Beginning of 1534.
To the strict and firm N., my special favorable gentleman and good friend.
Grace and peace in Christ our Lord! I have heard your writing, together with the verbal advertisement of your skillful one, on account of my booklet on the corner mass, as some good people worry from it that it might be understood as if I held it, or in time would hold it, with the enthusiasts or enemies of the sacraments. And even if I had conditioned and testified in the aforementioned booklet that I do not hold with the enthusiasts at all, nor had I written such things to strengthen their error, the booklet would still be too large, and few would read it completely, 1) and now the adversary's highest art would be to chop some pieces out of my books, which they twist and torture to my discredit, thereby obscuring and hiding from the people what is written next to it for my benefit. Therefore you consider it good that I, in order to stop such false mouths, send out a short letter in which I testify how I do not hold anything at all with the enemies of the Sacraments or (that I make it clear) with Carlstadt's, Zwingel's and their companions of erroneous doctrine, nor do I want to hold anything eternally.
Here I must again show you such a difference. If there are papists who suggest such things to you and thus try, then tell them for my sake that I do not want to write one letter for their sake, but I let them read the same booklet. If they are annoyed, I praise God, qui sordet, sordescat adhuc [i.e., I praise God, qui sordet, sordescat adhuc].
1) "read through", in the old editions stands here for the imperfectum.
He who stinks, let him continue to stink], if already every word inside would become vain armenia 2) or viper poison in their ears and hearts, I would almost laugh than cry, because they want it that way. The Jews have made of their Messiah a vile and eternal poison for themselves; shall Christ therefore be concerned forever?
(3) The papists have wilfully made of my gospel, which they must know and confess to be the dear truth, a vile heresy of the devil in their hearts and ears, and is there no measure nor cessation, and I should care for them forever, that they may not be offended at my writing? I must order them to do so. Why should I not take care of the wretched devil, so that he does not take offense at the word of God? Let them go, says God and my Lord Christ, and be confidently angry, so that 3) one blind man and another fall into the pit; let them be angry and offended at me, that is what I want, and that is also why I wrote (although not primarily in this booklet) the opinion that I only irritated and embittered the snakes and evil worms; but the main opinion has been to instruct our people and to confess the truth.
4. but if they are not papists, they are
2) By this word ^inmouiacnim seems to be meant, a sap or resin which dripped from a tree at the temple of Jupiter Ammon. As one must conclude from the context in which the word stands here, it was taken for a poison. Lnsilius Fader, Idesaurus eruäitiouis sedolastieae, Leipzig 1654, 8. D. ^uuncmiaous says: the officinal name of the same is ^rmoniaeum.
3) Erlanger: then.
*) This letter appeared in 1534, probably at the beginning of the year, as we can conclude from the letters exchanged with Amsdorf in January (cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 1988 ff.), in several individual editions under the title: "Ein Brief D. Mart. Luth. Of His Book of the Angular Mass, to a Good Friend"; twice at Wittenberg by Hans Luft and once at Nuremberg by Kunegund Hergotin. Then in the editions: Wittenberger, vol. XII, p. 264; Jenaer (1568), vol. VI, p. 116; Altenburger, vol. VI, p. 161; Leipziger, vol. XXI, p. 61 and Erlanger, vol. 31, p. 378. We give the text according to the Jenaer edition, comparing the Wittenberger and the Erlanger.
otherwise good people, who perhaps do not read my booklet, and yet hear from others that I want to become an enemy of the sacrament; although perhaps this letter will not help them either, if they do not read it: so I will nevertheless for your service gladly once again let my opinion and confession go out publicly. There are many of my books available, and especially my confession 1) against the false-hearted, which gives me strong enough testimony before God and the world, and, moreover, I hereby want to have that same confession again negated, repeated and confirmed in this letter, as it stands there, printed and has gone out from word to word; I also want to die on it with God's help and go from here to my Lord. As I now live in this confession and faith, and do and live everything that is truly much and great, and even the gates of hell shall not tear me away from it (whether God wills it). For I am in earnest, I truly know that, and the longer, the more.
(5) In addition, my booklet on the corner mass often confesses that even with the papists (where they keep Christ's order,2) ), even if it only takes place in one form, it is still the true body of Christ and is received. For if I wanted to be an enemy of the sacrament, I would truly have good cause against the papists to do so, because they are my devils and want to have me destroyed. For they are strengthened by my confession and letter against the fanatics, and must give me the name myself that I have defended the holy sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord better than they themselves, and I also know that they cannot defend it all in one heap so strongly and powerfully.
