to Duke John Frederick of Saxony. *)
May 18, 1526.
Grace and peace in Christ, Serene, Highborn Prince, Gracious Lord! I had to answer the articles 1) myself, no one else wanted to do it, although I have much to do, so that my God may exercise the lazy rascal in the flesh, nor do I judge much. Therefore I have done it in haste, as best I can. E. F. G. may direct them further into the booklet of monastic vows and the like. Hereby commanded by God. Given on the Friday after Servatii, Anno 1526.
Martinus Luther, D.
Article, (by the Papists] drawn from the Holy Scriptures, for those who have taken monastic vows and 2) accepted the monastic state, monasticism and nunnery.
I. Proof of the vows.
The 30th chapter of the fourth book of Moses.
"And Moses spake unto the chief of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying, The
1) A papist Count of Henneberg had sent articles to Duke John Frederick of Saxony in which he sought to prove the unbreakability of the vows by means of sayings and examples from the Holy Scriptures. The duke sent these to Luther for his response. Cf. Seckendorf, 8ist. I,utk., 1, 1b. II, x. 18 (13) (14).
2) In the old edition, "and have". We put the word "have" at the end of the sentence.
This is what the Lord has commanded: If any man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind up his soul, he shall not weaken his word, but shall do all things according as it proceeded out of his mouth."
"If a woman vows and binds herself to the Lord, because she is in her father's house and in his service; and her vow and her bond, which she makes over her soul, come before her father, and he is silent; then all her vow and all her bond, that she has bound herself over her soul, shall be valid. But if her father forbid the day when he heareth it, then no vow nor bond that she hath bound herself over her soul shall stand: and the Lord shall be gracious unto her, because her father hath multiplied unto her."
"But if she has a husband, and has a vow upon her, or if she carries away from her lips a bond over her soul, and the husband hears it, and is silent the same day, then her vow and bond, which she has bound herself over her soul, shall be valid."
"But if her husband repent in the daytime, when he heareth it; then is her vow loosed, which is gone out of her lips upon her soul; and the LORD will be gracious unto her."
*This writing is first found in the Eislebensche Theilen, Vol. I, p. 261 d; then in the Altenb. Ausg., Bd. Ill, p. 475; in the Leipziger, Bd. XVIII, p. 546 and in the Erlanger, Bd. 29, p. 318. The attribution alone brings De Wette, Bd. Ill, p. 112 and (as a duplicate) Erlanger, Bd. 53, p. 379. We give the text according to the Eisleben collection.
"The vow of a widow and outcast, all that she binds herself about her soul, that is upon her."
"If a man's servant vows or binds himself with an oath over his soul, and the master of the house hears it, and is silent about it, and does not repudiate it, then all the same vow is valid, and all that he has bound himself over his soul. But if the master of the house loose it in the daytime, when he hears it, then it is not valid, what went out of his lips, that 1) he vowed or bound himself over his soul. For the master of the house hath loosed it, and the LORD will be gracious unto him. And to bind all vows and oaths, to humble the soul, the householder may strengthen or weaken, so when he is silent about it from day to day, he reaffirms all his vows and bonds that it has on him, because he was silent the day he heard it. But if he weaken it after he has heard it, he shall bear the iniquity."
"These are the statutes which the LORD commanded Moses, between husband and wife, between father and daughter, because she is yet a handmaid in her father's house."
II Vow Evidence.
In the 5th book of Moses, Cap. 23 [vv. 21-23]: "If you make a vow to the Lord, you shall not forsake keeping it. For your God will require it of you, or it will be a sin to you. If thou forbear to vow, it is no sin unto thee: but that which proceedeth out of thy lips thou shalt keep, and do according unto it, as thou hast freely vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast spoken with thy mouth."
III. evidence.
Solomon in the book of Proverbs at the 20th chapter [v. 25.], "It is a snare to a man to blaspheme the saints, and after that to revoke the vows." 2)
1) Erlanger: that.
to this § 10 of Luther's answer to these sayings.
IV. Proof.
In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Cap. 5, v. 3, 4: "If you make a vow to God, do not try to keep it, for he has no pleasure in a foolish vow. What you vow, keep it. It is better that you vow nothing, than that you do not keep it."
V. Proof, from the Psalms.
. Psalm 50, 14.: "Offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to GOD, and give your vows to the Most High." Psalm 76, 12. "If you vow, keep it to the LORD your GOD." In Psalm 66,3 ) 13. 14.: "Therefore will I enter into thine house with burnt offerings, and pay unto thee my vows, as I have opened my lips, and my mouth hath spoken in my distress."
Christ Matth. 19, 12: "There are some who are cut off from themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."
St. Paul, 1 Tim. 5:11, 12, says: "But abstain from young widows; for when they have become lustful against Christ, they desire to be free, and have their judgment that they have broken the first faith."
