1. the creation is briefly described by Moses.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
So the heavens and the earth were finished, with all their host.
4. God's process in creation and His works.
6. why Moses does not remember the angels creation.
6. of miraculous creatures and works of God.
7. question from the creation.
8. legends of the patriarchs before the flood, how they should be described and distinguished.
Cain was not who Adam thought he was.
10. we cannot thoroughly understand God's creation.
11. from paradise.
Children are God's special blessing and creature.
13. 14. Of the abuse of God's creatures.
15. lutheri thoughts from the swath.
16. of fruits and fruit.
17. fruit respect the children more than money.
18. a different.
19. several questions.
20. spill wine or salt.
21. children are God's blessing.
22. from the children birth.
God's creation of a human being is a miraculous work.
24. from twins.
God's creation in the creatures is marvelous.
26. from comets.
27. 28. From the sun.
29 A question from the sun.
What kind of man Adam was.
31. Adam's moderation.
32. a question of the fall of man.
A man does not understand God's creature and work.
34. why we live in houses.
35. from agriculture.
36. from Adam's apple bite.
(37) Speech separates a man from all other animals.
38. Adam's misery on earth.
39. weakness and misery of human nature.
40. 41. Of the regiment of the maggot sack of human body.
42 A question why people do not accept the knowledge planted in the heart as easily as that in the mind.
43. difference of the animals.
44. what a being and sense had been in paradise.
45. from Adam's case.
46. one question.
47 Adam's heartache after the fall.
48 On the miserable state of human life.
49. of the short life of people.
50. 51. 52. human life a poor life.
53. of the human skin under the eyes.
54. 55. Of children and the same life.
56. We must become like children before our Lord God.
57. 58. 59. Of the little children.
The parents' love for the children.
61. Cain, Adam's favorite child.
62. grandparents love their children's children the most.
The parents' and authorities' violence is different.
The children's discipline and punishment is necessary.
The first is the question of whether a son should betray his father's wrongdoing.
66 The custom of the goods is the most important.
The children shall suffer the infirmities of their parents.
68 Whether a father may disinherit his disobedient child.
69. why the first parents ate only fruits.
70. the parents curse.
The disobedient children are punished by God.
72. hanging on and letting the children have their way corrupts them.
73. 74. No father shall, at his life, give his goods to his children.
The children's unequal nature and nature.
76. from Weibern.
77. women should not be eloquent.
78. that which is evil to women.
79. long hair is a woman's ornament.
80. breast milk and female breasts.
81: Of men and women.
What men and women are made for.
What women are created for.
The greatest people are wrong.
85. children stand best with God.
Women should not be in charge.
87. Children are God's gift.
Man is made of dung.
89. of the increase of fish.
90. the youth bursts forth.
If Adam had not sinned, there would have been no need for bread.
The first of these is a book by the author.
93. thoughts of all the wicked.
The first is the question of whether languages, the fine arts, and other natural gifts are useful for theology.
Whether the light of reason also serves theology.
God gives many goods to the wicked here, but much more to the godly.
We do not recognize God's creatures.
1. the creation is briefly described by Moses.
(Cordatus No. 1292. 1287.)
High mysteries make vain error, therefore Moses wanted to describe the creation 1) only with few and very simple words, but the purchase of the cave in Hebron and the sacrifices and Jewish customs he described with very many words, so that they did not cause heresy.
The story which so carefully describes the purchase of the cave by Abraham is described in such a way, so that it testified his faith in the promise given to him about the possession of the land of Canaan, and the unbelievers to a testimony also after the expulsion of his own from the holy land, because he knew that the devil would do something against his descendants; because he does not grant us a morsel of bread, and if we get it, he wants to take it from us again. He ridicules all, with the exception of him of whom Paul says [Gal. 6, 7.ft "He is not mocked."
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(Cordatus No. 1559.)
Before a man learns the first word in Moses: In the beginning God created etc., he is dead, and even if he lives a thousand years, he will hardly learn it. But this Creator has been forgotten so highly that God also had to send his Son into the world, so that he would remind them of the Father etc.
3. so the heavens and the earth were completed with all their host, Gen. 2, 1.
All creatures are God's army. I have gladly kept the little word Exercitus, army, as it is written in the Ebraic, in defiance of the devil, who strives with all his might in various ways to hinder all creatures in their works, for which God has created them. The sun, moon and stars shine by day and by night. The sea gives all kinds of fishes, other waters and streams also, and keep their certain course for and without
1) Here orsalurani stands in the sense of ersationsm.
all obstacles. The earth bears and gives all kinds of grain, herbs, grain, barley etc., wine, fruit, grass, herbs etc. for the preservation and use of both man and beast. The trees bear all kinds of fruit, all animals give their use. 2) And who can tell it all? The devil likes to prevent all this, but God resists him. Therefore he is also called in the Scriptures the Lord of hosts, because he creates and sustains, that every creature may accomplish that for which he created and ordained it. Sometimes, however, God decrees that a time of unfruitfulness will come, that grain and all kinds of fruit will turn out badly, and that corruption will follow, as a punishment for the wicked, ungrateful world, which does not recognize that all kinds of fruit, vegetables and everything we enjoy are gifts from God.
4. God's process in creation and His works.
Our Lord God's way is to keep this custom, so that His power and might may be accomplished and made strong through and in weakness. Thus he first made the world, a desolate empty lump (chaos) that was dark and shapeless; then he gave form and shape to every creature in a fine order, visible and glorious. He did not create man soon, nor first, but the earth before. So he first hid and concealed in the earth the shrub, which need not be a tree at first. He could create everything immediately with only one word, but he does not want to do it, he likes this way, that he makes something out of nothing. Thus, our cause with the Gospel was also weak in the beginning, but, praise God, it has increased and grown more and more, so that more and more have come to it; but it will fall again because of the great ingratitude and contempt.
Why Moses did not remember the angels' creation.
Moses writes nothing about the creation of the angels, first of all because he describes only the creation of the visible world and creatures that are in it. Secondly, he did not want to give us cause for speculation.
2) Cf. cap. 49, § 9, para. 4.
He does not speak of unnecessary things. Nevertheless, he remembers the angels in the history of Abraham and Lot, Genesis 18 and 19:1, just as the Scriptures speak of the angels from time to time.
Therefore, God was right not to have written many things, otherwise we would have taken to the wind and despised learning and contemplating what we have now expressed in Scripture and which serves us for salvation, and would have been under obligation to investigate and fathom that which is too high above us and us, that we would not have been corrected.
6. of wonderful creatures and works of God.
At Eisleben over the table was said to D. Luther said, when pike was served in a bowl the 12th Februarii to the meal, that there are no pike in Hispania. Luther replied that the pike was a water wolf, which feeds on the fish in the water, and rules in the water.
Count Hans Heinrich von Schwarzburg told Luther that in Bohemia a lord had a water that should give very good baked fish, and if one dug earth or sod out of the same water or pond and put it into another water, fish would grow out of the same earth. Thereupon spoke 1). Luther: This is the nature of the water, so the lawn has drunk into itself. And said D. Luther: The first chapter of the first book of Moses does not say: God has put fish into the water; but God says: Water, stir up; then fish became from the rain.
God has planted two great wondrous plantings: first, God made Adam from a lump of earth, then He made woman from a man's rib. Is this not a strange planting? Sic nos ex gutta seminis ex muliere nascimur; that is a wonderful thing. Then Count Hans Heinrich von Schwarzburg said that he had heard from his father how a sea miracle had once been brought to a pope in Rome, which had been seen half as well as a man. When it was caught, it would not have wanted to eat or drink: therefore, as one said,
it would die, the pope wanted to look at it again, and after that he had such a miracle of the sea thrown into the water again, so that it would not die. When the priest looked at it, he said: Dear God, how wonderful you are among the creatures on earth! Then the beast began to speak and said, "Much more wonderful in the water. Then said D. Luther said, "This was the devil, for he dwells in the waters and great forests. More sea miracles have been seen, and they are certainly devils. And such a miracle of the sea was then thrown into the Tiber near Rome.