6. for they are taught in the holy Scriptures (God have mercy) almost shallowly, nor do they take matters heartily. And how can I overthrow their majesty and splendor more briefly and powerfully, than if I were to teach that with them
1) Confession of the Lord's Supper. 1528 Walch, old edition, vol. XX, 1118. Likewise Luther's writing: Daß diese Worte Christi: das ist mein Leib, noch feststehen, Wider die Schwarmgeister. 1527. Walch, 1. c., Coi. 950.
2) Namely, in the case of the Lord's Supper, that it is not made into a sacrifice, but is served and distributed to the communicants.
Because all of their business stands on the fair and abuse of the reverend sacrament. Just as all heretics, and even the devil's supreme power, stand on the abuse of the divine name and word. But should I therefore deny God's name and word?
Therefore, I kindly ask you to tell the good people (in addition to this letter) that they do not have to worry about God's wanting to afflict me in a special way and to make me possessed by the devil. I will, if God wills it, stick to my confession. And even though I am a human being and can fall, as we all are and can all fall, I still hope to my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has led me into many a sweat bath for the sake of his name and yet has never abandoned me, that he will not have given me such earnestness for his holy sacrament in vain. And if he will try me and let me fall in this or other articles, he will not let me fall further than St. Peter, who denied him with his mouth out of fear and terror, but remained loyal to him in his heart, and soon after the fall wept again and confessed his right heart against his dear Lord with lamentations.
8. Now then, I hereby confess before God and all the world that I believe and do not doubt, and with the help and grace of my dear Lord Jesus Christ I will stand by it until that day, that wherever Mass is celebrated according to Christ's order, be it with us Lutherans or in the Papacy, or in Grecia, or in India, even if it is only the one form, this is nevertheless unlawful and an abuse, as it happens in the Papacy, around Easter and elsewhere in the year, 3) there, under the form of the bread, the true body of Christ, given for us on the cross, under the form of the wine, the true blood of Christ, poured out for us, and is not a spiritual nor fictitious body and blood, but the true natural one, received from the holy virginal true human body of Mary, without a male body, only from the Holy Spirit; which body and blood of Christ also now above
3) report - communicate. Cf. § 14 of this document.
sits at the right hand of God in majesty, in the divine person who is called Christ Jesus, a right, true, eternal God with the Father, from whom he was born in eternity etc. And such body and blood of the Son of God Jesus Christ not only the saints and worthy, but also the sinners and unworthy truly act and receive bodily (although invisibly) with hands, mouth, chalice, paten, corporal and whatever they use, when it is given and taken in the mass.
9 I know that this is my faith, and no one should take it away from me. For I confess it not only because I have often and sometimes received great comfort for myself from such faith in the sacrament in my great, great anxieties and distresses, which experience is enough for me personally to confirm my faith, but also because I want to follow the clear, public, certain text of the gospel with my testimony (as much as I always like) against all old and new errors, I want to stand by the clear, public, certain text of the Gospel with my testimony (as much as I always like) against all others, both old and new errors and heresies, and to have resisted the devil's wickedness and pretensions to my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, according to the Christian duty of love, for service and correction.
(10) Just as I, not yet a true Christian, can deny that the name of God is the right, true, natural name of God, so when a false jack swears or curses, for the sake of such a jack or devil, it does not become the name of another God. Again, if a saint, St. Paul or Isaiah, uses God's name, swears or curses, it does not become another even better name of God, because it is the very same name that the knave uses for abuse. God and His name, and all that He is, speaks and does, remain and go on forever, so that whoever wants to abuse them, be it man or devil, may do so.
(11) I have given a great example in my book of the angular mass, how God's word and work cannot be hindered or changed by our misuse or sin, if only His order is kept; but where His order is changed, it must of course be done differently. As if I
If I were to plow in the water and sow grain, or if I were to see fish in the air, or if a woman were to beget children from a stone and a man from a tree, nothing would come of it, of course, for God did not order it that way and does not want it that way. But if I sacrilegiously sowed another man's field or fished in another man's pond, even though such sowing and fishing is wrong, yet grain would grow in the field, and I would still catch fish in the pond.
