March 28, 1523.
Grace and peace in Christ, amen. That I have undertaken to write especially to you, my dear gentlemen of the German Order, and to advise on the married life of unchaste chastity, do not let your love be surprised. I undoubtedly mean it well; so it is considered by many honest and reasonable people to be not only useful but also necessary to seek such advice from your love: since your order is truly a strange order, because it was founded to wage war 1) against the unbelievers, therefore it must wield the secular sword and be secular, and yet at the same time it should also be spiritual, vowing and keeping chastity, poverty and obedience, like other monks. How this rhymes together, daily experience and reason teaches all too well. "
(2) Although I have written enough in other books about the abomination of spiritual chastity, and have proved constantly enough that such a vow is nothing, nor is it to be kept, except by God's special grace, which is able not only to keep chastity, but also all things, even without such a vow and law, I have not refrained from admonishing your Order's people especially about it, in the strong opinion and great hope that your Order will be able to keep it.
1) In the old editions: to cause strife.
which can be a great, excellent, strong example in front of all other orders, if it would break this path first, so that unchastity would become less in other places as well, and the fruit of the Gospel would increase all the more.
For first of all, the advantage of your order is that it is provided with temporal nourishment, that one can divide the property among the lords and make countrymen, officials, or otherwise useful people out of it, and there is not the miserable need that keeps many a mendicant monk and other monks in the monastery, namely, the worry of the belly. And such a German lord could nevertheless be skillful in quarreling, and more so than now, and for what one needs him, and thus, in time, a quite orderly rule would emerge from it, which would be pleasant before God and the world without glitter and false names.
Secondly, there is almost no doubt among everyone that the Teutonic Order should then be more unpleasant and agreeable to all its subjects than it is now. For one can see that it is now of no use to God or the world; in addition, they are suspicious and unpleasant, also because it is well known everywhere that chastity is strange, and everyone must worry about his wife and daughter, for there is not much to trust in those who live without marriage, since even those who are married have enough trouble standing. Although there is more to hope for and trust among them
*This text was first published in 1523 by Johann Grünenberg in Wittenberg under the title we have placed above it and has been reprinted many times since. The Erlangen edition lists four individual editions from 1524. In the collections: Wittenberger (1553), vol. VI, p. 251; Jenaer (1585), vol. II, p. 192p; Altenburger, vol. II, p. 292; Leivziger, vol. XVIII, p. 405 and in the Erlanger, vol. 29, p. 17. We give the text according to the Jenaer edition.
There is neither hope nor confidence, but vain driving without ceasing.
Thirdly, it is comforting to hope that the Teutonic Order would remain well for the sake of such nobility, and not to worry that they would easily be attacked for it, especially if it were started out of Christian understanding and with the favor and pleasure of the subjects (as said). And no doubt there are also many great lords who would not dislike it, who nevertheless have a desire for an honorable life. And even if some of them would be angry about it at first, they would not be angry at last, or their displeasure would not do any harm. It is to be hoped that henceforth there will be few more monks and clergymen, because the gospel is rising and the spirits are being exposed in such a way that necessity will demand that those who are now and will be the last ones be covered and provided for.
Although these causes are human and only valid before the world, and for the sake of the world nothing is to be done or left undone, neither to be approached nor changed, that should be valid before God, they are nevertheless to be accepted, because they make this matter acceptable before men. For that such things are acceptable in the sight of God, we have stronger and more honest reasons than these.
We wanted to become one with God soon and make a certain covenant in this. The world makes itself disgusting and strange in God's matters, therefore we have to turn this matter over to the poor devil's whore, so that we may do as much as is in our power to satisfy her and keep her happy. If she accepts it, good; if not, let her have a good year; for her sake leave undone what is right and do undone what is wrong. It is enough that it pleases God. Therefore let us set forth some reasons which are acceptable in the sight of God, that the marriage state may be acceptable to Him.
God says Gen. 2, 18: "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate to be around him. These are God's words, and impossible to understand without faith. For neither reason nor nature will understand that a woman is a man's helpmate, but everyone writes and cries out about it, as we see and hear.
and God must be a liar to all the world. For this is why the pope, in his spiritual right, has led God to school and says: "Woman is not a helpmate, but an obstacle to serving God; therefore, whoever wants to serve God must be without a woman. This is also true. For the God whom the pope serves cannot be served by our God's work.
