I. Controversial Writings Against the Error of the Sacrament First Introduced by Carlstadt 1).
In the two previous volumes, the most important of Luther's writings against the papists have been included. But unfortunately, the papists were not the only opponents of Luther and the Protestant doctrine and practice, but also from the former friends of Luther and alleged lovers of the truth, adversaries arose, against whom he had to fight in order to maintain the right doctrine and holy life. The first one against whom Luther had to turn of necessity was his college Carlstadt.
Andreas Rudolphi 2) (or Rudolphus) Bodenstein (usually called after his birthplace Carlstadt) was a native of
1) In this presentation we have used Jäger's monograph: "Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt", Stuttgart, 1856.
2) In the letter of Veit Kornmesser from Stuttgart to Carlstadt of July 10, 1507, which precedes Carlstadt's writing ve inttzntionilms, Idpsiue 1507, he is addressed as N^Zister Andreas UudolpUus, vulM Lodenstkin Oarlstudius, and in Eck's letter to the Elector of Nov. 8, 1519, Wittenberg edition, vol. IX, p. 76, he is called "D. Andre Rodolphi von Carlstad."
Carlstadt in Lower Franconia, in the former diocese of Würzburg. Very little is known of his youth; all that is known is that he was a few years older than Luther and had spent time at several non-German universities for the sake of his education. When he was appointed to the philosophical faculty of the new University of Wittenberg in 1504, he was already Baccalaureus of the Holy Scriptures. He attained the dignity of a Sententiarius 3) in 1508 and two years later he was awarded a doctorate in theology. As the current dean of the theological faculty, he conferred the doctorate on Luther in 1512. As long as he was sententiarius, he drew his income from the lower canonry of the All Saints' Collegiate; but as soon as he became doctor and was assigned the theological professorship, which had been taken care of by the departure of Jodocus Trutvetter, he received the dignity of archidiaconus at the collegiate church associated with this professorship and drew his income from the parish in Orlamünde, 4) which he was assigned by a vicar (at his request).
3) For "Sententiarius," see Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVIII, Introduction, p. 3, Note I.
4) This later provided him with the opportunity to enlist as a pastor in Orlamünde.
costs) had to administer. His earliest writings belong to the scholastic philosophy, are without special significance and show only a scholastic of ordinary stroke. The most important thing about him was, also according to his friends, the Thomist. In the time of his transition from scholastic philosophy to theological scholasticism falls the first original idea that suited him, namely to combine theology and jurisprudence with each other, a fixed idea that still shows itself in his later disputations of the year 1518^ and caused him to make an ignominious journey to Rome. Because this trip gives us a deep insight into his character, we describe it here in more detail.
In a lawsuit, where the castle owner Anton Niemeck of Wittenberg had sued him for an overdue house rent of twelve florins at the collegiate court, Carlstadt refused to comply with the court's decision against him and "appealed to papal holiness". This appeal, however, was declared inadmissible by the chapter, and the Elector gave him a sharp reprimand for the same?) reminded him of the rights and privileges of the collegiate court and gave him to understand that he would assist the court. So he had to let the appeal stand, but through it he was brought to the idea of going to Rome to study law at the university there. Therefore he addressed a petition to the chapter, in which he asked for leave, so that he could undertake a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had vowed to do five years ago, when he was attacked by robbers. The Chapter brought this matter to the University, which, through its Rector Wolfgang, Count Palatine on the Rhine, declared that Carlstadt's request could not be denied "if what he wrote were otherwise true. It was added, however, that it had been learned that he wanted to study law in Rome; this was not possible according to the spirit.
1) Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 595, Thess 37.
2) Here, in Jäger I. e. p. 4, there is probably an error in the time determination: "Beginning of April (8. Vinaentii) 1515", because Vincentius is January 22.
The law forbids the clerics to do so. Therefore, he was to be expressly forbidden to do so and to be promised that after four months he would return home and in his absence would provide for a deputy "who would administer his prebend and dignity onera". The Elector confirmed this declaration on Wednesday after Corpus Christi (June 13) 1515. As his official administrator Carlstadt proposed a quite inept "white monk", who had to be rejected, especially since he himself did not want to accept because of the obligations he had towards his order. Carlstadt rode to Torgau to the Elector, who rejected him and wanted the matter to be settled by the Chapter and the University. Nevertheless, Carlstadt claimed that he had received a longer leave from the Elector, and the Chapter remained silent out of respect for the will of the Elector. Carlstadt now rode around the country for several weeks, probably to collect mild contributions for his pilgrimage). For a long time it was not known where Carlstadt was, until it was finally learned from Rome that he was there "in a Copistery Substitute". He had not taken care of the administration of his office, and, as the chapter indicated, it was also difficult for him to get someone: "because no one wants to have to send him gladly, for his sake". At the same time, however, he was constantly striving "to obtain the income of his prebends and dignity to follow him to Rome and to study law". Instead of four months, he stayed away for almost a full year. When his income was withheld after the expiration of his leave, he wrote an impudent letter from Rome to the Elector on November 13, 1515, in which he frankly admits that he is in Rome "in order to study," asks that "the fruits of my archidiaconate, which are rightfully due to me," be given and followed, and promises to order "the burdens of the church" which are incumbent upon him after he has received an answer from the Elector. On January 16, 1516, after receiving a report from the chapter, the Elector issued the following order to Carlstadt
3) It was a common custom to beg for the money needed for a pilgrimage.
to return immediately, but he did not obey. Only when the Elector threatened him in a second letter of February 23, 1516, that his offices would be regarded as done and that he would be reassigned if he did not dispose of his "residence" "between here and Sanct Johannis Baptistä Tag," did Carlstadt set out on his journey. At the beginning of June he appeared at the court in Torgau and began his defense with a lying accusation against the chapter. The Elector sent (on June 4, 1516) Carlstadt's slanderous writing to the Chapter, but the Chapter decided to ignore the matter. On June 16, Carlstadt again served as dean of the theological faculty at Wittenberg.
While Carlstadt was hanging around in Rome, a great change had taken place in Wittenberg. 1) Luther had come to the fore among the docents there. As Staupitzen's deputy in the vicariate of the order, he had become one of the most influential personalities. In the pulpit and on the chair he had often sharply attacked the prevailing scholasticism 2) and was therefore also exposed to many attacks on his part. Shortly after Carlstadt's return to Wittenberg, the controversy erupted with the Luther-inspired "Theses on Man's Fortune and Will without Grace," 3) defended by M. Bartholomäus Bernhardi from Feldkirch. Amsdorf, who was initially alienated by the wording of these theses, was converted, but Carlstadt and Peter Lupinus 4) were "fiercely hostile" to Luther. In the course of the disputation, Luther declared the writing De Vera et falsa poenitentia, attributed to Augustin, to be spurious; 5) but this very writing was the main authority
1) Misled by the wrong dating of the letter to Joh. Lang (it is from Feb. 8, 1517; Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVIII, 16 ff.), Jäger I. e. p. 6 also transfers Luther's attack on the Aristotelian system to the year 1516.
2) Cf. Weimar edition, vol. I, 142; Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XVIII, introduction p. 3, col. 1.
3) Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, col. 3 ff.
4) Cf. Tischreden, Cap. 37, Z 7. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 1014.
5) Cf. Luther's letter to Joh. Lang of September or October 1516. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 554, K 3. - Because of Amsdorf's idid-, Col. 555, Z 5 to end.
for the penitential theory of the Middle Ages; Carlstadt took serious offense at this. But already in the spring of 1517 he came out in favor of the Augustimsmns and the nice direction. On the Sunday of Misericordias Domini (April 26) 1517, he proposed 152 theses on the opposition of nature and grace. Luther was delighted with them and wrote to Scheurl on May 6: "Praise be to God, who again commands that His light shine forth from darkness." Still in the late year of 1517, Carlstadt edited Augustine's writing De spiritu et litera, which Luther mentions with praise in a letter to Spalatin 6) of January 18, 1518.
Carlstadt was also slow to catch up with Luther in matters of indulgences. Still on February 15, 1518, Luther wrote to Spalatin, 7) that Carlstadt did not share his opinion that indulgences were of no use at all, except for those who were sleepy and lazy in the way of Christ, even though Luther knew that Carlstadt did not consider them [indulgences] to be anything. About the same time, Carlstadt comments against Spalatin in a letter dated February 5, 1518 8): "But how our university at Wittenberg could be established and ordered, so that it could be a model for others, I want to talk to you about this orally." But it almost seems as if he had mainly sought his own benefit with the intended reform of the university. For already on February 6, 1518, he speculates, allegedly in the interest of the university, in a letter to Spalatin 9) on the position of a terminally ill canonicus. Another letter of April 11, 1518 10) reveals even stronger things in the same direction. Carlstadt had secretly encouraged the students that they, together with some magisters, should bring a petition to the Elector, in which it should be demanded that the Elector give Carlstadt an ecclesiastical prebend and dispense him from the church services connected with it, so that he could now,
6) Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 1978 f., 8 4.
7) Walch, old edition, vol. X V, appendix, no.4, tz.4.
8) Erlanger Ausgabe, Briefwechsel, Vol. I, p. 147, toward the end of the letter.
9) Oerdksii Misoell. Oron. VII, x. 307.
10) Ibid, x. 303 "M-
where the university, which is threatened at the moment by terrible enemies, needs expedite defenders, is not inhibited. He himself knows and says that the pretext of imminent danger is untrue, but excuses it with the fact that it is only a matter of asserting an occasion (occasio) "of which a secret suspicion (ssersta msus), which usually foresees the future, either fears or hopes that it will occur. Spalatin was supposed to write this petition for him under the name of his audience (in rsm M6LM sub auäitorum psrsona). The students, however, did not want to hand over this writing themselves, so Carlstadt was forced to send it to Pfeffinger. But on May 21, the matter was not yet settled, for in a letter of that day, Carlstadt still urgently asks Spalatin for his endorsement.
A desirable opportunity to enter the literary arena and to win honor there, 1) Carlstadt found, or rather, he brought it about, by turning the private dispute 2) between Eck and Luther, which had only been conducted in writing, but not through published books, into a public one by publishing at least a part of his 405 theses (402 by Carlstadt; with the addition of three theses by Luther 405. Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVIII, 590 ff, and the introduction ibid., pp. 23 ff.), which he had printed during Luther's absence 3) without his knowledge and will, made a public one. Both, Eck as well as Luther, wanted the dispute between them to end with Luther's only handwritten reply (his "Asterisks", which Luther had not had printed for Luther's sake) to Eck's "Obelisks"; this, however, was prevented by Carlstadt's unauthorized premature intervention; and the dispute continued, as such in the 18th volume of our edition.
1) In the Tischreden, Cap. 37, 8 4, Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 1012, Luther says: "Everything that Carlstadt also began, he began for the sake of vain honor."
2) This is how Luther describes it in a letter to Scheurl of June 15, 1518. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 596.
3) Luther was in Heidelberg at that time for the meeting of the General Chapter. Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, Introduction, p. 3 f.
is set out in detail, so we must pass over it here.
At the Leipzig disputation, Carlstadt's inferiority against Luther had become apparent, and this was pointed out to him in some writings of friend and foe. 4) From this arose a jealousy against Luther, and he became inaccessible to his counsel. Therefore, Luther had to turn to Spalatin with the request that he give Carlstadt the advice that he should either not revile in the same way again or not answer at all to Eck's unprecedentedly impudent and impure book 5) published against him. In the first heat, Carlstadt had started to answer Eck's writing and had given his reply the title: "Wider den ganz unvernünftigen Esel und angeblichen Doctor" (Wider the completely unreasonable ass and alleged doctor). 6) Spalatin's council was accepted by Carlstadt; he worked the writing ^lm and published the same (but still sufficiently coarse) at the end of February 1520 under the title: Oovkutatio Xvärsas Earolostaäu säita aävorsns äsksnsivam spistolam 3ok. Rekii 6to.
Also Luther's judgment on the Epistle of Jacob, which he had expressed for the first time in his "Erläuterungen über seine zu Leipzig disputirten Thesen" in August 1519, 7) must have aroused Carlstadt's anger already at that time, because in the writing Do soripturis oavoviois, whose elaboration he began in the late year 1519, 8) he made coarse, malicious attacks on Luther because of this view. "If on any point," says Jäger ("Carlstadt," p. 68),
4) Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 68.
5) The title of the same is: kontra Martini I^u<icier odtusum propuAnatorerri ^närearn Unäolpki Loäenstein. Oarlstaäiuin etc... Dpistolackekensivu. Wiedemann, "Eck", p. 512. In the way we have indicated, Luther characterizes Eck's book against Carlstadt in a distant letter to Spalatin of February 8, 1520. Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 55.
6) Luther's letter to Spalatin of February 5 (8 ^xatdae; not February 9) 1520. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 670. - Wiedemann, "Eck," p. 149, seeks to create the impression as if Carlstadt's writing had really appeared under its first intended title, and completely ignores the reworking that occurred.
7) In the explanation of the 7th thesis. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVIII, 858.
8) The dedication of this writing is dated August 18, 1520, so it must have gone out in August.
"Eck has had a brilliant success with his suspicions, so it is just this, that he caused the beginning of the discord between Carlstadt and Luther." How far Carlstadt's suspicion against Luther went, we can see from several statements of Carlstadt in the above-mentioned writing, in which he states that Luther, out of grudge and resentment against him, suspected the Letter of Jacob, which he (Carlstadt) was explaining, 1) among the students and caused them not to attend his lectures. Still in the same year (the dedication is dated November 4, 1520) Carlstadt published a German reworking of the same writing under the title: "Welche Bucher biblisch seint", which is quite different from the Latin one. The polemic in it was mainly directed against the papacy and the theology of the monks, but was considerably more moderate against Luther. Carlstadt's attacks were completely ignored by Luther, his polemics were not answered anywhere, although Luther repeated his judgment on the Epistle of Jacob in the writing "Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft der Kirche" ("On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church") at the beginning of October 1520, 2) in the "Vorrede zum Neuen Testament" ("Preface to the New Testament") 3) from 1522 and elsewhere quite decisively. Luther's silence may have moved Carlstadt to this moderation.
In the meantime Eck had returned from Rome with the bull directed against Luther, in which Eck had also inserted Carlstadt's name. This forced Carlstadt, who had initially refrained from any direct public attack on the deeply rooted ecclesiastical abuses, 4) to take a firm stand against the papacy. He had no choice: either he had to recant his teachings or expect the papal ban. This was not without a severe inner struggle, for his mother and his numerous relatives urged him to submit to the pope. Just here is probably the most appealing trait in the entire
1) In the spring of 1520, Carlstadt explained the Epistle of Jacob in his lectures. The poor attendance at these very lectures must have annoyed him, who liked to boast of the large number of his listeners. Cf. Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 11.
2) Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XIX, 119 f.
3) Walch, old edition, vol. XIV, 105.
4) Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 70.
Life of Carlstadt. He had to fight down great fear and despondency, but through the view of the suffering and resurrection of Christ, a great martyr's enthusiasm was ignited in him, of which his "Missive von der allerhöchsten Tugend der Gelassenheit" (Missive of the Highest Virtue of Serenity), addressed to his mother and relatives on October 11, 1520, 5) bears beautiful witness and at the same time reveals to us the inner motives of his open break with the papal hierarchy. Already on October 3, Luther wrote to Spalatin 6): "The book of the captivity of the church will go out Saturday. Carlstadt, too, has made his decision and is attacking the Roman pope." In an unbelievably rapid succession, various writings by Carlstadt against the pope and his followers went out: on October 15, 1520, his "Answer, consecrated water, against a brother, Johann Fritzhaus called, Holzschuher Order"; before October 16, 7) his "Condition"; on October 17, the relatively large pamphlet "Von päbstlicher Heiligkeit"; on October 19, his "Appeal to a Papal Holiness". On November 4, the Blich vom Canon (vo soripturis eanoniois), which was reworked into a pamphlet directed against Rom; then still in 1520, but not before the end of November, a lost pamphlet against the theologians of Louvain, who had burned Luther's and Carlstadt's writings; in addition, a series of disputations in which Carlstadt attacked the pope. This polemical activity continued into 1521. He also directed his attacks against the colibate and monastic vows, against the mass and images.
By the end of 1520, Carlstadt's connection with Luther and Melanchthon had loosened considerably, and this relationship remained unchanged at the beginning of the following year. Therefore, in the spring of 1521, Carlstadt accepted with great willingness an appointment offered by King Christian II of Denmark to
5) An extensive excerpt from this paper is given by Jäger l.c., p. 131 ff.
6) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 40.
7) i.e. before the papal bull became known in Wittenberg (Jäger l.c., p. 142); on October 16, the text of the bull became known there. (Jäger l. c., p. 145 and p. 162.)
in which he was given the task of initiating and carrying out the Reformation in Copenhagen under the immediate protection of the king. Carlstadt arrived in Copenhagen in May. But already on June 21 we find him back in Wittenberg, where he opened the attack on the celibacy of priests and monks with a disputation (of 7 theses, which he had had posted on June 20 1). The reason that Carlstadt had to return home so soon was that the Danish king, as a result of the serious crimes he had committed, was no longer free enough to enforce his reform plans, and therefore had to enter into negotiations with Rome. During the time that Carlstadt was in Denmark, namely on May 26, 1521, a general new code had been completed there, which, as one must conclude from several strange reform ideas contained therein, must have been passed with Carlstadt's assistance. In it, intercourse with the Curia and its jurisdiction are inhibited, and a royal court is established for ecclesiastical matters as well. The 17th article states: "No prelate, priest or clergyman is allowed to buy land if he does not want to follow St. Paul's teaching, 1 Tim. 3, take a wife and live in holy matrimony like his old forefathers. Thus, celibacy was punished with loss of the right to acquire landed property, though not outright forbidden. Furthermore, it is determined that "in the future, no nun may be clothed before the age of 25; that begging is forbidden to all monks who "lightly belong to the actual mendicant orders", and so on. He had not been able to bring these ideas to life in Denmark, but in Wittenberg (Luther was absent at Wartburg Castle) he was now able to take the first step, to move from theory to practice, and to take a reformatory stand. Scholl, in the first week after his return to Wittenberg, began the most violent attack against celibacy and monastic vows, so that it can be assumed that the events in Denmark
June 20.
had a determining influence on him. 2) The second thesis of the above-mentioned disputation: "Those who have not become married should not be called to the so-called holy orders," almost coincides with the 17th article of the Danish Code, except that this thesis goes even further and amounts to a prohibition of celibacy. The 5th thesis reads: "Religious, if they are in violent heat, may marry; but they sin because they have broken the first faith; however, he who does not abstain and sins in heat admits a greater evil than he who marries." The 6th thesis allows priests to marry "without sin" because they have promised chastity only "as far as human frailty allows." Within a very short time, two important writings on the same subject followed; on June 24, 1521, his larger writing: "Von Gelübden Unterrichtung. Interpretation of the 30th chapter of Numbers, which speaks of vows. This booklet concludes by holy scripture that priests, monks and nuns with good conscience and divine will may marry and enter into matrimony, unsought Roman dispensation, which is also quite unnecessary - and gives counsel that the above-mentioned persons throw off their gleißnerisch life together caps and balls 3 and enter into right Christian life." 4) Five days later, June 29, 1521, he wrote the explanations of his seven theses under the title: Do eoslibatu, nionaebatu et vickuitate, which were shortly followed by a larger edition enriched with additions under the title: 8upor ooolib., monaeb. ot viäuit. ^xiomata psrponsa WittsmberZae ote. As we see from Luther's letters to Melanchthon, the latter writing arrived on August 3, 5) 1521 in Luther's
2) Thus Jäger I. c. S. 175.
