1. of the papists fasting.
2. monasticism strives hard against God's creation.
3. what monks do.
4. about a monk who ran away from the monastery and deceived the pope.
5. the great quantity of monasteries.
6. the freedom of the monks.
7. of gray monks and Francisco.
8. from where the papist clergy and monks have had their access most.
9. pillars of the papacy.
10. from the mendicants.
11. All sorts of speeches by D. Luther about the monks.
12. the monks' ignorance in good arts.
The monks' deceit and avarice.
14. monasticism is held equal to baptism.
15) How two monks, a Barefoot and a preacher, preached against each other.
16. of some nuns and convents.
17 The Discipline of the Monasteries.
18. from gray monks.
19. a different from monks.
20. the origin of monasticism.
21. from widows.
22. from St. Bernard.
23. from monasticism.
24. from where the monks became so proud.
25 Monasticism will not be restituted as long as the article of justification remains pure.
The monks' reputation in the papacy.
27. of Paul and other unlearned monks.
The monks' and nuns' sins and vices in monasteries.
29 Wealth of the monasteries.
30. the monk's cap compared and preferred to the blood of Christ.
The monks trust in their own works and rule.
32. the monks have gone to the devil with their rules, caps and works.
Monasticism is a denial of Christ.
The nuns' crowns, and the dishonorable monastic life.
35 Encomium Monachorum.
36. of the barefoot monks slippers.
37: How a landgrave in Thuringia had himself buried in a monk's cap.
38) How a prince of Anhalt also became a monk.
1. the papists fast.
(Cordatus No. 1107.)
Whatever was laid upon the people under the pope was very pleasant, and made no complaint; yea, though it had been burdensome, yet the complaint itself was an air, as fasting and hunger in fasting, waking by night, and being troubled by sleep. To a fast day [original: festag] belonged three eating days. To the collation one gave two pots of good beer, a pot of wine, gingerbread or salted bread, that one could drink well. The poor brothers paled like fiery angels.
2. monasticism strives hard against God's creation.
(Cordatus No. 806.)
God first created man, who was very intelligent and of great wisdom, but when He created woman, misfortune arose. Therefore, the monks leave it at the first advice of God and live
without a wife, because they are wiser than God. If the emperor were to eradicate this entire order 1) and have their books preserved for eternal memory, he would be doing a work worthy of an emperor. Emperor worthy work. The Benedictines and Augustinians are nothing compared to these people.
3. what monks do.
. (The first paragraph in Cordatus No. 960.)
Two causes make a monk: impatience and despair; for they see an error in the world which they believe 2) can be borne, but they despair of bearing the utter wickedness of the world, therefore they flee the world and speak: The world is too evil.
1) This refers to the Franciscan and Dominican orders. Cf. § 11 of this chapter, Cordatus No. 805, whereupon this § is excluded. - The last words of this § in the original ring: "have been nothing to these people alike."
2) Instead of toNi in the original, with the Latin table speeches, tolerari will probably be read.
1) Martinus told a story about a disobedient servant of Lucas Maler who had left Leipzig and had his master follow him on foot the next day with Christian Goldschmiede. That he, said the doctor, would not do me such a trick, I also wanted to have prayed to him. That is why Augustine said: "When rulers and lords humble themselves too highly, their reputation is weakened and they are despised. A servant should be a servant, a lord a lord.
4. about a monk who ran away from the monastery and deceived the pope.
The whales are very cunning, mischievous people; but since they learn to recognize the Germans, they can be easily deceived by them. Like a Carthusian, a desperate boy, who secretly had a woman with him in his cell, he finally ran away from the monastery and became a mameluk. After that, he regretted it and came to Rome to the pope. But first he went into the kitchen. And when they all fled from him, as from an apostate and a renegade, not thinking otherwise than that the pope would have him slain and put to death, he said, Give me a good soup and drink of wine, and after that I will do well in my cause; and went well fed to the pope, and fell down before him, and said, Misericordia, Misericordia, Misericordia, grace, grace, grace; and the pope thrust him under his feet, and said, What wilt thou? He said: I want to mend my ways, most holy father. Then the pope absolved him, and he went out again into the kitchen, struck him a little stone, and said, Didn't I tell you that I wanted to do my thing well, and that you should not be troubled?
