September 9, 1521.
JEsus.
Your textbook 4) is very pleasant to me, there is nothing that could expose my poverty to your wealth here; continue confidently and act as you wish. I wish to be with you in order to be able to determine something about these vows. To dispute by letter is very unproductive, because the one who is in a hurry writes in many words what the other one has superfluous, and omits what is asked for most, as it happened to us with the question of confession. If I can, I want to organize secretly somewhere a personal meeting between us, because
4) Melanchthon's I^oei tkeoloZiei.
This matter is very important to me. In the meantime, I want to talk about it in vain.
You write that you insist that you think a vow must be annulled if one cannot keep it, so that the vow is not upheld with sins. I ask you, is this not very dark talk? Do you not speak as if you wanted a vow not to be kept for its own sake, because it is impossible to fulfill it? And in this way you would have to admit that even the divine commandments would have to be abandoned.
Or does it make a difference that the commandments are laid upon us, but the vow taken voluntarily? What does that prove about-
*) This letter is Latin in Ooä. 4en. d; I. II; then in Aurifaber, vol. I, toi. 351 p and in De Wette, vol. II, 45. According to the latter we have translated.
other than that one should not do it for the sake of it, because it is impossible, but because it is voluntarily accepted? But that which is voluntarily assumed has already become a law of God, since the Scripture says, "Vow and keep." In this matter, do not follow reason but Scripture, and do away with the vow from the beginning, not afterwards, that is, refute the law of the vow and its order, (ritum), with which I struggle. That it can be fulfilled or not fulfilled is not important to me, you cannot convict me of another with it, because you could also prove the divorce if the spouses could not get along with each other. But it seems to me that everything depends on whether the vow is valid or not.
Your textbook says, not unskillfully, that the bondage of vows is foreign to the gospel and contrary to the bondage of the spirit; but we are here discussing vows, not the bondage of vows. For you know what and where that freedom and bondage is: not in the vows, but in the spirit, since the free man can submit to all laws and the rule of all, with the apostle Paul, as St. Bernard and others who were true monks (feliciter religiosi) placed themselves under the vow.
For this is also a part of evangelical freedom, that one goes under vows and laws; and the law of God is not of faith, says the apostle, nor of freedom, and contrary to the gospel: and yet we live freely under it. So many have been free under the bondage of the vows; otherwise your compelling reason (syllogism) would already be of continuance (perfectus): everything that is against the freedom of the gospel is under the eternal curse and must be abolished. But now the observance (religio) of the vows is of the kind; thus 2c. O a happy and desirable conclusion!
How then? By no means is any law or bondage abolished because they are to be harmful and odious, but because they are to be free; indeed, all laws are confirmed, for by faith we establish the law.
Therefore, even the law of vows will be able to stand with the freedom of the gospel; indeed, it will be fortified by it.
What I wrote to you in the previous letter did not fully satisfy me myself, with the exception of the passage in Paul 1 Tim. 5 [v. 12], where he condemns widows who have committed a crime of faith, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to direct your attention to the root, that is, to the law of the vow, but not to the fruits or the consequence. How far I have progressed in this matter, I will write to you.
I think that no other advice can be used here than that which, as we see, Paul uses in the letter to the Galatians and everywhere for the abolition of the law. Do you not think that the Galatians circumcised themselves with a sincere heart, as if they served God with it and were obliged to do so? Did they not place themselves under the Law for the sake of God, and as such offer themselves to God no differently than someone offers himself to God through a monastic vow? But on what grounds does Paul draw them away from it? Not because they had submitted to it, but because they had submitted to it with a servile conscience; namely, that this would be the most ungodly thing against Christ's grace and His Spirit.
So, it seems to me, one should do confidently here and bring the sentence into this conclusion: Whoever lives in a mind that is contrary to evangelical freedom must be made free, and let his vow be accursed. But whoever makes a vow in the spirit that he wants to attain salvation or righteousness through the vow is of this kind; thus 2c. But since almost all the great majority of those who make vows make them in this spirit, it is evident that their vows are ungodly, impious, and contrary to the gospel, and therefore must be utterly and completely cast away and cursed.
How many do you think would have taken a vow if they had known that they would not obtain righteousness or blessedness through their vow? That is why almost all of them are in this servile conscience.
They take their vows for this very reason, because they hope to please God through their vows and to become righteous and blessed. What else, they say, should I do in the monastery? Therefore, because they vow in this spirit, their speech says nothing other than this: Behold, God, I vow to you godlessness and idolatry for my whole life; because they vow that they want to be good by those works, and do not even think of justifying faith. Since this error does not take place in a temporal matter, since it also tears up lawful marriages, but is completely intolerable, because it sins against the blessedness of souls and works for ungodliness against godliness, it must be completely removed.