(12) Wherefore I said in that book, that the papists, if they keep the order of Christ, have truly in the sacrament the right and true body and blood of Christ. If it is in one form, it is the body of Christ; if it is in both forms, it is both body and blood, according to the sound and order of the words of Christ. But if they sell it (without violating the order of Christ), give it, abuse it, or give and take it unworthily, this neither gives nor takes away anything from the Sacrament. God remains God even in hell; Christ remains pious even among his crucifixors; a florin remains a florin even in the hands of thieves and robbers, if it is only a true florin struck according to the king's or prince's coin. But if it is a false florin, struck against the king's order, it will never be a true florin, even if the king himself or the angel Gabriel wanted to buy it.
For this reason, in my booklet I have not challenged the sin against the sacrament, or abuse, but the wrong order of the mass against the order of Christ - and the papists want to try how they want to defend their corner mass - not for our sake (for we have been free of the "corner mass" for longer than ten years), but so that their own people can see for themselves how their idol, that is, their mass market, stands on rotten, loose lies and fools' work. And I wish, and would like to see and hear it 1) very much, that the two words, Mass and Sacrament, would be understood by everyone as far apart from each other as darkness and light, yes, as devil and God, because the Mass, like the work and all its doctrines and
1) Erlanger wollt.
The books are nothing but a perverse disorder and a fair of the sacred sacrament, even if they are held in the most devout manner.
14 For they themselves must confess that mass is not called the reception of the sacrament, as Christ instituted it, but reception of the sacrament is what they call it, and without their thanks they must call it synaxis in Greek, communion in Latin, and reports in German. But Mass means that the priest alone does it on the altar, where no common Christian or layman does anything. For they know well that no layman or common Christian does mass, nor do they suffer it, nor let it be called mass when a layman receives the sacrament; but they (lords of the sacrament and of all gods) alone do mass: all other Christians do nothing else but receive the sacrament and do not do mass.
(15) From this you may well notice that I am not arguing against the Sacrament, but against the Mass, and I would like to separate the Sacrament from the Mass in such a way that the Mass would perish, and the Sacrament alone and without the Mass would be preserved in its honor and in the order of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. May God give all devout Christians such a heart that when they hear the word "Mass," they are frightened and bless themselves as if before an abomination of the devil; again, when they hear the word "Sacrament" or "Lord's Supper," they leap for joy, even weep sweetly, according to the right kind of spiritual joy. For I love with all my heart the dear blessed supper of my Lord Jesus Christ, in which he gives me his body and blood also bodily into my bodily mouth to eat and drink, with such exceedingly sweet friendly words: "Given for you, poured out for you" etc. [Matth. 26, 26. 27. 28. Marc. 14, 23. 24. Luc. 22, 19. 20.]
16 For this reason I am all the more hostile and angry with the mass, because the papists have taken the holy sacrament for themselves, robbed it from the Christians, and made a fair out of it, and yet they are so closely interwoven with each other when they report the Christians at Easter time, that
The common man has not been able to distinguish between the Mass and the Sacrament; they themselves have not been able to distinguish either; nor have I myself, who, when I was an archpope and a much fiercer server of the Mass than they all are now, have been saying Mass for more than fifteen years and do not yet know whether I have received the Sacrament at Mass; so much has the devil reigned.
17 Mass and Sacrament above the altar were one thing to me, as they were to all of us at that time, and yet they are not one thing; but Mass is when I offer the Sacrament to God for my and other sins, as a work done by men (be they evil or pious), which they must confess. Sacrament is when I receive from the priest the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under bread and wine. The devil has mixed such offerings and receiving of the sacrament in the mass as closely as the false landlords mix water and wine, and as the false coiner mixes silver and brass, so that there is a need for a sharp taster and hot fire (which is God's word, Ps. 17, 3.), so that they may be separated from each other again.