5. the great quantity of monasteries.
The Electorate of Saxony had twelve monasteries of the Barefoot and Minorites, five monasteries of the Preachers or Paulites and Carmelites, and four monasteries of the Augustinians; these were only beggars' monasteries, which are now being destroyed by themselves. Then the Englishman, who was at the table with D. Martino, said
1) This paragraph is later addition.
went: In England, if not many German miles of road were long and wide, there would have been 32 mendicant monasteries.
(The following is contained in Cap. 27, § 36, and Cap.
56, § 4.)
6. the freedom of the monks.
The monks had great privileges from the pope, even over the bishops, they would not have considered a bishop: they were without means under the pope, and subject to no one else. The bishop of Merseburg had a quarrel with the Benedictine monks, but the pope, when it came before him, did not want to get involved in it, nor to tolerate the matter, wrote to the bishop: The Roman see could not suffer such clamor of the monks; it should humble itself and be satisfied with them.
7. of gray monks and Francisco.
Franciscus, a whale from the city of Assis, no doubt a pious man, did not think that such a superstition and superstitious being should come out of his life. There were so many gray monks that they offered to send forty thousand monks against the Turk, and the monasteries should nevertheless remain occupied.
The Franciscan and Grey Monastic Order first arose under Emperor Frederick the Other, during whose reign St. Elizabeth was canonized and brought into the number of saints. Anno Domini 1207. Franciscus played his game for eighteen years, two years under Emperor Philip, four years under Emperor Otto, and twelve years under Emperor Frederick the Other. After that, when he died, he appeared to the pope in his sleep, holding a cup in his hand, and let it run out of his side full of blood.
Is it not a regiment that starts with dreams and lies? Therefore, the pope is not God's image, but his monkey. In sum, he wants to be God and emperor. As Pope Innocentius the Third said: Either I want to take the crown from K[aiser] Philippo, or he from me. Oh, such histories should be described with diligence. If I were younger, I would write a chronicle of the popes.
8. from where the papist clergy and monks have had their access most.
The papists have had their greatest enjoyment and access from the offerings, and thirtieths, vigils and masses. A monastery granted each of the nobility, one to help the other, thirty florins annually; a rich farmer, a horseman, who had to harness and horses, four florins. Now one would unwillingly give four sacrificial pennies.
9. pillars of the papacy.
(Lauterbach, Jan. 14, 1538, p. 9.)
On January 14, he said a lot about the realm of the pope, how it had not existed by laws, but by superstition, but that the preacher monks and the Minorites had been the best helpers of the pope, because those Dominicans [Dominicastros] and the order of the preachers were such glorious pugilists that they sought to glorify their fame by the disgrace of others and could not stand learned people. I mean, they honestly burned themselves on Reuchlin. And they have also set many things in motion against me, but have thereby done themselves evil. In the future Concilium they will take a lot of liberties with the rest of the papists by their shouting. Their highest cry is and was: What is the Bible and the Scriptures? The church and the concilium must be obeyed. With this they will want to shout over us, because they arrogate to themselves the right and the supervision over all people, even the judgment over the godly they will arrogate to themselves. As once happened to the prophets, who were forced to succumb. Jer. cap. 29 (vv. 26 ff.), where he speaks against Zephaniah the priest: "The Lord has made you overseer in his house over all madmen and prophets; so why do you not punish Jeremiah of Anathoth? From this passage it is clear that even priests who are placed in the highest office have abused their prestige against the pious prophets. Therefore he continues in such a way that the godless in the world will mock the godly under the appearance of piety. Blessed is he who is not mocked here.
19. of mendicant monks.
(Lauterbach, Feb. 2, 1538, p. 20, and p. 21.)
