End of February or beginning of March 1520.
To the prohibition note, which went out under the name of the Bishop of Meissen, because of the sermon on the Sacrament of the Supper, D. Mart. Luther's, Augustine's, answer.
To the Christian and godly reader [wish] Martin Luther, Augustinian, salvation in the Lord Christ!
1. these days a note has gone out, under the name of the venerable in Christ father and bishop of the church at Meissen, (as it is said) with previous advice and consent of his chapter, also with enclosed seal of the official office at Stolpen,
In which they decree and command that my preaching of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper be collected and preserved, because of the mobs and aversions and many other dangers which they claim might arise from it, merely for the sake of the one word that I have said: "It would seem good and beautiful to me if by decree of a common concilii it were brought about that the laity also be served both kinds."
Now, if they did nothing else but suppress my little books, I would gladly keep quiet, because I am of such a mind that I do not care whether someone acquires my things or leaves them lying around. I have served and benefited everyone for free and in general.
*) Luther made this more detailed Latin answer shortly after the German one, because he was already working on it on February 11, 1520. It appeared under the title: ^d seüodulam inkiditioms sud uommo opisooxi Misuousis editam supor sormouo do suorumouto ouokuristiuo Nurtim ImtUori ^nZusti. rospousio. The decree of the Bishop of Meissen is, in the original edition, appended to this writing, as Luther writes to Spalatin on February 11, and the Erlangen edition, opp. var. arZ. Vol. IV, p. 139, notes about the copy it uses. In the editions it is inserted under the heading Sotmdnlao touor the answer, after the fourth paragraph. This answer is found in the Latin editions: in the Wittenberg, Dom. II, toi. 30; in the Jena one (1579), Dom. I, col. 460 and in the Erlangen, oxx. var. arx., vol. IV, p. 138. We have translated from the latter by comparing the Jena edition.
give what I have received, without forcing anyone to read it. For what should I be deprived of, if many also reject the gospel itself? should I become mad because of it?
3. But since the author of this note, whoever he may be, has become so nonsensical that he is not satisfied with muting my things, but also presumes to accuse them of being redolent, vexatious, dangerous, sacrilegious, presumptuous, confusing, and bringing eternal death, which I have neither commanded nor advised, but have committed to the authority of a common concilii; which, moreover, are in the express text of the holy Gospel, and by long usage of the churches are common throughout the world: I have been forced to confront this raging Cananite and to receive his rage against the holy doctrine and life of Christ and against the reputation of the whole Church.
4 And here, you, my reader, are a witness, I exclude and want to exclude herewith the venerable in Christ Pater, the Lord Bishop of Meissen, whose scholarship as well as his life is unanimously much too famous for even a foolish person to think that he is the author of this atrocious writing. I have the same good opinion of the other canons of the same chapter. But there are only about two or three lickspittles, to whom I must answer, because they misuse the name of such a great bishop and that of the church as a cover for their ignorance and their envy, whom I do not name until they betray themselves, although I know very well that they do not stand in the same place, but nevertheless have the same mind and intention. 1)
(5) And that I begin with what they say is true, I am quite content that the decisions of the last Council be obeyed and that the laity be given only One Form. I also agree that Christ should not be in pieces, but entirely under each form, both of bread and of wine. And I ask all readers of this
1) The decree of the Bishop of Meissen is inserted here in the editions.
The people of the world are highly interested in hearing the note and following it in order to keep the bond of unity, which is much more important than the sacrament by which it is signified than by a sign. And who has ever read anything else in my books? Who has ever heard anything else from me? Does this sermon of mine teach something that is contrary to that?
Stand up, you excellent men, let your wisdom be seen, refer to Luthern! Where have you read what you are accusing me of? On whom, then, do you hurl these atrocious blasphemies and accusations? On a Luther whom you have invented in a fever or a dream? Certainly the pugnacious men, who are too well aware of their bravery, must neigh like a horse after a quarrel! And since there was no one against whom they could break out, they made up an adversary. Must you, scribblers, rage against the honor of an innocent man with such insolent lies?