Then the noble lord Volrat, count and lord of Mansfeld, said above the table that there were fishermen fishing in Denmark who had seen two large fish in the sea next to each other, so the fishermen got together and undertook to catch the two fish. But one of them got through the net, and when he saw that the other fish had been caught, he raised a great hue and cry in the sea, and made such a disturbance that many boats went down with the fishermen. But they had caught one of them and brought it ashore, but it soon died and became stinking, so that it was not brought before the king of Denmark. And the king would have had it painted, and would not have seen the same sea miracle otherwise than as a monk; for it would have had a plate, and like a cap, and the like.
Furthermore, Count Volrat said that von Hutten had written to his father, Count Albrecht, from the Gold Islands that they had caught a sea wonder in their voyage on the sea, which looked like a bishop, for it had a jnfulen, a bishop's hat and all episcopal regalia. He and his companions would have been willing to give such a sea wonder to the prince of the same country as a pledge, but they would have thrown it into the water again. When it came to the sea, it walked on the water with its crosier, finally made the cross over it and disappeared into the water.
M. Luther said: "The devil asked in the Gospel of Christ, Matth. 8, 31, that he wanted to
not let him go into abyssum, into the depth of the sea. For when the devils are cast out, they must not remain on earth, but they must go from the people into the sea.
Count Volrat also said that once a sea miracle had been caught from a ship on the sea, which had been a woman. When it was kept on the ship, a ship's servant took her as his wife and fathered a child with her. After three years, when they returned by ship to the place where the sea miracle was first caught, the same woman jumped out of the ship and took the child with her, which had drowned, but she had disappeared before their eyes. Then the doctor said, "The devil can change in a woman's form, but also in a man's.
7. question from the creation.
One of them asked: How Moses could have written about the creation and other things, as at what times the archfathers, Adam, Seth, Enoch etc. would have lived and died before and after the flood, if the creation had happened more than two thousand years before his time, and the archfathers had also fallen asleep long before? he answered: I think that many things were written before Moses. Adam will have briefly written and recorded the history of the creation, of his fall, of the promise of the woman's seed etc., so the other fathers afterwards, especially Noah, what happened at each time. After that Moses will have taken it and put it in a proper order, taken from it and added to it what and how God commanded him; especially the history of the creation, item, of the seed that was to crush the serpent's head, he will have taken without any doubt from the teaching and preaching of the archfathers, which always one has inherited on the other. For I certainly believe that the preaching of the woman's seed, promised to Adam and Eve, for which they had a heartfelt longing and desire, was more powerful before the flood than the preaching of Christ at the last dangerous time.
There will also have been heretics. If Cain had not fallen so horribly, had not become a murderer of his own brother, he would have seduced the greater part of the people and caused vain heresy; therefore God decreed that he should put Abel to death. This is also the end of all heretics, that they finally take up the sword and become murderers; as can be seen in the Arians and the Pabstics, and in our time in the Coiners, Anabaptists, Zwingel etc. First, they begin their deeds with a pretense of godliness, color and adorn their lies with Scripture, thereby doing great harm, seducing many people, until finally, when their lies are exposed and punished, they put them to the sword. They are not always lacking in will, but only in opportunity; for Satan cannot hide in his limbs, he must let it be known that he is a liar and a murderer etc. I think that Cain's death, especially among those who were related to him, caused a great cry and terror, so that they lamented: Behold, Lamech slew Cain our father.
8. legends of the patriarchs before the flood, how they should be described and distinguished.
A world would be given if it were possible to have the legends of the patriarchs who lived before the flood; there one would see how they lived, preached, and what they suffered. Our Lord God will have thought: I will keep their legends with the flood, for those who come after will not respect it, much less understand it: I will keep it until they come together again in that life. Then the dear arch-fathers after the flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, item, the prophets, apostles, their descendants and other holy people (whom the devil does not leave unchallenged in this life) will give them far preference and say: I lived a short time, to be counted against the time of the dear patriarchs before the flood, preached a few years and spread God's word, suffered my cross and tribulation over it.
But what is that compared to the great, protracted, unspeakable toil and labor, anguish, torment and plague of our dear fathers before the flood, which they suffered and endured, some for seven hundred years, some for eight hundred and even longer, from the devil and the wicked world?
Cain was not who Adam thought he was.
Adam failed Cain. 1) He thought that because he was the firstborn son, he should precede Abel by far, be his lord and supreme in the spiritual and worldly regiment. But it did not turn out that way, because God did it differently, rejected Cain and gave the right of the first birth to Abel, Gen. 4, 4. 5.: "God graciously looked upon Abel and his sacrifice, but Cain and his sacrifice He did not graciously look upon." Cain was very angry at this and disguised his gestures. Eve, the dear holy mother, had a particularly good hope for Cain, was sure, as she made herself believe, that he would be the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, according to the promise made to Adam and her. Therefore, when she gave birth to him, she happily said, "I have the man, the Lord," Genesis 4:1, as if to say, "This man will restore us to the sorrow into which the serpent has led us, for he is the Lord himself, true God, also a natural man born of me.
But the dear mother was deceived, did not yet realize her misery, did not know that from flesh nothing else could be born but flesh; that through flesh and blood sin and death could not be overcome and taken away. They were also mistaken about the time when this blessed seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit, was to be born from Mary of virgins into the world. How the dear arch-fathers did not know the time, although the promise was made clearer and clearer by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. As we now also know that the last day will come, but on what day or hour we do not know.
We cannot thoroughly understand God's creation.
(Lauterbach, Aug. 7, 1538, p. 110.)
On August 7, he said: "I have lain down heavily in this illness, so that I gave my life to God; but in this time of weakness many things have come to my mind. Oh, how I have thought what eternal life is, what joy it has. I am already sure of the life that is given to us through Christ, and it is already ours because we believe, but one day it will be revealed. Here we are not to know how the creation of the new world is, since we cannot even fully know the first creation of the world and the creatures. If I had been with God before the creation of the world, I would not have been able to give him this advice, that he should have made such a great work of spheres out of nothing, and that he should have attached to it a clasp, the sun, which in the fastest course illuminates the whole earth; likewise, that he should create man and woman in this way.
(The following, Lauterbach, May 26, 1538, p. 87.)
He has done all this [for] us without our counsel or hesitation, so we must also give Him glory with respect to the life to come and the new creation, and let Him alone remain the Creator.
11. from paradise.
(Cordatus No. 1096.)
I believe that the whole world is paradise, but that Moses described it according to the four rivers which Adam saw and by which he dwelt, and it is called a garden of pleasure [paradisus] [because] it grew everywhere so lovely. Now Adam was in Arabia and Syria after sin, but the earth had ceased to be a paradise. Thus Sodom ceased to be a paradise; - similarly Samaria and Judea, which were once very fertile, but are now sandy lands; 2) - God hath
it 1) [Sodom] turned into a salt desert by its curse, not wanting the blessing.
Children are God's special blessing and creature.
When Jonah had hung a beautiful branch of cherries over the table in remembrance of creation, and praised the glorious blessing of God in such fruits, D. M. Luther said: "Why do you not consider this more in your children than in your body's fruits, which surpass and are more beautiful and also more glorious creatures of God than all trees? M. Luther: "Why do you not consider this more in your children than in the fruits of your body, which surpass and are more beautiful and also more glorious creatures of God than the fruits of all trees? In them Mn sees God's omnipotence, wisdom and art, who has made them from nothing: has given them in one year body, life and all limbs so fine, fine and beautiful, and wants to nourish and sustain them. Nevertheless, we do not pay much attention to it, and may even become blind and stingy over such gifts from God; as commonly happens that people, when they have children, become more angry and stingy, scrape, scrape and scrape as much as they can, so that they may leave them much. They do not know that even before a child comes into the world and is born, its modest share, what and how much it will have and what it will become, is allotted and provided for it; as the Scriptures say and the common saying is: The more children, the more happiness. Oh, dear Lord God, how great is the blindness, ignorance and wickedness of a man who cannot realize this, but does the opposite in the very best and most glorious gifts of God: which he misuses for all sins and disgraces, according to all his pleasures and pleasures, and does not sing a Deo gratias to our Lord God for it.
1) It is not necessary to change esm into ens, as Mr. D. Wrampelmeyer suggests, because otherwise the following nolnit would also have to be changed into noluerund. The words from "similar" to "are" are to be taken as parentheses. KalsuZinem also fits Sodom, indeed better than Samaria and Judea. Cf. G. Jauss: Beschreibung des heiligen Ländes, p. 26.