(9) This was said long before by the prophet Daniel, when he says Cap. 11, 37: "He will not understand conjugal wives", or "he will not respect conjugal wives", but he shall respect whores and other evil things. But whoever wants to be a true Christian should let this saying of God be true and believe that God was not drunk when he spoke and instituted this.
(10) Now if I had made a thousand vows, and if a hundred thousand angels, I am a poor sack of maggots or two, as the pope is, said that I should be without a helper and that it would be good for me to be alone, what would such a vow or commandment be to me against the word of God: "It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper"? Unless God Himself would send me out with a miraculous work, as St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:7, it must be a special gift.
11 Now set God and man against each other. God says: I want you to have a helpmate and not to be alone, and that seems good to me. Man says: "Not so, you are wrong, I vow to be without a helpmate, and it seems good to me to be alone. What is that different from mastering God? How is mastering God different from going over God? How can or may such a vow or commandment be valid or kept? Yes, it is never possible that such a vow should not be worse than adultery or unchastity; what happiness should befall such a vow and chastity, which without God's miracle, out of its own iniquity, goes so blasphemously against God's word? If God's miracle is there, the vow is not necessary. If God's miracle is not there, the vow is against God and blasphemes God's word and work.
1) Thus the Wittenbergers and the Jenaers. Erlanger: or.
1734 Eri. rs, ro-22. XII. L. 's writings v. marital status d. priests 2c. W. xix" 2isi-21K4. 1733
(12) But that we put on the blind foolishness of a part. They make a great show of it and throw their mouths open that such chastity and vows are an old custom since the time of the apostles, taught and confirmed by so many conciliarities and holy fathers, and now accepted throughout the world. Now it is not believable that God should have let so many people err for so long. Well, if I asked them whether they wanted to die on the fact that such a long custom and Concilia and fathers had not erred, they should think well of themselves if death came, who now shout so boldly and freshly and write in life, one should believe it, which they themselves would then put in great doubt. But let it be, let them die from it; but not me.
(13) What do they say about God being older than all the concilia and fathers? He is also greater and more than all the concilia and fathers. Item, the Scriptures are also older and more than all concilia and fathers. The angels are all in agreement with God and the Scriptures. Item, so the custom, from Adam, is also older, than the custom, by the Popes arise.
14. If then the age, the length, the size, the quantity, the holiness are to be considered as something to believe, why do we believe men who have granted a small time, and do not believe God, who is the very oldest, the most, the greatest, the holiest, the most powerful? Why not believe all the angels, who is one more than all the popes? Why not the Scriptures, since one saying is more valid than all the books of the world? Why not the creatures created in us, since one work of God is more powerful than all the words, thoughts and dreams of all men and devils?
(15) Although we should be ashamed in our hearts, if there is a spark of reason in us, that we should first of all doubt, be silent, put something against it, when we hear God's word, since all angels bow down to it and all creatures are terrified of it. Now there is God's word that says: You shall not be alone, but have a helper, I will do it differently. There we should tremble and be terrified, there stand angels and all crea
The vows that we made yesterday and a dream of the pope that was granted for many years. So we go to and lift much higher a vow that we made yesterday, and a dream of the Pope that has lasted for many years, and we shall hear it said: Such a vow may not be mistaken, God has not let such fathers be lacking. And now it shall be unbelievable that poor men err, who live and dream for a moment; and it shall be believable that the eternal God errs in His words and works, and all angels and creatures are missing. Fie, fie, fie to our unspeakable blindness, mad and nonsensical blasphemy!
But it must be so, God's word must be the most wonderful thing in heaven and earth, therefore it must do both at the same time, enlighten and honor to the highest, those who believe and honor it, and blind and disgrace to the highest, those who do not believe it. To them it must be most certain and known, to them it must be most unknown and hidden. Those must praise and extol it to the highest degree, these must blaspheme and disgrace it to the highest degree, so that its works may go in the most perfect way, and do not little, but strange and terrible works in the hearts of men, as Paul says in 2 Cor. 4:3: "That our gospel, if it be 1) hid, is hid in them that perish."