7 But, they say, you approve of both being given shape; that is annoying and redolent. I answer: I have approved of it, but only if it were done by order of a common concilii. I have expressed this so clearly that envy itself is forced to include my words from the very Concilium. Is then with you, you stupid and unlearned envy, what a concilium has decreed, or will decree, or can decree, rottirerous and annoying? Why then callest thou not thy concilium redolent and vexatious? But, you say, my concilium is already ordered, but yours is not yet. What do I hear? but with such coarse heads one must act coarsely.
8 So I ask: is what a future concilium can decree redolent and vexatious? No! you will say. How, then, is speaking and writing of such a council's power, and wishing such things to be done, redolent and heretical or not? What do you answer here? Are you silent now, Envy? Answer, I say. If talking and writing about the power to decree something in the future Concilio is red-blooded and heretical, then all divine and legal scholars are condemned by these note writers, yes, even they themselves are red-blooded and heretical through
the testimony of their own mouths, who speak, write, boast so much about the painting of the pope and the conciliar, which has not yet happened, nor may it happen until it is ordered.
9. It will also follow, according to the testimony of these learned people, that Luther has so far happily and holily fought against no one other than the red spirits and angry people, namely those who extend the Pope's power into purgatory, into heaven, into hell, over the council and over everything in the world: and they do this not only with letters, but also with explicit assertion and teaching of that which is not yet decreed, nor perhaps will ever be decreed (which I have not done in this transaction, but merely indicated my desire and expected a concilium). And in short: according to this most learned theologian's doctrine, because it is not permitted to speak of future and possible things, one is also not allowed to wish for anything. Let us then stop preaching Christ and God, so that we do not become red-faced and angry at some point! Then it must also not be permitted to wish and ask what God can do in the future. For I have done nothing else than to wish that what the Church can do in a future Concilio should happen; and through this new fault I am angry, rebellious, sacrilegious, presumptuous, a turbulent disturber of the peace. There you see, O Envy! how wise and learned you are.
(10) How? if I say: it seems good to me that the priests should be allowed wives again by a concilium decree? am I also red-blooded and angry if I say that I wish what the church can do, merely because it is not yet so decreed and is now done differently? But then you will have to call Pins II, whose word this has been, red-faced and angry. And in this way one will not be allowed to say anything about the things that can be decreed in any future concilium, and these people, who otherwise are so excessively defiant of the power of the concilia, will all at once abolish all concilia, or at least impose a constant silence (which is much worse) on us, so that one cannot speak further of a concilium.
cilii power should speak. Thus must fall those who prefer Christ's most holy decrees to the vapor of their head. But since they are perhaps too stupid to understand this, I must act with them according to their bald conclusion, which they themselves have never understood.
(11) I therefore ask: If the donkey had feathers and flew, could I not say without sin: I would that the donkey flew, if it had feathers? So also here: If the Concilium decreed that both should be given form, then both would be given form. So then I ask: Whether I may not say, then, that I wish both to be given form, if a concilium so pronounced it? And what does my sermon speak but this conditional wish? And what does this tasteless and clumsy note call heretical, annoying, presumptuous, sacrilegious, other than this quite true and godly conditional sentence? But that's what scholastic and philosophical theology is coming to! This is the way they treat the best minds of youth, so that, as soon as they are presented with something other than their usual example, they understand so little of their art of reasoning that they declare a reasoning of one kind in one example to be just, Christian, catholic, and wholesome, which they condemn in the other as redolent, vexatious, seditious, and guilty of eternal death. Perhaps, just as there is no difference between them in any things or arts, so also error and truth, eternal life and eternal death are one and the same. So perhaps they will also know this conditional proposition: If the ass had wings, it would fly; or it is quite hackneyed with them through frequent use. But lead them with the same rule of reasoning into serious matters, namely into the holy Scriptures, and they will immediately make a devil out of Christ, a hell out of heaven, a heresy out of faith. And yet it is marvelous how they rage when we sigh that they corrupt the finest minds of young people by these useless studies of theirs, by which they dampen rather than promote good dispositions.