2) So Stangwald instead of "sing".
13. a different.
3) Luther was astonished beyond measure when he saw that the trees were so beautiful and full of fruit, and said: "If Adam had not fallen, we would have looked at all creatures in this way: every tree and stalk would have been better and more noble than if it had been gold or silver. For after the manner of things, if it be rightly considered, every green tree is much more glorious than if it were a tree of gold or silver.
(Here 25 lines are omitted because contained in Cap. 7, §6.)
14. another one from the abuse of god creatures.
(Cordatus No. 1761. 1762. 1763.)
The constant recurrence makes things small, strange things are respected.
Avarice and ambition make that we have no pleasure in things.
The wicked do not see the glory of God, yes, even the present creature they cannot recognize, because since God constantly showers the wicked and all people with the greatness and quantity of His creatures, so that by His goodness He attracts to Himself those who are lost by nature, they, on the other hand, only become worse through such great goodness and constant perseverance. What can God do about it, because to hell? If one were to bring an egg from Kalekut and a hen, we would be astonished to death and see. Therefore belongs [Matth. 6, 26. 28.]: "Look at the birds and the lilies of the field." A fish in the water beats with its tail, namely the male, and casts forth seed; there is the female with it, and receives at once a hundred thousand fish, and all philosophers cannot give the reason of such things, which Moses alone [Gen. 1, 3. ff.] put forward, "He said, and it came to pass," [Gen. 1, 28.], "Grow and multiply." So it goes on.
3) This § probably spurious, formed as entrance to the section omitted here, which was spoken on Christmas Day 1538. On this day there were probably golden and silver fruits on the trees, by which these thoughts of Aurifaber are caused.
15. bom swath D. Martini Luther's thoughts.
(Cordatus No. 1398. 1399.)
I am convinced that Schwaden Manna is heavenly bread. It is so disgusting [i.e. delicate] that if you nibble it with one finger, it spoils.
Swaths are collected early in a sieve and it falls from heaven, does not grow on earth. Prudentius calls it thawing bread, and all physicians call it manna, as it is called in the text [Ex. 16, 13. 14? One shakes the shoots [Reusze], so it falls off, and cooks it, as one wants, like the Coriander [is] and white like the Thau. They call it what is prepared, as if one said: I find you there, you are right for me. It is spoiled by the mere touching of it and by the noonday sun, that is, the word of God does not suffer any addition.
16. of fruits and fruit.
When Martinus had a turnip full of juice in his hand and ate from it, he said: "The dear fathers must have been healthy people, who lived and ate from the fruits and roots that grew from the earth, and had food and drink from them. I believe that Adam would not have wished him a partridge; but at fruits and at fruit he has had more pleasure, have tasted him much better, than everything roasted and boiled. When I read that the holy fathers lived on roots, I thought they ate the roots of trees.
(From here to the end of the § in Lauterbach, May 12, 1538, p. 79.)
The greatness and diversity of God's gifts overwhelms us, and through the frequency everything becomes small; even the greatest is considered nothing, the very small is valued. It happens to our Lord God, as it happens to parents, whose children consider the daily food to be of no value, but apples, pears, and nuts are held in high esteem.
17. fruit respect the children more than money.
1) Anno 36 the 6th of September the doctor's little children stood before the table, watched with
1) Similar to Cordatus No. 662 in the first paragraph. - When I asked my son what he would give me for food for a year, he said
When the doctor saw this, he said, "Whoever wants to see a picture of someone who rejoices in hope, has here quite a conterfei. Oh, that we could look upon the last day so joyfully in hope! Then he said about the power of peaches, that it was such a delicious fruit, close to the juice of wine. There are large grapes in Persia and Welsh, there must be also large peaches, that these are in our countries like the sloes against it.
Who can rightly recognize the nature, kind and power of the creatures? Adam and Eve will have had such fruit, yes, much better; ours are mere wooden apples compared to it, as all creatures 2) are compared to it. What do you think of the serpent, which will have jested with Eve as the most beautiful creature? It was eaten out of the womb in the most friendly way; for the scripture says in Genesis 3:1 that "the serpent was more cunning than all the other animals on earth"; therefore it will have been the most friendly and the most blissful before others; as still today its little crown and three-edged tongues indicate. But after the curse she has lost her feet and her beautiful body, and must crawl and eat earth.
At the same time, the serpent was the most beautiful animal to Adam above all others, by which the devil was supposed to decorate his art, as he likes to decorate himself at all times; for what is to tempt to sin must be beautiful. A bad, simple farmer and an unlearned man, or an ugly maid, water or a rude sack will not provoke and move anyone to heresy, avarice, fornication, drunkenness or court, but rather a fine, smooth tongue, roses, 3) florins and good thalers, beautiful matzos and sweet wine, beautiful velvet etc. Thus Satan tempts and induces a man to sin by the purest and most beautiful creatures.
replied the child, "Father, you do not buy food and drink; only apples and pears cost a lot of money. Thus men despise the daily gifts of God; but which are really small, they esteem highly etc.
2) After "creatures" we have omitted the words "and animals" with Stangwald. The meaning should be: all creatures are now bad and low compared to what they were in paradise.
3) So Stangwald instead of "rothe Nobel".
Oh, the quare, Why? was a horrible affect and thought in paradise; how sorry I am for Aphkija! which is a little word that only admonishes and drives. As soon as the serpent turned to Eve in a friendly manner and said: "Do you mean, how? yes? So that she indicated both with thoughts, words and gestures the highest desire and desire for it. As if the devil should say through the serpent and sneer, "You must indeed be great fools to believe," as if God should have thus forbidden you: "For God is not such a man as to ask so precisely whether you eat or not. For since it is a tree of knowledge of good and evil, how can God be so envious that He would not have you be wise and prudent? Aphkiah caused the misfortune that Adam and Eve, who before had the most beautiful and pure bodies, senses, understanding and will, without all evil desire, now became even deceived and the devil's larvae. Their eyes were able to see clearly for many miles, their ears could hear and hear softly; now our eyes have the star. At that time Adam went to his wife without all evil desire, lust and heat, and Eve soon conceived and gave birth without any pain, but now everything has been disguised and reversed.
Rather, look at the young children, whose bodies are still purer and cleaner, than those who still have something, although very little, of Adam's first kind. Eyes, ears and all limbs are more beautiful; dung does not stink so much from them as from the old, so that in youth all limbs are purer and stronger.
In this misery of ours, this is our comfort, that there is another, better and eternal life left. The greatest number die before they come to their senses; many die without children, that they become neither father nor mother: therefore our Lord God must have something great in mind, that it will be much different, namely the resurrection of the dead, since we believe that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and we will live forever. Which is an abominable, difficult, even impossible article for reason to believe, as all other works of God are against reason. Reason are. Aristotle, the learned
Heide, since he writes about the nature of animals, can speak nothing of it.
Summa, God is incomprehensible in creatures, but he can be felt and touched in his word, although he does not do it as we would like, because he does not hold our geometry, measurement and arithmetic. In the face of man he has set the house of fire, the cloaca, in the midst. If I had been a master builder or his counselor, I would have made only one eye on the forehead, one ear on the side, and the nose on the other side. But God has done it differently, he can make the most beautiful bodies out of dust and dirt, and puts the most beautiful eyes in all animals.
18. a different.
(Lauterbach, Nov. 15, 1538, p. 167.)
He then admired the loveliness and the fruit of the deer park at Lochau, where the deer stood, jumped around and watched the people, [and said:] There our Lord God also made his kitchen to preserve the courts of the princes. After that, in the evening, Luther saw a little bird sitting on the top of a tree to spend the night. He said: The bird already has its dinner and will stay here for the night, unconcerned about the morrow and about its home, rather, as David says (Ps. 91, 1.), it will sit "under the umbrella of the Most High". He sits contentedly on his little branch, letting God take care.
Oh, if Adam's fall had not spoiled everything, how glorious and divine a creature man would have been, how filled with great knowledge and wisdom he would have lived blissfully, free of all misfortune, and then he would have laid aside his earthly body by being transformed, without all the tastes of death. All creatures would have been very pleasant to him, in all things there would have been the sweetest change, as [God] even now in this very miserable life has pictured the resurrection of the dead in many creatures. When they were lost in the park and he saw knots tied in the trees, he said: "This is what the knot is for, that you may know which is the right way.
