heart I will never be moved, no calamity will befall me." And again, "Thy judgments are hid or taken away from his presence." The same is said of the wicked of his time, Isa. 28:15, who had made a covenant with death and with hell 2c
Now let us look further at the other gifts in which the powers of this kingdom stand. The first of these are the riches of the church and the paternal inheritance 1) of the Crucified One, called church goods and spiritual goods. For the power of this kingdom has brought about that which is temporal must be called spiritual; temporal things must be ecclesiastical and corporal things heavenly. With these things the church is endowed, adorned and made glorious; indeed, not a small part of the gifts consists in these things. Tell me, what emperor has ever been able to do so much good? It is a fact that the ecclesiastics possess more than half of the world's goods; many cities, castles, dukedoms, kingdoms and principalities have been incorporated into this king. The Roman Empire took about the lap and customs alone, but here the property [itself] is their own. Which ruler of Rome in former times could have been compared to one of these cardinals or archbishops or bishops? There is never no
1) In the original xetriiaonia; probably jokingly set for xatrimonia.
The people of the Holy Roman Empire would not have had such great princes and lords under them, who would have been able to manage such great goods, such abundance and splendor. But they do not have enough of this half share, but they also pretend that the laymen's goods are all theirs; so that they would like to destroy all principalities, all power and authority and, according to their will, bring land, people, cities, castles and villages all under themselves, only that they might rule and command as they please. And if anyone opposes them, they can wage war and shed blood; they can even do the same with their own warriors and incite and ensnare princes and lords in one another.
Yes, they have not been satisfied with making all the world's possessions and goods their own; this tyranny continues and makes it all theirs, as often and as they want. So the pope sucks the bishops, the bishops suck the parish priests, for this they have invented the pallia and annals, subsidies, that is, tax of love (as they call it) and other such robbery titles, and if it goes on for a long time, it only goes beyond the poor people. For there the parish lords and the monks skin the people and flay them, so that they may fulfill themselves and the bishops. And this robbery is carried out by the pope in one half of the goods, which we have called church goods above. The other half of the goods he steals by means of indulgences, by means of bulls, by means of letters of confession and butter letters, by means of liberties and dispensations, which he issues from himself. And who alone could tell all the titles of such robbery? And this is accomplished only by the givers; and the same givers become more and more, so that they also do such robbing and plundering more and more. These are now called holy, Christian, faithful offices of the shepherds in the church, so that they shine as sun and moon in this world.
(99) Damn him who says that these are not great good deeds that go on without ceasing and mightily to improve, adorn, and strengthen the holy church, that indeed the splendor of the kings of Persia and the wealth of the Romans, which were known in ancient times, are not great.
1488 V- a. V, 327 f. 61. L?s answer to the book of Catharinus. W. xvm, 1822-1825. 1489
is child's play when you look at how gold and silver flow in, shoot and pour. But what do you do with so much good? What need is there for it? Do you give it to the poor and miserable? Yes, God be thanked for that! But Sodom, Gomorrah and Sybaris must be filled with it. But what do we do with such childish, light things? The thing is so great in itself that one can neither believe it, hear it, nor talk it out.
(100) And yet these things serve to strengthen such vices, in the highest way, that even much lesser sin has become adultery, deception. Yes, what do I say about lesser things? It is easier to blaspheme the name of God, to commit perjury and to deny the faith (although these things too are more a joke than counted as sins among them), than for one to injure a spiritual person only a little by diabolical inspiration (as they call it) or to damage his property only by a penny. So holy is this more than three times the greatest robbery, that also a frightening rumor goes, how some have perished so shamefully because of it, first of all the princes, and none has died without shameful death, who would have touched only the smallest of their property or would not worship them worthily and sufficiently.
For they do not understand that these are the mighty errors that come with false signs and wonders of the devil [2 Thess. 2:11, 9]. For such misfortune of the same antasters of the church goods does not come upon them because the church goods should be so holy, but because they are so cursed and poisoned, as they are gained so shamefully and with such outrageous robbery, that they, who only touches them, become deadly to a good man and, as it goes in the proverb, turn into tolose gold; But they alone are harmless to those who steal it for themselves and who approve of it, protect it, and also have a share in it; they are well, live in all pleasure and are honored; when they die, they are buried honestly, at the grave they erect a shield and helmet and endow them with an eternal memory, so that heaven is attained for them, which they, because they lived, did not deserve before their death.
of such sacred things, that they might rightly and justly miss themselves, and so, in the meantime, almost unwillingly have earned hell.
102) Above this high holiness and so much honor of the church, that is, above these offerings, which they have presented with great devotion and spirituality to praise God, there follows another offering of courts, palaces and splendid houses. For as the offerings of goods make the offerings of persons respectable, without which they would otherwise be despised; so do the offerings of courts and houses and adorn the offerings of goods. For the goods are less respected, if one would not have beautiful, decorated and apparent houses according to the dignities of this glory. Now tell me also here, can you, where is any nation that has more delicious, more beautiful, more amusing and ahead so many houses, than this kingdom of the donors? Don't they have the best grounds and floors? Do they not possess the best castles and houses? Where is there any pleasure, splendor and ornament in the whole world that you would like to compare with them? For they build as if they intended to build a paradise for them here, which should last forever. Just look at the royal palaces of the most worthy cardinals, which they own for the glory of God and for the honor of the church, you would have to be ashamed if you compared the halls of the kings. But this is no wonder, because they are the descendants of the apostles and (as they say) the power of the church; therefore they should be equal to kings, even though the apostles alone were fishermen [Marc. 1, 16.].
Now let us also come to the other gifts, which are less holy than those mentioned above. For these three donations of persons, riches, and splendid houses, which we have told so far, may without doubt be recognized as the most sacred, since everyone knows well how great an ocean there is in the spiritual rights.
which concern the church as much as Belial rhymes with Christ [2 Cor. 6:15].
The fourth gift is the clothes and especially the garments of the clergy, with which this un-Christian being of this horrible disturbance mostly protects itself. Which one does not cheaply puff up and make holy, and that one must almost worship him for God, the red cardinal's hat, the two-pointed island, 1) the scarlet tail, 2) the mouths adorned with precious stones, the long dress, which from the top down to the feet is made of gold and precious stones, and all other variety of adornment, so that they are separated from the laity and from the common clothing of common Christianity, as from an unspiritual doing and being of the same? Now consider also, the shaven heads, and the hands smeared and consecrated with stinking oil, which no one may touch, it would be more, than if one had committed the highest breach of the church. But how blessed is he again, who by great grace is granted so much that he may kiss them. But the dress of the monks, though it may be various, is so shapeless that it is almost an abomination to them.
Here thou mayest see from whence so many sins have sprung in a short time, how many grievous consciences and cases they alone have reserved to remit; namely, as often as anything is neglected in these garments and changes. Do you think that any violator of virgins would commit such a great sin as that of sinning, namely, that a priest would not have his plate sheared for a whole month? What sin would it be if such a person had slain his father and mother, as opposed to one who went to the altar without a stole or without a vestment or had forgotten to put on something else from the chasuble?
O what a worthy clergy! O what a fine worship, which looks very well to such saints! Here they govern and administer their kingdom with so many laws, statutes, customs and habits;
1) Island - Inful, bishop's cap.
2) Tail i.e. train. Mouths i.e. mouth animals.
So many dispensations and irregularities must serve for this, and such abominations without number, so much that no one would like to tell it without his great disgust. There, there, in these things the Christian service consists. Truly, these are people who are to be taken for the Christian church, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells; These are they whom it is reasonable to believe may not err, but for the sake of one cause, that they are thus shamed, that they walk in such garments, that they ride on mouths, and are carried in litters, though they not only are ungodly, and ignorant of the Scriptures, but also in worldly matters have no reason, nor sense, nor wit, grosser than the asses that dwell in Arcadia, of which there is a special proverb. This alone is enough for them to know by heart, so that they are able to measure all things. This is the way that they take up their cross and follow Christ [Matth. 10, 24], these noble descendants of the apostles and governors of God, here on this earth.
The fifth gift is the brave masterpiece of squandering money to build, erect, decorate and abundantly endow houses of worship, monasteries, chapels, altars and other such works. This is where the most sacred rights, bulls and seals of the pope can be used and lost, so that they confer heaven more than once on all those who give and donate their help and taxes for this purpose. Here, the good works go forth in true fervor; here, immeasurable treasures are collected for the building and upkeep of the house of God. Where churches are built here that are more beautiful and ornate, they are so much better Christians, and they do much better who give to them than when they give to poor people. They do not build churches to make a comfortable place to hear the word of God, but so that God and people will have something fun to look at.
(108) For they build a house for God, even though He said long ago through St. Stephen [Acts 7:48] and long before that through Nathan and David [2 Sam. 7:7] that He does not dwell in houses.
which are built with the hand; but now he is expelled from his heaven and has come into misery, and now begs houses from us to him and his saints. And the most holy father Pabst with his bishops come then and these nonsensical works, to which the rabble is too much inclined without that, they consecrate and sanctify and also commit them with high freedom after that. Again, they banish and condemn with severe plague and punishment all those who dare to dishonor, despise, or commit sacrilege against these places of worship; as is fitting for such clergy of the churches. But by doing so, they do not only strengthen the above-mentioned nonsense of the mob, but only move and incite them the more, so that not even a small part of the most holy spiritual right has arisen from it, by which one must mislead and confuse the world with foolish and incensed consciences [1 Tim. 4:2].
What then do we do with the word of God and with faith? That is why Christ is left in charge of the kingdom of truth. This king has enough to do with the kingdom of gifts; he must administer it to the best of his ability and make it great with all kinds of alfalfa tricks, as he is always able. Tell me, is this not worshipping stone and wood? Show me otherwise, what is worshipping stone and wood? since God has not commanded these things, and moreover, what he has commanded is trampled underfoot and laid waste by them.
The sixth is not one alone, but a whole forest full of prayers, that is, all the things that are conducted and handled in the churches as the most delightful trades. There, the seven times of the day are whispered and murmured with great effort, but in such a way that they are never prayed. Also, they multiply them by and by with Our Lady's course, 1) and with the one made by the holy cross, and with too much chatter of songs, which God (as he says through the prophet [Amos 5:23]) does not want to hear. And who would tell with how many laws, that is, with how many causes the
1) D. i. eursus Alarme, a long grater of Marian prayers.
What is the meaning of this work, if it is a work of sins and evil conscience? One has also added sounds 2) and without number of various ways and types of chants. Yes, the organ and all musical arts had to serve these purposes. Not to mention the chalices and the sculptures, the vessels used in the church, made of gold, silver and wood, also the cloaks, altar cloths, corporals, 3) and without measure and number other church ornaments, candles, lamps and the like.
Furthermore, they have invented even more sacraments than Confirmation and Holy Orders, the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and Holy Communion, which is offered to the dying. O good God, what an insatiable pit this is, which devours so much money and goods, and even murders so many souls! Who here has such a good head that he would grasp in his memory so many spiritual rights, which are set only for the purpose of knowing how such things should be done well and worthily? They also make these things necessary for all Christians, so that they would sooner forgive adultery than do anything contrary to such holy laws and ordinances. But if the most holy father pope had freely given each of us these gifts, along with those mentioned above, to choose from, and had let us all remain equal according to the gospel, then none of the sins, which have thus become without number, would ever have arisen. "For where there was no law, there would be no transgression" [Rom. 4:15]. But now he abuses our foolish consciences, and makes so many laws, of which there is no end; and by them he causes so much sin and ruin, of which there is neither number nor cessation. This is why St. Paul calls him the man of sin and the son of perdition, that is, a voluntary lawmaker who is so godless that he combines with law the things that have been made free for all believers through Christ.
2) Wittb. In the Wittb. edition: "gedöne", mere shouting. In the Jen. Ausg., Bd. 2, 236: "kören und dohnen".
3) Corporal, a white linen cloth for covering the hosts. Cf. Wittb. Vol. VII, 500b).
4) D. i. ever.
Here I will be condemned by the most holy father Pabst's nobles, who will call me a Picard and a Wiclefist. But against this I shall be comforted by the prophet Daniel, who thus directs his prophecy to this Antichrist in the 11th chapter [v. 38. f.]: "He will honor the god Mausim in his building, and he will serve the god of whom his fathers did not know with gold and silver, with fine stones and precious things. He shall remember that he kept Mausim with a strange god, whom he also knew not. He will have much honor, and give them authority in many things; the land he will divide without merit. "2c For this shall be almost enough for me, that I know how these things are all free, not needful unto salvation. Therefore, if one wants to turn them into necessary or useful commandments, this cannot be done without an abominable and unchristian desolation, which belongs to the end-Christ alone, so that he may cause much sin on the earth and much destruction; for these things are only external gifts, not true things in the flesh.
(113) The seventh sin may well be called all the abuses that take place in the mass and all its ceremonies, including the vigils, anniversaries, benefices, endowments, funerals, along with the whole business that has been set up for the dead. Now what is this but a pretense and "appearance of godliness" [2 Tim. 3:5] to deceive the people and strip them of their skin and hair? For now, in our day, we do not say mass to go to God's table and hear the gospel, which in truth is called saying mass alone; but we always say one mass over another, thinking we are often doing a good work. Yes, we also need the mass more for the dead than for the living, only that the [living] sacrificial priests feed themselves so shamefully with this office. Finally, we need the mass as if it were not the communion of God's table at all; rather, they hold the sacrament of God's table especially outside of the mass, so that the sick may be blessed with it, or they carry it around in delicious monstrances as a strange miracle,
that the people alone should be instructed. These things are all nothing, for human fetishes, which God has nowhere commanded; they are also not necessary, but unchristian and forbidden; provided they keep the mass. But the Most Holy Father, who is the source and fountain of sins and corruption, compels that they must be necessary commandments, so that even he must be a heretic who only dares to protest against them.
The eighth gift is the choice of food and fasting, which should be free every day. But in our day, fasting is not done to mortify the flesh, but that it is a good work to fast this or that day, not to eat, so as to earn heaven. But what is this but an unchristian gift? Of which Paul recently proclaimed, 1 Tim. 4:3, "They will forbid to eat the food that God has created"; and Gal. 4:10, 11, "You keep days and months and feasts and seasons; I fear yours, lest perhaps I have labored in you in vain."
For the ninth blasphemous sin I count that one sets up a holiday above the other for all excesses. For this is what the most holy father Pabst does on this day: he teaches people to serve by idleness, that is, as he interprets it, that one should not perform any bodily business on a holiday, when all days are free, one may work or celebrate. But in this gesture, the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Twelve Messengers, and the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin, and the like, shine out before others. People must sin and ruin their souls if they do not want to keep one or more of the holidays, or if they keep these foolish and useless commandments unwillingly.
The tenth gift is the noticeably large number of unmarried clergy and monastic chastity. Truly, it is even an angelic gift; but a devilish thing because of it, of which St. Paul 1 Tim. 4, 3. says: "They will forbid marriage." And this again Christ has made free; so
1) I.e. of the twelve apostles.
1496 V. ru V 332 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1832-1835. 1497
The Most Holy One makes a necessary commandment out of it. Of which Daniel on the 11th [v. 37] thus makes his prophecy: "He will be out of the lust of women, 1) and will pay no attention to any God"; which we have in our bibles is absurd and wrong 2) thus: "He will be in the lust of women." For this is what Daniel wants to say here: He will not despise the wives out of the love of chastity, but through the vain appearance of godliness.
The eleventh gift is the honor that must be done to the sanctuary and relics. Truly, this is a lovely offering, for it carries much money without measure. Therefore, so many pilgrimages have arisen without number, so that the silly rabble invests effort, expense and time in vain, leaving house and farm, wife and child against God's commandment, whom he should care for at home, or else would like to do much better works at home while working on one's neighbor; for of this one has God's commandment; but to honor and visit the holy bones is nothing but human work. Here they bring Jerome up for their part, since he writes against Vigilantius. But he does no more than to say that he does not want the bones of the saints to be considered a mockery or despised. So they do one thing, 3) and misuse his testimony to the effect that they do not want the least reverence to be paid to the dead saints' bones to be broken off, but rather to honor and worship them as they wish, above all manner and measure, so that no other work should be held in such high esteem.
118 This is also the case, that one has vowed to do so, so hard that no one can dispense with it, not even the pope himself, unless it is a matter of hope for the dear penny. But such a vow, although it is made against God's commandment (who wants to provide for wife and children), still no one says that it is a sin; rather, it is said that there is a particularly great merit in it. Thus the world is deceived by the beautiful glitter of this one work.
1) I.e. love of women.
2) I. e. in the Vulgate.
3) That is, they make one, they make a mockery.
Here I will also include all brotherhoods, however many they are, which are invented by the devil with special diligence only so that the main brotherhood of faith and Christian love would be abolished. For these brotherhoods are established under the name of the saints and in honor of the bones of the deceased saints; of which abuse I have spoken elsewhere; and it would be worth the effort to write a whole book about this particular abomination.
The twelfth, which we count as the last (although there are many more of them, but we order them to be interpreted by the others), is the great pit and the wide gate of hell; such a gift, which has such an immeasurably almost [exceedingly] good reputation that it is unbelievable, namely the high schools, where perjury and blaspheming the name of God is the first entrance. After that, there is a free and wanton change into all vices. Nor do they promise, among so many sins and corruptions, that one may learn art and wisdom; they also propose high titles and ranks of scholars, which one who studies diligently may receive as a reward. What do they bring for benefit and piety?
First of all, the most skillful boys of the Christians are sent there to make their souls spiritual whores of the faith and throw them into the jaws of hell, so that it looks to me as if this corruption was meant by the idol Moloch in the past, in honor of whom they let their dearest sons and daughters go through the fire [2 Kings 23:10, Jer 32:35].
After that they are presented with Aristotle, whom they themselves have never really understood, and other pagan and secular books, so that the intellect and skill of the Christian boys is overloaded, yes, blinded and even killed. There one acts for the word of God the teaching of the pope, so that one can easily see how the devil could not have devised a more cunning and powerful specter, by which the whole gospel is destroyed from the ground up, that is, with which, since one has established so many high schools, since one under the title of Christianity, one is able to understand the whole gospel.
The only things we teach in Christian doctrine that are most repugnant to the Christian faith are those about which we would have long and much to discuss, if we had time enough to do so.
From these pits of murder and dens of all vice and uncleanness one calls those who are to govern churches; indeed, if one wants to call the very best and most fit to do so.
(124) And indeed, this one gift is to be counted for the last, that is, for the worst and most harmful (as it seems to me), because it carries with it the title as if God's word were being acted there; but the other gifts only have the title of a good example. Also, this gift is nothing else but the school of Hidoth, that is, the school where nothing but propositions are taught, on which the king of gifts is well versed; of which it will be said hereafter.
But it is an immeasurably greater pity if one teaches under the title and name of the Word of God that which is unlike and contrary to the Word itself, for if one lives otherwise than divinely.
For the first reason, because the giving of the examples is made and strengthened by the giving of the Word; it would also soon have to perish if the Word did not rule in giving and appearance, but according to its proper manner and use.