But let us come to the other piece (cornu) of the conclusion: When crying
If you are neither red-blooded nor angry in your desire, speech and wish of such things, which an artificial Concilium can decree, where then will you appear, you poor slips of paper? where your artists? where the right to forbid? where the satisfaction for the injustice, which has happened to Luther by this? Where will it end with the violence, the deceit, the treachery, the malice against the reputation of the conciliar and the obedience of the church, which is so highly respected even by yourself? Where is the account for so many souls, which this godless blasphemy has infected? Where the atonement (restitutio) for the godless obedience, which you have forced from the members (subditis) of the church of Meissen? Do you see your reward, you sacrilegious ignorance, which you had to receive cheaply, namely a wrong sense, to do what is not fit?
13 But, you may say, we feared that the Bohemians would rejoice at your preaching. I answer: the wicked must fear where there is nothing to fear. So be it, you wanted to keep the Bohemians in check, but for that reason you should not have condemned our freedom to speak of the power of the conciliation and our desire for it. For that is to fear the frost and to be showered with snow. Condemn the Bohemians in their schismate, that shall also be dear to me, but arrange it in such a way that this is done without injury to love and truth, so that the Bohemians do not mock you and say that you cannot attack a lesser evil without causing a greater one, nor escape the Romans without killing Christ, after the example of your father Caiaphas. Is this not more than being foolish and destroying your house in order to ward off foreign things, and yet not winning?
(14) Behold, the Greek priests have wives; may it not therefore be said and desired that by a concilii decision our priests also be given wives, because with such speeches we would be right with the Greeks? or who, for this reason, has ever been thought a Rottirer or an angry man, that in this he had the same opinion with the Greeks and desired the same for ours, although he could not do it, because the statute and custom of the church now prevented him from doing it?
For who is there among honest men who, out of pity for our priests' great danger and annoyance, would not gladly wish them this freedom of the Greek priests today? And you, wretched note, wanted to turn them into the spirits of the mob because of this Christian wish, for no other reason than because, if the Greeks heard it, they would want to strengthen themselves from it and rejoice over it? What are you raving about, most nonsensical larval face?
See then, my reader, my happiness. Until now I have been punished for talking about faith, hope, love, mine, knowledge. Now I am punished for wishing and desiring. For these dear people go about that I should not wish and desire anything; perhaps they will even want to forbid me the Lord's Prayer and all wishes, so that I wish neither good nor evil for themselves. But what shall I do? I am a human being, have a spirit whose desire, because it is immortal, cannot be subdued. And because of great love they do not allow me to wish evil, but they do not want to wish good either. What shall finally become of it? They will probably still forbid to have thoughts, or to write and talk about thinking? Finally they will even make a heresy out of the fact that I am alive, and yet they will not consider dying good: so much is taken by the exceedingly scientific (scientificissima) theological bungling that has arisen from the puddle of their philosophy. And yet these are the people who govern the nations, ward off the aversions, and lead Christ's sheep to eternal life, as it is written [Matt. 15:14.], "One blind man leadeth another, and both fall into the pit." O how furious and mad would these stolts, or rather dolts, 1) run upon me, if I had pronounced with such blasphemous and impious doctrine: that one might not speak of the power of the concilia, nor desire an ordinance from the same power! And indeed justly, for what could there be, according to their own judgment, more annoying and blasphemous?
1) In Latin stolpenses-ssu potius lalpenkss.
The latter word from talpa, the mole.
the? Armed with such weapons, the brave war heroes not only teach the Catholics, but also defeat the Bohemians and the red spirits, who, through the prince of devils, are taught to cast out devils!
16 After we have seen with how much godliness and erudition they have refuted my things, it is also worth the effort to see with what strong reason they prove theirs against me. They will no doubt teach us what it means to fight for the honor of the holy church and for the salvation of souls.