(17) They also prove this with a particularly fine piece, namely, that they allow themselves to be pressed into confessing that it is right and that God has said so in Scripture; but they pretend that because it has been changed and abrogated by the church, it should not be done, unless it is again established and permitted by a council, so that the law and obedience of the church are not broken. Oh yes, that God should honor you, dear nobles, that would be right, that you should be allowed to honor God and to sit over God and say: it would therefore be right and proper that you allow it; but if God already commands it and, as you yourselves confess, wants to have it publicly, it should still not be right and proper to do it, your council and will would also come to this. Who has given you the power to change and abandon God's word and to reinstate it?
1) Thus the Wittenbergers; Jenaers: ist.
set? So, one should take God to school and strike the feathers of the Holy Spirit. Tell me, who has ever heard of abominations 1)? And such shall they pretend who want to govern souls.
(18) Against this we say: Conciliation I will conclude and establish what is temporal or still unexplained, but what is publicly before our eyes, that it is God's word and will, we will not wait for conciliation, nor for church sentences or conclusions, but will fear God, approach, and do according to it, before thinking whether conciliation should be made or not. For I will not wait for the Conciliarities to decide whether to believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, in His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the Holy Spirit 2c. So also all other public, bright, certain pieces of Scripture, which are necessary and useful for me to believe. For if the Scriptures should fail, and I should die, where would my soul be, if it should not yet know and first expect from the Scriptures what it should believe, when faith is necessary to me here?
19. Further, I say, whether it happens that one, two, a hundred, a thousand, and even more concilia decide that clergymen should become married, or what more God's word has decided to do and not to do before, I would rather look through my fingers and trust in God's mercy, the one who would have one, two, or three whores all his life, than the one who would take a wife according to such concilia's decision, and otherwise would not be allowed to take one apart from such a decision; and would also command and advise all in God's stead that no one should take a wife by power of such a conclusion, at the loss of his soul's salvation, but should only live chastely at first, or, if that were impossible for him, not despair in his weakness and sin and call upon God's hand. And this is the cause.
20 Fornication or unchastity is a great sin, but against blasphemy it is little. For even Christ himself, Matth. 11, 22. 23. says that Sodom and Gomorrah, who did not practice wicked unchastity, did not commit the sin of fornication.
1) "Abomination" is missing in the Erlanger.
They will be more virtuous than Capernaum, Bethsaida, and all the high saints and Pharisees at that time. And Matth. 21, 31. He also says that harlots and knaves will enter the kingdom of heaven sooner than the Pharisees and scribes, who were pious, chaste and honorable people. Why is this? Because they resisted God's words, the gospel; but harlots and knaves, though they sinned, did not strive against the gospel.
21 Now this is how it stands: whoever takes a wife by virtue of human statutes or by conciliar decree, and not otherwise, when he has God's decree and word beforehand, despises God's word in his heart and walks over it with his feet. For he exalts men above God, and trusts more in men's word and teachings than in God's word and teachings; thus he acts contrary to faith, denies God Himself, and sets up men as idols in His place. Thus his body becomes outwardly conjugal and chaste through human deeds, but his soul becomes inwardly a two-faced harlot and adulteress before God through unbelief, distrust, contempt of God, idolatry and denial of His holy words. And who can tell all the abominations of such an apostate heart? Is not this then a subtle change of chastity, becoming outwardly legitimate and inwardly twice illegitimate? Therefore, see how faithfully those mean it who want to counsel this matter through their concilia and resolutions and push aside the obedience of the divine word. ,
(22) How much do you think that the one who has a little hair does less sin and is closer to God's grace than the one who takes such a wife? especially if the same fornicator would like to be married with all his heart, and through his nature's weakness and man's power (which prevents him from marrying) he must sin immediately and is forced into sin? Do you not think that God will look at his heart, which would gladly do according to God's word, and also confesses it, and does not deny it, and God leaves his honor in his word, and will be all the more gracious to him, whether he will be disgraced before the world? although I fear that such a case will never happen. For whom
1738 Erl. SS, SS-S7. XII. L.'s writings on the marital status of priests 2c. W. LIX. S166-2I69. 1739
God will either grant him chastity, or let him have a secret marriage, or strengthen him if he is persecuted and martyred for the sake of public marriage.