If the pope should take the liberty of rejecting the monks and monastics, he will set a fine fire. Admittedly, in Germany they are almost expelled, but in other nations they are still in bloom, and the pope has strengthened them earlier. He has made them feisty, where he has taken them into his fold, and given them the highest cardinals as protectors. If he now wants to expel them, it will be a fine game. All would conspire against him and the princes against the pope. Princes against the pope. For kings, princes and even the emperor have monks as confessors, by whom they let themselves be persuaded.
Pope Julius, a very defiant man and an inveterate devil, made up his mind that he wanted to reform the Franciscans so that he could bring the different sects into a uniform rule. The monks, however, instigated kings and princes who resisted the pope in letters. But Julius would not turn to the letters and go forward. At last a Cardinal, moved by a very urgent request dev Franciscans [accompanied by] eighty thousand crowns, said: Who can resist so many armed men? and persuaded the pope. What will one do now in the abolition of so many monastic brothers? If only the common monasteries were overthrown, then the royal and princely convents, the princely monasteries, would soon also perish through the revolt of the people, for if one lets the dog chew on the rag, he soon eats the meat as well. In short, the monks are rightly hated by the priests of the churches, because they draw all enjoyment to themselves and have left only baptism to the priests. They have arrogated to themselves all other advantages without work and have suppressed the offices of the church with their superstitious customs. That is why before our time so many mocking and ridiculous things were said by the monks, and they burned among themselves with irreconcilable hatred, the Dominicans and Franciscans, for the sake of the first inheritance, where one kept the skin, the other the flesh of the calf.
11. All sorts of speeches by D. Luther about the monks.
(The first paragraph Cordatus No. 1087.)
Rightly the pope and the monastic orders kiss each other, which he confirms by his bulls, and they confirm him with their lives and their preaching. They are the rats and the pope their king, they have to carry it.
Luther said: "I am the mercury of our Lord God, which he threw into the pond, that is, among the monks.
(The following paragraph Cordatus No. 805.)
The Franciscans are our Lord's lice, which the devil Adam put in his fur. Preaching monks are the fleas that bite each other forever, like sparrows and swallows.
On another occasion, D. Mart. Luther said: "A monk would be evil, and there would be nothing good about him, whether in the monastery or outside of it. For as Aristotle gives an example of fire burning, whether in Aethiopia or in Germania, so it is with monks also. Significans, naturam non mutari circumstantiis loci aut temporis.
12. the monks' ignorance in good arts.
(Lauterbach, Feb. 7, 1538, p. 25.)
After that Luther said of the brothers of ignorance in Italy, who boasted of a certain order under that name, and almost everywhere the monasteries could boast of that name, since they only looked at the lection, but not at the understanding, by speaking: Even if you do not understand the words of Scripture and prayer, the Holy Spirit understands them, and the devil also understands them and flees. This was the main principle of all monks, that one should hate good arts and students, because they concluded that way: If that brother studies, he will rule over us, thus Saccum per Nackum. Euripides very wisely said that nobility comes from wisdom, but wisdom comes from godliness, as if he wanted to say: Even if many have nobility, which is sustained by heroic behavior, it is directed by God.
The monks' deceit and avarice.
(Lauterbach, April 8, 1538, Monday, p. 59.)
On April 8, an excellent old lady [optima matrona], Hohndorf, complained about the fraud of the Minorite monks, who had worried her father and mother, when they were in their last days, about the will, and since she had entrusted four hundred florins to the Guardian in the name of her father, she was soon forced to swear that she should not tell anyone. When the father had died, he had withheld the money against the right of the sons and the small children, but at last she had confessed it at the behest of the authorities, and the theft of the monks had come to light. Luther answered: Such very bad examples of fraud and deceit of the monks were many, but nobody dared to accuse them. And then he told a story about a certain monk who had shouted at a dying nobleman: "Squire, will you give this and that to the convent? But since he could not speak when he was dying and only gave signs by waving, the monk said to the son: "See, you hear that your father agrees to give this. The son said to his dying father: Father, is it not your will that I throw this monk down the stairs? When the father had given the same sign, he gave the monk his reward down the stairs. The robbery of the monks was tremendous.