(18) When I speak of the sacrament, I truly mean the true natural body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine, the persons be they what they will, who give it or take it. For Christ, my Lord, will not lie to me, so I live and die, if God wills. This is the pure, unadulterated wine, where no Kretzschmer water enters. But when I speak of the mass, I am truly serious that I mean the unpleasant fair and abominable abuse of the holy sacrament, since they sell their sacrifices of the body and blood of Christ (as they teach) to the other Christians for the satisfaction of sin, when the order of Christ clearly says that his sacrament should be and be used, not for the satisfaction of our sacrifices, but for the forgiveness of sins through his blood. Whether the opinion of Christ is kept here in their mass, which is done as a work of men and is also sold to others for the satisfaction of sin, that is for them to answer for; and whether Christ's order, according to
his body and blood is there, because it is not a sacrament but a mass, they shall defend it (I say), I will not defend it, but have challenged it and tried their shallow deep art.
I am also a doctor in their theology and not so unlearned nor inexperienced in it as their screamers (who do not understand their own theology) think; nor would I know how to maintain it with good reason. I could well say: church, church, fathers, fathers, as they do, and thus answer for everything; but I am not of the strange faith (God will also protect me from it, who once delivered me from it), that I could call the church of Christ, the ungodly mob and the devil's church, who adorn themselves with the church of Christ's name and boast, when the fruits convince the tree quite powerfully that it is evil. Neither can I set the church above Christ and subject to it what he teaches and ordains to change and pervert. For he should and must be the head. And the church is subject and obedient to him (as St. Paul says), with fear and honor. Where else would one make a distinction as to which is the right church of Christ and which is the church of the devil, without making a free and proper excuse for obedience and disobedience to Christ, especially if the disobedience, publicly recognized and understood, wants to be right. For the holy church sins and stumbles, or even errs, as the Lord's Prayer teaches, but she neither defends nor excuses herself, but humbly asks for forgiveness and corrects herself as she always can; so she is forgiven that her sin is then no longer counted as sin.
(20) If, then, in the midst of obedience and hardened disobedience, I cannot discern or distinguish the true church from the false, I know no more to say of any church. Therefore, all heretics, all sects and cults that freely disobey Christ may be called the holy church with all honor, for they are nothing worse than the pope's church, just as sacrilegious disobedience to God does no harm. Again, the papal church is nothing better, because it is just as stubbornly disobedient to God, and
and wants to be right more than any other herds and heretics. And in the end this will be the summa, that on earth there may be neither church nor heretics any more. For by what do we want to prove that this or that group are heretics? Let us say: That they freely disobey God and violate His words, so they can say: "Does the papal church also do it, and probably more than we do, and still wants to be right and be the holy church? If it is right for her, it is also right for us.
(21) Yes, which is even worse, how does a prince or lord force his subjects, a father and mother force their children? If one says that God has commanded lords and parents to be obedient, then they have the papal church as a fine example and can say: The papal church itself does not keep God's commandment, but also refuses to keep it, strangles and persecutes all those who want to keep God's word. And so, according to the praiseworthy example of the papal church, all servants should also strangle and chase away their masters, all children their parents, wherever they were urged to be obedient to God's commandments. If God Himself did not keep house, it would truly have to be like this.
22. all this follows and must follow from the high art of the papists, that both God's kingdom would be devastated with vain heresy, and the world's authority would be disrupted with vain rebellion, and the houses would be filled with lost children, and would still have to be called righteous, and whoever wanted to punish it, even a heretic and rebel and lost child, would be damned and punished. They must have thanks, such fine teachers. But enough of that now. For I am willing, where God would have it, to write of the church in particular, in which I would like to indicate who they are, who most teach to disobey God and man, and to destroy both God's and the world's kingdom (as much as there has been in them) and to make themselves free, and who alone possess the rule in heaven and on earth, and yet do what they want.
(23) I will give you this to consider at the end, if the measure would bear so little and give so little temporal honor, riches, and power, as
the dear Gospel and the truth, how much, do you think, one should find today serious Mass-keepers? Truly, we would have seen these past (will not count to us) six hundred years, neither pabst, cardinals, bishops, nor other mass servants, but would have all become Protestant or Lutheran, and would now at this time even almost wonder what these names pabst, cardinal, bishop, mass priests etc. were called, what kind of animals, whether they were goblins, kilkrob, 1) mermaids or Alps. But because the fair has borne money, honor and power, such great good has been gained from such a fair and handling that they have now brought the kingdom of the world under themselves and have subjected themselves to bring heaven and God's kingdom and majesty under themselves, and want to have his word under themselves. But Lucifer rises too high and wants to put his chair like God, even above God, so he bumps his head on the vault above that he has to fall down into the abyss.