23 Therefore, whoever wants to marry a priest, he should take God's word before him, rely on it, and take a vow in its name, regardless of whether conciliation comes before or after, and should thus say: God says Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:21 ff. that I am a man and you are a woman, and that we should and must increase together; no one can or should prevent or forbid us from doing so, and it is not in our power to vow otherwise. On the word we dare and do it only in defiance of and contrary to all covenants, churches, all the laws of men, all vows, customs, and whatever else may be or ever has been contrary to them. 1) Eyes and ears closed, and only God's word put into our hearts, and if the churches and men would allow and permit us to do so, we will not have their permission, and for the sake of their permission we will neither do nor leave anything.
(24) For I will not be satisfied that Concilia or the church (as they interpret it) allow or establish such things; neither will I know it to them, nor greet them for it, nor desire it of them: they shall and must do it. And not only that, but they shall first restore to God His glory, and publicly confess before all the world that they have forbidden marriage against God and His holy word, as the murderers of souls, and have thereby drowned all the world in unchastity, condemned God's word, made the devil an idol, and exalted themselves above God, and thus, out of the very giving in of the devil, instead of out of the giving in of the Holy Spirit, have not been bishops and teachers, but wolves, thieves, and murderers, and seducers.
(25) Let them first confess and atone for such abominations, and do enough to disgrace themselves in the sight of all the world, and to restore the honor of God's word, which they have so disgraced in all the world.
1) This is how the Wittenberg edition interpungited. The Jena and Erlangen editions have a comma before "eyes".
blasphemed and desecrated. Where they do so, and not before, let us then accept and follow their permission and allowance.
(26) Yea, sayest thou, when will this be done? when will they do it? Well, let them also keep their concilia and conclusions, and let them do it themselves. We do not want to do it and neither hear nor see them. I also know that they will not do it, because they want to be beautiful and not be considered as those who have done wrong until now, but we want to teach them well that they must do it without their thanks, they will be put to shame publicly, as Paul says 2 Tim. 3:9, whether willingly or unwillingly; that and no other, if there were ten times as many of them and each one could do as much as they are now all able to do.
The word of God shall break forth and expose their shame; they shall not dim the light, and the more they dim it, the more they shall blow on it, so that it burns brighter, as it is already doing, however much they rage and are annoyed. It shall not help them at all that they say: Should a fainting monk be wiser than all the world? The monk is powerless, but another will be all-powerful and will make them all-powerful enough. There rely cheerfully. For that the true God should let him make a nose as they wanted, and should suffer that his eternal word, known by themselves, should not apply sooner than the poor scumbags ventilate it, I let them hope as they are worthy; but they shall well know it.
028 So did the Romans also in time past, who had brought unto themselves gods of all the earth. But when they heard of Jesus Christ, that some men thought him to be a god, they would not have him to be a god, for no other cause than that it had not been decided beforehand in the Roman council, but had been begun by others. For the arrogant people thought that he whom they claimed to be a god should be God and no one else.
29 What was that said otherwise than: We Roman councillors are gods above all gods and may make gods which we like.
as they did; therefore Christ did not have to become God with them. So do our nobles with their conciliation. Let them wait for God's word and not be God's word until they give him permission.
(30) Yea, they are worse than the Romans. For the Romans had made God of him who was thought to be a god. Our conciliar Jews want to set their own thing badly, and it should only be right for them to set it that God has spoken before or not, that God has spoken before or not, and they are of the opinion that if God still speaks today, then they want to have the power to judge, to judge, to set, to set aside, to allow, to forbid, and indeed to have our God for a soft wax, out of which they may make a sow or a raven, or whatever they desire. Thus the Jews also made of God a golden calf. These are terrible and horrible things that would make a Christian's heart break.
(31) But I am of the hope that Christ has kept him some bishops, or will still keep them, so that they will go into their hearts and come to the right knowledge of God, and either leave their terrible and abominable office, or restore them to a right episcopal office. And even though no one would be converted or kept in secret, we who have the clear word of God must not remain behind and not look behind us to see where their conclusion or consequence remains. For Christ did not want to suffer St. Peter to ask or be concerned where John remained or anyone else, but said, "What is it to you? follow me" [John 21:22], as if to say, "Because you have my word, you shall continue and do according to it; let the others be commanded to me, whether they follow or not.