Secondly, because the giving or appearance of the examples alone corrupts good morals; but the giving or appearance of the Word of God, in addition, brings the faith itself to the ground. Oh, that God would only give such a grace, so that the high schools would accept God's word! Good God, how quickly the whole papacy with all its donors would be destroyed! because this one donor of the high schools of the whole kingdom of donors is the support, the bones and all the forces with each other.
Of the Abomination of the High Schools, from the Book of the Revelation of John, Cap. 9.
This larval earth has, in my opinion, St. John in his revelation at the 9th chapter, v. 1. ff., indicated long ago.
and it is well worth the effort that we hold up his words here and interpret them a little, since he says thus:
V. 1. and the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to earth, and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him etc.
First of all, it is certain that the angels signify the bishops of the church throughout the whole book of Revelation; as is clear enough from the eighth [v. 1, 8] and third chapters [v. 1, 7, 14] of the same, where it is written to the angel of the church at Ephesus and to the angel of the church at Smyrna [and others]. It is also certain that the generation of angels who blow the trumpets, which are seven, as is read in the eighth chapter [v. 30], may be attributed to none but the Roman bishop, since it is not written of the others that they blow the trumpets. Furthermore, it should be known that "blowing on the trumpets", as much as the text itself gives afterwards, and what was done from it, may be nothing else than "setting spiritual rights"; which, without the Roman one, no other bishop has ever attributed to him. It is not in vain that it is written of the reported seven angels that they prepared to sound the trumpet [Revelation 8:6]. It means that the popes alone had neither rest nor peace because of their nonsense and tyranny in making laws and bringing other bishops under them.
But let us come back to our fifth angel, who is the first among the three, who should lead the three "great woes" into the world. This same fifth angel was the one who first raised up the high schools and thus established or confirmed them. And because the histories are described so unequally, so one cannot easily indicate the same one with name; but he may have been whoever he wants, not much wants to be concerned about it.
But the star that fell from heaven to earth was either Alexander of Hales or, which I believe to be more likely, St. Thomas, who, after the high schools were confirmed and this fifth angel sounded the trumpet, rose and either
1500 D- ". v. 335 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. xviii, i837-i8io. 1501
He was the first to bring the pagan art to Christianity, or he was a good helper to it, who is so Aristotelian before others, yes, almost Aristotle himself, having fallen from heaven, that is, from Christ to the same earth, relying on the great prestige of the same godless angel, who confirmed such high schools.
Now follows in the revelation, "he received the key to the well of the abyss" 2c He unlocked the same well and led us out of it the dead pagan art condemned by the apostle. And then "there arose a smoke from this fountain", that is, according to the word and opinion of Aristotle and other philosophers, "like the smoke of a great furnace". For it has gained the upper hand, and this pagan art has become powerful far and wide, so that it has compared even Aristotle to Christ in respect and dignity 1). Therefore "the sun of righteousness [Mal. 4, 2] and truth" [Joh. 14, 6], Christ, has been darkened, that for faith, which is righteousness, works have been put forth, and for truth without hearing nothing has been put forth, but only human conceit.
(133) "And the air from the smoke of the fir (he says) was also darkened," so that one would not think that it was an eclipse of the sun; but that it was a darkening of the air together with the sun, which had come from the smoke emanating from below.
That is, Christ together with the faith, which may be an air or wind, should be eclipsed especially by the doctrine of men.
V. 3. And out of the smoke of the well came locusts upon the earth.
These locusts mean the rabble of the high schools, which the pagan art gives birth to us. 2) Truly and truly called locusts, that they do not have a king (that is, Christ) after the manner of locusts, and fly together in heaps, as it is written in the book of Proverbs 30:27. After that
1) D. i. made equal.
2) D. 6 which is born out of philosophy.
also for this reason, because they devastate and wither everything that is green, where they only sit; so that they bring their kind with them according to the Latin word I^oousta. For as the schoolmasters teach us, the little word I-oeusta comes from 4,oeus U8tv8, which means a burnt place, or from I.06U8 va8tatu8, which is all so much as a desolate place: for this people burns, withers, and devastates all the green spring of Christ's pasture, that is, the fruit of faith altogether.
And power was given to them as the scorpions have power on earth.
This is the power to violate the consciences. For if they have devastated the fruit of faith, which alone heals consciences, it is not possible, consciences must be violated.
V. 4 And it was said unto them, that they should not offend the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, nor any tree.
That is, they should not hurt the chosen ones. For they do not harm all, just as the natural locusts do not harm all greenery, but they attack it only in one place, as has happened here:
But the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads,
that is, those who do not have grass, that is, those who do not have the faith, which is the seal of God that we bear in our pure conscience and free walk.
V. 5 And it was given them that they should not kill them, but torment them five months.
137. as I understand it, this is said of the doctrine of works, which, because it does not teach the knowledge of sin in truth, does not kill men, as the law does; but only torments them with vain labor, by which they learn forever, and can never come to the knowledge of the truth [2 Tim. 3:7]. But those who are killed by the letter are made alive by the eternal Spirit and are not tormented for five months. These five moons mean the whole time, in which
We are not aware of the fact that we live according to reason and the five senses, in which time the doctrine of works reigns. And we see how all theologians who deal with the doctrine of works have an evil and unholy conscience, full of doubt and restlessness, and may be neither pious nor evil in themselves; therefore, it follows:
V. 5 And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
See what a wounded conscience is. Here he interprets what he said before, that is, they are not killed salvifically, nor made alive spiritually.
V. 6. And in those same days men shall seek death, and shall not find it; shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
That is, they will seek the death of sin, which lives too strongly in their conscience, and yet is not rightly recognized. For if it were rightly recognized, it would be killed from the beginning and would have to perish. This, however, is not accomplished by Aristotle with his doctrine of works; but it is the office of the letter and the spirit [2 Cor. 3:7, 8].
V. 7. And the locusts were like horses prepared for war.
These words mean their disputations, which they hold, and their eternal school quarrels. For they are allways skillful and ready to argue (as they speak of it) pro and contra, that is, to hold part and counterpart.
And on their heads like crowns, like gold.
This means their high names and titles, so that they are honored, that they must be called gracious lord, 1) Magister noster, and they write themselves humble and unworthy teachers of the holy Scriptures.
And their faces are like the faces of men.
For their doctrine and life is not of the spirit of faith; but is governed by inspiration of natural reason, and with the light of nature, which Aristotle has illuminated.
1) Wittb. Edition: "Gnad Herr."
V. 8: And they had hair like the hair of women.
This means the female sacrificial apes, who live in a female manner in all the pleasure that woman philosophy gives us, in whom neither spirit nor male courage is strong in Christ. For also in the 68th Psalm [v. 22] and Is. 3, 24 the priests are understood by the hair. Also no one is allowed to become a theologian, because whoever is or wants to become a priest or a sacrificial servant, that even among the rabble they sometimes do not have to hear much good about it, the good theologians.
And their teeth were like the lions.
You may well understand the Thomists alone instead of all the theologians. Are they not more mordant, more lascivious, and who devour each other everywhere, more than all others, where one speaks only a little against their theology, which they have learned from Aristotle? In addition they bite and eat each other, the Thomists and Scotists and Modernists, and sharpen one party on the other not bad teeth, but lion's teeth. For there is no race of men on earth that contends with one another more cruelly and with greater hatred than these sects of theologians, so that one would gladly rule alone and be the best, and would wish the other to be utterly devastated and laid waste.
V. 9. and had armor, like armor of iron.
Now this is their stubbornness and certain presumption of every sect among them, that they hold on to every part that their opinion is true and constant. With these iron armors they are invincible. And these are the main parts of the doctrine on which every sect is based.
And the rattle of their wings, like the rattle on the chariots of horses running in war.
The wings are the words of the school quarrelsome, when they dispute with each other, so that one storms against the other and attacks and fights with much quarreling and shouting: as we see before our eyes in the turmoil of their school quarrels, both with words and writings, since no one is able to follow the other.
Each of them is insurmountable. The rattling of the chariots and the horses signifies the stubborn courage they exercise in the dispute.
V.10. And they had tails like scorpions, and there were spikes on their tails, and their power was to offend men five moons.
With this, he eliminates what he has presented above, namely, that all fruit and end of this theology is an evil conscience, this time long, which one lives in the five senses. But this theology is an abomination to the clergy, who live outside the five moons in the spirit of freedom.
V.11. And they had over them a king, an angel from the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
Let us hear who is the one supreme rector over all the high schools. Not Christ, not the Holy Spirit, not an angel of the Lord, but an angel from the abyss, that is, not only a dead man, but a dead man from among the dead and damned. Who is this? The great light of nature, Aristotle, who is truly called Apollyon, that is, a corrupter and destroyer of the church, who now reigns in all high schools, because he was not worthy to be called by his own name in the holy 1) Scriptures. So also we have said above, how the word angel signifies a teacher in the church [Mal. 2, 7.]. But it is certain that the deceased and damned Aristotle is a master and teacher of all high schools, more than Christ. For St. Thomas has raised him there by his prestige and great diligence; there he rules and brings back the doctrine of free will, holds up to us the works and the threefold pagan art, and is thus like the other Cerberus, who had three heads, yes another Geryon, who had three corpses 2) as the poets say.
1) In the Wittb. In the Wittb. edition and in Walch erroneously: "here in this writing".
2) I.e. bodies. Geryon, from whom Hercules kidnapped the cattle, was a three-bodied king m Spain.
Behold, this is the first woe that the church has received from the bishop of Rome, through the tax and help of St. Thomas; to whom [bishops and St. Thomas] would have belonged the most to forbid and eradicate such things, so they have been the ones who have done it the most and have raised it. Tell me, dearest reader, are not these things in our times the foremost and the hindmost and all things in the church? Are they not the noblest and the whole essence, as the philosophers speak, of which spiritual law alone negotiates through and through? What else do the wretched canonists learn, but how to keep it with these gifts, which are invented and instituted by godless men alone, and with each other neither God nor the Church have anything to do with? Again, tell me if a good work is found in all that God has commanded. Read the spiritual law thoroughly, and just once bring up something that would force the Roman bishop or another bishop to hold the evangelical office and to preach. It all affects only rulers and authorities. Nothing is commanded by the Word of God, since no other thing is needed in the church, but only the one Word of God. But this must be commanded to the leaders and terminators, and the more unlearned and coarse one is, the sooner.
150 O woe to you, pope! woe to you cardinals! woe to you bishops! woe to you sacrificial priests! woe to you monks with all spiritual status and being! who will show you how to escape the future wrath [Matth. 3, 7], which is about to come? How will you answer for the ministry of the word, which you have taken upon yourselves and have not performed? Do you think he will look at the threefold crown, hat, fur, ring, gold and scarlet, and all your now reported offerings? This judgment, which has already been decided, stands firm: "He does not look at the person of men" [Acts 10:34].
151 Therefore let everyone who is able hear what counsel Christ gives when he teaches us, Matt. 24:16, how to flee to the mountains and not to return; let him who can flee out of the common multitude into the wilderness, and let him who cannot flee into the desert.
is free. O dear man, do not stand after a bishopric or a prebend or a monastery or any spiritual state; there is only sin and condemnation in it, as these gestures indicate, of which we have now said.
But if thou wilt, or art urged to become spiritual, beloved, despise the deeds of this end-Christ, and be careful to minister the gospel purely and unadulteratedly. Either stand up yourself and teach the people, if you have been given the grace to do otherwise; if not, then help and assist as much as you can those who are found capable of doing so; as St. Paul also had many, as he testifies about himself (Rom. 16, 2. ff. 1 Cor. 16, 15. ff.).
153. Then continue in pure prayer before God for the fruit of the gospel. Believe me, if you do not do this, you will have the spiritual state as your only condemnation, even if you perform miracles and sacrifice yourself to the fire. For the true office of the clergy is to preach the gospel. If this is not possible, then it is not a spiritual office, but only a vocation and appearance of the spiritual office, through which the "king of vaiths" (Dan. 8:23) has become so powerful that he has also destroyed the gospel through such power. And why should I not curse this cursing? O! that our Lord Jesus would destroy all these idols of the world, your papacy, your cardinalate together with all your gifts in the abyss of hell, forever and ever, amen. Behold, now you have what it bears upon him that the prophet calls this king "mighty in gifts".
Dan. 8, 23. and reasonable on suggestions.
As the king is, so is his law, and as his law is, so is his people; as his people are, so are their customs; and as their customs are, so they act and do. But the king (as we have heard above) is a mere appearance, pretence and idol; so also his law must be nothing but a poem and a lie. As St. Peter also proclaimed [2 Ep. 2, 1. 3.] and said: "There are false pretenses and lies among you.
Teachers who will use imaginary words to teach you through avarice"; and St. Paul 1 Tim. 4:2: "They will be false teachers in falsehood." And how would one teach the truth who is nothing but a ghost and a lie himself? For since he stands on the fact that he does not think otherwise, because all his pretenses and appearances are real and true things, he must not only tell vain lies, but can also neither suffer nor tolerate the truth.
Is this not a strange and inhuman lie, since instead of the faith of Christ nothing is taught, but only vainglory and ecclesiastical usage? Since one sets up human doctrines for the spirit? Does not the pope do it with his spiritual rights, since he boasts that he governs and feeds the church of God? Does he not praise for good works what is done according to his laws? Does he not condemn and destroy all those who will not obey him, even if they otherwise keep the whole gospel? O what an accursed abomination, which ought to be cursed with equity by all men! He fulfills the saying of Paul [2 Thess. 2, 4], who says: "He exalts himself above all that is called God or worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God as a god and pretends to be God." Doesn't that mean putting himself in the temple of God, since ev pretends that he alone is a master in the whole church? What is the temple of GOtt? Is it stone and wood? Does not St. Paul say [1 Cor. 3, 17]: "The temple of God is holy, which is you"? In addition, in Paul's time there was no temple called the house of God, as there is now. But what does "sit" mean? Is it not as much as to govern, to teach, to judge? But who has ever been so bold, from the beginning of the church, who alone dared to call himself a master of the whole church, 1) except only the pope? Otherwise, no saint, no heretic has ever uttered such an atrocious word of hope. Paul boasts of being "the master of the Gentiles" [1 Tim. 2, 7. 2 Tim. 1, 11.], and that "in faith and truth"; but he did not call himself a master of the church.
1) Wittb. Edition: "thuest".
But does he not pretend that he is God, since he teaches us his words for the words of Christ, and since he dispenses his Papist righteousness for the righteousness of faith? For how can he naturally exalt himself above God? (Let this be far off;) but Paul says (2 Thess. 2, 4.]: "He will exalt himself above all that is called or called GOtt"; not badly above GOtt, but above GOtt named and preached and honored, that is, his word above (the preached) GOtt's word, his honor above GOtt's honor he will exalt. For GOtt is called or called when one preaches Him and believes in Him. Above (this) God the pope has now long since been elevated by himself and sits there and in the hearts of the faithful; instead of God, whom he should call and name, he is called and names himself everywhere.
157 For this reason St. Paul also adds: "above all that is called worship" he will rise; in Greek σέβασμα, which is as much as: since one honors something as God; that you should understand from this that he will not rise badly above God, but above the service, so that we honor God, or above that which we honor as God, as if he wanted to say thus: In the hearts of men he will be held more dear than God, that is, his word will be feared more than God's word, he will also be obeyed more, and held in honor better than the right God. Is it not true that all this can be attributed to no one but the one and only Pope? Everywhere the commandment and the word of God are despised and scorned; but the word of the Pope is not feared by any man. Truly, there is no God, neither in heaven nor on earth, whose word is accepted and kept with such great obedience as the word of the Pabst; as daily experience sufficiently shows, so that even a fool would not deny it.
Furthermore, who has ever said that he comes in the name of Christ, but only the pope? Only he pretends to be the governor of Christ, the governor of God on earth, which is an insulting blasphemy of God. But what does it mean to be a governor of God, because
"sitting in the place of God"? But what does sitting in the place of God mean, but pretending to be God? That is why Christ foretold that these apostles and messengers of the end of Christ would come in his name. The other heretics, even though they made use of the appearance of truth, none of them was even allowed to adorn themselves with the name of Christ, because that had to be reserved for the one and only end-Christ.
Therefore Christ did not leave it at that, when he had said Matth. 24, 4. 5.: "They would come in his name"; but he interprets it even better and declares himself, when he says: "They will say: I am Christ"; as if he said: "They will propose my own name, which is called Christ, and will call themselves Christ. This they have already done. For they have now made one thing out of the pope and out of Christ, and therefore they slander that Christ and the pope are one and the same person, and that the pope is not to be distinguished from Christ. O what a nonsensical blasphemy above all blasphemies is this? The godless, shameful boy-abuser, the usurer, the church-robber and bloodthirsty tyrant shall be mixed with Christ and become one with him? Oh come, dear Lord Jesus Christ, and put an end to him for once; give a measure to these abominations, so that they do not become too prevalent. [Amen.]
Now, what does he do, this governor of God, who sits in God's stead? Does he also do and teach what his prince has commanded? Yes, indeed! What does he do? Answer, he teaches us his commandments and does not keep them himself; otherwise, if he taught us [God's] commandments, how would he be a governor of God? For a governor is nowhere without the prince himself being present; and therefore, where the governor of God is, there God need not be at all; for wherever God is present, there is no need of a governor, but only of servants in the same place. Just as the apostles did not call themselves governors of God anywhere, but only said: "they are servants of God". Therefore the word of Paul [2 Thess. 2, 3. 4.] is hereby fulfilled; for
We see the man of sin and the son of perdition sitting in the temple of God, and that he pretends to be God, who is contrary to it, and exalts himself above all words of God and above all worship. And what is more repugnant to the evangelical truth than these gestures and the doctrine that says nothing but of such gestures? Now this teaching is honored, feared and held more and above God's word, and must nevertheless be called to come to pass and be done in God's name. But let us return to the prophet Daniel.
The little word "Hidoth" means in Hebrew as much as a dark suggestion, or a riddle, a dark word or hidden speech, which makes one deceived, if he wants to hear it according to the appearance; as Samson said in the book of the judges 14, 12: "I will give you a riddle"; and the prophet in the 49th Psalm [v. 5]: "I will open my riddles in the Psalter. So now this king understands well "Hidoth," who with such dark words can deceive so finely all who listen to him; so that they must hear another, and understand another. For "understanding by suggestions" (as our text has) is not to be called one who can well understand what another says: but one who is himself skilled in deceiving other people with blind words. 162 Take thee an example. If the King of Hosts, in his spiritual rights, uses the word "church" for himself and his followers, and if they are even ungodly with one another, so that they advise all the world what they set and do, that the church has done; as then he has resounded and sat down by this proposal [propositio] of the reported word. How thinkest thou, is not this a pretty hidah? hath he not thereby given up and proposed a fine riddle? Since the church means nothing else than the holy assembly of believers in Christ, who live and are driven by the Spirit of God alone, who are "the body and fulfillment of Christ," as Paul says [Eph. 1, 23.]. What lies should not this person put up? What obedience should he not enforce? What law should he not strengthen with this, when he receives this, that those who hear him thus, and he himself, who has it
so says, understand by the church of God, which is the church of the devil? For who is he who would not obey the church?