19. several questions.
(Lauterbach, Nov. 20, 1538, p. 175.)
After that he tasted his wines for the wedding. 1) One should, he said, give the guests a good drink, that they may be merry. For, as the Scripture says (Ps. 104:15), "Bread comforts the heart of man, but wine gladdens it."
After that, he asked the Englishman how wine could be brought into the cellar and should neither be crushed nor poured, and he answered: "You should crush must into it and then it will become wine. It is a physical, natural magic. Then he asked, "What are the most extensive waters in all regions? Namely snow, rain and dew. The water goes over the whole land, without borders, even in the mountains. For the highest mountains are covered with eternal snow, because they are in the middle region of the air, which is uninhabitable. Only the devil can dwell there, because he is the lord of the world, as Paul (Eph. 6, 12.) calls him.
20. spill wine or salt.
D. Mart. broke a very bright glass, full of wine on the table; then he said: This is gone, it is a weak vessel. He said, "It is a great superstition and superstition in the world that people would rather see wine spilled than salt. But it can still be helped, so that it is still acceptable: if you spill the wine or take it away, you can still live without it; but if you want to spill the bread and salt and take it away from the people, then it will take effort and work, then you will begin to see sour, then it will become bad at first.
21. children are God's blessing.
He had a rose in his hand, marveled greatly at it, as at a beautifully excellent work and creature of God, and said:
1) For this wedding Luther requested some game in the letter to John, Prince of Anhalt, on Nov. 22, 1538. - The bride and groom were: LInA. Ambrosius Berndt and Luther's sister daughter, Magdalena Kaufmann (Bkuhme Lene in Luther's letter to his son Johannes, June 19, 1530). - Cf. cap. 43, § 34 and § 35.
If a man were able to make a few roses, he should be given an empire. But one does not pay attention to the innumerable many gifts of God: because they are common and we deal with them daily, one does not ask much about them, thinking that it must be so, that it naturally happens by chance.
We see that God gives children to almost all people, fruits of the body, like parents: a farmer shall have three, four or more sons, like him, as if they were cut out of his eyes. All this is not respected, because it is common and happens for and for that reason. It is not a small thing, even among the pagans, that children are born looking and resembling their parents. As Virgilius the poet (Aeneid. 4.) wrote of the queen Dido that she wished she could beget a little Aeneas from Aenea, who would resemble him, look like the father, run around and play. And the Greeks, when they cursed, wished that one's children should not resemble him.
22. from the children's birth.
(Cordatus No. 704.)
Giving birth to a woman is very difficult, because the fruit has to go out through the bones, because the bones of the womb have to push each other with force, through which (as it seems) hardly an apple could come out. This is a great and immeasurable miracle of God.
God's creation of a human being is a miraculous work.
(This § follows § 28 of this Cap. "Lauterbach p. 87], Kummer p. 378.)
Who can consider the size of the sun, which is far greater than the earth? If one looks at it early in the morning, it looks like a brewing vat, but it can rise in one hour no more than ten spans high and yet it runs in the fastest way in twelve hours from the beginning to the end, and if two hundred suns were lined up in a circle of animals like a paternoster, they would reach from the east to the west; therefore the size of the sun is inexpressible. Likewise, who would have called God
Has he ever given this advice, that he should join a man and a woman together? Then he gives a woman to the man, who has two breasts, and little warmth on them. Some drop of male seed is the origin of such a large human body, from which flesh, blood, legs, skin, hair etc. is made, as Job says Cap. 10, 10: "Have you (God) not milked me like milk and curdled me like cheese? So God is very foolish in all his works. If I had advised him, I would have kept the creation of man in the earthen vessel, and set a great lamp in the midst of the earth for the sun, so that it would always have been day.
24. from twins.
(Lauterbach, Dec. 1, 1538, p. 184.)
In the first of December it was written of Nuremberg how a woman there had given birth to four little children at once, two sons and two little daughters, and all of them remained alive. Luther said: "Giving birth is God's work, much more is this miraculous. But the monk children, those undeveloped lumps, do the greatest harm to women; for other fetuses help themselves, but those lumps are a very burdensome burden to the mother.
God's creation in creatures is wonderful.
The birth is very fine and well ordered by God in all creatures, as in man and woman: for no one can conceive the work of birth, nor consider how the fruit comes out in birth and grows in half a day; it stretches so that one notices it. And if one wanted to bring a chicken, which has crawled out of the shell this hour, back into the shell, it would be impossible.
Item, in marriage we all learn and experience that childbearing and childbearing is not in our power and arbitrariness, because the parents cannot see beforehand nor know whether they are fertile, nor whether they will have a son or a daughter. All this is done without our forethought or foreknowledge. My father and mother did not think that they should bring a doctor.
It is only God's creature, which we cannot think out or understand right now. I believe that in this life and in the life to come we will have nothing more to do but ponder and wonder about the Creator and the creatures. The pagan philosophers and all scholars cannot judge any further than that birth has its equal, and one animal begets and sustains another that is like it. Moses, however, explains and says who is the original cause and founder or master, how, why, and for what purpose all things were created.
26. from the comet.
(Cordatus No. 911.)
A comet is also a wandering star [pla- netaris] and wanders around, is a hur-child among other stars and a proud star, occupies the whole sky, acts as [if] it were there alone, has the kind of heretics who also want to be considered alone for men on earth.
27. from the sun.
D. M. Luther said that he had noticed and respected that the sun had now gone out for two days with joy and leaping, as the 19th Psalm, v. 6. 7. says: "It rejoices, like a hero, to run the way. She ariseth at one end of heaven, and runneth again to the same end, and nothing is hid from her heat." It is a beautiful work of God, which we nevertheless cannot look at, nor cling to with our eyes, but must turn our backs on it.
Oh, dear Lord God, if we had remained in paradise, we would have been able to look at the sun with bright eyes, without all hindrance and pain; but through Adam's fall, everything is ruined. Adam's fall is a horrible thing, which the world neither considers nor respects. We see people die every day, one after the other, and no one is sure of his life for a moment, and many a misfortune comes one after the other; nevertheless, we do not respect it, do not think that it will also come to us. Thus, God's wrath is held in low esteem, because it happens daily.
we get used to it and put it to the wind. If we had remained in paradise, we would not have needed either death or forgiveness of sins; we would not have died, but would have been transformed from this temporal life into eternal life, without all pain; we would have seen and praised only the unspeakable goodness and mercy of God.
28. a different.
(This § [Lauterbach p. 87.], in Kummer p. 378, immediately follows the first paragraph of Cap. 2, §104.)
The earthly works of the creation we cannot recognize completely, as we admit with the celestial bodies and things situated above us. Who could ever have advised God at the time of creation that he should burden the exceedingly great light of the sun with such a very rapid course that in every hour it covers in its uninterrupted course many hundreds of thousands of miles in the great circumference of the circle of animals? Consider the size of the earth, how great a distance it is on the earth from India to Spain, and yet it [the earth] is only the center of the circle and of the course of the sun, which travels through the outermost circles with unspeakable speed in its rapid, untiring course, as we see in a wagon wheel, whose axis turns slowly, but the outermost parts move very quickly. 1)
29. question.
If it was light before the sun, it follows that the sun does not make light. D. Martinus answered: "The light of the sun, before it was created, did not exist together as it is now, but was scattered, but God brought the same light together in one lump and made one light out of it, namely the sun as we see it now.
30. what kind of man Adam was.
(Cordatus No. 1030.)
Adam was a very simple man. I do not believe that he burned lights, and
1) This is followed by § 23 of this chapter.
[I believe that he did not know that a cow had unslit furs in its body, nor that he had slaughtered cattle. I wonder where he took the furs. But there is no doubt that he had a very beautiful body and that he saw the eighth grandson. Noah was very wise because he was afflicted by many trials.
31. Adam's moderation.
(Cordatus No. 1095.)
If Adam now returned and saw our expenditure of clothing, food, drink etc., he would say he had never been in this world, for he drank water, ate the fruit of the trees, and put on a fur of skins. Our ancestors also lived very frugally, and Boaz says [Ruth 2, 14.] "Dip your bread in vinegar," likewise [Richt. 19, 5.j: "Savour thy heart beforehand with a morsel of bread." For they were populous regions, therefore the multitude of the people caused them to be thrifty.