3) More often: "Gugel" - hood.
4) Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 177.
5) This letter is in Latin in Aurifaber (Vol. I, 346) and in German in Walch (old edition, Vol. XV, appendix, No. 100) from the year 1521, without a more exact time determination. De Wette (Vol. II, p. 37) gives as a guess "about August 6, 1521". In Kolde's ^nalecta Imtderarm, p. 33 ff., where the wrong readings are corrected from the original and the missing pieces are included, the time determinationpw- is found at the end of the letter.
1521, which Kolde has erroneously resolved with "26. Dec. 1521". Necessarily fit the day rwve-rtr Ktexdani, that is the 3rd August, to understand. That
Hands, and he is particularly critical of Carlstadt's use of scriptural passages that do not belong to the matter. The opponents would make fun of his distortion of Scripture. On August 6, 1521, he expresses the wish against Spalatin 1) "that Carlstadt's writings be more luminous" (plus lueis linderem), and is surprised that one goes so far in Wittenberg "that even the monks should be given wives". From this latter remark we see that Carlstadt, who had always lagged behind Luther in his doctrinal development and often followed him only with some reluctance, now that he had a free hand due to Luther's absence in Wittenberg, preceded him in his action against the Roman Church. In the same time with the two aforementioned writings falls his writing dated June 24: Von den Empfahern, Zeichen und Zusage des heiligen Sacraments des Fleisches und Blutes Christi (No.1 in the appendix of this volume). Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 203, says of it that it forms the transition to his cult reforms.
Already at that time Luther expressed his concern that Carlstadt would put his attacks into action and would not let himself be admonished by any warning. In a letter to Spalatin 2) of August 15, 1521, Luther says: "It is an excellent thing that he has undertaken, and a very good endeavor, but I also wish,
p. 34); but already on September 9, 1521, in his letter to Melanchthon (Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XIX, appendix, no. 18), Luther retracts his favorable judgment of this writing. Luther expresses (Kolde 1. 6. p. 34) his astonishment that his "Magnificat", which he had sent to Spalatin on June 10, 1521, was not yet finished. On August 6, 1521, he also writes to Spalatin (De Wette, vol. II, p. 41), "I ask you, is my Magnificat not yet finished?" On July 31, 1521, Luther gives Spalatin a negative answer (De Wette, vol. II, p. 33) to the request that he give an expert opinion on the proper establishment of a Christian Gymnasium, and reports the same matter to Melanchthon in our letter (Kolde I. c. p. 35). More could be mentioned, but we refrain from it, because Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 803 aä p. 497, has anticipated us in the correct determination of time.
1) Walch, old edition,- Vol. XXI, 759.
2) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 73.
Luther's Works. Vol. XX.
that it is done in an excellent, right and skillful way. For you see how great clarity and evidential power (evsrZiue) the adversaries demand of us, so that they slander even that which is completely obvious and entirely suitable. So much the greater care must we take, who are a spectacle to the world, that our word may be blameless, as Paul teaches. I may care for strange things, but they are not strange things if his presumption has continuance. For what is more dangerous than to invite such a large group of unmarried people (euelibum) to marriage with such unreliable and uncertain passages of Scripture, so that afterwards they are tormented by constant anguish of conscience, and worse than now? I, too, desire that the celibate state be abolished (eaelibutum libsrum Leri), as the Gospel requires; but how I am to prove this firmly I do not yet know sufficiently. But I remind this in vain; perhaps he does not want his course to be hindered, therefore it must be let." From these words of Luther we see that he did not take offense both at Carlstadt's results and at the way in which he substantiated his doctrine, and at the impetuous haste with which Carlstadt urged the people to act without first having fortified their consciences by clear irrefutable Scriptural proofs. Carlstadt let himself think that it was enough if one had the truth; then one could immediately put it into action. Luther, on the other hand, demanded that consciences also be secured against all doubts and challenges by a firm conviction of the truth from God's Word before they were prompted to act. As long as the conscience could not be bound by a compelling proof from God's word, practice had to be delayed. In order to advise consciences in such a way, Luther sent his "Theses on the Vows and Spiritual Life of the Monasteries" 3) to Wittenberg in September 1521, the first of which reads: "Everything that does not come from faith, that is sin." In the letter that Luther wrote on September 9, 1521, at the same time as the just-
3) Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XIX, No. 172. b
When he sent the theses mentioned above to Amsdorf 1), he remarked: "I am saddened about Carlstadt; although he could easily be resisted, our opponents would be given an opportunity to boast about our internal discord, to the great annoyance of the weak.
Melanchthon was significantly influenced by Carlstadt. On Michaelmas 1521, he took communion with his students in the parish church of Wittenberg under both forms. 2) In October, the mass service in the Augustinian monastery was completely stopped as a result of the sermons which Carlstadt's zealous follower, the Augustinian monk Gabriel Didymus (Zwilling), had given. He outdid his master and taught not only that malt should not adore the Sacrament, 3) that one alone could not celebrate Mass without sin, but rather that all who were present at Mass should partake of the Sacrament, etc., but also that (in order to make the celebration of the Lord's Supper similar to the first celebration of the Lord's Supper) always twelve should partake of the Sacrament under both forms with the one who celebrates Mass. On October 17, Carlstadt held a disputation on the celebration of the masses, 4) from which it emerges that Carlstadt was initially almost completely averse to the reform plans of the Augustinians at Wittenberg, that he only denied the elevation, the sacrificial idea and the communion under one form, but that he considered the worship of the elements, even the celebration of the mass by an individual, permissible, if he only enjoyed both forms in faith. Still in November, Carlstadt published two writings concerning this matter, one on November 1, 1521: "On Worship and Reverence of the Signs of the New Testament"; the other, whose epistle is dated November 11: "On Both Forms of the Holy Mass" etc.
1) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 97, § 3.
2) Cf. the introduction to the 19th volume of the St. Louis edition, sub Xo. IX, a. of the second section, p. 50.
3) Zwilling, however, did not want this to be understood in absolute terms, but explained that he had only "rejected the worship of the sacrament outside of the use and action of the Communion. Seckendorf, Nist, butb., 11b. I, x>. 216, e.
4) Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 220 ff.
The agitation in Wittenberg increased. The prior of the Augustinians, Conrad Helt, repeatedly complained about the innovators to the Elector. On October 30, he complained that the worst agitators among his monks were foreigners from the Netherlands and, with the exception of two, guests who had no authority in the monastery. He asked the Elector not to make the monastery pay for the excesses that had occurred; he expected the vicar of the order to take appropriate measures to restore the old order. The Elector replied that the settlement of the matter had already been entrusted to the Academy and the Chapter. A few days later, on November 12, Helt wrote to him: things were worse than before. No one is doing anything to stop it, and exciting sermons of the innovators are repeated again and again, especially in the monastery church. In these sermons, the people are incited to hatred, even to acts of violence against the monks and destruction of the monasteries. Thirteen monks had left, were prowling around the city and inciting citizens and students against him, the prior and his faithful monks who had stayed behind, so that they were not safe for an hour in their monastery. He therefore asks the Elector for his protection, and that the council admit the runaway monks back into the monastery, or, if he does not want this, that they be expelled from the city, especially one of them who is about to marry and has applied to the council for citizenship.
Soon after, Spalatin had to report to the Elector that the Rector of the University had declared that they could not agree on the matter and that therefore a settlement of the matter could no longer be hoped for by the University and the Committee. Until then, the movement had been limited to the Augustinian monastery, but now, at the beginning of December, it also took hold of the municipality and the university. On December 3, the Senate wrote to the Elector that "some of our high school and also some laymen of our fellow citizens took it upon themselves this Tuesday morning not to permit the priests in the parish church to celebrate mass in the manner that had previously been the custom.
According to credible reports, the students involved had bare knives under their skirts, the priest, when he stepped in front of the altar, carried away the missals and drove all the priests from the altars; the priests, who had gone very early to sing the tides of our dear women, were thrown stones etc. The answer of the Elector was, as before, that the University and the Chapter should unite in common steps. On December 4, the riots were repeated. Threatening letters were posted at the Barefoot Monastery, the monks were taunted by a mob of students (about forty) and prevented from holding mass. The monastery had to be guarded during the night against an attack threatened by the students. On December 6, Baier reported to the Elector that the committee appointed to settle the matter had made the definite statement that it could not decide on a unanimous answer because the views of the members were too different, but that the troublemakers, some Erfurt students, should be punished. Violent preaching against the mass continued, and only in the castle in the All Saints' Church did the old cult remain in progress, because one shied away from the wrath of the Elector; only some canons and priests had their windows broken. These events prompted Luther, immediately after his return from his secret visit to Wittenberg (early December 1521), to write: "A faithful admonition to all Christians to guard against sedition and outrage" (St. Louis edition, vol. X, 360, and introduction, col. 50). He sent it to Spalatin with the meaning that it should be printed as soon as possible. It appeared on January 19, 1522, in which he teaches that the Pabst's kingdom cannot be destroyed by fist, but only by God's word. Impetuous interventions and acts of violence on the part of those who boast of the Gospel would give the enemies of the right doctrine desirable cause for blasphemy, and also anger and repel the weak. But also among some members of the chapter the mass had come into such contempt that the two deans of the chapter had already on
October 9, 1521 to the Elector, 1) there was a lack of priests who were willing to hold the masses newly founded by the Elector.
In the meantime, the part of the university members favorable to the abolition of the mass, among them Carlstadt and Melanchthon, had drafted a declaration to the Elector, in which they stated that the abolition of the annoying abuse of the mass was quite harmless, and if some Pharisees were annoyed by it, one should let it go and keep to Christ's commandment [Apost. 5, 29.]: "One must obey God more than men. Since several members of the Senate and the Chapter refused to accept this declaration, it went out on December 12, 1521, signed by the Rector of the University, Carlstadt, the two Schurf, D. Wild, Melanchthon, Amsdorf and Bockenhein, to which D. Baier submitted an additional report. Jonas and Feldkirch also joined them. The adherents of the old rite, mostly members of the chapter, also turned to the Elector and demanded protection for the old rite in churches and monasteries. The Elector, however, ordered on December 19 through D. Baier to the university members that they should refrain from any reorganization of a new rite of mass and not allow anything of the kind to their own. However, they were to "take the matter into further and greater consideration, and also to discuss, write, read, and preach about it," and in doing so to keep to the reasonable measure, "so that nothing other than the honor of Christ is sought therein.
Carlstadt had not said mass for a long time. When it came his turn, the other canons celebrated for him. But when he preached vehemently against the mass, they refused to stand up for him any longer. In response, Carlstadt declared in a sermon on December 22 that if they forced him to say Mass in this way, he would say a "Protestant Mass" on the next New Year's Day, as Christ had said and instituted it. This reported
1) Compare the introduction to the second section of the 19th volume of the St. Louis edition sub No. IX, b, p. 51.
the canons to the Elector, 1) whereupon he sent a ban against such innovation. But Carlstadt, who had stopped preaching for some time, now appeared again three times in a row with polemical sermons and took the decisive step on Christmas Day, which he had previously intended to do only on New Year's Day. On this day he first preached a sermon from the pulpit "on the reception of the holy sacrament". Then he went immediately to the altar, read the Mass canon up to the Gospel, but omitted all ceremonies of "shielding and fencing with the crosses", the whole sacrificial service and the elevation. Then, without previous confession, he distributed bread and wine to the people with the words of distribution used by Christ at the institution. Carlstadt also seems to have touched other innocent customs already at that time, because the councilors wrote to Baier (Corp. Ref., I, 512) that they heard that Carlstadt should not be willing to put on chasuble, alb 2) or surplice to the [Protestant] mass. From now on, the people stayed away from all other masses.
Already the next day, on St. Stephen's Day, Carlstadt took a second decisive step. In the presence of Jonas, Melanchthon and many other university teachers, he got engaged to Anna von Mochau, the daughter of a poor nobleman, and on this occasion he married a priest with his cook. In order to make the affair quite conspicuous, Carlstadt intended a particularly grand wedding celebration, to which he also wanted to invite the entire university and the council, yes, he even sent an invitation to the Elector on January 6, 1522. On January 5, 3) he had a "Sendbrief D[es] W[ürdigen] Andren Boden meldende seiner Wirthschaft. Neue Geschicht 4) von Pfaffen und München zu Wittenberg" in which he harshly criticizes the priests "who keep cooks in such a form and do not want to take women",
1) This is probably meant by "the duke" in Jäger I. e. p. 254.
2) This is probably meant by the word "Almen" in Jäger I. c. p. 257.
3) This time is given by Jäger 1. e. p. 257.
4) "Geschicht" is after Burkhardt, p. 44, set instead of "Gezeit" in Jäger.
praises the marriage state highly and calls on the priests to marry. He now announces that he is engaged and that the wedding has been set for St. Sebastian's Eve 5), and he now invites to his wedding.
The next day, on St. John's Day (27 Dec.) 1521, the Zwickau prophets appeared in Wittenberg, namely the cloth weaver Nicolaus Storch, another cloth weaver and Marcus Thomä Stübner, who had previously studied in Wittenberg and had therefore become friends with Melanchthon; Melanchthon accommodated the latter in his house. These people pretended to be called to teach by a clear direct voice of God, to have confidential conversations with God, to see the future, yes, to be new prophets and apostles. 6) In particular, they challenged infant baptism on the grounds that only those who believed could be baptized. They made a great impression on Melanchthon, especially their argument about infant baptism he could not resist. Amsdorf, later the strictest guardian of the pure faith against all false teachers and enthusiasts, thought it best at that time not to see or hear the new prophets at all, because he was still too much of a novice in the Holy Scriptures. In the whole of Wittenberg they caused a great stir; people talked almost exclusively about them. On the very day of their arrival, Melanchthon wrote to the Elector 7): he had strong reasons not to despise them: the matter moved him more than he could express; one had to let Luther judge the effects of the Spirit in them. He urgently wanted Luther to return to Wittenberg, because the enthusiasts had appealed to him; but this was not a sufficient reason for Luther to come out of hiding. In a letter to Melanchthon dated January 13, 1522, Luther gives the latter detailed instruction on how to test such spirits according to the Scriptures.
5) Since St. Sebastian is the 20th of January, not this day but the 19th of January will have to be assumed. Hunter I. c. S. 258 has the 20th of January. Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 516 has the correct date; likewise Kolde, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 34.
6) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 520.
7) Oorp. Not. I, p. 513 8Y. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2366.
8) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 103.
have. He asks him to investigate whether they can prove their divine calling. If they claim that they were called by direct (nuda) revelation, they should not be accepted, for God never sent anyone whom He did not either call through men or confirm by miraculous signs, not even His Son. With regard to infant baptism, he states that infants, brought in by foreign faith, receive their own faith in baptism. Luther disapproves of Melanchthon's shyness toward the prophets and already at the end of this letter holds out the prospect of his return soon, "because the translation [of the Bible] will require him to return." For a longer time these enthusiasts had their being in and around Wittenberg and recruited followers. Among others, a studied theologian, Martin Cellarius (Vorrhaus, a native of Stuttgart), fell in with them and became particularly persistent. Only some time after Luther's return from the Wartburg, after Luther had had a personal meeting with some of them in the beginning of April 1522 1), did they turn away to Kemberg.
We are not told that these prophets participated in the cult reforms in Wittenberg, but they gained a significant influence on their kindred spirit Carlstadt and his followers. Meanwhile, the innovations continued. Before New Year's Day 1522, the congregation of Wittenberg sent six articles to the city council, which they insisted on accepting and carrying out, declaring that they were determined "to stay with it, to leave their possessions, life and limb above it. The content of these articles has recently been as follows: 1.
1) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 776, § 4. - According to this, the information of the Cordatus "1521" is to be corrected. Tischreden, cap. 37, § 1. Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XXII, 1010. - Cf. also § 2 therein. - In September 1522, "the prophet prince Claus Stork" was with Luther. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 106. St. Louis edition, vol. XXII, appendix II, no. 125. - On April 12, 1522, Luther wrote to Joh. Lang: "The prophet Marcus together with the Zwickau prophets were punished and reminded by me; unwillingly they went away. One of them got into such a rage that I have never seen a more furious person." Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 105.
Allow everyone to preach the Word of God freely. 2. all forced masses are to be stopped. 3. all masses in which Christ's body and blood are not eaten and drunk, such as requiems, funerals, vigils, fraternity masses, wedding masses, votive masses, shall be stopped. 4 No one shall be forbidden or deprived of either form. 5. and 6. the drinking and whorehouses shall be abolished. The council immediately sent these articles to the Elector, who, however, said that they should wait "until he proposed an order. The congregation was not content with this, but already on New Year's Day more than a thousand people received the sacrament under both forms, just as many on the Sunday after (January 5), and likewise on Three Kings' Day. Carlstadt preached twice every Friday, and almost "all the people in town" attended; many who had not come to a sermon in the past now missed none. Even before January 20, they proceeded to establish daily German morning and evening services instead of early Mass and vespers; the early service with reading of a section of the Old Testament was to be provided by Jonas, the vesper service with reading of the New Testament by Carlstadt. Immediately after his marriage, Carlstadt set out to fortify the reforms and ensure their further development through a congregational ordinance. On January 24, the city council and the university agreed to the same. In this document, in addition to provisions for an orderly care of the poor, were these two laws:. 1. that to avoid idolatry, images and altars should be removed from the churches, and only three altars, without images, should be left as sufficient; 2. that the mass should be held strictly according to the institution of Christ. The entire Canon major and minor were to be omitted as not in accordance with Scripture, and immediately after the Consecration, which was to be recited publicly and in German to the people, the Communion was to follow, whereby the communicant was to take the host and the chalice into his own hands. - Only the abolition of images was postponed; according to Baier's report of January 25, there were disputations on this question, with Carlstadt and his followers mainly relying on the
Decalogue and at the same time vividly attacked the service of the saints.