Now we see once again by this word, how the kingdom of God is special above all other kingdoms, that it is powerful only by words, not by armor, and not by clear and simple words, so that the kingdom of Christ and of men may be administered. For the kingdoms of this world must be governed by worldly laws, which deal plainly and clearly with temporal things, and by such as every man may well understand; so the kingdom of Christ is maintained by the plain and simple word of the gospel alone. But this kingdom must have deceived words, by which it is not governed, but deceived, which mean other things than they say. For it teaches neither worldly nor spiritual things, but pretends to teach spiritual things, while in truth it teaches nothing but what is worldly.
In this they are so clever, witty and skillful by the help of the devil, that they lead even the elect (as Christ says [Matth. 24, 22]) into error, so that they cannot be recognized except by the right clergy. Therefore Daniel calls him a man of understanding, and calls his laws Hidoth, that is, suggestions, riddles, or hidden words, that he should deceive all the world, who would not take heed to his laws. Take it off only with yourself. If you were taught to avoid certain food, clothing, places, persons, and other things, and to put on only such a garment and clothing, and to keep such and such a thing, food, place, and person, and all this with such an opinion that you would do good works thereby, and so be justified before God; But if you then look into yourself and find that you have only put your effort and work into temporal, perishable things, which do not make you more righteous before God than all the other works and efforts of all laymen: would you not yourself say, Now have I ever been masterfully deceived? and would you then not be so nicely exposed with words? 1)
1) I.e., made a fool of.
Now all that the pope commandeth, is it not all such foolishness? Does he not always deal in his statutes either with places or food, or with garments and persons? In this is as much righteousness and is found, as when thou leadest, workest, or sowest in the field. Who then, when he goes to the field, thinks that he will become pious and righteous by it, or that he will commit a sin by it if he lets it go? Although it is a necessary and useful work. But you are commanded to work in such a work, which is neither necessary for life nor for good, and yet you must also set your hope on it, thereby becoming pious and righteous before God, and think that you would be doing a great sin if you let it be done. For what does it profit thee to live, or to do good, to put on a black or gray garment, to eat milk or flesh, to be shorn or not, to dwell here or there? Nor is it said to thee that thou must become pious and holy by such a useless, unfit being, or thou shalt be guilty thereby, if thou keepest it not. But does this not mean masterly suggestions and dark words preached? Now the whole world is full of such lies and deceit. These are the consciences that (as Paul says [1 Tim. 4, 2.]) have a brand in them. For in the same way all that they always do is nothing but a mere pretense; so also all that they say and teach is nothing but mere and imaginary deceit, so that there is nothing everywhere but utter deceitfulness, both in works and words, and yet they make one conscience about it without any cause.
Notice how the spirit deals with these so violent abominations with gentle and mild words, since he only calls them "gifts" or "faces", these horrible ghosts and gleamings, which one would not want to disgrace sufficiently with any words, and since he only calls the most poisonous deception of the doctrine of the end-Christ and this mischievous mind, to ape the people, "suggestions" and "hidoth". This same prophet Daniel also foretold such things in the 7th chapter, v. 7. 8, when he writes: After the dreadful beast with the ten horns (which according to all opinion the Roman Empire
I saw a little horn growing in the midst of the ten horns that were reported" (this is Pabst's regiment, which came into being in the midst of the Roman Empire, as we said above). "And, behold, eyes like unto men were in the same little horn, and his mouth spake of great things." These eyes are the reported suggestions, and the mind on Hidoth, so the king of gifts has [, is the prudence of the flesh and the mouth that blasphemes against Christ).
St. Paul is much harsher in his attack on these hidoth or suggestions when he says in Eph. 4:14 that we should no longer be children and let ourselves be wafted and swayed by all kinds of wind of doctrine through the mischievousness of men and deceitfulness, so that they may deceive us. The wickedness of men he calls in Greek, that is, as if thou speakest, a game of dice. Item, the deception he calls in Greek πανουργία, which means a deception, as the juggler kind is, so that they make their jugglery devious, so that one can not notice it. For this is what these godless masters do; they play a game of dice with us according to all their will, and a devious juggler's work, as they propose outward deeds and customs to us, and throw us to and fro like dice, and also play with God's words, as with dice. So they trick us with these evil tricks, just to deceive us, as it is called in Greek:
οδείαν της πλάνης, that is, to attack deceitfully.
to deceive. For this they need their reported game of dice and jugglery with us, that is, all their words and gestures to serve God outwardly is nothing but pure deception.
168 He also says the same thing in Col. 2:8: "See to it that you are not robbed through philosophy and loose seduction according to the statutes of men, and according to the statutes of the world, and not according to Christ. And after that, in the same chapter, he almost points out with a finger what the Hidoth or suggestions actually mean, when he says [v. 22 ff]: "It is according to the commandments and doctrines of men, which have a semblance of wisdom by their own choice.
Spirituality and humility, and by not sparing the body, and by not giving the flesh food for its sustenance. Behold, how these hidoth or suggestions have a good appearance of wisdom; and yet there is nothing in truth behind them, but vain self-chosen spirituality.
Item, St. Peter, 2 Ep. 3, 3, says: "Know ye that in the last days shall come with deceitfulness, mockers, walking after their own lusts." 2c Does he not here put both together, deceit and mockery, that they deceive with words, and simulate with appearances and glitter? So that he puts the one to doctrine, the other to works; as Paul also does [Eph. 4, 14.], when he gives the dice to doctrine, and deceit [πακοο^ία] to works.
So Peter also wants to mean by the mockery of deceit that the prophet Daniel wants to have understood by the suggestions and Hidoth.
This should also be noted, as this little word "understanding" in the Hebrew language means to be careful and diligent about something. In this way Daniel, 11, 37, also speaks of this abomination, as we have just said: "He will not understand the God of his fathers, he will not understand lust for wives, and he will not understand any God. From this we can see that the word "understand" means as much as to pay attention to or diligently pursue or turn to it. For the end-Christian will not know or understand anything at all about God, or what a wife or air is to a woman; likewise what a woman or a wife's desire means; but he will not respect it, will not ask anything about it; yes, he will still set and command what is contrary to God and the marital state; will not turn away from it, that it is an unmistakable burden to the others, if he forbids the marriage to those who cannot do without it.
171 So you must also understand the prophet here, that he thus speaks of this king in his own way, "he will be wise in his ways," v. 23. So that you interpret the words more to his diligence than to his intellect, for truly, no clumsy, foolish and foolish law has ever been established.
The papists' law is the reason why even the teachers of papal law are disgusted by it and have made it into a proverb so that they can speak about it: He who knows nothing but spiritual law is a great ass.
Again, there never was a kingdom in the world, that princes were so diligently foolish and nonsensical in making laws, as the Roman bishops are, 1) so that it rhymes well with each other in the pope, that his foolish sacrilege to make laws is probably as great as his foolish incomprehensible ass's head to teach something good. For what does the pope do in the church, without making from day to day one new law over the other without any cause and understanding, as it comes into his mouth, whether he is drunk or foolish; and changes them again, also as it comes into his mind, and thus plays with our consciences, not differently than if they were dice, so that he would like to play short and play according to all his will, tossing back and forth, as it sometimes also desires his whores and wicked brides. O this is indeed the right reward for our ingratitude. Behold, "because we would not receive the love of the truth unto salvation" [2 Thess. 2:11], we have deserved to be delivered into the hands of this man of sin and the son of perdition, who should thus with games and monkeys bring us sin and mighty error with immeasurable folly.
Summa Summarum, from the above we can sufficiently understand what the suggestions are; and since the whole papal law does nothing but teach how to perform these gifts; and since there is nothing in the gifts but only deceit and mockery, by which the truth of the faith in the gospel is destroyed; it is also evident that all the teaching of the pope is deceit and mockery; as daily experience well teaches us. For he seeks nothing that we should obey God and believe; but that we should
1) The following (instead of: also-to teach) is literally read according to the original: so that the ignorance in the papal decrees is equal to the stupidity, but both are incredible [great].
1516 v. a. v, 347 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. book of Catharinus. W. xvin, i858-i86o. 1517
serve him alone, and that all the world be brought under his compulsion to judge.
But it would not be possible, if he were of God (the pope), that he should not act with all his might to spread the gospel among the people, teaching that all things are free, that no sin is committed in any kind of clothing, food, dwelling, person, or in any other such thing. For sin is not committed by the custom of creatures, but by covetousness or hatred, when it is committed contrary to God's commandment. But the pope puts sin and righteousness only on the custom of creatures; therefore he is and is called a man of sin and a son of perdition [2 Thess. 2, 3], who fills the world with such foolish and imaginary sins.
For if any man thinketh that he sinneth, if he eat flesh on the evening of the twelve messengers, 1) or if he speak not the Prim in the morning, or keep not any other thing which the pope hath commanded, he sinneth indeed, if he doeth it. Not that it is sinful or wrong in Himself to do this work, but because he believes it to be sin, and yet does it against his faith and conscience as a sin [Rom. 14:22, 23]. For another who does the same work, but does not believe that he sins in it, certainly does not sin. But this is the very thing that the spirit of Paul complains [1 Tim. 4:1], "that some would depart from the faith." Because they make such foolish consciences, the statutes of men are vain poison, are snares to souls, and corrupt faith and Christian liberty. If it were not for that, they would do no harm at all. Therefore the devil abuses the same consciences through the pope, so that he may strengthen and fortify the tyrannical laws, corrupt the faith and Christian freedom, make the world full of error, full of godlessness, full of sin and corruption.
176 St. Paul calls such consciences beautiful, saying [1 Tim. 4:2], "They have a brand in them"; therefore that
1) I.e. the evening before a feast of the apostles.
they have not become so by nature or by the Spirit, but that they have received such a mark from the branding iron of the doctrine of men. For the Spirit of God teaches that one should hold one thing freely as another, rejecting none. So the governor of Christ says no to this; but one should never eat either milk or butter on some days. Christ says Luc. 10, 7: "Eat and drink what they have." So his governor says the opposite: you shall not eat flesh and eggs. Christ leaves every man free to wear all kinds of garments, but his governor leaves laymen a different garment, but leaves him and his own a different garment, and this in mortal sin and by the commandment of the church. And make them themselves in all conscience about it, either that they are pious and righteous with it, when there is no piety in it; or else that they have sinned by letting it go; though there is no sin either, if their conscience were otherwise, and did not think it was a sin. Therefore they truly have (as they say) made consciences, even consciences forced by force; although, in that they believe it, they are quite injured and harmful consciences. For as the King is, so is his law; and as his law is, so are his sins and his merits. Afterwards there must also be such consciences, only, as I have said, that a foolish and fictitious sin becomes a real sin, through the error of conscience. And this is now their brand, of which Paul says.
And his deeds will be strengthened, but not by his power.
This is the third jewel of this abominable kingdom, which is unlike all other kingdoms. Who has ever heard of such an empire? The Roman Empire was conquered and maintained by its own power. All Scripture rebukes and reproves the horses and flesh of Egypt and other kingdoms in which the Jews trusted, Isa. 31:1, 3. The kingdom of Christ also exists by its own power, more than any other. For the truth is strong in itself and does not ask for help from others. Only the kingdom of this king is strong through foreign power.
Now, the Latin word Efficaela means in German the power, which our philosophers of nature call the direction or activity, or which brings something into work, that is, the power, so that one may carry out in a stately way what he has in mind, so that it is not a power of the mind, but of the limbs; the same as Ezekiel uses the same word in 2 Kings 19:3, when he says: "The children have come to birth, and the mother has no power to give birth. And Gen. 31:6: "With all my strength I have served your father." Item Job says [30, 2.]:- "The strength of her hands counted for nothing before me." By strength is everywhere understood the ability to do, and in Hebrew it is called Koach [xxx], and the apostle also calls it Greek xxxxxxx, and the one who has the
He interpreted the Bible in Latin, he interprets it operatively, that is, an effect, Gal. 2:8, where Paul thus says: "He who worked with Peter worked also with me" 2c, that is, he made my word powerful, and that it might convert the Gentiles who also heard me preach etc.
(179) Therefore 1) this king's power does not consist in armor, nor in the gospel of Christ; so it must be the third, that it consists in hidoth, or in propositions, that is, in its own doctrine of men by the addition or effect of others. And now behold, how the prophet keeps such a fine order, first of all he sets up the gifts, then the hidoth, that is, his suggestions or laws, both of which are fictitious things and altogether foreign to the truth. Then he says that his actions are not strengthened by his own power, but by a foreign power. This is not surprising, since it is not possible for a lie to be sustained by its own power.
180 For thus arose the kingdom of the Roman end-Christ, that soon, even as early as the time of the apostles, they began to seek to become godly and blessed by works; and afterward they made some ways and offerings of worship in the church (as they say) an ornament and a prosperity. Finally, the Roman bishop gathered them all into a heap and put them in
1) consist with - are based on.
harsh and strict laws and thus suppressed the Christian freedom, so much so that it is now without any measure a greater sin, if one sins against these donors and laws, than if he sins against God's commandment. Thus out of the commandments, hidoth, suggestions or laws have come; out of the hidoth, suggestions or laws has arisen this king's power; and therefore out of the powers then has this desolation been brought into the world, as will follow hereafter. For as such customs have made a law; so the law has given a power to the same customs: which power has at last brought such desolation. Let us see, then, with what power this king of destruction is powerful.
181 The apostle ascribes this power to the devil in 2 Thess. 2, 9. when he says: "Which future things are done according to the working of the devil, with all manner of lying powers, signs and wonders." For in the same way as Christ strengthened and preserved faith and the word with true signs and wonders, by his own power and might; so this monkey, who wants to ape Christ everywhere by contradicting him, must have lying signs and make use of foreign help, if he wants to strengthen his gestures and suggestions in any other way.
So this was the first effect of the devil in these signs, since the Roman church quarreled with the Greek church without ceasing; although it also did dishonestly and was unjust in the same case and only protected itself with false writings and causes; nevertheless it gained the upper hand and proclaimed itself to be a master of the faith and a mother of all churches, has also now confirmed itself. After that, she led her cause everywhere happily beyond measure against all the world and oppressed everyone, where only one stirred against such her hidoth or proposals, laws, statutes and interest 2) and will of courage, however great, learned and holy it always was. Who would not judge these things and count them as mighty signs and wonders, which everyone ascribed to God in the past?
2) I.e. church penalties, especially in money.
1520 D. V. L. V. 350 f. 61. L.'s answer to the book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1863-1866. 1521
The first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time, the first time.
After this, kings, princes and bishops have been terribly banished, who have violated the right, freedom and heritage of the most holy Roman Church, even the smallest syllables of its proposals or laws, and have not honored them above God's commandment. Therefore, a common fear has come into the world that everyone must be careful that no one is harmful to the most holy father pope through diabolical inspiration (as they say) or does something against his will.
For this is the origin of the cruel lightning and thunder in the bulls, as they are everywhere attached to the back of them: If anyone should presume to do anything contrary to this, let him know that he will fall into the wrath of the Almighty God and of His apostles Peter and Paul. Truly, Christ with his whole gospel has nowhere done so many signs, brought such terror into the world, and otherwise accomplished such great things, as much and great cause the pope has obtained, and led out by the false fright of this few bull's tail. For what is there in the whole world that the pope does not break, reverse, do, and accomplish through this tail, if he is allowed to depose the highest kings, princes, and lords through this single power? Perhaps these are the spines of the locusts, of which it is written in the book of Revelation in the 9th chapter, v. 10.
Did not the pope, by this power of his hidoth or suggestions, establish the Roman Empire anew, since he turned it from the Greeks (as he says) to the Germans? which work, among other works of the end-Christ, is the most noble and the greatest abomination. Who would not have thought that these great signs and works were of God, when they came from the devil alone, as the most powerful and most obvious abominations of him? We have all seen these signs; no one has
but realized that they have thus been lying. Many saints and elect have been deceived thereby; and yet it is brighter than day that these things have not been done for the benefit and advancement of the gospel and faith, but only to fortify and strengthen the gifts and suggestions of this king of gifts. From which some certain indications could have been easily recognized.
But the fact that they say, and that the writers of the chronicles of the French have so highly exalted, that it has never been well with anyone who has stood against the pope, in this they say and boast the truth, as otherwise one should call it evil when someone perishes or otherwise has to suffer disgrace, hardship and poverty; just as the dear martyrs and most of Christ have also been miserable and unhappy. But here the papist spirit (the devil) made another delusion to the people, namely, that it was a sign of condemnation and a sign that God was thus angry with them, when in fact they were signs of His grace. And so the pope gained the upper hand with these false, lying signs and wonders, and abused such timid and stupid consciences that no one could prevent him from his kingdom of prayers and suggestions.
Read all the histories and the ecclesiastical laws by all means, as well as all those that write about these matters, and only see if the pope complains in any place that the kings, princes and bishops have spurned the faith and the Gospel or sinned against God. There is only one complaint in the plan everywhere, that they have not protected and sheltered the Most Holy and Apostolic See of St. Peter, that they have injured or damaged it, either at its head, Pope, or at its members. This is so much said, one complains only of the gifts and proposals.
They themselves also confess that they have turned the Roman Empire against the Germans (although this is an almost great and impudent lie), that the Greek emperor does not favor the Most Holy See of St. Peter, nor does he want to protect it, so that they may be convicted of this by their own testimony.
that they did not want to be protected by Christ but by a man, when they have long since fallen away from the faith, of which it is said [Ps. 146:3]: "You should not put your trust in the princes and sons of men; they may not help nor save." And again [Ps. 118, 9.], "It is better to hope in the Lord than in princes." Yes, even to this day he casts Christ and his protection to the winds and crowns the emperor alone as a disciple and protector of the church. So this king has a shy and wicked conscience, and is sensible of suggestions [Dan. 8:23] because he is purely vain without all truth, without all spirit.
Even now I am exceedingly annoyed and ashamed, yes, I must allow myself to feel pity, as often as I think of how often and much the pope has made a mockery of the emperors and princes along with the entire German nation. Dear God, how with great courage and defiant boldness has he made his game out of them? He led them around like unreasonable beasts and tossed them to and fro, and used them for murder, war, robbery, and for all mischievousness and trickery, so that the papists dealt with them, as the devil would always have him do, and yet he always called them the dear sons of the church. So they had to deserve the great grace that he turned the empire on them, so that they were truly forced to serve the devil. Nevertheless, because of these signs and wonders, the devil has gained the upper hand everywhere and has become so presumptuous that nothing can come into his mind that he should not defiantly approach, and he also leads it out. For he would not have been able to do such things (the pope) without the help and great cooperation and miraculous signs of the devil, who helped him in all his evil deeds.
190. But what have all these things been sought for? Have they sought the glory of Christ? Did they do it for the sake of the souls' salvation? Did they seek to promote the gospel and faith? Yes, indeed, but it was all done for the sake of the donors and the papist proposals.