First of all, they say: It is the statute of the last Lateran Council that only one form is given to the laity. When the Bohemians read this, what do you think they will say? For the very learned idea (idea) of this note must consider the Bohemians not as men, but as mere blocks and sticks. For what can be more mundane and foolish against a schism or (as they call it) an error of a hundred years, than a decree of scarcely ten years? and that from such a concilium, which the Romans themselves mock and almost the whole world? And even if it were as valid as that at Nicaea, would it not still be ridiculous that the error could not be refuted with evidence older than itself? What heresy, what error has been overcome only from doctrines that arose after it, and from which it did not arise? But what glory of victory is this, if you do not overthrow an old heresy with greater power than by setting up an opposing human opinion of quite recent times? And yet this custom of refuting errors prevails at the present time. That is why we argue so happily, that is, we are laughed at most disgracefully.
(18) I do not say this to reject the statutes of the Concilii, but that I am angry with these coarse heads who, with their untimely and vain refutation of the errors, make a mockery of us all among the Bohemians, of whom we know that they want to have testimonies of the Scriptures and of the old fathers, and yet we hold nothing against them but the newest balderdash of the newest men. However, I do not want
The Bohemians defy, nor do they all laugh at these two or three completely unlearned lickspittles. There are others who advise the use of one figure and have better reason for it than these rascals.
19 But now they [secondly] go along with their main reason, namely with the word of that wise man [1 Sam. 15, 22.]: "Obedience is better than sacrifice." From this they conclude, according to their marvelous inference: one must obey the latest Concilio. If now here a Bohemian asks: Where then was this obedience ten years ago? Do you then admit that we have been obedient for such a long time before until this your Concilium? What will they say here? I know they will not be silent. But I think they should not have made such ridiculous fool's talk because of the adversaries with the words of the Scripture in this note. For if once the Bohemians turn this saying more strongly against us and claim that they obey the Gospel, but blame us for not obeying it, since Christ has instituted both forms in it, and this is also confirmed by long use in the church, and say: Obedience is better than sacrifice, and the obedience of God must take precedence over the obedience of men; what then will our patrons, the glorious conquerors of the mobs, answer for us? 1) Perhaps they will be sorry that they have cited this scripture and given the sword into the hands of the adversaries; unless they wanted us to offer the bare head to the sword of the enemies. So these people write that they are satisfied that it is only written, but what, why and to whom they write is not their concern.
(20) But it grieves me exceedingly that a matter of faith and church should be undertaken by such unskilful people, and should be acted upon in such a lukewarm manner, that one feels nothing in them but envy and malice, because all that they write is so bare, dull, and ineffectual. What should they do against the devil's mighty cunning?
1) Here we have followed the Jena edition: rssxonäeduut. In the Erlangen: ässxonäsdunt.
and thoughts are able to play for the church, which are so weak in bad things, yes, so? So the whole paper, which wants to argue against errors, has only this single scripture, which it attracts very unhappily. Everything else is human slander and blasphemy, since such a one who goes out under the bishop's name should also present the bishop's person, that is, be full of scripture. I therefore consider the obedience of the council to be good, but I would like it to stand on its right and certain foundation, so that it does not gain the reputation among the adversaries, as if we neither knew about what is ours, nor could defend it rightly, as these unfortunate scribblers bring us into disrepute.
After that, one comes to the quite flush art, which I would have believed to find neither in Meissen, nor Leipzig, nor Dresden. Dear reader, you would think that Orpheus was playing here. Therefore, dear reader, stand up and open your mouth wide, for it is truly no small matter, namely: that Christ is completely present under both forms. With what faithful care for the people and with what wordiness do these careful people teach! Do you wonder why? I wonder myself also. For it is certain that neither the Bohemians, nor Luther, nor any heretic ever taught the opposite. For although the Picards deny that Christ is under either form, they do not say that he is only under both forms at the same time, either completely or in each of the two forms, as they dream.
22 Since these wise and highly learned people do not seem to speak completely into the wind, nor to argue with larvae, it must also be believed as an article of faith that they have known and still know against whom they speak, especially (as said) with such noise. And it is not believable that they argue against night ghosts and their dreams, by which their reputation and their wisdom would suffer a terrible blow. So who can pronounce these miraculous things of men?
