of Cardinal Albrecht Preacher and Council.*)
January 17, 1522.
Translated from Latin.
As much as I was delighted by your Cardinal's writing, I was deeply saddened by your letter, my dear Fabricius. Perhaps this sad and unkind beginning saddens you, but through your own fault, since you have taken away the credibility and reputation of the Cardinal's letter by your so untimely oratory. For among many things that moved me was especially this, that you write that you 1) have taken a different way than we to promote the Gospel. For what is this but that either your way or mine is damnable, whereas the Spirit's ministry need not in the least be contrary to itself? For St. Paul also commands Titus [2 Cor. 12:18] to the Corinthians, because he walked in the same footsteps with him. I would have gladly, because I am favorable to you, alleviated this word "another way" by some interpretation in your favor, if you had not forced me to understand it this way yourself by your own interpretation: The gospel would be promoted if the princes were given credit for something, if they were spared, if their deeds were excused, and (as your words read) if we held ourselves in such a way that we did not
1) We have adopted here the reading of the Wittenberg edition: te instead of euin in De Wette. That this is the correct reading is not overturned by the fact that Seckendorf, lib. I, 175, reports that Capito wrote, "der Churfürst" nähme eine andere Weise vor 2c. For on the one hand, the Elector wrote on Capito's input; on the other hand, Luther calls this way of promoting the gospel "your way" even further in this letter.
wantonly challenged to a quarrel. This way of yours is, in my opinion, a real hypocrisy and denial of Christian truth, and actually "the reputation of the person" (προσωποληψίή), which Scripture so abhors that it rejects nothing more vehemently. Neither would I wish my enemies to put up with this opinion of thine; and so much is lacking in it, that I should wish the gospel to be promoted by this manner of thine, that rather I should not seek to avert anything more vehemently. And Christ grant, not that thou mayest do nothing, but that he may so keep thee with us that thou mayest do no harm.
You desire meekness and kindness, I know that, but what fellowship can a Christian have with a flatterer? Christianity is something open and completely sincere; it looks at things as they are in themselves, and that is how it speaks. Even the heathen wish all misfortune to those who flatter their friends' faults, and the truth of Christ should flatter vices and ungodliness?
But we also want to show you our way and confidently put it under your and the whole world's judgment, without any hesitation that you write that the common people get angry when people bite each other so violently. For whom did Christ not offend, or whom did he not punish? Also the spirit of truth does not punish or flatter. But he punishes not only some persons, but the whole world. Therefore, this is our opinion,
*This missive appeared in print under the title: Lpistola Imtberi utt VolkKunA Cabriciuru Oaxiutilissima. Also in German, but not by Luther himself, in the collection: "Urtheil D. M. Luther and Phil. Melanchthonis by Erasmo Roterodam. A Christian epistle from D. M. L. to D. Wolfg. Fabnt. Capitonem 2c. Christus Ablaßbrief" etc. For another edition with South German orthography, see Panzer, Annalen der älteren deutschen Litteratur, II, p. 70, no. 1324. In Latin, the letter is found in Aurifaber, vol. II, col. 36, and in the Latin Wittenberg edition, lom. II, iol. 305. German, however, completely deviating from zener first translation, in the Wittenberg (1569), vol. IX, p. 130b; in the Jena (1564), vol. I, p. 558; in the Attenburg, vol. I, p. 927 and in the Leipzig, vol. XVII, p. 606. Then still Latin in De Wette, vol. II, p. 129; thereafter we have retranslated the letter.
that everything should be blamed, punished, disgraced, nothing should be spared, nothing should be seen through the fingers, nothing should be excused, so that the pure truth may keep the field freely and publicly.
Furthermore, it is something else if you receive those whom you have punished with the greatest gentleness, tolerate them and stand by them. This then belongs to the example of love and service, not to the ministry of the word. For even Christ, after punishing all most severely, still desires to be a hen and gather them under his wings [Matth. 23, 37. Luc. 13, 34.]. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things [1 Cor. 13:7]. But faith, or the word, suffers nothing at all, but punishes and devours, or, as Jeremiah [Cap. 1, 10.] says, tears out, breaks, disturbs, corrupts, and [Cap. 48, 10.]: "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD recklessly."
It is, I say, another thing, my dear Fabricius, to praise or belittle vice, and another to cure it with goodness and kindness. One should say before all things what is right and what is wrong; then, when the hearer has accepted such, one should tolerate him and, as Paul says [Rom. 14:1], receive the weak in faith. But your way makes it so that the truth is never recognized, and yet out of flattery and false kindness it is thought to heal the hurt. Thus is fulfilled the saying of Jeremiah [8:11], "They comfort my people in their calamities, that they should esteem them little." And again [Cap. 23, 14.]: "They strengthen the wicked, lest any man turn from his wickedness."
Nor do I hope that we have ever shown ourselves in such a way that we could be accused of lacking love in welcoming and tolerating the weak, nor do we lack meekness, kindness, peace and joy when someone accepts our word and cannot be perfect immediately. We are content for a while that he has known the truth, has not resisted it, and has not condemned it. What we do after that is a work of love, which exhorts him to do what he has known. For if your cardi
nal had written this letter from the heart, I pray thee, how gladly, how humbly would we fall at his feet, and not count ourselves worthy to kiss the dust of his feet! Are we not also unclean and an impure pit of sin? Let him only accept the word, and we will serve him as servants.
But for those who despise or condemn the doctrine and ministry of the Word, or cunningly persecute it, we have neither grace, love, nor kindness, even though this is also the highest love, that their raging and ungodliness should be resisted with all our might in every way.