Everywhere, the one and only most holy Roman church has been made a proverb, and the holy apostolic chair of Peter, together with the inheritance of the crucified and the goods of St. Peter, all of which (as told so far) must be a cause of such wars and things, and still is in our times. These signs and wonders we now grasp; yet the devil works and creates so much that we may not see their lie. So this end-Christ blinds our eyes with holy names and words, namely with the name of Christ and Peter together with the name of the church, so that the inexperienced consciences, even the experienced ones (that is, the consciences of the elect) are caught.
Who would also tell the abominations invented by the deceased alone? O good God, what a great sea has been lied here about the appearance and occurrence of the souls, how one would have to conjure them up, as these same spirits have answered. From this has come that the pope has also become a king over the dead, and now also reigns in purgatory, although with great harm to the sacrificial apostles, where it should have remained so. For most of them have their food, all their possessions, and all the splendor they lead in purgatory, which would be much less if they had preached the faith of the living with so much diligence as the proposals of the dead.
From the beginning of the world, no more pleasurable 1) handling, which cost less effort, has been invented, than that which is done with the dead. For by this hand have been turned to the clergy, by the church founders, of all princes and mighty men possessions and goods, by the goods pleasure and idleness, but by the idleness Babylon and Sodom have followed. For the devil has always carried his hatred against the sacrament of the altar, and since he would otherwise have no room to destroy it, he has accomplished so much that it should be considered a good work and a sacrifice, buy and sell,
1) I. e. more profitable.
which Christ alone instituted as a sign or sacrament to nourish and preserve the faith of the living. So here the faith that one should have in this sacrament is destroyed, that now only the sacrament is not needed for the living, but for the dead: that is so much, one does not need it for anyone's benefit, neither for the living nor for the dead.
O what a fierce wrath of God, which cannot be sufficiently signified! Behold, these mischievous spirits, when they appear, who have only desired mass, have gone about with it, as if they had been helped by such mass. How then such examples of this abomination are an innumerable heap. There we fell into the net as a rude, imprudent rabble without any spirit, like beasts without sense and reason, never thinking that it was a lie of the devil. Nevertheless, God did not abandon us at all, but made it known and evident in many places that it was all a ghost and deception. But because it was such things that served to fortify and establish this kingdom of prayers and suggestions, they had to be strengthened.
194 But with this I do not want to deny that one should not pray for the dead. But that the pope should rule over the dead, and thus make a mockery of the sacrament of the altar, I cannot bear, and I am afraid of it, and would to God that I could weep over it sufficiently. For one does not seek with these signs what concerns faith and the gospel; but against faith and against the gospel one practices pure tyranny under the appearance of prayers and suggestions, only that one should put one's trust in the works. But of the sacrament and of faith I have said enough elsewhere.
Among the heaps must also be counted what happens with the pilgrimages, visits and honors of the saints; which is quite a lot, everywhere in our times, since the pope takes money and confirms with his bulls what it is, and often makes a saint of whom he knows nothing at all who he has been. Now see what this effect is
of the devil in false miraculous signs [2 Thess. 2, 9.] lind as the givers are not powerful in their own strength.
In addition to the above-mentioned lying signs, through which the devil strengthens the power of the spirits with his help and service, there is also another cooperation, which takes place and is powerful through the help and assistance of men; and this is of two kinds, one of the spiritual class, the other of the laity.
The help or cooperation of the spiritual state is that they both serve the pope with studies and teachings, so that his gifts and proposals are strengthened and preserved. For he (the pope) rashly lets his proposals go forth from himself without any fear: he also directs his words with all certainty, so much so that he often sets them against himself, does not even know what he is slurring, but always against God in the most impudent way. For neither he nor his own think that they speak anything good or right; but it is enough that it is said; they defy and rely on the mad delusion of the people, since they say how the pope may not err. Hence it comes that the spiritual rights are at times like the dreams of the drunk or insane. He speaks so fearlessly, with haughty presumption and free defiance, that this very audacious abomination must grieve Christian hearts.
When everyone has been advised how this king of meanings may not err, even the most learned, the most understanding, and the most clerical, they take up, with unspeakable diligence and reverence for his suggestions, horrible dung, slobber, and filth. After that, because a fool cannot speak otherwise than foolishly, they have to go into the hard laborious work of glossing, directing, interpreting, rhyming, pulling back and forth, so that it may be seen as right what the defiant fool or drunkard spouts, that it must be right not through his own truth, but through the support, protection, glossing and help of others. That means well and truly, as Daniel says, not by his own strength; for he himself is so unlearned and foolish that he would hardly protect and defend his cause unless he had the support of others.
Art and Studiren, which must serve him for this.
Therefore, he does not care for it, nor does he need his actions to be strengthened by his own power. He only feeds freely, whether he is already asleep and snoring, so we immediately have an article of faith, affirmed by such foreign help, which is to be kept in the whole church. Hence these words of the same abomination have arisen, so that the pope in his bulls says "de proprio motu", that is, we do it from our own motive of papal holiness, "de certa scientia", that is, with good conscience and knowledge, item, "de plenitudine potestatis", that is, from fully authorized power, which he has and may use. And at last it has come to pass that the poor Christians, if the belly of this abomination would only let a fart, must worship him for a gospel. So even this foreign power strengthens the doings and works of this foolish and lazy idol.
200 For all his matter one must neither judge nor judge; one must read and hear it all with obedience and submission. This delusion has undoubtedly come into the world through the work of the devil, who has taken up residence in our ignorant souls, so much so that he so powerfully strengthens the power of his idol even through us. For if one were to read his cause in such a way that one would also judge it (as some have tried to do), his doings or power would not last an hour, since they are often so foolish, unchristian and blasphemous that they could not suffer and tolerate the light and judgment. And this is just what the devil feared and forbade in the spiritual laws, so that nothing would be sought, except that no one should judge the pope, that he alone should have authority to interpret the Scriptures and to explain the faith, so that his wickedness would not even be revealed through the revelation of his abominations, if another also wanted to interpret the faith and the Scriptures.
201 From this has come the tickling and the hypocrisy and the apostolic blessing on all those who protect and shield the Roman apostolic see, and also on all those who endeavor to keep the pope at Rome in good standing.
He is also angry and rages against all those who may offend him or his own, so that this raging and raging alone is an obvious sign. On the other hand, he rages and rages against all those who offend him or his own, who may resist him or his own, so that this raging and raging alone may be an obvious sign that he is led and driven by the spirit of the devil, who is always concerned that his plots and speeches may be revealed. For a spirit has neither flesh nor bone [Luc. 24,39] and cannot be touched. And the lie hates the light, is worried that it will be punished [John 3:20]. And although it is said of all others: The truth is stronger than all things, likewise: No hypocrite's length remains unrevealed; nor is this lie strengthened by oft-meant king of gifts, because it is an abomination above all abominations, which should be the very greatest and the very last.
The hands of the laymen also serve for the effect of his power. And this we call brachium seculare, that is, the arm, protection or shield of the secular. For the pope has now risen above all principalities and authorities and erected himself, where he cannot force and suppress an adversary with his proposals and gestures, with imposed tones 1) and his malediction. For it is not his opinion that he wants to fight with reason, reason or scriptures, because he is such a foolish and slothful belly; nor does he think that he will overcome with patience or with prayer, that is, with the right apostolic weapons; but he carries out all his actions with foreign power, as he only wants. And then he gives to the same secular arm, that is, to the princes and secular authorities, inciting and confusing kings and princes, country and people, so that they war against each other, murder and shed blood in all the world, until he finally conquers; not as far as faith and the gospel are concerned, but only what his commandments require and want.
And how does he act so freely, surely and boldly in this, giving his papal blessing to all those who are obedient and submissive to him, but maledict with his?
1) i. e. penalties.
Papal curse all those who resist him. Dear one, how would this abomination be so rampant and arise if the devil's work did not have its reign in it? Some have overtaken and maintained their kingdom by reason and writing, some by wealth and power; but the lazy, foolish and powerless abomination is powerful neither with reason nor with the sword, but only with his gifts. Thus he brings about that all reason and art of the others, all goods, all power and all fortune must serve his will of courage with such great diligence, so that he may also play with them as and what he wants. He also does not entertain them with his wages, does not feed them with doctrine; but he keeps them captive only through the ghost of idols, so that they think they are doing God and his holy church a service [John 16:2], and do not know that they are serving an unfunny sow and the abomination of all the world.
See now, how kings and princes serve the pope so diligently with arms, how the bishops, cathedral foundations and all monasteries (the innumerable worms) offer him all their art and reason, and all this on account of the one pope, not on account of the faith or the word (for which one does not strive at all), but on account of the fact that one may thus protect and guard the offerings and the suggestions of the pope. And this is the only reward they get from thinking that they are serving God. There you see what it means to strengthen the doing and working of this most terrible abomination, with foreign help or power.
(205) Truly this abomination could not have rhymed better with any time than with the very end of this world, when the dreadful times had to come to an end. For what is more abominable and strange than that a king, the more foolish, lazy and useless he is, should have a kingdom all the more powerful and mighty? Thus this king leads an insolent being, as Sardanapal and the Sybarites did, who lived there in all shame and pleasure. So the king is born only to pleasure and idleness, is neither fit for war nor for teaching, neither for arms nor for the Scriptures, neither can nor is he fit for the Evangelic Way.
He is not able to do anything with the gospel or with faith, neither with prayer nor with works, but he leads the opposition everywhere; therefore he is an abomination to all the world. But with his gifts and his proposals he rules and reigns over emperorships, kingdoms, and over all temporal authorities, by which he possesses our souls and our bodies and goods only to the abuse of all his slothfulness and willfulness; and for all this we get no more from him than his grace and the blessing of his apostolic chair; that is, all smoke and vapor.
And if you are surprised, you will see that other princes, who have conquered their kingdom by war and force, are dearly loved by their subjects. The same is true of schoolmasters, who, if they are learned and skilful, teach others, and are held in great honor and esteem by their disciples. But to this abomination, which is so lazy and coarse, no one will grant anything good from the heart; there is no one who does not curse it, and take an abomination entirely because of it, who sees that so great power and so much good is turned to the most unworthy place. They are still so captivated by the specter of both the prayers and suggestions that they are all afraid and refrain from doing anything against it, since nothing deters them but only its lying signs and wonders.
For there is no one who does not see before his eyes how the pope, together with all his papists, has thrown away faith, the gospel, patience, and other weapons of the spirit, and protects himself solely through the delusion of the people (who fall for the pretensions and suggestions), and also through the power and wealth of the princes who have something from him, or still hope to have something. Yes, there is no one (I say) who does not see how they live under the appearance of such superstitious pretensions and such false suggestions in the most worldly way in all their customs. And although they see and grasp that Christ is farther from them than from the beginning to the end, they may not yet confess freshly of themselves what they hold inwardly of them. Therefore that here
is the crowd of monks and the whole mass of the pope's enemies, who bravely strive on their part for this cause. They bring up and oppose such a proposal, so that they say: Yes, one should also suffer and tolerate the rule of a wicked prince; as if we alone in the papacy were dealing with the wickedness of the pope and not rather with the wickedness of the papacy itself.
For there is much else about the principality which the pope has, and about all the other principalities in the whole world, which, whether they be good or evil, may do no harm, whether they be tolerated. But the papacy is such a principality, which destroys faith and the gospel, and sets up in their place donors and propositions; the donors instead of faith, the propositions instead of the word or gospel. Therefore he is an adversary to Christ, who is mighty with the spirit of faith against the offerings, and with the word of truth against the suggestions. Therefore, it is not the wickedness of the prince that is punished here, but the wickedness of the principality, which is such that it cannot or may not be administered by a pious, honest prince; but only by him who is an adversary of Christ, who protects and preserves the offerings and suggestions against faith and against the word of God by foreign power and assistance, so that he may do nothing about it but snore and be lazy.
For this very reason he is called an abomination, that he, without strength, without writing, and only with the vapid specter of his gifts, oppresses all princes and kings, possesses them, and brings to himself all the arts of learning; yea, that he may be able and do all things, which otherwise no kingdom with its powers, no learned school with its arts, would be able to accomplish; that even Christ with his words hath never obtained so much among men. Would it not be a shameful abomination if a sow wanted to be over the master of the house and all the servants, but would do nothing but lie in the puddle all the time, but if such a spectre were made before the eyes of the people that they would regard the same sow as a particularly excellent person, if a human voice of
As we read that it happened among the pagans in the past through the stone idols? So does the pope. He proposes the name of God, for which the conscience of everyone is shocked. So it happens that he easily leads powerful kings, as well as the most learned men, out of faith into superstition, yes, that I give him the right name, into the most poisonous abominations. But meanwhile he remains nothing but a sow, rolling to and fro in the puddle of his shameful and rotten snoring life, that he is neither skilled and capable with writing nor with weapons, yes, with the least finger not to the least.
How humble and honorable the servant of all servants of God has kept himself against worldly authorities. 2 Petr. 2.
Let us listen to the holy apostle Peter, who deals with this in all severity in the other epistle, Cap. 2, 1. 3. ff., where he paints the pabstacy with all colors. For after he had proclaimed that the false prophets would come, who through avarice would work on the people of Christ with fictitious words, introduce corrupt sects, and drag many with them into destruction, so that they would also deny the Lord who bought them; Then he takes three examples before him, so that he will terrify them tremendously, namely the example of the angels and the former world, as well as the Sodomites, which he models as an example to all future unbelievers, and shows how they were all punished by God because of their sin. After that, he executes his opinion on the unchristian teachers and says:
"But most of all they that walk after the flesh in lust and uncleanness, and despise the rulers, thirsty to think highly of themselves, tremble not to blaspheme the majesties. "2c
For truly, St. Peter does not speak here of those who disobey the bishops; but, as he began, of the ungodly teachers, of bishops, of cardinals, and of the pope; for it is these, and not others, of whom this epistle deals.
211. for now, who does not see that the ! Papist crowd before all other people
1532 D. V. a. V, 358 f. 61. L.' s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. xvm, 187S-1881. 1533
walk after the flesh in lust and uncleanness? For since they are forbidden to marry, and yet are immersed in idleness and superfluous wealth, what else would they do but walk after the flesh? They do not work with other men; therefore their wickedness, as the Psalter says [Ps. 73:7], bursts forth like lard. You can never point to any other teachers or authorities of the people who do this without the papists. The clergy has become a great multitude, and yet they are forbidden to marry, both of which the pope has done. What they do now and how well they keep themselves in the church, all the world sees and knows well, so that they (unfortunately of shame!) do not have enough of women, but reach further.
For this they despise (as Peter says) the rulers. But who does this without only the papacy and its papist crowd? What does St. Peter mean by rulers without only the princes and secular authorities? For the bishops and the successors of the apostles do not administer dominions, but they have offices and are also called the appointed servants of the church of Christ, as St. Paul says Col. 1, 25. But does this not mean "despise the rulers", if they free themselves by their own authority and exempt themselves from all commonwealth, that they do not want to give the lap of the worldly authorities, nor be subject to them? also refuse to bear the burdens that come along with common benefit? Paul Rom. 13, 7. commands that one should give the lap to whom the lap is due, the duty to whom the duty is due, the honor to whom the honor is due. And St. Peter [1 Petr. 2, 15.] wants one to be subject to kings and] to all human order. But the pope again keeps excluded from all this by his abominable commandments, his goods, his person and his whole ulcer, so that he condemns more than once to hell those who want to obey the word of St. Paul and St. Peter and to bring the clergy into right obedience, that they should do and give womb, honor and what else one is obligated to the worldly rule and authority.
213. to this end, he hardly lets the rulers
He will not come to the kiss of his feet, let alone honor them. After that, he lifts up every sacrificial priest and guillemot 1) whether he is coarser than a block and more shameful than a whoremonger, above all princes and lords, just because of the indelible mark, which he has imprinted on him by consecration, and therefore washes in his ecclesiastical right, in the title De ma- joritate et obedientia, which chapter is definitely more shameful and blasphemous than the others, since he thus lies and proposes: the pope in spiritual rights surpasses the emperor as far as the sun is above the moon. Thus, this basic group of the most useless people on earth is so highly elevated by the pope's power and rule that the despised rulers must honor such idols, by whom they should be honored more cheaply. For where is there any authority or power in which this abomination of such abominable men does not reign?
214) Only St. Peter calls them marvelous, since he says [2 Ep. 2, 10]: they are thirsty and think highly of themselves. For since they have received that they alone should be the spiritual and the others must all be considered worldly (as both word and work have now come into abuse), there is nothing that they should not consider under the spiritual state and name. After that, how do they have such an unconquerable, untamed mind? How are they so stiff-necked when they are allowed to start something until they come to the point that they blaspheme even the rulers and the majesties out of great certainty? Does not the most unrighteous animal on earth, the pope, puffed up with the devil's spirit, curse the great kings after all his courage? Does he not banish them? Does he not disgrace and revile them in the worst way, when he is supposed to bless them? And this is not because the kings oppose the word or the faith, but because they do not like to see the splendor and riches of the clergy or the Roman church with their shameful life and unpleasant tyranny, or because they do not like to see them.
1) Gugelfritz - monk, because he wears the gugel d. i. cap.
that they resist the unchristian and malicious papist nature; there lies the Has.
(215) Behold, it is as St. Peter says, that "they tremble not to blaspheme majesties or dominions," for the pontificate is not signified by the word "majesty" or "dominion. And even if it were understood by this, it has never suffered such sacrilege from anyone; for no other majesty has overpowered the Pabstium [to] this day. But it itself has sometimes overpowered many majesties and sovereigns in such a way that it now not only plays with simple people's possessions and goods, but also plays its willful game with the majesties and with the sovereigns as it pleases; it changes it, violates it, changes it and acts it as it pleases. Do we not have many histories that prove this? As that of the crown of France, of Greece, of Germany, of Naples, and of Sicily, with the rest. Has it not also attacked and tried Pope Leo X, who now reigns, who would otherwise be a pious man? But he was seduced by the advice and example of his comrades, so that he took it upon himself to conquer several dukedoms in Welsh. That is why the Duke of Urbin was expelled, and the Duke of Ferrara was often attacked. His cardinals and bishops also bravely follow the same pope, since the cardinals want to be higher than the kings, and the bishops more than the princes, this lazy race among men, which would hardly be fit to shepherd the sows. So they honor the rulers, so they bless the majesties, so they leave their own and seek only what is of others, so they have laid down boldness and walk very finely in the fear of God. Woe to them!