In the aforementioned community order, the iconoclasm had already been prepared, but Carlstadt found it necessary to justify this enterprise together with his newly ordered care of the poor in a special writing "On the abolition of images and that no beggar should be among Christians". The letter to Count Wolf Schlick of Passau is dated January 27, 1522, in which the fight against images is confused and mixed with the fight against the service of images, which in turn is confused with the fight against the service of saints. He also complains about the timidity with which the execution of these resolutions is delayed in Wittenberg; he has done his part and must leave it to God, who guides the hearts to good.
Around this time, namely in the last days of January, the morning and evening services had really come to life; Carlstadt preached daily in the evenings. In this activity he was supported by the Augustinian monk Gabriel Zwilling, who on New Year's Day 1522 in Eilenburg had already given the sacrament to about 200 people without prior secret confession, only on a general confession 1) under both forms, whereby he gave them the hosts in his hand and had the chalice passed from hand to hand and officiated in a long black student's skirt. These two stormed and agitated incessantly in the pulpits against the Mass, confession, priests, images and the like, and called upon the congregations to act and change on their own authority. That it really came to tumults as a result of this, we can see from the report of the Electoral Plenipotentiary, Haugold von Einsiedel, to the Elector of February 14, 1522: "that the riot that has taken place comes from no other than D. Carlstadt's and M. Gabriel's sermon"; and from other passages it appears that this riot consisted mainly in violent destruction of the images. The Augustinian monks not only removed the altars from their church except for one, but also burned the
1) Seidemann, Erläuterungen, p. 43: [He has] "vne alone die offene schuldt vorgesprochen".
holy images in the church. 2) Already on February 3, Einsiedel had admonished Carlstadt in a letter to be more careful, not to do anything that would annoy the common man and not improve him, and also to refrain from preaching the word where he was not especially called to do so, so that it would not seem as if he had "more desire to promote his own fame than to seek the salvation and fruit of men through the word of God. To this Carlstadt gave an impudent reply the following day, February 4. Among other things, he says: "Therefore I remain firmly grounded in the divine Word and do not allow myself to err in what others teach; I also know that I can annoy no one but unbelievers." It behooves him to preach in the castle, even though, without a formal profession, "he also acknowledges himself guilty of preaching God's word in other ways. If I am an unworthy doctor, why should I not preach? At the same time, Einsiedel had asked Melanchthon (also on February 3) to admonish Magister Gabriel, about whom it was said that he sometimes "spoke inflammatory words, with instructions on how this and that should be changed by the congregation, ... from which sedition can cause discord and outrage," from his pernicious actions. In Gabriel's case, Melanchthon's ideas seem to have been successful, for he left Wittenberg shortly thereafter 3) and was proposed by Luther to the city of Altenburg as a preacher on April 17, 1522. But still
2) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, 516. - Should not perhaps be read "images of saints"? although Duke Georg in his letter to the Elector of March 21, 1522 (Seckendorf, nist. Imtksr., Ub. I, p. 218, y.) mentions that "the images of God and the saints are miserably broken or disgraced"; because also the last expression seems to indicate that not all images were destroyed. Compare the conclusion of note No. 1 on page 13 of this introduction. Although it cannot be denied that according to Carlstadt's doctrine all images, including the crucifixes, were to be destroyed (cf. Köstlin, I. 6. p. 805 aä p. 540), it is not proven that this was actually done.
3) On February 14, Einsiedel wrote to the Elector that "Mag. Gabriel has turned away from Wittenberg, perhaps in response to the letter that I sent next to Philippo.
4) Cf. Luther's letter to the council of the city of Altenburg. Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, 2411.
On February 5, Melanchthon wrote in his answer to the above-mentioned letter from Einsiedel: "He has often spoken such opinions with Gabriel, and has also asked D. Carlstadt to moderate himself; but I cannot hold my breath. In any case, through his inciting sermons, he also helped cause the iconoclasm in the parish church. The reason by which Carlstadt and Zwilling persuaded "the common man" to intervene with a stormy hand was: "that the common people might well have power to do something in negligence of the authorities, out of a compassion and love". Now (about February 6) it was publicly announced on which day the pictures should be taken out of the parish church. This day will probably be February 7.
1) We are moved to this very probable time determination by the following circumstances. In the aforementioned letter to Einsiedel of February 5, Melanchthon does not mention anything about these events; likewise in the letter to Spalatin of February 6 (Jäger, I. o. p. 280). On the other hand, we find the electoral commissioners gathered in Eilenburg on February 8 to discuss how to prevent further innovations and put an end to the rebellious activity. They agreed to issue a "reproach" to the chapter and the university, in which they were to be told what a stir the innovations had caused throughout the empire and how these innovations were not so essential that such danger should be dared on their account. In particular, however, it is to be noted with regard to the images: "if they had not been taken away so suddenly, cut up and burned, and if those to whom it was due had been willing to remove the image out of a good concern: nevertheless, it should not have been publicly proclaimed on what day the work should have been done, and has served nothing else than to incite the common man to a riot or a heated mind. "Nor would it have been unskilful if one had not so nearly hurried with things that were not so important. . not so nearly hurried." It seems to us from these words undoubtedly that at this time, on February 8, the iconoclasm in the parish church was already accomplished. Jäger <1. a. p. 281) understands it of something then still future, "what Carlstadt and his followers intended and openly demanded". Köstlin seems to have overlooked this passage, for he says (Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 518): "We know nothing more about the form of that storm against the images." But it seems as if neither in the church of the Augustinians nor in the parish church all the pictures had been removed, since the commissars agreed (on February 8) "to work toward the removal of the pictures in the churches (i.e., not only in the collegiate church, in which they had remained untouched, cf. Seckendorf, Hist. I,utd., 111"). I, p. 218, H.) remain until further notice." (Jäger I. 6. p. 282.)
have been. The images were "suddenly taken away, cut up and burned". Already on February 8, Carlstadt had been named by the chapter before the electoral commissioners assembled at Eilenburg as the author of the innovation, and at the negotiations of the commissioners, which took place on February 13, he himself had to admit that he had caused the tumult in Wittenberg. Carlstadt had to promise "to refrain from such preaching in the future, and if it did not happen, he would willingly suffer punishment for it. Amsdorf took over the office of preacher and offered to instruct the people in order from the pulpit. The university declared to the commissioners that it agreed with the provisions of the new municipal regulations concerning the images, but that only the authorities and those appointed by them had the right to lay their hands on the images, and that they wanted the matter to proceed decently, "but the fact that some have handled it clumsily is through no fault of our own, and the violators have been punished in part by the council, and some have escaped. 2)
But still other evils had arisen from the activities of Carlstadt, as we hear from the report of Fröschel, an eyewitness: when Luther had come again to Wittenberg, the second Diaconus had to stand with the sexton next to the altar in the chair and sing the Introit, the Kyrie eleison etc. during the service, "because there were no pupils in the boys' school who helped to sing". "The situation of this boys' school was such that no more students went there, for it had fallen apart and had been turned into a bread house or bread bank, and the boys' school had been torn apart and caused to be torn apart by three men who would also have liked to tear down the laudable university here, where Philippus Melanchthon and D. Hieronymus Schurff had not gnawed so fiercely and stood and rebelled against them with all their might." These men, namely D. Carlstadt in his lectures, Frater Gabriel in his
2) Jäger, 1. o. p. 283. In Köstlin, Vol. I, p. 517 towards the end, is a somewhat inaccurate account, in that this is attributed to the "Rathe" what was stated by the university.
Sermons in the pulpit and M. Georg Mohr, 1) the boys' schoolmaster, with his sermons in the school and out of the school in the churchyard - "all of these have pretended that one should not study, nor keep a school, neither a special school for the youth, nor a university for the others, nor should anyone receive a doctorate, neither baccalaureate nor master's degree nor doctorate in all faculties, for Christ himself would have forbidden such Matth. 23,10. 2) The schoolmaster also preached from the school in the churchyard and admonished the citizens and burgesses and asked them to take their children out of school, which was also done most vehemently in the pulpit by Frater Gabriel and D. Carlstadt in his lectures. So that at the same time many of his ingenues left, when I saw and spoke to some of them who passed through Leipzig and said that they wanted to go home and learn a trade, that they were no longer allowed to study. It was not until 1523 that Bugenhagen reestablished the boys' school. Carlstadt also went to the citizens in the Hällser and asked them "how they understood this or that saying in this or that prophet?" When the citizens wondered: "You should tell us!", Carlstadt answered that God had hidden such things from the scholars (Matth. 11. and Luc. 10.), that the disciples of the Lord had been much more learned and had understood and interpreted the prophets and the Scriptures much better than the scholars of that time. Also "they [Carlstadt, Zwilling and Mohr] pretended that no learned man should be accepted as preachers, as priests in the church, nor suffer, but only laymen and craftsmen, who alone could read".
As a result, the university was in danger of becoming deserted. Many students moved away from the university, others were called away by their sovereigns. 3) The preachers of the old
1) The latter also soon resigned, as did Zwilling, and continued to be a faithful pastor for many years. He is still mentioned in Luther's letters in 1545.
2) Cf. Tischreden, cap. 9, § 2 and cap. 67, § 9. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XXII, 358 and 1529.
3) We learn this from the instruction of the Elector to the bailiff Johann Oswald at Eisenach of
and the new cult reviled each other in the pulpits "with the expression of their names. Although the council of Wittenberg had originally wanted to preserve the old rite of mass, Carlstadt changed it on his own initiative, first in the monastery, then in the parish church, "whereupon in the parish one was held in a sust, the other in such a way, without order and chasuble. Then, on the advice of the university, the council adopted the new congregational order in order to ward off the boundless arbitrariness and to establish a uniform "manner and form". The movement and confusion also spread to the neighboring areas. The young theologians were almost all infected by Carlstadt's doctrine and his addiction to changing the outward customs, and continued to spread it in all directions. As early as March 1522, Luther and Melanchthon were prompted to oppose such aberrations in Silesia by letter. Unrest and confusion of a similar nature also occurred in Erfurt, 4) so that Luther found himself moved to travel there in October 1522 and preach there.
The Imperial Regiment in Nuremberg, which was responsible for the government during the absence of the Emperor, had repeatedly received complaints about the events in Wittenberg, especially from Duke George of Saxony, who had been a member of the Imperial Regiment since the end of 1521. What he had to complain about, we can see from his letter to his cousin, the Elector, 5) of March 21, 1522. March 1522: in Wittenberg and other cities of the Elector, communion was taking place in both forms, the laity were touching the sacrament with their hands, it was being confirmed [consecrated] with German words, the blood of Christ was also being consecrated in common cups, the monks were throwing off their holy garments and using worldly clothing, the priests were taking women, the altars were being destroyed, the images of God and of the saints were being miserably broken or disgraced, the widows were being given the sacraments, and the saints were being given the sacraments.
March 3, 1522. Oorp. Recorm. I, p. 559, Xo. 201. Excerpted in Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2376 f.
4) Cf. Luther's letters to Joh. Lang of April 12, 1522 and to the Erfurters of July 10, 1522. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 105 and Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XIX, 962 ff.
5) Seckendorf, Hist. I]utli., Ud. I, x. 218, y.
In Eilenburg, they stormed the pastor's house, and one of them rode into the church on a donkey. And the Elector let all this happen with impunity, while he could easily prevent it. For, although the images had been taken away from the parish church, they had remained in the cathedral [the collegiate church], because he, the Elector, had ordered it that way, although the most distinguished canons 2) had been the authors of the fact that the images had been taken away from the parish church. Whoever does not prevent such an outrage, where he can and must do it, is equally guilty with the one who commits it. On January 20, 1522, the imperial regiment issued an order to all bishops to take all violators of the old ecclesiastical order into sharp interrogation and to punish the guilty, and called upon the Elector to report on the innovations and to prohibit them with severe punishment. The Bishop of Meissen indicated to the Elector that he would send virtuous preachers 3) for the upcoming festive season to proclaim anew the old orders of the church and to make known the order of the imperial regiment. Shortly thereafter, the Bishop of Merseburg also reported that he would comply with this decree. Both therefore asked the Elector for his protection and assistance in his territories. About this matter, the Elector now sought Luther's advice and had an instruction drawn up for Johann Oswald, 4) bailiff in Eisenach (on March 3, 1522), 5) in order to negotiate with him about it, and also to urge Luther that he should
1) oräinÄtiontzrQ, This probably refers to the new "Municipal Code".
2) Ounonioi priniurii. With this, Duke George will aim at D. Carlstadt and the provost Jonas; but the latter had nothing to do with the iconoclasm.
3) One of these preachers, who accompanied the bishop on his visitation journey in April 1522, was Luther's bitter enemy, D. Dungersheim (cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XVIII, 462 and Introduction, p. 21), who preached twice at Herzberg on April 2. Förstemann, neues Urkundenbuch, p. 19.
4) Erlanger Ausg. Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 292. In excerpt, Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2376,
5) Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 44. Cf. De Wette, vol. VI, p. 579, note 7.
Luther did not want to return to Wittenberg, because otherwise the pope and the emperor would demand that Luther be handed over to them. Luther announced his intention to come to Wittenberg in a letter to the Elector 6) in the last days of February. In this letter he consoles the Elector about the events in Wittenberg. He should not hesitate; "it is not yet there that Satanas wants. "It must also be fulfilled in us 2 Cor. 6, [4. 5.]: "Charge us prove [as the servants of God] in riots," etc. "E. F. G. has now had long years of applying for sanctuary in all lands; 7) but now God has made E. F. G.'s desire and sent home, without all cost and effort, a whole cross with nails, spears and scourges. I say again grace and happiness from God to the new sanctuary." The Elector should not be frightened, but let the nails go in deep, thank God and be happy: "so it must and shall go whoever wants to have God's word." In response, the Elector, in order to keep Luther from returning, hurriedly sent a "gracious concern," 8) which still came into Luther's hands on the evening of February 28, but the Instruction of March 3 did not reach him, 9) for on March 1 Luther set out on his journey.
On the way, on March 5, 1522, Luther wrote his famous heroic letter to the Elector 10) at the escort in Borna, so that he would not be "distressed by the hearing of his future" and the Elector would "think that I have much higher protection than the Elector.
Luther arrived in Wittenberg on Thursday, March 6, 1522. With his friends, namely Melanchthon, Jonas and Amsdorf, he made more detailed inquiries about the events and conditions in Wittenberg.
6) This letter is in Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 32 and an excerpt from the same vol. XV, 2375 f. - The university and the congregation in Wittenberg had also asked Luthern to come. Ibidem, vol. X V, 2389, § 4,
7) Cf. the introduction to the 2nd section of the 19th volume of the S't. Louis edition, No. XI, d, p. 50.
8) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2378, § 1. We share Köstlin's opinion, vol. II, 805, that this "concern" is not identical with the instruction to Oswald.
9) Seckendorf, Hist. I,utk., Ub. I, 217,1.
10) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2378.
On Friday, March 7, Luther wrote a statement to the Elector explaining why he had returned to Wittenberg against the will of the Elector. 1) The following Sunday, Invocavit, Luther again ascended the pulpit in his parish church and then, in eight successive days from March 9-16, delivered Eight Sermons against D. Carlstadt's Innovations in Wittenberg (No. 1a in this volume), in which he does not attack Carlstadt's teaching, indeed, he does not even mention his name, but reminds the Wittenbergers of their lack of love, which they have displayed in their wild goings-on. The mass is not to be done away with by violent intervention, but by the word, lest the good-willed weak be vexed and lost by the guilt of those who give the offence; "for faith wants to be willing and undemanding, and to be accepted without compulsion." Similarly, he speaks of other things, such as: the taking of the Sacrament with the hands; the receiving of the Sacrament in both forms, that no one should be forced to do so; the images and the confession that the Wittenbergers had made. However, after introducing the reader to the circumstances under which Luther preached these sermons, we refrain from further communication and refer to the sermons themselves. The success that these sermons had is surprising. Peace was completely restored, and no one dared to speak publicly against Luther. The form in which these sermons have been preserved does not come from Luther himself. The first two sermons are in the Latin Wittenberg Ansgabe, Tom. VII, col. 273 and 274b with the wrong year 1521. The first sermon has the strange superscription: Luth. sermo,
1) The declaration to the Elector is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2388; moderated and changed, same Col. 2396. The letter to Spalatin of March 7, 1522, Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 14, and De Wette, vol. II, p. 145, is, as De Wette has already suspected, une ch t. This letter is a translation of the largest part of a letter to Hausmann, which is found in De Wette, Vol. II, p. 151, and in Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, 2404, from § 2 on. Erlanger Ausgabe, Vol. 53, p. 112 ff.
mira brevitate, quid Christiano praestandum sit, expediens. 1521. Walch and the Erlangen edition bring "Vorstehende Sermone in einem anderen Abdruck" (in this volume no. 1b) next to the previous redaction. Because they are incomplete, full of errors, and several times meaningless, we have not printed all of them, but only the first two, so that the reader can judge for himself that the omission of the remaining six is justified. A short Summarium (we consider it a third redaction) of the first five sermons (2) is in all editions, but under different titles and with different time determinations. This writing has passed from the Jena edition to the others. We would like to assume that (because the Jena edition went out under Amsdorf's auspices) it originated from Amsdorf's pen, not from Luther's. For on March 1, Luther writes a letter to Luther. For on March 7, Luther writes to the Elector: 3) "The other [cause] is that in Wittenberg, through my absence, Satan has fallen into my hurdles and, as all the world is now crying out and is also true, has brought about several things that I cannot satisfy with any writing, 4) but must act there with my own person and living mouth and ears." After these words, it seems quite unbelievable to us that Luther, a few days before his departure from the Wartburg, had set out to dampen the unrest by this written address to the Wittenbergers. Whoever will take the trouble to compare this writing with the Sermons will hardly be able to doubt the identity of both. What is still noteworthy in this matter has already been stated in the first note to No. 1a; as a supplement, we only want to add that the title in the Leipzig edition reads: "D. Mart. Luthers Schrift wider die bei seiner Abwesenheit durch D. Carlstadt zu Wittenberg angeichtete Neuerung" (Luther's writing against the innovation caused by D. Carlstadt at Wittenberg during his absence), without any time determination; however
2) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2370.
3) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2390, § 6.
4) In the first redaction of this letter, the words are instead: "But if I had been able to help the cause with letters, as before, it would not have been necessary to call me. This is changed, however, so that it is not revealed that the Wittenbergers knew about Luther's whereabouts.
this writing is attached to those of 1522.
Luther was anxious to make known in wider circles what he had preached in these sermons. Therefore, around the middle of April 1522, he sent out a booklet with the title: "Von beider Gestalt des Sacraments zu nehmen und anderer Neuerung, D. M. Luthers Meinung" (No. 2. in this volume), which, as he wrote to Spalatin 1), he had in progress on March 30. On April 12, he reported to Johann Lang, 2) that it was under press. In the first days of May, it had already been submitted to the Imperial Regiment in Nuremberg. 3) According to the words in his letter to Duke Johann Friedrich 4) of March 18, 1522: "I have directed my letter of both forms and with hands to attack" etc., one would almost think that he was already talking about this writing at that time, especially since the contents of this letter can be seen as a summarium of it. From this writing we also see how little Luther allowed to remain of the innovations made in his absence, 5) at least for a time, until the common man would be better informed by the gospel. With respect to this, Luther advised the following: Mass [Communion] should again be held in Latin according to the old custom, with consecrated garments, with singing and all the usual ceremonies, because such is an external thing, without danger to the conscience. The priests, however, should avoid all words in the Canon and in the Collect that refer to the sacrifice. This could also be done, because it is in Latin, without the annoyance of the common man. In the pre
1) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 83.
2) Ibidem No. 105.
3) On May 14, Hans von der Planitz wrote from Nuremberg to the Elector that Duke Georg had sued Luthern because of this booklet at the Imperial Regiment and had also sent the booklet. The Duke's messenger had to wait about 10 days for an answer, but received no other reply than that because Archduke Ferdinand had arrived, he was "burdened with great impecuniosity". "However, one wanted to look at it and then decide what was fair in it. Kolde, Friedrich der Weise, p. 63.
4) Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. X, 2226.
5) See in this paper § 46 ff.
The words of institution of Holy Communion should be well practiced, because the words (that they are well taken to heart) are more important than the forms. In taking one or both forms, one should follow the custom of a place and not do anything special; if one is asked, one should confess that taking one form is not evangelical, but not erect both forms again with the act or ordinance. This is justified even more strongly by Luther. Furthermore, no mass should be held where communicants are not present. The corner masses are to be rightly abolished, but one should not tear the priests from the altar who want to hold them. They must be preached against and the people must be told that there is nothing to it; then they will fall of their own accord. Confession is not to be commanded, but much less to be resisted; Luther advises that before going to the sacrament, one should confess with pleasure, for the sake of absolution. Having images is not wrong, but worshipping images is forbidden by God. Images can be used rightly and well. We cannot prove that it is right to burn, desecrate and destroy them for the sake of possible abuse. The devil has forbidden the marriage of priests and established the monastic state. They should confess that marriage is free for them, and they may leave the order, even if it annoys whoever wants to. Fasting and the choice of food are not commanded by God, but one should not use one's freedom in these things to the annoyance of the weak, nor should one want to prove oneself as your Christian by eating meat on Friday and the like.
After Luther's return, Carlstadt remained quiet for a few weeks, but in offended pride he resented the fact that he had been so shamefully disgraced with his innovations. Secretly, therefore, he sought to take revenge on Luther. He secretly wrote against Emser, in which he also casually attacked Luther. The latter may well have heard about Carlstadt's intentions, so he privately exhorted him in a friendly manner not to publish anything against him; but Carlstadt almost sacredly prayed (paene
sanots) that he would not write anything against Luther. However, already on the same day, April 21, 1522, 1) the book, which had been printed in a seventh edition, had fallen into the hands of the rector and other members of the university and had been condemned by them to be destroyed, completely without Luther's consent. Luther compensated the poor printer for the damage caused by the confiscation by giving him his own new book to print and sell. 2)
Now Carlstadt abstained from all literary activity for almost a whole year; that he had not changed his mind, however, we can see from several statements by Luther that fall into this period, although they are very gentle. In a letter of September 21, 1522, to Baron Johann von Schwarzenberg, 3) episcopal court master at Bamberg, he says: "Of sacramental worship and having images, E. G. has met my opinion. But whether Doct. Andreas or anyone else holds, I let them have their way." Towards the end of the year 1522, a certain Christoph Hofmann 4) (later pastor in Jena) had turned to Carlstadt with questions about the (personal) certainty (scientia) of election, about the fall and resurrection of the righteous, about foreign faith, about infant baptism, about the persistence of the Spirit in the saints etc. At the request of several of Hofmann's friends, Luther also answered him and warned him against these new teachings, which came from the prophets of Zwickau, who spoke from their own without any basis in Scripture. "These even Mr. Carlstadt does not yet bravely resist, either out of guilelessness or good-naturedness" (sive pro suo candore sive bono animo. As a turning point in Carlstadt's life, Luther states that at a doctoral graduation 5) he had said in a public speech: "I knowingly act ungodly, that I doctor for the sake of two guilders." To this Luther says: 6) "Since the
1) Cf. Luther's letter to Spalatin. Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. Ill, § 2.
2) Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 298. 6orp. Rot. I, r>. 570.
3) Walch, old edition, vol. XXl, 27, § 3.
4) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 114.
5) Not in 1522 (Jäger I. o. p. 299), but on February 3, 1523. Cf. Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XIX, appendix, no. 7.
Carlstadt also fell and fell into various errors and remained in them. Henceforth, he no longer wanted to be called a doctor, but also called himself "a new Lay" on the titles of the writings (mostly ascetic and mystical content), which he sent out in March 1523 and later in large numbers. 7) In order to live as a true simple Christian, he bought a farm in the village of Segren, not far from Wittenberg, "and was a peasant and held fellowship with the peasants; and what the least of them had to do, he also did and had to do, as when they drank the common beer, he had to stand in front of the table, because he was the youngest farmer, and serve and pour beer, and the other farmers only called him neighbor Endres, and also called him that way when he should fetch and pour beer". 8) He maintained his office and income at the university and the collegiate church, but did not quite fulfill his duties, about which the Elector complained bitterly in a letter to Schurf 9) dated 7 August 1523. His stay in the country also served him to maintain a secret correspondence with Thomas Münzer, without this becoming apparent to the Wittenbergers. Yes, Carlstadt had even invited him to a secret meeting in December 1522, 10) in order to discuss with him such things that could not be entrusted to letters.
During his life as a farmer, Carlstadt had still returned to Wittenberg from time to time and had still carried out his official work somewhat, albeit intermittently and carelessly. But in September 1523, he left Wittenberg completely, went to Orlamünde 11) and had the congregation there make him their regular pastor. This succeeded all the more easily because the congregation
7) Jäger 1. o. p. 300 f. lists nine such writings from the year 1523.
8) Fröschel's report in the "Innocent News" of 1731, p. 694.
9) Oorp. Üsk. I, p. 599.
10) Seidemann, Thomas Münzer, p. 128, supplement 20.
11) About the relationship of the parish in Orlamünde to the Archidiaconus at the collegiate church, compare p. 1 of this introduction.
with its previous clergyman, the vicar Conrad Glück, had fallen apart. Neither Carlstadt nor the congregation objected to the express provision that the parish in Orlamünde was to be served by permanent vicars, who were to be appointed by the academic senate and presented to the Elector. They invoked a higher divine right. Carlstadt continued to receive the income from his Wittenberg office, although he now set it aside completely, 1) indeed, it became apparent later that he had already unsuited himself to income that was not yet due. In Orlamünde, he began to reform in the same way as he had done in Wittenberg, with altar abbeys, iconoclasm and other innovations in the cult. In this reform activity, Münzer supported him from Allstädt and Martin Reinhard, his old comrade in the Danish attempt at reformation, from Jena, where the latter was a preacher and had helped Carlstadt to set up an angular printing press 2) so that his books would not have to suffer the censorship of the Wittenberg University. In the spring of 1524, he came forward with the writing "Ob man gemach fahren und des Aergernisses der Schwachen verschonen soll in Sachen, so GOttes Willen angehen" ("Whether one should drive safely and spare the aggravation of the weak in matters concerning God's will"), in which he attacks in a wild, fanatical manner those who had set him up in Wittenberg. One must look to God's word, he says, and not wait for the other to follow. God had commanded to remove the images, therefore one should not wait for the unintelligent and weak; otherwise one would just as well continue with blasphemy, murder, stealing, adultery, until all boys become pious. "Let every community, whether small or great, see to itself that it does right and well, and wait for no one." 3) We are "all here (in Orlamünde) neither with the doctrine nor with the deed to hold still.
1) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I p. 704.
2) On January 7, 1524, Luther reported this to Chancellor Brück. On January 14, he reported to Spalatin that Carlstadt in Jena had already published books in his newly established printing press and that he would publish 18 more books.
3) This sentence is undoubtedly correct and divine truth; but Carlstadt misuses it most disgracefully for his wild, stormy activities.
gewest to accomplish God's commandments, until our neighbors and the slavers at Wittenberg followed suit." "God wants so little that we wait for others until they come after and become pious, that he has commanded that one should punish the ungodly as one punishes other vices (Deut. 13. and 17, 2. ff.), and in addition kill and devastate whole cities that wait for their idolatry and do not want to wander in the right path." "It almost amazes me at our scribes and regents that they . . . want to cast down spiritual adultery with their breath and wind 4)." These last words show that Carlstadt preaches quite Münzerian; it is only to be wondered at that he, together with the Orlamünders, gave Münzer (in June 1524) quite inconsistently the answer to his request to join him in battle against the ungodly, that Christians should arm themselves not with knives but with the armor of faith. 5) In a letter of July 19, he completely renounced Muenzer; likewise his congregation. 6)
Before mid-March, the news of Carlstadt's tumultuous trial in Orlamünde had come to Wittenberg through Spalatin. 7) Already around this time, Luther complained to Hausmann that Carlstadt was persecuting him more horribly than the papists were doing. Still in March, the university went about asking Carlstadt to return to Wittenberg from the place where he had not been called and to deliver the office of the word which was incumbent upon him there; if he would not obey, he would be sued before the Elector. Carlstadt actually presented himself in Wittenberg on April 2, 8) 1524, and on April 4, negotiations were held with him. He wanted
4) With this Carlstadt aims at Luther's teaching that heresy and idolatry must be eradicated only with the preaching of the Word of God, not with the secular sword.
5) Köstlin, Martin Luther, vol. I, p. 708. - Jäger l. c. S. 445.
6) Seidemann, Thomas Münzer, p. 128, supplement 21.
7) Compare Luther's briefs of March 14, 1524 to Spalatin and Hausmann. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 116 and vol. XXI, 889.
8) This time determination results from Luther's letter to Spalatin, Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 923, which there has no closer time determination, in De Wette, vol. II, p. 507 erroneously placed in May, but in truth was written April 4 or 5. Cf. Jäger, I. 6. p. 426. De Wette, Vol. VI, 612.
But he did not do wrong, but returned to Orlamünde. Now the Elector intervened. Although Carlstadt and the Orlamünde congregation repeatedly asserted to the Elector their divine right to elect a pastor and called the right of the academy a "papist" right, the Elector nevertheless commanded Carlstadt and the Orlamünde congregation on May 16 that they should obey the academy and the chapter. He did not obey a request of the university (beginning of June) to dispose of his post in Wittenberg. He nevertheless remained in Orlamünde, and the congregation hung on him. But a few days later he had to "hand over the parish". 1) But still on August 16, 1524, the council of Orlamünde called him: "our pastor and pastoral caretaker". Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2433, § 1. It was thought in Wittenberg to appoint a new vicar in Orlamünde, but hesitated with it, in order not to cause new conflicts with the community, which would certainly have taken place if a vicar had been sent, as long as Carlstadt was in their midst. On the other hand, attention was also drawn away from this matter by the fierce attacks that Muenzer made on Luther around this time, and the progress of the Muenzer movement in Saxony. Because of this, Luther had a missive printed in the last half of July 2) 1524 under the title: "A Letter to the Princes of Saxony on the Rebellious Spirit", in which he admonishes them to prevent your rebellion according to the authority given to them by God, otherwise they would be excusable neither before God nor before the world.
In order to control the agitation, the Elector and Luther now tried to initiate amicable negotiations. By order of his princes, Luther traveled to Thuringia around the middle of August to the agitated districts. In Jena, where Martin Reinhard had been appointed in the spirit of Carl-
1) Cf. Luther's letter to the Elector of June 18, 1524, Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 72, § 2 with the wrong date: May 16. On the date, cf. De Wette, vol. VI, p. 579 f. June 14 in Köstlin, vol. I, p. 712 is probably just a misprint. Cf. p. 814.
2) Not only on August 21, as it is dated in Walch, old edition, vol. XVI, 8. Cf. Förstemann, Neues Urkundenbuch, p. 248 and De Wette, VI, 580. In the text, Bb. II, p. 538, De Wette also mentions August 21.
On August 22, Luther preached a lukewarm sermon against fanaticism and the spirit of rebellion, which began with iconoclasm and contempt for the sacraments and ended with murder and violence. Carlstadt, who had also come to Jena and had heard this sermon, felt affected and asked Luther for an interview, which was granted to him the same evening. 3) He insisted that he had nothing in common with the Allstadt spirit (Münzer's) and that the accusation of sedition did not apply to him. Then he raised the accusation against Luther that he was preaching falsely about the Sacrament. Luther demanded proof. Carlstadt offered to hold a disputation in Wittenberg or Erfurt. Luther invited him to Wittenberg and promised him safe conduct. In an exchange that ensued, Carlstadt said that he had been bound hand and foot and beaten, because Luther alone had preached and written against him; on the other hand, his books had been taken from the printing press 4) and he had been forbidden to write and preach, otherwise it would have been known what his spirit had done. Luther put an end to the quarrel by giving him full freedom to write against him and presented him with a gold florin as insurance. 5)
Immediately Carlstadt began to come out publicly with his false doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which, by the way, he had harbored since 1522, 6) and to write against Luther. Around September 1524, the two writings "Von dem widerchristlichen Mißbrauch des HErrn Brod und Kelch" (No. 3 in this volume) and "Wider die alten und neuen papistischen Messen" (No. 2 in the appendix of this volume) appeared. In these, Carlstadt denies the true, essential presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the
3) This conversation is described by Martin Reinhard in the so-called lenengia "zu Luthers Verunglimpfung und zu Carlstadts.Ehren" (Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 17). It is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2422. In print, it appeared at the beginning of October 1524. (Cf. Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 455.)
4) Cf. p. 18 of this introduction.
5) Cf. Luther's letter to an unnamed person [Wolfgang Stein]. De Wette, Vol. II, p. 550.
6) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 701.
Holy Communion. He teaches that Christ gave his disciples only bread and wine to eat and drink in the words "Take and eat, take and drink," and that in the words "This is my body" he was referring to himself, so that the words "Do this in remembrance of me" should be understood to mean that Christians should eat bread and drink wine in the Lord's Supper and thereby commemorate the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. Carlstadt had already come out with this view earlier (but not until 1524), but in such a way that he left himself open to retreat, in the writing "Ob man mit heiliger Schrift erweisen möge, dass Christus mit Leib, Blut und Seele im Sacrament sei." (Whether one may prove with sacred Scripture that Christ is in body, blood and soul in the Sacrament). He gives the explanation that in it he only wanted to indicate "what our enemies would like to answer if we wanted to prove by subsequent speeches that Christ is in the Sacrament with body, blood and soul". But the whole writing shows that Carlstadt lets these so-called enemies defend his own view; in it he also recants all views of the Sacrament and of the worship of the Sacrament asserted in the writings of 1521. 1) At the end, Carlstadt asks all those to whom his answer seems to be "unchristian" to instruct him. But he did not wait for a reply, but sought, perhaps already in August 1524, 2) to bring the doctrine contained therein to the people in his "Dialogus oder Gesprächbüchlein von dem greulichen abgöttischen Mißbrauch des hochwürdigsten Sacraments JEsu Christi" (No. 3 in the appendix of this volume). In this discussion is a series of the most biting outbursts on Luther's view of the images, the service of the saints and the sacraments. We are not able to give an exact date for this writing. We only know that it was written by Carlstadt in Orlamünde in 1524 and that it was published without any indication of the place (it must have been printed in the Jena Winkeldruckerei). In the aforementioned writing "Von dem widerchristlichen Mißbrauch des HErrn Brod und Kelch" (On the Anti-Christian Abuse of the Lord's Bread and Cup)
1) Jäger l. c. S. 441 f.
2) Compare the note to the caption of No. 3 in the appendix of this volume.
the "conversation booklet" is already mentioned
(in § 6). Towards the end of the year 3) 1524, Urban Rhegius sent out his "Warnung wider den neuen Irrsal Doctor Andreas von Carlstadt des Sacraments halben" (No. 4 in this volume), which is mainly directed against Carlstadt's two writings just mentioned (No. 3, and No. 3 in the appendix), and completely puts them down. It is probably this writing that Luther asked Spalatin 4) to send him on December 29, 1524, and which he sent back to him on January 13, 1525. In the meantime, Luther had also begun to write against Carlstadt, who had been banished from Saxony by order of the Elector of September 17, 1524, and Duke John of October 2. On December 15, 1524, Luther wrote a letter to the people of Strasbourg, warning them against Carlstadt's heresy. 5) It was necessary to oppose Carlstadt's direction, for which he constantly recruited followers during his unethical travels, in wider circles as well. We hear of his presence in Rothenburg an der Tauber, in Strasbourg, in Heidelberg, in Basel, in Zurich, in Nördlingen. During this time he published one book after another, especially on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper; on November 7 in Strasbourg his "Interpretation of these words of Christ: This is my body"; in Basel (according to Erasmus) six writings on the Holy Supper. In Basel, the printers who had published his books were punished with imprisonment; 6) but Oecolampad and Pellicanus in Basel, Zwingli and Leo Jude in Zurich had fallen in with Carlstadt's opinion on the Holy Communion, even though they took the emptying of the words of institution, the reinterpretation of "is" into "means" in a different way than he did; indeed, Zwingli disapproved of the procedure of the council in Basel, and publicly demanded that Carlstadt be punished for his "is" and "means.
3) Kolde, Martin Luther, vol. II, p. 158, says: "Already in November 1524."
4) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 119 and vol. XXI, 945. The former letter with the wrong year 1525.
5) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2444.
6) Luther's letter to Spalatin of January 13, 1525. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 945.
Luther was not interested in reading Carlstadt's writings. Therefore, Luther refuted the whole direction of Carlstadt in his great writing "Wider die himmlischen Propheten, von den Bildern und Sacrament" (No. 5 in this volume), the first part of which appeared towards the end of the year 1524, the second part at the end of January 1525. 1) Jäger (Carlstadt, p. 455) aptly characterizes this writing with short words: "Luther fights the whole direction of the new revolutionary mystics with biting mockery and strikingly proves the inner connection of the same with the Münzerian spirit of revolt. For the rest, we refer the reader to the scripture itself. 2)
1) About the second one, Luther wrote to Hausmann on February 2, 1525, and to Link on February 7, that it had already gone out. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 953 and 956.
2) Col. 155 in this volume we have stated in the third note that we find in this writing the proof for the assumption that the old edition of Walch also exercised an influence on the text formation of the Erlanger. Now, after this volume is completed, we are in a position to give information about how this may have happened, even in the case of the writings which the Erlanger reproduces according to an original print. Every expert knows that it would not be possible for a typesetter to work from an original edition. Therefore, either a copy of the original, or also a copy of an already existing edition, improved after the original, must be delivered to the printer; the latter was done with the Erlanger edition. The Tischreden were reprinted from a copy of the Förstemann-Bindseil edition (with some changes), which has been proven in our edition, Vol. XXII, Introduction, p. 36 ff. In the case of Luther's writings, a copy of Walch's edition was sent to the printer, after some changes had been made with it, partly improvements according to the original, but partly also restoration of such errors, which Walch had improved, e.g. Col. 1838. The indication of Walch's variants is inaccurate and incomplete, the correction of the text according to the original negligent. Therefore, a large number of Walch's errors remain in the Erlangen edition (e.g., Col. 192, cf. note 2 there, and Col. 235, note 5), hundreds of Walch's erroneous bibelleitaten are printed, and in many cases the erroneous interpnnction has been retained (cf. Col. 2lO, Note 1 and Col. 268, Note I), also many of Walch's misprints (e.g., in § 132 of Scripture No. 5 in this volume, the Erlanger has: "im Tod" instead of: "im Brod"; § 148 ibid.: "Kolkryb" instead of: "Kielkrob"; Col. 1650: Mäiskopf" instead of: "Meisenkopf 11) are reproduced. Even a cursory examination of this volume will lead the reader to the conclusion that it really is so, because quite often one will find the note: Thus Walch and the Erlangen edition" or: "Thus the Jena, Walch and the Erlangen edition", because Walch has often
On February 26, 1525, the second part had come into Carlstadt's hands and he immediately set about answering Luther's writing. Already on February 27, he extracted 25 articles from it, with the intention "to make a booklet on each article, one soon after the other". Already a few days later his first writing against Luther's book went out, namely about 1 Cor. 10, 16, which Luther had called in his book "a thunderbolt on Carlstadt's head and his Rotten". In the preface to this "Explanation of the 10th Chapter Corinth. 1" he gives a register of fifteen "articles" about each of which he promises to make a booklet. The tenth of these articles gives the subject for Carlstadt's "Schrift von dem neuen und alten Testament" (No. 6 in this volume), which is dated March 16.
Even during the time when Luther was busy with the publication of the first part of his writing against the heavenly prophets, and in spite of the fact that from Orlamünde, through D. Conrad Glatz, who had been sent there, terrible new information about Carlstadt's deceitful activities in Orlamünde had reached him, he made an attempt to reconcile with Carlstadt. On December 23, 1524, Luther invited him by letter to a meeting in Wittenberg or elsewhere to discuss the matter alone, without any personalities. The letter came into Carlstadt's hands late, probably due to Carlstadt's inactive life, on February 18, 1525. In his reply to Luther 3) under this date, he says: "I earnestly and faithfully desire our friendship to be reestablished according to the instruction of truth," and requests that Luther give him a free escort to the Elector and his brother. It was not until March 2 that Luther received this letter and requested on
reproduced according to the Jena edition. It is due to the unreliable nature of the Erlangen edition that even where it supposedly offers an imprint of the original (on how the reproduction of the originals in the Erlangen edition stands, compare Weimar edition, vol. II, p. 79), we have not been able to follow it unconditionally, but only with caution and selection, comparing the Wittenberg and Jena editions'.
3) Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 79.
March 4, 1) either a free escort for Carlstadt, or permission for himself to travel to another place of meeting. But this request was rejected by the Elector through Spalatin on March 20, and Luther, to whom Glatz, who in the meantime had become pastor in Orlamünde, still reported trouble, agreed. 2) In the meantime, Carlstadt had returned from the Southwest and caused similar turmoil in Rothenburg an der Tauber 3) with iconoclasm, violent prevention of mass, and the like, as earlier in Wittenberg and Orlamünde. On Easter Monday (April 17) and Wednesday after Easter, Carlstadt preached there 4) "against the Sacrament". "Tablets and images" 5) were partly thrown into the Tauber, partly broken, partly "carried home by some millers and caused great commotion". It was proclaimed "that the young priests should and may take wives [if they did so, then] one should let them follow their benefices 6) for eleven years". "On Thursday after Easter the women with halberds, forks and sticks went around in the harbor alley and made a lot of noise and said that they wanted to storm and plunder all the priests' houses. "On Friday, all the priests had to become citizens for the sake of safety, otherwise they would have been taken everything." Already since March 21, rebellious peasants had come in ever larger heaps to and around the town of Rothenburg; on April 24 7) they coveted guns; on May 15, the Rothenburgers made common cause with the peasants, "on that day Rothenburg passed from the empire to the peasants" [übergegangen]. But already on the day of Pentecost (June 4) the Rothenburgers were forced (because the peasants had been slain by the thousands, the escaped
1) Cf. Seidemann, Lutherbriefe, p. 24. In Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 84 without date.
2) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 729.
3) Cf. Luther's letter to Spalatin of April 10, 1525. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 968.
4) Report of an eyewitness in Walch, old edition, Vol. XVI, 180 ff.
5) "Panels" are painted pictures; "pictures" picture columns.
6) With Walch: "friends".
7) On "Montag Georgii" is incorrect, because in 1525 Georg (April 23) was a Sunday; we assume: Monday after Georgii.
many beheaded, some cruelly martyred, "at Kitzing 58 the eyes gouged out") to send an envoy to Margrave Casimir and ask for mercy; but the city had to surrender to mercy and disgrace. On June 29, Casimir made his entry into Rothenburg. In the time between the surrender of the city and the entry of the Margrave, the Counter-Reformation had already begun, and the search was on for those who were the main instigators of the unrest. "On the evening of St. John the Baptist (June 23), D. Johann Drechsel [Drechsler, Teutschel] was captured and imprisoned together with the blind monk [Hans Rothfuchs]. Caspar [Christian], Comthur 8) and pastor, escaped secretly with D. Andreas Carlstadt, brother Melchior, who had the blind monk's sister." The two preachers just mentioned (Drechsler and the blind monk of the Order of the Barefoot) were beheaded on July 1 in the marketplace of Rothenburg along with 23 others (same 25) 9); Carlstadt would have had the same fate if he had not escaped, especially since he had also been at the peasants' convention in Schweinfurt (June 6, 1525) and there had spoken in favor of the peasants? 10) Carlstadt was now outlawed, not safe for a moment of his life. Then, in his great distress, in order to regain a home in Saxony, he turned to the one whom he had most grievously insulted, blasphemed and reviled, to Luther. On June 12, he wrote to Luther from Frankfurt am Main, asking him to intercede for him, his wife and child with the Elector and to "bring them in again". 11) "Fear and distress surrounded us." It seems that Carlstadt's wife delivered this letter. See the postscript of the same. Already on June 24, 1525, he wrote his "Apology of the false name of sedition, so him has been imposed with injustice" and sent it to Luther with the request,
8) In Walch: "Commenthör", i.e. Comthur of the Teutonic Order.
9) Walch, old edition, vol. XVI, 179 and 190. In the latter place Drechsler is called "D. Johann Preding", i.e. the preacher. Cf. Col. 180 ibid. there.
10) Köstlin, I, 753 has June 6; Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 490, June 1.
11) Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 85 f.
to have this writing printed for him. Luther complied with him and provided the writing with a preface, 1) in which he explains that he wanted to let D. Carlstadt find the service and loyalty that he had provided for him, but did not want to have Carlstadt's teaching and opinion, especially of the Sacrament, affirmed. Finally, Luther asks everyone to accept Carlstadt's apology and not to condemn him unheard, because he offered himself so highly. To remove another obstacle that stood in the way of his return to Saxony, Carlstadt wrote on July 25 a "Declaration, how Carlstadt respects and wants to have respected his doctrine of the reverend Sacrament and others" (No. 7 in this volume). In this writing, he does not revoke his teaching, but gives the explanation that he had said "that he wanted to accept Christian instruction", from which everyone could recognize that he did not want to pass off his books for "a proven divine teaching", 2) and did not want anyone to think that it was certain. Before complete, undoubted certainty had not been attained by frugal investigation of the Scriptures, "his doctrine should be regarded as nothing better than a delusion and conceit. He also sent this writing to Luther, 3) or rather, he wrote it in Luther's house 4).
1) This preface is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2468.
2) Against this explanation one holds the outbursts of Carlstadt against Luther, "the new pope", whose "is the poisonous water that tries to wash away the ground of the cross of Christ". Compare in the paper No. 6 in this volume § 6 and § 69 ff.
3) Thus Jäger, Carlstadt, p. 491.
4) That Carlstadt had found an asylum in Luther's house, we have not only the testimony of "Mathesius" (Luthers Leben, St. Louis edition, p. 82 f.): "Doctor Luther, as a merciful man, believes his good words, modifies him to himself, does not keep him secretly without concern, excuses him with public writings" and so on, but also the testimony of Cordatus (Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 1824, No. 129): "I have seen a frightening example of this fear in Carlstadt. At the time of his expulsion (i.e., when he was expelled from the country), he lived in my house for more than eight weeks, and no one knew anything about it," and so on. A third testimony, which so far has not been recognized as such, is Carlstadt's letter to Luther (Krafft, Briefe und Documente, p. 57), which is to be set before Sept. 12, 1525: A. B. Carlstadt an D. M. Luther. I have not forgotten you, venerable sir, from
and handed it over to him personally with the request that it, just like the previous scripture
I want to disturb your sweet sleep for your sake, so I ask you not to be unwilling. I recognize your good deed and will try as hard as I can to repay it. Moreover, as I asked thee, venerable Lord, on yesterday, so I again implore thee, and beseech thee, that thou alone for the sake of God, who has made thee rich in innumerable and excellent gifts, and bestowed upon thee honor before [other] men, mayest relieve this [my] banishment." Then he asks Luther to let him lament the misery and poverty of his poor wife and her unhappy child, promises to be Luther's obedient slave from now on, who will go out to him, and expresses the wish that he may be allowed to He expresses the wish that he be allowed to settle in Kemberg, because it will be easiest for him to earn his living there, since there are "fat and sandy (ureuosi) fields, then also wood and a market, hops *) and many such advantages". The signature of this letter reads: "Your honorable slave Andr. Carolostadius." From this briefs we see that Carlstadt's banishment was still in force. From this it follows that this letter is to be placed not later, but earlier than the "Instruction of the Elector for Magister Spalatin to Luther" of September 17, 1525 (Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 88 ff. Against Krafft, Briefe und Documente, p. 58). It is highly probable that Luther, prompted by this letter, addressed a request to the Elector on September 12 that he let him "stay at Kemberg or at a village nearby" (De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 28); likewise, that Luther did so soon after Carlstadt's letter, because Carlstadt pleads so urgently: "Look at my misery, help, and help without delay!" Therefore, Carlstadt's letter must have been written shortly before September 12, and not from a distance, but in Luther's home; for how else could one understand the words that he had not wanted to "disturb Luther in his sleep," that he had "asked him (verbally) yesterday [he does not say: written"? Carlstadt, without taking leave of him, left Luther's house and left this letter for him. The "Wohlthat" will have to refer to the fact that Luther hid and harbored him so long in his house. Köstlin (Martin Luther, Vol. I, p. 816 p. 754) completely denies "that Carlstadt should have come to Wittenberg at that time". He rejects the testimony of Mathesius and opposes it with an untenable, purely subjective reason, which is taken from Luther's letters to Brismann, Hess and the Elector (DeWette, Vol. Ill, pp. 21, 18 and 28): "Carlstadt's behavior at that time does not fit at all to the unbowed stubborn spirit of the 'homo miser'" Br. 3, 21. In Köstlin's opinion, the douio is our Martin Cellarius; Vol. I, p. 754 he says: "Luther himself kept him pitifully hidden for a time." Better is Seidemann's reasoning, who (Seidemann - De Wette, vol. VI, p. 481, note 1) says: "Also, the dorno unser does not seem to be Carlstadt, but Cellarius." He refers for this in his "Thomas Münzer", p. 98, note 1. to Melanchthon's letter to Brismann in August 1525 <6orx". Rst. I, 755): "Martin Cellarius from Star-.
*) lupulus, what Krafft complains about, is correct, because at Kemberg there was and still is strong hop growing.
Carlstadt to go out with his preface 1), which also happened. Inspired by Carlstadt's urgent request, Luther sent a request to the Elector on September 12, 1525, 2) that Carlstadt be allowed to settle in Kemberg or a village in the vicinity. On September 17, the "Instruction of the Elector for Spalatin to Luther" was issued, 3) in which Carlstadt gard pardon has come to us, from you to us, in our Saxony. He argues with us about his dreamed kingdom and about the New Jerusalem", etc. But also Seidemann has overlooked that Luther writes of Cellarius only in the first sentence of the immediately following passage of the letter (De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 21). In the following, Luther speaks exclusively of Carlstadt. Here we have again one of the not exactly rare cases that one, misguided by false premises, charges Luther with an untidy confusion, as he should speak here in the first sentence of Cellarius, in the second of Carlstadt, in the third, without naming Cellarius, again of Cellarius. The entire passage in the letter in question, which will probably be dated July 3, 1525 (Seidemann-De Wette, vol. VI, p. 481. Instead of n866N8ioni8 [De Wette, vol. II, 22] will read vimtationi8 Marias), reads as follows: "I have previously written about Martin Cellarius and set more detailed to Prince Adelbert at the same time about the establishment of the ceremonies, so I will be quite brief to you, because I am overloaded with so many writings. If Carlstadt's or Zwingli's poison of the Sacrament should come to you, see that you are vigilant. The wretched man (homo miser) has been secretly preserved with me. Now the whole world is too narrow for him; he is so inferior everywhere that he has been forced to seek protection from his enemy. I have treated the man as kindly as I could and stood by him, but he does not leave his senses, even since he has been convicted, as these kinds of spirits are wont to do. So beware of him and his teachings. I have found that in him everything is void, especially in this matter." We do not consider it necessary to understand M. Cellarius by the "wretched man". Luther warns against "Carlstadt's poison of the Sacrament" and comes back to it in the words "especially in this matter." As far as we know, Cellarius played no part in the controversy over the Sacrament; Luther refers to him everywhere only in general terms as a "raging, rebellious zealot" who has the spirit of Münzer, who wants "that all the ungodly should be exterminated and the godly should rule on earth." Therefore, we agree with Burkhardt (p. 87) and De Wette (Vol. Ill, p. 21) that the letter just mentioned is to be regarded as a fourth testimony to the presence of Carlstadt in Luther's house. It may have cost Luther enough effort to persuade Carlstadt himself only to issue the "Declaration". (No. 7), through which his unbowed obstinacy comes to light precisely because he does not recant his teaching in it.
1) This preface by Luther is found in Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, 2472.
2) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 129.
3) Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 88 ff.
and that he be allowed to settle in any spot or village, with the exception of the Thuringian lands and Wittenberg, but "around Wittenberg for half a mile, a whole mile, two miles, up to the third mile," "excluding only Kemberg [which is 1-1/2 miles away]," because a busy country road leads through this town, "which is built and wandered by some and partly strange people. Thereupon Carlstadt first settled in the village of Segren near Wittenberg and "handed over" from there on October 9 "his booklet, which he had made on the orders of the Wittenberg theologians and in which he recanted. 5) Carlstadt had his son baptized at Segren in February 1526 and invited Jonas, Melanchthon and Luther's wife as godparents. Luther was present at the baptism as a guest. This happened even though Carlstadt had "called the baptism a dog bath" the year before. 6) On Luther's intercession to the Elector of November 22, 1526 7) he was allowed to move to Kemberg, because he "could not stay in the villages because of the malice of the peasants". In Kemberg he supported himself meagerly through a small trade, especially with food. In Segren he had been "silent publicly" (De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 137) and also behaved quietly in Kemberg for almost a year and lived according to the condition which he had set for himself and which Luther had announced to the Elector 8) "never to preach nor to write for the rest of his life, but to be eternally silent and to feed on his work. 9) But Carlstadt made himself suspect several times. In October 1527 he had left his place of residence for several weeks and it was believed that he "had traveled to his people and had a
4) Shouldn't it perhaps be "built," i.e., made into its orbit?
5) Burkhardt l. c. p. 88, note 3.
6) Cf. Luther's letter to Amsdorf in February 1526. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 999.
7) Walch, old edition, Vol. XXI, 156. - Before Carlstadt went to Kemberg, he was for a while in Berkwitz near Kemberg (Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. I, 754).
8) Sept. 12, 1525. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 130.
9) Almost the same words are already in Carlstadt's letter to Luther of June 12, 1525 (Burkhardt 1. c. p. 86). Compare also Luther's letter to Brück of September 24, 1528. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2494, § 2.
nest for himself". 1) On November 28, Luther wrote to Brenz: 2) "So far we have nurtured Carlstadt with great love, in the good hope that he would return to the [right] path, but the wretched man 3) hardens himself more and more every day, and yet he is forced by his pusillanimity to remain silent. Even his 'Tuto' he still holds on to, although it is also rejected by his own." Luther came to this exact knowledge of the state of Carlstadt's teaching at that time in this way: Luther had offered him out of mercy, 4) "whether I could resolve his arguments and bring them to justice, which he accepted with thanks and the joy and hope of all of us; but after that he came back and did not want to do it until he had M. G. H.'s will to do it; he wants to keep the escort so clean as a cat. He asked for permission to act with Luther and obtained it. So he set up his reasons and handed them over - not to Luther, - but into the hands of Chancellor Brück at Torgau. In this way of acting of Carlstadt Luther saw, as it seems to us, rightly, an attempt of Carlstadt to pull the court to himself and to bring it to his opinion. This happened around August 1527, because on August 12, 1528, Carlstadt wrote to Brück: "After having obtained the gracious permission, I have divided my reasons into three parts; two parts E. A. gave into your own hands a year ago at Torgau, kept quiet and secret. That [it] is now carried out at Wittenberg has happened without my will, as well as that Doctor Martini's answer has been written out before, because it is in my possession." Brück, however, sent Carlstadt's writing to Luther, who replied to the erroneous reasons put forward by Carlstadt quite kindly and solely factually in a letter, which we have published under the title: Luthers Antwort und Widerlegung etlicher
1) Luther's letter to Melanchthon of October 27, 1527. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, appendix, no. 121.
2) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, Appendix, No. 122.
3) Here we again encounter the expression üonro, which Luther uses of Carlstadt (De Wette, III, 230), as well as in the above-mentioned letter to Brismann (De Wette, III, 21).
4) Luther's letter to Brück of September 24, 1528. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2493.
of erroneous arguments (mainly from the Dedit), which Carlstadt against him ge
etc., in No. 8 of this volume. This letter will not have been published in print, 5) but, as Carlstadt complains, "written out". "November 1527" is assumed by De Wette as the presumed time "because of Luther's statement that he had to travel several times to Torgau, which seems to have happened in November of this year". Luther's instruction, however, was of no avail to Carlstadt. On May 12, 1528, Luther wrote to Wenc. Link: 6) "With us, by God's grace, there is peace. But Carlstadt remains as he has been, not to say he becomes more obstinate, but he is forced to be silent." Soon it also became apparent that things were getting worse with Carlstadt. Carlstadt had already tried several times to get in touch with the enthusiasts in Silesia, Schwenkfeld and Krautwald, but had torn up again the letters already written to them because he could not get a messenger. However, on May 17, 1528, he found the opportunity to send a letter 7) to them, which Luther found out about and had the Wittenberg captain Hans Metsch tell him that he did not want to have anything more to do with him. On June 8, 1528, Luther reported to Amsdorf, 8) that Carlstadt was planning to leave, and on July 28, 1528, he expressed the wish to Gerbellius, 9) that the Strasbourg enthusiasts would like to have the viper Carlstadt, who alone is rebelling but does not dare to come forward, with them "and we would be free of him. In a letter 10) of August 12, 1528, Carlstadt complains against Brück that Luther had not given him an answer to his arguments, which Luther refutes on September 24, 11) by sending a "copy of the answer", and warns, because Carlstadt already before a
5) On September 24, 1525, Luther sends a "copy of the answer" to Brück. Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2494 § 4.
6) 'Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 2716.
7) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2476.
8) Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XIX, Appendix, No. 14.
9) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1115, § 3.
10) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2478.
11) Walch, old edition, vol. XV, 2493.
Carlstadt said that he had let "a booklet without a name" go out for years, and that the Elector "should not trust him anymore". In the aforementioned letter to Schwenkfeld and Krautwald, Carlstadt himself says that he has written "a book about the disunity of the Lutherans" and that he intends to write "a booklet about the unity of all of us. In the latter writing, it was probably intended to provide proof against Luther's reproach that they give the most diverse interpretations to the words of institution, that they are all united in denying the true presence of the body and blood of Christ. Carlstadt's letter to Brück of August 12 was accompanied by a supplement to the Elector, in which, as we can see from the letter to Brück, he expresses the request: "if I ever have to leave His C. F. G. lands again [I have no doubt at all, S. C. F. G. will show me mercy, grant me time and space, and also provide me with gracious leave by letter,... so that I may look around for services with the knowledge and grace of H. C. F. G., provide for my poor children, of whom I have three, make money out of mine and bring in what I have outstanding debts. "If, however, your C. F. G. could tolerate and suffer me in this faith and confession 1) in her principality, and would favor me with a service or with quite a bit of food, I would gladly serve your C. F. G. before all princes and lords especially and faithfully and thank your C. F. G. eternally." As Brück wrote to Lutheri in the middle of September 1528 on behalf of the Elector, the Elector had sensed so much from Carlstadt's Supplication, "that Carlstadt has forgotten the fear he received from the next peasant outrage and has become somewhat bold that he might be accepted elsewhere, and will perhaps know [wyrdet], 3) for which reason he is also asking for a farewell, as you can see. Now the Elector requested Luther's counsel, which was to be done with
1) Namely, in the confession he had made in this letter to Brück, by which he retracted his earlier retraction.
2) This letter is found in Burkhardt, Briefwechsel, p. 143 f.
3) I.e. Carlstadt may perhaps have conditions that he will be accepted elsewhere.
Carlstadt should be made. Luther replied, 4) some thought that he should be held as D. Jakob Strauß was held in Weimar, that is, that he should be imprisoned, but he said: "the man is so despondent against the seriousness that I worry that he might despair if he were to be imprisoned in this way. Therefore, he advises "to take him again into the previous silence and vow and not to let him leave the country. This advice, which Luther gave on September 24, 1528, was not carried out, but Carlstadt escaped from Saxony. We do not know the exact time of his escape; Walch says in the old edition, introduction to the 19th volume, p. 22, § 19, that Carlstadt secretly left Saxony towards the end of the year 1528. First we hear of him again from Holstein, where through Melchior Hofmann, the furrier, a strong fanatical party had been formed, which Carlstadt hurried to help. But the glory did not last long. Already on April 8, 1529, Carlstadt was gone, 5) because the party had been overthrown. As Luther wrote to Jonas 6) on April 14, 1529, the Duke of Holstein had summoned D. Bugenhagen to argue with Carlstadt. Either on May 6 or on June 15 7) we find him in Friesland, where fierce disputes were going on between the Lutherans and Zwinglians. With the latter, there were also many Anabaptist fanatical elements, which found a free place there. Although Carlstadt had called his wife to him in glorious and congratulatory letters, another letter had already arrived from Carlstadt before July 10, 1529 8) in which he (but not too humbly [semihumilis]) asked for the
4) Walch, old edition, Vol. XV, 2496, § 8. - About Strauß compare the introduction to No. 132 of the 19th volume of the St. Louis edition, p. 47 f.
5) Krohn, Geschichte der fanatischen Wiedertäufer, p. 147.
6) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1158, § 2.
7) In two different letters to Jonas, what concerns Carlstadt is told in the same words. It is certainly inserted in one of these letters. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1162 and 1169. The latter letter asked Walch for the wrong date: "June 25". Cf. De Wette, vol. Ill, p. 470.
8) Cf. Luther's letter to Amsdorf of this date. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1173, § 2.
mercy to be allowed to return. This request was, of course, refused. 1) On August 19, 1529, he wrote to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse and requested admission to the Marburg discussion. The latter made it dependent on the consent of the Wittenberg theologians, which was not forthcoming. Carlstadt became bitter about this and wrote an outrageously insolent and slanderous letter against Luther to Oecolampad, 2) in which he complains about his exclusion from the Marburg discussion and recounts his escape from Saxony, claiming, among other things, that the Wittenbergers had wanted to force him to write against Oecolampad and Zwingli. Oecolampad, who believed him completely, communicated the main content of this letter to Zwingli on January 15, 1530. Luther had also learned of Carlstadt's slanderous letters and wrote to Cordatus on February 10, 1530: 3) "Carlstadt pays us a worthy debt of gratitude for keeping him alive, 4) by accusing me and the rest of us everywhere in diabolical (infernalibus) letters." In the beginning of 1530 Carlstadt had to leave Friesland, because he was threatened with imprisonment, because Count Enno II of Friesland began to intervene against the sects. 5) After a short stay in Strasbourg, he turned to Switzerland, where, on Bucer's recommendation, Zwingli in particular took care of him, and arrived in Basel with his wife and children around May 22. Around the middle of July he received a position in Zurich as a deacon at the hospital. Already in the summer of 1531 they tried to get rid of him there, because his Saxon dialect disturbed the Zurich people. After many vain attempts to re-home him, because of the prejudices against him everywhere, he finally succeeded in obtaining the pastorate at Altstätten in the Rhine valley, but he had to leave there already in 1532, after the end of the
1) Cf. Luther's letter of July 17 (not 18), 1529, to Chancellor Baier. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 289.
2) Jäger, 1. S. 501.
3) De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 549.
4) These words also testify to the fact that Carlstadt found an asylum in Luther's house. Cf. p. 24 of this introduction.
5) Jäger, 1. 6. p. 502 f.
He fled to Zurich during the Second War with the Catholic Cantons. Only in 1534 he came to rest; in this year he was employed as a preacher at St. Peter's and professor of theology at Basel. 6) There he remained quiet and died there in 1541 as an ordinary Zwinglian.
Two Strasbourg theologians publicly spoke out about the sacramental controversy aroused by Carlstadt in such a way that they agreed with Carlstadt in the matter of the Lord's Supper, regarded the controversy as something minor, and rebuked Carlstadt only because he had started a verbal dispute about such minor external matters. However, they decisively rejected his stormy approach to the innovations, especially Bucer. In the late year of 1524 7) Wolfgang Fabricius Capito (probably at Strasbourg) sent out the writing: "What one should think and answer about the split between Martin Luther and Andreas Carlstadt." (No. 9 in this volume.) He was prompted to do so (according to § 15 of this writing) by the fact that the people of Strasbourg were "moved and restless" because of Carlstadt's coming. In the same year, dated December 26, 1524, Martin Bucer wrote: "Reason and Cause from Divine Scripture of the Innovations to the Lord's Supper, so called the Mass etc., made at Strasbourg, written in his and his colleagues' name, together with a letter to Count Palatine Frederick" (No. 10 in this volume). Place and time is not indicated in the single edition.
II. Controversial writings of Luther and his followers against Zwingli and others who denied the true presence of Christ in Holy Communion.
a. Zwingli's dispute with Bugenhagen.
Carlstadt soon found many comrades in the fight against the doctrine of the true presence of Christ in Holy Communion.
6) Compare also Luther's conversation with Wolfhardt and Bucer at Gotha on March 1, 1537. Tischreden, Cap. 19, § 42. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 586 ff.
7) For this timing, see the note to the caption of No. 9.
Independently of Carlstadt, and earlier than him, the Swiss Ulrich Zwingli had come to the conviction that in the Lord's Supper only bread and wine were distributed and received, and that the Lord's Supper was only a meal which the Lord had instituted in order to commemorate his death. "Hulderich Zwingel", that is how he used to write his name, was born on January 1, 1484 in Wildhaus, a village in the Canton of St. Gallen, studied in Bern, Vienna and Basel and became a preacher in Glarus in 1506. 1) In 1516 he worked at the place of pilgrimage Maria Einsiedel and in 1519, when he began to administer his office as lieutenant priest (that is, vicar of the collegiate clergy) at the great cathedral in Zurich, he stood up in serious polemical sermons on the content of the entire Holy Scripture against the prevailing abuses in the church, especially moved to do so by the insolence of the indulgence monger Bernhardin Samson. As a result, the Zurich City Council ordered the preachers as early as 1520 to teach the Word of God purely according to the Holy Scriptures and to keep silent about all the statutes of men; indeed, after a solemn disputation held before many witnesses on January 29, 1523, 2) the Council forbade the preachers to present anything that they could not explain with Holy Scripture, under heavy penalty. But Zwingli himself did not remain within the bounds of sacred Scripture as a humble student of it, but rationalizing as he was designed to do, 3) he adjusted the teachings according to his own school of thought and then sought to force Scripture to his opinion, as in other teachings, so especially in the doctrine of Holy Communion. As he did with the holy Scriptures, so he did with the writings of his opponents, reshaping them to his own liking and then fighting their teachings as gross error. 4) Stubborn and unapproachable for instruction from the Word of God, he insisted on his preconceived opinions and defended them most stubbornly. His reformation was also not a purely ecclesiastical one,
1) Guericke, Kirchengeschichte (7th edition), Vol. Ill, p. 119 ff.
2) For more information, see note Col. 441 f.
3) Compare Luther's Table Talks, Cap. 22, § 3. Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XXII, 631 f.
4) Cf. Köstlin, Martin Luther, vol. II, p. 102.
but also extended to the political sphere. In particular, he incited the war against the Catholic cantons, went to war himself, and was slain in the battle of Kappel on October 11, 1531. His body fell into the hands of the enemy, was quartered and burned. 5)
Luther will probably be right in his statement (Table Talks, Cap. 22, § 3) that Zwingli believed throughout his life that Christ in the Lord's Supper was only spiritual, for Zwingli himself says: 6) "I saw that the words 'This is my body' were spoken in a veiled way, but I did not see which word actually contained the veiling: 'This is my body,' were spoken in a foggy way, but in which word the fogging actually was, I did not see." So he was not able to find even an apparent reason for his opinion from the Scriptures. "The beautiful pearl, that this is to be explained by means of this," he found in a letter, which Cornelius van Hon, a Dutch jurist, had sent to Luther in the summer of 1522, 7) which Zwingli got to see the following winter. Therefore, he hesitated for a long time to go public with his teaching, and Carlstadt beat him to it. He fully agreed with Carlstadt's doctrine that only bread and wine were in the Holy Communion, but he did not consider its justification from the Holy Scriptures to be sufficient. Zwingli first presented his doctrine in a letter to Matthäus Alber, pastor in Reutlingen, dated November 16, 1524. 8) This letter was not intended for printing, but came with Zwingli's knowledge and will into many hands, over 500. 9) But in detail
5) Zwingli's writings, edited by OualLer, published in Zurich in 4, folio volumes, 1544 and 1545; further in 1581 and more recently (1tz28 and following years) in 11 volumes by M. Schüler and I. Schultheß.
6) Col. 509, § 4 in No. 13 of this volume. See also Col. 1182, § 86.
7) See the note to § 4 in No. 13 of this volume, Col. 509.
8) This letter is found in Walch, old edition, Vol. X V, 1880 ff.
9) Cf. Col. 496 in this volume, § 53; also Col. 507, 8 3. From the latter passage it is evident that this letter had already been printed before October 1525. Köstlin, Martin Luther, vol. II, p. 75 says that the letter was already printed by Zwingli in March 1525, at the same time as his Commentary "von der wahren und falschen Religion".
he set forth his view in his Commentarius de vera et falsa religione, which went out in mid-March 1525, and in it he called the Lutheran doctrine "not only a coarse (rusticam), but also godless and silly (frivolam) opinion". The passages in this writing that refer to the Holy Supper, along with those from Zwingli's book Antibulon written against Emser, were "hurriedly brought into German" by three unnamed persons, and the resulting book was already sold in April 1525 at the fair in Frankfurt am Main under the title: 1) "Ulrich Zwingli's Meinung von dem Nachtmahl Christi, Wiedergedächtnisniß oder Danksagung" etc. (No. 11 in this volume.) In reference to this writing, D. Johann Heß, pastor in Breslau, through D. Ambrosius Moiban, pastor there, to D. Johann Bugenhagen, that he should briefly indicate what one should say in response to the new errors that are now being raised against the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. His request was granted by Johann Bugenhagen's epistle against the new errors in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (No. 12 in this volume), which went out about September 1525 in both Latin and German. 2) Bugenhagen says that there is no better and more certain way to answer this than with the simple text and words in Scripture, which the masters and perpetrators of such error tear apart and tear apart pitifully. This he did quite briefly and in an excellent, striking manner. On October 23, 1525, Ulrich Zwingli replied to Johann Bugenhagen's letter (No. 13 in this volume) in Latin, which was translated into German in the same year. In this letter, he complained that his teaching had been called an error, and a new one at that, because this doctrine of the Lord's Supper was not new, but Christ, the apostles, and the earliest Christians had not taught it.
1) The complete and exact indication of this title can be found in the note to the title of No. 11.
2) The Latin title is given in the note to the caption of No. 12.
held in this way. His answer against Bugenhagen is extremely powerless, because his counter-arguments are not only based on a false interpretation of clear testimonies of the holy scripture, especially the words of Paul 1 Cor. 10, 16, but also on an obvious distortion of Bugenhagen's words. 3) In von der Hardt, Autograph. Luther, tom. Ill, p. 141, another writing is mentioned, which is directed against Bugenhagen and has the title: "Answer to the highly respected D. Joh. Bugenhagen from Pomerania, shepherd at Wittenberg, to the missive, so he sent to the highly respected D. Hessium, teacher at Breslau, concerning the Sacrament, made by Conrad Reichen at Ofen."
b. Luther's dispute with Oekolampad and Zwingli.
At the same time that Bugenhagen testified against Zwingli, Johann Oecolampad publicly joined the ranks of the Sacramentarians. 4) His name was actually Hausschein and he was born in 1482 at Weinsberg in Swabia; he studied in Heilbronn, Heidelberg and Bologna and was then a preacher in his hometown for six months. He then went to Tübingen, where he became friends with Melanchthon, then to Stuttgart for Reuchlin's sake, and finally back to Heidelberg, where he made contact with Brenz and Capito. Now he followed an episcopal call to Basel, where he met Erasmus, became a licentiate there on October 31, 1516, and a doctor of theology in 1518. In the same year we meet him as a preacher in Augsburg; in 1520 he entered the Brigitten Monastery Altmünster there, but left it in 1522, went to Franz von Sickingen and finally (still in 1522) settled permanently in Basel, where he was employed as a pastor in 1525 5) and died there on November 24, 1531. About the cause of his death, Luther says in his " "brief confession of the holy
3) Compare the note to § 15 of No. 13 in this volume, Col. 515.
4) "Sacramentarians" was the name given to those who denied and fought against the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion.
5) Thus Guericke, Kirchengeschichte (7th edition), Vol. Ill. There is a document from the year 1526: "Bestallung Herrn D. J. Oecolampadnii zu Verkündigung des h. Evangelii in der Kirche zu St. Martin."
sacrament against the enthusiasts" (No. 47 in this volume, § 5): "Meanwhile the Zwingel was killed in the field by that part of the papists [October 11, 1531] , and Oecolampad, far too weak to bear such an accident, also died of grief over it."