14. monasticism is held equal to baptism.
Doctor Martinus said of the great miserable abomination of the monks, that when they professed and were accepted into orders, they must change their names; for they pretended that they were then by such profession and vows, as if they were newly baptized. In this way they publicly testified that they considered such profession and vows to be equal to the holy baptism of Christ. Fie on you, shall we hold human deeds equal to God's sacraments, even prefer them, and trample the blood of Christ underfoot? For Augustine Heaven, 1) who here is an Augustinian...
1) Pastor in Colditz since 1529. cf. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1178 f.
Heinricus, 1) who was martyred and burned by Ditmar peasants, is called Johannes. As Joachim Schnabel also Johannes is baptized again in the monastery.
(The following paragraph in Lauterbach, Aug. 23, 1538, p. 119.)
Luther: "I believe that the opulence of the court and the wickedness of the world have driven some good people into the monasteries, and yet they have accomplished nothing but hypocrisy. The monastic state is godless, for it disputes God in doctrine and life. For monasticism is not a study of the Scriptures, but an annihilation and obscuration of them. For no one studies there unless he has a special gift for reading the Scriptures, as I have had. Chrysostom says: A king shines by his crown, but a monk inwardly by virtues. He should have said: by hypocrisy. As if God looked at the persons and chose the monk's cap and threw away the king's golden chain. A king and authorities are driven daily to advance in the highest heroic virtues, and the most righteous monks practice only private virtues according to time and arbitrariness. In short: Christianity and baptism must be above all monks, be they ever so pious. On the other hand, our enthusiasts reject the Scriptures completely, as Muenzer judged everything according to his spirit and called the Wittenbergers thieves of the Scriptures, and also our J. A(gricola) says: I also have a head. 2) Yes, if God would be satisfied with that, I would have one too. So hardened they continue and do not notice their wickedness. Oh, dear Lord God, deliver us from this evil. "You are pleased with those who fear You, who hope in Your goodness" (Ps. 147:11). If I were dead, I would not see all this, but our Lord God wants to torture me even longer, in defiance of the papists, who after my death acknowledge my good deeds.
1) Heinrich Müller von Zütphen. Die Geschichte seines Märtyrertodes, mit Zuschrift an die Christen in Bremen, Walch, alte Ausg., Bd. XXI, 94 ff.
2) This is immediately followed by Cap. 37, § 44, therefore we place it here.
and the saying will be fulfilled in me, that "whoever has died is justified from sin. (Rom. 6, 7.)
15) How two monks, a barefoot and a preacher, had preached against each other.
One brought D. M. Luthern a sparrow over the table, there he sang these following words to speak: You barefoot monk with your gray cap, you are the most harmful bird. I wanted someone to write a declamation of this fable, namely, that a preacher monk and a barefoot monk had wandered together, begging for their brothers and wanting to collect alms. Now one poked at the other with useless words, and the barefoot monk first preached and said: Dear peasants, good friends, beware of the bird, the swallow, because it is white inside, but on the back it is black, it is a bad bird, wash-like, nowhere to be used; and if you anger this bird, it becomes quite mad, and stings the cows; and if this bird horses, the people become blind from it; as you read in the Book of Toby. I wanted to depict the preacher monk, who wears black caps on the outside and white skirts on the inside.
When the preacher monk came to the pulpit after noon and preached, he stabbed the barefoot monk again and said: I cannot defend or protect the bird, the swallow, so great; but the gray sparrow, he is a much more annoying and harmful bird than the swallow, because he robs, steals and eats everything he can get, as oats, barley, wheat, rye, apples, pears, peas and cherries etc. So he is also an unchaste and lecherous bird, and his greatest art is that he always cries Scirp, Scirp. With this, one beggar wanted to hinder the other, and said D. Luther: "A rhetorician would have to come over it, who could finely amplify and paint this fable; but the barefoot monk would have to paint the swallow, the preacher monk, with even better colors, because the preacher monks have been the very proudest levelers and right epicureans and fattening pigs, who have a
On the other hand, the beggars, the barefooted, under the great pretense of sanctity and humility, were more proud than all emperors, and most often invented lies.
