Complete Luther Library

To Leonhard Beier.

Volume 21b from the one-column St. Louis Edition English DOCX texts, reformatted for mobile reading on Last Christian Ministries.

Source text used with permission from Back to Luther.

Volume 21b

To Leonhard Beier.

Return to Volume 21b

About a church breeding matter.

From the collection of Caspar Sagittarius at Jena in Schütze, vol. II, p. 302 and in De Wette, vol. IV, p. 496 f. Handwritten in Cod. Goth. 185. 4. and in Cod. Gud. 214. Bibl. Guelph.

Those who despise all godliness and do not make use of the Communion, we have usually used to frighten first with the reputation and the name of the most noble prince, and to give them banishment and punishment.

1) See St. Louis edition, vol. XIX, 1222 f., 8 7. 2) Instead of adeo we have assumed ideo.

as against blasphemers. Then, if they do not recover, we have given orders to the pastors to instruct, instruct, punish them for a whole month or longer; finally, if they are obdurate, to exclude them from the church (coetu) and to shun them as pagans. There is a clear passage about excommunication in Scripture. But if they are not healed by the ordinary remedies, you can write about this matter again. 1533.

Martin Luther, D.

No. 2023.

A verdict on Erasmus to his son John.

See St. Louis edition, vol. XVIII, 1981 - We agree with Burkhardt, p. 220, who says: "Probably 10 years too early; how will Luther write such a verdict on a piece of paper to a seven-year-old boy, that is, probably in 1543."

No. 2024.