But if (as I suspect) your Cardinal has shown himself to be such a tremendous hypocrite according to your instruction, you see for yourself that we must not be moved by it. But you have not been able to deceive us either, because we also know the devil's thoughts very well and can both justify and condemn anyone from his words. Your Cardinal writes: he wants to do with God's help what is due to a pious, spiritual and Christian prelate. Well, if he says this in good faith, without hypocrisy, and you have not given him this, then his heart is certainly of such a mind that he wants to take off the cardinal's robe and the episcopal splendor and go to the office of the Word. But who will persuade us to believe this? It is impossible that he is on the way to beatitude until he has become a bishop of so many churches, while he is hardly able to administer a small parish. But it is hard that he should resign his office and become a parish priest. Say you, who would dare to ask such a thing of him? I answer, how then wilt thou be sure, unless thou reveal this truth unto him? Afterward show him favor and see through his fingers, but first show him, that he may know wherein he may sin or not sin. Afterward also diligence that he sin not, or if he have sinned, forbear him. But do not look through the fingers, nor forbear until you have made this known to him (ante scientiam). For so acts the cruel flattery which Christian or human leniency falsely invents.
Further, how can I also believe as true what you also write: the married priest is set free, and what he [the Cardinal] writes: the cause for writing my little book has long been stopped? Truly, a beautiful liberation! As if it would not have been better if he had been killed. You have forced him to conspire against his wife, against his conscience, about which he has now fallen into sadness. For God's sake, will you also tempt the Holy Spirit? Do you not persist in hating the priestly marriage as long as you do not revoke the forced abjuration and the tyranny of the executed divorce?
Here you may say, you excellent speaker: it was a whore. But you should have inquired about that before. And even if she had been a whore, why do you rage against him alone and walk past your Halberstadt, Mainz, Magdeburg and other innumerable whorehouses as if your ears had grown shut? You see, Fabricius, that your oratory is nothing in this matter. You should have been satisfied with him, since he confessed that she was his wife; or you should have refuted Paulum, who most clearly condemns such celibacy and calls it a doctrine of the devil [1 Tim. 4, 1. 3.]. But if he had lied that she was his wife, the danger would have been with him, but you would have been excused.
That you further pretend that in this new marriage a divorce would have been to worry about, if he had become tired of the marriage: I also do not consider such a pretension to be serious. For what does it matter to the purity of doctrine that wicked people abuse it? We do not ask you to provide us with a marital state in which there is no difficulty, but only that you do not condemn such doctrine and examples. We say nothing of priestly marriage, except that priests may live in wedlock according to God's word. Now the provost of Kemberg 1) is a man, to whom
1) Bartholomäus Bernhardi from Feldkirch. Cf. Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XVIII, introduction, p. 3, first columne.
To whom all things are praiseworthy, how then shall he be lightly reproached? Unless people have to be frivolous because you are afraid that they will become frivolous. But for the sake of your fear or my hope, nothing more or less happens to people, much less is anything changed in the words of God. Otherwise, we would not have to do anything according to the divine commandments because of this fear.
From this, my dear Fabricius, you can see how great causes trouble me, which is why I cannot believe that your Cardinal writes from the heart. Here I will remain silent about the great tyranny by which he pushed Andreas Kaugsdorf in Magdeburg from the preaching chair with such great shame, such a man whose equals the Cardinal hardly has in his entire country; you are not even sorry yet.
I ask you, dear Fabricius, do you look for such a man at Luther, who sees through the fingers to all that you undertake, when he alone is smeared with a letter of flattery, although you undertake such unspeakably evil things and do not let it suffice you that we are ready to forgive you for the sake of love and to have patience with you? Yes, you even demand that we should also judge you, that is, be so ungodly that we deny the doctrine. You tempt me, my Fabricius, enough and more than enough. ' I also answer you kindly enough and overly enough, for you see how much harsher an answer you deserved, because you not only do not do what I asked, but also mock and ridicule it, as you think yourselves to be, with excellent euphemisms, but to my mind with ridiculous and ludicrous pretexts. But in order that they [these pretexts] may obtain something, I will do myself violence beyond measure and not demand that you publicly recant your wickedness committed against me; you may see to it that you give Christ an answer for it. I will be silent and content if you henceforth do not engage in similar tyranny and let the doctrine of godliness be free. If you do not simply confess Christ and want to follow him, then follow your own things and only make yourselves miserable. Otherwise
We let the reins of our ministry flow and defend the divine doctrine with all our might, may heaven or earth or hell be angry.
Therefore, in Luther, as before, you always have a completely obedient servant, as long as you hold divine doctrine dear; on the other hand, you have a powerful despiser, where you and your Cardinal will continue to mock the sanctuary. Summa, let it remain so: My love is ready to die for you; but he who touches the faith touches the apple of our eye. Love shall be abandoned to you, you may mock it or honor it as you wish; but faith and the word, that is what we want, you shall worship them and consider them the holy of holies. To
Our love gives you all kinds of things, but our faith is always feared.
I will not answer your Cardinal, because I do not want to be able to walk the middle road safely, neither praising nor scolding his sincerity or hypocrisy. But from you he will hear Luther's spirit. And I, when I learn that he acts sincerely, will immediately pour myself out completely before him and fall at his feet. Farewell, my dear Fabricius, and do not doubt that my heart is righteous toward you. As you see, the matter is great and holy. We must be guided by this, so that we do not prefer our brothers and sisters to Christ. From my desert on the day of Antonii, Anno 1522.