23. it remains only that they wanted to prove in this way their wit and their art quite clearly, but about it also a cowherd would like to laugh. First has
they alone were driven by the mad rage to make Luther highly hated by the people under this pretense, as if he taught by a new heresy: Christ is not completely under either of the two figures. In order to hide this mad desire and not to seem so malicious, they have devised this beautiful way of speaking, yes, this trick, probably for a carnival antics, not obviously to accuse me of this heresy, but nevertheless under the accusation to indicate the Catholic counter-teaching, so that the people under the accusations would also draw the poison of this suspicion.
(24) And this, of course, was a clever trick and a little piece that could have moved a simple-minded person, if not (as Hilarius says), by God's government, prudence could do as much as ungodliness takes the liberty of doing. For since they wanted to fulfill what is written in Proverbs 26:18, 19: "As the man does harm who shoots spears and arrows to death, so does the man who deceitfully harms his friend, and when he is afflicted he says, I was joking," what is written in Cap. 11:6: "The wicked will be caught in their wickedness," and the saying in Ps. 9:17: "The sinner is entangled in the works of his hands," has happened to them. For if I ask, Why they have dragged me through the worst under the name of this outrageous heresy? they will answer: We have not done this, but have taught the people wholesome things, and have casually adduced this, that is, we have done it in jest. So they hope that they have done it in such a way that they have made me an abomination at the same time, and yet I cannot blame them for such a scoundrel.
(25) But the wretched and stupid people have not begun wisely enough to cool their heads in this; their own speech convicts them of this. For why have they so fearfully raised up and dragged out my word, which I used in German: "stücklich," which they give in Latin: partialiter, so that the people should not understand that Christ is only in bits and pieces under one form, but that they thereby clearly indicate that they not only speak to the people, but at the same time want to defile my sermon with this tremendous heresy: as if it were a matter of the law.
I would never have thought this in my heart, or they could take it from my words in any way. Yes, rather, I am sure that they have not understood my words in any other way than from the figures, because it is quite obvious that they speak of the sacrament or the figures, but not of the body of Christ, and yet they twist them in this way to the essence of the sacrament or to the body of Christ out of tremendous impudent malice in order to make me hateful. Who, I pray you, should not be surprised at such very honest people? Who should not praise their excellent art? who have no compunction about deceiving the people so diligently with the very worst lies, to their neighbor's undoing.
26 Now, my reader, see what kind of people I have to deal with; I have to endure such treacherous, malicious, deceitful and godless instructors. The church has such fighters, protectors and defenders, the faith has them, the Roman pope has them.
27 But as envy is slippery and wants to be wise, they will say, We did not say this deceitfully to harm you, but have thus forestalled it, that people might not misunderstand your ambiguous word. I answer: Why did they not also take care in their note that people would not misunderstand their ambiguous word to my detestation? Why do they tolerate so little in my words, since they are fast asleep in theirs? Yes, why do they demand from me what they diligently avoid? Although my words are so clear, then also the sacrament and the body of Christ, which everyone can understand, are so widely distinguished from each other that here not even
the slightest ambiguity can be assumed. But this Zettel's fury is so obvious and the words so slippery and ambiguous that no man's mind can take anything from them but the utmost malice and the most shameful desire to harm.
(28) Further, if they are so ignorant that they cannot distinguish the sacrament given piecemeal from the body of Christ given piecemeal, why do they not rather herd swine than write notes to instruct the people? For since a note going out in the name of the bishop must also indicate a perfect knowledge of the Old and New Testaments, according to the shape of the two-pointed bishop's hat 1): it cannot be other than the highest shame and disgrace if only one bishop were found who did not know how to distinguish the Sacrament from the Body of Christ, which are so distinguished that not even the morning and the evening can be so widely distinguished from one another.
29 Here you see, my reader, what it is to confess the truth at this time, at least in my example. What is left now but that these highly learned men, as is their custom when they answer me, pass over the matter and do not touch it at all, but only attack me with invective? I expect this and will, God willing, show how a note must be composed that wants to come to light under the name of a Catholic bishop. However, take good care, godly reader, and beware of people.
1) The two points of the bishop's miter should signify the Old and New Testaments.