32 Therefore let every man be afraid, though he be as hard as a stone, to hear and to feel how his vow and chaste estate (where it is not God's miracle) goeth beside and against this saying of God, I will not that thou shouldest be alone, but that thou shouldest have a wife; and [that he should live] under the dreadful saying of thunder, when Daniel saith, He shall not have wives.
Dan. 11:37, as if to say: "It is true that he will avoid wives, not for the love of chastity or worship, which he will pretend to deceive the world, but so that he will have good days and be free from the toil and unpleasantness of married life, and besides that he will neither live chastely nor serve God, but the more freely engage in fornication and lechery.
This means that he does not understand God's word when he says: It is not good to be alone. For, as has been said, these words are spirit and life, like all God's word, and must be understood with faith, that this "good" is not good according to the flesh, yes, tribulation (says St. Paul [1 Cor. 7, 28.]), but according to the spirit. For in the sight of God it is a delicious, noble, good work to raise and teach children, to govern wife and servants divinely, to feed by the sweat of one's brow, to suffer much misfortune and displeasure from wife, child and servants and others. Such good does not seem, it is an evil thing (says the pope) and hinders the service of God, that is, on good rotten days. But he that believeth and knoweth it aright seeth how good it is for the soul, though it be evil to the flesh and the lusts thereof.
34 For this reason God has also given honor to the married state, in that he has placed it first after its honor in the fourth commandment, saying, "You shall honor your father and mother. Let me see, give me an honor in heaven and earth, next to God's honor, which is equal to this honor; neither worldly nor spiritual status is so highly honored. And if nothing more had been said about married life than this fourth commandment, it should have been sufficiently understood that there is no higher office, position, being and work before God (apart from the Gospel, which concerns God Himself) than married life.
(35) But many still take this up, and make much of useless spitting, that it is dishonest to vow chastity to God and not keep it, since he who does not keep his vows is scolded before the world as faithless and dishonorable, as a perjurer. In particular, some of the nobility are puffing themselves up with such talk, and mostly those who should vow a lot and talk about vows, but who do not keep their vows.
1742 "rl.ss,rs-si. XII. L.'s Schriften v. ehelichen Stand d. Priester 2c. W. XIX. "171-2174. 1748
They have not failed much to keep what they pledged to God in baptism, and have never thought throughout their lives that they would keep a hair's breadth of what they pledged to God in baptism, and still confess themselves guilty. The beam in their eyes still blinds them so strongly, and they see the splinter in other eyes so sharply.
(36) They are coarse stubborn hearts, which neither feel themselves, nor let others tell them, as the blacksmith's anvil (as Job says) only with the mad head through. How often shall I say that a vow that is impossible, and done against God's word, is not a vow, and is to be left? Just as he says, "My mother has vowed that I shall become a bishop. If I now asked them whether it was to be kept if someone had vowed to break his marriage or to kill an innocent person, or if I vowed to keep to the heavens and ride on the shining sun or in the clouds, I hope they would have to say, "No, the first vow would be wrong and to be left undone, the other would be foolish and would leave itself alone.
So I also say here: We are all created to do as our parents do, to beget and nurture children, which is laid on us, commanded and implanted by God. This is proven by the limbs of the body and daily feelings, and by the examples of all the world. Where God does not perform miracles Himself, and you remain without marriage, vowing chastity, you do as much as adultery, or other things forbidden by God, vows. We also see and grasp, because it is impossible and foolishly vowed, how it leaves itself unchaste, and unchastity only becomes the more furious and shameful that one may not speak of it. The obdurate still want to force us, a man should not feel his male body, nor a woman her female body.
There is one more thing: There is no doubt in my mind that many a bishop, abbot and other ecclesiastical lord should marry, if only they were not the first, and the way had been well paved beforehand, and such a free man had been made mean, that it would never have shame or danger, but would be praiseworthy and honest before the world. Well, my dear, who would not like that? What do we say to this? If you
If you have God's word, which you should and can follow, and look first at others when they follow it, it is just as if I said: I will not believe in God nor serve him until I see all Turks and Gentiles and Jews believe and serve God. Yes, but you will go to the devil with the Gentiles and Jews, because you despise God's word and do not want to serve him for his sake, but for the sake of others, so that you esteem others more highly and regard them more highly than God and his word.