From this, D. Severus said: "Dear Doctor, once King Ferdinand came to a monastery of the Barefoot monks; now one of the king's secretaries found these letters beautifully and wonderfully inscribed on the wall, As:
M. N. M. G. Ì. Ì. Ì. M.,
When the secretary looked at the letters and wondered what they meant, King Ferdinand came to the same place, looked at the letters and asked what they meant. The secretary answered: "If Your Majesty would not be displeased by this, I would like to know what the letters mean. The king says: he should tell it, it should be without danger for him; then the secretary says:
Mentitur Nausea (who was bishop of Vienna), Mentitur Gallus (who was the king's court preacher), Mentiuntur Majores, Minores, that is, the barefoot monks, Minorarii, that is, special monks who live in the Iplbus. The king Ferdinand heard this, and, forgetting it, went away. And was quite politely interpreted and interpreted by the secretary.
16. of some nuns and convents.
(Lauterbach, Sept. 30, 1538, p. 138.)
On that day, the nuns of Hervord 1) [now Herford] in the Low Countries [Westphalia] wrote to him, entrusted themselves to his intercession, and were very pious virgins, who always lived in harmony from the work of their hands. He pitied them and said: "Such nuns should be left to their liking, just as the field monasteries are princely foundations for noble persons. But the mendicant orders were nets and harpies [birds of prey], which
1) The original probably erroneously reads: "Erfurd". Compare Luther's Brrefe an den Rath zu Hervord, Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 338 and 375.
"uthrrS Werk. Vol. XXH.
everything to themselves, worthy of destruction. I very much wished that the field monasteries and convents remained, in order to feed noble persons and poor church servants. I have not written anything else about it from the beginning. For from these monasteries suitable persons can be chosen for the church, for the world regiment and for the household.
17 The Discipline of the Monasteries.
(Lauterbach, Nov. 9, 1538, p. 159.)
On November 9, he spoke about the monastic discipline against the youth, that they made the young people conscience, if they steal one penny, they would have to go to hell. But, alas, so nonsensical is the world, if one steels a hundred thousand, they take no conscience about it. The monasteries have a fine arrival. But the superstition and the trust in the works have caused all the misfortune, it is the devil's way.
18. from gray monks.
(Lauterbach, Nov. 23, 1538, p. 178.)
Then they spoke of the Franciscan Rule, which at the beginning boasted of this title: "According to the Gospel of Christ," since it teaches nothing of faith, hope, love, and true good works, but only of cold, fictitious, outward works, of poverty, of a fictitious chastity, all of which we have in truth already sworn in baptism.
19. a different from monks.
A provincial monk, by order of the emperor, commanded the council at N. that the monks there should be allowed to keep their papist customs and ceremonies. The council gave him this answer: that he should grab himself and not be found. But the monastery was closed to the other monks, so that no one could come in and bring anything to them. That is how the papists want it.
20 Of origin of monasticism.
At Heidelberg in the Quodlibet it was discussed and asked: Where do the monks come from? To this was answered: The devil would be the
Monks founder and creator: because since God had made the priests, the devil wanted to imitate him, had made the plate too large, there would have been a monk daräus. It is quite a fine poem. For a monk is neither suitable for church nor secular or domestic rule. That is why the devil must make monks who obscure God's word: they were not fit for the church, they blasphemed the secular authorities, they kept and taught coldly of the marriage state; for because it exists and remains in honor and dignity, monasticism is nothing. That is why the devil, under a beautiful mantle, has darkened the most beautiful order of God, namely marriage. If marriage had been taught in the church in a right, Christian and pure way, there would have been fewer monks and nuns.