32. question.
(The first paragraph in Cordatus No. 240.)
Because God knew that man would not remain in his original innocence, in which He had created him, why did He create man? To this question Paul answers: A great Lord must also have shit tiles in his house (Rom. 9, 21.). But if he uses some of his dishes in honor, he thereby increases the prestige of his house and praises his goodness.
2) There are many of them who think, when they have heard or read a sermon or two, that they can now do it all, that they have even eaten the Holy Spirit with feathers; which are satanic, fretful spirits: just as if one could learn the high, great secret of divine majesty, the heavenly golden art of God's counsel, since it is far lacking in common worldly arts and no one can fully study it. How then should one learn in such a depraved, miserable, weak
2) Similar thoughts Cap. 7, p 110 at the end: likewise Cap. 12, § 19.
How can we investigate and thoroughly comprehend the nature and blindness of the high divine Majesty's counsel and heart?
(From here to the end of § Cordatus No. 241.)
There are people who, after hearing God's word, would rather they had not learned as much as they have learned, because the servant who knows God's will and does not do it will receive more strokes [Luc. 12, 47. 1. These do not know Paul's saying [Rom. 2, 1.]: "Therefore, O man, you cannot excuse yourself, even if you did not know it."
A man does not understand God's creature and work.
We do not know how our Lord God arranges His building, we only see the framework of poles and crafted ropes; therefore, we do not respect God's will, but we ignore it and do not ask much about it. But when we see God's building and house in that life, we will be amazed and rejoice that we have endured trials.
(Here 5 lines are omitted because contained in Cap. 61, § 9.)
34. why we live in houses.
We were created under heaven, but the reason we live in houses is because Adam fell, and because of sins; just as a sick person has jars of medicine from the pharmacy and needs plasters: that is, we must have chambers, rooms, houses, clothes, food and drink, beds and camps. Before Adam fell, we would have been like young journeymen jumping about naked and bare: there would have been no need of carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, or houses.
35. arable farming.
To build the field is a divine work that God commanded, as in Genesis 1:28: "Build the earth and subdue it"; even if it bears thistles and thorns, don't mind it, your part shall still grow.
36. adam's apple bite.
(Cordatus No, 938.)
The bite of Adam into the apple was a heavy bite, of which also we can say [Ezk. 18, 2.]: "The fathers have eaten herbs, but the teeth of the children have become dull from it. That's why the Claus fool probably said: "The misfortune pours my mouth, that it has been so näschig.
(37) Speech separates a man from all animals.
Of all the gifts of God, speech is the most beautiful and glorious, and by it alone man is distinguished from all other animals. Otherwise there are some animals that surpass man in other gifts: some with sight, some with hearing, some with smell, but none can speak. Although this is an indication that the word must be of a high kind and understanding.
38. Adam's misery on earth.
Adam, the father of us all, will have been the most miserable and afflicted man. 1) It must have been mighty lonely for him to see everything desolate in such a wide world. But when he gave birth to Cain, their first son, with his Eve, who was his only companion and dear spouse, there will have been great joy; likewise when Abel was born. But soon after that great tribulation, sorrow and heartache followed, when one brother slew another, and Adam lost one son, and had to put the other under ban and under guard, and cast him out of his sight. This must truly have been a great heartache to him, so that such a murder must have hurt him and grieved him more than his own fall, because through it he once again became a hermit with his dear Eve. After that, when he was a hundred and thirty years old, he begat Seth. That was hard and it hurt to see God's wrath for such a long time. Alas, he has been a sorrowful man, so that no one believes that he will experience it, although our suffering is child's play compared to his suffering and heartache. And if he were not so pious
1) Cf. Æ 45 of this chapter.
and strong nature by God's grace and effect, he and his Eve would soon have passed away and died of great heartache, but with the promise of faith in the woman's seed he was comforted.
39. weakness and misery of human nature.
D. Martin marveled and complained about the weakness, misery and wretchedness with which this poor flesh is weighed down and burdened, from which so much filth, dung, snot and sweat comes. If there were nothing but filth in all parts, and if the soul were not more beautiful than the body, a man would be a poor, miserable creature. Therefore the Greeks rightly say, est quasi óÞìá, id est, sepulchrum: man's body is like a corpse.
40. of the regiment of the maggot sack of human body.
(Kuinmer x. 361 d. [Lauterbach, July 20, 1538, p. 99, note))
After the dysentery he was very troubled with hardness (τεινασμός) and spoke: I must
let the Ars have his regiment, because God has his punishment also on these members. As we read in 1 Sam. 5, (v. 6.) of the plague of the Philistines when they had taken the ark of God. I mean, they were really afflicted in the butt, that they had to make for a guilt offering to our Lord God five golden eels and five golden mice. Thus God is mighty in all creatures, killing and making alive. For actually our sleep is a death, and death is a sleep. What is our death but a night sleep? 1) For just as through sleep all weakness disappears and the spiritual powers return, so that one looks fresh-minded in the morning, so on Judgment Day we will rise as if we had slept only one night, will be fresh and strong, and will only wipe our eyes. Then the worms, maggots and stink will fall away. Dear God, how wonderful you are in the formation of the limbs of the human body; how frail and exceedingly delicate they are, since they were first formed from a trope.
1) Cf. Gen. 49, 33; Walch, St. Louis Edition Vol. II, 2070, § 445.
The heart is the best part of a human being and its most essential part. The heart, the best part of a human being and its most essential part, is the most delicate. One still rushes to it as if it were a wall, three cubits thick. How we live so completely in the midst of death! Therefore it is a very heavy lament in Job (Cap. 14, 1.), in which he describes man: "Man, born of woman, lives a short time, and is full of restlessness."
41. a different.
(Lauterbach, Aug. 3, 1538, p. 106.)
This year is a terrible, dangerous year, quite a spiteful year, bringing many very serious illnesses; perhaps naturally because of the comets and the conjunction of Saturn and Mars; but spiritually because of the endless sins of men. Well, it is nothing with this life; we do not want to attribute anything to it and believe in God, who gives eternal life. Give us one blessed hour, and we will have been here.
42. question.
Why do men not so easily accept the doctrine and knowledge of outward respectability and discipline, which are naturally planted and written in the heart of all, such as: Honor thy parents; as those which stand alone in the mind, namely, that twice four are eighth? Answer: The fault is that our nature is completely corrupted and insane through original sin; our understanding and knowledge are so darkened that we do not see and recognize properly, much less do what is naturally innate in us.
43. difference of the animals.
(Cordatus No. 1055.)
All wild animals live under the law, for they fear men and are afraid at the sight of them, and men are like dogs to wild animals. But the tamed animals, which have white flesh, are animals of grace, live with men and are apes of them. But man without doctrine is neither a wild beast under the law, nor a beast under grace.
What a being and sense would have been in paradise.
There were [on February 26, 1538] 1) at D. Martin's M. Spalatinus and the pastor of Zwickau, M. Leonhard Beier. Leonhard Beier were at the table: there the doctor joked nicely with his son Martinichen, who wanted to defend his family honestly, dress them honestly and love them; he said: So we would have been in paradise, bad, simple, sincere, without all malice and hypocrisy, and would have been right serious, as this child speaks of God, and is certain of it.
That is why such natural jokes and jests are the very best for children, they are the sweetest little fools. Assumed jokes and jesting at the old do not have such grace, do not plead and do not please so well: because what is colored and composed, that denies favor, does not stick and makes less air than that which comes naturally from the heart. That is why the little children are the finest play birds, who speak and do everything simply, from the heart and naturally. Claus Narr was such a one, who hoarded in his boots, and when he was accused, he apologized [to the councilor Pfeffinger] 2) and said: The mice had done it.
45. adam's case.
D. Martin said about the miserable and sad case of Adam, that he had fallen from the state of innocence into misery and unhappiness with all his descendants, as we see and experience: Oh, he has, he said, led a miserable miserable life for the nine hundred years, for in all dying men he has seen God's wrath.
46. question.
(Contained in Cap. 3, § 7, at the beginning.)
47 Adam's heartache after the fall.
Adam will have had a great unspeakable heartache and sorrow, after he had lost the righteousness in which he was created by God.
1) Thus the Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 249.
2) Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 250.