39 I may compare this to the wife of Lot, who also looked behind her where they stayed in Sodoma and Gomorrah and became a pillar of salt, Gen 19:26. For she was also commanded not to look behind her, but to follow the word of the angel. This is also the meaning of Christ himself, Luc. 17, 32, when he says about the evil times, how great error and deception would be, that no one should look behind him, nor turn back to his house to get something, and says, "Remember the wife of Lot," as if he should say, as he said to Petro, "Follow me; let him who remains remain, let him who waits; look to no one, but to my word alone, and go away and refresh yourself afterwards. So you must do in these last perilous times, that when you feel and know that God wants you to be married, you should continue, even if you have to start and do this alone, regardless of what all the world, friends and enemies, sing or say about it. If you are disgraced and promised because of this, know that God's mouth is greater, His praise is stronger, His testimony is more glorious than all the world, even if it were a thousand or more.
(40) Also, because you do not neglect or consume it for God's sake, but only for the sake of the world, you know whom you are serving with it, and how it is all lost that you live and are chaste. Whoever wants to wait until the world speaks well of divine things, or is not offended by them, must certainly wait a long time. But it is an abominable thing that the devil has brought it about that one must shy away, fear and worry among Christians, even to become married, which is the case with pagans and
of all the world has been free and honest from the beginning and still is. So completely has he destroyed everything that is God's value and word by papal regiment, and gives us first of all the Latin, whether a man should and may be a man, and whether the vow is valid, since he is engaged to be a man.
But it is the right and the way of the world, so it must be governed by its god and prince, the devil. For so it does in all other things. Theft is the least sin before God, because it concerns only temporal goods; but the world punishes it most severely. After that, adultery is much greater; it is now unpunished in the world. After that murder, that is an honor in the world, who is only bold and wicked to strike. But above all, wickedness in the spiritual state is the highest sin, on earth, against God's majesty, honor, word and work: it is not only unpunished, but has the highest honor, good, power and friends, and everything that is on earth, as if it were even a holy, heavenly, divine being.
But that this letter, my dear sirs, may not be too long, for I have written so much about it, I will leave it here, and humbly ask and kindly admonish your love in God, so that you, as St. Paul 2 Cor. 6, 1. 2. says, "do not accept grace in vain. For it is written [Isa. 49:8], I have heard thee in the acceptable time, and in that same day have I helped thee. Behold, now is the pleasant time, now is the blessed day." God's word shines and calls; you have cause and space enough to follow, even temporal good; so the distress of conscience and daily sin presses in the sick flesh; so the
1) This word "sonst" is marginal gloss of the Jena Aus-. gäbe.
impossible being, which is foolishly vowed; so the spiritual state and order in itself is no good at all; so no concilium is to be waited for nor postponed, because it is called and demanded by God's word; so also is not to be pardoned and to look to other examples, but you should, and each one of you, break the first course and jump into the Jordan before King David, now that he has come back to his kingdom and his son Absalom, the wicked one, has been slain [2. Sam. 19, 17.]
All things urge, compel, entice and provoke you at this time, and in doing so you do great honor to God and His Word, and give a comforting example to the weak consciences, so that God's Word may once again come to the fore. There is nothing that prevents you from doing this, except the foolish judgment of the world, which would say: "Oh, do the German" gentlemen do this! But because we know that also the prince of the world is judged, we should not doubt that also such and all other judgments of the world are already condemned before God. Only freshly and confidently go up, set before God in right faith, and turn our backs on the world with its rumbling, clattering and rumbling, not hearing nor seeing how Sodoma and Gomorrah sink behind us, or where they remain.
44. but the merciful God, who in turn has given us the light of his grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, enlighten, admonish, and strengthen your hearts with the power of his Holy Spirit, in steadfast faith and fervent love, to do in this and in all things what is his fatherly, gracious good pleasure, to the honor and praise of his holy gospel, to the comfort and benefit of all believers in Christ, to whom be thanksgiving, praise, and glory forever, amen. God's grace be with you all, Amen. Wittenberg, March 28.
1746 V. a. IV. 360 f. XII. L.'s writings on the marital status of priests 2c. W. XIX. 2176-2178. 1747