21. from widows.
Saint Paul condemns the widows who break the first faith, 1 Tim. 5, 12, which saying the fathers, also Augustine, have drawn and interpreted on the vows of the monks, since the text clearly says about widows who receive and are fed by common alms. Oh, dear Lord God, how easily do those fall who, enchanted with superstition and superstition, follow the great heap, just as when one rolls wood and straw into the water, it carries away earth and muck. It is the same in the church.
22. from St. Bernard.
Saint Bernard was the most pious monk, I love him above all other monks; but he was allowed to say: It would be a sure sign of condemnation if one did not remain in the monastery. He had three hundred monks, and not one of them was condemned. After his death, one of them wrote many ungodly things, as if no soul should have been saved before St. Bernard's death, since monasticism is against nature and the Church. St. Bernard lived in dangerous times, under Emperor Henry the Fourth and Fifth, Emperor Conrad and Lothar. He may have been an experienced and skilled monk, but he set a bad example.
Summa: The world wants to have superstition and idolatry, the gray skirt and, as Paul says, such people who do not spare their bodies. I think that Adam's and Eve's furs must have been monks' caps. Oh, if only the monastic life had not been forced, but free, it would still be to suffer. For what good has the impossible celibate state brought? Rivers in the sleep, which also the married couples are not even left, as Moses writes; since the marriage was commanded to the Jews and free to the Gentiles. Thus, in many regiments, it is customary that no single man who is not a husband is elected to the council, nor is he used in the regiment. Would to God that it also remained free and honest.
23. from monasticism.
The monks, but especially the Minorites and Franciscans, have had the best days, and lived in the greatest pleasures, through hypocrisy: they did not touch money, and yet were the richest with great tranquility. The shameful monasticism began when the people, under the pretense of godliness, fled from the worldly trades, which are hostile and cause much grief. But these are the most Christian ranks that God has established and ordered, of which there are three hierarchies, as the domestic, the secular and the ecclesiastical.
From where the monks have become so proud.
The mendicant kings with the caps are so puffed up and proud that they have also worshipped emperors and kings. As one writes of the emperor Constantino, he is said to have written to St. Anthony, the hermit, and asked him to pray for him and his children etc. This should still make a monk and Bachanten puffed up and hopeful.
In France there was such a superstition and spirituality that all servants and serfs, the majority, wanted to become monks; therefore the king had to forbid monasticism. For France is otherwise superstitious and drowned in superstition. Similarly, the whales are either superstitious or epicurious; for the fewest part of the whales believe in a resurrection of the dead.
And it is a common speech in Italy, when they want to go to church, that they say: Let us go to the common error: for it is a sensible and clever people, and the churches are desolate and deserted by priests. They see that the pope's court and character are very annoying, and that the monks are unlearned and coarse asses; therefore they consider all religion to be a fair fable, and mock it.
25 Monasticism will not be restituted as long as the article of justification remains pure.
The monks have taken such a snap and fall that they will not arise again. For as long as the article of justification, how one becomes pious, righteous and blessed before God, remains pure and unadulterated, no one will easily become a monk. And because this annoying and false doctrine of works, as if one should become righteous and blessed by them, is once revealed and condemned, monasticism is at a low ebb: the mendicant kings in caps, who were allowed to rebel against emperors and kings and resist them, must dry up; that is why the monks are now so angry, mad and foolish that they are not respected.
The monks' reputation in the papacy.
In ancient times, the monks were held in very high esteem, and the pope feared them more than kings and bishops. For the monks had the common man in their hands, whom they could easily conciliate or avert from the pope; therefore the monasteries were the pope's best flocks of birds. The king of England, while still holding sway over the monks, even though he does not consider the pope to be the supreme head of Christendom, does nothing but vex and afflict the pope's body, but he strengthens his soul.
27. of Paul and other unlearned monks.