He must also have lost a lot of weight in his body because of great worry and fear in his heart. I believe that before, he would have been able to see over a thousand miles as far and as brightly as we can see half a mile now, and thus with the other senses as well. He will no doubt have said after the fall: Oh God, what has happened to me? I have become blind and deaf: where have I been? I have no doubt that this is what happened to him, and it happened that way. It is a terrible case. Before, he saw that all creatures were obedient to him, that he had also played with the snake. Our eyes and ears are almost dead, we do not see and hear well. We will not eat ham there, we must become more beautiful again than Adam was; but childbearing and childbearing will cease.
48 On the miserable state of human life.
Doctor Martin Luther said in Eisleben in 1546: "Oh, how poor we are, we earn our living by sinning. For when we reach the seventh year, we do nothing but eat, drink, play and sleep: from the eighth year we go to school for about three or four hours a day. After that, from that time until the twenty-first year, we do all kinds of hard work, playing, running, going to the bar, and so on, and then we start to do some work. When we reach the age of fifty, we have worked hard and become children again, eat our bread with sins, and work so that we can give other people work to do. When we reach the age of twenty, we first begin to work, and work for ten years, after which we sleep the rest of the time. Half of our lives we sleep, so that hardly five years remain for work, or even three years. Vix decimam partem nostrae vitae we work: the ninth part of our life we eat, drink, sleep and walk idly. Fie on us, we do not give God the decimas. Ah! what do we want with our good works to please God?
How can we earn our money or be proud of our good works? Job says Cap. 9, 2. 3.: Si Deus volet contendere mecum, non potero ei respondere. What have I done here today? I crapped for two hours, ate for three hours and then walked idly for four hours. Alas! Domine, ne intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Ps. 143, 2.
49. of the short life of people.
(This § is contained in the report of D. Just. Jonas and Mag. Cölius on Luther's demise. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 283-, ä 10.)
50. human life a poor life.
(Cordatus No. 509.)
It is a very miserable life when someone is plagued by his dearest friends, like David by Absalon, Job by his wife etc. Thus, the lovers are the most miserable martyrs that the devil leads on the fool's rope. In short, human life is a nonsense. For as long as we are children, we are plagued by childish infirmities; as youths, we are mad with love affairs, and after that, other and other infirmities break in, until, having become men, we become servants of mammon, servants of money.
51. a different.
(Cordatus No. 858.)
We eat ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, sleep ourselves to death, grasp ourselves to death, shit ourselves to death. This is what we are now experiencing with dysentery. Therefore, how good a reason do we have to be proud?
52. a different one from human misery.
(Contained in Cap. 48, § 38.)
53. of the human skin under the eyes.
(Cordatus No. 847.)
There is no more delicate skin on people than under the eyes, and yet none suffers more.
54. of children and the same life.
(Lauterbach, Aug. 17, 1538, p. 114.)
On August 17, he heard the quarreling and bickering of his children, and when soon after he perceived
when they were reconciled again, he said: "Dear Lord God, how pleasing to you are the life and play of such children! Yes, all their sins are nothing but forgiveness of sins.
55. a different.
He saw the simplicity of his children, and praised their innocence, that they were much more learned in faith than we old fools, for they believed most simple-mindedly, without all disputation and doubt, that God was merciful, and that after this life there was eternal life. How good it is for the children who die in such a time! Although it would be a great sorrow to my heart, because a piece of my body and a part of my mother's body would die, which natural love and affections do not cease even in godly and righteous Christians, so that they would not accept it or let themselves be moved, or would not go to their hearts, if it were to happen to them, their children or their mother.
The people of the world are not evil to the relatives whom they love, like the stubborn and hardened heads and sticks. For such movements and inclinations are works of divine creation, which God has naturally implanted in a human being, and are not evil in themselves. The children live finely simple, pure, without offence and hindrance of reason in faith; as Ambrose says: "There is a lack of reason, but not of faith.
56. We must become like children before our Lord God.
(Lauterbach, Sept. 30, 1538. p. 137.)
Last September he saw his little children sitting at the table and said: Christ says Matth. 18, 3: "Unless you turn around and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven". Where did you command that a wise man should follow foolish children? How can our Lord God stand with His judgment and righteousness, which Paul so praises: God's righteousness, God's righteousness? Is this righteousness, that thou shouldest reject the prudent and accept the foolish? It is said here: Faith
God's words. Give in, our Lord God has purer thoughts than we have. He must therefore deburr us (as the gushers speak). He must cut away the coarse branches and chips from us before he makes such children and fools out of us.
Behold, how fine pure thoughts the children have, how they look at heaven and death without any doubt. They are in paradise, as it were, and the children who become heroes always have wonderful gifts.
57. another one of little children.
(Cordatus No. 639.)
My son, Johannes Luther, sat at the table and once said seriously that the highest joy in heaven is in Estonia, dancing etc. There is a river flowing with milk, and the bread rolls grow by themselves. This life of the children is the very happiest, because it has no worldly worries, does not see the strange happenings in the church, nor suffers the horrors of death or future infirmities, but the children have only good thoughts.
58. a different.
(Cordatus No. 399 and No. 1542.)
The children have such fine thoughts about God, that he is in heaven, that he is their God; and as he held his little son Martin in his arms, he added: "I wish that I had died in this child's age, and I wanted to give it all the honor and good that I have and may come over in the world.
When he had taken the child to himself and it defiled him, he said: Oh, our Lord God must suffer much greater stench from men than father and mother from their children.
59. a different from children.
He, Doctor Martin, was watching how his little child of three years was playing and slurring with himself; then he said, "This child is like a drunkard, does not know that it is alive, lives along quite safely and happily, jumps and leaps. And such children like to be in large wide rooms and dwellings, where they have space.
60: Parents' songs against their children. (Cordatus No. 948. 949.)
It is a wonderful grace that the youngest children are always the dearest to parents. My youngest child is my greatest treasure. And this affection for them is necessary because they need the greatest care. Those who have begun to speak can already take care of themselves in some way. The little children mainly need our care. From this can be understood the heart throbbing of Abraham when he went to kill his only son etc. He will not have told Sarah about it. I would truly dispute with God if he would present such a thing to me.
According to the judgment of reason, God was more fatherly toward Caiphas, Pilate etc., than toward His only Son, whom He had so miserably murdered.
61. Cain Adam's favorite child.
(Cordatus No. 1255.)
Dear God, how will Adam have loved Cain so much, namely his son born to him first, and this one, thanking the father for it, became a murderer. Fie on you!
62. a different.
Grandparents love their children's children and nephews much more than their own children produced by their bodies. But the chickens, dogs and other unreasonable animals soon forget their young. And such love is an indication of immortality, because they have a hope of future resurrection and eternal life.
The parents' and the authorities' power is different.
(Cordatus No. 1038. 1039.)
Parents guard and restrain their children with greater care than the authorities do their subjects. That is why Moses says, "Have I begotten you?" For the parents have a natural, self-originated dominion over the children, a self-grown dominion, but those [the authorities] have a drawn and forced, a made dominion.
Where father and mother can no longer, the executioner must execute and avenge. And the authorities are the guardians of the fourth commandment, like the cat over the mice. Therefore, their dignity is greater, but the reverence for parents must be greater, because they are the source and origin of the fourth commandment.
The children's discipline and punishment is necessary.
Martin Luther did not want to accept his son John again for three days, although he had humbly asked in writing and his mother, D. Jonas, D. Cruciger and Philippus interceded for him, 1) and said: I would rather have a dead son than a naughty son. St. Paul did not say in vain in 1 Tim. 3:4 that "a bishop should be such a man as presides well over his household and has well-bred children," so that other people, being edified by it, may take a good example and not be offended. We preachers are therefore set so high that we should give others a good example, but our ill-bred children offend others, so the boys want to sin on our privileges. Yes, even if they often sin and do all kinds of mischief, I do not find out about it; they do not show it to me, but keep it secret from me. And let us follow the common saying: What evil happens in our own houses, we learn at the very last; when all the people have carried it through all the streets, then we learn it only. Therefore we must punish him and not look through his fingers, nor let him go unpunished.
65. question.
Whether a son, if he knew that his father wanted to betray a city or country, or do great harm and wrong to another, should report it to the authorities? Answer D. Mart: The son is not obligated to be obedient to the father, to do something against God and to sin. However, he may remind and admonish the father to desist from it and not to do it, if not, he would do it.