But how can it be removed, if one does not either cancel such things, or vows completely anew, that is, takes the vow in the spirit of freedom? For how? if the godless Manasseh, as if he wanted to imitate Abraham, whose freedom he does not have, vows to sacrifice his son GOtte through the idol Moloch, but would not have made this vow if he had known that he was acting godlessly and robbing God?
Such vowers do not vow to the living God, but to the lie and idol of their heart, so that they deserve the harshest rebuke for such vows, much less that they should be obliged to keep them. Surely, if I had known this when I made my vow, I would never have made the vow, though I am uncertain with what mind I made the vow. I was more carried away than drawn, God willed it so; I fear that I also made the vow in an ungodly and predatory way.
So I think that our Galatians must not only be advised but also commanded to trample their vows underfoot confidently and to destroy them because of their ungodliness and profanity, not even to turn back to them, even if they have been bewitched and heard in the meantime to the (so-called) holy ordinances; and this freedom, yes, this necessity especially takes place with them,
who have taken their vows as young people or children. For these have never learned what faith or law is, and fall into the ropes like foolish birds. Therefore, they are to be freed and punished for presumption and foolishness.
Further, no other rule can be given here by which we can know who has made his vow in this predatory spirit, but it must be left to their conscience, as it should be in every other good work. For who else but the spirit of man that is in him could know from what disposition he vows or does a good work, since a work of the law or the bondage of the vow is judged not by the work itself but by the condition of the heart in him who tests the spirits and so commands us to judge.
I remember that when I had made my vows and my biological father was very unwilling about it, I heard this from him after he was already satisfied: Would to God that it were not the devil's work of deception! This word has taken such deep root in my heart that I have never heard anything from his mouth that I would have held on to more tenaciously; it seems to me as if God had addressed me through his mouth, as it were, from afar, but still quite late, for punishment and remembrance.
By this reason I am satisfied with the renunciation, or at least with the renewal, of all vows; beyond this I shall seek nothing else, and leave it at this opinion, since it is quite evident here that such vows against faith and the gospel, as the highest idolatry, are vowed and fulfilled, if they are done in such a spirit as I have said. But if you have made the vow out of a free and evangelical heart and have voluntarily made yourself a servant, it is fair that you keep and pay it; but I would not say that an evangelical heart would ever dare to do this, or has dared to do this, except by deception.
I am sending a disputation on this matter. 1)
1) Paper No. 172 in this volume.
If you want to publish it, I will add very brief explanations and dedicate it to the church in Wittenberg. For I hold that this opinion, which is clearly and quite firmly founded in Scripture, can stand the light and the publicity. For what can what is written in the law of vows prove against it?
Only the passage of Paul about the widows having their judgment remains. I will not admit that it is contrary to this opinion about law and faith, nor will I make any concession to it, but rather confess that it is dark, or will understand it in such a way that those widows made their vows in the freedom of faith, which was known only for a short time at that time, just as Demas and P[hygellus and] all in Asia left it [2 Tim. 1, 15 .]. But our people are a heathen people, who have never been instructed about anything of the faith. Write me again what you think and judge about this. For I think that these are things that have long since become hackneyed for you.
This also shows the folly of vows, that poverty and obedience are vowed. These two things were either invented, or once ordained for children to receive their first instruction, so that the whole business of making vows seems to have been a kind of discipline under which children passed their young years. Now men, and forever, make vows which should serve others with works of love.
How now? Am I already free and not a monk? You don't think that you can become a Demea 1) to me and give me this
1) Demea, Mitio and Sostrata, characters in a comedy by Terence, Adelphi.
Mitio at last some sostrata to take revenge on me for having given you a wife, as they say; but I will take good care that you do not accomplish this.
I say nothing about the sin against the Holy Spirit, because you are more learned and spiritual than I am. But the burning, which you do not want to be diminished, I will make less in the meantime, because I believe that it is only a very great heat of desire. For the defilements he calls impurity, as you know. And in the second epistle to the Corinthians (Cap. 11, 29.) he says, "Who is vexed, and I burn not?" But it will be difficult for you to prove any stronger burning.
In the meantime, I will reflect on the sin of blasphemy. For this alone makes Christ sin against the Holy Spirit and in vain. You see that neither Peter nor Paul committed this sin. I still believe with the same simplicity on which you base yourself that there is also a kind of sin that is unforgivable before others, which John calls sin unto death, and Paul heresy, Titus 3:10 ff.
Now be well and pray for me. I wish you were ten times more overwhelmed, so I have no sympathy for you, because you, so often reminded that you do not want to burden yourself with so many burdens, do not want to hear anything about it and despise all good warnings. The time will come when you will condemn in vain this foolish zeal of yours, in which you alone are eager to carry everything as if you were iron or stone. From my desert, on the day after the Nativity of Mary, in the year 1521.