And there is no doubt that if God would give me so much that I could make the pope and his papacy as rich and high as they have been until now, and be sure that it would remain so, oh, I would make the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, and all the worms and miserly vermin better Lutheran in a month than I am myself. Nor do the sharp-witted, deep-headed, thieving and rapacious lords think that no one, not the Holy Spirit himself, should understand that they alone fight so fiercely over their avarice, belly, dominion and violence for their mass. It should mean the church and the old fathers' teachings, even though their own conscience tells them otherwise.
(25) Forsooth, how others may feel, I know not. So it is in my mind: If I know that a man's conscience refuses and resists, I cannot be afraid of him, and even if he is bold at first and looks angry, even if he may strike a blow; but if he feels constant defiance against himself, the evil-doer must give way to his evil conscience, despair and flee. For thus says my
1) On "Kielkropf" compare Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 757; Tischreden, Cap. 24, § 95.
Book (Deut. 28, 65.]: dabit tibi Dominus cor pavidum. One hunts lousily. So far I have succeeded through God that I have never feared the papacy, but they have almost feared me, a wretched man, and still have to fear me. For their conscience stands for me, against themselves, and feel that the truth is fighting against them, and protect themselves only with lies and force. That does not last the length of time. And yet I truly have not done them any harm, nor have I done them any harm, but have pointed them only to Christ, the truth.
But they want to be unreformed (as they say) by such a beggar. This same beggar (I must boast a little, but secretly, so that they do not know) has reformed them quite a bit. I have, praise God, reformed more with my Gospel than they might have done with five conciliis. So far they have done nothing in the Conciliis, but played in loose matters that do not belong to the Christian church. But now our gospel comes, takes away indulgences, puts an end to pilgrimages, stops cops, and controls avarice, and performs miracles, which they themselves accept and need and would not have obtained through any conciliis. I will be silent on the main points. But you see that the Reformation wants to become too strong, now also the main piece and the right cornerstone of papal church, the holy mass, is attacked, that wants to become too much. Here they must truly, and it is time, shout, lie, murder and undertake all heartache, so that the one comforting rock and main fortress does not fall. But it must fall, nothing can help it. For Daniel has appeared in his place and will do what the angel Gabriel has shown him.
27 For the same prophet wrote how he should appear at the end of the world. This he does also now, and says: That the end-Christ should stand on the two pieces: God and womanless being. He calls the god Maosim, needs the letters that give the word mass; he would have liked to call it clear mass, if he would not have had to put sealed words (as the angel commands him). But nevertheless, he paints the idol in such a way that one can easily notice that he means the unpleasant mass.
For he says that he will honor his God with silver, gold and jewels, and that those who help him to such a God 1) will be given the goods of the land. But who does not see that this is what the mass represents?
For where are greater goods and money, ornaments and buildings, worship and devotion applied on earth, 2) but to the mass? Who has also distributed the lands? For the mass has given almost the most to the pope, bishops, foundations and monasteries, and they are all based on the dear God, the mass. And yet there is such a God (says Daniel) that his ancestors did not know, for from the Apostles' and Fathers' Scriptures there is much else that the papacy teaches and holds about the mass. The apostles and fathers considered it a sacrament instituted by Christ; it did not carry money, but spiritual benefit for eternal life. The late Christian then made it a mass, which carries benefit and dominion, and
1) Erlanger: to such God-giving.
2) About the enormous effort for the mass in the All Saints Church in Wittenberg, compare the introduction to this volume, Section IX, d.
the pope with three crowns, as a lord over heaven, earth, hell.
(29) The wifeless being or celibate life has confirmed all this and fooled the whole world with false holiness. These are the two pillars on which the papacy stands, like the Philistine house in Samson's time. Now if God had made Luther a Samson over them, who took hold of the two pillars and outlined them, so that the house would collapse and they would all fall in one heap, who could blame him? He is God, and whimsical to boot. For they have gouged out both of Luther's eyes, that both worldly and spiritual authorities are against me, and the whore Delila, with whom I courted, that is, the holy beautiful monasticism has shorn off the hair of my Nazarei, grown in baptism. But I am going too far now. Another time more and better. However, I ask you, as above, to tell the good people the best of me, and let the papists speak the worst of me and lie, they are not worthy of anything better. Hereby commanded by God, Amen.