1) The improvement in the beginning of this § is according to the Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 253,
He must report it to the authorities, because otherwise he would silently consent to his father's actions and would share in them, even at his own risk. As if I saw that my father wanted to kill and murder someone, I should lie down between them and defend myself.
But how, if either the son had to kill the father or have the fatherland betrayed, how should he behave here? Answer: The son should by no means kill the father in any way, but rather command the fatherland to our Lord God and let him rule, who can well preserve and protect the fatherland. For if I were to kill my father, I would not be able to desecrate the fatherland. Why should I then kill and murder the certain father for the sake of the uncertain salvation of the fatherland? We must command our Lord God and dare to do it.
66. the custom of the goods is the most important.
Since M. Philipp Melanchthon said that a rich citizen of Leipzig, Simon Leubel, had sold a large, beautiful, funny, well-built house 2), D. Martinus answered: It is not a matter of making the heirs rich, but it is most important that the heirs can send themselves into it and use God's blessing properly. And we parents are great fools, that we let it become blood sour to us, work day and night, that we leave much good to our children; but to train and instruct them in the fear of God, good discipline and respectability, there we are very negligent. It is a wicked, wrong way.
The children shall suffer the infirmities of their parents.
When M. Antonius Lauterbach's father-in-law came to the doctor, he asked the son-in-law in particular how he got along with his father-in-law and what kind of agreement they had. And he seriously admonished him that he wanted to hold him in honor as a father,
2) The word "sold" is added from Bindseil I, 254.
3) Thus the Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 254.
and not take revenge for being foolish and whimsical. Otherwise, he would have to suffer and bear the curse of his wickedness and wickedness forbidden by God; God would bless him if he suffered and endured such things.
68 Whether a father may disinherit his disobedient child.
Hans Weller, a citizen of Freiberg, 1) asked D. Martin for advice: Whether he also had the power to disinherit his disobedient, ill-bred son? He answered and said: "Yes, of course, because that is in his father's power and authority; as the old Chremes says in the Terentio: "Should I give my goods to the brat Bachidi? God decrees through Moses that disobedient children shall be stoned, not made heirless. Therefore the father should disinherit him, but with the reservation that if he would mend his ways, it would follow him again.
69. why the first parents ate only fruit.
Answer: What were they allowed to do with the other food, since the herbs tasted so good and had such power? The pomegranates and bitter orange must have smelled so good that one might have been healed by the smell; but the flood of sin has spoiled everything. It does not follow: God created it all, therefore one must eat it all. The fruits were created primarily to be food for men and animals. The other things were created to praise God. So, the stars, what do they serve but to praise God, their Creator? What do the ravens and crows serve now? and yet they honor God.
70. the parents curse.
A wicked, ill-behaved son cut off two of his father's fingers, and the father wished him to lie in the Elbe. This happened, because the son drowned the same day in the Elbe. So I read in the Augustino that when mothers curse their children
1) Thus the Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 254.
The children were trembling, but after that they were delivered again by common prayer.
The disobedient children are punished by God.
When D. Jonas said: The curse, which God has put on disobedient children, would have come true on M. Luther's blood friends, because he would always be sick and weak; D. Martinus answered: It is the deserved reward of disobedience: he once killed and enraged me, 3) that I lost all strength in my body and became completely powerless, 4) he must pay for that. He taught me the text of Paul, about the murderers of parents, 1 Tim. 1, 9. who kill their parents, not with the sword, but with disobedience; but they do not live long, nor do they prosper. This will also happen to the boy. Dear God, how wicked is the world, how terrible are the times of which St. Paul says, when there is no hope of repentance! And Christ says Luc. 18, 8: "Do you think that when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith and love? Oh, who would have died!
72. hanging on and letting the children have their way corrupts them.
Anno 39. 21. Februarii saw D. Martinus saw a boy who was without all morals, rough and wild, but otherwise of a good nature and manner; then he sighed and said: "Oh, what do you do, how children are corrupted if you let them have their way and do not punish them! Sir. 30, 7. ff. Therefore I will not let anything be good to my little house; I will not joke with it as much as with my daughter.
Abraham has a delicious glory from God, since the Lord praises him thus, Gen. 18, 17: "Can I also hide something from Abraham? For I know that he will teach his sons and his household what I have commanded" etc. Oh Lord God, how few are such fathers under the sun! Therefore it is also evil in the world.
2) Probably Luther's brother's son, Martin Luther, son of Jakob Luther in Mansfeld, who studied in Wittenberg since April 1539. (Förstemann I, 205.)
3) Thus the Hall manuscript. Bindseil I, 256.
4) In the editions: mattlos. (Förstemann.)
73. another: No father shall hand over his good to his children at his life.
One 1) was with D. Martino and complained of his misery, that he was abandoned and trampled underfoot by his children, whom he had endowed and honestly gifted, indeed, had turned all his goods over to them; then the doctor said: Jesus Sirach gives the best advice to parents, since he says: Do not give everything out of your hand, because you live, because the children do not keep faith. A father (as the saying goes) can feed ten children, but ten children cannot feed a father. 2) That is why in the old days people preached against ungrateful children, about a father who had made his will, which he secretly locked in a box, and put a note with it together with a club, with these words: Whichever father gives his own out of his power shall soon be beaten to death with a club.
Thus it was said of a father who had divided all his goods among his children, that they should feed and maintain him with them all his life; but the children paid no attention to him. When he had been with one child for eight days, he told him to go to the other child and eat with him. Once the father came to the son-in-law, who was sitting and eating from a goose; when he saw his father, he hid it and put it under the table. When the father went away and the son wanted to bring the goose out again, a toad had grown out of it, which jumped under the son's face and ate around him, so that he could not get rid of it, it stuck to him so hard, until it devoured everything on him, without stopping, and could not get full or satisfied, so that he died of it.
They set such examples so that one might see how severely God punishes the children's ingratitude toward their parents, for the disobedience and ingratitude of the youth is exceedingly great. They gladly take what their parents have earned with their hard work, blood and sweat, but they do not want to take it.
1) Claus Bildenhauer. Bindseil I, 257.
2) This saying also in Lauterbach, p. 31.
not to nourish them again, since the parents make it so hard for them day and night, that they make the children rich and leave them much, at the risk of life and limb, and then they are so despised.
Alas! the world is evil, soon starts in youth and bloom, therefore God has given the fourth commandment and commanded with great diligence and seriousness: "Honor your father and your mother" etc., also keeps hard about it. But the Pope, the Antichrist, with his traditions, has dissolved this commandment of God and trampled it underfoot.
74. a different.
(Cordatus No. 872.)
It seems that old parents who have given their property to their children and are faithlessly abandoned by them should be advised to do as that wise old man did who was treated contemptuously by his son. For he borrowed money from his neighbor and, shut up in his apartment, he anxiously counted it, and then was kept better. But when death approached, he gave it back to his neighbor, not to his son.
The children's unequal nature and nature.
D. M. Luther looked at his children and saw that they were of different natures and kinds, he marveled at God's work and creatures, and said: "Just as the kinds are different, so are the gifts different; indeed, one person is different from another, one has more happiness or unhappiness than another. Therefore, one should look only to God, the Creator and Founder, trust Him and call upon Him.
76. from Weibern.
When D. Martin smeared his wife because of the paralysis of her legs, he said: "Some women were smeared, but you smeared me. For the word in Latin, uxor, woman, comes from lubricate, ab unguendo. For when the Gentiles saw that the marriage state had many obstacles and great danger, against all such misfortunes they smeared the posts of the new brides.
3) "The" put in by us.
Item: When women accept the teaching of the gospel, they are much stronger and more fervent in the faith, much harder and more rigid about it than men; as is seen in dear Anastasia, and Magdalene was more hearty than Peter. John 20.
77. women should not be eloquent.
(Lauterbach, Nov. 4, 1538, p. 156.)
An Englishman, a learned man, was sitting at the table, but did not understand the German language. Luther said: "I propose my wife to you as a teacher of the German language, for she is very eloquent, she can do it so well that she far surpasses me. But eloquence is not to be praised in women; that they lisp and stammer, that suits them better.
78. that which is evil to women.
