with Luther's preface and glosses. *) January 1524.
Translated from Latin.
Two episcopal bulls, the first of a godly bishop, the other of a papal bishop on Lutheran and Roman doctrine.
[Luther's preface.]
Martinus Luther [wishes] the devout reader salvation in the HErrn.
1. i have found it good that these two bulls, who come from quite different minds
The first, of the blossoming of godliness; the second, of the old and deep-rooted wickedness, so that you, my godly reader, may see that it is true what Isaiah said about the course of the word of God: "The word that goes out of my mouth shall not come back to me empty" [Isa. 55:11], and that the word that goes out of my mouth shall not come back to me empty.
*) This writing appeared in Latin at Wittenberg in. Year 1524 under the title: vuao episkopales dullae, prior pii, posterior papistici pontiüeis super clootriua I>utlieri st roruaua. kraeeeäit Murt. I>utlieri praekatto. ^itzteuderMe 1524. then it has passed into the Latin "Gesammtausgabe": Wittenberger (1551), Dom. II, col. 417; Jenaer (1603), Dow. Ill, col. 60 l> and Erlanger, opp. var. arZ., vol. VII, p. 64. German, it is found fich in the Leipzig edition, vol. XIX, p. 313. We have translated according to the Jena edition.
Christ: "I am come to send sword and fire upon the earth: and what would I rather that it should burn already" [Matth. 10, 34. Luc. 12, 49.], and Paul: "We are a good smell of Christ; to some a smell of life unto life; to some a smell of death unto death" [2 Cor. 2, 15. 16.].
2 The papal doctrine may at least have this fame, that it has been received kindly in the world, in that the kings and princes never dispute against it, but even confirm it with kisses of the holy feet [of the pope] and with the greatest and quite unheard-of lavishness of their fortune. Although she has been in trouble for the sake of earthly rights and honors, she has always been victorious and has never had to experience the cross of the Lord. We consider this honor more shameful than any disgrace and are glad that such glory is far, far away from us.
(3) For this we rather desire happiness, that we may be conformed to the image of the Son of God, when kings and princes arm themselves against us, and the world condemns, curses, and curses us, as Christ said, "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they so call his household? [Matth. 10, 25.] and again: "Blessed are you, when men revile you and persecute you, and speak all kinds of evil against you" [Matth. 5, 11.].
4 For example, this Mauritius, by God's disgrace bishop, with what gross blasphemies and vituperations he has filled his bull, and yet in this piece he accuses the Lutherans of being vituperative! But this he calls a blasphemy, that we do not praise and approve of the papacy, but condemn, attack, accuse and curse it as it deserves, just as Christ also cursed that [unfruitful] fig tree.
5 But it seems as if Satan feels the wound and the damage, therefore he twists everything so miserably and attacks it; but with it he only prophesies like Caiphas, and announces future misfortune to himself. For one has to wonder with how much effort they tie these fig leaves in front of themselves,
The Lutherans are impatient and vituperative people, as if they had covered the beam in their eyes with this apron, while their life is already unbearable to the whole world in every kind of pleasure, deceit, nonsense, mischievousness. Meanwhile they pull out our splinter and say: The Lutherans are impatient people; therefore no one sees now what horrible people we are; since our impatience (that I also boast) is not of the kind that it burns because of earthly things, honor and dignity, which we neither have nor seek, as they race nonsensically for the sake of such things, but because of the contempt of the word of God, and because of their stiff-necked godlessness. In this piece it would be something cursed if one wanted to be patient there.
By the way, I hope that the kingdom of the pope will fare as well as those who are never ill in their entire lives; when they become ill, death is at the door. This is how it is with the pope; Since he has hitherto always ruled and triumphed with his doctrine and tyranny (which is the greatest and most unmistakable proof that the spirit of Antichrist has ruled in him), but is now at last beginning to grow ill and to succumb, there is certain hope that he will succumb to the end, and that it will end with him as the man of sin and the child of perdition, in that all kings and princes and all larval bishops will protect, rage and oppose him in vain. Before the cross of the Lord, which is the mark of our Lord, they have always been afraid, but they have always sought glory and honor; therefore they have nothing more to expect than that their honor will end in shame, and that instead of the cross, which they have despised, they will have to suffer eternal shame, as it is written: "As much as she has made herself glorious, and has had her will, so much, give her torment and sorrow" [Revelation 18:7]. It is finished now, says the angel, she is fallen, she is fallen, Babylon, the mother of all fornication on earth. All that has breath, say Amen, Hallelujah. In the month of January, Anno 1524.
[First Bull.]
George, by the grace of God alone, Bishop of Samland.
To the venerable parish priests in Fischhausen zu St. Adalbert, beloved in Christ by us, and to all others to whom this mandate shall come, Hail in the Lord.