Initially, Oecolampad proclaimed the correct doctrine of Holy Communion, as evidenced by his Sermon on the Sacrament of the Altar (No. 4 in the appendix of this volume), which he delivered during his stay in Augsburg in 1521; later, however, this highly gifted and very learned man turned to Zwingli's error, about which Luther was heartily grieved. 1) In the opinion that in the Lord's Supper there is only bread and wine, he was in agreement with Zwingli, but in the justification of the same he deviated from him, in that the interpretation of the "is" in "means" did not seem tenable to him; instead he explained "body" by "sign of the body. At the beginning of 1525 he began to preach his false doctrine, and in the course of the year he wrote his book De genuina verborum Domini, Hoc est corpus meum, expositione, 2) to which he added a letter to the Swabian preachers (No. 5 in the appendix of this volume). He sent both to the Swabian preachers before October 1525. In the book he tries to prove from the church fathers that his doctrine is the doctrine of the old church, and to provide proof that the words of institution must be taken figuratively. In his letter, he calls the doctrine of the true presence of the body and blood a "highly dangerous superstition"; out of love for the truth, for the honor of God, he had to "hoe the field, lest the field become full of weeds. In the most urgent way he exhorts them to love and warns them not to cause discord (for the sake of the doctrine he presents). But the Swabian preachers would not and could not remain silent about Oecolampad's erroneous doctrine, even though Bucer also wrote to Brenz and other Swabian preachers.
1) Cf. Luther's letter to Hausmann of Sept. 13, 1526. Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1919.
2) This writing is found in ^.cta 6t seripta puddcs, soelssias IVirtsmdsrAieas, rso. 0. M. DIaKus.
dinZas 1719. dsZ. 41-150.
Brenz wrote to Bucer asking him to keep peace with Oecolampad and not to write against him. Brenz wrote to Bucer on October 3, 1525: 3) "You declare war on us and forbid us the rights of war, ... the fire which you have set is burning; now you forbid that we should not run to extinguish the fire, or for that matter that we should not let ourselves think that it is a conflagration." "We, some brethren, have been assembled these (iis) days in [Swabian] Hall, and have discussed what we thought of the Sacrament, or the bread of the Lord's Supper. 4) We will answer Oecolampad with writings, giving an account of our faith." As we can see from this letter 5), about the end of September 1525, a number of preachers (fourteen are named) met in Schwäbisch-Hall to examine Oecolampad's book and to discuss the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Brenz was instructed by the preachers to put the result of their discussion in writing; 6) they would
3) This letter is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1952.
4) Here Brenz already speaks of the meeting of the preachers in Schwäbisch-Hall as something past. If the date of the letter just mentioned (October 3) is correct, as it is also found in Pfaff: ^ota st "eripta secäskias ^VirtsmdsrKieas, p. 203, then Seckendorf's statement, Rist. Dutd., lid. II, p. 35s, (1): "d. 12. east." must be erroneous. This seems to us to be a misprint, arising from the date which the title of the Syngramma bears: "die 21. Oel." Cf. Pfaff, I. c., Appendix, eap. I, p. 3. Also in Kawerau, "Agricola," p. 87, we find, probably after Seckendorf, the indication "on October 12, 1525."
5) This letter was printed without Brenz knowing about it and appeared under the title: Lpistola äo. Drsntii äs Verdis Domini: Dos 68t 60rpu8 IN6UIN, ornnionein onorunäain äe 6uodari8tia reiellens, without specifying place and time. In contrast, Bucer let go out in his defense: ^poloZia, Huaüdsi [nae atYN6 äoetrinas eiroa Odristi eosnarn, ouarn tnin ix>86, tnrn slii eoelesiastas ^rA6ntoraten868 proütentnr, rationein sim^I Leiter rsääit at^us contra äentern dspsldt, ynae inipsnin spLstoia Huaeäarn lo. Lrentii, 666l68ia8ta6 Halsn sis, LnssLo, nt ersditur, anotors sdita, erirnina Lntsndit. 1526 In this writing Bucer joins the deniers of the real presence of Christ and wants to know of no other than spiritual food.
6) Brenz himself reports this in his DssoZnitio dostrinss äs vsra majs8tat6 Odrisii, which he had issued against Bullinger. In his works, lom. VIII, p. 1003. It is therefore not doubtful, as has been stated many times, but certain that Brenz is the author of the Syngramma.
send this to Oecolampad by a special messenger. Because Brenz had been Oecolampad's disciple, he would have liked to avoid this task, but he finally had to give in to their urging and composed the so-called Syngramma Suevicum or of the preachers assembled at Schwäbisch-Hall, Schrift wider Oecolampadius (No. 14 in this volume), which is dated October 21, 1525. It was originally written in Latin and, although it was not originally intended for publication, was first submitted to print in 1525 without the knowledge and will of the Swabian preachers. Then several editions soon followed. 1) In 1526, two different translations of the Syngramma were made. One is by an unknown author, 2) the other by M. Johann Agricola. It is probably the former that was included in Walch's old edition, because Walch says in reference to it (Introduction to the 19th volume, p. 36): "I have a German translation" etc., but of the other: "but I also know of another, which Johann Agricola made anew". The translation of the Syngramma in Walch's old edition is the worst that we have come across. According to the external volume, it offers little more than half of the Latin original. From B. § 27 (Col. 693 of the old edition of Walch) is written in; on the other hand, in other places much is omitted, e.g. in § 32, § 35, § 47 etc., so that it is hardly recognizable that this should be a translation of the Latin. Only here and there is a single sentence torn out of the Latin and rendered quite inadequately. In the Latin, § 35 takes up three whole quarto pages; in the translation, only one column. The unfavorable remarks about the Syngramma, which one encounters here and there, are undoubtedly largely due to this wretched translation, whereas in the
1) About the different editions compare the note to the caption of No. 14.
eap. I, x. 4) the Justus Jonas. Neither of these two statements seems credible to us because of the incredibly poor quality of this translation.
Luther's verdict, 3) that it is "excellent, detailed and written in a learned manner" against Oecolampad and Zwingli, was passed on the Latin Syngramma. We do not believe that Luther read through and examined the translation; if he had done so, he would hardly have adorned it with his preface. Luther liked the Syngramma so much that he was willing to translate it himself; however, this was not done because Agricola, driven by the Mausfeld Chancellor Johann Thür, 4) had completed his translation. Luther's preface to the first German edition of the Syngramma, about the second quarter of 1526, 5) (No. 15 in this volume) precedes Agricola's translation, as Luther himself states in this preface. The words that Agricola put on the title of his edition: "von neuem durch Johannem Agricolam verdeutscht", 6) could raise doubts as to whether this edition is really the first; but this is alleviated by the fact that Luther says in the other preface, which is found before our translation in No. 14 of this volume: "I have now helped to translate the fine little book Syngramma into German for the second time. In the Syngramma itself, it is asserted how little consistent reason the opponents would be able to muster for the denial of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Communion, because none of them would agree with the others in their reasoning; Carlstadt sought to support his opinion with the "Tuto", Zwingli by reversing the "is" into "means", Öecolam-
3) In Luther's letters to Agricola of February 18, 1526. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 998 and (duplicate) Col. 1198.
4) Kawerau, Agricola, p. 87.
5) For this approximate timing, we rely on the following: On February 18, 1526, Luther brought the Syngramma to the attention of Agricola (De Wette III, 93). Around August, Oecolampad's answer to Luther's preface already appeared. Shortly before the middle of July, Agricola left with the Elector for the Imperial Diet in Speyer and remained there until the end of August (Kawerau, Agricola, pp. 80 and 88). Therefore, we must assume that Agricola completed his translation before July, and that Luther had already written the preface to it, even that it had already gone out in print.
6) How these words are actually to be understood, we do not know.
pad by explaining the word "body" as "sign of the body". In order to be able to oppose the Lutheran doctrine with some semblance, they mixed it with the papal one. The reasons they put forward are treated in detail and emphatically refuted in the Syngramma. We refrain from a further description of the contents of this writing, because we offer it in a new translation, which faithfully reproduces the original. The reproach that has been raised against the Syngramma by the Reformed side, that in it the teaching of the Reformed Church after Calvin's time is presented, deserves no refutation.
Luther was drawn into the sacramental controversy by his preface to the Syngramma. Oekolampad was very unhappy with the writing of the Swabian preachers and before the end of 1525 1) had a Latin book published against it under the title Antisyngramma, which Luther already mentions in his first preface to the German Syngramma. In 1526, however, Johann Oecolampad's answer to Luther's preface, together with a short answer to the Syngramma of the preachers in Swabia (No. 16 in this volume), appeared in German (around August). Stubbornly and bitterly he defends his opinion in both writings and is not afraid to say (in both writings): "The devil turns truth into a lie and makes the body out of the sign. About Luther he says (No. 16, § 56): "the right true spirit of God has left Luther at this time".
The Swabian preachers gave Oecolampad no answer to his writings, for in the meantime other men, namely Theobald Billicanus (actually Gerlacher), preacher at Nördlingen, Wilibald Pirkheimer 2) at Nuremberg, and even Luther himself, had entered the battlefield to defend the right doctrine. The former gave in the
1) Thus Seckendorf, nist. I^utU., lib. II, x. 35, (2). - Pfaff, betast serixta ete., appendix, x. 10, and after him Walch, Einleitung zum 20. Bande, p. 42, give the year 1526.
2) His writing has the title: Liliir. LirlrUeirnsri üe vera EUristi earne et vero sjus sun^uine a<I .1. Deeolanaxaäiuna respousio. XonmU. 1526. 8.
In 1525, he wrote a letter to Urban Rhegius under the title Epistola de verbis coenae Domini et opinionum varietate, in which he rejected and refuted the opinions of the Sacramentarians, Carlstadt, Zwingli and Oecolampad, and insisted that one must remain with the words of the institution of Christ in their simple sense. Urban Rhegius, who was then a preacher in Augsburg, replied in the same vein on December 18, 1525. Both letters 3) together were published in 1526 under the title: De verbis coenae dominicae et opinionum varietate, Theobaldi Billicani ad Urbanum Rhegium epistola. Responsio Urbani Rhegii ad eundem. Pirkheimer, however, published at Nuremberg in 1526: Responsio de vera Christi carne et vero ejus sanguine ad Joannem Oecolampadium, in which he reviews and refutes the same writing of Oecolampad, which had also given the Swabian preachers the occasion for their Syngramma. On the other hand, Oecolampad's responsibility against Theobald Billicanus appeared on February 1, 1526 (No. 17 in this volume), in which he endeavors to prove from the evangelists that the words of Christ's institution are to be understood in a vague way, also appeals to the analogy of the paschal lamb, and asserts that the bread in the Lord's Supper is in the same way a sign or memorial meal. Zwingli also sent out a reply against Billican and Rhegius in Zurich in 1526 under the title: Responsio ad Theobaldi Billicani et Urbani Rhegii epistolas.
Although Oecolampad often used the harshest expressions against his opponents in his writings, 4) "calling Luther's God the roasted and baked God and calling him together with his followers God-eaters and God-blood-drinkers", he was nevertheless of the opinion that the unity of the church should not be divided because of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. In this sense, Oecolampad's two sermons on the worthiness of the Lord's Supper (No. 18 in
3) They can be found in Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1922 and 1945.
4) Pfaff, Vota et seriptn pnUI. eeel. VirtenalierAnnex, x>. 12.
The first of these sermons seeks to prove that the celebration of Holy Communion is not so much about the real presence of the body and blood of Christ as it is about the remembrance of Christ's suffering. In the other sermon, he endeavors to defend the Swiss against the accusation that they have a Jewish nature about them and that there is less right worship in their congregations than among the Jews.
The aforementioned writing of Pirkheimer was answered by Oecolampad in his Responsio de re eucharistiae, Zurich 1526, in which he attacked the right doctrine of Holy Communion with harsh words. Pirkheimer countered this reply in 1527 with his ecunda responsio ad Oecolampadium, whereupon Oecolampad had a rebuttal printed in the same year under the title: Ad Bilibaldum Pirkhaimerum de eucha
Joannis Husschin [Hauschein], cui ab aequalibus a prima adolescentia Oecolampadio nomen obvenit, responsio posterior.
It is noteworthy that Erasmus was also somewhat drawn into this sacramental controversy. Conrad Pellicanus, professor of the Hebrew language in Zurich, had become acquainted with Erasmus in Basel and, when asked by his friends, said that he did not allow any other use of the body and blood than the spiritual. As soon as Erasmus learned this, he complained in several letters to Pellican that he was being blasted as if he were like Carlstadt and believed that only bread and wine were present in the Lord's Supper. Pellican based his statement on the writings of Erasmus, in which at least the spiritual use of the Lord's Supper was insisted upon. These events occurred in 1526, and shortly thereafter, still in 1526, Leo Judä, preacher at Zurich, published the following paper in German under the assumed name of Ludwig Leopold 1): "Erasmi und Mart. Lutheri Meinung vom Nachtmahl unsers HErrn JEsu Christi," in which he asserted that both, before they had been
1) Luther mentions this Leopold in his letter to the printers Secerius and Herwagen of September 13, 1526. Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1963, § 3.
Luther did not care about this unfounded attack, but Erasmus responded vehemently in Latin: Erasmi Roterodami detectio praestigiarum cujusdam libelli Germanicum. Luther did not care about this unfounded attack, but Erasmus answered fiercely in a Latin writing: Erasmi Roterodami detectio praestigiarum cujusdam libelli Germanice scripti, ficto auctoris titulo, cum hac inscriptione: Erasmi et Lutheri opiniones de coena Dominii, Basel 1526. Leo Judä defended himself against this in a rebuttal. 2)
Zwingli's efforts to gain acceptance for his doctrine in Nuremberg also form an episode in this dispute. He had written to the council to come himself, and also sent letters to Andreas Osiander and his colleagues to win them over; but in vain, for the Nuremberg preachers publicly testified against him in sermons. Upset about this, Zwingli sent a fierce letter to Osiander in May 1527, in which he says: 3) it is incomprehensible how a true Christian and theologian can still value "carnal eating"; this is a relapse into unevangelical nature, which will again lead to the "greatest godlessness". Boastfully he says: "Not three years will pass until Italy, France, Spain, Germany will take our side." Osiander had this letter printed at Nuremberg in 1527, together with his answer to it, under the title: Epistolae duae, una Huldrichi Zuinglii ad Andream Osiandrum, qua cum eo expostulat, quod novum illud de eucharistia dogma hactenus rejecerit ac temere impugnarit. Altera Andr. Osiandri ad eundem Huldrichum Zuinglium apologetica, qua docet, quid, quam ob causam rejecerit, quodque posthac ab eo in illa causa expectandum sitn Brenz and almost at the same time, namely in October 1525, the Strasbourg preachers Bucer, Capito and others also addressed the request to Luther that he should not disturb the peace for the sake of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper; each part should give the other its conviction.
2) Hottingers helvetische Kirchengeschichte, Theil III, p. 294 f.
3) Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 102.
and refrain from scolding and condemning. Their principle was to inculcate in their people not what the sacraments were, but what they were for, and to keep away from them the musings and torments about the "breading" of Christ. 1) They brought this request orally to him through Georg Casel (also Casse!, Chaselius), Lector of the Hebrew language. Luther answered in writing on November 5 and also orally through Casel: 2) he desires peace, he had not initiated the matter at first, but Zwingli and Oecolampad had worried the minds through the books published by them. Should Luther remain silent, he would also have to give up the ministry of the word and pastoral care. One should not revile, however; but if one rejects their cause or speaks against it, this is called reviling. They boast of their moderation, and yet in their books they call the Lutherans carnivores, worshippers of a gluttonous (esculsntum) and roasted God, and deniers of the redemption that took place on the cross, while they cannot bear it to be said of them that they err. Their advice (consilium) that the faithful should be diverted from the question of the presence of the body and blood and driven to the word and faith alone is not valid, because word and faith without the thing on which they are based do not exist. The words themselves also hold the doctrine that the body and the blood are there. The people could not be kept from this question (about the true presence) after so many books had been spread. They themselves should have kept silent; now it is missed, 3) and too late now one demands silence.
Soon thereafter, namely on January 4, 1526, Luther addressed a letter of exhortation to the Christians of Reutlingen, 4) in which he warns them against the error of the Sacramentarians and
1) Köstlin, Martin Luther, vol. II, p. 85.
2) Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1906.
3) In the German Redaction, De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 47: "verbeitet" i.e. waited too long, missed. De Wette puts as a conjecture in the margin: "spread", but erroneously, because "betten" means "wait".
4) The same is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1913.
urges to remain firm in the right doctrine of Holy Communion.
In the same year 1526 Justus Jonas translated Luther's writing "Vom Anbeten des Sacraments des heiligen Leichnams JEsu Christi an die Brüder in Böhmen und Mähren, Waldenses genannt" 5) into Latin. It was published in Wittenberg under the title: Libellus D. Martini Lutheri de sacramento eucharistiae ad Waldenses fratres e Germanico translatus per Justum Jonam. This was done, as we see from the letter to Johann Rühel, Mansseldischen Rath, in order to reject the reproach of the Zwinglians, as if Luther had been of their opinion before the outbreak of the Sacrament controversy.
According to Luther's preface to the Syngramma der schwäbischen Prediger (Syngramma of the Swabian Preachers), his first counter-writing against the sacramentists was "Luther's Sermon on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ against the Swarm Spirits", 1526 (No. 19 in this volume). In this writing, he refutes in the first part the two main reasons of the sacrament enthusiasts, namely, first: the true presence of the body and blood of Christ does not rhyme with reason, and second: the same is also not necessary. To the first he replies that many things, both in the realm of nature and in the realm of grace, are incomprehensible to reason and, according to its judgment, inconsistent; reason, however, must yield to faith and give itself up to the word of God. He rejects the other reason by accusing his opponents of wanting to master God and dictate to him how he should arrange his affairs. If this were true, one could also overthrow baptism and all means of grace. Luther summarizes this in the short words: "Only see that you pay attention to God's word and remain in it like a child in the cradle. If you let this go for a moment, then you have fallen away. And with this alone the devil deals, that he may pluck out men and bring them to measure God's will and work with reason." The second part of the scripture is about how to use the sacrament properly,
5) Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. XIX, 1308 ff.
in order to be assured of the forgiveness of sins; in the third part he teaches about confession. For the rest, we refer the reader to the scripture itself. This sermon was translated into Latin by Vincentius Obsopöus and published in Hagenau in 1527 under the title: Martini Lutheri sermo elegantissi- mus super sacramento corporis et sanguinis Christi, in quo respondetur obiter et ejusdem sacramenti calumniatoribus. This translation is included in the Latin Wittenberg edition, ^om. VII, coi. 334d.
On the other hand, Ulrich Zwingli's writing, opposed to Luther's sermon against the enthusiasts 1) (No. 22 in this volume), which he had completed on March 30, 1527, was published.