There is no skirt or dress that looks worse on a woman or virgin than when she wants to be smart.
79. long hair is a woman's ornament.
Hair is a woman's best adornment, which is why virgins used to walk in hair and have it beaten into the field when triumphing or mourning and suffering. A fine spectacle is to be seen and suits women very well when they have beaten their hair into the field.
80. breast milk and female breasts.
(The first two paragraphs of this § in Lauterbach, Nov. 14, 1538, p. 166.)
Afterwards they spoke of the power of mother's milk, that it nourished the best. Yes, even calves thrive better on milk than on any other food. So also the children become stronger, which are suckled for a long time. The Swiss, when they are almost grown up, should run to the cows to suckle.
Then they spoke of the breasts, which would be the adornment of a woman if they were proportioned, because large fleshy breasts were not good, promised much, but produced little. Nerve-rich breasts, however, even if they were small, even in very small women, were very productive, so that they could nurse several children.
At another time, Luther said: "Mother's milk is the best, and the children the healthiest, because they are used to it in the womb. And if the children have rough nurses, the children also take after them, as experience shows. Therefore it is unkind and unnatural for a mother not to nurse her child, for God has given her breasts and milk for this purpose. For the sake of the child, God has given her breasts and milk for this purpose, unless she is unable to nurse, in which case necessity breaks iron, as they say.
81. men, women.
(Contained in Cap. 43, Z75.)
82. what they were created for.
God created man and woman: the woman to multiply and bear children; the man to nourish and protect. But the world turns it around, abuses the women to fornication, the men's protection to tyranny. Women lack the strength and power of the body and the mind. The lack of strength of the body is to be tolerated, for men are to feed them. The lack of understanding we should wish for them, but we should bear their manners and ways with reason, govern them and keep them a little too well; as St. Peter teaches: "Husbands, dwell with your wives with reason, and give honor to the female, as the weakest instrument, as joint heirs of the grace of life" etc., 1 Petr. 3, 7.
Another of the women for whom they were created.
The Holy Spirit praises the women, as, Judith, Esther, Sara etc., and among the Gentiles are praised Lucretia, Artemisia. Marriage cannot be without women, nor can the world exist. To be married is a remedy for fornication, which controls it to some extent; for flesh and blood remains unclean for all its kind, until one strikes it with shovels. A woman is a kind, pleasant, and pleasant companion of life. Women bear children and raise them, rule the house and distribute properly what a man brings in and brings about, so that it may be used for counsel.
and not to be useless, but that each one may be given what is due to him. Therefore, they are also called by the Holy Spirit household honor, ornament and adornment of the house: they are inclined to mercy, because they are created by God for this purpose, that they should bear children, be men's delight and joy and be merciful.
The greatest people are wrong.
Adam missed Cain 1), because he thought he would be the man who would help the human race again and would crush the head of the snake. Isaac lacked Esau, Jacob lacked Reuben, Joseph lacked Manasseh etc. All of them fared differently than they had meant. Joseph alone is called a son, whom Jacob begat in his old age, since he begat others after him. But I think it is because Rachel said, when she saw that he was now old, that he would never take a wife again.
85. children stand best with God.
The children's faith and life is best, because they have only the word, they stick to it, and give God fine simple honor that he is true, consider certain what he promised and promised. We old fools, however, have heartache and infernal fire, and still dispute long about the word, which they, the little children, believe badly with pure faith, without dispute. And finally, if we want to be saved in any other way, we must give ourselves to their word alone, according to their example, as Christ says, and with a high oath he prays, saying, "Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven, Matth. 18, 3. It is one of the devil's tricks, even deceitfulness, that we let ourselves be led away from the word by other business and dealings; thinking that we are more interested in them than in God's word (in which all our welfare and salvation, temporal and eternal, stand), hearing, reading and contemplating. Sometimes it also happens unknowingly that we do not think about it.
1) Cf. § 9 of this Cap.
remember that so much is at stake. We are truly poor people, so it is best that we die soon and are protected.
(The following at Cordatus No. 689.)
Luther said to his little child: "You are our Lord's fool. You are under grace and forgiveness of sins and fear nothing under the law. However you do it, it is undefiled; you are in grace and have forgiveness of sins, so be it.
Women should not be in charge.
The wives of the greatest lords, as kings and princes, are in no regiment, but only the men. For God says to the woman: "You shall be subject to the man" etc., Gen. 3, 16. The man has the rule in the house, unless he is a verbum anomalum, that is, a fool, or that he pleases the woman out of love and lets her rule, as sometimes the master follows the servant's advice. Otherwise, and without that, the woman shall put on the veil; as a pious woman is obliged to help her husband bear accidents, sickness and misfortune, because of the evil flesh. The law takes wisdom and government from women. This is what St. Paul saw in 1 Cor. 7:10, where he says: "I command, not I, but the Lord", and 1 Tim. 2:12: "I do not permit a woman to teach" etc.
87. Children are God's gift.
(Cordatus No. 568.)
As he was playing with his little child, he said: Oh, the best blessing of God, the best peasants are not worthy, they shall have sows.
Man is made of dung.
(Lauterbach, Feb. 13, 1538, p. 28.)
That day he had bathed, and after supper he washed his hands, saying, How is the water so unclean after the bath? Yea, I have forgotten that skin and flesh are of filth; as the scripture saith, Thou art dust and ashes. Why are you proud, O man? [Gen. 3:19.]
89. of the increase of fish.
(Lauterbach, Feb. 13, 1538, p. 28.)
After that, when he saw that there were fish on the table, he spoke a lot about divine power in procreation, especially in the waters and in the sea, where one fish produced many thousands, as the roe shows. One fishes every day in the Elbe, and yet it is full of fish. It is unbelievable how the fish multiply and breed, mostly in the sea; for it is said that the ocean at Antorff 1) brings a new kind of fish every four weeks.
90. the youth bursts forth.
A young person is like a new must that cannot be held, must ferment and overflow, always wants to be seen and be something in front of others, cannot hold himself in.
Adam did not eat bread.
When pears and apples were brought to the table, Luther said: "If Adam had not sinned, there would have been no need for bread, we would have needed only fruit. Then one asked: Why Christ would have eaten after the resurrection? He answered, "Christ did not eat because of need or hunger, but so that he might prove and testify that he was Christ and truly resurrected.
92. a different.
(Cordatus No. 1563.)
When his little son pressed the dog and the dog suffered it, he said: This is according to the will of God, who commanded that the fish and other animals should obey man.
93. thoughts of all the wicked.
These are the thoughts of the Pope and all philosophers: If I am pious, I have a gracious God, if not, there is no God etc. This means to make oneself God. But I cannot think how a man should feel who does not seriously believe that there is a God, since he sees the sun rise every day etc. He must ever until-
1) Antorff is Antwerp.
He must remember them and think whether they have been eternal, or he must put his eyes into dung like swine: for to look at creatures and not think whether there is someone who drives, governs and sustains them is incredible.
94) Whether the languages and good arts and other natural gifts are also useful.
to theologia, and to understand the sacred Scriptures.
(Contained in Cap. 13, § 19.)
Whether the light of reason also serves theology.
(Contained in Cap. 13, § 19.)
God gives many goods to the wicked here, but much more to the godly.
(Contained in Cap. 2, § 92.)
We do not recognize God's creatures.
When Luther's table was disputed as to how sweet the dew was, Luther answered: "I would never have believed it if the Holy Scripture had not praised the dew itself, since God says Deut. 28:12: Dabo tibi de Rore caeli: "I will give you of the dew of heaven. Alas! Creatura is a beautiful thing: if we are to believe Creationem, tum balbutimus et blaesi sumus, and say Cledo for Cledo, as a child speaks, Lemmel for Semmel. The words are strong, but the heart speaks, Cledo; sed per hoc salvamur, quia cupimus credere. Ah, our Lord God knows well that we are poor little children, if only we would recognize it. The apostles themselves say: Domine, adauge nobis fidem, Luc. 17, 5. But we are all wiser than our Lord God; yes, I myself am also so wise. We cannot understand, nisi per Filium, id est, Christum. This is all his preaching, that he says: Per me, per me, per me, you cannot do it, if you tear yourselves apart; through the Son we are brought to the Father. Therefore, if we only believed that our Lord God was wiser than we, we would already be helped.