We believe that you are by no means unaware of the terrible and miserable disintegration of the Christian and orthodox religion that has taken place for many years, since even those who are called Christians have no more Christian understanding than those who are farthest from Christ; indeed, unfortunately, many sixty-year-old and stone-aged people are found who do not know what the baptismal vow entails. And the fault of this ignorance, as we believe, is largely due to the fact that until now baptism has been performed in a language unknown to the common man, that is, only in Latin. Of course, the words of holy baptism and the incantation (exorcismi), which are spoken in an unknown language, are of no use to the bystanders, and perhaps even the one who baptizes does not understand them well enough. For what benefit or fruit could accrue to the listeners, since they do not understand what it is that is presented to them in an unknown language? and it was not only useless but also burdensome for the bystanders to listen to the priest when he babbled words that they did not understand. It is reasonable that one understands what one is supposed to answer. What should the bystanders answer if they do not know what the Baptist is asking or saying? In addition, there was no lack of people who, in such a serious, so godly, so holy and divine matter, because they were inexperienced in the language, were often moved to frivolity and loud laughter.
2. Therefore we exhort all of you in Christ, but to the unruly, if such should be, which we hope not, we command, according to the power which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for destruction, that ye in your preaching declare the divine promises and the power of baptism to the people accurately, and impress them frequently; and when ye have instructed the people beforehand, baptize afterward in the common mother tongue, especially where the German language is in use. In this way, the words of the baptizer and the summoner will penetrate the hearts of the listeners. This will not only be to the child, but also to the bystanders.
It is for their benefit that they become firmer and better from day to day. For just as God wants the Gospel and His holy promises to be made known in all nations' tongues, He also demands that His sacraments be administered in various languages and tongues (labiis). For what good is a sacrament without word and faith? Furthermore, as far as the other languages are concerned, such as Lithuanian, Prutenica, and Sarmatian, let us, by the grace of Christ, be diligent so that they also do not lack Christian instruction.
3. In order that you, when you preach Christ, may have some introduction to the Holy Scriptures, we advise you 1) to read diligently and with a godly heart some of the writings of the excellent Doctor Martin Luther, namely his translation of the Old and New Testaments, likewise his writings on Christian freedom, on good works, his interpretations of the Gospels and Epistles, which are generally called postils, his little work on the Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, along with his other works on the Psalms, and the like. If you do this, you will undoubtedly feel no small benefit. The grace of God be with you all, Amen.
4 In witness whereof we have commanded this our mandate to be affixed with the seal of our officialdom. Given in our church at Samland on January 28, Anno 1524.
[Second butt.]
Mauritius, by the grace of Goda ) Bishop of Ermeland.
1. to the venerable lord archpriest, parish priest in Braunsberg, as well as to all and every priest, both religious and secular, vice-priests, churchwardens, chaplains, vicars, altarists and preachers of the divine word,b ) both clerics and scholars, to all and every one, in whatever place they may be, who belong to the now mentioned episcopal see, salvation and sincere love in the Lord.
a) This is, conversely (per antiphrasin), by God's wrath.
b) These have the last place in the Pabst's church, since it is an apostolic and the highest office.
1) Marginal gloss of the Jena edition: He wisely gives advice, but does not race along with curses (kulwiiiidus). Perhaps he has not seen the Ooei of Philippus, of which it is rightly claimed that they are most useful to a future theologian.
2. We thought it quite certain that the Lutheran sect, to which most Christians, without understanding and thought, are now suddenly falling, would have long since plunged into ruin through their presumption; And we do not doubt at all (if it pleases God and he will graciously turn away his wrathful anger from us) that it will still happen, for he will not always be angry withc nor forget his mercy, since he has mercy on all his works, and he will not even let his church, which is stormed by the impetuous waves and tempests of heresies, suffer shipwreck, since he has built it on a solid rock and consecrated it with the blood of so many thousands of martyrs.
c) This has certainly already begun; but since he is irritated by such bulls, can he stop?