Item 1 Sam. 1, 11. Hannah, the mother of Samuel, vowed a vow to God and offered her son to God in the temple for the rest of his life.
Thus we are also admonished by Scripture to resist the flesh and lusts.
Eccl. [i.e. Ecclesiasticus - Jesus Sirach] 18th Cap. v. 30. "After thy lusts shalt thou not go, and shalt turn aside from thy will."
Item to Romans at the 6th chapter, v. 12. 13. 19.: "Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to render obedience
3) Here the Erlangen edition has reprinted again from Walch: Psalm 56, 13. 14. Furthermore, in this writing two other wrong citations.
his desires. Neither yield your members to sin for the weapons of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members to God for the weapons of righteousness 2c. And as ye have committed your members to the service of uncleanness, and from one unrighteousness to another; even so now commit your members to the service of righteousness, that they may be sanctified."
Rom. 8, 12. 13.: "Dear brethren, we are not debtors to the flesh, that we should live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the spirit of the flesh kill business, ye shall live."
Zun Colossians 3:5, 6: "Put to death your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil desire, unchastity, and covetousness (which is idolatry), for which the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of unbelief."
In the 1st Epistle to the Thessalonians, Cap. 4, vv. 3-5: "This is the will of God, your sanctification, that each one may know how to keep his barrel in sanctification and honor, not in lust pestilence like the Gentiles who know nothing of God."
Item 1 Tim. 6:10: "Learn to flee covetousness, 1) which is a root of all evil."
1 John 2:15, 16: "Do not love the world or what is in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of goods, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world perishes with its lust. But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
1) According to the Vulgate, which offers eupMtas, in arbitrary translation. The Greek has:
which Luther correctly used the word "avarice".
Answer D. M. L. to such sayings.
1 Although in the booklet of monastic vows such an article is given sufficient understanding, and everything is thoroughly taught how the monastic life is damning, but because these sayings in particular are brought forward, it is to be answered in Christian love thus.
2 First of all, we know that Moses and his law have been abolished by Christ and do not bind us Christians, as Paul says in Gal. 2, 19: "I have died to the law and live in Christ," and Rom. 10, 4: "Christ is the end of the law. Item Cor. 3, 7: "The clarity of Moses ceases." Item, v. 6: "The letter killeth," and Christ Himself, Matt. 11:13, says: "The law and the prophets endure until the time of John." And again, Matth. 5, 17: "I am come to fulfill the law."
Therefore, whoever wants to keep one law of Moses as necessary, must keep them all, and must circumcise himself and become completely Jewish, as Paul says: Gal. 5:3: "Whoever circumcises himself is also obligated to keep the whole law. Otherwise, what reason would there be for some to be bound and some not, if they were all given by the same God through Moses?
4. but they serve us to bear witness to our law, that is, to prove the gospel, as Paul says, Rom. 3:21: "The righteousness that is before God is revealed without law, and testified by the law and the prophets."
(5) Therefore this is a certain answer to all the sayings of the Old Testament, which lead them to vows, saying, Will ye be Christians Jews? Prove your thing from the New Testament; the record is out, through Christ, and is not valid. But if it is, then you do not have Christ, and must keep the whole law. And whether they make a distinction here de de judicialibus, caeremonialibus, moralibus, that does not help them, as I have further proved in the booklet von den Bildstürmern wider Doctor Carlstadt.
(6) Also, the vow law in Moses is a lawful ceremony. If then the ceremonies are as they themselves profess, why do they want to keep them against their own confession?
1690 Erl. 29, 323-3S6. XI. Luther's writings on monastic vows 2c. W. XIX, 2111-2114. 1691
(7) Nevertheless, above the time when Moses' law still stood and was in force among the Jews, it was so established that nothing was pledged that was impossible and out of our power and possession. Therefore Moses also says: "He who binds or pledges his soul" 2c. Now in Scripture soul is not called conscience or inwardness, but the living body. As Christ says, "A good shepherd leaves his soul for his sheep," John 10:12. For so the vows went, that a man, if he had power, should pledge his house, his ground, his cattle, and also his body, to the service of the temple, or to the priests, to keep them, and all this for a time, and then let it go. For since the cause of pledging was temporal, the pledge was also temporal and could be redeemed with other things, and there was no eternal or impossible pledge. But there was one that was like the eternal vow, which was called banished; so whoever was vowed had to be killed without all redemption. Read the last chapter of the third book of Moses, and you will find it as I say.
If our nuns and monks want to keep Moses, they must do so:
First, they do not have to pledge anything that they do not have, or is not theirs.
On the other hand, they must leave it free to be changed or loosened.
Third, that it is temporary and not eternal, although it is not changed.
Fourth, they' but want to have eternal vow that they are anathemata, and let themselves be strangled quickly, that is Moses. So they must keep it or leave their vows. Therefore monastic vows are contrary to Moses, for they vow a perpetual vow and yet do not keep it after the manner of Moses.