In his epistle, Jude, agreeing with Peter and following him, says of the same things: "These dreamers also" (that is, those who have been deceived by dreams), "who defile the flesh, but despise the rulers and blaspheme the majesties. And a little further above [v. 4] he says: "For there are found some men beside them, of whom it is written in time past, to such a primal
They are ungodly, and deny God that he alone is the Lord, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what St. Peter says, that besides the gospel of Christ they will also introduce their own doctrine and will introduce corrupt sects, by which the true faith will be destroyed, that Christ alone will keep the name, but in truth they will deny that he alone is a ruler and a king in the kingdom of righteousness and truth. Meanwhile, under his name, they will indulge in their lust for pleasure and in their evil ways. In short, about 1) I thought the epistle of Jude was nowhere good or competent; now I learn that it is drawn from the epistle of Peter and was written solely on account of the pope. For they both indicate at the same time that false teachers would "come in," that is, they would bring in their own doctrine alongside the gospel. That is, Peter's "introducing alongside", that is (as above), "they will introduce corrupt sects alongside." So that they manifestly show the deceitful and deceptive effrontery of the papists, since they alone hold forth the name of Christ, and yet teach their own poem.
217 Now let us take Peter's speech to the full. He says [vv. 11, 12]: "If the angels, which are greater in strength and power, endure not the blasphemous judgment against them from the Lord; but they are as the unreasoning beasts" (for verily the Papists to this day, before Rome, do not believe that the soul is immortal), "which beasts are naturally born to suck and choke. O what a fitting simile this is, "they blaspheme that they know not," that is, they condemn the doctrine of Christ because of their human feet; in which way also Jude speaks, saying thus, "But these, which they know not, they blaspheme." "And in their strangling they shall be strangled." This Jude says [v. 10.] thus, "But what they naturally know, like unreasoning beasts, therein they corrupt." [2 Pet. 2, 13.] "And they shall bring away the reward of their unrighteousness," which they regard as the most-
1) d. i. earlier.
highest righteousness, as there is obedience to their church, and so one keeps his order right.
218 Weiler follows [v. 13]: "They regard temporal well-being as pleasure," that is, they are bellies and fattened sows who consider it best to have all abundance in this short life. For almost no one becomes a bishop, priest, or monk for any other reason, unless he alone wants to have enough and go idly to it; others must win it for them and acquire it; "they are stains and filth," for these people are nothing else in the people of God, but disgrace and stains, because they are not useful at all, waiting only for their lust and vice in the church, of which they must be fattened.
219. "They lead an affectionate life of eating and drinking with you." Here it seems to me to be written wrongly, because Jude [v. 12] tells these words of Peter differently, thus: "These live on your love goods, and are the filth, and feed well without care, feeding themselves." For Sl. Peter describes here the tender life of the bishops, the priests and all monks, because everything that is daily given to the church by Christian love of the faithful, they waste by unchristian splendor, are not ashamed of it, neither before men nor before God, do not let themselves worry, whether they already annoy the weak with it and whether all pious people should feel a hatred and displeasure against them.
220 For they wait for their own pleasure, and feed on them, and yet they are nothing but filth, stains, disgraces and burdens to the church, for which they should be the highest adornment, jewel, lights and pillars. But do we not see now for a long time that this is the case? Therefore, when St. Peter says, "They live with you in splendor," it must be understood to mean, "They are well fed on yours," or, as Jude [v. 12] says, "They live on the goods of your love," that is, they abuse yours and yourselves for their own pleasure and splendor and for all hopeful splendor without any fear. But that it is written in the Greek text "in errors", which our interpreter interprets: "splurging", I consider to have happened through inattention of the scribes, that they
They wrote the letters έν ταις άπάταις αυτών for that which is written in the epistle of Jude:
that is, from your love goods, or from your good deeds and alms.
221 Now follows: "They have eyes full of adultery." Lord God, how with harsh, powerful words he [the apostle] addresses them: "Eyes full of adultery", that is, he attributes to them insatiable lust; and we also see how their fornication may not be satisfied at all. "Their sin is not to be resisted," that is, no one is so bold as to dare to resist their sin; indeed, they drive away even one with all plague who only dares to complain that his wife or daughter has been violated. For they do it by force wherever they feel like it, just as we read about the giants [Gen. 6:2] before the flood. One must not resist them, one must not summon them to court; yes. Defiance be also to one who would speak against them; for they are spiritual, liberated and exempt. "They lure the reckless souls to themselves by evil examples, so that they draw the weak into their evil life and make them angry.
222. "They have a heart smitten with avarice." Do you want to have something more remarkable to be told against the Roman court and all clergy? Who would tell all their finances 1) which they have made up on account of their avarice? But now they are in use with one another, and have come into practice, that they are able to deceive, lie, and rob. [V. 15: "They are the children of Malediction, and have forsaken the right way, and have followed the way of Balaam the son of Bosor." I do not know whether it is wrongly written here in this place, or whether St. Peter diligently calls the son Bosor, whom Moses 4 Mos. 22, 5. calls the son Beor; unless Balaam's father had two names, that he was called Bosor and Beor. [Both increases the deterrent of this abominable example.]
223. for Bosor means flesh, Beor be
1) Finances - intrigues. Cf. Vol. VI.
Bl. 72: finantzerei.
but indicates a fool. Since St. Peter says [v. 16]: "The foolishness of the prophet" was punished by the donkey, he touches the little word Beor. But that he loved the "wages of iniquity" [v. 15] is indicated by the word Bosor. Balaam is as much as a "devourer" who devours everything, just as all false teachers devour the world's goods, body and soul. These horrible words are all spoken on the spiritual avarice, pompousness and unchristian nature of the popes and the priests, who have become fools and flesh and devour all the world's wealth. Not only are they the other Balaam, but they are also "the children of malediction," like the one who gave counsel to the Moabites and miserably devastated Israel through Baal-Peor [Deut. 25.This history St. Peter even refers to the bishops [pontifices], who have also created the idol of their human doctrine and live with their Midianite 1) whores in all pleasure and tenderness, entice the frivolous souls to themselves, then curse (as we said) the way of truth; just as the same Balaam subjected himself to curse the people of God.
Therefore Peter says [v. 15.16]: "Balaam loved the reward of unrighteousness, but was punished for his transgression. The dumb beast of burden spake with the voice of man, and rebuked the prophet's foolishness." Behold the avarice and foolishness of the popes, how much avarice makes fools of men, that they have less sense than beasts.
225. "These are firkins without water" [v. 17.], for they have the appearance and name as if they were shepherds, but the work and the office is far from them; as the prophet Zacharias 11, 17. says: "O shepherd! you idol." [v. 17.is "And a mist are they, driven about by the whirlwind." The mist is sheer like the clouds, but gives no rain of itself. So they are praised according to the title [as] shepherds, also sit in their place; but they teach nothing, but by worldly lusts they become in all the will of the devil
1) In the Orig. and also in Specatus: Madianitic.
driven. "What darkness is kept for eternity." O good God, what frightening things are told here! Who should not be afraid that he should be counted in the spiritual state, about which all this is spoken with a full and powerful spirit?
226. "For they speak pompous words, since there is nothing behind them, and provoke by lust to the desire of the flesh those who were rightly escaped. It looks to me as if this were spoken to the high schools and to the spiritual right; for we see how many pompous words the end-Christ sets everywhere in his spiritual right as he speaks: (Mandamus districte praecipiendo mandantes) "We command and command according to all severity," 2c and the like many other turgid pauses, so that he may have all the schools within, so that Peter speaks rightly, that he does not say "they speak," but "they sound or sound." For all this is a vain, useless sounding, and teaches nothing but vain vanity; and yet with this poison they attract to themselves the most noble of Christians, who study this doctrine in such pompous vanity 2) for the sake of their own profit alone.
227 For who does not study at the high schools for the sake of gain or fame, which he wants to attain from them? And that for the sake of it, that he may thereafter go idle. Not to mention how many souls are irritated by the impure and lewd free life that is led in the high schools. Summa, the spiritual right alone gives us the people who are on the foundations and high schools, who have surrendered to all vanity, to all pleasure, lust and idleness; and yet the pope and his apostles inhumanly bluster along and praise their status, wealth and glitter in spiritual rights almost and highly, so that Peter gives him the right name when he calls this semblance of Christianity, spirituality and art "superba vanitatis", that is, pompous, pompous words, since there is nothing behind them, so that this people nevertheless makes itself puffed up; although they nevertheless corrupt themselves through
2) That is, those who study this very vain, pompous doctrine.
Their pleasure and tenderness they live in it. Jude [v. 16] agrees with this, and deletes it better, when he says: "Their mouths speak pompous words, and they think according to the appearance of the person for the sake of profit." Behold, there he calls a reputation, which we have just called appearance, splendor, or even with one another nothing but gifts. For this king of donors thus proposes great pompous titles, great privileges and liberties, since there is truly nothing behind them.
St. Peter also nicely adds to the end of it [v. 18]: "Those who were justly saved and now walk in error. It looks to me as if he meant to imply that all those who are born and freed from sins through baptism and the word of God, as soon as they grow up a little, are drawn to this doctrine and art and drowned in it, so that they are compelled and forced to walk in error, even though they had escaped all error through Christ. But this happens when they fall from faith to gifts, from the Spirit to reputation, from grace to works, from truth to appearance and glitter and to all the splendor of gifts, and are led astray by the unchristian spiritual rights of their vanity.
229 [V. 19]: "And promise them liberty, if they themselves be servants of destruction." This applies to indulgences and all deceitfulness, so that they may pretend that the use and practice of gifts is a good thing, so that whoever walks in it should be considered to be walking in a holy and Christian way. As it is praised and respected of priests and monks, and of all clergymen, as if they alone were in the right state of blessedness; the others, who otherwise live in the world, must all be esteemed laymen or worldly. For this purpose they sell to the others their works and their merits together with the mass, and promise them, if they thus buy them, that their sins shall be forgiven thereby; but "they are servants of perdition," that is, they teach nothing, except that which serves to perdition. As also St. Paul saith Col. 2:22, "All things consume themselves under hands, and are after the commandments and doctrines of men." But nothing
Less, because they teach that one should put one's trust in it, they become the cause of eternal destruction.
(230) But the following text compels us to understand the servants of perdition for the servants of sin; that this meaning may be taken from it, namely, although they themselves are corrupt and damned by unchristian glitter and other manifest vices, yet they presume to be of use to others for salvation, if they communicate to them their damned works, their brotherhood and indulgences, all death and devils. For it follows [v. 19], "For by whomsoever a man is overcome, he is become his servant." Do we not hear this every day, that the pope, full of public vices and unchristian nature, may do such things as to distribute the merits of Christ and the saints as he pleases and to whom he pleases? Unlock heaven with his keys to whom he pleases, and after him will follow all the filth and rabble of his clergy. Thus the wicked takes the treasure of the church into his own hands; thus he makes others free and free, and yet remains himself a servant of destruction.
Finally, St. Peter concludes that the Roman church, together with its pope, has turned back to a worse idolatry and paganism than it ever was before, and says thus [vv. 20-22]: "For if they have escaped the filthiness of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (understand by faith), "but are again entangled in it and overcome, the last has become worse with them than the first. For it were better for them that they had not known the way of righteousness," that is, of faith, "than if they had known it, and yet had turned back from the holy commandment," that is, from the commandment of faith in Christ. "The true saying has happened to them, The dog eats again what he has eaten, and the sow rolls in the mire again after the flood." We now see all this in the papist empire, that faith is destroyed, that we are worse heathens than ever before. We should give thanks to this king of fiddles with his atrocious predecessors.
Peter and Judas have masterfully and flush finely painted here together with their givers and foreign powers. Now follows the fruit and the work of the same.
Dau. 8, 24. He will be a wonderful spoiler.
232) The word Miradilia, which is called Niphlaoth in Hebrew, is otherwise interpreted, namely, that it means strangely great things, secret and hidden, as Daniel 11:36: "Against God of all gods he will speak strangely great things. But the word "desolate" is the very thing that is written in Genesis 6:12: that "the earth was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its way," which God also wanted to corrupt or destroy along with the earth. Therefore it will be better if we interpret et mirabilia vastabit here as: He will be a strange destroyer.
233 So here the prophet may be understood in two ways: first, that for the "marvelous" one may understand the things which this king will attack to destroy. After that, it may be taken to mean the works or the deeds that he will spend in destruction, as if one wanted to call these deeds marvelous or atrocious. And our Latin interpreter of the prophet leads this last understanding, which we also want to follow; although the first interpretation is also correct. For in truth there are marvelous and glorious things which he (this king) corrupts; but it may be known only in the spirit and in faith. Let this then be our understanding, that we interpret the prophet thus, "He shall marvelously corrupt"; or, "He shall be a great marvelous or unchristian corrupter." For the prophet describes not so nearly [both] what the good and the pious must suffer and endure from this wicked waggler; but how great iniquity and wickedness he would presume to practice and work against the good and against the pious. Also show the happiness and welfare he would have in it.
234 Therefore, the prophet is not speaking here of the desolation or corruption that comes with
The tyrant destroys the country and the people through war and weapons. For here it must be so, as the king is, so will also be his destruction, that is, he will do it all with his gifts and suggestions, which are strengthened by foreign power. For this not with weapons, nor with reason or art. As the text that follows shows, namely, when he says [vv. 24, 25], "And it shall prosper him, and he shall bring it forth; and he shall destroy the mighty, and the people of the saints; and deceit shall prosper in his hand."
It follows, therefore, not that he will destroy cities or countries, but those things which may and do be destroyed by idols, propositions, and deceit, which are also repugnant to idols, propositions, and deceit of a kind, namely, the truth and the word of truth, the spirit and the plain Christian nature. This is so much as to say that he will destroy faith in Christ and the kingdom of good conscience; which kingdom of Christ is called the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of truth. For thus he confessed before Pilate that his kingdom was a kingdom of truth, saying [John 18:17], "He that is of the truth heareth my voice." Therefore the king, who is a destroyer of the kingdom of heaven and a destroyer of the simple simple-mindedness in Christ (as Paul says [2 Cor. 11, 3.He is none other than the true end-Christian, who holds up and teaches deception and cunning for faith, a sham for the truth, a pure pretense for the mysteries, his suggestions for the gospel, deceit and cunning for the simple being, and his spiritual rights for the word of God, and thereby corrupts the consciences and destroys the spirit of truth.
Now let us see and learn whether the pope will fulfill this prophecy, as we have said here. First, it is evident that Christ has taken away all sin to such an extent that the cause of sin, namely the law, no longer exists. For he hath made all things free, so that a Christian should not do anything by the constraint of the law; but all things by liberty.
1544 V. k. V, 367 p. 61. L.'s response to d. Book of Catharinus. W. xvm, 1894-1897. 1545
of the spirit, as Paul says 1 Tim. 1, 9. "To the righteous there is no law." For everything that is done out of the compulsion and necessity of the law is sin; for it is not done out of a voluntary spirit, but with an unwilling heart, that is, it is done with a will that is contrary to the law; and this same unwillingness or recalcitrance is in truth sin in every way.
Therefore, St. Paul calls the preachers of the New Testament "ministers of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:6), not of the letter, that is, those who preach only grace and no law. Hence it is that in the whole New Testament there is no commandment driving or compelling, but only exhortation and stimulation. Also, Christ and his apostles never forced anyone. Thus the Holy Spirit alone is called Paraclete, that is, a Comforter [John 15:26], that He continues with us always, comforting and admonishing us. All this is so that we may know how the people of Christ hear Christ voluntarily and follow him without all fear of the law, allowing themselves to be enticed and led with freedom and good will, keeping and doing what God commands, not because it is commanded, but because it pleases them to do so, and they would also do and live in this way if it were not commanded. But what people do otherwise, and let themselves be frightened or pressed by the law alone, that is not a people of Christ, but a people of the law and of the synagogue, where the transgressors are put to death. Therefore Christ also says, Matth. 19, 17, with a difference and with a condition (Si vis), that is, "if you want to be saved or enter into life, keep the commandments". For this reason he does not say Matth. 5, 3: "I want or command you to be poor"; but with gentle words he admonishes them and reproaches them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit". 2c
238 Recently, in the New Testament, all things are stated only what one should do and what one should not do, and what will happen to those who do or do not do them, and from where one should expect what one wants to do. But no one is forced; each one is left to his own adventure, to be lost or saved as he pleases. Thus commanded the Lord,
Matth. 18, 18, not that one should kill the one who would not hear the church, but only that one should avoid him and regard him as a Gentile.
So the Lord has not made us free from the law, but from the power of the law, which is the right kind of freedom from the law, and has given us the freedom to do good or evil for our own good and harm, but not in the sense that he would have taken away the right and sword of the worldly authorities, so that they would have to use themselves for the punishment of the wicked'. For the same wicked do not belong under his kingdom until they also become spiritual and serve God with such freedom.
240 If this is also true in the divine law of the Ten Commandments, how much more is it true in the laws of external worship, which also existed in former times, but are now completely annulled, so that one can no longer sin in them, since only one faith is held out to us as the only sufficient means by which one can be justified before God.
241 Because this king of sins always does nothing else for or in return, except to command us and to force and compel us everywhere by his laws or spiritual law, and yet he does this in God's stead and in God's name, it is obvious that he is an adversary of Christ, a corrupter of the New Testament, an enemy of Christian freedom, who compels the unwilling to do works. It is obvious that he is an adversary of Christ, a corrupter of the New Testament, an enemy of Christian freedom, who forces the unwilling to do the works he has commanded. By this tyranny he is then a cause of so many sins, as works which he commanded are done by those whom he compels to do them, and they do them unwillingly. For if they believe that the pope's commandments bind and bind them, they must have a conscience about it, if they let what he has commanded be done; yes, they also sin in the truth, if they already do it and keep it, because they do it unwillingly and forcedly. Who yet with such a reluctant heart
1) i. e. at our risk.
did not sin where the pope had not commanded, but admonished and asked them alone. On the other hand, he is also a cause of false righteousness in all those who obey him. For they think that they have almost done well and have done a good work, and they count this obedience as justice. Thus it happens that people think they want to be and become righteous not by faith in Christ, but by law and good works. And this is and is called corrupting faith and truth; that is, making many evil consciences and a false delusion of good consciences.
242 Because the pope does this in all the world, one sees how he is such a wonderful and unchristian corrupter. For he corrupts and destroys all those whom he brings under him with laws and commandments and drives them away with them. But who is there in all the world whom he does not thus subdue? Let it be the young children and the righteous and simple-minded Christians whom God keeps before him by His inscrutable divine counsel. O man of sin! O son of perdition! [2 Thess. 2, 3.] O abomination! [Matth. 24, 15.] O corrupter and destroyer! o originator of so many evil consciences! o teacher of false good consciences! yes, o enemy of faith and Christian freedom! And who could even remember the great sea of wickedness of this abominable king, let alone tell it in words.
But this is not the end of misfortune. If he had set the same laws on the works of virtue as they are commanded in the Ten Commandments, or as philosophy and nature itself teach, as there is justice, fortitude, temperance, chastity, meekness, truth, goodness and the like, then perhaps only a synagogue or Jewish school would have been set up by his regiment, and he would have spread a worldly righteousness into the world in the least (for by the same faith would also have been destroyed, as it was also destroyed by such among the Jews), but now it has not remained so; indeed, he rarely does such things, that we must confess that he does much less harm through the above-mentioned, as great harm and accident.
They also bring them to faith, if one holds it against that which follows.