For how could this pestilentiald ) stain long endure? who has introduced such a great heap of accursed abominations into the very church that is Christ's untouched bride; for those who are devoted to this sect wound the hearts of simple Christians with their deadly sermons, cursing the high holy sacrificese ) of the mass as an abominable abomination with an outrageous presumption, and, with the intention of abolishing them altogether, tainting them with such shameful words that one is ashamed to recount them. The sacraments of the churchf ) they reject, according to their desires; the fruitfulness of the body they exalt, according to the constitution of the old law, with such great praises that it seems as if they condemned the glory of the virginal state altogether. Therefore, they want to open the monasteries of the holy nuns and monks, so that everyone has free power to break the vow of chastity, to leave the monastery and to marry, and, according to their presumption, they also allow the priests to marry. g)
d) Look at the people who miss patience in the Lutherans and condemn malediction, how patient they themselves are, and how they are full of benediction (benedicentia) in this whole bull, which wants to be considered full of the Holy Spirit.
e) [Sacrificia, sacrifice that is, sacra vitia, cursed sins, as the Latins say: auri sacra fames, the cursed lust for gold.
f) The Roman Church, as there are the sprinkler, the censer and the holy cross; these three saints are its sacraments.
g) Since the Papists do not allow a chaste marriage bed, but rather they are driven to all impurity, in which the Sodomites also have an abomination.
4. they preach with impious mouth to tear away the crucifixes and images of the saintsh )
and burn them to ashes, and especially the image of the Mother of the Lord, the glorious Virgin Mary, and forbid the singing of the old hymns and praises,i ) as things that robbed God of His glory. The pope,k ) the bishops, the priests, the monks, the godly virgins and the whole crowd of clergymen, so that they would make them all the more hated by the laity and destroy the spiritual state, they cover with much disgrace and stain him horribly with shameful accusation. Above this they also blasphemel ) kings and princes and all authorities, whom the apostle commands to honor, even if they are ungodly.
h) This is a slander, because in our country it is not the use, but the abuse of the images that is abolished.
i) Namely, the blasphemous song: Salva regina, in which the name of life and hope is snatched from Christ.
k) That is, the Moloch.
l) But they are opposed in the most holy way, by challenging the word of God through them and defending the Antichrist as if he were Christ, as was recently done by the king in England, who therefore obtained the title of a defender [of the faith].
(5) And by endeavoring to punish the vices with which the whole world is entirely filled, to limit the excess of ceremonies, and to restore everything according to the guide of the apostolic tradition, they trample under foot the whole integrity of the Christian religion and the ancient customs at the same time. Furthermore, in order that they may overthrow the human statutes and establish only the evangelical doctrinem ), they abrogate the salutary provisions of the laws and canons. And by considering everything they like to be permissible under the guise of Christian freedom, they wantonly despise both ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction and censures. They mock at pardons, purgatory, confession, penance, fasting, daily prayers (horis canonicis) and other devotional prayers, intercessions of the saints, commemorations of souls, and indulgences, as if they were human fiddles and money-grubbing. Furthermore, their fierce desire to innovate drives them to either completely abolish the old church customs or to change them according to their liking. After they have disrupted all ordern ), they deprive their masters of their hearing, introduce sects, stir up turmoil,") throw heaven and earth into one another and disrupt everything. In order to summarize the whole puddle of these horrible things in one word: all and every aberration
1954 L.v.s. vii, 70-72. Threefold appendix of some of Luther's controversial writings. W. xix, 2433-2436. 1955
The heresies that have been condemned in individual heretics up to now have been brought together in this ugly puddle of all shameful deeds, and they are striving to bring them back on track.
m) Behold Satan's foolishness and impotence, who publicly condemns this, if one alone wants to establish the evangelical doctrine.
n) This is after having exposed the abominable errors of the Roman court.
o) Because a papist becomes furious when he hears the truth, like Satan, so. often he should be cast out by Christ.
6. And yet, although these things go beyond all measure and are so ungodly that it seems that every Christian, because they are so distasteful, should reasonably have an abhorrence of them, yet there are people who assert them most stubbornly, not only laymen, but also (which we cannot tell without great melancholyp ) priests, Religious and secular, who, unaware of their order and vows, accept these things as holy and coming from the Holy Spirit with great zeal, and persuade the common people, who are already gullibleq ) and always eager for innovations, that they can well be accepted, and thus drag them into the abyss of damnation, which is pitiful to behold. And they fall for the Lutheran teaching so blindly that when they hear something Lutheran, they immediately take it for a gospelr ); what does not come from Luther, they do not take for the gospel.
p) These are crocodile tears.
q) It is true that before they were too gullible in the errors of the Antichrist; but now, by the grace of God, the eyes of the blind are opened.
r) For Luther asserts nothing without the constant testimony of Scripture.
(7) And since most of them have either not seen the doctrine of their guide at all or, if they have seen it, do not understand it at all, in order to nevertheless assert it, and not in order to bring the truth to light, they persistently argue about it in their drinking bouts under the sound of beakerss ) in gross ignorance with wild shouting, although they notice that neither they nor others become a hair better through this new confession, yes, rather, through the great freedom to sin, far worse than they were before. Furthermore, the spirit of God is patient,t ) love is kind, it is gentle and peaceable. But who is more impatient than this kind of people? Who is more hostile? who is more vituperative anywhere? who is more rebellious? and who is more angry about every little wrong done than they are? Where these things are
However, the Spirit of God, who is a lover of peace and truth, cannot be there.
s) But the papists are very sober, chaste and learned people in the Scriptures.