The preacher monks were good brothers and very learned, pompous and hopeful enough; but the gray and barefoot monks were
superstitious and unlearned, should not and would not be learned, even despised those who were learned. Like my brothers in the monastery, they resented me because I studied; they said: Sic tibi, sic mihi, Sackum per Nackum:
It goes to you, like me. There was no difference. An unlearned man was as important to them as a learned man. They did not ask whether he was skilful or unskilful, weak or strong, they did not look at that. It had to go stiffly according to their rule and be held.
That is where the German Lords and Fratres ignorantiae, the ignorant brothers, came from: they were horrible wonder-beasts of people, against nature. For all men are naturally disposed to want to know something and to be used, as Aristotle says: only the monks are monstrous beasts, coarse, unlearned asses' heads, who neither want to learn nor know anything, contrary to all nature; do not know how to keep each one according to his skill and opportunity; know nothing of the divine ranks, which are ordered and established by God. The household increases and feeds, the secular protects and shields, the spiritual or church state teaches and instructs. The hooded stallions know nothing of this.
The monks' and nuns' sins and vices in monasteries.
The monks are a lazy, idle people who, as Peter describes in 2 Ep. 2, 13, respect temporal life for pleasure. There the seven deadly sins rule with force. Nowhere is there greater hope than in the monasteries, against the first table of God's ten commandments: great, insatiable avarice, fornication, night rivers and pollution, hatred and envy, which cannot be helped, nor can be put down and reconciled, so that they may bite and devour one another; gluttony and drunkenness, sloth and unwillingness, and overindulgence in the service of God are known and evident. They are belly servants and sourpusses.
29 Wealth of the monasteries.
In Lombardy on the Po is a very rich monastery, St. Benedicti Order, which every year
The monastery has an income of six and thirty thousand ducats: there is such a pleasure and feasting that they spend twelve thousand ducats on the guest house, twelve thousand on the buildings, the third part on the convent and the brothers. In the same monastery I have been, said D. Martinus, and honestly tractirt and kept.
Ah, God's service does not stand in wealth, according to the saying: Mater Religio peperit divitias, postea Filia devoravit Matrem; religion, as the mother, has given birth to wealth, after that it has eaten the daughter, namely, through superstition and superstition. Ah, what shall the darkened monks be angelic monks? After all, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, walked in a bad and simple human form, so that he was "found to be a man in appearance," as St. Paul says in Phil. 2:7, and we poor, miserable people, on the other hand, become monstrous and devilish angels.
36. the monk cap of Christ blood compared and preferred.
It was an ungodly, horrible delusion that people believed that if someone put on a monk's cap, he would be redeemed from sins and death. So one compared the lousy cap to the holy blood of Christ, yes, preferred it. This is called an "abomination of desolation that stands in the holy place," Matth. 24, 15. And as Paul says Ebr. 6, 6. Cap. 10, 29.: "Who crucify Him, Christ, again, and defile God's blood." And as St. Peter says 2 Ep. 2, 1: "Who deny the Lord that bought them." These are the right fruits of original sin in the first table of the Ten Commandments of God, which the hardened impenitent people receive in their wickedness, without all conscience.
The monks' reliance on their own works and rule.
The philosophers, so called Stoicos, wanted to be without all desire and affect, who did not let themselves be challenged by anything, neither good nor evil, wanted to be like the sticks and blocks; as the poor man, Thomas Münzer, pretended to be with his pack and enthusiasts. The
The same fools were then followed by the monks, and they were much worse, because they sought the highest good and happiness in their religious rules and human statutes and works. For they said: If you live and keep this rule, I promise you eternal life.
The monks have gone to the devil with their rules, caps and works. 1)
(Cordatus No. 1567.)
I think that in the papacy many have been saved, who in the battle of death had the image of the crucified held up to them, and they have heard from those around them [2 Cor. 1, 10.]: Hope in him who has redeemed you. But after the monks came with their robes, it was over, and those who were hanged had a better fate than those who wore the robes rc. 2)
Monasticism is a denial of Christ.