For he forces us to his ceremonies and to that which he has devised. He binds us mad foolish fools, yes, us blocks and sticks only to place, person, clothes, food, days and gestures so miserable that I am almost ashamed to death of this abomination and disgust and must be annoyed. For Christ (as I said above), having abolished all laws by the liberty which he has conquered for us, has also much more abolished the laws which hang and bind them to place, person, clothing, food, days, and the like, so that they should be left free to be used or not to be used by everyone, without any distinction, as each one would have it, so that by them no one should incur sin, no one should incur righteousness in his conscience; which conscience alone consists in faith in Christ.
245. But the pope has not enough to weigh us down and trouble us with the places, foods, garments and days, so that the law of Moses went around and became full of the same; but over the same he invents daily still much more by his own iniquity; or else those whom other his ancestors have invented, he multiplies and changes for and against, and with those whom he has thus multiplied and changed according to his will, he afflicts all the Christians in the whole world, corrupting and destroying them. And in order that this matter may become clearer and more evident, we will demonstrate and show it by several examples.
246 Christ has accepted and abolished all differences of places and wants to be served everywhere. Nor is it so in his kingdom that one would speak: Here it is holy, there it is not holy; but it is the same everywhere. For your faith, hope and love will not be stronger or better in the church or in the choir, over the altar or in the churchyard, than they are or may be in the barn, in the vineyard, in the kitchen and in the bedchamber.
The dear martyrs also served Christ in the dungeons. Christo St. Agnes also served in the common women's house.
1548 V- a- V, 370 f. 61. L.'s answer to the book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, I899-I9V2. 1549
inside. But the pope with his church consecrations, which he endows with so many privileges and liberties, and with so many banishments and condemnations that one should not violate them, what else does he do, but that he awakens our conscience of a breach of the church, as often as one mistreats such a house, which he or his have consecrated, whether in jest or in earnest, only a little; which otherwise would be no sin at all, if he committed the same in the same way in another house. But again, if in the same house you obey the commandments of the pope, you are quite spiritual and a pious, obedient son of the church, and have a conscience that says you have done a good and righteous work in it.
248. Now hold Christ and the pope against each other, and Christ will say: There is no sin in how or what one does in any place, so long as one does not harm one's neighbor. But the priest says, "It is sinful for you to do anything in the church that is not holy, or if you do not want to have the church in greater honor than any other house. Does not the pope make a sin here, where Christ makes none, namely in places and in the use of them? Does he not make conscience here, since Christ makes none? Does he not set up a service here, a fear and imprisonment, a rope and peril, since Christ wants freedom and security? Is not the pope the right end-Christ? Is he not a causer of sin and conscience by his free, foolish, useless and godless laws? What need has a Christian of such laws, or to keep such things, that he may be justified? O what a childish and ridiculous deceitfulness and mockery, which yet can make so great and serious sin and ruin?
Again, Christ teaches us that one does not become righteous before God by serving Him in such places. But the pope teaches that one becomes pious and righteous by building churches and having them consecrated, and separating them in mind and conscience as holy places from other houses, and that this is the right service of God and God's glory. O a right clergy, which is well disposed to such a god.
touches! How well and how finely Christ has decreed that the consecration of churches and bells should belong to the bishops alone. This is (I say) the most worthy office of the bishops, namely, as they are bishops, that their work and labor should be the same. For they are only idols and larvae, because they throw away the office of the word and keep only the title and the clothes, as if they were bishops. And therefore they shall not sanctify the souls of the faithful, that is, they shall not consecrate the true church of Christ by the word and prayer; but they shall smear bells, wood and stones, and sprinkle water upon them, not for a dwelling place for Christ, but for mice and spiders and birds to dwell in.
Thus one wood consecrates another, one stone another, one block another, one idol another, and one idol another, so that everywhere one abomination rhymes with another. Nor (O kind God!) how many laws have been made, from which one must learn how to keep and order all things? How many glosses and erroneous doubts and cases occur there? How much punishment, penance and satisfaction must one take upon oneself when one has not done right by things? And the Most Holy One, how difficult it is for him to forgive such imaginary sins, that is, never ever, if you count the money; otherwise he will let it go, if you have already broken the marriage and committed the most unchristian vices, which he may well protect and handle.
Again, with how much grace and indulgence does he bestow and reward the righteousness of those who obey him? And that justly; for with such indulgence must such sinners be given, and with such reward must such righteous ones be crowned, so that indulgence and grace, like their sin and righteousness, are all abominable abominations, of which everyone should be in awe.
252 So Christ also made no distinction between food and days, as the apostle teaches us in some places; he also did not want anyone to sin, no matter what kind of food he might need every day. For it is not the use, but the evil desire of food, that is condemned in the Gospel.
punishes. But the most holy one, that is, the adversary of Christ, does not pay any attention to this evil sinful desire, but only looks at the use of meat, eggs and butter and other such things and forbids them, so that one is not allowed to eat them during the fast and on some other days. And he does this by divine authority and in God's name, and thus sets up a foolish fast. He does not put this on the fact that one should curb lust and desire, but only on the mere use that one should only not eat it, so it is well fasted; just as St. Paul prophesied earlier 1 Tim. 4, 3, where he says: "They forbid to become concubinous and to avoid the food that God has created, to take with thanksgiving.
Therefore, here sin has come about through the willfulness of him who is called "a man of sin," since otherwise there is no sin by nature. And to these things he binds the consciences, and thus drives them about with his foolish laws, so that there is almost no other work in which one is more afraid if one has not kept it, or in which one is more confident and comforted if one has done it; for such is the fasting which the pope has commanded. For they consider beating to death and committing adultery and cheating to be a far lesser sin than one who has eaten eggs, butter, milk or meat on a fasting day. The master of all churches, the author of all laws and righteousness, the shepherd and head of the whole common Christian church, does not care whether consciences err, however unchristian they may, and whether the faith of Christ should even perish; for this he delights and delights that souls should perish and faith be destroyed; yea, he stands and works for it, and urges all the world to it. Nor does he indulge in this righteousness, or in sin, except for the sake of money. He that giveth money may not fast; but he that hath sinned against his fasting, the same may be forgiven for money.
254 Since the pope makes sin, as Christ cancels sin, and establishes righteousness, as Christ cancels righteousness, he binds up consciences, as Christ binds up consciences.
He makes the consciences free, because he practices rebellion everywhere, puts sin in the place of grace, puts the law in the place of faith; why do you still doubt whether he is the true end-Christ, the abomination who stands in the place where he does not belong? Are they not abominable one to another? Christ saith, Here is no sin: so saith the pope, Yea, there is sin here. Christ saith, There is no righteousness here: so saith the priest, Yea, there is righteousness here. For if he left it free, or only exhorted the people to it, he would not be the end-Christ. But now, if he commands and does it falsely under the name of Christ, he commands it in a mortal sin. Mortal sin, with it he devastates the church, with it he corrupts the faith, there he makes sin and condemns (perdit) the consciences.
The same is the reverence for the sacred garments, vessels, and sanctuary. It is a sin for a nun to touch the altar cloth, which they call palla; it is a sin to touch a chalice; it is a sin to celebrate mass in an unconsecrated chalice or chasuble; it is a sin to go to the altar without a chasuble or any other piece of holy vestments; It is a sin if the priest calls the altar server and speaks a word or two with him during the silent Mass; it is a sin if someone misses the Canon or stammers a word; it is a sin who touches the sanctuary. But whoever touches the sacrament of Christ's holy Corpus Christi with his hand or with a finger, and even if the necessity urges him to do so, so that the sacrament sticks to the inside of his palate and he wants to take it off, this is such a great sin that one must scrape off the living flesh with which he has touched it. That is such a great nonsense that the nonsense itself could not be more nonsensical. Perhaps it will come to this that our tongues, our palates, our throats and our stomachs will have to be flayed and skinned, if we have gone to God's table and touched the body of Christ with it. But where one has offended one's neighbor, stolen from him what is his, or otherwise shown him no help, what harm should that do? It is a bad sin, and almost no sin at all.
Yes, where is there any vice so great that the pope does not practice and drive with such of his saints, who are truly not only superstitious, but rather frenzied with dizziness and utterly and completely nonsensical fools, who can neither be helped nor advised.
Recently, all creatures must be sin to the pope, along with all their uses. But Christ put no sin nor righteousness in the creatures; perhaps because he alone is holy. But it behooved the most holy governor of Christ to oppose Christ, to set up false sin and false righteousness without number, to make the whole world full, full, full of foolish, erroneous, fearful, and corrupt consciences, that he might destroy Christian liberty and corrupt the faith, as is his way. Behold, now you have who is "the man of sin" and "the son of perdition" [2 Thess. 2:3].
257 I have not yet told the greatest and rightest multitude of the multitudes of this king, that is, the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, deacons, subdeacons and tonsurettes. For all these, whom I have named here, by reason of their plates, caps, and garments, and by reason of their days and ordinances, they teem with sins. The Scotists do not have so many relations, nor the Thomists so many realities, although they make as many of them in each thing as there are creatures in the world. O gracious God! the whole lost sore of these people is nothing but vain sin. If a man should not let himself be shorn, if he should not pray his horas 1), if he should not wear a priestly color on himself or take the guild 2) off his neck; if he should not clothe himself with purple and beautiful linen when he is in worship, or if he should walk in it in any other way than what is put on him, he would be considered an apostate, that is, an apostate.
258 For who does not consider an apostate or an apostate a monk who goes in the clothes of a layman, seeing that he is free?
1) I.e. the prayers prescribed at different times of the day.
2) D. i. Capuze, cap.
and would not let him shear his colb 3)? But that they leave the faith and become apostates is not taken into account, if they only keep the other things that the pope has commanded. In these matters even the pope himself may not dispense, how much one would give money, who otherwise so easily forgives all sins that have been committed against God, which forgiveness he may well offer us himself. This tyranny of papal laws is so ingrained in the poor conscience that the prophet Daniel [8:24] rightly says: "He will be a wonderful destroyer. For what does he leave that he does not corrupt? and so corrupt that it cannot be made right again. So even the consciences are made weak and despondent, and all are taken captive. And I do not know if to this day the pope would revoke and abolish all these laws, whether it would help to put such fear and doubt out of people's minds and to heal their consciences. In this way, one can neither help nor advise this terrible plague, which is done to the people by such Assyria, as the prophet Isaiah says [Isa. 14:6, 25].
Behold, now you have the fruit of gifts and suggestions, that is, corruption of the church, of faith, of Christian liberty, of the Spirit, of truth, and of all the goods that have been given to us by Christ. This is the real Antiochus, [who was the model of this king of givers], of whom we read Dan. 8, 10-12. thus: "He has risen up against the strength of the heavens, and he has thrown down some of the strength, and some of the stars, and has trampled them under foot. And he has risen up to the prince of strength. And he took from him the daily sacrifice (that is, faith), and cast down the place of his holiness (that is, conscience), and power was given him against the daily sacrifice for sins, that the truth might be cast down in the land. It shall prosper him, and he shall bring it forth."
260. does not the pope do all this with
3) D. i. head.
his gestures and proposals, which he has set up against the truth and against the faith? Behold, this is the very thing that the devil spaketh through their mouths, when they say that Christ hath not ordained all things as they ought to be, but hath left them for the church to ordain and establish; when Christ hath set and ordained the matter so that there shall be no more than one sin, which is unbelief; and again, that there shall be no righteousness without faith. As he then says John 16:9, "The Spirit shall punish the world for sin, that they believe not on me"; and Marci last, v. 16, "But he that believeth not shall be damned." For all things that are outside of man do not defile [Matt. 15:17, 18.], but are altogether free; only alone do men sin with the evil desire that goeth out from within. But the pope defiles and stains the whole world with sins, only by such external things, and does not care how the internal uncleanness is. There we see how pure and clear the words of Christ are; nor do we want to recognize the end-Christ, his adversary, who devastates and corrupts all things in the church.
261 In addition to the sins mentioned, which may well be called vain worlds of sins and corruptions, the pope also commits other sins. First, a false confidence in these works which he gives, which is a twofold unrighteousness. For all those who obey the pope in his things and guard against papist sins esteem themselves, and are esteemed by others, as doing good and earning much by it. And this is now the other tempest of this corruption, which goeth forth into all the world 1) [because the faith of Christ cannot stand with this confidence]. Then, because the laws are so many that they themselves are too heavy, they are obedient to them only by outward works; but the will is bored and unwilling to do them; as we see then in the sore of the vigils, of the masses, of the days, they are chanted
1) I.e. which storms against all the world.
or read, in which they are so utterly disgruntled that at this time there is hardly a more disgruntled work. Nevertheless, the drivers persist in this hardest work, forcing and urging with all their might that one must do and keep these things, which before God are nothing but heavy sins and vices; before men it is considered a good work and as if it were a service of God. Here, at last, one has invented some stimulation of the senses, as the organ is, and some singing. But it does nothing for the spirit, which is also more destroyed and extinguished by such tickling.
O Lord Jesus Christ, how with great violence, how with great multitude they are driven into sin and into destruction. And all this happens through this abominable abomination. It is frightening to see into these abominable maws of consciences, which are thus corrupting with great toil and labor. O what a childish thing it is compared to this, which Manasseh and other godless kings of old did, when they let their children go through the fire [2 Chron. 33, 6.]. Nor would we like to put any pagan people's idolatry and sacrifices on a par with ours, however abominable and monstrous they have always been, not even those who were called Lestrygones (who ate human flesh); our foolishness surpasses all their foolishness. Summa, it has happened to us in the same way as Christ says: "The seven spirits, even worse than the first, make the last much worse than the first was." Yes, I say that we are seven times worse Gentiles than we ever were before the knowledge of Christ.
And that I may make an end of speaking of this corruption, and that thou mayest see how all that is in the pope is all sin and corruption, behold, not only are his laws all sin, not only are all their works sin, yea, not only are all their glorious works sin, and which they perform with vexation, as we have said; but also the reward which they receive therefore is sin also, yea, it is the greatest sin above all. Do you ask me how this happens? I will tell thee: [They leave the robber Barabbam alone [Matth. 27, 21.], they are not satisfied with the fact, that they have
bound and put to death. That is so much to say, that he frees the whole clergy, or the clergy, and exempts them from all common complaints and man's work, so that they live in idleness against the commandment of God, in security and wealth without all fear, like Sodoma [Jer. 23:14]. After that, if they sin or do wrong, no one may accuse them of it, nor sue them, nor punish them, except the pope; who, even if he wanted to punish, cannot, he himself is too weak for it; but now it is also not his will and earnestness that he wants to punish.
Therefore their wickedness bursts forth like lard, as the Psalter says [Ps. 73:7.j; hence come virginity, adultery, unchastity, impurity, avarice, deceitfulness, cunning, and alfalfa, and all the abominations and abominations of all vices, not only with abundance, but also that they rule without all punishment, without all fear, so that they shun neither God nor man; And if anyone wanted to punish them for this, he would immediately be accused of being an infringer of papal liberty and of having violated the supreme majesty. Here belong the most sacred rights and laws which the pope has made (de foro competenti), that is, where the clergy is to stand and appear in court, along with all others, by which the clergy is freed and exempted, so that they may not be sued, judged, sentenced or punished before secular authorities, not only they, but also everything that belongs to them.
For this the most holy adversary of Christ decrees that they may take usury and rob and defraud the people. What one has robbed, that must also befit them to accept. This happens when, by his papal grace, he dispenses and allows, for the increase and promotion of divine service, that one may take unjust interest, make and set up unjust dealings, that one may also hand over what has been stolen to the church and turn it into a gift from God. 2c But how the chastity of the clergy, only that sins and corruption might increase, has arisen and been invented by the devil, I have said elsewhere sufficiently.
Dear, do we have almost the end of this hell? Would not (alone) make him a man of sin, and prove that he is the son of perdition (2 Thess. 2, 3.), so many oaths and vows, in which he involves all bishops, priests, monks, princes and high schools? Who wants to count here how often a false oath happens, because there is no one here who swears an oath willingly and gladly, but is nevertheless urged and compelled to take the oath, since the necessity of salvation does not demand it anywhere, that is, he is forced to use the name of God uselessly. For what is not done with a willing heart is done vainly and in vain and is done with sin. Thus, the king of sins was not only to corrupt faith, but also to corrupt all good morals, so that nothing would remain uncorrupted by him; and yet he was to cover and protect all such cursed abominations only with the most powerful appearance of sins against all power, both of words and weapons, so that this king of sins would be the last and final abomination, which would soon come before the future of Christ, in which Christ would have to prove his great power, just according to the greatness of this abomination.
Here I will show how he commits sin and evil without number against the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth commandments. He takes away the obedience of children from their parents and strengthens them against them, as we read of Emperor Henry the Fourth and have seen and experienced in many others, because he wants to be heard only over God and over all men. Item, with how many deaths and bloodshed he fills the whole world, since he, as he only desires, sets kings and princes on each other, brings them to a battle with each other, so that you might well doubt, if the devil himself ruled, whether he would bring about such things? Now he also robs to himself, this great arch-robber, whole kingdoms and dukedoms, he devours and consumes all bishoprics and all benefices and all the world's possessions and goods, wealth and fortune through the annals and pallia and through other without number manifold finances, which he
Everywhere he embellishes, covers and adorns with false, cunning, lying words, as he pleases. For he does not do things by confessing that what he does is sin or wrong; but he says and says that it is sin, and such a great sin, that if one resists him in it, and only dares to protest against it, one cannot punish and atone for it sufficiently with any hell. And drags with him into such a blasphemous opinion, if not the whole world, yet the whole rabble of priests and all clergy, and a large part of the laity, that they must hold such with him and thus perish eternally; and thus corrupts all things, not in one way alone, but in all kinds of ways; wherefore he is truly and well a wonderful corrupter.
Of both allow [at] God's table.
But let us come to the greatest and most heinous sins of all that he commits, that is, to the sacrilege that he commits daily and has so far committed against the sacrament of the altar, against baptism and penance. For the time being, he has taken away [the whole mystery of] the mass from the church. Which mass, as far as the laity is concerned, he has so utterly corrupted that he has even taken away from them half or one form of the sacrament; yes, not only taken away, but also imposed, that it is a sin and the greatest heresy, which layman, after the institution of Christ, dares to enjoy and receive both forms. Help God, what a great audacity this abomination is! For if Christ Himself had forbidden one figure, one would be a heretic who wanted to take them both. But now he does not forbid it, nor does he put any sin upon it, but has thus appointed both our forms; nor does his governor come along, and is so bold and presumptuous, that he dares to make and cause such a great sin and heresy in that which is not forbidden, but is proper and free to every one, yea, which is ordained and appointed by Christ. We still do not want to recognize him from this for the end-Christ; but we honor him and still pray to him for a governor of Christ.
an. O! how is this such a great terrible wrath of God!