(t) As this bull points out.
But there is no doubt at all that the greatness of our sinsu ) has brought misery upon us in such heaps, since we already suffer innumerable other tribulations incessantly, and are now finally also plagued by the Lord even more severely with this most harmful disunity in regard to religion. What wonder is it that we, who do not want to become wise through the temporal chastisement of the body, must feel the hand of God through a terrifying, yet just judgment of God, through a terrifying death of souls, and, killed by the poisonx ) of heretical unbelief, are miserably plunged into the deep abyss of perdition?
u) And yet we do not want them to be punished or corrected, but to remain silent; or we will condemn and destroy as blasphemers those who punish them.
x) Only these whoremongers and defenders of ungodliness are free from this, and they also make others free from it.
9. Therefore, since we see that the vile pestilence spreads its contagious poison from day to day and grows with power more and more, so much so that even the elect seem to waver, those who should have stopped the untamed freedom from spreading further, out of zeal for religion and prompted by the concern of our shepherd's office, being able to provide the tinder for it, or pass over the matter with silence, because we fear that the Lord would demand the blood of his sheep from the shepherd's hand, and so that we do not appear to participate in such defilement by our silence,z ) moreover also because we want to be obedient to the orders of the apostolic see and the imperial majesty, as we are obliged to be, and to be conformed to the orthodox church: we beseech you all, and each one in particular, by the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, and adjure you by his righteous and terrible judgment, and moreover, by virtue of our ordinary authority (where otherwise the same has hitherto remained inviolate with you), we paternally entreat and remind you, and in virtue of holy obedience we severely and strictly command you:
z) Those who do not preach even one syllable in their whole life, who boast that they do not remain silent, and who do not cease to be partial.
and to be the originator of manifold fornication, fraud, and violence, who now even falsely pretend that they have no part in the defilement. O the impudence!
10. First, that you, together with the people, in your prayers invoke the merciful God most fervently, that he may take away from us the cause of imagined evils, namely the burden of our sins,a ) and at the same time, out of mercy, turn away from us the flood of his wrath; that he may grant peace to the Christian princes, so that they may be able to help the church, which has been troubled by so many storms,b ) and that he may revive the people, who have been redeemed with the precious blood of the Son of God, by his divine spirit, bring them back to the unity of faith and mercifully pull them out of the ruinous decline.
a) However, in such a way that the freedom to sin and the tyranny of the popes shall continue.
b) For this does not come to GOD, but to the princes, for GOD may be asleep.
11. First of all, that you diligently admonish this people entrusted to your pastoral care, namely all and every one, both priests and clergy, as well as the laity of both sexes, with salutary remembrance and with the word of doctrine,c ) but not with angry blasphemy, so that they henceforth in no way dare to assert Luther's above-mentioned doctrine secretly or publicly, that you yourselves do not dare to do so, nor do you allow anyone to do so in your churches, houses, assemblies, or elsewhere, but forbid it as much as possible, and that the old use of the church, which was established by the apostles of Christ and then by the holy fathers on divine authority, be respected.
The Church has sanctified and sanctified for many centuries with the great applause of the whole Christian Church, and maintain it and help to maintain it, not presuming to violate or change by your temerity anything that has been instituted by order of the Church, nor, as much as is in you, to let others change it.
c) Namely, with the Decretals. For the Lutherans alone sift the evangelical doctrine; that is, they blaspheme and race, according to the language of this Mauritius.
12) If, however, anyone should arrogantly despise our fatherly reminderd ) and continue to divide the Church of Christ through harmful discord, we wish him an eternal curse, impose on him alle ) curses and maledictions, and strike him with the sharpness of the ban and hand him over to the divine wrath and severe judgment of God. We want the above to be made known to all and everyone whom it concerns, and that this letter of ours be copied by you and the other priests, and sent by each pastor to his neighbor, with the added remark that this order has been carried out as is customary, and that it finally be returned by the last one to the chancellor in our castle of Heilsberg.
d) It is filled with so many curses that it is rightly called a paternal memory after its father, the devil. For just look how this one is banished, cursed, cursed, instead of being a bishop according to Paul's rule, who should refute the contradictors with a wholesome teaching.
e) Let the curse be upon me; for if they shall curse, thou, O LORD, shalt bless in return.
Given under the witness of our seal this 20th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1524.
38. Luther's sentences on the words of Christ: Go and sell all that you have and give it to the Amen.
It was dealt with in a public disputation in Wittenberg in April 1539.
This disputation is found in Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. X, 576.