He who vows to lead a monastic life thinks he is leading a better life than another Christian man, and that he is helping not only himself but also other people with his life. The latter does nothing but deny Christ and tramples Christ's merit underfoot. This is blasphemy. Fie on you, you wretched devil!
The nuns' coronets and the dishonorable monastic life.
(Lauterbach, Oct. 1, 1538, p. 140.)
Great is the hypocrisy of the celibate life, so that even the most holy fathers have fallen into this seeming sanctity. Augustine, who still lived in pleasant times, was deceived by the veil of virgins, with the little crowns, and, although he allowed them to marry, he added: Marriage
1) Cf. cap. 27, A 106; 48, § 25. - Cf. also Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. XIII, 2575, § 32. vol. XI, 528, § 6.
2) This seems to us to be the sense of the words of the original: stsus^snsi molius Nnduorunt, yuani auaullis inäuti, namely, that one can expect a hanged man to be blessed rather than a monk who relies on his monastic works.
want was sin to them. But afterwards, when the time of wrath and blindness came, the lie grew and the truth was driven out, so that they completely despised the gender because of all the holiness and pretense. But the only solution of Christ dissolves all arguments: "He created them male and female" (Gen. 1, 27.). Although the holy fathers write inconsistently enough about marriage, as St. Jerome 1) writes about the marriage where a man married a woman who had nine husbands before, in the time of Pope Damasus; finally he outlived her and followed with a crown at the funeral funeral, as at a victory procession.
35 Encomium Monachorum.
One once said to D. M. Luther over the table this verse from the monks:
O Monachi, ventres pigri estis, amphora Bacchi,
Vos estis, Deus est testis, turpissima pestis.
This is:
The monks are lazy and drink very much, are evil worms, testifies God the Lord.
Item, D. M. Luther once said: That is called Säu geschwemmet, said the devil, and drowned a wagon full of monks.
36. of the barefoot monks slippers.
Doctor Martin Luther once said that the slippers of the barefoot monks were made of the wood of the cursed fig tree, of which Christ says in the Gospel Matth. 21, 19: "Damned be you, that from now on and never again you bear no fruit.
How a landgrave in Thuringia had himself buried in a monk's cap.
Doctor Martin Luther said that in the papacy there had been great superstition and superstition, since now the young fellows knew nothing at all about it, and about ten years would be
1) This narrative in other relation Cap. 43, § 31.
No one would believe that the people had themselves buried in monk's caps; and he said, "Three hundred years ago a landgrave in Thuringia 2) had himself buried in a cap; and when he had been laid in a coffin and was still unburied, the court servants went around the coffin and looked at their lord, saying, "Behold, how our lord is now so pious, and how he now keeps silence. For he had been a wild man all his life.
Otherwise, there was a woman of high rank in a country, who otherwise committed great fornication. When she died, she ordered in her will that the Jntestina should be removed from her body and put in balsam and spices, so that she would not soon die or rot; also that the dead body should be put in a nun's cap and carried to a convent. In her death she became an abbess and wanted to atone for her fornication in the cap and do enough for it. Now she was brought to the convent and put behind a table, and this abbess was presented with princely food and drink, as if she were still alive. But it was not done for two weeks: when the authorities of that country found out, they had the dead corpse buried, and abolished this unnecessary folly and fool's work, and were ashamed of this jugglery.
38. like a prince of Anhalt also had become a monk.
Item, M. Luther said that a prince of Anhalt had become a barefoot beggar monk and had gone around the city of Magdeburg begging for bread, even carrying the sack himself: although a long, tall monk went before him, who could have carried the sack ten times better than he, he nevertheless carried it at all times; thus he wanted to be humble. Thus we have been tribulated in the papacy. Let this example be remembered, quia est notabile.
D. M. said: That Carolus Magnus would have founded as many bishoprics and cathedral churches as there are letters in the ABC.
2) Louis the Knight. Cf. cap. 45, § 6.