(269) But I truly consider it to be utterly abhorrent, if one part of it be abhorred, because both of them together, that is, wine and bread, are but one whole sacrament; and if one of them be done, the other must be kept only for a mockery. For the Scripture also says [Jac. 2, 10.]: Whoever sins against God in one piece is guilty of the whole law. Unless God, through His hidden judgments, has preserved some in the whole perfect faith of this sacrament, as He can and may preserve, and has preserved many in the faith without both forms of the same sacrament. Therefore it would be much better to receive no form at all, but only the one, so that we may all the more surely avoid the transgression of that which Christ has thus instituted.
But he is not satisfied with this nonsense; he puts another, almost more horrible and soul-murdering rope on all consciences, since he neither admits nor imposes that one may freely enjoy and use this sacrament; but he absolutely compels all people to go to the sacrament at the appointed Easter time. Here I ask you, dear Christian brother, how many do you think that there are who let themselves be fed by the common table of God only out of compulsion of the commandment, who truly would gladly undergo the same from the heart? But these all sin, because they do not come to God's table out of the impulse of the Spirit, that is, because they do not come to God's table in faith and with will, but allow themselves to be brought to it by the deadly letter of the commandment; yet this bread wants to have a hunger of conscience, does not want to be eaten where one is full and satisfied; still less does it want to be eaten where one has a displeasure or displeasure or hatred for it.
Now the pope is the cause of all such sins by his horrible law, which he has made in order to force people into ruin, and yet he should leave everyone free to go to God's table if he wanted to, but only invite and admonish people to do so, not force or coerce them.
4560 k. V. L. V, 378 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. xvm, 1915-1917. 1561
Behold, whether from the one law the whole world be not filled with sins unto the top of heaven? Whether the world is not too much corrupted by this one flood of sin? Thus he not only deprives us of our sacrament, but also that which he leaves over for us in the same sacrament, that he leaves over, of no other opinion than that he has thereby a way and cause to fill the whole world with innumerable sins and to corrupt it.
From the fair.
He also deceives the sacrificial apes much more shamefully. 1.) First, although the mass alone is a sacrament or a sign and testament, and should only be received as a good deed of God, he turns it into a good work, so that one may do enough for sin and also come to the aid and comfort of the living and the dead in all distress and affliction. Here, with this fanciful talk, he snatches away all the world's goods, honor and power, so that the mass is of no use at all for salvation, but is only good for gaining money and goods under this unchristian perversion and blasphemy.
273. 2.) Then they make a sacrifice out of it, so that they thank God for His goodness and want to prove a good service to Him as the one who is in need of our good works, from whom they themselves should receive and wait for good deeds. This perversion is truly beyond all understanding and beyond all words, nor does it possess and oppress all the world so powerfully and violently that it is not to be believed.
274. 3.) Third, they make of that which is common a special and selfish thing. For the mass, together with its two sacramental forms, is never to be given to one person alone, because Christ has ordained that the minister who celebrates the mass should share both forms with the congregation or others who are gathered with him. Now, however, the sacrificial minister goes alone and hides himself in a special corner, and says mass himself, and also receives the communion of both forms alone. However, the
He also (as they say) spiritually participates in, appropriates and makes common to whom he wishes the fruit and benefit of the same mass, that is, he lets him dream that he is sharing something with them or making it common as a good work and a sacrifice; yet he only receives that which should be received in himself and truly in the community. But do not receive it as a gift of God, which he wanted to take and possess from God, but as such a gift, which he wants to offer and give to God. O what great seas full of sins therefore flow in this Sacrament! How few are they, or rather, how few are there who need this sacrament, as Christ instituted it and as the apostles kept it.
From confession.
With such nonsense he spoils everything with confession, in which one must tell and confess all sin. For first, although confession is a very wholesome thing and should be free, and the new law does not suffer any law or commandment, but only wants to have stimulation and admonition, the pope still makes so much sin here and corrupts so many souls with it, namely, as much and as often as they confess with unwillingness. For if they do not confess from the heart, but confess only because they are urged to do so by the commandment of the papist law, they do confess, but nevertheless the mind remains repugnant to the same law. So they sin first of all because they believe, and consider it in their unhappy conscience that they are obliged and bound to make such confession; therefore they want to confess alone. Then they sin again, because they do not want to, that is, they confess with a stubborn will and only with the mouth and not with the heart, that is, they do a fictitious and glaring confession. All this is called and sinned against twofold. Now see for yourself how great seas of sins the pope creates in the whole world by the single law of imposed and unwilling confession. For how many do you think there are who willingly and gladly confess?
But these things were not thought to be sins, everyone is surely and without care corrupted to it by this son of perdition and by this most abominable man of sin [2 Thess. 2, 3.].
But in order that these seas of sins and corruptions might become even greater and more superfluous, he also enforces that one must confess the sins against his laws, yes, only these must be confessed most of all. For this purpose, so many differences, forms and generations of sins have been invented, along with their daughters and nephews, branches and circumstances, and there is so much abomination that no one can tell it, that even here the most spiritual must sin and perish, that is, he must confess unwillingly. For this is a strong and immovable saying everywhere: Qui iuvitus Ikwit, from kamt, that is, he who does a thing unwillingly does not do it. Again, it is said that forced or coerced services are not pleasing to God. Since the pope does not need to make such laws of any kind, only to strengthen and establish his tyranny, it is obvious that he is the cause of innumerable sins, and also a cause without measure of much destruction, to which he, by the laws he makes, gives a powerful cause to all unwilling consciences, who nevertheless consider themselves to be obliged to keep such laws. For if a man believe that he ought to do a thing, and be guilty of doing it, but do it unwillingly, and be constrained to do it, it is no other thing than a continual sinning without ceasing, as St. Paul saith, Rom. 14:23: Whosoever shall stagger at meat, 1) and make him conscience to eat it, if he eat it, he is damned: for that which is not of faith is sin.
But now the pope enforces it with his laws, so that one must believe that one is obligated to do what he sets and commands; yet no one can give the will to be willing to do it. And he has no need or right to demand this, since he has little power to willingly and gladly give his will to anyone according to his laws. Therefore no other cause is present with him, but a pure
1) i.e. doubts.
He is an abominable man, a man of great evil, who fills the world with so many sins and corruptions and who corrupts and devours all believers in Christ, as St. Peter [2 Ep 2:18] also says of him: "Those who had escaped rightly, he drags back into error. Therefore Christ does not call him an abomination, who alone has abomination in him, but he wanted to call him the abomination himself [Matth. 24, 15.]. And Paul does not say of the sin of man or of the corruption of the Son; but he says that he is a man of sin and a son of corruption, that is, that nothing reigns in him but vain sin and corruption. And this we truly see in the Pope, that if Christ does not shorten these days, no man will be saved [Matth. 24, 22]. And who knows whether these shortened days belong to the young children, who die before the time, before they can recognize and understand these abominations?
Of imposed repentance and satisfaction.
How many souls does he [the pope] corrupt even by the laws of pardons or imposed penances? Who wants to tell so much cross, torture and death of consciences? First of all, he does not only abolish Christian freedom in this matter by his laws, which he has made here; but he makes everyone such consciences that one must do enough. And because no one likes to do this, everyone is urged to sin without ceasing by such blasphemous laws and such erroneous consciences, which here meet together in heaps. After that, he does not do to him here what he did to God's table and to confession, that he put all satisfaction, as it should be done, into certain laws; but there it is all done according to his free and unbound will and according to the shrine of his most lying heart. There you must atone and do enough, give and suffer as long as he and his henchmen want or need money. So the devil has his pleasure, that he drives the consciences around, that is his pastime, so that he atones for all his wickedness and willfulness. So he avenges
1564 D- V- a. V, 381 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. XVIII, 1920-1922. 1565
He is involved in the victory of the martyrs, and fights and contends with the generation or seed of those who rejected him from heaven in the past, and "has a great wrath", as we have heard in the book of Revelation [12, 12]. This same wrath he thus atones for and fulfills, that he plays and laughs in our ruin, as if it were a contemptible ridiculous thing. Oh how we slumber and snore at such inopportune times, when we should be most awake and alert.
But if the pope would leave all the above-mentioned things free and undone, and would not entangle the consciences with them in such a condemnable way, they would not make sin and corruption. But this would bring ruin to the kingdom of God; therefore the whole world would sooner be destroyed than his kingdom perish. Now you see how Christ is a cause of righteousness, and that he nowhere brings about law, sin, and corruption; but he challenges people and makes them free and free from laws, sins, and corruptions that were already made and existent. Against this you also see how the pope is a cause of sins, making laws everywhere and thereby corrupting righteousness and salvation, urging and compelling all the world to the same laws. And such a one is not badly holy, like Christ, but he is the most holy; is not a servant of Christ, but he is a governor of Christ; he is not a companion or fellow-shepherd of the other shepherds, but is the supreme or prince over all other bishops and shepherds. Woe to you!
V. 24: And it shall prosper him, and shall bring it forth.
This he will do and be able to do, namely, to deceive and destroy by means of gestures and suggestions, because no thing is more powerful than that, which has a good reputation of a godly being, provided it is adorned and made pleasant by the suggestion of the godly name, as if God wanted it so. Even though it would not have gone out so happily, if the devil had not helped it with his help, since God left the world because of sin. For where is
Is there any natural reason that does not see how foolish and unchristian things the pope teaches and does, even in many things that do not appear to be good? Nevertheless, they have won, so much so that all Greece has opposed him in vain. How often did the German emperors and other kings oppose the abomination, and how many pious men of learning? But they have all been overcome, suppressed and exterminated, the power of error has always won; therefore they have become so puffed up in their mind that they may freely boast without worry: everyone must fear them; as if Christ himself had done such a thing to protect his church.
I speak what is known 1) to all who have read the histories, in which these things are seen so clearly. Although the French historians turn all things to the praise and honor of the pope with shameful hypocrisy, they do not like to hide it. For the course and form of things in themselves, however much they color them with false lies and cover and entangle them with cunning hypocrisy, nevertheless gives the abomination to the day; It also obviously proves, how unwillingly its hypocrites see it, that the popes have always been straight and straight against the gospel, and even if they polish it up to the highest, they do not get any more, The blasphemous liars with their lying words, but that the pope, because of the church, that is, because of his tyranny, has grazed, deceived, robbed and murdered, has filled the world with murder, bloodshed and with all misfortune and misery. How well this rhymes with the Gospel, 2) whether Blondus and Platina together with their peers almost praise and extol it, it must be a stick to me, who does not understand this, otherwise he is so rough he always wants.
282 For the popes would always have been well advised to keep the peace, and they would have attended to the ministry of spiritual matters with the utmost diligence.
1) D. i. known.
2) I.e.: as it also says in the Latin original: "How this does not rhyme with the Gospel" 2c
The historians of Guelph go on and praise them because they have driven emperorships, kingdoms, bishoprics and dukedoms with war and snatched them away with violence and deceit under the name as if they were rightfully entitled to them and should be. Thus he has been everywhere swift and fortunate in all his will, which has only lusted after him, because he has been rejected by God. Therefore, what he began, he also carried out as he wished, and it did not help that both the pious and the wicked, the spiritual and the secular, the learned and the unlearned, resisted him; so that what followed was fulfilled:
He will destroy the strong and the people of the saints.
This is also what Daniel says in the 8th chapter, v. 10, about Antiochus, who was a figure and meaning of the Pope, when he says: "He has cast out the stars from heaven and trampled them underfoot. Also Christ says, Matth. 24, 22. that still more the elect shall be led astray. Likewise St. Paul says: There must be great errors [2 Thess. 2, 11].
284. But if I may believe myself here and accept the Hebrew words in the understanding that I interpret the strength for the strong and understand the apostles and evangelists for the people of the saints, which then the words themselves admit to me without need, so that one may understand it, the pope should be the one who would destroy the holy scripture, which is the only strength of the church; He should also be the one who would corrupt, destroy and disturb the apostles and evangelists, so that he would neither let himself be held nor caught by any Scripture, be it of the Old or New Testament, however great its reputation and respect; but he will force, counterfeit all Scripture according to all his might., He will corrupt and destroy it, which he already does in truth and has done for a long time. Now if these words are understood in this way, what follows will rhyme and conclude very nicely, namely, that he will depart
according to his mind [Dan. 8, 25]. For this very reason he will not be compelled nor urged by any scripture to do as his state requires, because he wants all things to be acted upon, said, taught, understood and interpreted freely and without restraint according to his mind and spirit; And in order that he may obtain and bring this about, it seems best to him that he should corrupt all things, interpret all things in the most insolent and most wilful manner, much rather than that he should depart from his mind, or that he should be thought to have erred and done wrong. How then this may be clearly proved by many examples in his spiritual rights, in which there is no place where he does not falsify the Scriptures of Christ and the holy apostles. And this is what he now says:
V. 25: And he will go according to his purpose.
This reads in Hebrew: Veal sichlo, that is, "and according to his mind", so that one must understand here another little word, either "he will be" or "he will drive and do according to his mind", or something else like that. There is touched the noble piece of the whole papist empire, of which one teaches and preaches that the pope is over everyone and that he is subject to no one who would judge him. For he wants to be a judge of all men, but does not want to be judged by anyone. And the disgraceful papists boast of this beyond measure with loud and magnificent cries, thus proving it: that is why all other judges get their verdict from this chair.
Therefore he sometimes omits this nonsense in his spiritual rights, saying: "The lowly chair may not judge the supreme one." Here belongs the chapter Eunota per munäuin novit Deelosia, guoä äo sontontiL Romavao Doelosiao of liooLt ^uäiearo, which is: "It is well known by the whole church in all the world that one should not judge a judgment that has been passed and recognized by the Roman church." Dear, what more abominable thing could one say and hear than such a blasphemous and unchristian word? Of this St. Peter says, 2 Ep. 2, 10: "They are thirsty, and yet think of themselves." Does not that dare
1568 v.". v, 384 f. 61. L.'s answer to d. Book of Catharinus. W. xvm, 1925-1928. 1569
It is an outrageous insolence that such an ungodly man, and such an unchristian, overloaded with all vices, and in addition the most unlearned and coarse fool, may presume so highly that no one should judge him, that he alone should not err, and that he alone should judge all others? This is exactly what they wanted when they taught us this most cursed blasphemy, that the pope should be over a council, that he alone should interpret the Scriptures, that more should be placed on his judgment than on the judgment of the whole Christian community or church. And the mad fools have never had so much brain that they would have noticed that the Christian church, yes, everyone who believes in Christ, has the Holy Spirit, so that the angels must also yield to his judgment, where they teach otherwise; not only the godless and unlearned man, who otherwise has neither protection nor shield, but just his godless and unlearned bunch, which is equal and similar to him in all respects.
This is what St. Peter, 2 Ep. 3, 3, proclaimed before, when he says: "who walk according to their own lusts. What is meant by "walking after his own lusts," for that here Daniel calls, "going after his own mind," opinion, and will? as then was to be done by this king. For the word Sechel [xxx] Hebrew, is with us as much as courage, sense, opinion, or will, which in Greek is called or. As we have Rom. 8:5, where St. Paul thus says, "They that are carnal are carnally minded"; and soon after, "To be carnally minded is death." Now this "being carnally minded" is meant here by the prophet Daniel; which we thus see and experience in the case of the pope, since he despises the Scriptures and is allowed to tell us and conclude from his own brain what he wants, and relies solely on the fact that his tyranny is so great and powerful. From this comes that he calls himself the church, that he will not let anyone be his judge, that he subjects himself to be the master, the teacher, and the head of all churches alone. He also makes himself a rule of faith, and yet he himself is sevenfold an unbeliever. Nor is this ungodly man praised in the lust of his soul [Ps. 10:3]. Behold, this is and is now called
"drive according to his mind" and do all things as he pleases.
Can anything more abominable be conceived than that the church, which lives and works by the Holy Spirit, should depart from its mind to unchristian, godless, and unlearned men, as the pope is with his multitude, who rely solely on the power of their tyranny? Nor do they praise such things and hold them up as the highest article of faith. Nor is it [any longer] a heretical heretic, for he who lets himself be known by the least that he doubts it. Verily, the kingdom of the devil wants to come to an end. For since he carelessly wants to do his thing too firmly and drives it, it happens according to divine judgment that he betrays himself as the one who does not lead the right thing. And this happens by no other means than by his superfluous persistence and carelessness, that he scolds such great heretics for the sake of a thing that is nowhere worth the trouble. Otherwise, he suffers and remains silent when someone denies God or is otherwise in all vices; as we see daily in all popes. If they were driven by the spirit of God, they would seek first and foremost what concerns God; but now, because they seek their own and care so little about divine things, it is easy to see what kind of spirit is leading them.
Because "the King of reasons and understanding of suggestions" does all things "according to his mind" and does not allow anything to be judged or judged according to the Scriptures, it must follow that St. Paul does not apply anything, but has said and written in vain, 1 Cor. 14:30, where he says: "But if a revelation happens to another who is sitting there, the first one is silent. Again [v.29.], "Let the prophets speak to one another, or to the third, and let the others judge." But how should the pope have behaved here? He says: "There is no revelation to another who sits there, but I am the first; I alone should and will speak; the others must all listen to me. Further he says: The others shall not judge; but I will prophesy, and the others must all be judged by me. We, by the grace of God, are of the mei-
Our Lord, the prophet and governor of God, has the power to speak, as it is written in the 12th Psalm, v. 5: "We will lift up our tongues, it is our duty to speak, who is our Lord? For just in this way the robber of God Pelagius, that is, the most proud and arrogant pope in his spiritual rights, speaks: "Where there is authority, there is also the power to command; to all others it is due to be obedient."
Tell me, where has there been any king from the beginning of the world who, with such splendor, defiance, arrogance, boldness, stubbornness, so pleasing to himself, with such chubby cheeks, with such great iniquity and defiant arrogance, would have established and enforced his laws to be kept, as the pope does alone? Yes, God Himself does not force people to keep His commandments with such majesty and power. Is this not a fine successor of Peter, who is worthy of this name, since St. Peter 1 Ep. 5, 5. says: "Be subject one to another and show humility in it. What is this but as if he said, "One yields to another, do not everywhere do as he pleases? And Paul Rom. 12, 10. saith, "One come before another with reverence." And Solomon Prov. 23, 4: "Set a measure to thy prudence"; 1) and again he says [3, 5.], "Do not rely on thy prudence." To this St. Paul actually thus writes to the Romans, as to those who should have had this said to them with diligence, saying [12, 17.], "Think not yourselves wise or prudent." He was well concerned that they would do so; just as St. Peter also prophesied before, "There shall arise," even at Rome, "aü>-"S5-<7 that is, people of their mind, "who would think themselves wise, and walk after their own will and pleasure." [2 Pet. 2:10.]
Not only does he not want to follow the mind of another in judging, but also in teaching and living: he wants to be free and unspoken everywhere; he judges, teaches or lives as or what he wants. Behold the nature and doings of the whole church, as they are now in this
1) In the German Bible: Laß von deinen Fündlein.