In the meantime, the Strasbourgs, who until then had tried to take a more mediating position, had openly taken the side of the Sacramentarians. Bugenhagen had published his explanation of the Psalter, Interpretatio in librum psalmorum, Witebergae publice lecta, in 1524, and Bucer translated it into German in 1526 2), but in the interpretation of the 111th Psalm, instead of Bugenhagen's Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, he inserted his Zwinglian opinion. Bugenhagen gave evidence against this forgery in the same year by his writing: Oratio Johannis Bugenhagii Pom- meranj, quod ipsius non sit opinio illa de eucharistia, quae in psalterio, sub nomine ejus Germanice translato, legitur. Wittembergae 1526, which he dedicated to his two friends Spalatin and Agricola and asked them to defend him against the suspicion that he had become a sacramentarian during their stay in Speyer (where they were at that time because of the Imperial Diet). Bucer answered to this in a writing: 3) Satisfactio de ver- sione psalterii ad Pomeranum. Just as with Bngenhagen's Psalter, Bucer proceeded with Luther's church postilion, which he, as far as
1) The exact title of this paper is given in the note to the superscription of No. 22.
2) This translation appeared, as Seckendorf, Hist. D-utk., iid. II, p. 82, (3), at Basel.
3) The same is German in the old edition of Walch, Vol. XVI I, 1994 ff. In Col. 2007 only the date "der 25. Martii" is given, but the year 1527 is omitted.
The translation, which was published in Strasbourg in five parts, was entitled Lnarration68 in 6pi8tola8 6t 6vanZ6lia. This translation, which was published in Strasbourg in five parts, had the title: Lnarration68 in 6pi8tola8 6t 6vanZ6lia. He wrote a preface to the fourth part and also made comments on the text in which he expressed his Zwinglian error. Luther became very indignant about this and wrote on September 13, 1526 (not 1527, as De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. 201) 4) an angry letter to the printers Johann Secerius in Basel and (unchanged from the same letter) Herwagen in Strasbourg, in which he complains that the poison of the Sacramentarians has been mixed into his writings, testifies that the heretical Sacramentarians mock Christ, and demands that, if the fourth volume should be printed again, this letter of his be included in it, as a testimony that he does not hold with the Sacramentarians, and as an antidote to Bncer's preface. Bucer also answered for this letter in a special writing: 5) Epistola M. Lutheri ad Joann. Hervagium, superiora, [namely Bucer's preface printed together with it, etc.] criminans: Responsio ad hanc M. Buceri, which is dated "March 29, 1527".
In quick succession, Zwingli issued a number of writings in which he sought to preserve his opinion of the Lord's Supper and to refute the teachings of Luther, whom he referred to by name. In 1526, the following was published in Zurich: "A Clear Instruction on the Supper of Christ, by Huldrich Zwingli, in German, as never before, for the sake of the simple, so that they may not be deceived by anyone's sophistry. b) Likewise: Responsio brevis ad epistolam satis longam amici cujusdam haud vulgaris, in qua de eucharistia quaestio tractatur; 7) furthermore a German "letter to the city of Esslingen", by which he tried to win the city for himself. In this letter he describes his opponents
4) Walch, vol. XVII, 1962, has the correct date. Herwagen received the original. Cf. Walch, ibid, Col. 1984 f., § 34.
5) German by Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 1967, 6) HuinKlii Opera, Dorn. II, 272.
7) IdM., Dom. II, 319.
as furious people who wanted to be all alone and were worse than the pope. Zwingli's main writing, however, appeared in Zurich in March of 1527, 1) namely: Amica exegesis, id est, expositio eucharistiae negotii ad Mar- tinum Lutherum, 1) in which he endeavored to destroy in one fell swoop everything that Luther and his followers had published in the sacramental matter. This writing is directed against Luther's letters to Secerius and Herwagen, to the Strassburgers and to the Reutlingers; against Luther's writings against the heavenly prophets, and of the worship of the Sacrament to the Waldenses; against Luther's sermon on the Sacrament against the enthusiasts and the syngramma of the Swabian preachers; after that, however, he seeks to prove that the words of institution must be explained figuratively.
Almost at the same time as Zwingli's book mentioned above, around April 1527, 3) Luther's writing appeared: Daß diese Worte Christi, "das ist mein Leib" u. s. w., noch fest stehen gegen die Schwärmgeister (No. 20 in this volume), on which he had worked from January to the end of March. In the face of his opponents' rationalities, he asserts that the Holy Scripture must be and remain empress, and that one should hold fast to the dry, bright words that stand there: "Eat, this is my body," and scourges his adversaries with righteous derision because of their wanton denial and wicked blasphemy, which they commit because they punish the Holy Spirit in his words. "One part," says Luther, "must be the devil's enemy and God's enemy. There is no remedy." "He who punishes and blasphemes God in one word, or says that it is a small thing that he is blasphemed and blasphemed, blasphemes the whole of God, and despises all blasphemy against God." If it should be valid in such a way to take away the simple mind of Christ's saying, and to
1) The letter to Luther is dated February 28; on April 1, Zwingli sent a copy to Luther.
2) 2uin^Iii Opera, Dom. II, 324.
3) About the time determination compare the note to the superscription of No. 20. Zwingli says in his rebuttal (No. 21 in this volume, Col. 1126) that Luther's writing went out simultaneously with his lines oxoZosis.
By changing the word "is" into "dentet", as Zwingli writes, and by interpreting the word "my body" into "meius Leibes Zeichen", as Oecolampad writes, the one who denied that God created heaven and earth, and claimed that the world was eternal, would make use of the same knotting against the text: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" and "make the text thus: 'God,' which should mean as much as 'cuckoo'; 'created,' however, as much as 'ate'; 'heaven and earth' as much as 'the warbler with feathers and with everything.'" "Who ever read in Scripture that 'body' should mean as much as 'body's sign,' and 'is< should mean as much as 'interprets'? Yes, what language in all the world has ever spoken so? It is only the arrogance and idle malice of the wretched devil, who mocks us by such enthusiasts in this great matter, that he pretends to be instructed by Scripture, so far as to put Scripture out of the way beforehand, or to make his conceit of it." For the rest, we refer the reader to this scripture itself.
Attached to this writing is an appendix: Writing Georg Norarii to the Christian reader, in which he indicates that some of Wittenberg with untruth ascribe to him, that he omitted a necessary piece and so on. This protest first appeared in the first printing of the third volume of the Jena edition of 1556, of which Rörer was then the editor. The omitted piece (Col. 888-891) is marked by us and in the second note Col. 888 the necessary is noted. The same piece is also missing in the Latin translation of this writing in the 7th volume of the Latin Wittenberg edition (1558), toi. 417.
4) In reference to this execution of Luther, Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 89, says: "This is one of the strongest examples of how his (Luther's) polemics between really sharp logical remarks or between deep, even bold theological thoughts, often break loose into outbursts, in which one can only see clumsy discharges of his bitterness. Shouldn't a Lutheran rather agree with our judgment: that even the way Luther polemicizes here and the expression he gives to his indignation about the shameful distortion of Scripture by his opponents is completely appropriate?
Against Luther's writing Zwingli's answer appeared that these words: This is my corpse, eternally the old unified sense will have (No. 23 in this volume), which is provided with a letter to Prince John of June 20, 1527, in which he bitterly complains about Luther that the same "not only hurts over the string of Christian spirit and love, but also the Scripture seems to penetrate with his name shine in an improper sense". Also Oecolampad published against the same in 1527 at Basel a writing in German language under the title: "Daß der Mißverstand D. Martin Luther's misunderstanding of the eternal, constant words: This is my body, cannot stand. The Other Cheap Answer of Johannis Oecolampadii." 2)
In March 1528, Luther published his Confession of the Lord's Supper (No. 21 in this volume), which is usually called "Luther's Great Confession of the Lord's Supper" in distinction from the "Small Confession" of 1544 3). When Luther sent it to his friend Wenceslaus Link, he wrote to him 4) on March 28, 1528: "I have given Johann Hofmann copies (of the writing) against the Sacramentarians, which are to be distributed among you; may the Lord grant that they bear fruit among many. For I have decided to let these useless babblers go, and I want to have put an end to the writing against them, because I see that there is such a great ignorance in logic among them that it is impossible that they, even if they were wrong in natural things (naturaliter), could be instructed or made to stick to the piece that should be refuted (ad metam confutationis adigi). For neither teaching nor disputing can be done without the dialectic, at least the naturaliter.
1) The complete title is found in the note to the superscription of No. 23. -This writing came into Bucer's hands only on July 8, 1527, to Wittenberg not before August 21. (Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 643 sä p. 103.)
p. 141.
3) No. 47 in this volume.
4) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1098.
Zwingli is so doltish (ruäis) that he could be compared to a donkey. This extensive and detailed writing has three parts. In the first, Luther treats the objections of the opponents and refutes them; in the second, he provides proof from the Holy Scriptures and "conquers" it that there is no trope in the words of institution of the Holy Communion, nor can there be, that therefore Luther's "understanding is right and that of the enthusiasts is erroneous and wrong"; in the third part, he makes his confession both in regard to the Lord's Supper and about other doctrines of faith. Among other things he says: "I confess the sacrament of the altar, that there the body and blood in bread and wine are eaten and drunk orally, whether the priests who administer it or those who receive it do not believe or otherwise abuse it. For it is not on man's faith or unbelief, but on God's word and order."
On the other hand, Zwingli's answer to Luther's Confession of the Lord's Supper (No. 24 in this volume) appeared at the beginning of September 1528 5) (for this writing was begun on July 1, completed at the end of August), provided with a dedication to the Elector John of Saxony and the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, 6) in which he endeavors to disparage Luther and make him look contemptible. In this letter there is the strange, hopeful statement by Zwingli that he does not give the princes their titles because "transparency is proper to the stained glass windows", which Luther remembers in his Table Talks 7). To this reply Zwingli added Oecolampad's answer to Martin Luther's Confession of the Lord's Supper (Col. 1378 ff. in this volume), which (Col. 1375) is preceded by a Bnef to Zwingli. Both Zwingli and Oecolampad insist on their opinion in these extensive writings; however, Luther did not consider it necessary to answer them.
Luther's. great confession made Bucer the
5) For this timing, see the note to the caption of No. 24.
6) Seckendorf, nist. LutU., Ud. II, p. 118, § 41, (1) erroneously: "an den Churfürsten und dessen Sohn".
7) Tischreden, Cap. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 676.
He was so impressed by the Lord's Supper that, after reading it, he thought about how unity could be established and promoted. We can see this from two letters, 1) which he later wrote to Johann Comander and to Johann Lasko (the latter in 1541).
Around the same time that Luther's "Great Confession" went out, Bugenhagen also published a paper on Holy Communion: Publica de sacramento corporis et sanguinis Christi, ex Christi institutidne, confessio, qua suae fidei de coena Domini reddit rationem et dicit vale iis, qui audire nolunt. Wittenberg 1528. 8; in which, among other things, he also treats the doctrine of consecration. Brenz, too, refuted anew the truth of Zwingli and Oecolampad in his explanation of John the Evangelist in the interpretation of the sixth chapter.
Soon after the beginning of the Sacrament controversy, books were banned in the margraviate of Baden in which the error of the Sacramentists was taught. Nevertheless, at the market in Baden "a newly published booklet" by Zwingli 2) was offered for sale, which came into the hands of a preacher there, D. Jakob Strauß 3). This prompted him to send out in June 1526 his writing "Wider den unmilden Irrthum Meister Ulrich Zwingli's, so er verneint die wahrhaftige Gegenwärtigkeit des allerheiligsten Leibes und Blutes Christi im Sacrament (No. 25 in diesem Bande). On the other hand, in the same year Ulrich
1) These letters are found in Lsultstus, svanAel. renovut., p. 132 sq.
2) This book, as we see from Zwingli's rebuttal § 9, is written against the papists Eck and Faber, and Zwingli complains that it is unreasonable that Strauss directs his attack precisely against this book, which was written in great haste,
3) On Strauss, compare the introduction to the 19th volume of the St. Louis edition, p. 47 f.; likewise Vol. X, Introduction, Col. 47 f.; also Kolde, Martin Luther, Vol. II,
4) About this time determination compare the note to the superscription of no. 26. Also Köstlin, Martin Luther, vol. II, p. 84 says that Zwingli's answer took place immediately, while Walch puts it in his introduction p. 58 into the year 1527, but in a note also mentions an edition of 1526.
Zwingli's answer about D. Strauß' book, written against him, concerning Christ's supper (No. 26 in this volume), in which he imposes his earlier transgressions on him right at the beginning of the writing (§ 5): "he [Jakob Strauß] has been unknown to me in all ways up to now, unless he is [the one] who some years ago let the very stirring final speeches full of temporal good and sign go out at Isennach Eisenach". It was, however, the same D. Jakob Strauß, 5) whom we met earlier in great aberrations, but who, after he had been called to Baden "to teach God's word in a Christian and peaceful way", faithfully carried out such a calling and here, as a witness of truth, countered the error of the Sacramentans in a suitable and effective way.
c. Zwingli's Augsburg Confession.
When the Lutherans presented their confession of faith "the Augsburg Confession" to the emperor at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg in 1530, Zwingli also set about making a confession of his faith and had it sent to Augsburg without being asked to do so. It is found in No. 27 of this volume under the title: Ulrich Zwingli's Confession of Faith, which he had presented to the Roman Emperor at the Imperial Diet held in Augsburg in 1530. The Swiss had waited in vain for the confession of their faith to be demanded of them as well. When this did not happen, Zwingli sent an "unknown person" (as Eck calls him in his rebuttal) with this confession to Augsburg; the latter, however, could not find anyone who would have dared to hand it over publicly to the emperor. This confession was completed on July 3, 1530, and a printed copy, as we can see from Melanchthon's letter to Luther 6), was already available before the
5) Strauß must have been quite well known to Zwingli, because he writes in § 71 of this writing that the same had formerly been "a preacher-monk".
6) A regest of this letter in Burkbardt, Luthers Briefwechsel, p. 180.
July 14, 1530 in Augsburg. Melanchthon says about it: "Zwingli sent a printed Confession here. One would almost like to say that he is crazy. On original sin, on the use of the sacraments, he publicly brings up the old errors. He speaks of the ceremonies in a very Swiss way, that is, in a completely barbaric way (barbarissime): he wants all ceremonies to be abolished. He pushes his cause of the Lord's Supper very hard. He wants all bishops to be exterminated. 1) I will send a copy as soon as I get it, because the one I had is going around among the princes." What Melanchthon writes here is completely justified, for Zwingli's Confession is full of the grossest errors: Of original sin he teaches that it is only an infirmity, not actually sin; baptism is only an "outward accession" to the church; the sacraments do not confer grace, indeed, they do not even administer it or withhold it, but are given to the person only for the sake that they are a public testimony of grace, which was already present in that person before; Christ is not omnipresent after humanity, and the like. Against this confession of Zwingli's, Eck published a refutation still during the Imperial Diet (perhaps by order of the Emperor): Repulsio articulorum Zuinglii, Caesareae Majestati oblatorum, Jo. Eckio auctore, 1530 in Julio, sub reverendissimi patris et amplissimi principis, D[omini] Erhardi cardinalis ac Leodiensis episcopi patrocinio, against which Zwingli sought to defend himself in his Epistola ad illustrissimos Germaniae principes etc. 2). Zwingli's confession did not appeal to the reformers either, for it is neither included in the collection of reformed confessions of faith published in Geneva in 1581, which bears the title: Harmonia confessionum fidei orthodoxarum et reformatarum ecclesiarum, nor in the later edition published there in 1612 and 1654: Corpus et syntagma confessionum fidei, quae in diversis regnis et rationibus ecclesiarum fuerunt authentice editae.
1) Cf. no. 27 of this volume, § 49 at the end.
2) Cf. the note to the heading of No. 27.
d. About the confession of the four cities.
Among the cities represented at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 were four that otherwise agreed in all respects with the "Augsburg Confession" of the Lutherans, but did not want to accept the tenth article of the same Confession on the Lord's Supper outright, because they were inclined to the opinion of the Swiss, namely the cities of Strasbourg, Constance, Memmingen and Lindau. Strasbourg, as the most important of these cities, therefore had its own confession drawn up (probably by Bucer and Capito), which the other three cities joined, and presented it on July 11, 1530 in Latin and German by Caspar Hedio 3) to the emperor in the name of all of them. This "Confession of the four cities, Strasbourg, Constance, Memmingen and Lindau, in which they declared their faith to the Emperor's Majesty at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg", 4) is reported in No. 28 of this volume. The eighteenth chapter of the same, which deals with Holy Communion, is, in order not to spoil it with anyone, so ambiguously worded that it can be interpreted both to the Lutheran doctrine and to the opinion of the Swiss, hence there has been much dispute back and forth as to whether the confession is to be considered a Lutheran or a Reformed one; however, it has been included in the previously mentioned SaCorpus et Syntagma5 ) etc., while the cities themselves dropped their confession and later joined the Augsburg Confession. The emperor accepted this confession, because it was written at his command, but the cities could not obtain it from him to be read out publicly. On the other hand, he commissioned Fabep and Eck to refute this confession of the four cities (it is also called the "Swabian" and the "Strasbourg Confession"), which they carried out in such a way that
3) Seckendorf, Ulkt. ImtU., lid. II, x. 199, (6).
4) The titles under which this confession appeared can be found in the note to the superscription of No. 28.
5) The confession of the four cities, Oonkessio tetra-. xolitauu, is found there in the second part, p. 215.
The emperor had this rebuttal read out to them, reproaching them for harboring damned errors about the Holy Communion, for storming the images in the churches, and for abolishing the mass. The emperor had this rebuttal read to the cities, reproaching them for harboring damned error about Holy Communion, for having stormed the images in the churches, for having abolished the mass, for having disturbed the monasteries, for having harbored sects, and for having refused due obedience. The deputies of the cities complained about the sharpness and injustice of the rebuttal and asked for a copy of it, but they were refused. Nevertheless, they wrote an apologia against the papal refutation and had it printed in Latin and German.
e. Luther's writings concerning the leftover bread and wine in Holy Communion.
In Luther's hometown of Eisleben, a dispute had broken out between two preachers, M. Simon Wolferinus and Friedrich Rauber, about the duration of the act of Holy Communion and about the question of what to do with the bread and wine left over from the celebration, which was conducted in a very angry and bitter manner. Therefore, on July 4 and 20, 1543, Luther sent two letters to M. Simon Wolferinus (No. 29 in this volume), in which he rebuked Wolferinus for his unchristian behavior in this dispute and gave him the necessary instruction.
Second Section.