Item an impossible vow. For to be willingly poor, obedient, chaste, is God's alone, and not ours: therefore he that voweth it voweth another's good, which is not his; thereby blasphemeth and profaneth God, yea, stealeth and taketh away, and would give it to God where he could.
(9) This is the answer to the articles that refer to the Old Testament. For also Samuel, whom his mother
He vowed, but did not remain in the vow forever, but, as Samuel's book teaches, became a ruler and moved about in the country, waiting on the people, and did not remain at the temple as he had vowed, but lived in the room, so that such an example is also powerful against the perpetual monastic vow.
(10) But the saying of Solomon, Proverbs 20:25, they introduce with evil conscience, half from my Bible, half from the Latin Bible. Thus: "It is a snare to a man to blaspheme the saints, and after that to revoke the vows." What good is such false deceit? Thus it is: It is a snare to man to blaspheme the saints, and then to go about with vows. This much is said: They are hypocrites who leave God's word and His holy service in Jerusalem, and then want to pay for such disobedience and blasphemy with vows. Just as the monasteries also leave the holy gospel, and go about it with vows. Even if it is as they say, it is no different than what Moses says about vows; thus also Ecclesiastes 5:3: If you vow, do not forsake to keep it. For all this comes from Moses' words.
After that, the Psalms have a special vow, that is, to praise God, as is implied by the words in the 50th Psalm, v. 14: "Offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God, and pay your vows to the Most High. For the same whole Psalm rejects all sacrifices and vows, and demands the sacrifice and vow of praise, as it curses and says v. 23: "The sacrifice of praise honors me" (that is my right worship), "that is the way to behold God's salvation." Read the same Psalm and see how he is a right monastic striker, and they lead him for themselves.
After that they come to the New Testament.
First, Christ Matth. 19, 12: "There are some who cut themselves. Here they were supposed to prove that the monastics were such cuttings. It is not enough that they say it. Why didn't Christ draw the apostles and many holy bishops and martyrs into monasteries and become monks? Or had they not cut themselves? Unfortunately, it is well proven, and
If they wanted to confess, they would probably say how the monks are cut. If God wanted them to boast about it here, no one would object. But to pretend a thing, when there is nothing behind it, is dangerous before God.
(13) It is well known that willing chastity is delicious, but it says, "He who has it, has it. Outside the monasteries, I find ten chaste people, since I do not find one in the monasteries. For outside is work, toil and worry, vain temptation, so that the thrill is gone and one is urged to pray daily. In monasteries they sit idle and roast themselves with evil thoughts day and night, thinking to make themselves chaste with a woollen cloth or shirt. A lazy, safe, good life is in the monastery life, and they boast of it as a life of chastity. I have seen it and tried it as almost no one else. But let them gain, as the people have, so they shall find it otherwise. Good days, and not the holy, keeps 1) in the monastery, that one fears the skin, and^wants to adorn himself with the Scriptures.
14 Secondly, St. Paul 1 Tim. 5:11, 12 does not say that the young widows became horny against their rule or vows, but became horny against Christ. He interprets this himself and says that they broke the faith they first had in Christ. For for the sake of their lust, that they might the more readily be free, they denied Christ, in whom they had before believed, and gave themselves up again to the Gentiles and Jews, seeking men after their own conceit, as Satan tempted them, whom they followed, as he saith here. For Christ and faith
1) i.e. holds people back.
Here it cannot be interpreted that it means monastery, rule and vows.
(15) The last saying, where they introduce many things about how to kill the flesh with its lusts, is well done, but it is wrong for them to apply it to the monasteries. Did St. Paul write it to all Christians when there were no monasteries, or are only the monastics Christians? And God wanted them to do as these sayings teach. But St. Paul speaks, Romans 8, 13: "If you put to death the business of the flesh through the Spirit, you will live." He does not speak: by vow or rule, but: by the Spirit. The Spirit must do it, and they want to do it by vow and rule. This is just as it has been, that there is no more abominable strengthening of the flesh and unchastity under heaven than in the monasteries. All this makes for a full, lazy, safe life, in which they wallow like pigs in manure.
(16) Killing the flesh must first be done by the spirit, believing that one is an enemy to the flesh with its vapors; then quickly with work, persecution, toil, worry, sleep-breaking, and unseemly eating and drinking, as happens to husbands and wives who have no rest from children and servants, day or night, without what the work is. There one would like to find those who believe and kill the flesh. But to sit lonely in the corner of a monastery is to serve no one, nor to be of any use, and to give oneself to the devil to tickle all evil desire, so that thoughts become greater than all the world's desire. To serve God is to serve one's neighbor, as Christ did and the apostles, and not to hide away in a lonely monastery forever. Summa, Fac haec et vives, if they would do it, as they said; but because they do not do it, that they also leave such boasting.