Tell me, can you find any other spiritual order or sect, or any other part of the church, in which people live according to the commandments of God? Do they not everywhere teach pure xxxxxxxxxxxx, as it is called in Greek the
Do they not everywhere teach vain chosen spirituality? [Does not everyone live according to it, since everyone does what he pleases and what seems right and good to him, as if there were no king in Israel? as Judges 17:6 is written. 17:6 is written. And the pope goes on, praises all this and confirms it, although the law Deut. 12:8 strictly forbids this, that no one should follow his own cops; and through the prophet Amos 4:5 says: "Yes, go and sacrifice to praise God from the leaven, call out self-willed sacrifices; for so you would have it, O children of Israel." Paul also rejects and rebukes those who bring up new things [Rom. 1:30]. 2)
292 We still have a good example of all this in Joshua, which condemns the terrible sin of self-will; which Joshua, since he had already been admonished by the Spirit and had actually received the promise from him that he should go through the Jordan; nor did the Spirit want Joshua to act according to his own mind, but to be led and instructed by the Scriptures alone, wherefore he speaks to him thus, Jos. 1:7: "Only be confident and joyful that you will keep and do all things according to the law which Moses my servant commanded you" (that is, you shall not follow your own mind, which no one commanded you to do). "Depart not thou from it, to the right hand, or to the left" (behold, there he blots out altogether thine own mind), "that thou mayest act wisely whithersoever thou goest." Here notice, we do not know what our thing is, which we do without God's law according to our own sense alone; we do not know whether it pleases God, we strike a blow in the air, we work on that which is uncertain, so we do according to our sense; yes, we are certain that it is.
2) In the Vulgate: inventores malorum.
God does not like what we do; as is evident here from this prohibition, when He says, "Do not turn aside from it on any side."
293 The spirit speaks further to Joshua: "And let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth, but meditate therein day and night. (Oh, what an almost necessary admonition this is! But how the pope disdains it so! Dear, I beseech thee, mark these words of the law, as he saith, Let them not come out of thy mouth day and night). "That thou mayest observe and do all things according to that which is written therein." (Hear, he saith not, Do other or dissolute works): "Then shalt thou prosper in thy ways, and shalt go on prosperously" (that is), then shalt thine opinion and mind be righteous and good; for so shalt thou know what is right and good, and for that thou shalt go on prosperously, and shalt carry forth thy cause happily. Again, if thou goest on thine own opinion, thou shalt never prosper; and that because thou wilt not after the law of God, but after thine own mind and counsel, carry out thy cause. Also it is written [Ps. 1:6.], "The Lord knoweth the way of the upright and just: but the way of the wicked shall perish." And therefore [v. 1.), "Blessed is he that walketh not in the way of the ungodly."
But now our Lord Pope boasts so much of his own mind, by which he despises the law of God, that he is allowed to proclaim that he is the Christian church, that he may not err, and likewise also a council that could not err), 1) and does not see that Joshua was as full of the Holy Spirit as any Pope could have been; nor did he have to do the least thing of himself that he was not commanded to do in expressed words in the Scriptures. So much more, the church should not be al sichlo, that is, it should not go according to its own sense, but according to the sense of God, and should control and base itself solely on the testimonies of the holy Scriptures. [O Pabst!]
1) In Speratus erroneously: likewise also "not" a concilium. In Lat.: sess eoolesiam st oonoilinva inerradile esse.
295. But he who is al siolllo, a man pure in his mind, can answer for these things nicely and make them unfit; For he has invented a subtle distinction, and such a subterfuge, which is indeed a cunning and deceitful piece of twaddle, namely, that the glorious authority is another thing than the office of Christian love, and pretends that the foregoing testimonies of Scripture are to be understood of the office of Christian love, and not of its tyrannical authority, which they call ecclesiasticam Hierarchiam, that is, the order and regiment of the ecclesiastical principality; But the same authority in the church is nothing else than an office of Christian love, in which one is to serve the church. But he divides these two, that is, the office and love, from one another, so that he may fulfill what follows.
And the deception will be well gotten by his hand.
Just under the appearance and name of the end-Christ, everything that he was ever allowed to subject himself to, happily came to pass, that he also deceived the elect, as Christ says [Matth. 24, 24]: "False Christs and false prophets shall arise, and shall shew great signs, that they also shall deceive into error, where it is possible, the elect also! Here he admonishes us that it will be in the future, not that the elect may not err, but that they may not be deceived into error; that is so much as to say that error will not reign over them, nor may it finally hold them; but they must be delivered from it, even if it happens only in death and dying. Just as we also have in the Lord's Prayer: God does not want us to be free from temptation, we must have it; but He does not want us to be tempted by temptation, that is, He does not want us to be overcome by temptation and to be kept until the end; for it is written [Prov. 24:16]: "The righteous falls seven times, and always rises again."
So, through the pope, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Dominic, and without whom many other very holy men and women have erred, that they did not understand
and have known the kingdom of gifts; have praised many things about the pope without doubt and considered them good; otherwise they would have risen up against him by the word of God: but at that time it was not yet the time that it should happen. Here I must also include Bonaventure, the brave man who has no equal, in whom there was truly a great spirit, more than in all others who have been preserved for us from the high schools. Also of this number is St. Thomas Aquinas, is he otherwise holy, for I almost doubt it, since one can feel and smell no spirit at all in him. All the men I have now recounted have been in error, have followed the abomination of the Pope, but without godless stubbornness, and have nevertheless been at the very least destroyed in death.
If then the pope corrupts the [elect], whom he cannot keep in his corruption, what shall we think of the others, who not only err, but also want to defend the error for a godly being? Oh, how weak is this evidence of the papists, which they take and extract for their part from the life and works of the saints, according to their senseless way, as they do in every way, since Daniel [8:24] thus prophesies that even the strong and the people of the saints shall be destroyed. For here the prophet does not have to speak of false and fictitious saints; therefore Christ also interprets him correctly when he calls these same strong and holy ones "the elect" [Matth. 24, 24]. Therefore no one should rely on the example of the saints, but one must base oneself on the pure testimonies of Scripture and truth. I do not know whether I should rhyme John Hus and Jerome of Prague and some others whom the pope has strangled, for he has corrupted them only physically and not spiritually; so here the prophet, as I respect, speaks only of spiritual corruption.
And how should he not be well pleased in his hand, not, I say, the truth of the gospel, but deceit, pretense and sham, and loose seductions [as Paul calls them 1 Tim.
4, 1. 2.], and the glittering of all his doctrines; because he hath blotted out and corrupted the strength of the holy scriptures, together with all them that wrote them, being of what repute they may, beforehand, which also stand on his side, and shine forth the holy examples, by which he would strengthen all his cause? How should he not have good luck in his matters, so that not only his rights help him, to confirm his gestures and proposals, that is, his deceptions and alfanzereien, but also fall to him, which you must truly recognize as holy? Who should be allowed to protest against this, since lies are helped by truth, glitter by holiness, deceit by simplicity, injustice by godliness? Oh how truly these are perilous times, well worthy of these last days; in which days all things serve the rejected of God for evil, even that which is good; even as all things serve the elect for good, even that which is evil [Rom. 8:28], and that the same by the Spirit of God; as that which is done to the rejected by the spirit of the devil, as the apostle hath before declared [2 Thess. 2:9]. Now he that is bold, let him go and live safely, relying on the examples and sayings of the fathers, I mean, he should provide.
(300) Here the prophet Daniel truly indicates the devil, when he says that the deception will be successful in the hands of the king. For, as we have heard above [v. 24], his deeds are not strengthened by his power. Neither will his hand guide such deceit; but a stranger, that is, the devil, shall guide his hand; and then shall the deceit be right and prosperous in his hand. How could he better describe the kingdom and the works of the pope? Which kingdom is nothing else but pure deceit; and yet it is so swift and happy that even with obvious lies and childish things it deceives the whole world and makes fools of it. As can be seen from the indulgence alone, without much else. Summa, what the pope is only allowed to pretend, and even if it is an outrageous lie, it still suits him.
301 Therefore the deceit in his hand actually belongs to the falsification of the Scriptures. Therefore he threw the stars out of heaven and trampled them under [Dan. 8, 10]. Also how well he succeeded in this deception, testifies publicly before the eyes of all people daily experience. For what he only wanted, he said in his interpretation, so that he falsified the Scriptures, but what he said in his interpretation was immediately accepted as the word of God and is still considered as such today, so that one was not allowed to argue against it with reason or Scripture, not even with obvious experience that was before one's eyes; Until at last it came to pass that this abomination also took away natural reason and subjected itself to such things, so that one would have had to consider the heathen nonsensical if they had been allowed to presume on such things before. Now that all his things have gone forth according to his mind, and have prospered, so that neither faith, nor spirit, nor the voice of the gospel, nor the great reputation of the Scriptures, have resisted him, what thinkest thou that he should continue to do, except what follows?
And in his heart he will think highly of himself.
For now there is no one so high to whom he does not set himself, to whom he may not command all that he wills. That is why he subjects all things to him; that is why he hardly and by great grace allows great kings to kiss his holy feet. For there is nowhere in the whole world to whom he can be assimilated, even though he is the most holy and the most learned. After that, although he is not an apostle, but only a bishop, so that he is much lower than the apostles were in their state, he still makes himself equal to St. Peter, makes himself a prince and supreme over all, he boasts himself an emperor in all spiritual and worldly matters (as they call it), also says that he is a lord of the whole world, pretends that he has received in St. Peter from God right and authority over the heavenly and over the earthly kingdom. And this is indicated by his triple crown, which he wears, and the
The splendid princely state he leads is more splendid than all the splendor of the world. Thus he lets shine in him the kind and quality of the poor Christ, of whom he is a governor, and of the poor fisherman Peter, of whom he is a descendant and successor.
For he deposes princes, kings, and bishops, and all that is high in the world, according to his own will; so that he has become higher and more worldly than the world itself; of which we have said from the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Jude, how he despises and curses the rulers and majesties, takes from them all that they have, and makes them subject to him. But if he would put his mind from him, that he might leave the Scriptures unharmed and without iniquity, not interpreting them falsely by his deceit, letting himself be penetrated [by] the Scriptures and kept, he might easily be turned from this great courage of his heart, and be restored to the ministry of the gospel and to the service of the poor. But the scripture must be fulfilled, that he should rule over all, and hold m his heart great of himself, over all the creature of the whole world. For Daniel did not add "in his heart" in vain, namely, that he would consider himself great in it, that is, he would not be thus exalted before God, nor made so great by the will of God, but in his heart, in his delusion and in his iniquity, by deceit, gifts, suggestions and foreign power.
He is not content with the fact that he has become the highest and greatest king on earth (for that is what they call him, the highest and greatest bishop), but he has also taken upon himself to extend his power into purgatory. He also dared to command the angels and to intervene by force in the consciences of all men, so that nothing would remain that the great courage of his heart could not attack. And this inestimable and immeasurable abomination truly surpasses all understanding.
And because there will be full sufficiency, he will spoil many with it.
305. successus is so much as a happy welfare, but is taken here for the
Fullness and abundance of goods; as also our Latin interpreter has interpreted it rightly and well. For after he had suppressed the word, the faith, and all Scripture, and subjected all the world to him, indeed, full sufficiency of all things must follow from this. Who then has so much good, pleasure, and honor as the pope and the papist mob? Is it not they who have the best in all the world? Do they not hold it with all certainty? Do they not enjoy it and use it in the finest way for all pomp, splendor and court? And what shall I say? The whole world is a bad thing, if one wants to hold it against the pope's kingdom and count it, yes, the world will also not be to be valued against it. But what else did he want to do? Since neither the Word nor the Scriptures could not hold him, and since he could command all men and interpret all Scriptures as he thought fit, according to all his mind and unpunished will?
306 But who are those who corrupt and devastate this full sufficiency, I will leave to the judgment of each one himself, rather than to carry it out myself. For what is the great multitude of cardinals, bishops, monks and priests other than the pope's rabble and rabble, who, corrupted by idleness, wealth, abundance, security, splendor and fornication, without faith, without God's Word, without Scripture, without work, without care, spend and corrupt their lives here uselessly in the flesh? This splendid king of gifts protects and shields, promotes and lifts up those who are now mentioned, each in his rank and order, where he can and may, so that he must use and put on all his deceit and lies, so that he makes more than sevenfold carnal and worldly out of the spiritual and ecclesiastical, who nevertheless all have to walk and walk before the world under the appearance of a godly being and spirituality [2 Tim. 3, 5].
He will stand up against the prince of all princes.
307 This is the sum of all things, that he will resist Christ and destroy his word, in which he has believed.
Instead of setting up his own word, which the apostle also says [2 Thess. 2:4], "He shall set himself up in the temple of God as a god, and pretend that he is God." And hard before that, "He that is vile, and exalteth himself above all that is called God and God's service." Here it belongs that he obviously condemned the word of God (the Pope), namely at Costnitz on John Hus, and still persists to this day in his stubborn sense of resisting the word of God and condemning the same.
308 For he cannot set himself against Christ's own person; but he will set himself, that is, he will conclude and set, and afterward do that which is against Christ, against his commandments and doctrine. And this is now his end. Furthermore, he may not come with his wickedness. For now that he has utterly and completely destroyed and laid waste the Word, the faith, all the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and the apostolic books of the New Testament, and after that had become not only above men, but also higher than the angels by his exaltations, there was nothing left, but when he was full and fat, that he reached further and rebelled and exalted himself against his Lord and God; yea, he might have dared to do even more, had there been only something higher. But since there is nothing higher than God, he must stand here, he can go no further, this abomination; here he will and must come to an end, as follows.
But it will be broken without a hand.
309 Thus says the apostle [2 Thess. 2, 8]: "Whom the Lord shall strangle with the spirit of his mouth, and shall make an end of him by the appearing of his future. Therefore not the laity, as they are miserably afraid, will disturb the pope and his kingdom; indeed, they are not worthy of such mild and gentle vengeance. Christ belongs to them, and to the same future they must be spared and reserved, which they are and always have been, the most fierce and most horrible enemies. Thus shall perish and perish the scoundrel, who against God and all creatures, without hand and only through the
The spirit of the devil lifts up and casts out, so that one spirit strangles the other, the spirit of Christ the spirit of the end-Christ, and so that the truth reveals the deception. For if the lie is only made manifest, it is already broken.
Conclusion of this book.
Now I come to the end to you again, dear Wenceslaus. See, I mean, I have now become enough to my Catharines, so that they see how I do not deny that very much is written and said in the Scriptures about this their prince and head; and I have done so much the better, because I am mindful that I promised in the "Babylonian Prison" that I would also let the world see and know the other and better part of my recantation, the like of which they have never heard before, the angry and restless papists, who want to force and coerce everyone into recantation. Then I consider that I have directed it and kept it honest and fine by this interpretation of the prophet Daniel.
311 And I wanted to have many more of the Catharine things refuted and contested, especially that, since the lovely man and astute Thomist admits to me first, the love of God must be present rather than the hatred of sin. For thus I had taught that the hatred of sin and repentance must flow from the love of righteousness; which he then allows to happen. But he says that this same love, from which the hatred of sin and repentance flow, is his own love, through which man loves himself and wants to preserve himself so that he will not be lost, so that out of this same love he hates sin. And he does not see, the foolish head, that this same love of his is a disorderly love, a servile and not a love of children, a hired love, not a voluntary one. Summa, such love is precisely that against which all Scripture argues and storms. Of course, these will be fine repenters, fine penitents and confessors, who ascribe to this love, the source and origin of all vice, the work of virtue and the hatred of sin. Yes, behind them! O Thomists, O Papists, O Romanists, you who are so blind!
and nonsensical, so that you can neither be helped nor advised!
312 Because his entire book teems with foolish error and lies and is so full that it can be compared 1) to the swamp Lerna; which is what all of us confess, how great beasts and lumps the Germans are. And you have recognized it yourself that this book is worth more mockery than refutation. Therefore, I will leave the course of my disputation and put an end to it herewith. Whether there would be something reasonable and artificial in it, because Daniel eats and consumes the whole papist empire with great force; so it will also easily eat this Catharinus, who has his greatest comfort only in the same papist empire. What would the powerless, weak little leaf do against such a storm wind, which tears the tree up together with the root?
But to Silvester, whom you also sent to me in the meantime, 2) I give no other answer than the one I gave before to his reply. For without the title on which he boasts 3): "Irrthümer und Argumente Martin Luthers erläutert und zerschlagen" 2c he does nothing else. O kind God, does Welschland now also bear such coarse and horrible brains and donkey heads? Does the wretched, unfortunate king of Geberden not have other protectors than such doltish, coarse ones?
1) I.e., in equal measure.
2) See above in the letter to Wenceslaus Link §§ 1 and 3.
3) Here we have allowed ourselves an improvement of the translation of Speratus. Instead of the words: "on which he boasts" Speratus had the words: "which he casts, which thus reads." These words refer to the great work of Prierias against Luther, which has the title: Errata st urZuiusntu Martini Imtsris rssitata, ästssta, rsxnlsa st soxiosissirns trita. De Wette raises here vol. I, p. 585 the question: "Which scripture can he mean? The Epitome, after all, had already been refuted by Luther." Also Köstlin, "Martin Luther" vol. I, p. 431, was not able to answer this question with certainty, and confines himself to saying: "Also a new pamphlet of Silvester Prierias was sent to Luther by Link. Therefore, see our introduction to Luther's dispute with Silvester Prierias. What we stated in the note to the Epitome, Col. 423 f., as "highly probable" that the great work of Prierias had come into Luther's hands, becomes here, by the indication of the title by Luther himself, a complete certainty.
unlearned launderer? For how finely he disputes theology out of art (Silvester), you may take from this, since he says that it is not necessary, but rather proper, that one should love God with all one's heart. What is that but to abrogate and do away with the whole law of God? O what an abomination this is! O what an outrageously unchristian thing! Oh, if he had read his Thomas Aquinas here at least, he would have learned otherwise!
314 So I think that all my senses are deceiving me, here the washers and the idle writers of books will have to do and work on this book of mine; although I hope that I have brought the matter to this point, that now, overcome by my constancy, they will henceforth rage and thunder against me not with writing, but only with their shouting and raging, with cunning and violence, as against the heretic, the like of which has never been seen before in all the world. So shall they stop their ears, as the serpent that will not hear the words of him that biddeth them [Ps. 58:5, 6]. But this they will not do, that they will fight against me with writing, but this they will do.
I may cry out to be put out of the world.
But I know and am certain that our Lord Jesus Christ still lives and reigns; and in this knowledge and comfort I take comfort, that I will not fear a thousand popes yet. "For he that is in us is greater and mightier than he that is in the world" [1 John 4:4].
Therefore let us pray that God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may once again visit us according to all His wondrous works, and show us the day of the future glory of His Son, so that this scoundrel may be destroyed and broken, who is "the man of sin and the child of perdition" [2 Thess. 2, 3], and put an end to the mighty errors of the devil, by which, unfortunately, many thousands of souls are being corrupted and torn into hell every moment, just so that the tyranny of the abominable and apostate See of Rome may be preserved. Then all the world say, Amen, Amen. Be blessed in Christ, my dear Wenceslaus.
Wittenberg in the 1521st year, on the first day of April.